CITY OF PACIFICA
CITY COUNCIL MINUTES
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Mayor Mary Bier
Mayor Pro Tem Tygarjas Bigstyck
Councilmember Mike O'Neill
Councilmember Sue Vaterlaus
Councilmember Sue Beckmeyer
City Council Special Meeting 1 June 25, 2022
SPECIAL MEETING
June 25, 2022 (SATURDAY)
www.cityofpacifica.org
Mayor Mary Bier called the meeting to order on June 25, 2022 at 9:02 AM 9:00 AM - OPEN SESSION
Call to Order
Mayor Bier called the special meeting to order at 9:02 a.m.
Attendee Name Title Status Arrived
Mary Bier Mayor Present
Tygarjas Bigstyck Mayor Pro Tem Present
Mike O'Neill Councilmember Absent
Sue Vaterlaus Councilmember Present
Sue Beckmeyer Councilmember Present
City Clerk Coffey took a verbal roll call.
Councilmember O’Neill was absent.
Staff Present: Kevin Woodhouse, City Manager; Michelle Kenyon, City Attorney; Christian Murdock, Acting Planning Director; Raymund Donguines, Sr. Civil Engineer; Sean Kavanaugh, Dep. Fire Chief; Samantha Hauser, Planning Commission Vice Chair; Jennifer Elizares, Permit Technician; Sarah Coffey, City Clerk.
Reading of Land Acknowledgment
Mayor Bier read the Land Acknowledgment.
City Clerk Coffey explained the conditions for having City Council meetings pursuant to Government Code Section 54953 (as amended by AB 361), to conduct necessary business as an essential governmental function as a teleconference meeting with no meeting location open City Council Special Meeting 2 June 25, 2022
to the public. She also gave information on how to present public comments participating by Zoom or phone.
Mayor Bier explained the agenda, which would include the General Plan and Sharp Park Specific Plan. Due to an appeal of the Planning Commission’s recommendation on the General Plan, Council cannot take final action on the General Plan today, but they plan to take all public comments today and engage in deliberation and then adjourn the meeting to July 11, 2022.
Salute to the Flag
PUBLIC HEARINGS
1. Consideration of Environmental Impact Report and California Environmental Quality Act Findings and Adoption of a General Plan Update.
PROPOSED ACTION: Move to adopt the attached Resolution to:
A. Certify the General Plan Update and Sharp Park Specific Plan Final Environmental Impact Report, State Clearinghouse No. 2012022046 in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA);
B. Adopt the Findings of Fact and Statement of Overriding Considerations in accordance with CEQA;
C. Adopt the Mitigation Monitoring and Reporting Program (MMRP) in accordance with CEQA;
D. Approve the General Plan Update, including the amendments incorporated into the May 2022 drafts of those documents identified by the Planning Commission and the City Council; and
E. Incorporate all maps and testimony into the record by reference.
Acting Planning Director Murdock is joined with city staff members plus consultants from Dyett & Bhatia and Good City Company. He then began the staff report.
Alison Moore, Consultant of Dyett & Bhatia, continued the staff report.
Acting Planning Director Murdock completed the staff report.
Mayor Bier opened the public hearing.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that Permit Technician Jennifer Elizares will be introducing the speakers.
Permit Technician Elizares introduced the speakers.
Samuel Casillas, Pacifica, asked for clarification as he is saying the public comments is for the GP now, but this is a public meeting and he asked if they get to have public comments first that are not for the GP or both types of comments or just the comments for the GP at this meeting as it is a special meeting.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that he is correct that it is a special meeting and his comments are limited to only those items on the agenda.
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Mr. Casillas continued his public comment, expressing that in recent years the City Council has demonstrated an arrogance and disdain for its own citizens that is arising to a level of intentional negligence. He expressed his thoughts on specific situations where the citizens’ concerns have been ignored.
Mayor Bier stated that he has been muted and she asked that they stop the timer until he is back.
Mr. Casillas asked if they can restart the timer, and then reiterated his concerns on specific situations where the citizens’ concerns were ignored, as well as reporting on specific legal decisions against the city’s decisions.
Remi Tan, Pacifica, urged Council to not approve the General Plan, Sharp Park Specific Plan and EIR as they are still inadequate and do not meet the housing needs assessment by the HCD and shared his concerns and discussions with other entities on numerous violations.
Joanne Gold, Pacifica, agreed the city needs a new General Plan but the present Plan contains errors and omissions and shared her thoughts and concerns regarding significant negative consequences on various issues that need to be addressed and offered options to consider.
Christine Boles, Pacifica, stated she has invested a considerable amount of time on reviewing the EIR and General Plan, and shared her interactions with various agencies and offered options to help fix the various errors, omissions and inconsistencies that are leaving residents vulnerable in many situations.
Dinah Verby, Pacifica, expressed her appreciation to everyone who has worked on this. She knows there are good things in it, but she is confused about how the coastal zone is being handled, and she shared her thoughts on this issue and offered suggestions to fix the problems.
Peter Loeb, Pacifica, referred to a letter from an attorney for the Pedro Point Community Association and he briefly summarized it for the Council to know it raises issues about wildfire, evacuation, and many other issues of concern in the Plan and EIR and wanted to state for the record that it was submitted to Council.
Cherie Chan, Pacifica, stated she is the secretary of the Pedro Point Community Association and she authorized and helped pay for the comments of Bryan Gaffney, their attorney which they submitted to Council, and also hired biologists, planners and geologists and she wants to make sure Council is aware that they have filed their comments and speak to ten fatal flaws of the EIR and GPU and the court’s determination that Council abused its discretion when failing to consider other opinions. She stressed her association’s efforts to document the conditions on Pedro Point field.
Clifford Lawrence, Pacifica, stated that there are improvements in the documents but for a document to advance them after 40 years, they do not make the grade, and he expressed his concerns on what has been given to Council and asked that they take time to go through documents and listen to the public and restore their faith in the process.
Carolyn Jaramillo, Pacifica, stated she will continue to stress that these plans are not centered on Pacifica’s need for low and very low housing and she is worried on how they prevent displacement and shared her concerns on what the city needs to do to be at the center City Council Special Meeting 4 June 25, 2022
of these plans.
Robine Runneals, Pacifica, thanked Council for all this work, and shared her support of the city’s process and Planning Commission’s work as well as staff’s work and they all have the best interests in what Pacificans want in the future. She expressed support of the Planning Commission’s vetting of the General Plan and advocated for approving the General Plan as recommended.
Richard Harris, San Francisco, stated he is president of the San Francisco Public Golf Alliance and his focus is on the golf course. He shared having sent Council a letter with information on Planning Commission’s meeting as well as his concerns regarding corrections that need to be made to these documents to reflect the historic recognition of the golf course and clubhouse in the General Plan and EIR, mentioning his willingness to work with the Planning Department to reflect the requested corrections.
Sue Digre, Pacifica, acknowledged all the hard work and stated it was difficult for her to keep tabs on everything. She expressed her thoughts on the previous Plan and today’s update and some of her concerns on the process with agencies such as the Coastal Commission and division within our community. She stated it is important to feel that we are a community visioning together and not to rush the process.
Vicki ____, Pacifica, asked Council to look at the decisions they are making in terms of risk, and expressed her concerns on what is happening with liability such as lawsuits, etc.
Kathleen Moresco, Pacifica, thanked Council for their hard work and voiced her support for their efforts to move this Plan forward and she would like to criticize some speakers, which might be inappropriate, as some of the insults to Council are extremely inappropriate and inaccurate. She hoped that the program moves forward quickly.
Mayor Bier closed the public hearing.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that, if it is Council’s desire, staff has tracked some of the comments made and they could provide information in response to those comments and provide more information as Council deliberates and it is up to the Mayor and Council on how they want to proceed.
Mayor Bier thought it was a good idea as he will probably hit on all the things Council has been writing. She will hear from Councilmembers first.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated he would love to hear staff’s responses but asked if it would be an appropriate time for a break.
Mayor Bier stated that they can have a break.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that she wanted to say yes as she would appreciate hearing from staff on comments made this morning.
Mayor Bier reconvened the meeting and asked the City Manager if he wanted to start it off.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that he will and then will turn it over to Acting Planning Director Murdock. He stated that numerous comments made have been received and responded to EIR City Council Special Meeting 5 June 25, 2022
comments and General Plan comments. He stated that they can go through the list staff has maintained and Council can chime in to any other questions.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that there were a number of helpful comments and they have heard many of them before as mentioned by the City Manager. They prepared written responses to a number of them and, with others that they haven’t responded to directly, he wanted to hit at a high level on staff’s perspectives are on the public comments. The first statement regarding whether the city should, should not or cannot adopt the General Plan without planning for its Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) and that is nearly 2,000 units and the General Plan’s projected buildout is under 1,000 units. Staff has addressed that in a response in the EIR. He stated that, generally, the response to that is that the city recognizes it needs to undertake the Housing Element Update and they fully intend to do that, but they need the tools in the General Plan update to help make a constructive Housing Element update process, updated hazard maps, updated land use designations, including those mentioned in his earlier presentation and a higher density to provide the tools to allow them to have constructive employment of Housing Element update process and their full intention is to initiate that process once the General Plan has been adopted. He referred to a statement about transfer of development rights in the General Plan.
Mayor Bier asked if it was okay to ask a question about the RHNA item.
Acting Planner Director Murdock stated that whatever works for her.
Mayor Bier asked if, once the Housing Element is updated, they will have to back and update the information in the General Plan based on that.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that it was potentially correct. He stated that the city has not done for a long time is to undertake what is called a program of rezoning as part of its Housing Element update. With a significant RHNA allocation the city received as part of the 6th cycle, they are not able to accommodate that in either the 1980 General Plan or this draft General Plan. He stated that, in addition to going through the community engagement, all the policy analysis and constraints to housing and city policies, etc., that are a programmatic analytical process, they will also need to identify new housing sites and apply new land use designations and, in addition to a Housing Element update amendment, it would likely include a Land Use Element update as well to implement where those additional housing sites would be.
Councilmember Beckmeyer wanted to clarify something, and may bring it up again later, because of concerns being raised. She stated that, in terms of social justice in housing and the location of particularly affordable housing, she asked, if the process he just outlined that would be taking all of that into consideration when they are looking at where to site and potential locate very low income or 100% affordable housing, would that be part of the analysis that he was referring to.
Acting Planning Director Murdock responded affirmatively, stating that it would at least be a couple of ways, i.e., regionally as they are focusing on Pacifica’s housing allocation rights but that allocation was given in the regional context for the Association of Bay Area Governments and was the Bay Area overall and each county received an allocation and there were further allocations to individual jurisdictions. He stated that part of the methodology used to make those allocations included those social and environmental justice factors to put units in places of high opportunity for people that are disadvantaged and areas with access to jobs, clean air, good schools, etc., and that is in part why Pacifica received a very high allocation rate as we City Council Special Meeting 6 June 25, 2022
have a lot of very favorable elements to our community and would make putting housing here for disadvantaged people a good public policy decision, and for the city planning for their city allocation throughout our community, we then have policies and can make those policy decisions in the actual allocation and identification of housing sites and take those factors into consideration, such as proximity to schools, access to transit, shopping and grocery stores, and those places of opportunity in our community are also relevant to people of lower income so they can have the support they need to thrive in the community.
Councilmember Beckmeyer referred to relationship of locating housing in areas that might be considered hazardous and with regard to environmental justice, and asked if that will also be evaluated in the process.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that one way it will is that, by using the updated tools in the General Plan, including the updated and more precise hazard mapping, that is a resource from making housing decisions, not only in the Land Use Element for this plan, but also in focused intensification that will be asked of Council for higher density housing and they would intend to use the tools in this updated General Plan when adopted to inform that decision making process.
Councilmember Beckmeyer referred to a comment brought up about ridgelines and she interprets that to be related to our Hillside Preservation District but she wanted to be sure there are policies imbedded and they will be factoring that into all of their decision making.
Acting Planning Director Murdock agreed, adding that it is a multi-layered approach to these issues and this General Plan carries forward a component of the prior General Plan which is the designation of prominent ridgeline and it meant to be a tool to understand that the development in those areas is not encouraged but discouraged and put in public places. He stated that one method for that is the land use designation itself to ensure minimal densities in those areas where there is private property and there is a right to develop, but they can set it appropriate to the conditions. He stated that the other is saying that they need to put policies in place to zone those as Hillside Preservation District and the General Plan recognizes that Hillside Preservation District zoning and recommends some additions to the Hillside Preservation District zoning overlay to be undertaken in the following zoning action that Council will be asked to make and those combined with other policies about discouraging development on steep slopes of 35% or more would all combine to help inform that land use decision making process.
Mayor Bier thanked him for allowing them to do it this way, and she thought that they can have an opportunity to ask questions on each public comment and then when they get to the chapters they will have information they can deliberate on.
Acting Planning Director Murdock thought that was great. He then referred to the comment on transfer of development rights and the commenter suggested there should be support to use that more, and they have a policy that says that the program should be revisited and enhanced to be better utilized as it is very infrequently utilized now but it is a good tool to get development rights out of places where development should not occur, i.e., hazardous places, steep hillsides, prominent ridgelines, etc., and one policy in the General Plan would be to revisit that ordinance and improve it to make it more functional. He stated that there was a statement about undeveloped San Pedro Avenue site, and they need to clarify it as some people are mixing up terms when they are talking about the land use action Council is considering. He stated that all the city’s land use decisions are first, General Plan land use decisions, given that is an overarching document for the city and those are more specifically implemented through zoning.
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He stated that the current land use designation in the General Plan for the undeveloped San Pedro Avenue site is commercial and allows up to 22 units per acre in mixed use forum. He stated that what is being considered is a change in land use designation from 22 units per acre to 3-5 units per acre through the site specific policy in the commercial residential mixed use designation. He stated that there was a mention of commercial recreation and Council is changing it to coastal residential mixed use, adding that it is apples and oranges and not technically or legally correct and the question before Council is should the land use change from 22 units per acre with mixed use commercial to 3-5 units per acre with mixed use commercial.
He stated that would be a marked decrease in the allowable density under the General Plan.
Then, following adoption of the General Plan, Council may need to revisit the zoning classification for that site and, if they desire to change it, they determine what the appropriate zoning action would be. He stated that it is a different issue than what the commenter mentioned.
Mayor Bier assumed they will be talking about that in Chapter 4.
Acting Planning Director Murdock agreed, stating the land use policy. He stated that there was mention about the landslide hazard maps and debris flow maps and city staff has tried to be very responsive to those comments and have engaged with the relevant state agency experts to get the state information on those map landslides. He will not protest to the fact that every landslide is mapped in the map in the General Plan but he will tell them that they pulled the map plan slide inventory with the relevance state agency has for Pacifica. He thought, rather than trying to get the city into the business of becoming an expert landslide mapping agency, effort could be made to get more landslide maps into the state inventory so that the relevant state agency has that information and that can flow out to Pacifica as well as others such as county and elsewhere that might benefit from having improved map landslides. He also stated that the General Plan would include a new map of debris flows based on an inventory from the 1980 storms. They are trying to make an effort to include that information to support decision making and they can get more into it in the Safety Element discussion but the real question should be what decision making are those maps supporting and what is the policy consequence. He stated that they can talk more about it at that point. He stated that there was a question about how to align the General Plan Update with the coastal zone, recognizing that under state law local land use policy in the coastal zone cannot be implemented until certified by the Coastal Commission. City staff recognize that and there is a policy in the General Plan that indicates where there is a conflict between the General Plan and the certified Local Coastal program, the Local Coastal program will prevail. He stated that he mentioned in earlier hearings that it is a difficult position to be in and an unfortunate position to be in that, after two years of work, our Local Coastal Land Use Plan is not yet certified by the Coastal Commission, but that is beyond our control and they are continuing to work with the Coastal Commission toward that end. He stated that, in the meantime, they have a policy to resolve those from a practical standpoint. He stated that it will present challenges but they have to deal with them to the best of their ability but, until such time as the Local Coastal Land Use Plan is certified, it is correct that the 1980 LCLUP will remain in effect. He stated that it is staff’s assessment that the alternative is to defer all of its local land use authority and decision making in the General Plan for the entire city, most of which is outside of the coastal zone, until such time as the Coastal Commission certifies the LCLUP. He stated that it was their opinion that it would be forfeiting a lot of local control and Council may not be interested in that approach. He stated that they can revisit that if Council wants to discuss that further. He stated that there was mention of a comment letter by Attorney Bryan Gaffney and they received that comment letter. Many, if not all, of the same points were made in earlier comments on the environmental impact report so the city has prepared detailed responses and they can touch on those at some point if Council is interested.
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They are aware and have considered them seriously and prepared the appropriate response.
Mayor Bier stated she would be interested in hearing their responses to that letter.
Acting Planning Director Murdock asked if she wanted to do that now or in discussion after the General Plan.
Mayor Bier asked Councilmember Vaterlaus her thoughts.
Councilmember Vaterlaus suggested they hear them now.
Acting Planning Director Murdock asked Ms. Moore if she would like to take them through the process and some of the substance of their responses.
Ms. Moore stated that in Mr. Gaffney’‘s letter, some of the points have previously been addressed in their response to comments that is in the final EIR. Mr. Gaffney mentions consistency of fire hazard mapping with the Local Coastal Land Use Plan and the General Plan.
She stated that the appropriate mapping to use which is outlined in the master response for wildfire that we have confirmed with CalFire, is the analysis that is presented in the FEIR and any changes that would need to be made in the Local Coastal Land Use Program would be made after it moves past its holding pattern that it is in now. She stated that all the analyses in the FEIR regarding wildfire mapping still stands. His points 2 and 3 regarding wildfire impacts and inadequacy have been addressed multiple times, both in response to comments and in the master response. In addition to the very high fire hazard severity zone mapping, the EIR also includes a map of fire threat and a number of policies in the plan plus any federal or state regulations reduce the impacts of less than significant our findings would not change. She stated that the evacuation route analysis they identified as being appropriate in the last response 7 and they don’t have any concerns there. Adequately responding to comments on the Bay Area Air Quality Management District as part of the response to their comment letter, they showed how Pacifica’s current Climate Action Plan is a very ambitious goal of GHG reduction by 2015 and they included more information that clarifies how Pacifica meets that 30% reduction below 2040 levels that is included in the red line. She stated that the statement of overriding considerations and his allegation that it violates CEQA, the statement of overriding considerations does include all evidence for impacts that could potentially be significant with mitigation and significant and unavoidable, so they have prepared an adequate assessment of that. Mr. Gaffney erroneously uses the term hundreds of mitigation measures in the final EIR, and proposed project policies are not intended to act as mitigation measures unless they are explicitly referred to as mitigation measures, rather the policy statements indicate actions the city will take on an ongoing basis as the proposed project is implemented and the EIR has correctly considered the effects of implementing those policies, including any beneficial effects that they would have in reducing potentially significant impacts. The mitigation monitoring and reporting plan includes specific and measurable content for each of those and the voluntary ones are recognized as such and they are not included with the GHG mitigation measures that are voluntarily omitted from that quantification. For the transportation ones, the second one is voluntary but that does not change the facts that the findings are significant and unavoidable and they have considered feasible mitigation measures that the city can adequately take on.
She state that regarding his allegation that re-circulation of the EIR is required, all of the information and edits that have been made do not change any of the findings in the EIR and merely represent clarifications or amplifications of the existing conclusions and findings. The project team has demonstrated that additional development is foreseeable, and she thinks he is referring to SB 9 which is not subject to CEQA review. She stated that their master response for City Council Special Meeting 9 June 25, 2022
build out and RHNA further clarifies how build out of 6 Cycle RHNA is not known, the locations of where housing is going is not known and thus it would not be possible, under the proposed plan, to analyze that potential impact of additional housing. She stated that, if there are any other issues in the letter, she is happy to clarify them.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that the next comment he wanted to address was a commenter who indicated that the city needs much more very low income housing and the plan doesn’t address that. He stated that staff agrees that the city does need quite a bit more very low income housing or housing affordable to persons of very low income. As mentioned earlier, the plan will take an important step forward in supporting development of that type of housing but the city currently is not in a good position to do that, either through its land use policies or through its fiscal situation and they have control over one and less control over the other in terms of generating funding for affordable housing and they can do their part through adoption of the policies that are in the document. As far as tracking displacement, he stated that it is not a program or something that the General Plan can accomplish but Council could explore a policy to implement such a program if that was the desire of Council.
Councilmember Beckmeyer wanted to make sure she understands what he just said. She heard him say that the concern that was raised by a commenter today and in numerous written and verbal comments throughout the Planning Commission process and Council’s process has been about the dearth of affordable housing in Pacifica. With our RHNA and our upcoming RHNA that will be addressing the Housing Element and the need to develop a significant amount. She heard him say that the policies in the current General Plan draft that is being studied and are considering will enable the development of affordable housing where the 1980 General Plan does not. She added that it didn’t prohibit it per se, but her understanding is that it wasn’t something being planned for in 1980. She asked if that is an accurate statement of what he said or where he was going with that statement.
Acting Planning Director Murdock responded affirmatively, adding that it wasn’t that anything particularly discourages development of affordable housing in the next General Plan but the policies don’t tip the balance towards making it easier to build. He stated that policies like increases in density of up to 50 acres and supporting application of state density bonus law on top of those increased base densities are policies that will manifestly make it easier for affordable housing developers to construct those types of projects. He stated that it is true that the city needs to build, not simply encourage or support those policies for a significant amount of new housing units to provide very low income housing and that is something they will need to continue to emphasize in their conversations with the community, given that building housing here continues to be a challenging process and, in many cases results in a lot of community resistance. They need to continue to work through ways to try to minimize that resistance and have the policies really support construction of that type of housing.
Mayor Bier stated that, when he talks about the rental registry and the displacement policies, that is something Council can take action on completely outside of the General Plan, or is there language that can be added to the General Plan to address it or acknowledge it.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that the Council took undertake that kind of action at any time, and nothing that would run contrary in the current or proposed General Plan that would prevent that. He stated that what can be helpful is policies supported in the General Plan to make it clear that it is a priority for the city and that is where he thinks there is potentially a role in the General Plan adoption process.
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Mayor Bier thanked him for that information. She wanted to offer to Vice Chair Hauser that, at any point she feels like she has something she would like to add, she encouraged her to raise her hand because she doesn’t want to wait for people to ask her questions as she knows the breadth of knowledge that she has.
Vice Chair Hauser appreciated that.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that there were comments from a representative of the San Francisco Public Golf Alliance and he narrowed it down to two edits, one in the EIR and one in the General Plan document. He stated that they would prefer not to make an edit to the EIR at this point, particularly for non-substantive environmental issue reason, but they are amenable to discussing the edit to the General Plan document if Council is interested to reflect that adjustment that the commenter mentioned. He stated that there were comments about making decisions with risks in mind, and going back to some of the earlier Councilmembers’ statement about what does this General Plan do for the city’s decision making process with respect to hazards, and he stated it provides new more robust assessment of hazard areas and presents that information in the form that is easier to use to support decision making in terms of modernizing maps, having digital source material to allow further analysis, etc. and it was simply not present in the 1980 General Plan. He stated that, to that end, adoption of the General Plan would help the city make informed decisions that weigh the risks in terms of the public benefits of the policy decision being considered. He stated that is all he had in direct response to public comments today.
Mayor Bier stated that they also mentioned something about an evacuation route analysis, and she asked if there was anything he wanted to say about that.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that there are a couple of things. He thinks, most directly, the commenter is indicating a required evacuation route capacity analysis and staff’s assessment is that state law does not require that yet, so it is not legally deficient that the city has not done that analysis. He thought another element of evacuation route consideration is that they have included a new map in this General Plan of areas in Pacifica that do not have two evacuation routes, given the isolated nature of the subdivisions. It is a number of older neighborhoods that were subdivided in the early 1900s and prior to an era of the very robust 90s planning and prior to an era of widespread wildfire risk in this part of the region. There is an advancement made there and the city would be in a position in the near future to undertake that more robust evacuation route capacity analysis that was mentioned, most likely in the next safety element update.
Mayor Bier then asked Councilmembers to ask any questions and then they will work on the document.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck thought he heard a question about environmentally sensitive habitat areas around the San Pedro area and whether they are properly mapped and accounted for.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that they addressed a number of those points in their master response and he can have Ms. Moore touch on that if necessary. He stated that the documents prepared have mapped the officially adopted critical habitat in other officially known mapped areas that have been adopted by public agencies. He thought it was a misstatement to suggest that, simply because it is not mapped, it won’t be considered a use to support decision making. He stated that there are policies that will allow for that during projects specifically reviewed.
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Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck asked, when he says officially mapped, what does that mean. He stated that it might clarify a little bit what they are working with.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that the classic example is critical habitat designations adopted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and there is a proper process for public review and comment on those maps and then a final adoption action by the relevant resource agency.
He stated that there are other instances that are potentially official adoption mapping processes and staff pulled the data from those relevant resource agencies that officially adopted habitat areas. He stated that the point he was trying to make about other policies that protect ESHA is that there are policies that require site specific analysis to identify those types of resources in areas where there may not be mapped currently. That is a routine process in the coastal development permit process when the city is having to analyze the relevant resources. He says that the resources can change over time and there was a suggestion made by one of the commenters that the city ignored information that was available and obvious but that is not true.
In the particular project referenced, qualified biologists evaluated the site at the time the city was making its decision on the project and evaluated and assessed the resources that were present on the site at that time. He stated that it evolved over time and at a later period additional resources were identified and that agency, in that case the Coastal Commission, made that permitting decision on their part based on the relative information that was known and observed at that time. He stated that there is no perfect point in time that can necessarily capture all resources and he thought that was an important point.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that he has another point but he sees that Vice Chair Hauser has her hand raised and perhaps she has more to say.
Vice Chair Hauser mentioned that, when the Planning Commission was reviewing this specific area, there is a sentence in Chapter 4 that specifically says that development of the site will require detailed evaluation of coastal hazards and vulnerabilities and biological resources to ensure that any sensitive habitat in wetlands that exist on the site are protected, and there is something very site specific in there that requires the additional analysis that Acting Planning Director Murdock was referring to, and it helped them feel that it had been adequately addressed.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck wanted to go back to the notion that they do not yet have an updated LCLUP and he feels that he will be asking questions that have already been asked several times and answered several times, and his thoughts are that asking things again in a different direction might be a slightly different perspective and they did come across to him as robust concerns from the community and he wants to thoroughly address them to the best of his ability.
He stated that the point was well taken that they don’t want to give away our capacity to determine all of our lands because some of it is in the coastal zone. He stated that they don’t know how long it might take to have an updated LCLUP certified but he is curious of the processes that might go on for an undetermined amount of time in terms of what it looks like having a new General Plan versus working with a potentially old LCLUP.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated, as mentioned earlier, the most immediately noticeable change between the 1980 LCLUP and adoption of the new General Plan is a number of the land use designations, particularly in the commercial realm where there are a number of changes that would result in more specific commercial designations whereas the 1980 LCLUP has much more general commercial designations. He stated that residential designations which comprise the bulk of our community would largely remain the same. In the land use realm, while changes City Council Special Meeting 12 June 25, 2022
could be confronted, in most instances there are not proposed land use changes and hopefully the conflicts would be relatively few. As mentioned, the policy in the General Plan makes clear that it must be subordinate to the certified LCLUP and why they are continuing to work to obtain certification so that the two documents melt together and the instances of inconsistencies are few, if any, moving forward.
Mayor Bier asked if there were any more questions, and seeing no one, she stated that they can dig into the document, chapter by chapter. She encouraged Council to take their time as this is the only time they are ever going to get to do this process and it was important that they are able to do it thoroughly. She asked who will start Chapter 1, with questions or thoughts on changes that have been made or changes that need to be made.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that she is pulling out the redline document for comparison.
Mayor Bier understood and stated she is doing the same as there are so many documents.
Acting Planning Director Murdock suggested that most of the discussion should probably take place in the redline version as that reflects the latest recommendation from the Planning Commission. He stated that there are just a few chapters where the Planning Commission did not make edits where they were captured in the redline and they can try to queue Councilmembers to the packet page to jump to for each respective chapter if that would be helpful, adding that it will take them to do that as well. He stated that it is the latest version of the document reflecting the redlines and they can take that as the baseline to consider whether or not to accept those or consider additional edits to the document.
City Manager Woodhouse believes that, in Chapter 1, there weren’t redline changes to the introduction so they have to look at the May version.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that he was correct.
Councilmember Vaterlaus asked what packet page they will be starting on.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that the introduction begins on packet page 35.
Mayor Bier asked if it was the introduction.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that Chapter 1 that Council is currently discussing, and if they look at page 32.
Mayor Bier asked if he is referring to the May version.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that she has the original document of Chapter 1 in front of her and she wanted to touch on is that there are a number of comments, some of which she mentioned earlier, such as environmental justice, social justice and location of housing but there were also comments during one of the Planning Commission’s meetings. She appreciated the point of view of putting people at the center of this planning process. She stated that people weren’t considered and it was only the policies and it feels very policy heavy but there is a reason, as they need those policies in place so they can make decisions that protect people and support people. She referred to the statements that were made in terms of environmental justice in this section that it does give that overview of how they will be evolving the plan and all of the pieces that come out in more detail later, like the complete street piece, which has a lot to City Council Special Meeting 13 June 25, 2022
do with all of the policies they have been working on for a long time around bike and ped and changing our circulation transportation. She stated that this is a comment about the reference points that are in the document and may not be spelled out in the specific way with that peoplecentered focus that was asked for but, for her, as the decision maker, she feels confident that what is there provides the framework and the supportive policies for making decisions in the best interest of residents and people who live and enter Pacifica.
Mayor Bier stated that the only place she thought was interesting is where there is not a whole lot of mention about youth and she thought that goes back to what Councilmember Beckmeyer said about putting people first. She stated that there was one paragraph, recreational facilities and activities for youth, and when she went to read that paragraph, she was looking for more regarding what kind of activities for youth, including leadership opportunities within the city structure, and that would make her feel good.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that he will be making notes of Council suggestions as they go. If it works for them, he could keep the running list as they work through the chapters and at some point they can revisit those suggestions and see if there is consensus from Council or further adjustments to those potential modifications, adding that they are in a no idea is a bad idea phase, and they can revisit them and work through them thoroughly.
Mayor Bier stated that, if no one has anything further to say, they will move on to Chapter 2.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that there is a technical issue with Chapters 2 and 3 in the redline version as it looks like parts of them were included twice and he thought the full references are in packet page 356 of Chapter 2 and page 375 for Chapter 3. He stated that, if Councilmembers have any comments to prior packet pages, they can jump back to them and do the work to correspond with them later on the staff side. He thought there was a scanning issue when they had to work around the agenda system at one point.
Mayor Bier stated that they can talk about Chapter 2, as economic sustainability is important for the city.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that there were comments made questioning the focus on West Sharp Park primarily, but also including Eureka Square. She knows it will come up more in the Specific Plan issue, but the general overall comment was that it doesn’t make sense to create a downtown there and is a waste of time because they already have a downtown and they were referring to Rockaway. She thought the commenter at that time was limiting the analysis or the focus of the comment on tourism but what she was seeing as economic sustainability and the support of all the commercial areas in Pacifica and, as they pertain to not only visitor serving but where residents live too. She thought it was an important thing to keep in mind because, while they are looking to tourism and single term occupancy tax and she wanted to be sure their approach, in the form of comment and recognition of the fact that it is all of the residents in the economy, not just talking about tourism or hinging our economic sustainability for the city on tourism dollars.
Acting Planning Director Murdock would elaborate on a couple of points in her statement. He noted that, in the Planning Commission’s consideration of the Sharp Park Specific Plan, and the first part of her comments keyed in on that, and on trying to understand what was the right mix of what are described as community serving versus neighborhood serving versus visitor serving uses, and he thought it was an important but difficult distinction to make and it was important to get it right so you are achieving your intended vibrancy and revitalization but not going too far in City Council Special Meeting 14 June 25, 2022
any one direction. He thought it was not the case that the city was trying to hinge all of its economic future on just the West Sharp Park neighborhood but making it the first of several efforts to revitalize and plan for different areas of the city, and that is indicated in the Council’s work plan for the next fiscal year, i.e., undertake a community process for a quarry specific plan and corresponding updates to the Rockaway Beach Specific Plan to integrate the quarry specific plan area, and they recognize that many areas of the city need a focused planning process and all need to be vibrant, successful and able to work harmoniously with one another.
Mayor Bier stated that she will talk about the demographic indicators Table 2-1. She stated that it says the Census Bureau American Community Survey was from 2015 to 2019, and she wondered if there was an update as we have a new census, and if additional demographic information might be helpful. She asked if they can update it with the newest census data and would it be helpful to have more demographics such as racial ethnicity.
Acting Planning Director Murdock agreed, stating that one question is the different products released by the census have different data and he didn’t know whether these specific data points would also be in the 2020 decennial census or if they would need to wait for the next fiveyear American Community Survey update as they do have different data points. He stated that they can look at that. He thought one indication is that, potentially, the census data weren’t released yet for 2020, when this draft document was updated, and those data releases occurred more recently than the drafting of this document.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that they focused on the school district and, in terms of ethnicity and culture identity, demographics in a snapshot but also a focus or acknowledgment of the change over time in our city and what we are seeing in terms of that. She thought, if there was a way to acknowledge that and make sure our policies are inclusive of everyone, and she thought it was worth saying. She stated that she can’t say that, in many instances, when she talks to residents, they have a different picture of our demographics than she does, and she encourages them to look at the school demographic data. She stated that, what Mayor Bier is saying is prompting her to say that she would like to see the General Plan for the city reflecting that same information is some way mirroring that. She didn’t know what the current exact data source would be, and as this is the economic focus, she thought there may be some specific source they can locate.
Acting Planning Director Murdock notes that they are somewhat of a disadvantage as they don’t have the Housing Element before them at this time, which will be subject to a separate update process, and a lot of that type of demographic data shows community changes over time, a finer grain on racial demographics and income demographics and that information is in the Housing Element and it helps to demonstrate the need for housing and policies that can help to address those issues.
Councilmember Beckmeyer thought a general statement in Chapter 2 that brings that up can elaborate on in the housing element.
Mayor Bier stated that she is going to keep going as she has another one which is Policy ES-I14, under marketing and branding, she stated that she would like to see more in there talking about social media and creating different kinds of content for different kinds of media platforms was important to update.
Councilmember Beckmeyer asked if the Mayor would mention that policy name again.
City Council Special Meeting 15 June 25, 2022
Mayor Bier stated that it is ES-I-14 on packet page 370.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that it is in the redline version.
Mayor Bier agreed. She then mentioned ES-I-19, hosting new events. She asked if they can add Pride in there. She then stated she wanted to add under the marketing branding something about continuing to update the city website to improve usability. She asked Acting Planning Director Murdock if that was okay and he is catching things.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated so far so good.
Councilmember Vaterlaus referred to the city-wide calendar, stating that they seem to have events that overlap with each other and they tried for years to develop that but it doesn’t seem to connect very well.
Mayor Bier then moved on to Chapter 3 on packet page 375, community design.
Councilmember Beckmeyer had a question about the historical development and preservation and asked if this was the right place to talk about or it needs to be somewhere else, such as Chapter 4. She stated that she keeps asking how they include policy in Sharp Park Specific Plan or the General Plan to reflect the historic nature of some of our neighborhoods in terms of future development to persist. She stated that she believes Council, Planning Commission and staff understands what they mean by that and they will be discussing them in the Sharp Park Specific Plan, and she is looking for any anchors where they can encourage the character of neighborhoods. She asked Vice Chair Hauser if she had any comments or thoughts on how that was addressed by Planning Commission.
Vice Chair Hauser stated that it was talked about more extensively, which she thinks in Element 6, asking Acting Planning Director Murdock if she has that right, specifically where some of the historical character of sites itself came up. She thought what was not touched on was if there was a historic character of neighborhoods themselves. She stated that some of it came up in the Sharp Park Specific Plan discussion on Monday and Thursday, but she doesn’t think the Planning Commission deliberated on it for the General Plan.
Acting Planning Director Murdock asked Councilmember Beckmeyer some clarifying questions to be sure he understands what she is getting at, such as when she say future proofing, is she suggesting that the General Plan needs more detailed discussion and narrative to lock in the perspective and historical nature and circumstances of our neighborhoods so there is a baseline that can support future decision making about scale, architectural design, elaborateness of the development, review process to dial in and preserve that neighborhood character.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that is correct, and she stated that she can cite a few specific examples she recently encountered in Vallemar, where she thought zoning, codes, etc., were completely within the scope and the outcome of the product is not in character. She stated that she wasn’t saying one type fits all characters for Vallemar, adding that is the beauty of Pacifica that there isn’t that, but there is a kind of a feel and sometimes they end up with the thinking of where did it come from. She stated that she has been thinking about it a lot after a trip to other environments. She stated that, when in an unfamiliar environment, you are very observing those kind of visual differences and how it jumped out at her. She stated her conclusions were borne out by some of the tours and historic explanation of how towns were converted from renaissance or medieval to what is seen now. She stated that our timeline wasn’t that long, but City Council Special Meeting 16 June 25, 2022
someone had a good idea and moved it forward and she wants to be sure we are asking for some kind of character neighborhood fit, whether floor area ratio (FAR), etc. She stated that she knows a lot of that is being nipped at on a state level, and she understands why, but she wants to figure out a way to insert that in spaces where they have those controls.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated he had some thoughts on that, but after they hear from Vice Chair Hauser.
Vice Chair Hauser stated that it was not element 6, but element 7-4 which is a figure that illustrates where the cultural and historic resources and site are. She referred to what she said, and stated a policy in the redline that they recommended, and we have maximum FARs [floor area ratios] that are in the land use element but they didn’t have minimum FARs. That was what they thought we needed, and one things in the redline is a new policy recommending that we study and adopt that as part of the implementation of the zoning ordinance. She echoed what she initially said but they didn’t do it in a neighborhood specific manner.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that the Commission spent some time talking about ensuring that there is a minimum amount of commercial area so they are not dominated by the housing or residential component of this project because they do need to function with one another and provide that commercial core. He referred to Councilmember Beckmeyer’s point, stating that they talked about the policy in the General Plan to revisit the citywide height limit of 35 feet and he explained that, in some instances, it will go higher to support mixed use such as in the Sharp Park area shopping center redevelopment but in other cases, it needs to go in the other direction which gets to the core of what she is describing which is community scale and character and they need to visit that in zoning. He stated that one of the curious elements of coming to Pacifica and learning the zoning code was that the R1 zoning district applied to a significant amount of land area, sort of a one size fits all set of zoning standards but they have a number of different neighborhoods, different historic development patterns, lot sizes, character, aspirations for the future, etc., and he thought that needs to be dialed in, not only with height but different setbacks, lot coverage, parking standards, floor area ratio standards, and to achieve that desired scale and quality of the neighborhood, the city made some attempt at that and in reaction, such as Vallemar and other neighborhoods, there are very large homes being reconstructed or expanded on small lots. He stated that some people call it the mega-home ordinance and is a discretionary review process and that is not sufficient anymore as the city is so bound under state law against making arbitrary discretionary decisions on housing and they need to dial in the objective standards through our zoning to reset the baseline to achieve that desired community and neighborhood character.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that the neighborhood issue is interesting as she likes Vallemar because it is all different as there could be a 500-square foot cottage or a 2,800- square foot house instead of rows and rows of Linda Mar ranchers that all look the same. She stated that, if you start with the neighborhood standards, are you going to get neighborhoods that look like Stepford wives where they are exactly the same and no one can make a change to their property because it has to follow a specific neighborhood rule. She finds that concerning.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that she hears that, and she is not suggesting that. She stated that, with those kinds of rules, she thinks of them more at the level of the HOA. She is talking about acknowledging the diversity that she is referring to and continuing that. She stated that you can drive down certain streets and you will see the box that jump off the lot, and that is what she is talking about. She stated that, as they move forward with their zoning and begin to implement a more granular form of our zoning policies, they will address it at that point.
City Council Special Meeting 17 June 25, 2022
Mayor Bier referred to packet pages 382 and 383, stating that they have guiding policies and are talking about high quality multi-family and senior housing and accessory dwelling units, but she doesn’t see anything about low income housing in this area. She stated that they also want high quality low income housing, and she didn’t know if that is the right place to put it, but she wants to put it in the General Plan as often and as many sections as they can so it is clear that is what they want.
Acting Planning Director Murdock understands, and they could add that specific reference and his take on it is whether it is affordable housing or market rate housing, they probably shouldn’t be able to tell the difference as to high quality, when multi-family, etc. should all be high quality.
He stated that doing it too much could draw a distinction as they are different types of housing.
He thinks they shouldn’t be but just a different take on that policy question.
Councilmember Beckmeyer asked if the Mayor was on CD-1-5.
Mayor Bier responded affirmatively.
Councilmember Beckmeyer suggested they consider something like for a range of income levels or something to that effect, using a phrase that gets to that point and they can consider that for CD-1-5.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated for is all income levels, and he thinks that achieves the same objective as market rate shouldn’t be different than affordable, but it should be for every income level that there is a high quality housing product and it doesn’t draw the focus on affordable necessarily, depending on where the emphasis is desired.
Councilmember Vaterlaus referred to page 377, stating that it is the map and shows industrial zones. She knows the Sharp Park is priority development area but it says industrial zones and that throws her off as we don’t have actual industry in Pacifica. She said that the quarry is not in there and she would consider it our largest industrial zone, so she asks why it was worded that way.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that part of the challenge is in the way they have to produce the map, the colors are not distinguishable, but the two red shades have come through in a very challenging way. He stated that he would like to pull up a better quality.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated she got it, i.e., it’s activity, not industrial.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that the predominant designation is primary activity center.
Mayor Bier referred to CD-I-13, Hillside Preservation District, stating that at the last census update the HPD to ensure that all steep slopes are covered and that sites on other terrains are not included, and asked for an explanation of what that last phrase means.
Acting Planning Director Murdock thought the first one is self-evident and take another look and see if there are areas that are missing and should be mapped and included in the zoning district. He stated that there are areas, such as the eastern part of the quarry, that are flat and mapped in the Hillside Preservation District, and he thought the inclusion of those areas, for whatever reason they were originally included in that zoning overlay, undercuts the foundation City Council Special Meeting 18 June 25, 2022
and the support for why they have a Hillside Preservation District. He thought getting it right was the point of that policy to ensure that all appropriate hillside areas are included and protected by the ordinance, but not including those areas that aren’t hillside. He added that, to remove those areas that are zoned with the overlay would require a vote of the people as it is not a simple undertaking that Council could accomplish, but they can add areas to the Hillside Preservation District.
Councilmember Beckmeyer referred to CD-1-10, and stated that it specifically calls out new public spaces as part of redevelopment and enumerates the specific areas. She wanted to double check with Acting Planning Director Murdock and Vice Chair Hauser, in terms of the issue of redevelopment, if that is why they specified those specific locations in the paragraph.
She can think that there may be other places, and she wanted to actually limit it to just those spaces.
Acting Planning Director Murdock thought it would be a great revision to generalize and then use specific examples. He stated that those sites were included because they were the most likely anticipated as key redevelopment sites to insure that appropriate public spaces were reserved in those redevelopments.
Councilmember Beckmeyer thought a great example was the little pocket park that they included in the Civic Center project, even though it is little. She stated that as they have come through the pandemic, the idea of outdoor spaces that are available and accessible to everyone all over the place and that is where she is driving at.
Acting Planning Director Murdock agreed that every little bit helps and they have to fit them in where they can. He stated that they can find language to generalize that policy.
Mayor Bier referred to CD-I-15, packet page 387, and stated that it talks about ensuring that the negative visual impacts resulting from new development on the coastal zone are minimized, and she asked if it was only visual impacts that they are looking at as she sees the next one where they are talking about impacts of vegetation like habitat and does that need to be added in or does it go somewhere else.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that those issues are addressed elsewhere as this is the community design element and it is focusing on the visual components of development and how they need to be suitably designed and development placed in the appropriate locations to minimize negative visual impacts. He stated that they are all read together in the General Plan to complement one another and other types of impacts are addressed in the chapters appropriate to those types of impact.
Mayor Bier referred to CDI-21, packet page 390, roadway enhancements, stating that they have done some work with Caltrans over the past year, and she wondered if there was anything that came out of things that are planned to work with them and if they can include that in there.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that he is less familiar with that, and he suggested that PW Director Petersen may be able to speak to those efforts with Caltrans.
Mayor Bier thought they could take a look and see.
PW Director Petersen stated that they have been working with Caltrans on different intersections on Highway 1, i.e., concerning signal timing, allowing better pedestrian access City Council Special Meeting 19 June 25, 2022
across specific intersections where they see a lot of foot traffic and most recently they have been implementing the delayed signal for the pedestrians to allow them to get in the crosswalk prior to the cars moving and making some of the turns where there is conflict. She stated that they continue to work with Caltrans on a number of elements related to traffic on Highway 1, specifically how they can incorporate more with them, and she would turn to Acting Planning Director Murdock on how they can do that.
City Manager Woodhouse thanked her for the information, adding that some of those improvements related to the safety chapter and this policy is specifically focused on the visual and for the General Plan it is probably good to keep this policy as general but cite examples such as improving the appearance would be the San Jose Avenue pedestrian overcrossing that was recently built, and there have been ongoing efforts for removing dead trees, clean up, etc., that Caltrans is regularly doing, and they are some of the ideas to be inserted as examples but keep the policy general.
Mayor Bier stated that they will move on to Chapter 4, adding that there will be a long discussion on this chapter, so they should take lunch at 1:00 p.m., and confirmed that everyone was okay with that.
Councilmember Beckmeyer referred to this chapter, stating that it would be helpful to her if Acting Planning Director Murdock and Planning Commission Vice Chair Hauser would discuss the biggest areas of change or re-designation. She stated that there were small parcels where they were recommending re-designation like the one by Linda Mar School but as a reminder to know the changes or recommendations that were made in the land use.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated he would start and then Vice Chair Hauser could jump in with any additional information. He stated that first, they should recognize all the commercial areas that have changes in designation. He stated that they will remain in the commercial designation, and the 1980 General Plan had a single commercial land use designation and this proposed General Plan has a number of different designations including service commercial, visitor serving commercial and other types of commercial, i.e., low intensity, visitor serving, coastal residential mixed use and there are three new mixed use designations, one he just mentioned and the coastal residential mixed use and the name suggests an emphasis on coastal oriented and visitor serving combined with housing. There were two other mixed use designations that are medium and high intensity version mixed use neighborhood and mixed use commercial and they are applied to three different existing shopping centers, Park Mall, Eureka Square and Pacific Manor Shopping Center in trying to achieve some redevelopment and more active dynamism with combining residential use with new modernized commercial uses. He stated that those are the notable changes for Council. He stated that one item to keep in mind is that the current Local Coastal Land Use Plan that certified the 1980 version as well as the current General Plan, as they had different uses intended for the quarry and this proposes a mixed up conservation and visitor serving commercial for the quarry and the city is seeking certification of the Local Coastal Land Use Plan for the Quarry area in the hope that it can obtain permit authority for that location. He stated that it was one of the areas of deferred certification that was not included in the 1980 certified LCLUP. He referred to one other unique change, and stated it was two parts but he will talk about them together, i.e., the creation of a new l and use designation called transitional open space residential. He stated that the 1980 General Plan has a number of different residential land use designations going from high density which allows up to 21 units per acre, all the way down to what is known as open space residential. He stated that it allows one unit for more than five acres and there was no upper limit on that, but they need at least 5.01 acres in that designation. He stated that this General City Council Special Meeting 20 June 25, 2022
Plan would create a new designation, i.e., transitional open space residential (TOSR) and would require a minimum of ten acres per dwelling unit in order to construct residential uses on parcels that are so designated. He stated that, aligned with that, those transitional open space residential designations are primarily in the peripheral areas of town that are undeveloped, steep slopes, heavy tree cover, not appropriate for intensive development from a public safety standpoint. He stated that, similarly, areas in their spear of influence are largely similarly situated in terms of slope, tree cover, remoteness, difficulty with access, etc. He stated that the areas in their sphere of influence which are outside of the city limits but required to be in our General Plan are proposed designation called urban reserve and that would also have a one unit per ten acres of land use designation. As they are trying to ensure that those areas on the boundaries of Pacifica, outside the city limits and unincorporated San Mateo County, and they are assumed and identified for a very low intensity of residential development, at least ten acres per unit.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that something he likes about the update is that they seem to accentuate our open space more than we normally do and that is a value our community seems to embrace, including himself. He stated that it is heartening that they took pain to accentuate our natural environment to the point we can and focus in on the places that are already developed to augment those opportunities and densify a little bit so those are the places that are already really focusing.
Councilmember Beckmeyer agreed that was a good point and she appreciated that he said that.
She thinks that she characterizes it that this General Plan is catching up with the longstanding philosophy and point of view of so many in the city and so much action going on over the decades. She stated that she and the mayor attended a wonderful presentation of the historic developments over time and when certain parcels were designated as permanent open space and how that came about. She stated that, to have it presented to them in one sitting, it really encapsulated what is true about Pacifica, and she likes that this reflects that and the plan is catching up and bringing us to current to where people are. She hopes that they can find ways to elucidate that sort of community as she thinks with the plan being dense, they have some documents to review and, over time as they are implementing it once it is approved, the more they can refer back to with the new policy in the General Plan Update to help drive and understand where that was actually codified.
Acting Planning Director Murdock wanted to expand on that point. He stated that, during the course of the hearing thus far, there is no single policy that is going to achieve everything the community wants, adding that this General Plan has a number of policies that will need to be combined and leveraged with one another. He stated that the land use element is a very important starting place, as well as other safety element policies about identifying potential view inclusions in the Hillside Preservation overlay district, as they all need to be combined and utilized to full affect to achieve Council’s desire for the community right which is to protect our picturesque high value open space and slopes and try to concentrate development in areas that already disturbed and where it makes the most sense to concentrate and leverage that activity as well. He stated that he can briefly share the change in graphic to which he was referring and it will hopefully provide some clarity as to what they are describing but it isn’t showing up on his list of screens to share and they might not be able to do that now, and then tried again. He then stated that they can see in the commercial realm that they have a lot of new designations in the red where they are changing from the standard commercial designation to the multiple different commercial designations. He pointed out all the green areas, and stated that the good news is that they have new designations for public lands and preserved open space areas, primarily in the shades of green and they can see how much of Pacifica is in those categories. He stated City Council Special Meeting 21 June 25, 2022
that the areas that are not green because they are already in a designation that is in the current General Plan and there is no change. He stated that the purple areas are where the mixed use designations are being proposed, mixed use center and neighborhood, and they will see the coastal residential mixed use is sort of a salmon color, focused predominantly in the undeveloped San Pedro Avenue site and the much smaller site immediately to the southeast.
He stated that, in nearly all the residential neighborhoods, no changes are proposed and are white, and will remain low density residential or whatever their existing residential designations are and they are trying to preserve the core character uses in those parts of the city. He stated that there is a lot of focus into areas that are already developed and a lot of preservation protection of the areas that are existing residential neighborhoods and open space areas.
Mayor Bier asked if he can give her the number of that.
Acting Planning Director Murdock didn’t know if it is a figure number in the General Plan.
Mayor Bier stated that she was looking for it and didn’t see it and she wanted to be sure she didn’t miss it.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that land use designations are shown in Figure 4-3.
Mayor Bier thought that was what it was, and she knows some of those colors were hard to delineate.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that she knows they have talked about the increased density in some of the areas, such as West Sharp Park, and ways of directing views and terracing , etc., and she was trying to figure out where it was requested. She knew it will be in the zoning just in the plan exactly where they may refer to that, and if they don’t, she asked if there was a way to incorporate that.
Acting Planning Director Murdock thought a lot of the specificity was in the Sharp Park Specific Plan and, to the extent that they are going to discuss it here, it is relevant to the EIR being considered and the visual resources evaluations for that. He asked Ms. Moore if she can pull up some of the renderings to show what work has been done and how the policies on paper might be transformed into the built environment to accomplish an appropriate scale avoiding public crowding, avoiding boxiness, etc.
Ms. Moore stated that she can show where visual resources in the Sharp Park Specific Plan were analyzed.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated, while she was trying to bring it up, he would generalize. He stated that, in the Planning Commission’s consideration of the Sharp Park Specific Plan so far and in relation to the Coastal Commission staff’s comments of concerns about potential visual resources impacts, particularly from the increased building heights in the Sharp Park Specific Plan, as a preliminary matter, the primary views of the city is obligated to assess and potentially protect our public views, and views from public rights of way ,public l ands, public spaces, Pier, promenade, all streets in Sharp Park, library and elsewhere in the public realm, attempts are made to try to be considerate to private use but it is not always possible to protect every existing private view, particularly while trying to accomplish some of the other goals of the Plan, but as will be explained in more detail when Council considers the Sharp Park Specific Plan, that type of intensification is focused on the north, south Palmetto Avenue and Francisco Boulevard corridors and attempts are being made to preserve the City Council Special Meeting 22 June 25, 2022
character and scale of the east west neighborhood street and residential streets, to try to achieve that desired community character and scale.
Ms. Moore stated that there is a chapter in the EIR called visual resources with several figures that show what potential impacts of height could be looking south on Palmetto. The analysis shows the impacts to the views are not that significant. They also analyzed views from the Sharp Park Library and how, even at 35 feet at the street level, views would be blocked with the allowable height, but with certain policies in the Sharp Park Specific Plan that require preservation views of setbacks over a certain height, more of that coastal view is preserved.
Vice Chair Hauser echoed what Acting Planning Director Murdock said, i.e., a lot of the analysis is taken with the current Sharp Park Specific Plan review Planning Commission is doing, and added that they talked about it when deliberating on this element and where they had landed was that it was important that the General Plan stay general but have policies that would allow them to see conduits to make these changes via zoning, not just in Sharp Park but all the neighborhoods in the city. The Commission felt good that there were policies on LU -I-19 which is a height limit policy and means that for each neighborhood and each land use, they will study what those height limits should be. She referred previously to the policy LU-I-A which is an FAR minimum, and they are making sure that, as they move forward, they got that level of specificity as they were implementing the zoning.
Acting Planning Director Murdock wanted to allow Ms. Moore another minute, stating that they provided the coarser scale of neighborhood wide view impact analysis that was done in the EIR but for some of the finer grades in site specific policies in the Sharp Park Specific Plan, they wanted to show some examples of what those are intended to achieve to preserve the scale and character and avoid adverse impacts from the intensification building heights.
Ms. Moore stated that there is a policy in the Sharp Park Specific Plan about daylight plane which requires certain setbacks from the rear to avoid any shadow on existing smaller scale adjacent residential. She showed how some of the setbacks minimize potential impacts.
Acting Planning Director Murdock thought they lost connection from Ms. Moore, but she was explaining how the setbacks are intended to try to maintain that appropriate scale at street level and not overwhelm the pedestrian scale at street level while trying to achieve some of the increased densities that they assess are necessary to achieve the more continuous level of vibrancy that is desired that is more routine than just peak tourism.
Mayor Bier stated that they received ideas on the map for Figure 43 that she thought were interesting and she would like to talk about them. She referred to the first one, identification of a PDA at the top of Fairmont.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated there is what is known as the Skyline corridor priority development area and it includes the Fairmont Shopping Center and some other lands in the area.
Mayor Bier asked if it was possible to increase density there.
Acting Planning Director Murdock thought it was, and staff had envisioned doing that as part of the Housing Element process. He stated that this is trying to formalize and finalize earlier work to create the General Plan and that PDA came about relatively recently within the last couple of years and they didn’t revisit what the potential would be for that but it he thought it should be City Council Special Meeting 23 June 25, 2022
visited during the Housing Element process as a potentially key area.
Mayor Bier wanted to be sure they talked about it at this time, acknowledge it and want to do something about it so it is clear to the community. She stated that they are also talking about where the apartments fell into the ocean and thus no longer a medium density residential, and she wanted to comment on that.
Acting Planning Director Murdock thought they could revisit that. He thought those lands were still in private ownership even though there is a process underway. They could take a closer look at that as he thought the development potential for those is unknown given the coastal hazards analysis that would be required as part of a future project.
Mayor Bier asked if he could explain their land use decisions around the Calson field.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that property is known as the undeveloped San Pedro Avenue site in the draft General Plan, and not only has it been the subject of a lot of discussion and focus as part of the General Plan Update process but also the Local Coastal Land Use Plan process. He stated that, in 2019 and 2020, when Council was considering approval of a new Local Coastal Land Use Plan, they spent a significant amount of time focused on that single property and received a lot of community input, including from the property owner, with a desire to ensure a reasonable economic development potential for that site with a lot of discussion about potential hazards, including tsunami, sea level rise, biological resources, etc. He stated that, going into that process in 2019 and 2020, the site had coastal residential mixed use land use designation, CRMU, and at the time it would allow up to 15 units per dwelling acre in a mixed use so some commercial component and up to 15 dwelling units of residential on that area. He stated that, given its size of roughly five acres, that mean that the theoretical maximum of 75 dwelling units plus the associated commercial development. He stated that, on hearing from the community, he thought it was necessary to keep it at the appropriate level for now. He thought there was a concern that intensive development of 75 units per acre plus commercial was too much for the site and he thought the neighborhood concern was that level of activity would be disruptive and there was concern about only one way out of the neighborhood and over intensification from a project there could frustrate emergency evacuation of the existing neighborhood, concerns about impacts to wetlands that may be existent on the site, etc. A lot of the community input was to allow very, very low intensity of development, perhaps no residential development at all and focusing on a commercial/recreational set of uses. He didn’t want to mis-state what those potential uses would be, but certainly things on the very low intensity realm, perhaps not including any permanent development, but some sort of series of low impact temporary or semi-temporary/semi-permanent type uses of the site. He stated that, after much discussion and consideration, Council tried to strike a balance between reasonable development and protection of resources and minimization of impacts to the neighborhood. He stated that Council concluded to keep the coastal residential mixed use land use designation but the creation of a site specific policy which specified that, within that range, the density should be 3-5 units per acre as opposed to up to 15 units per acre and, based on that type specific policy, the theoretical maximum would be 25 dwelling units plus the corresponding commercial use. He stated that is where the recommendation ended up and was incorporated in the certification draft LCLUP approved by Council in February 2020 and what has been carried forward to this hearing in the draft General Plan.
Mayor Bier wanted to suggest that they possibly look at lowering it to 1-3 units and see what they all think about that. She mentioned it to Acting Planning Director Murdock and he said he would get some information for her about what that would entail and what it would mean for City Council Special Meeting 24 June 25, 2022
other parts of the plan. She asked if he could share that information.
Acting Planning Director Murdock thought the Council might be contemplating is taking it from a potential maximum of 25 dwelling units to a potential maximum of 15, and at some point in their detailed deliberations, they will need to consider if there is a place where another 10 dwelling units could be identified in the draft General Plan to ensure that overall the buildout and potential in the plan is not going to be reduced from what is being considered here, recognizing they are going to have to go from 990 unit buildouts to roughly 1900 at some point and every unit counts so losing units at this stage would only make the challenge harder during the housing element update. He stated that redesignating another site to achieve that ten-unit capacity is something Council will need to go through.
Councilmember Vaterlaus disagreed with that, as they discussed it at length and this is a lowering already from 75 to 25 and that property has been platted and drawn with streets and could have had, at one point, over 100 units on it. She understands that the neighborhood doesn’t like it, and she thinks, if they lower it to 15 houses, they still wouldn’t like it, so she doesn’t think it is going to be possible for them to find additional units in another location.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that it is hard discussing that one lot. He has had this journey from sitting in the audience, being part of the Planning Commission and now on Council and every step of the way, as he has gone from observing to action, it has been difficult to try and properly address it and figuring out the right way to address it and what resources to put into addressing it as well as listening to community and staff feedback and deliberating with Commission and Council at the same time. He stated that, when they had the Council/Planning Commission joint study session in 2019, they had a robust discussion. He drove as deeply into the history of that lot with questions as he could do at that time and he walked away with an understanding that there was a quagmire disagreement between land use shift or rezoning shift to C2 from commercial recreation and whether or not it was passed over by Coastal Commission, and he walked away with the sense of the potential that, if left unchecked now, maybe to the tune of up to 22 units per acre, it could be developed, and they need to address it in real time as that history is so murky. After a robust deliberation between Council and Planning, they walked away with that as being as happy a medium as all of them could fathom in that moment. He didn’t think it meant that it was a happy medium for the neighborhood and he respects that to what he can after this long process of trying to establish a happy medium between Planning and Council. He stated that, after listening to the robust discussion Planning recently had with regard to that property, he is as comfortable as he can be as he thinks it is an uncomfortable piece of land no matter how he is engaging in and discussing it. He stated that it is as happy a medium as all the discussions have been able to produce and wants to leave it there while acknowledging that it doesn’t mean it is a settled issue as he doesn’t want to poke at it anymore at this time.
Councilmember Beckmeyer wanted to bring up a point she asked about in a general way, and she asked Vice Chair Hauser if she has anything to add, and added that Acting Planning Director Murdock can help her. She stated that, in terms of the issue of transfer of development rights and its relationship to the EIR to the project, as the General Plan is general in a program level, any development of any kind that would need to be done on that coastal zone property would need significant reviews, such as issues with ESHA, environmentally sensitive habitat area, dining space, water shed areas or impacts that would disallow or constrain the development of any site, whatever the zoning would allow. She asked if transfer of development rights would pertain to this property if it came to that.
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Acting Planning Director Murdock thought there were multiple parts in his response. He stated that the transfer of development rights ordinance is one that already is in a policy in the General Plan to revisit and try to improve to make it more practical and more attractive to use. He thought one of the components is what the amount of density is and the incentive to actually transfer. He stated that the less base density that a parcel has, the less potential economic value to that transfer to make it attractive to go through the legal and the city process to achieve it. He stated that having more units to transfer from the site might make it a better and more attractive candidate for that transfer to occur. He wanted to draw Council’s attention to packet page 428 where the land use policy I-29 is located and the site specific policy he mentioned earlier for the undeveloped San Pedro Avenue site. He stated that it is one of the longest policies in the General Plan which he thinks reflects the amount of care that Council has taken to this point, primarily to the LCLUP update process and it gets to the heart of the latter part of her comment and question by Councilmember Beckmeyer about evaluations required for some future project on the site. He stated that it specifically calls out a wetland survey as required by the Coastal Act to identify where all those resources are located as well as other geotechnical hazard assessments and an assessment of the Ocean Shore railroad berm. He stated that all those factors together have the potential to affect the amount of development that can occur.
He stated that, in a horizontal sense, where on the site development might be appropriate in three dimensions, height limits and floor area ratios, etc., also combined to potentially limit the development capacity. He stated that it is unknown whether the site will be able to develop at the upper end of that allowable range of five units and whether it would be forced to the lower end or if it could even develop at all, once all those resource constraints are known and does become an ideal candidate for a transfer of development rights to some other more suitable location. He thought they won’t know until such time as a project is coming forward and they get all those studies completed, but at this point, he stated that Council has found a balance in its mind coming into this meeting of 3-5 units per acre.
Vice Chair Hauser stated that she thought the document is set up nicely for what Councilmember Beckmeyer just set forward. She stated that, in addition to the page that she read out of the Pedro Point and Shelter Cove neighborhood requiring the land use policy that Acting Planning Director Murdock just referred to, LU-I-29, there is a policy in the same chapter, LU-I-15, transfer of development rights (TDR), which specifically talks about doing TDR in these coastal vulnerability zones. She stated that the Commission’s read of it, after talking about it extensively, is that there has to be an analysis to figure out if it is a vulnerable site and, if it is, the TDR policy definitively applies to it. She thought that encapsulates what Councilmember Beckmeyer is looking for.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that was exactly what she was asking.
Mayor Bier knew it wasn’t going to be a popular thing to bring up. She thought with this one, she wanted to try to push it down just one more notch which is why she brought it up. She appreciated her engaging in the conversation with her. She asked if anyone else had anything in Chapter 4. She had a question about the below market rate program. She asked if it would be possible for them to bring it from 15% to 20%.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that it would, suggesting that City Attorney Kenyon may have to guide him on the legal standards. He recalled that there was essentially a presumption that 15% is okay in state law in that at least up to 20% could be justified by a local agency, subject to appropriate study is called under state law and it was an opportunity for the city to go above 15% potentially. He stated that it would be a very focused process to conduct the proper study analysis.
City Council Special Meeting 26 June 25, 2022
Mayor Bier would appreciate that moving forward. She stated that they spend a lot of time doing exactly what is legally required.
City Attorney Kenyon stated that Acting Planning Director Murdock is correct, and she emphasized that there are findings and studies that they will have to prepare in order to do that.
Vice Chair Hauser brought Council’s attention to the sentence they added in the below market rate program, she referred to the paragraph that says the program may be updated by ordinance from time to time so that as Council does make updates to the ordinance, this General Plan does not in any way override it.
Mayor Bier asked if she could give them the packet page number.
Vice Chair Hauser stated that she is going back and forth between three documents. She asked Acting Planning Director Murdock if he can help her with that.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that he is looking for it now.
Vice Chair Hauser stated that she just found it, page 407.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck agrees with that.
Mayor Bier stated that she didn’t have anything else for Chapter 4, and asked if any Councilmembers did.
Councilmember Beckmeyer asked Vice Chair Hauser a question regarding LU-I-40, park and ride. She cannot remember what the final decision was and she can’t get the redline document open to check to see if there is something added to that. She asked if she can remind them of what the conversation was around that particular location and any changes made.
Vice Chair Hauser stated that Acting Planning Director Murdock can jump in and help if necessary, but on packet page 429, they have LU-I-40 , and Planning Commission removed the words, “rezone the north side of Linda Mar Boulevard”, and added, “as shown on the land use diagram”, and they will notice as they go through the chapter that they correlated anything about sites back to the land use diagram so that there was really one overarching place where everything can be found. The conversation they had was about whether or not this area should be for overflow beach parking was something they talked about for a while and came to the conclusion that it would be under-utilization for this to be overflow beach parking but they should explore a shared parking facility between the Linda Mar Shopping Center and the Park and Ride, and that was what was recommended into the policy LU-I-40.
Acting Planning Director Murdock agreed, adding that the theme from the Planning Commission discussion on that topic was that it was such an important site and somewhat underutilized currently and to do any one thing with it would be to deprive the value from some other use and, in addition to ensuring shared use for potential overflow beach parking during peak utilization, it was recognized that it was really one of the few transit opportunities the city had that was ready made to combine park and ride with a bus facility with mixed use with potential overflow for beach access as well as mixed use to support the Linda Mar Shopping Center. He stated that it was recognized that it had all of those assets and potential aspects to it and trying to tie that policy together to reflect those opportunities.
City Council Special Meeting 27 June 25, 2022
Mayor Bier called a break for lunch, and then reconvened the meeting.
Mayor Bier stated that they were going to Chapter 5, circulation.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that, before going to Chapter 5, he had a question about Chapter 4. He referred to some recommendation made by Planning Commission about MUN shift from commercial to mixed use.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that the Planning Commission considered a request from the property owner of property along Highway 1 on the eastside between Rockaway Beach and Vallemar neighborhood to redesignate to mixed use neighborhood from service commercial. He stated that the staff analyzed that and made a recommendation to the Planning Commission which they then considered both sides of that potential land use change and recommended Council approval of the change to mixed use neighborhood.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck asked if that was incorporated in the changes they have.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that it was not currently shown in the maps of the land use diagram pending confirmation of City Council. They did make the error correction change for the properties on Rosita and Adobe given that they were unintentional inclusions in the semipublic designation but, given that it is an actual option and choice for Council, they did not change the maps yet.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck just wanted to make sure it was included when they get there.
Mayor Bier stated, regarding Chapter 5, they have talked about it a lot but she thinks additional clarification is always good for our community. She referred to the Manor Drive overcrossing, and wonders why they have to include this that this project includes a new on ramp. She asked if they can remove that statement.
Acting Planning Director Murdock drew Council’s attention to packet page 442. He stated that there was a brief discussion related to the Manor Drive overcrossing project which says the Manor Drive overcrossing is planned to be widened and coordinated, signal control is recommended to be added at the intersection of Manor Drive, Oceana Boulevard and Palmetto Avenue and the project includes consideration of a new on ramp to SR 1 from Oceana and Milagra Drive. He stated that the General Plan needs to discuss those transportation and circulation network improvements that are currently being considered that the city potentially constructed during the planning period. He stated that it is mentioned to ensure that there is a fair assessment of those improvements being considered and what the impact would be relative to the circulation network and other aspects of the General Plan. He stated that it is intended to be an objective description of what the project could be and what is being considered. He stated that, on that packet page, Planning Commission added consideration notes to make it clear that it is not a done deal as to what the project would or would not include, but the on ramp is one aspect of that being considered.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that PW Director Petersen could probably add to this, but he stated that, in case there is additional general language that would help, part of the project and work with Caltrans in the environmental review needs to look at different alternatives and they could potentially add something to the language that says “will consider the on ramp and other alternatives”. He then deferred to Director Petersen to be more specific about that language.
City Council Special Meeting 28 June 25, 2022
PW Director Petersen stated that there are other things that have been looked at and may not or may be feasible, one of those is putting an on ramp going southbound on Oceana onto Highway 1 at Paloma, and the other is a roundabout in that same area to prevent needing to have an on ramp or looking in the future of an on ramp at Milagra, but those are just additional considerations that have been generally looked at by the consultant and one of the things she believes that the City Engineer Bautista discussed previously with Council is that, during this process, Caltrans wants to make sure that all things happen with that and everything has been considered. What they don’t want to have happen is to put a bunch of money towards a project that ultimately does not rectify the problem and that is their goal and why they want these other elements to be looked at as well. She stated that, at this point, they are just looking at the different elements. She stated one thing the transportation authority allowed the city to move forward with was to say that this project could be broken into two parts so they did not need to complete an on ramp at Milagra along with the Manor Drive overcrossing improvement. She thought that was very helpful, especially for a lot of residents who are concerned about that on ramp at Milagra.
Mayor Bier was thinking about our community and how this brought up a lot of fear in the community and if there are other things being considered by the consultant, she thought it may be helpful to put that language so it is not just this, i.e., trying to put a buffer for the community so that they know that they hear them.
PW Director Petersen also thought the language that City Manager Woodhouse recommended could be helpful as it allows for a broader spectrum to be looked at and doesn’t tie them down to anything in particular.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that, if this is a consideration of words that were already added, then City Manager Woodhouse was adding other considerations at the end of the sentence. She asked if she was correct.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that there were a number of ways to structure it, and he said they could say “consideration of a new on ramp to SR1 from Oceana at Milagra and other alternatives”.
Councilmember Beckmeyer asked if they can put it the other way around.
City Manager Woodhouse agreed.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that they can solve a problem as they are not necessarily sure what the right answer is and take it from that point of view. She stated that looking at considerations, “including the off ramp” or something.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that you can say, “includes consideration of alternatives, including a new on ramp to SR1".
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that she didn’t want two includes in the same sentence.
Mayor Bier stated she would rather not have that language in there at all, just say alternative strategies.
Councilmember Vaterlaus knows they have had a lot of complaints about this, but she can see City Council Special Meeting 29 June 25, 2022
the alternative of having that on ramp as helping everyone. She was not a traffic engineer and she doesn’t know what would happen but she thinks it would alleviate problems that people think it is going to cause by getting people on the freeway faster and not backed up where they have to go up to Manor if they went on the freeway there. She stated that, as far as wording, she would like to leave that in there and study other alternatives also.
City Manager Woodhouse referred to the Mayor’s question about removing the reference to it, as mentioned by Acting Planning Director Murdock, they want to be transparent about what alternatives are being analyzed and that they are required to analyze that alternative as part of this project. He stated that, as PW Director Petersen said, there are other alternatives that have been analyzed. He stated that, for clarity, this is not a decision about the outcome of the project but being transparent about alternative that are already part of the record which is part of the goal in a General Plan discussion.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that they received a public comment that was addressing traffic in general and forward looking in terms of our RHNA and how are they going to accommodate all this and those types of open-ended questions. She wonders if, in the General Plan, that is part of why they need to include these items. She stated that the commenter mentioned existing traffic issues on the highway and elsewhere and they didn’t feel the way the study for traffic was done addressed those concerns, let alone future growth. She asked Acting Planning Director Murdock and Vice Chair Hauser where they would have these discussions and where they can point as to places that planned growth or future growth due to our RHNA is going to have this traffic analysis happening.
Acting Planning Director Murdock referred to packet page 444, and stated that the General Plan analyzed the number of key intersections in Pacifica but did not analyze every intersection for existing and potential future conditions under the General Plan. They used the projection management program intersection to see the intersections which are part of a countywide transportation planning document, as well as non-CMP intersections, i.e., of more local importance and it analyzed the existing level of service and future level of service projected under the plan and indicated those instances where there might be degradation or continued under performance of level of service at those intersections. It identified that there will be problems at some of the intersections, including current challenging conditions that may potentially be made worse. He stated that, in that conversation, it was important to segregate what they are analyzing and why. He stated that there was a long history of analyzing traffic and congestion delay as part of the CEQA process and that is no more as within the last couple of years that standard has changed at the state level to what is known as vehicle miles traveled, a VMT analysis, and discussed in the EIR. They have challenges with achieving our VMT reductions, given a land use pattern, geographic location in the region, where jobs are located, etc. He stated it was very challenging, but from an environmental review standpoint, delay and congestion level of service are not directly applicable to the environmental review. He stated that, in the General Plan, there is still a standard for level of service in the hope of trying to maintain well flowing and operating streets and intersections in Pacifica. He stated that what is recognized is that funding resources primarily are constrained in the General Plan to resolving some of those existing conditions and there are limits under the current and anticipated funding as to what can be done. He stated that the General Plan just tries to acknowledge that and let it be known as a potential constraint factor when considering land use and other policy decisions in the General Plan.
Vice Chair Hauser added that the Commission had a lot of that conversation, spending a long time with Ms. Moore understanding the difference between VMT which requires a statement of City Council Special Meeting 30 June 25, 2022
overriding considerations and level of service. One of the things that was helpful for them to understand as a Commission was that the reason they needed the statement of overriding consideration for VMT was really related to the fact that we don’t have transportation like BART in Pacifica and that is not something that is going to change with our General Plan. She stated that it feeds more into this kind of level of service versus VMT conversation. She thought it was helpful to hear at the Planning Commission level the two discussions about the signal on Hickey which has been a big topic of conversation, as well as future projects utilizing the CEQA determinations that this document uses. She wondered if Acting Planning Director Murdock could elaborate a little bit on that.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated he would speak to her first point and hopefully Ms.
Moore can address her second point. He stated that the General Plan includes the policy that supports signalization of the Hickey and Gateway intersection and it is a known point of traffic congestion currently and it doesn’t operate at acceptable levels of service in peak periods and the General Plan acknowledges that, until resources have been identified to signalize that intersection, it will continue to operate at a sub-satisfactory level of service. As far as the benefits of certifying the EIR, he thought Ms. Moore could speak to that. He stated that her Zoom is frozen and he asked Mr. Hill if he was available but, if not, he would address the point.
He then stated that, within the context of the General Plan update and the certification of the EIR as mentioned, they have a statement of overriding considerations that indicate that the city is not able to achieve the target reductions of VMT and they have that statement of overriding considerations to comply with CEQA and say, “nevertheless, there are compelling public interest reasons to adopt the General Plan and certify the EIR”. He stated that the good news is that it provides some measure of protection for future projects that are coming in and may, at a project level, confront those kinds of issues, given that the General Plan EIR has established that and it is not a new impact necessarily unless there is a significant identification beyond what was analyzed in the EIR and it minimizes the potential for additional environmental analysis or additional significant overriding considerations for projects that are consistent with the General Plan.
Mayor Bier stated that she didn’t see much talk about micro-mobility such as electric vehicles.
She may have missed it, but if not, she asked if they can add something in about it.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that it was the topic of some discussion by the Planning Commission, and he thought Vice Chair Hauser could speak to some of those points.
He stated that they have tried to make some notes to that in the General Plan, including promoting bike shares and other kind of rental options, i.e., dock bike rental, in support for that and there is some more specific discussion in the Sharp Park Specific Plan on those topics, but he thought there was support in expansion of availability of those kinds of transportation devices but squaring that with public safety in terms of the high operating speed on which they can sometimes operate and the conflicts with pedestrian traffic that can occur depending on the design and the location of that use. He stated that the plan would support those alternative nonvehicular modes of travel and they could put more specific language about E-bikes and scooters, etc.
Mayor Bier stated that she heard the discussion in the Sharp Park Specific Plan on Thursday, and she thought it would be a good addition just like the micro-mobility term. She then referred to page 459, description of public transportation and transportation demand of management, and she stated that they adopted the seamless transportation principles. She asked if there was somewhere that they can add that description.
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Acting Planning Director Murdock responded affirmatively.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that it is totally minor but it says the Visalia School District instead of Pacifica, questioning what page it is on.
Mayor Bier stated that she couldn’t find it in the redline.
Councilmember Vaterlaus thought it may have gotten fixed.
Mayor Bier stated that it was under strategy to reduce school related peak hour auto congestion.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that she had a second ago.
Mayor Bier reiterated that she couldn’t find it in the redline.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated they can forget it.
Mayor Bier asked if they had anything else in Chapter 5 and seeing none, she moved on to Chapter 6, open space.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that the old Fairmont School was sold to St. Ignatius and she has gotten quite a few notifications about that. She asked if that was considered a park or private property. She thought it might be private property and was no longer a school district property. She asked how they determine that in the park section.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that it is private property and not a public park. He stated that they proposed to indicate that as a semi-public land use and would reflect that it has public use like characteristics but not a public land use.
Mayor Bier stated that she was looking at letters submitted, and she will not mention their names, but there are a bunch of changes in language such as adding wildlife friendly to policy OC-128, and talking about wildlife barriers. She stated that they talked a lot about the wildlife barriers in the Open Space Committee and they are very concerned especially at that intersection, and she would appreciate that. She stated that they brought up the word about special status wildlife a lot instead of endangered species. She asks if changing those words makes a big difference, referring to CO-G-7.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that it does have different meanings, as endangered species are a type of special status species but there are other classifications that are less threatened than endangered but also warrant special protections. He thought they would want to look at the particular context to make sure that the meaning that is intended is included in that policy. He asked if it is specifically OC-G-7 or CO-G-7.
Mayor Bier stated that it says CO-G-7.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that would be a conservation element.
Mayor Bier stated that they aren’t there yet.
Councilmember Beckmeyer asked for clarification on OC-G-4 and OC-I-3, as she wanted to City Council Special Meeting 32 June 25, 2022
make sure that those two are consistent with what they say in the narrative about school districts and not having an agreement in the narrative under school playfields, 6-4. She stated that she didn’t have the right packet page number.
Vice Chair Hauser thought it was packet page 479.
Councilmember Beckmeyer knows that, in the past, they had articulated agreements with the school district about the use of fields, and it seems like OC-I-3 is aspirational and forwardlooking to perhaps creating some kind of cooperative arrangement, but they are also stating that the presently they don’t have it. She wondered if they feel those are okay or do they need to say anything more to emphasize that. She thinks this because, in so many instances, they are serving the same public and she always wants to see where they can have those overlapping cooperative relationships. She knows there is a history to being clear about and articulating a maintenance of facilities. She realizes it is complicated, but she was asking if there was a way to make sure they are allowing for a possibility of working out those complexities in service of our community. She asked Vice Chair Hauser if that item came up in their deliberations.
Vice Chair Hauser thought they did discuss it, adding that Acting Planning Director Murdock could elaborate on it. She stated that they discussed and, on packet page 501, they added an implementing policy OC-I-A, year round park use, and it says study waste and create usability of city park facilities on a year round basis, Parks, Beaches & Recreation Commission input in the identification of preferred solutions. She thought the more specific conversation on this pertained to the fact that there really aren’t a lot of places that have lightening after hours and there was a lot of focus on how they create an implementing policy that is broad enough to allow them to have those conversations and allows them to have some of the other better conversations that she is speaking about.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated she now remembers that.
City Manager Woodhouse thought the language says explore joint use agreements is probably appropriate because Pacifica is unique in that a lot of the playing fields are school district run and, in the future, as a policy matter, if they want to enter into a joint agreement with the school district, that is applying some sort of operational capacity which, for financial reasons, is not done currently. He stated that exploring that in the future is a flexible language for this policy if those other policy drivers or financial conditions were to change, if that makes sense.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that it does, and she then had another question but was not sure if it was appropriate at this time. She referred to the issues of artificial turf, and she knows it is a General Plan, not a specific site plan, etc., but she asked, if there are any commentary around that or anything the city specifically could or should be saying or is it handled at a different level. She stated that it was raised to her and she didn’t have an answer for the person who brought it to her attention.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that his initial reaction is that it is at a very detailed, different level and a complicated issue both financially decision and whether it is the school district or city’s making that decision and he thought, as they are not talking about the types of repaving or street treatments they will be using, and maybe that would be an analogy to talk about the surfacing of play fields.
Acting Planning Director Murdock agreed, and he thought an appropriate level of consideration for the General Plan, depending on the nature of the interest, could be exploring use of artificial City Council Special Meeting 33 June 25, 2022
turf to reduce water usage and simplify maintenance, assuming that was a true statement.
There are maintenance tradeoffs in shifting to artificial turf. He thought the Public Works Department would know more about that than the Planning Department, but as the City Manager mentioned, there are trade-offs, but specifying turf at specific facilities is probably too narrow for the General Plan, supporting the use of artificial turf where appropriate broadly for some public policy reason, such as reduced water usage, etc., is an appropriate type of policy that the General Plan could include.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that it was interesting as he was reading Councilmember Beckmeyer’s comment the opposite way of where staff seemed to have taken it. He was thinking more in terms of his interest in plastics and why he would not want artificial turf used at city facilities and, given that an all-encompassing statement could be made in terms of all facilities all at once and perhaps this is the appropriate place to put a policy in about not using artificial turf. He thought that bears greater discussion with Council.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that was where the question originated and she thanked him for taking it there.
Acting Planning Director Murdock thought it would be helpful for staff to understand what the rational basis is for that and what public policy objective is he trying to achieve through discouraging the use of artificial turf for play fields and whether it should extend to private landscaping such as in front yards, back yards, etc., and where that policy direction should be focused.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that, for him, it was definitely environmental and health question and why he favors going away from that. He appreciated that there is an environmental concern of not wanting to water grass during a drought which is the counter point to it. He was not sure about long term health effects on people regularly using the turf and he doesn’t like the idea of bringing more plastic into the environment than otherwise inclined, and that is his version of environmental concern in this instance, respecting the drought question as well as not wanting to introduce more plastics and chemicals into our environment.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that Councilmember Vaterlaus has her hand up and he can wait to say something.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that she was going to say it was actually the opposite that someone was complaining about the artificial turf but there are definitely two sides because we are not going to have water and if they are recycling old plastic bottles to make turf, it might not be too bad. She stated that, in that same vein, with the lights issue, an increasing use of playing fields and schools, etc., with lighting, that may not be the right level here to discuss but at some point they can discuss that.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that he was going to add that the turf versus grass policy discussion is a significantly complex one that is more appropriately done at a project specific level as the Council hasn’t had the benefit of a robust analysis of all of the factors, some of which were mentioned, and in San Francisco, the debate was extending the time throughout the various seasons that fields can be utilized because there is an insufficient number of fields and that is another policy factor to support athletics. He thought it would be challenging to have an overarching policy statement on one side or the other on this issue, that is a pretty specific one.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that her question was do they have anything in the document City Council Special Meeting 34 June 25, 2022
and her feeling at this juncture, without the benefit of a robust study, and looking at this, it is probably not something they would consider. She can’t imagine language they could insert at this point in time that would offer anything more than a statement of evaluating it at the time that a project is brought forward which is what they do anyway. She asked if Acting Planning Director Murdock had anything to add.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that he wanted to respond to Councilmember Vaterlaus’ statement about park facility lighting. He stated that it is something that came up at the Planning Commission and one commissioner mentioned that, if unable to increase the number of fields available to assure that they are available for expanded use, including all times of the year and hours of darkness, and they had hoped not to venture into specifically prescribing lights for any specific facilities that hasn’t been analyzed in the environmental impact report and there are potential environmental consequences of that. They felt that the general policy that the Commission came up with to explore further options would allow that analysis and study to occur when specific options were being considered for specific facilities in the future.
Mayor Bier referred to packet page 486, OC-I-28, and she asked if they can add in wildlife friendly.
Acting Planning Director Murdock responded affirmatively.
Mayor Bier referred to OC-I-31, third bullet point, and asked if that already happened, replacement or rehabilitation of Highway 1 overcrossing between west and east Sharp Park.
Acting Planning Director Murdock responded affirmatively.
Mayor Bier stated that someone asked her about Figure 63, the coastal access and it was pointed out that 3, 6 and 7 are no longer available as coastal accesses. She asked if that is correct.
Acting Planning Director Murdock asked if she was saying 3 and 7.
Mayor Bier clarified that it was 3, 6 and 7.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that he has not been to those sites recently, and to his knowledge, site #3 may be Lands End. He thought they could confirm the current conditions.
He stated that it was important to note that whether they may be currently impacted by coastal erosion may not eliminate the obligation of the property owner to restore such access and, thinking about the 20-year planning term for this document, they will want to strike the right balance of accuracy and concurrency with the likelihood of long-term conditions of the site.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that there was talk at Open Space about an overcrossing at Mori Point to Shelldance, and she realized there is a trail through there, but she stated that there were so many places that they could use pedestrian overcrossings to take people to the beach and the trails there and the Crespi location where many people cross the street all the time instead of one at Mori Point where there is no parking for any access there to do a pedestrian overcrossing.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that a while ago, in a conversation she was participating in with the Mayor, the thinking was that potentially there was parking there because Caltrans owns City Council Special Meeting 35 June 25, 2022
that land below Shelldance and there is some kind of way to expand to and she knows there is conversation happening with the Moose Lodge that the intensity of use of Mori Point and the homes along that trail is very exploratory but the possibility of whether there could be an overcrossing or a different undercrossing but that piece of land on the east side of the highway is, to her understanding, a Caltrans right of way or owned by Caltrans and potentially it offers the opportunity for parking. She agreed with her point that the busy crossing at Crespi is over Highway 1.
Acting Planning Director Murdock wanted to ask if there was general support of the concept of pedestrian overcrossing that is a method of safely crossing the highway and reducing traffic congestion and if those types of crossings need to be signalized. He imagined, to the extreme, too many overcrossings would possibly have a negative aesthetic impact in the community and, with so many issues in the General Plan, trying to strike the right balance, it would help if there are areas where overcrossings are particularly favored or disfavored so they can try to get the policy language correctly adjusted to support those. He stated that those can be very costly improvements and have a lot of complexity in terms of land ownership and all those details. He thought the city would want to focus its effort where the Council would be likely to support those types of overcrossings and not in wrong locations.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck wondered how great the difference between and overcrossing at Vallemar versus an overcrossing at Shelldance and if essentially one or the other or both are in the middle rather than potentially both.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that, without the benefit of the full analysis,, the Reina Del Mar overcrossing has been contemplated for a while in the General Plan and may be seen to have multiple benefits, not only for recreation but for the daily school influenced traffic in that location. He didn’t know how Council wants to find the right priority but it has come up in the various General Plan conversations in that context as well.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that there is a pedestrian improvement along Highway 1 right of way, and maybe that would preclude the need for an overcrossing directly at Shelldance because it is close enough to an overcrossing that could be at the Vallemar and would solve that problem.
Mayor Bier thought it was mentioned in a different section because they are talking about wildlife corridors and that was the main reason they spoke about it at Open Space to create that corridor over to the point from the mountain.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that he misunderstood.
City Manager Woodhouse referred to the Mori Point area, and stated in conversations coordinating with Caltrans, they were focused on signage directing to the undercrossing which is not a wildlife solution per se but more of a pedestrian solution in that vicinity.
Mayor Bier stated that they obviously know that the Crespi crossing is super dangerous and uncomfortable. She thanked them for catching the data on the Pacifica School District enrollment, and she saw that the Planning Commission got that and they are updating that data.
Acting Planning Director Murdock thought, to split the difference with respect to the overcrossing discussion now, they could do a better job on the diagrams, indicating the purpose of the existing or potential future overcrossings to place the emphasis on pedestrians versus City Council Special Meeting 36 June 25, 2022
wildlife or both, depending on the nature and location. He thought they could take a look at that and see if they can be more precise.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that she didn’t have any other items in this Chapter and she wondered if Vice Chair Hauser had anything she wanted to make sure Council is aware of. She remembers a conversation about hikers hut and she feels that the language got changed to clarify the purpose.
Vice Chair Hauser referred to the water usage, and pointed out that there was policy CO-G-5, in Chapter 7, that was generally about water conservation. The Commission felt that was the general place that guided the drought tolerant landscaping idea and she knows they talked about that more specifically on Monday and Thursday in regard to the Specific Plan. She stated that, in regard to hikers hut, that language was clarified the way they had asked for it, as they wanted to make clear that there were certain facilities available for people utilizing the trails and adding info and graphics to show where bathroom facilities were and adding additional information on what the hiker to wear to make sure this wasn’t something that was utilized as a sleeping quarters but something that was a facility when you’re hiking and a place to have a rest. Those changes were captured accurately and she appreciated what was said because there was a lot of conversation about this and to encapsulate it so clearly was helpful.
Mayor Bier asked if Councilmember Beckmeyer could take at the library section as it looks like they list the hours, i.e., 60 hours of service per week, on packet page 497. She wanted to know if that was accurate now.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that they are currently under an expanded library hours pilot with the Library JPA.
Mayor Bier stated that you could just say that.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that the statement is not accurate under our current pilot, and the hours could change in the future as well.
Councilmember Vaterlaus suggested prescribed amount.
Councilmember Beckmeyer thought the philosophy is to provide as much access as possible and in some instances, that isn’t necessarily daytime opening hours and could be through various means of automated services, it can be book vending machines, and there are lots of strategies that libraries use for getting people access to their collections. She stated, if the goal is to have a general policy statement about supporting maximum access to library resources, she thinks they should say that and not necessarily pin it down to specific hours because it is a moving target and they have seen it change so many times when they had different hours with the JPA, shrink, contract, grow, and it changes frequently in terms of opening hours. She asked if Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck had anything to add as she knows he has been attending the JPA meetings with or in place of Councilmember O’Neill.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that he has been in the audience while Councilmember O’Neill has been there and in general things do seem relatively in flux regularly during Covid time and it is hard unless they want to put something in there as he didn’t think it will service well in perpetuity to put that things are changing as that is what amendments are for. He stated that, if there is something to nail down now, that‘s great but otherwise he was comfortable with it City Council Special Meeting 37 June 25, 2022
because we aren’t where we land yet.
Acting Planning Director Murdock referred to packet page 501 and stated that there are two policies related to libraries, OC-I-60 and OC-I-61. He stated that what the narrative in the General Plan is trying to do is describe the current condition and sort of a baseline for the analysis and policies to include where necessary. He thinks they can reflect that the city is currently under the expanded pilot program but, historically, hours have fluctuated as resources have committed through the JPA, and to explain it is not fixed and it goes up and down. He stated that the Council can consider whether they feel like a policy to support some type of library services is appropriate, either in place of or as a complement to the two policies he mentioned.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that she can’t open that document now, and she is looking at the regular plan. She asked if OC-I-60 says a single library / learning center.
Acting Planning Director Murdock responded affirmatively.
Mayor Bier said it does.
Councilmember Beckmeyer didn’t think they should be saying that as it is not the policy that they are pursuing presently based on community feedback. She thinks they need to make sure they look at it and look for a way to expand the oomph of this particular implementation policy because they are hoping to have a new library in Pacifica and she is going to go out on a limb and say before they redo this General Plan next time. She thinks that to Mayor Bier’s point, she asked if they need to say more about libraries in it. She stated that they have a long piece in the narrative.
Mayor Bier stated that she is glad she caught the single. She was just curious on what she thought.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that, in the narrative, there is a paragraph that talks to a branch library system that Council directed in 2017, on packet page 498, the first full paragraph, stating, In January 2018, Council selected two-branch library system strategy, one large fullservice branch at Sharp Park and one smaller self-service open access model branch at Sanchez.
Mayor Bier stated that they would want the guiding policies to match that. She stated that, on page 499, there is a paragraph about the Boys and Girls Club. She stated that they have changes with the club and she didn’t know how they can reflect that because they had a standalone club and should there be different language to show that.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that they are still North San Mateo County Boys and Girls Club is still called that and is the legal entity that operates those facilities in Pacifica and having the opening sentence about a national organization is accurate at least at this point and she didn’t think it was changing anytime soon. She concluded that it was a different operating model that they are doing than what it was before. She stated that we still have two schools.
She thought everything in the paragraph was still accurate, but she asked if they are looking for a more supportive statement.
Mayor Bier thought they are going to need more local support moving forward and she didn’t know if they just want to change something.
City Council Special Meeting 38 June 25, 2022
Councilmember Beckmeyer referred to the last sentence, stating there was an opportunity to add another phrase, i.e., “the cost to join is nominal and program fees are low. However, about “community support to ensure longevity of the resource and necessity of the resource for Pacifica’s youth” or words to that effect. She thought it could introduce the notion of the community support piece. She stated that you often see them conclude that they pay the fee and they get the services, and she didn’t think they will be having that level of support going forward as she understands it because of the merging and there is going to be a need for more community involvement. She thought that was what Mayor Bier is trying to get to.
Mayor Bier stated that folks don’t think it is necessary but she wanted to make that note.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated he is reading it in relation to how the Pacifica Resource Center blurb talks about where their money comes from and he is comparing the two and say language.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated it was awkward because it is literally emerging now, and they know the stand-alone aspect is in place.
Mayor Bier didn’t think that will change.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that it feels accurate as it, but if they want to add something about community support, there was no reason not to.
Councilmember Vaterlaus thinks they can leave it alone as, if they are going to change it and the fees are not going to be nominal anymore, and people are going to have to do fundraising so it can stay in business, the fee will still be nominal and what they said is accurate.
Councilmember Beckmeyer hoped she didn’t miss something Mayor Bier said, mentioning that at the outset, in Chapter 1, she was talking about services or leadership opportunities for youth and she wondered if she addressed that point and she missed it or if she thinks there is an opportunity in the section that starts with service for seniors, youth and families. She asked if there is an opportunity there or does it go somewhere else.
Mayor Bier thought there was an opportunity there. She mentioned youth programs, and asked if that was what Councilmember Beckmeyer was talking about, OCI62.
Councilmember Beckmeyer responded affirmatively, and stated that the mayor specifically mentioned.
Mayor Bier stated leader opportunities. She stated that the city needs to support the city’s youth and team programs and leadership opportunities and seek funding. She thought it would be great to add that in.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that, in his notes from Chapter 1, Mayor Bier had specifically mentioned in the city’s organization and he asked if she wants to be that specific in policy OCI62 or allow generally to support leadership opportunities for youth.
Mayor Bier stated that just putting generally was fine. She then stated that they are done with Chapter 6 and are now on to Chapter 7.
City Council Special Meeting 39 June 25, 2022
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that she doesn’t have attachment C as it keeps crashing.
She asked Mayor Bier what OC-I-58 says in her version.
Mayor Bier asked if it was the Civic Center.
Councilmember Beckmeyer responded affirmatively.
Mayor Bier read periodically assess the functionality of the renovated City Hall and Civic Center to determine if they meet the city’s long-term needs. She then said they can move on to conservation.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated, before moving on to conservation, he had a question for Acting Planning Director Murdock. He stated that, at the beginning of the meeting, he was talking about a series of Planning Commission items that didn’t quite make it and he was letting them know they should have made it. He asked if he wanted to go over those as they go through these or just saying them so Council could give him a blanket yes to include them all. He wasn’t sure if he needed to do that as they go along or just assume they are going along with that.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that what he had suggested in his recommendation is that Council go through its own questions and deliberations on the document and they could then revisit those additional suggested revisions and those indicated in the staff report for final confirmation. He was happy to take them in whatever order, but it may be hard to plug them in as they go. He thought, after going through and having familiarity of the chapters, it may be easier to go down the list. He stated that fits with what they talked about.
City Manager Woodhouse asked if they were on Chapter 7.
Mayor Bier stated that they were and she was searching her notes.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck thought this was the appropriate place to stick in that edit that Mr.
Harris recommends on page 544. He thought it was a matter of inserting “and” to say golf course and clubhouse as historic.
Mayor Bier referred to packet page 514, CO-I-11, and asked if they could add a bullet point to talk about runoff capacity and management. She stated that it makes a lot of sense to her as they are looking at the springs in Rockaway Beach and having a paragraph about it is going to be important when they are trying to address things like that to ensure that new developments do not cause flooding for communities downstream. She didn’t say it has to be that language but something around runoff capacity management would be a good idea.
City Manager Woodhouse asked if she was saying CO-I-11. He asked if anyone else heard that it was CO-I-11.
Acting Planning Director Murdock responded affirmatively.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that, in terms of runoff management capacity, there was a lot of different references in the document to regional board BMPs and our MPDS permit and he thought those capture in a more technical sense what the Mayor was referencing. She can’t comment on that and will have to sign back in. He thought PW Director Petersen may be able to offer some insight on that.
City Council Special Meeting 40 June 25, 2022
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that he is happy to speak briefly to that point. He thought it was fine to have that additional clarification and he didn’t know that it would be inconsistent with any of the other policies. He stated that there are already requirements through the countywide storm water discharge permit, i.e., the Municipal Regional Permit for MRP for certain project types to comply with storm water treatment and drainage design. He stated that there are projects that are common in Pacifica that are below that threshold and it may be relevant to have the General Plan support those types of projects, also appropriately managing their runoff and designing to an appropriate storm type to ensure that they are not missing any projects below the threshold such as single family residential projects which are formally exempt from the more intensive storm water treatment requirements but are the most common project type in Pacifica.
City Manager Woodhouse clarified that the mayor’s computer crashed so she is getting another one and will be back with them in a minute. He thought it sounded like they can work that general language into this policy. He asked Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck if he would like to take over while the mayor signs back on or does Council want to take a break.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck thought a break was probably a good idea as they are probably going to have to restate that for her when she comes back and, as much as he would love going forward, he thought it was better to wait while she reconvenes with them. He called for a threeminute break and hope the mayor has rejoined them then.
Mayor Bier stated her computer crashed.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that before her technical difficulty, she was suggesting an addition to policy CO-I-11, related to runoff capacity management. He stated that, during that break, looking at the policies they have, there are a number that address similar aspects of this, but he didn’t know if any of them quite get to that, and he wasn’t sure that the policy is the best place to put it in, and he suggested that it may be a new policy and the reason is that the city has had a practice for some time requiring new development of all project types, single family and above, to address their storm drainage design to mirror the pre-development condition and is not contributing, which he thought was the spirit of what she is trying to accomplish. He stated that, as of now, they don’t have a clear policy in the General Plan or improvements to require that. He thought this would help formalize that and achieve her desired outcome as well more precisely that doesn’t quite fit with some of the other storm drainage related policies that are currently in the draft.
Councilmember Beckmeyer had a question on guiding policy, CO-G-5, asking if that language still has the italicized portion that says at the very end “development of a system to use recycled wastewater”. She thought they have already developed that system. She asked if PW Director Petersen could comment on that, adding that she would like expanding it. She stated that, in looking for additional partnerships such as with North Coast County Water or somebody, but it feels like the way the paragraph reads it hasn’t happened yet.
PW Director Petersen stated that she was having some issues finding where they are currently in the document, then stated she just found it.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that it was on the first page of policy.
PW Director Petersen found it, referring to the water conservation.
City Council Special Meeting 41 June 25, 2022
Councilmember Beckmeyer responded affirmatively.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated, to be sure she is in the correct version, it is on packet page 512, and that would put her in the redline version that they are working through.
PE Director Petersen was having issues with that huge document that keeps crashing. She stated that they are working with North Coast County Water District with their recycled water, and that is something that they have the purple type in certain locations and currently it is being provided at a number of locations where they are irrigating and are continuing to move forward with that program.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated, where it says development of assistance to use recycled wastewater, that they say something like “maintenance and expansion” or something else, but it is her aspiration to have recycled water going other places for irrigation.
Acting Planning Director Murdock agreed with her that COG5 needs to be updated. He referred to packet page 516, there is an implementation policy on that point and it talks about implementation and expansion of the water recycling projects and it recognizes that it is currently in operation but that the expansion would be desirable, and he thinks using expansion in the guiding policy would also work.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that they replace development with expansion in the guiding policy and that brings it in alignment, and she found it and agreed.
Mayor Bier referred to packet page 527, CO-G-10, tree, and she knows they are currently working on their tree plan. They had a heritage tree policy and now they are looking at our urban forest but she thought they could beef it up a little bit to reflect the work they are doing on the trees.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that he would need to understand more about the way they would improve that policy. He also wanted to point out packet page 531 where there is a specific policy about heritage trees and she might want to consider both of them in making her recommendation. He stated that the Planning Commission specifically added that redline to consider a canopy goal for heritage and non-heritage trees as part of the heritage tree ordinance. He stated that might be the beefing up she is imagining.
Mayor Bier stated that she needed reference to the work going on because they are going to have much more guidance around the trees. She thanked Planning Commission again.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that is why they hear so few questions coming out of him as they go along as he followed along with the Planning Commission hearings and, after going through a dozen hours of that, he can’t imagine more questions to come to his mind. He thanked Vice Chair Hauser and the Planning Commission as they did a remarkable job.
Mayor Bier agreed that it was amazing to watch.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that he has notes where a councilmember had started talking about CO-G-7 on packet page 527, and he wanted to see if anyone had that in their notes to address any concerns.
Mayor Bier stated she needs time to find it.
City Council Special Meeting 42 June 25, 2022
Acting Planning Director Murdock referred to her earlier comment about endangered versus special status, and stated that this is an example where multiples of those terms are used, threatened, endangered and other special status species and it shows how there are different classifications and the status for each of them.
Mayor Bier found it and agreed that it is perfect. She asked Councilmember Beckmeyer if she had anything else for Chapter 7.
Councilmember Beckmeyer responded that she did not.
Mayor Bier referred to the Stanford young people coming and talking to them about EV stations and they might have added something in about that. She stated that, on the old version, it is CO-I-54 and she stated that they can add it in to the final action plan for greenhouse gas emissions.
Acting Planning Director Murdock needed a minute to find it.
Mayor Bier asked if the Planning Commission talked about that.
Vice Chair Hauser stated that they did. It really came to fruition on the Park and Ride discussion where they added a requirement that EV charging is put on that site specifically that exceeds the state and local low code requirements and they talked about it as a whole and how important it was.
Acting Planning Director Murdock was confirming that they have a mitigation measure in the EIR as well related to electric vehicles installation.
Ms. Moore responded affirmatively.
Mayor Bier referred to packet page 540, CO-I-54, and was including it in the Climate Action Plan.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that she was looking over the section about wildlife movement corridors because they were talking about that earlier and it seems like it came up in open space area they discussed formerly and they got feedback on this from Fish and Wildlife and she wanted to be sure that all of those points were captured and if there was anything else they needed to check in about.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that, on packet page 549, there is a new policy that the Planning Commission recommended to include in the General Plan about wildlife movement corridor study and Ms. Moore made reference to that in her initial presentation. He stated that the city received a comment from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, suggesting a 12-month wildlife movement corridor study prior to adoption of the General Plan. Given the impact that would have to the city’s timeline, as well as the city’s limitations individually being able to undertake what is really a regional type of study, they felt this was the best balance in a policy approach and the Planning Commission supported that to participate in a regional or subregional study when funding is available and when the appropriate expert agency can guide that process.
Mayor Bier didn’t see anything else in Chapter 7 so they will move on to Chapter 8, the safety element.
City Council Special Meeting 43 June 25, 2022
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that, there is more than one place in the General Plan that is topically appropriate, but the thing that jumps out at her that they have been hearing about a lot, and she wants to have a discussion one more time is the fire hazard maps, the appropriateness of the maps and what should be included in the General Plan update and also an update and reminder about the specific use of data for the landslide and debris flow maps.
Acting Planning Director Murdock referred to the fire hazard maps, stating that the map is on packet page 615 and it reflects the adopted state maps of fire hazard zones in high and very high fire hazard zones and it indicates that there are only very high fire hazard severity zone upon the final adopted map just outside of the city limits in the sphere of influence. He stated that they have checked multiple times with CalFire and spoke directly to their staff to validate that the General Plan does include the appropriate final adopted maps of very high fire hazard severity zone and they feel confident that the information is accurate and appropriate to be included in the General Plan. He thought it was important not to confuse where those zones are mapped on the official map, given that those zones have specific regulatory impact, not to confuse that with wildfire risk which is a different issue. They have acknowledged that wildfire risk does exist in Pacifica and is not eliminated at the city limits simply because the adopted maps do not show it. They have explained that there is an existing framework of regulations that sufficiently address wildfire risk in Pacifica and they can revisit the adopted maps when the State releases an update to those very high fire hazard severity zone maps which they expect within the next year and, hopefully by the end of this year. He stated that should be an opportune time for the city to revisit the fire hazard information and, if appropriate, depending on what the naps show, amending the safety element at that point in time, relying on the expert maps prepared by the relevant and responsible state agency. He stated that those existing legal provisions that would ensure that the city adequately addresses wildfire hazard, include the California building code and the wildland urban interface standards that the building official can require to be met with a site-specific assessment of potential fire risks. He stated that the fine grain of analysis could easily be missed even in updated fire maps. He stated that is a tool the city has to ensure that construction of projects is undertaken safely. He added that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for projects that undergo environmental review includes as a component of the analysis potential wildfire risk. He stated that those are two important components that are in practice regardless of whatever is in the General Plan. He stated that, in relation to landslide maps, as mentioned in his initial presentation, they have taken the public feedback very seriously and tried to make diligent efforts to engage with the Department of Conservation and specifically the California Geologic Survey. The staff at that agency, including Dr. Frost, has provided comments on the EIR related to the maps and analysis. He stated that there was a critique of the landslide inventory map that was included in the May 2022 package taken to the Planning Commission and was prepared with data provided by the California Geologic Survey. Subsequent to staff using that to create the map indicated that they thought there was an error in that data and they provided them with revised data which informed the revised map in the Council’s packet and they have had an iterative process with the state to use all available data that they have as the expert state agency to prepare a map of historic landslides in Pacifica. He stated that they also took feedback from the public and the California Geologic Survey to revise the debris flow maps, adding that the debris flow being a different kind of geological or geotechnical hazard, distinguished from the more deep-seated landslide maps movement issue, and they prepared a map that is also in the packet for Council that shows the debris flows that were mapped historically in Pacifica. He stated that both of them provided a different perspective and dimension of the geologic risks that exist in Pacifica.
He stated that, while the hillsides are beautiful and scenic, they are also potentially hazardous.
Those maps reflect past incidents that reflect the hazard. He stated that he needs to draw City Council Special Meeting 44 June 25, 2022
Council’s attention and the public’s attention to packet page 583. While the other maps of the landslide inventory and the debris flow show historic incidents, the past is not always a predictor of the future and it showed that geologic incidents are prevalent in Pacifica and what figure 8-1 on packet page 583 shows is just how much of the city, almost all of it, that is mapped in area of seismic hazard and what those mean between the landslide zone and the liquefaction zone is that those are hazardous areas that the General Plan would require to undergo site specific geotechnical investigation to demonstrate that development could safely occur in accordance with accepted geotechnical engineering principles, such as development could be safe and not present a hazard. He stated that, whatever formulation of map that one might be able to create to show past geotechnical hazards, landslide, debris flows, etc., maybe it includes all of the landslides or maybe some are missing, but they all point to the same place which is what Figure 8-1 already accomplishes which is that, to develop in those zones, site specific geotechnical investigations will be required to demonstrate that those hazards are mitigated satisfactorily and the development can occur safely. They think that, in combination, they have the safeguard of Figure 8-1 triggering those site-specific investigations while also informing other decision making potentially of land use, circulation or other public policy decisions based on additional information about historic occurrences and landslides and debris flows.
Mayor Bier stated that there was a suggestion to have something refer back to the 1982 document. She asked him about that in their meeting and she asked if he can talk about that.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that, as many know, the city experienced a series of severe storms in the early 1980s, such as 1982 and 1983, and regrettably those caused significant landslides with property damage and loss of life. The city undertook a focused process as a consequence of those storms to study landslide risk in Pacifica. He stated that, in his opinion, those risk factors were driven in part by the massive subdivision of the hillside areas in Pacifica, much of it prior to the California Environmental Quality Act and more modern subdivision and land use planning principles that would require assessment of those hazards and the appropriate mitigation measures and the consequence of that was those hazards manifested in a very concerning way. He stated that the city undertook a comprehensive geotechnical assessment through Howard Donnelly & Associates and they prepared a report that consequently triggered a 1983 Safety Element Amendment. He stated that much time has passed since then and the signs of geotechnical engineering and environmental review has advanced and, while that is helpful information, it is not necessarily the information that should guide the city for the next 20 years, but he thought it was relevant to put it in context that the city has taken geotechnical and geologic hazards seriously over time and to put reference and, if possible, a link to that prior work so it can continue to be a resource to the extent that it is relevant to the science and the policy making decisions of the future.
Mayor Bier thought that would be great.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck thanked Acting Planning Director Murdock for that extensive analysis of their maps. He stated that, looking at that map on Figure 81 on packet page 583, it was humbling to see that basically all Pacifica is in a landslide zone and with that sobering note leading into the necessity of site-specific analysis pretty much anytime someone builds near a hillside, of which Pacifica is predominant. He stated that it is a sobering note. He thanked him for all the detail and work they put in to make sure the maps are accounted for as much as possible. He stated that he might need to have him go over the fire stuff with him briefly because he was digging through his notes when he attended the wildfire conference in April as he remembers specifically that one of the presenters saying that it was important to go over fire hazard maps with the community because it is often something that gets lost in translation City Council Special Meeting 45 June 25, 2022
between those who are reviewing them professionally and the community trying to make heads or tails of it. He stated that they were specifically talking about the difference between hazards versus risks and how, on a technical level, that is a big differentiation between how the professionals are reading the hazard maps versus the risk maps. He knows that he spoke to that a little bit, and because he was rummaging through his notes and split his attention, and he also sees that Deputy Fire Chief Sean Kavanaugh is present and it might be useful if he would like to go over hazard versus risk maps and why, at the end of the day, this CalFire map is the one that is the appropriate map for us to have in our General Plan.
Dep. Fire Chief Kavanaugh stated that, if there was anything he wants him to start with, he can go into it. He stated that a couple of things that take place with the severity zone hazard maps, i.e., flame links, topography, weather, burning conditions that are used, ember cast, and it is used to predict some of the risks and values as they look at the maps and move forward. He stated that some of the things used through the state to look at areas and develop what is a very harsh severity zone or high severity zone when it comes to SRA, and the LRA areas and local responsibility areas which we have. He stated San Mateo County and Pacifica is surrounded by SRA lands as the majority of SRA lands will always be in that high to very high severity zone throughout the entire state. He stated that, if they go to the Office of State Fire Marshal under CalFire, there is a sight called the frap maps and that is where you can pull up for all the counties, very high and high severity zones and how they get done. He thought Acting Planning Director Murdock brought up that the state is presently doing a review of all the maps, and they are doing the SRA portions of all the maps now in those reviews and the next will be the LRA, which will affect the local area, such as Pacifica. He stated that, once the State comes out with those recommendations, they get the opportunity to review those maps and have input as a community and as agencies to what they feel is right based on some of those criteria. He stated that another big thing that is used is they also look at fire history and, if you pull up those frap maps, they can go on to the website and look and if you pull up the entire state, what is in red under LRA, there is a box you can click for LRA, which is Local Response Area, you can see throughout the entire stated that there is not a lot of high severity zones surrounded if you take the entire state of California and their local areas. He stated that the eastern foothills of the bay such as in Southern California as you are talking about the fuels, history, type of weather that attributes to some of the fire growth. He stated that it is important for the public to know is these maps don’t say that there is not a potential for fire history, as that is not what it is about. There is always a potential for fires to occur, especially anywhere in the Mediterranean climate in California where they have the potential and we also have the potential in Pacifica and given the right weather with onshore breezes, some slopes, dry fuels and the potential is there. The maps are not saying that is not what can occur, but there is always a fire potential there and they address them.
Mayor Bier stated that she lives in Vallemar and they are surrounded by trees, open space, brush and many of her neighbors are very concerned about that and when they see the maps, they don’t understand and the simpler she can get that information to them, the better she can make them feel as they want to be sure that our General Plan is going to help keep them safe in fires.
Dep. Fire Chief Kavanaugh stated that they just held their wildfire permit preparedness event a couple of weekends ago and that was one of the things that they were talking about and when the maps were brought, it was not saying there is not a potential and that is not what this is. He stated that it was important for that education and have that out there into the public. He stated that he won’t say, on a benefit as one benefit we have about being on the coast is that we have fog, high humidity in the summertime and that all helps prevent rapid growth but at any time, if City Council Special Meeting 46 June 25, 2022
you get the right weather, there is that potential. He stated that, if you look back over the history, we are very lucky with some of that because of the weather we have, but it can change.
Acting Planning Director Murdock wanted to draw Council’s attention to packet page 618. He stated that there are a few policies there that speak directly to this issue, such as SA-I-94, development review, and ensuring that the development proposals incorporate appropriate fire mitigation measures, including adequate provisions for evacuation and access by emergency responders and vegetation clearances that do not impact ESHAs or wetlands. The next policy 95 reflects coordination with North County Fire Authority and the permit plan review of new buildings in potentially fire prone areas, not limited to very high fire hazard severity zones but requiring that the assessment and judgment based on the site-specific condition. He stated that policy 98 on that same page promoted vegetation management to reduce the urban wild and interface fire hazards through public education and field reduction projects. He stated that the General Plan does include information about policies to support mitigating those risks.
Mayor Bier asked Acting Planning Director Murdock, because of concerns or questions about the 2014 maps, if he mentioned that.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that he didn’t and was happy to touch on that. He stated that, during the public comment process on the General Plan and EIR, there were statements made by the commenters that the city has ignored maps related to fire risk when, in fact, the 2014 draft General Plan had maps that showed fire risks and this General Plan was inappropriate. They looked into those comments and confirmed that the information in the maps that the commenters were referring to actually reflected draft maps that the state had released I 2007 and those maps were not ultimately adopted and do not reflect the actual adopted very high fire hazard severity zones. Staff confirmed in multiple different ways that the General Plan includes the correct final adopted fire hazard severity zone maps that Dep. Fire Chief Kavanaugh and that he mentioned in his earlier presentation.
Mayor Bier asked Vice Chair Hauser if she would like to add something as she was sure they had extensive discussion about this at the Planning Commission and that would be helpful for the community.
Vice Chair Hauser thought the Council has done a really good job asking the questions they asked as they asked a lot of similar questions that they didn’t get quite the same level of detail on the fire master in 2014 that was just given but they talked a lot about it. She stated that the one item that was on Acting Planning Director Murdock’s slide that did not make it into the redline draft but per his recommendation the Planning Commission recommended and hope Council will also recommend is the note being added to the fire map figure that essentially says that as new information is published where it is anticipated as early as this year, and as it becomes available, it gets integrated into this document or whoever is reviewing this document should go to that new data. She thought once it is in, that will encapsulate where the Planning Commission came down on this issue.
Mayor Bier then mentioned Chapter 9.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that they may want to jump to packet page 292.
Mayor Bier stated she didn’t have any notes or questions for Chapter 9.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck stated that he just wanted to say this is where he wished City Council Special Meeting 47 June 25, 2022
Councilmember O’Neill was present to give them his perspective on what it has to say about airport noise.
Mayor Bier stated that she will give them a bit more time, and then with no comments, she moved on to Chapter 10, implementation. She stated that this is a beautiful document and the amount of feedback they have gotten from the community has been amazing. She looked forward to what will come of it and the amendment they can make moving forward as they will be able to do that. They aren’t making any decisions today and there will be another opportunity to provide comment and let them talk about things.
Councilmember Beckmeyer wasn’t sure if this was the right time to bring it up but she wanted to hear more and understand better the discussions that Planning Commission had around annual program review and what Acting Planning Director Murdock referred to earlier at the outset about moving that time frame to February. She asked if he could go over that one more time.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that, at the outset, they need to recognize and admit that having a General Plan that has not been comprehensively updated in over 40 years is not where the city wants to be and it is not a best practice. They need to prevent that from happening again. He stated that one way is to take a measurable step to doing that by ensuring that there is a periodic process for evaluating and revisiting the General Plan to make sure it is continuing to suit the community’s needs and undertake update sections as much and as often as necessary to ensure that it is continuing to meet the community’s needs. He stated that the way staff suggested and Planning Commission supported is to utilize the existing process that the city has to present to the Council each year a progress report on implementation of the General Plan, and all of the elements, including the housing element, comes to the Council early each year and a public comment opportunity required under state law and it allows staff, as well as the public, to comment on what is working well and what is not working well with the General Plan, and for Council to hear that feedback and determine together collectively whether it warrants further study and potential amendment of the General Plan. What was discussed by the Planning Commission was ensuring that the timing was such that it would support City Council’s goal setting process so that those priorities could be identified and properly resourced and planned for in the budget process. He then turned it over to Vice Chair Hauser to add more about the thought process and the importance of that to the Planning Commission.
Vice Chair Hauser appreciated his description and all the kudos that Council has given the Planning Commission. She wanted to recognize what really led to the discussion was how much help Commission got from staff and their level of detail and preparedness and from the community. She stated that the amount of thoughtful letters, emails, speaker who did their own research and helped them out with questions that helped staff research additional items, and that so affected their ability to in depth on this version of the document and that got into the bigger discussion of how they continue to do that and how do they continue to have that level of engagement and the spirit of providing a platform. She stated that Acting Planning Director Murdock went through how early they could do this as there was an original conversation about doing it in Q4 of the prior year and that didn’t give staff adequate time to prepare and come together and February was the earliest time they could do it and that is what Planning Commission recommended so they could have that additional time to think through and research the community input that they hope to continue to receive.
Mayor Bier stated that now is when they will review what they talked about or how did Acting Planning Director Murdock want the Council to proceed.
City Council Special Meeting 48 June 25, 2022
Acting Planning Director Murdock suggested that they go back to the slide he presented earlier with the additional amendments suggested to fully incorporate the Planning Commission’s recommendation and the one additional staff recommendation from the Fire Authority. He was happy to share his screen and bring them up. He stated that there are packet page references.
He will be able to readily go back and forth in the packet showing that on the screen but it was most important for Council to be able to have that discussion and deliberation and provide whatever feedback or confirmation they can on that. He needed time to prepare the screen.
Mayor Bier asked Council to do a time check and poll them to see what time they are looking at to close.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck didn’t have a particular time in mind as he thought they got through the majority of what he had envisioned they would get though, and he wasn’t sure that they would get this far before the end of the day. He thought, since they will have another opportunity to deliberate as they like and during that opportunity, they will be rejoined by their fellow Councilmember who by then will have reviewed the recording of today’s meeting, and that might be a better time to go through whatever final deliberations they might deem appropriate. He wants to go back to what was left out from Planning Commission and do they incorporate that as appropriate and go over what they discussed today as appropriate and deliberate to whatever extent. He felt that they were closer to the end of where they would want to stop, and he didn’t think they need to have a stopping period as they are automatically going to the appropriate place.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that what he read into her question was in terms of the entire day and when to cut off as, if the Council wants to get to it, the second agenda item is the Sharp Park Specific Plan study session to hear an update from staff on the progress on that and hear public input as appropriate. He thought City Attorney Kenyon can help with the specific motions about ending deliberation on Item #1 and opening up Item #2, but he didn’t know if she heard from Councilmembers about interest level after they review the input on the General Plan and then moving on to Item 2.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck forgot about item #2.
Mayor Bier didn’t think it was fair to Item #2 to continue with that today because of all they have done and how hard they have already worked. She asked for Council opinion.
Councilmember Beckmeyer agreed and would like to have a fresh mind to approach the Sharp Park Specific Plan and have Councilmember O’Neill with them and would like to hear from staff about the possible scheduling of that presentation and what that timeline would look like.
Councilmember Vaterlaus stated that they can’t do it all today, as after this long, they don’t have it there to deal with it.
Mayor Bier stated that they will go over their review and the City Attorney can help them out.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that he will put up the additional amendments from the Planning Commission and reminded them that there are packet page references so the Council can jump directly to the policies in question. He started with the general principle of updating all the labels on all figures in reference to the Sharp Park Golf Course as the historic Sharp Park Golf Course and Clubhouse to emphasize the historic nature of that. He hoped they can hear from Council to provide feedback and give head nods if no concerns and he will take that as a consensus and move on and he will make note of any exceptions that warrant further discussion City Council Special Meeting 49 June 25, 2022
at some point if that works for the mayor.
Mayor Bier stated that it sounds good.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated he hears no comments and questions concerning the Sharp Park item. Next is packet page 388, community design policy I-20 underground utilities.
Due to some document structuring, that is under a section headed with coastal zone and the Commission wanted to clarify that it should be applicable citywide with respect to the undergrounding policies and that amendment would be made with some minor new language and potentially relocating that policy to a different part of the Chapter.
Mayor Bier concluded no questions or comments.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated with the screen share, he can’t see all the Councilmembers heads so he asked that they chime in so he knows from an audio standpoint.
Mayor Bier has head nods from everyone.
Acting Planning Director Murdock referred to packet page 451, level of service standards at key intersections and he mentioned earlier that the Commission wanted to rephrase that so it is more encouraging to the improvements rather than concessionary that they can’t make any improvements and just wait and accept but rather to inspire the actual improvement and acknowledge that it will occur when design is funded at some point.
Mayor Bier stated acknowledgment from everyone.
Acting Planning Director Murdock referred to 5-4 on packet page 455, and it would distinguish more clearly between trails as being unpaved facilities and Class 1 facility being paved, and there is some distinction as far as the type of use and type of enjoyment of those facilities and the Commission wanted to distinguish that point and also clarify the Sharp Park berm is a trail meaning unpaved rather than a paved Class 1 facility adding the restrooms and changing room designation to the Mori Point trailhead where there is a restroom and it would adjust Figure 5-4.
Mayor Bier stated that they are good all the way.
Acting Planning Director Murdock referred to packet page 615, figure 8-7 and adding the note Vice Chair Hauser mentioned about update the figure as new adopted fire hazard severity zone maps become available to formalize the periodic revision and update as new information becomes available.
Mayor Bier stated head nods all the way.
Acting Planning Director Murdock referred to Chapter 10, implementation of packet page 310, deleting the work elementary so that it is clear that the subdivision regulations also can require dedication of land for schools and it may not be simply elementary schools but wherever schools may be using it as part of the subdivision.
Mayor Bier stated head nods all the way.
Acting Planning Director Murdock referred to page 311, Table 10-1, clarifying some of the acronyms used, RVLD is not a term used elsewhere in the General Plan and is actually very low City Council Special Meeting 50 June 25, 2022
density residential, VLDR and similar examples of just changing the letters to match for consistency.
Mayor Bier stated that they were okay.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that the last two are glossary definition change on packet page 628, clarifying that environmentally sensitive habitat areas may also be present outside the coastal zone.
Mayor Bier stated they were okay.
Acting Planning Director Murdock referred to the glossary definition of infill, on packet page 630, delete the limitation of residential so that it is all development, new buildings on scattered vacant lots and predominantly developed area or a new building process created by permitted lot splits.
Mayor Bier stated acknowledged all the way.
Acting Planning Director Murdock referred to the staff recommended change is correcting a factual misstatement that there are nine stations in the North County Fire Authority service area, not ten stations as mentioned in the document.
Mayor Bier stated they were okay.
Dep. Fire Chief Kavanaugh stated that they need to make it say nine fire companies.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated with the suggested modification by Dep. Fire Chief Kavanaugh of fire companies.
Mayor Bier stated no objection.
Vice Chair Hauser wanted to make sure they didn’t forget to discuss the map that Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck referred to regarding the MUN change of definition.
Acting Planning Director Murdock agreed. He stated that next was a couple of items in the staff report for City Council confirmation. He will next share his screen with the staff report. He stated that the first land use map was the three privately owned parcels at the corner of the Linda Mar school site and they have been changed in the redline version before Council to make them yellow to be low density residential consistent with the surrounding land uses. The next for City Council confirmation with respect to the property owner request at 44 Carmel Avenue in the West Sharp Park neighborhood and the owner has requested for a redesignation to high density residential. For reasons in the staff report including the desire to not make changes to the East West residential streets and keep the relatively low intensity character of that area, keeping the designation to low density residential and Planning Commission’s recommendation was to deny the property owner’s request. He then took the feedback to concur with Planning Commission’s recommendation. Next is between 4320 and 4400 Coast Highway site, and the site is proposed in the draft General Plan currently as service commercial and includes a range of industrial type uses and no residential use will be allowed. As explained in the staff report, the parcels immediately on either side of that along Highway 1 would be proposed designated at mixed use neighborhood and the property owner requested a land use change to be consistent with those adjacent parcels. Staff’s analysis was that there is a rational basis, taken the highway orientation of the site and its greater distance from other City Council Special Meeting 51 June 25, 2022
areas for pedestrians from the Vallemar neighborhood and Rockaway Beach neighborhood but service commercial uses could be appropriate if the Council preferred those but, on balance, given the adjacency of the mixed use neighborhood sites to create a consistent type of land use and building pattern would be appropriate and probably the preferred option and to avoid potential incompatibility of service commercial uses which include salvage, auto wrecking and auto repair uses and those would not be compatible in such close proximity to mixed use residential and other types of lower intensity commercial uses and staff recommended redesignating that site and granting the property owner’s request and Planning Commission concurred with that and recommended granting their request.
Mayor Bier stated that the Councilmembers did not want to discuss it.
Acting Planning Director Murdock noted that one of the points of deliberation for the Planning Commission weighed in favor was the consideration of the site’s topography, service commercial type uses typically mean a lot if you are bringing in larger trucks or salvage vehicles or auto wreckers and they need room to maneuver and need flat sites. This site does not lend itself well to that without excessive grading and the Commission believed that mixed use project would likely be able to be cited more sensitively to the site and break up the building and have a better respect for the topography than a service commercial type of land use would.
Mayor Bier stated no one wanted to have a conversation about that and they would move forward.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that, while he didn’t think there were any additional specific recommendations or request for Council input, he wanted to highlight some of the land use policies that were added to the General Plan in case they didn’t jump out in the redline version. He stated that there was a new policy, as mentioned by vice Chair Hauser, for minimum floor area ratio or FAR, as part of the zoning ordinance to establish appropriate minimum FARs in commercial and mixed use zoning districts and that gets to the core of ensuring that there is a proper balance and true legitimate commercial use as a component of mixed use projects and avoiding the so-called token commercial components of passed mixed use projects that some of them may be familiar with that the city has approved in the past and they are learning a lesson from that. He then referred to Chapter 6 with a new policy regarding year -round park use which they touched on this a little bit earlier in Council’s discussion. It was to study ways to increase usability of city park facilities on a year-round basis and they can see Parks, Beaches & Recreation Commission input in the identification of preferred solutions. He stated that it initial came up in the specific consideration of lighting the fields to improve their usage throughout the year and later into the evening or earlier in the morning, but it could include a range of other potential improvements as well as they touched on artificial turf with the pros and cons or trade-offs associated with that and potentially other types of improvements for year round use that they may not be thinking of currently. He stated that there is a proposed policy in Chapter 7, conservation, which talked about the movement corridor study, and committing the city to participate in a broader process for that. In Chapter 8, safety element, the Commission added a policy to work with PG&E to encourage regular maintenance of electrical and gas facilities, including undergrounding electrical transmission and distribution facilities when feasible to minimize utility related disasters. He stated that there is a lot to unpack in that, but generally speaking, to ensure property maintenance and where possible undergrounding to mitigate hazards for Pacifica. They worked through the land use changes already. He was happy to go back to any of them or answer questions and hearing none, they will note Council’s acceptance of these items.
City Council Special Meeting 52 June 25, 2022
Mayor Bier asked him if they had any other section to go over with him.
Acting Planning Director Murdock stated that he is looking at his notes and he didn’t think so.
He thought they covered all the formal items to present Council. He thanked them for their helpful input.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that she has a question about the new landslides map that was in packet page 642. She is asking the question in relation to their statement that they are going to have trenches on the map in the document around the fire hazard map, i.e., the language that will be updated when the appropriate maps are available or however that is going to be worded. She wondered if, in the debris flow source area map on page 643 or the landslide map on 642, they were limited in the database that they could access for purposes of substantiating the map that pertains to all of the town. She stated that there was some individualized information but it wasn’t consistent and her understanding was that they were going to be utilizing the map and updating it or supplanting it with some other source when it became available. Her question was whether they need to do any note to that effect on that map as well or has that already been done.
Acting Planning Director Murdock thought there were elements of the need to update and data limitations in both of them, and he shared his screen to show the maps and they can take each in turn. He showed the proposed new Figure 8-X in the General Plan, the map landslide inventory which is the one where they went to the state, they provided comment, gave us data, created the map, they came back after the fact and said, sorry, there were some errors in that data. They went back again, gave them new data, and generated the final version for Council.
He stated that these are historic map landslides that the state has mapped. He noted earlier that the limitation of the map is simply that it reflects the landslide map by the state. To whatever end there may be a desire to have more landslides that are not on the map included in the general plan, a good place to put that energy and effort is to get the state to include those map landslides in this data source so that the next time they update it reflects potentially more landslides. He stated that the other data limitation that was mentioned in the staff presentation was on Figure 8-3B, the one shown on screen, the debris flow source areas. He stated that this was initially based on geographic information system, or GIS data, that was available from the state. He stated that, unfortunately, it only included the southern half of Pacifica and that was a criticism of that figure which is a fair criticism. They went back and the state confirmed that, for whatever reason, the digitized data in that format were not available for the northern half of Pacifica. However, there was a static plate map that could be used to create a map for the entire city. He stated that was what they did rather than sacrifice completeness or convenience and included the full city data in a form that cannot be as readily manipulated or used to support future analysis. They said elsewhere that, if and when this data becomes available in digitized form or if the city were to digitize itself through some process with the appropriate technical expertise, they will update this map so that it is in the format and form of the other maps in the General Plan. He stated that there are various data limitations that they have encountered but they tried their best to work through them and strike the right balance of completeness and accuracy in the data. He stated that the last point he will make is that they can put notes on every one of the maps to update them when new information becomes available. From his perspective, he thought that was implicit and the responsibility of staff to do that and an opportunity in the annual reporting process to say that they think new data are available and will doublecheck and update as necessary. He thought, given the particular sensitivity of the fire maps and knowing that there is a process culminating from this date related to the update, that was additional justification for that prior map figure specifically to have that acknowledgment and give credence to the community’s concerns, credence to Council’s concerns, and ensure City Council Special Meeting 53 June 25, 2022
that it is know that, in the near term, there is likely to be an updated data set and a need to revisit that map.
Mayor Bier asked if they had any questions or comments for Acting Planning Director Murdock or Vice Chair Hauser.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck asked Vice Chair Hauser if there was anything else she wants to add.
Vice Chair Hauser didn’t have anything, adding thanks for having her.
Mayor pro Tem Bigstyck thanked her for the thorough job all Commissioners did which he appreciated.
Mayor Bier thanked her for being with them all day. She stated that they have decided that they are not going to be addressing Item #2.
City Manager Woodhouse stated that, at this point, it seems that Council wasn’t going to take up item #2 and, as mentioned at the outset of this special meeting regarding General Plan and EIR will be adjourned to July 11. He asked City Attorney Kenyon to join to help with the proper language for what Council may be interested in doing at this point, both for the sharp Park Study Session portion of this meeting and the General Plan EIR.
City Attorney Kenyon stated that they all did a fantastic job, and she was impressed with the public, Council and Planning Commission liaison, Vice Chair Hauser, who were amazing, and staff as well. She stated that she has concluded it is the consensus of Council that they want to adjourn this meeting, and if they are prepared to do that, her suggestion is that they adjourn this special meeting to the special and regular meeting of the Pacifica City Council on July 11. If Council does not want to adjourn the specific plan, depending upon timing, then she would ask Mayor to adjourn Item 1 of this meeting to a special meeting on July 11. She is not sure if the calendar on July 11 can handle both the General Plan discussion, as well as the Sharp Park Specific Plan. She stated that, if City Manager Woodhouse wants to chime in on that suggestion, that is the only caveat they can adjourn the whole meeting to July 11 or just a portion of it.
City Manager Woodhouse thought the July 11 agenda looks like it will be robust, and his question for the City Attorney is could the Sharp Park Specific Plan study session be continued to a date to be determined. Acting Planning Director Murdock mentioned that the Planning Commission is going to take up continuing their deliberation about the Sharp Park Specific Plan on Monday, July 18, and Council doesn’t have a regularly scheduled Council meeting on the second half of July so there is July 11 special and regular meeting and then there is August 8 regular meeting. He supposed, depending on Council’s preference, there could be a special study session created in there to be determined to discuss the Specific Plan.
City Attorney Kenyon stated her suggestion is to just adjourn Item 1 to the special/regular meeting on July 11 and say nothing about the Sharp Park Specific Plan and Council can decide at a future date when to have that study session as there are no special noticing requirements for that other than the 72-hour Brown Act notice. She suggested that they adjourn item 1 to the special/regular meeting on July 11, 2022.
Mayor Bier stated that sounds great. She thanked everyone for all their hard work at this meeting. Mayor Bier adjourned Item 1 to a special meeting on July 11, 2022. She asked City City Council Special Meeting 54 June 25, 2022
Attorney if that was good enough.
Acting Planning Director Murdock clarified that it was the special and regular meeting.
Mayor Bier stated it was the special and regular meeting.
City Attorney Kenyon confirmed that it was the special and regular meeting.
RESULT: NO VOTE REQUIRED
CONSIDERATION
2. Discussion of the Sharp Park Specific Plan and its Development Process PROPOSED ACTION: Receive staff presentation.
RESULT: NO VOTE REQUIRED
ADJOURN
Transcribed by Barbara Medina, Public Meeting Stenographer.
Respectfully Submitted,
Sarah Coffey, City Clerk
APPROVED: 5 - 0; 8/8/2022
__________________________
Mary Bier, Mayor