CITY OF PACIFICA
CITY COUNCIL MINUTES
Council Chambers
2212 Beach Blvd
Pacifica, CA 94044
Mayor Tygarjas Bigstyck
Mayor pro Tem Sue Vaterlaus
Councilmember Sue Beckmeyer
Councilmember Mary Bier
Councilmember Christine Boles
City Council Joint Study Session 1 September 25, 2023
SPECIAL MEETING for
JOINT STUDY SESSION CITY COUNCIL AND PLANNING COMMISSION September 25, 2023 (MONDAY) – 7:00 PM
www.cityofpacifica.org
Mayor Tygarjas Bigstyck called the meeting to order on September 25, 2023 at 7:55 PM 7:00PM - OPEN JOINT STUDY SESSION OF CITY COUNCIL AND PLANNING
COMMISSION
Call to Order
Mayor Bigstyck called the study session to order at 7:55 p.m.
Attendee Name Title Status Arrived
Tygarjas Bigstyck Mayor Present
Sue Vaterlaus Mayor pro Tem Present
Sue Beckmeyer Councilmember Present
Mary Bier Councilmember Present
Christine Boles Councilmember Present
City Clerk Coffey took a verbal roll call.
Planning Commissioners Present: Chair Samantha Hauser; Commissioners Greg Wright, James Godwin, Alex Ferguson, Daniella Devine.
Planning Commissioners Absent: Vice Chair David Leal and Commissioner Lauren Berman.
Staff Present:Kevin Woodhouse, City Manager; Denise Bazzano, Asst. City Attorney; Karen Murphy, Asst. City Attorney; Lisa Petersen, PW Director; Yulia Carter, Asst. City Manager; Christian Murdock, Planning Director; Maria Sarasua, Police Chief; Bob Palacio, PB&R Director; Brianne Harkousha, Sr. Planner; Stefanie Cervantes, Sr. Planner; Sarah Coffey, City Clerk; Emily La, Dep. City Clerk.
Reading of Land Acknowledgment
City Council Joint Study Session 2 September 25, 2023
Mayor Bigstyck read the Land Acknowledgment.
Salute to the Flag led by Councilmember Boles
CONSIDERATION
1. Joint study session of City Council and Planning Commission to consider and provide direction on the Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element of the General Plan.
PROPOSED ACTION: Receive a presentation and provide direction regarding the Draft 2023-2031 Housing Element of the General Plan.
Planning Director Murdock stated that he is joined by Sr. Planner Harkousha and Asst. City Attorney Murphy, as well as consultants Nicholas Hamilton and Carol Johnson of Good City Company to provide answers to any questions and then presented the staff report. He stopped for questions and then they could proceed according to the mayor’s direction.
Councilmember Boles stated it might be helpful to ask general questions first and then go over them one at a time. She was concerned about HCD’s letter, as they say they don’t have all the information they need about the adequacy of sites, and whether HCD might come back after they address these questions with other questions.
Planning Director Murdock agreed it was a concern and a possible outcome of the city’s next submission of a Housing Element to HCD for review. They can only do their best to understand HCD’s comments and give them the information they think will address those comments. He stated that they are fortunate to have consultants working on a number of different Housing Elements in the region and benefitting from their experience from some communities further ahead than Pacifica in terms of the number of reviews they have gone through and part of our approach is not one of needing Council or Commission policy input. Part of the technical response to the sites list is going through in detail particularly the non-vacant sites with existing development and are subject to greater scrutiny in the HCD review process and giving additional factual information about the sites that they believe bolsters their argument that they are appropriate and likely to redevelop, such as age, condition, floor area ratio, lot coverage, etc. That approach has been successful for some other jurisdictions and they are following in that path. They are confident that they will be able to demonstrate sufficient capacity in that site.
Councilmember Boles stated that she read that HCD is not allowed to bring up new issues.
Planning Director Murdock agreed that the consultant or attorney might want to offer thoughts.
Asst. City Attorney Murphy added that the HCD does sometimes bring up new issues and other jurisdictions have received new comments from HCD as HCD goes through the review process.
She stated that the last letter they received had comments that other jurisdictions have received so because of the stage Pacifica is at in the process the hope is that they won’t be receiving new comments.
Consultant Nicholas Hamilton stated that one piece they know now but not before was the level of specificity with which the State seems to be satisfied with respect to the adequacy of the sites in explicit granular terms. That has been evolving over the course of the cycle to be more specific and more granular. He stated one reason the site list is largely consistent is because City Council Joint Study Session 3 September 25, 2023
the team did this type of analysis but presented it and ranked the sites in a more holistic way that reflected that analysis. He stated that they are in the process of making it more explicit.
Councilmember Boles thought HCD was expecting a buffer and that may eliminate the need for an EIR, and she asked what a realistic buffer was that they will be looking for, and should it be more for the lower income affordable sites, and would they need such a big buffer for the above moderate sites.
Planning Director Murdock stated the HCD guidebook for Housing Element updates suggests somewhere between a 15-30% buffer, and having had conversations about the buffer with the HCD reviewer team, they seem less concerned about a particular number and much more focused on the core RHNA and a rigorous analysis and establishment of the viability of the sites. He thought it was to the city’s benefit to have an ample buffer as they don’t want to be in a position where they are doing forced rezoning unexpectedly upon approving some other project as it has the potential to derail a lot of the other critical work Council has set forth in the Strategic Plan, etc., and having to do a multi-hundred units rezoning unexpectedly in mid-year.
He stated that, as a policy standpoint, it is his recommendation that they put a particular focus on the lower income buffer as those units don’t always tend to develop in the proportion or numbers they would like or identified in the Housing Element and it would be good to recognize that and head off those forced rezoning to support and implement no net loss.
Councilmember Boles asked if by identifying a site in the Housing Element as a core or buffer site they’re making it easier and decreasing their discretion in reviewing projects further on.
Planning Director Murdock generally agreed. By having a site in the Housing Element, it’s an endorsement under the law that it is appropriate for housing and hard for the city to go back on it. For some of the sites, when they get to more detailed rezoning activities in following the program, they will include a number of sites and units permitted by rights and subject to far less discretion than in times past. All of that is coalescing through state law and through the Housing Element and subsequent implementation programs to reduce local discretion, increase certainties for applicants, and decrease project processing types.
Councilmember Boles asked, if there are specific sites they are looking for, if it might be in the city’s benefit to not have them included in the Housing Element.
Planning Director Murdock thought that was correct and it wouldn’t necessarily stop other mechanisms of state law from kicking in and advantaging a particular application, depending on the circumstances, but this is one less tool in the toolbox for a developer to say the city must approve a housing project. If in the Housing Element, they should presume very little that the city can do to stop the housing project under the right circumstances. If out of it, they have the best chance to say that some non-housing project is most appropriate at that particular site.
Chair Hauser stated, for several new sites were added to the core RHNA, in 1C, it has a lot of sites listed as core and as buffer sites. She thought it would be helpful to get clarity on what the chart is.
Planning Director Murdock would need more time to tease out what may have happened there.
Mayor Bigstyck asked if anyone had any general questions.
Councilmember Boles thought the math is right and the spreadsheet is not, as they don’t match.
City Council Joint Study Session 4 September 25, 2023
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated she had a question for consultants and city attorney, i.e., she is concerned about the increasing desire for granularity and specificity. She understood that a Housing Element is by design general. A number of questions from Council and the public regarding specific sites, and if an owner doesn’t have any interest in developing, is it appropriate to have it in the Housing Element. She then referred to Council having updated a 40-year old General Plan and she thought people sitting at a table 40 years ago may have had a hard time seeing forward what would be going on decades later. She has always felt the Housing Element generality, as she understood it, is to make it flexible as a current owner may not be the current owner in 8 years and she is struggling with how tightly buttoned down they can make something when they are talking about property they don’t own. She is asking for guidance .
Consultant Hamilton stated that is a question that comes up all over, and there is a governance part of that question that is not solvable at a local level and is solvable at the state level. He stated that it is frustrating for policy makers and the public and is an unfortunate part of the process. He stated that there are parts they can control and he would recommend they focus on that side today. He stated that the Housing Element is many things, i.e. values, policies that change the way the city procedures are, land use regulation, and an exercise that demonstrates the overall capacity for units to match that RHNA. He stated that there will be sites not on the list that will become housing sites and sites on the list that will never become a housing site. He stated that they can’t control that; it is a natural function of the market to be expected. He stated with respect to the increasing piece of granularity, they want for every site the specific redevelopment factors that would play into it such as a non-vacant commercial site. They want to see if they are real sites and they want the city to give significant analysis to all of those so the total model is valid.
Commissioner Wright stated he would like to hear from Planning Director Murdock how he evaluated our traffic and potential safety considerations as he sees a lot of the sites are located in a place that would be severely impacted by our traffic issues, and asked how that factors into the selection of the sites.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they are trying to work through a particular sites list and once they have a high degree of confidence that they have a final sites list, additional analysis can continue on, including the California Environmental Quality Act process which includes an evaluation of transportation and safety related issues from a policy document. They have not advanced to do level of service congestion analysis, which is the traditional method of evaluating congestion; that is no longer an environmental criteria, but it is relevant for other parts of the General Plan and an overall understanding of what the project entails. He stated that information will come later but they have a lot of constraints conspiring against them to find sites in the first instance that are suitable for housing and will make it through the HCD review process. He didn’t know if they have the luxury to pick sites that are located outside of areas currently experiencing traffic congestion.
Commissioner Wright commended him on the General Plan, Sharp Park Specific Plan, and the Housing Element. He asked if he has enough staff, consultants, and resources.
Planning Director Murdock thanked him for the consideration and stated they have an incredible staff that they have hired within the last year and are continuing to learn about our community and become more and more functional and able to contribute to our work, including Sr. Planner Brianne Harkousha who is taking on more and more in the Housing Element update process, an incredible consultant team from Good City Company who has ongoing work and experience on City Council Joint Study Session 5 September 25, 2023
Housing Element updates elsewhere, and the city attorney’s office team.
Commissioner Wright asked if assisted care facilities count as units for individual occupants.
Planning Director Murdock stated that there are instances where they can count but, anticipating some community questions or input in the future, we can’t meet 100% of our RHNA with those kinds of units. They can be a part of an overall strategy and, if there are sites that might be better situated, they would value that feedback so they can take a more careful look.
Councilmember Boles thanked the Planning Commissioners for taking on all the work. She stated that the staff report doesn’t include all the work they did establishing those standards, setbacks, etc., that she thinks would be important to the discussion as they talk about the sites in more detail. She asks if they are prepared to talk about the sites at this time and if these capacity numbers reflect the input the Planning Commission has given or where there are some areas where they had to adjust them.
Planning Director Murdock started by commending the Planning Commission on their incredible work on this and other ventures. He stated that this sites work and discussion needs to happen in a somewhat more general level to figure out relative densities and locations and overall suitability for housing, and the much more granular detail for site level zoning will come as part of the Phase 1 rezoning program.
Councilmember Boles asked if that implied that the feedback they have given which might reduce the number of units isn’t necessarily here and they might be submitting something to HCD that doesn’t necessarily reflect that direction.
Planning Director Murdock didn’t know that he would characterize it that way, as the Planning Commission was charged with working on six objective development standards and not weighing in on the density and numbers of units; that is a much more complicated analysis and a major balancing act. They noted some qualitative and quantitative feedback on a number of sites about overall appropriateness for development or not for housing. They tried to prepare options for Council and Commission at this time about that binary question, yes or no for a particular site, but he doesn’t think they have had an opportunity to give the Planning Commission a chance to weigh in on sliding scale density for individual sites.
Mayor Bigstyck asked if they should address specific items.
Planning Director Murdock agreed and proposed that they go through the menu of programrelated items to see which of those Council and Commission may feel are necessary to weigh in on and, in the interest of time, they hope that those that are of most importance could get the first pass and, if there is time later, they can circle back. He stated, after the programs discussion, they can shift to what might be a more robust discussion on sites. Planning Director Murdock explained that there are a few guiding questions, in addition to other programs, comments, sites comments, and topics that require discussion.
Mayor Bigstyck preferred going one by one, so he asked if they go down the line.
Chair Hauser stated that she would prefer to go row by row on the items that staff requested and come back to those overarching items at the end.
Planning Director Murdock stated it was most essential for them to get through the program- City Council Joint Study Session 6 September 25, 2023
related feedback this evening, as they do need all the program feedback tonight or the Housing Element timeline might be adversely impacted.
Mayor Bigstyck asked Chair Hauser if she minded starting with the programs components.
Chair Hauser stated that was fine and asked if there were any questions on farmworker housing coordination.
Commissioner Wright asked if proximity to shopping and healthcare was considered in locating the farmworker housing who will likely be transportation challenged.
Planning Director Murdock stated not specifically, but the leading principle was the agricultural zoning of the sites which staff’s opinion lent them to farmworker housing. If there is a preference to look at different criteria and identify other sites for farmworker housing, they can perform that analysis.
Commissioner Wright would appreciate understanding that better.
Mayor Bigstyck stated that he was thinking in terms of transportation. If you look at the St.
Peter’s site, there were SamTrans bus routes that go by and a shopping center right outside.
He stated that the Art Center is further away from a direct shopping center but there is a bus stop outside that will take them to Linda Mar. He stated that the Adobe shopping center isn’t that far off. Those were two advantages that occurred to him for those two sites.
Councilmember Boles recalled when they did the General Plan update, she thought Site F was zoned agriculture and she asked if that was still zoned agriculture.
Planning Director stated it had an agricultural General Plan land use designation which was subsequently amended with the General Plan update but it was not zoned agriculture.
Councilmember Boles asked if they have received feedback from St. Peter’s.
Planning Director Murdock stated he has spoken with one member of the parish who is engaged on housing issues, and his impression was that she was supportive of the Housing Element update process. He didn’t know if she is able to speak authoritatively for the church, but they tried to make engagement with someone associated with the church leadership.
Councilmember Boles concluded that they haven’t gotten anything from them saying they don’t want their site considered.
Planning Director Murdock stated not to his knowledge.
Councilmember Boles asked if we have spoken to our farms and ranches, i.e. Shamrock and Millwood, to understand what the need is in Pacifica.
Planning Director Murdock stated the simple answer is they have not engaged with them particularly but there are a variety of housing types on some of these properties and some of them have significant infrastructure challenges that would likely be major constraints for analysis of the sites. He thought they identified two sites that are quite appropriate and have the fewest types of constraints that they might encounter with providing water and sewer service to these low-lying agricultural sites. He stated agriculture-related employment in Pacifica is relatively low City Council Joint Study Session 7 September 25, 2023
but regionally it is much more significant in particular pockets of our area in our county. Part of our approach is trying to engage with those service providers on the coastside so they can get a better understanding of what those needs are, i.e., unique transportation needs and type of housing units.
Consultant Hamilton added the County level has much needs assessment and the state level has much analysis to indicate regional trends and coastside trends. He stated one factor that is important to consider that these reports highlight is that farmworker housing need is an urban, not just a rural, issue. The transportation and many other services, such as stores, schools, etc., are mostly concentrated in more urbanized areas.
Councilmember Boles asked if they have to specify certain sites and asked if Sanchez is zoned agriculture.
Planning Director Murdock stated that the Sanchez Art Center is.
Commissioner Godwin stated that, in his experience, there was a huge need for labor in the spring and fall and almost none in the summer and winter. He asked if they are anticipating this farmworker demand to be a 12-month use, i.e., what is their seasonal component.
Consultant Hamilton stated that it was his understanding that there has been a significant shift in California away from seasonal to a much higher share, but in any community, there is both and the need is so much bigger that would ever be able to be supplied in any reasonable amount of time.
Commissioner Godwin agreed and asked if he had a rough percentage breakdown by season.
This could be significant on whether they are providing housing for a couple of months or not.
He stated that saying they are going to do farmworker housing seems inadequate to him.
Planning Director Murdock stated that he thought he touched on a number of key points that are part of our research through the engagement with those resource providers on the coastside related to support of farmworker services. He stated that we don’t know enough about the need but we know that we need to identify sites where it can be constructed and do whatever we can to remove barriers to the types of housing that would need to be constructed to accommodate those farmworkers.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that some sites are really great for farmworker housing and other sites aren’t so great, but it is possible to mitigate issues. She knows they can’t put a lot of conditions on things, but she wants to throw it in for awareness.
Mayor Bigstyck added to her question as he thought PRC might be good to partner with and figure out some of the solutions. He would put in something in about partnering with PRC to find some of the quality-of-life solutions should they have the housing site be appropriate here.
Planning Director Murdock asked if he could clarify how that relates to the program here or is it a general statement about working with PRC.
Mayor Bigstyck stated we should make sure we are also reaching out to our partners and connecting farmworker housing with those programs.
Planning Director Murdock thought there was every reason to engage with any partner that has City Council Joint Study Session 8 September 25, 2023
relevant information and support they can provide us in this undertaking.
Mayor Bigstyck thought that was his question, i.e., will HCD look at this and make sure to reach out to people who help them when these developments happen.
Planning Director Murdock thought more specificity is better. By the time they draft the program, if they know the particular organizations we will be engaging with, or governmental entities, putting that in helps us and gives HCD the confidence that we know what we’re talking about and know who they are going to engage with and they can make their best effort at that.
Commissioner Godwin stated that farm crews frequently bring their own housing, own heavy capital equipment and own worker transportation with them organically with the crew so they really need to drill into this and understand what kind of farmworkers they have. It isn’t just a housing problem but they may be storing expensive capital equipment and may be storing infrastructure type transport for these people to stores to work.
Chair Hauser asked, in addition to the conversations about mobility, if it would be wise to coordinate with our county supervisor’s office who is coordinating with all the farmworkers already, at least in unincorporated San Mateo.
Planning Director Murdock stated that he is aware of those expanding efforts by the county and are planning to plug into it. He stated that is part of the program and there is a program in support of component and site and housing construction component and they need to have both as part of this program they have proposed.
Chair Hauser appreciated that staff designated these as in the lower income designation which she thought lends itself more to rentals being created, which may or may not connect them to what Commissioner Godwin was saying about seasonality. She stated that she heard a couple of years ago that the bus to this area was not a regular route and she asked if that was something staff or a representative can work out.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they can take note of that. As it relates to B.2, it is some particular focus areas that their analysis has identified that relate to the commitment to greater advocacy until the net program. He stated that there was a broader community desire at all levels to have more transit access everywhere and we are committing to specific actions for specific reasons in the Housing Element. He stated, if there is a tie into other housing programs or sites needs, they would need to hear that to help guide the program directly.
Chair Hauser stated her last question on farmworker housing is, since they are going to go through the bigger rezoning process for these sites that are designated agriculture, would it be contemplated that they will have a Housing Element overlay and remain agriculture or is that something staff will think about as they go through the process.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they have analyzed this farmworker housing opportunity within the confines of the existing A zoning. Our municipal code requires a public vote to remove or change the agricultural zoning classification and that is not contemplated in any of these programs.
Chair Hauser asked if there were any more questions on farmworker housing before they move on to some of the mobility, i.e., any questions on B.2 AFFH Mobility Support and Transit Advocacy.
City Council Joint Study Session 9 September 25, 2023
Mayor pro Tem Vaterlaus stated that it says that the person who represents CCAG needs to actively advocate for transportation every single time.
Mayor Bigstyck wondered if it was enough of a concern that we might need to have a dedicated staff member to begin to address where opportunities are.
Mayor pro Tem Vaterlaus added for the Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee as well.
City Manager Woodhouse referred to transportation staffing, and he and Planning Director Murdock did talk about this, and he agreed that it would be great if they had the resources, whether Planning or Public Works, with more proactive transportation planning expert staff. He thought the question is that the Council doesn’t want to or can’t commit to that priority in the Housing Element. While they could, there are a lot of staffing priorities the city has. He thought trying to communicate in this program that Council representatives and staff representatives will do their best to advocate in their reach of transit agencies for improvement.
Councilmember Boles stated that they went through this with SamTrans last year.
Councilmember Bier stated it is all about ridership when it comes to SamTrans.
Planning Director Murdock stated the particular twist on this is distinguishing it from general transit and transportation advocacy but really relaying the specific needs of our community as related to persons with disabilities and other mobility challenges is part and parcel to this issue.
He stated it is a subset of the broader general transit advocacy that is likely ongoing.
Mayor Bigstyck recalled that, when they were having that conversation with SamTrans, he was able to advocate for someone he personally knew but he feels it is different if we have a policy in place that we can draw their attention to.
Chair Hauser agreed with having a specific policy or policies that we could point to. She also wondered if they could create additional policies that would encourage developers to create a Transit Demand Management (TDM) program or require a TDM program that puts together a list of the different strategies that the particular developer will take to lower their traffic contribution and, in doing so, we could do what a lot of cities encourage, which is encourage that developer to purchase transit passes for their occupants or residents. She stated that there are ways to do this and it should at least be suggested.
Planning Director Murdock agreed, adding that it is required by law for many types of developments that are likely to come as a consequence of the Housing Element and the followon rezoning. The challenge is this program and comment relates to existing residents in existing housing and those TDM enhancements won’t benefit them. They need to identify other measures the city can take to try to enhance the mobility and access the services for those who are already here and will not be able to avail themselves of those TDM program amenities.
Councilmember Boles stated, in terms of disabled communities, the staff report talks about the north part of town, and she asked if that is where they should focusing this discussion now in terms of improvements there and are there specific areas that they suggest we consider.
Planning Director Murdock stated that there are maps in the draft Housing Element that identify those particular clusters that seem to be in existence in Pacifica and it is certainly in the West City Council Joint Study Session 10 September 25, 2023
Fairmont and Fairmont areas. We intend to point to some of the investments the city has already recently made to enhance sidewalks and other transportation access and planned improvements in the vicinity. They are trying to leverage existing resources and investments, as well as ongoing advocacy to try to secure additional resources with this program.
Councilmember Boles knows there are paratransit organizations that were in the county and she doesn’t know how expensive they are or are they available in Pacifica or things we can do to promote that information.
Planning Director Murdock stated potentially yes, and what they intend to do as part of this strategy is to further clarify for HCD those resources that already exist that maybe they aren’t aware of in our community where disabled persons can dial and arrange a particular ride for their needs but we don’t know now whether those are meeting the needs of all who need them.
That is part of some additional research they need to perform.
Councilmember Boles stated that was one question she had earlier, i.e., whether some of our senior transportation programs could perhaps be expanded to our disabled community. She knows we have a grant for some of that, and maybe it is specific to seniors, but she asked if that was something they could seek grant funding to expand.
Planning Director Murdock didn’t know the answer to that. He thought that is one item that they need to research further to get the answer; he doesn’t know what strings are attached to the funding we have as something, as simple as increasing service as an exponential maintenance cost and vehicle wear and tear. There are all kinds of complexity to try to increase that service.
Commissioner Wright stated he had a question for clarification: Are they looking in this for a policy commitment or a funding program commitment?
Consultant Hamilton thought what they are looking for is a bonafide step in that direction and he thought it could reasonably take different forms.
Councilmember Beckmeyer read that staff would welcome additional ideas on how to address the needs of the disabled population in Pacifica, particularly northern Pacifica. She would suggest comparing housing-related opportunities to employment opportunities or the potential for developing employment. She thinks, in the northern part of the city, they do have a partner in our community college and in our Jefferson Union High School District. She stated that the community college is in Pacifica’s sphere of influence but the adult school being developed at the Westmoor School site in Daly City is still part of our district that our citizens are part of and she is confident that, with that new building going in, there is room for some sort of employment training and for these opportunities.
Chair Hauser stated, while she knows the Housing Elements don’t create an extremely low housing RHNA category, that category which she believes falls into very low does require services. She asked, outside of the RHNA chart, if there is a way to create a policy that encourages extremely low housing on some of these sites; then some of those services might come for new residents and be able to serve existing residents.
Councilmember Bier stated that they aren’t talking about only physical disability, but also development disabilities.
Councilmember Boles added some commenters were saying that even very low income units City Council Joint Study Session 11 September 25, 2023
are too expensive for these people with these disabilities and we have to be more proactive, more than just transportation and how they get these units built and where they are. In terms of specific sites, she was going to suggest a Public Works site because that is city property and it was close to retail services. She doesn’t know about the bus lines, but site 20 for new housing might be good for this particular population.
Chair Hauser asked if that was something staff could comment on as how we can encourage extremely low on some of these sites.
Planning Director Murdock stated it was a monumental challenge and he doesn’t know if anyone has a formula or recipe for it, as it is a combination of a number of factors, including setting up the right densities and land use regulations in proximity to services. He stated it is a huge challenge and he doesn’t have the answer to how they make that work here in Pacifica other than try to remove the barriers that they have identified through revising our policy.
Councilmember Boles stated there are specific suggestions, like increasing the density bonus for this type of housing and reducing city fees for permitting these types of projects. She mentioned incentives for homeowners who built them and rent for extremely low-income people.
She asked if they should try to identify specific sites.
Planning Director Murdock thought the general guidance was sufficient for now. He didn’t know that staff can support a productive conversation about specific sites for this type of housing now other than generally thinking about how our sites relate to the northern part of town where that need has been identified.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated her direction and suggestion is that staff work with the Golden Gate Regional Center specifically with the housing choices program and some reference be made to that in that section of the Housing Element submission.
Chair Hauser asked if they can go to the site consolidation section.
Commissioner Wright asked if there was a reason that staff was recommending a $10,000 city grant versus a percentage of permitting fees, and what would it do to their staffing and budget.
Planning Director Murdock stated HCD’s comment said we need to include measures to incentivize the lot mergers and reduce the barriers to achieving them, and it seems like the only thing we could come up with that might take that head on and the likelihood of it being utilized is low, but it is there as a mechanism if someone is concerned about their ability to merge the lots from one of these sites in the Housing Element site inventory. They have the benefit of the housing action fund to support these kinds of innovative approaches.
Councilmember Bier asked about the newly created housing action fund.
Planning Director Murdock stated that there was a proposal in the draft Housing Element to create such a plan that would be local funds subject to local control and the City Manager and Asst. City Manager found money in this budget of FY 2023-24 to fund that. It is the first of its kind in Pacifica to his knowledge that is locally controlled money to do pro-housing type activity.
Councilmember Bier stated, in her mind, there is a difference between the housing fund and the housing action fund, which expands what they can do with that money.
City Council Joint Study Session 12 September 25, 2023
Planning Director Murdock agreed, adding that she may be alluding to what we have come to know as the housing in lieu fund which collects in lieu payments from development project applicant with much narrower range of permissible uses, primarily related to construction of affordable housing only in Pacifica. They have much broader opportunities to use the housing action fund, including supporting of direct construction of housing.
Chair Hauser agreed with Planning Director Murdock that a lot merger is not going to scare anyone as it is a routine for developers. She took it to be more of an assemblage comment as, at the Brentwood Shopping Center where several parcels are owned by different property owners, it may be more difficult to assemble them. She stated she would ask for clarification that the $10,000 would not be for just merging lots but for performing a true assemblage of different property owners within a Housing Element site.
Councilmember Beckmeyer agreed with that.
Commissioner Wright asked about the shopping center at the top of Fairmont, as that has some different lots that they were trying to fit into one lot consideration in their last meeting.
Chair Hauser asked if this is the Fairmont Shopping Center.
Commissioner Wright confirmed.
Chair Hauser stated that lot line adjustment and subdivision and subdivisions that merge lots are very routine. She stated that there is a bigger entitlement developers would be getting and that would typically be a part of it or, if it is someone doing rental housing and it is affordable housing and these are the people who really understand how to finance affordable projects, they aren’t going to be scared away by moving a lot line or merging lots. She stated that the Manor Shopping Center is more difficult as everyone owns their own space but it’s all one mall.
She is using Brentwood as an example as she thinks it is four different property owners but all one Housing Element site. She is saying that $10,000 could go to a site like that where they are willing to go through, as it is hard for a developer to get a purchase and sale agreement or a purchase agreement with four different developers who say similar things.
Councilmember Boles agreed with that.
Commissioner Godwin asked if there is a target site size that the state thinks is much more desirable than smaller ones.
Planning Director Murdock stated that at least a half-acre, particularly for sites intended for lower income housing.
Councilmember Boles stated she would like to have a better list of the sites that includes these sites with multiple owners so they understand the impact and numbers.
Mayor pro Tem Vaterlaus and Councilmember Beckmeyer mentioned from the shopping center’s perspective Manor Shopping Center, Pedro Point, and Crespi.
Councilmember Boles mentioned that they have site 20 listed as Public Works and she assumed they were under city ownership which is different.
Planning Director Murdock stated that was correct, as there are potentially 2-3 parcels there.
City Council Joint Study Session 13 September 25, 2023
He is trying to understand the feedback as staff attempts to directly address HCD’s comments and he thinks there is a broader interest in a different program to try to facilitate site assemblage and consolidation of ownership which is a much more complicated task. They try to avoid including sites with multiple different property owners for that very reason, but there are a number of sites that have multiple parcels owned by the same owner that may be less than a half-acre. He thinks the Brentwood Shopping Center as an example wasn’t included because the parcels aren’t less than a half-acre, even though they are multiple parcels. They try to be selective in the examples that are cited here.
Mayor pro Tem Vaterlaus stated that they have the merging of single-family lots, which is the opposite case; they were all merged in 1985, even if they only joined by a hair.
Chair Hauser was looking at the BEU3.3, the site size category, which was the source of this.
She is saying that she is reading the last sentence a bit differently. She stated staff had the benefit of talking to HCD staff and maybe she is misreading it.
Planning Director Murdock thought there were a number of ways they could read it, a narrower way which is what staff put forth to try to solve this with a limited amount of effort, and a more expensive way that was a much more complicated program to try to put together a site consolidation program. He didn’t know if that was necessary to achieve and clear this comment from HCD for purposes of getting our Housing Element adopted. He stated that there is a response to the letter and are they doing a policy intervention that Council or Commission thinks is needed. They are trying to shape the most economical response to HCD letter to get our Housing Element adopted.
Councilmember Boles stated she read it the same way Chair Hauser did and multiple owners makes development much more difficult than just merging lots. She asked if there was a way to confirm that with HCD to make sure they are responding to their concerns.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they can take this up with them again and they have tried to avoid sites with multiple owners for that reason. He agreed that it’s a problem, but he didn’t know if it was a Housing Element problem. He asked if Council and Commission want them to put more effort into a program that may not be necessary to clear the comment or try to respond to HCD in a way that will clear the comment and move on to other comments.
Chair Hauser thought, if it is just a clarifying question that saves us $10,000, maybe they ask it.
Planning Director Murdock stated, if there is something to further clarify, he potentially heard a timing concern so they could tether this to an actual development project application and say that for $10,000 of those costs that might be related to the lot merger, the city will provide a grant for that, but someone coming in and doing a stand-alone lot merger may or may not lead to a housing project and may be perceived as a waste of $10,000. He thinks there is a way to narrow this program.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated asked if there was a way to create a program that leaves open the possibility of a preference for parcels with multiple owners with appropriate language.
Councilmember Boles stated that her main concern was timeline and suggested they get clarification from HCD.
Consultant Hamilton stated that his advice would be not to pursue that angle because of the City Council Joint Study Session 14 September 25, 2023
risk. He thought there are strong advantages to getting to a substantially complaint Housing Element and they can get stuck in a loop. They can have more discretion on this topic by affirmatively taking a position and saying that is the city’s position. He stated that it is a superior tactic to get to substantial compliance and that is his advice to city staff to do.
Commissioner Wright concluded that their consultant was in support of staff’s recommendation.
Consultant Hamilton responded affirmatively.
Commissioner Wright stated they have his support as well.
Chair Hauser asked staff what was next.
Planning Director Murdock replied Surplus Lands Act and city school district compliance and Caltrans decertification. He stated that the city can commit and undertake actions related to its property and the other two rely on other government agencies to fulfill their obligations. What the city would need to commit to, if it’s going to include these sites, is a contingency or Plan B, at the end of year three in the Housing Element if these processes are not completed or imminently going to be completed that they are having another conversation in 2027 about where the units go now. He thought that was a preferable conversation to have than sitting here in 2023 and finding where hundreds more units go. He stated that some of these activities may well be completed by that time and they wouldn’t need to find alternative locations for the units.
He stated that it was with that thinking that they tried to propose this program.
Mayor Bigstyck thought it made sense to him in terms of the Caltrans-owned sites. The dynamic with the Jefferson Union High School District might be a little bit more fluid and that three years out might actually not be enough time to gauge their proper level of interest in completing an SLA process. He thought three years sounded reasonable for Caltrans and he is wondering if they might be able to allow themselves more latitude when it comes to JUHSD.
Councilmember Bier agreed.
Councilmember Boles stated that they have letters in the records that the high school district is not interested in developing these sites within this period and she didn’t think HCD is going to look too favorably on these high numbers that they are counting. She asked if the high school district would have to go through the SLA process or could they choose to develop housing themselves.
Councilmember Beckmeyer thought they demonstrated a propensity for that. If they look at what JUHSD is doing, they are very creative and forward thinking about it. Enrollments are declining at the two schools in Pacifica. She respects their colleagues very much on the Board of Trustees and she is looking at the track record of what they are doing. She has to say there is a possibility that this could go forward at some point, maybe not three years, but the response she has gotten is that they cannot do one more thing now.
Mayor Bigstyck asked if they can tier it so Caltrans in three years will recalibrate up if they need to and JUHSD is five years if they need to.
Consultant Hamilton would leave it at three years. He thinks, when they are talking about back up measures and what happens, HCD understands that there are a lot of unknowns. He thinks they will be looking for meaningful progress and good faith efforts: If it takes five years but City Council Joint Study Session 15 September 25, 2023
you’re in negotiations by year 3, they will be wherever they are going to be in year 3 and it’s a different public process. He thinks they aren’t painting themselves into too tight of a corner because HCD understands that there are variables completely outside of the city’s control.
Mayor Bigstyck stated, considering the workload, if it should happen that, in three years they begin with Caltrans, they aren’t going to come down on us.
Consultant Hamilton stated that they could, and this is a calculated risk.
Planning Director Murdock stated that the challenge, from staff’s perspective, is Jefferson Union High School District is one of the major landowners in Pacifica, and they aren’t fully utilizing all of their land to what he considers the highest and best use from a land use planning perspective, and they have a total of over 300 units they have identified on property they own that would be suitable for housing development. In light of this enormous task, they have to plan for our RHNA and some buffer; there is not a ready alternative location for 300+ units on other sites in town without having to potentially compromise a number of other community values as well. He stated that it is absolutely a calculated risk to include these sites and the alternative doesn’t seem much better to him. If they have to make tough choices as a community and Council, it seemed better to do it when you know it’s certain rather than speculating on whether other elected representatives will undertake those projects in the future.
Asst. City Attorney Murphy added that HCD has indicated that, during their annual review process, they will be looking at the other status of the city’s program but they will also be looking toward reasonable progress and are they starting to work towards their program. She stated one thing they could do is expand the program so it’s not just completing the SLA process but working with the school district if they want to develop their own housing so it is a broader program just to coordinate with them on the development of housing on their site. She understands that staff did meet with HCD and showed them this site and they understood some of the constraints regarding the fact that Jefferson Union High School District had noted that they weren’t interested in developing three years but did see the desirability of including the site in there.
Councilmember Bier asked for clarification about the desirability.
Planning Director Murdock stated, not desirable to develop from JUHSD’s perspective, but looking at the site with our HCD reviewer, noting in the context of all Pacifica and the challenges we have to find sites for this number of units. Looking shoulder to shoulder with our review at the Oceana High School site, the suitability of the site for development in the Housing Element context and the walkability of the neighborhood, relative transit access, services available, and proximity adjacent to a prior redevelopment area in the Sharp Park Specific Plan, he thought all the objective measures were indicative and convincing to the reviewer that a point in time concern about development from the school district wasn’t the definitive criteria for HCD’s consideration of the site.
Mayor Bigstyck stated that it occurred to him that it was very easy to notice the position they are in relation to the state, the school district and community. It seems like what they are engaging in is a process of trying to find best bets within best bets. He appreciates that robust efforts are made to have robust best guesses to work upon.
Commissioner Wright stated that, if they declare it surplus land and a developer comes in and develops the site, they then pay property tax. If the school district develops the land and rents it City Council Joint Study Session 16 September 25, 2023
out as rental housing, will they then have to pay property tax.
Asst. City Attorney Murphy stated that was something they can look into.
Commissioner Ferguson stated, if they can’t get a commitment from Jefferson Union High School District to start the decertification within the next three years, it sounds like it’s probably not going to happen, especially not before our next submittal to HCD, and he asked where that leaves staff in terms of this response.
Consultant Hamilton thought, when they look across different jurisdictions and their relationship to cities and school districts, there is a statewide trend of declining enrollment and they don’t see much evidence but that is going to be a trend that shifts. Looking out over long range, he would expect that the unfortunate reality is there is going to be more school closures across all the districts in San Mateo County and that will continue to be a process for the foreseeable future. That is the best information they have. Some jurisdictions have found themselves reacting to having not planned and not had a direction for the school sites, anticipating that they would be schools forever and not putting the framework around to guide or create the land use direction where you put a different parcel to provide some direction for that. He applauded and recommended that there is some shape, some direction and intentionality around the future of the school sites, to be prepared in a scenario where the schools will very likely continue to feel tremendous pressure to consolidate into fewer campuses.
Commissioner Ferguson thought, anecdotally speaking, the Planning Commission has ten kids under the age of 5 and if you look at the enrollment for kindergarten, first grade, TK in Pacifica, it is not down but up. They are talking about adding 2,000 units and schools going down and convincing them to take away any chance they have of creating future developments for the schools. If Jefferson Union High School District’s answer is no, his question is what is the fallback response to HCD.
Councilmember Bier stated that was her concern also, as she doesn’t see how we can benefit.
Commissioner Ferguson asked, if they don’t provide any kind of commitment, which in the past has been negative, where does that leave this response to HCD and what is the alternative.
Planning Director Murdock thought there were two directions: They try this program or they go back and identify a site or sites where housing would be proposed where it has not been or significantly greater density is identified on sites already in the Housing Element. It’s not a good consequence to have to find other locations for 300 units in our community at this point in time.
If he could find them in an unobjectionable way, and without controversy with Jefferson Union High School District, he would have.
Commissioner Ferguson understood that for three years they would try and make it work with JUHSD and, at that time, if they can’t then, they identify other sites.
Planning Director Murdock agreed and added there may be new legislative approaches.
Chair Hauser thought adding a Housing Element overlay on sites in general creates an additional value for those sites and creating an additional value for Jefferson Union High School District can never be seen as a negative and she thinks there are a lot of school districts throughout the Bay Area that are leveraging that value in ways that they didn’t expect to have to. She personally thought this was a thoughtful way of handling these two sites.
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Councilmember Bier stated that JUHSD has a really thoughtful board that is doing really great work but they were not happy about this. She was sure they already have that idea about what their property is worth and what would bring up the worth of the property. She was hesitant about this because they weren’t happy about it.
Mayor Bigstyck felt like they talked it through with them to the point that they were willing to tolerate them on this point. There are various mechanical realities behind what they already have in the pipeline versus what they may or may not want to do with this in the future. They may come to the conclusion in three years when they ask them again that, no, they’re still not interested. He stated that it might be that the work they are doing now is coming to a place that they might have alternative thoughts. He doesn’t know if summarily dismissing this is the most helpful action for us in this moment and later it might lead to a better conversation.
Chair Hauser stated that, on the Oddstad project, they heard so many commenters talking about how there weren’t enough housing for teachers. She hears what he is saying.
City Manager Woodhouse explained this program is not obligating the high school district to do anything or build housing, but years from this moment when priorities and policies change and they eventually make that decision, this program will make that process much easier for them to achieve their goals in the future if they were to change that way.
Mayor Bigstyck opened public comments.
Asst. City Attorney Bazzano reminded the public that they are only taking public comment on the joint study session topic of the Housing Element. She asked if it is 3 minutes or 1 minute.
Mayor Bigstyck stated three minutes for public comments.
Sue Digre, Pacifica, referred to people with developmental disabilities, and shared her thoughts regarding brainstorming session types which should be done with a state regional center, i.e., Golden Gate Regional Center and the Department of Developmental Disabilities.
Remi Tan, Pacifica, referred to mobility issues, and shared his thoughts on transportation, housing needs and building on hillsides.
Michael Vernazza, Pacifica, hoped they could pose his questions on his behalf, and then shared his thoughts and questions on this issue.
Irene Lee, Pacifica, had questions regarding Housing Elements connected to ADUs, such as parking, multiple family housing, height limitations, and zoning.
Samuel Casillas, Pacifica, stated that the current Housing Element is not acceptable and shared his concerns on specific factors on the issue.
Gloria Stofan, Pacifica, stated she is a member of Pacifica Housing for All, and shared her thoughts and concerns on the need of housing for the most vulnerable.
Eileen Barsi, Pacifica, stated she was representing St. Peter’s Pastoral Council and the pastor and responded to the inclusion of St. Peter’s Church in the Housing Element and shared her information on the issue.
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Jen Hansen, Pacifica, stated she was a teacher and referred to their discussion on disabilities and transportation and shared her thoughts on this issue.
Erin Macias, Pacifica, stated she had a few comments on the elements included in the plan such as farmworker housing, parking, ADUs, and other issues.
David Beaumont, Pacifica, applauded the mayor on dealing with adherence to the first amendment, etc., and shared his thoughts and concerns on the Housing Element regarding some sites mentioned.
Mayor Bigstyck closed public comments. He referred to a comment made on the breakdown of age groups of disabled population.
Planning Director Murdock stated that there is some information in the draft Housing Element.
He stated it provides different types of disabilities experienced by Pacificans, and it breaks down the age range for those under 18 and over 18. They have some information and can give more thought related to sites or strategies pertaining to the special needs population.
Councilmember Bier and Mayor Bigstyck discussed a comment about state control. Mayor Bigstyck also welcomed a motion to extend to midnight.
Mayor pro Tem Vaterlaus moved to extend the meeting to midnight; seconded by Councilmember Boles.
Planning Director Murdock took a vote by verbal roll call.
CITY COUNCIL
MOVE TO EXTEND MEETING TO 12:00 AM
RESULT: ADOPTED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Sue Vaterlaus, Mayor pro Tem
SECONDER: Christine Boles, Councilmember
AYES: Bigstyck, Vaterlaus, Beckmeyer, Bier, Boles
Commissioner Wright moved to extend the meeting to midnight; seconded by Chair Hauser.
Planning Director Murdock took a vote by verbal roll call.
PLANNING COMMISSION
MOVE TO EXTEND MEETING TO 12:00 AM
RESULT: ADOPTED [5-0]
MOVER: Greg Wright, Commissioner
SECONDER: Samantha Hauser, Chair
AYES: Hauser, Devine, Ferguson, Godwin, Wright
ABSENT: Berman, Leal
Councilmember Boles referred to the last comment about the sites in Sharp Park. She stated that they had certain limits to the size they were considering for the Housing Element.
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Planning Director Murdock was aware of the sites referred to by the commenter, and he thought there were a number of reasons why staff didn’t place particular focus on including them, including small size and yield. In addition, Council, in considering a project on similar type sites a few years ago, had some concerns with the type of development on the site.
Chair Hauser stated, regarding B.3.2.C, 100% Non-residential Sites, in the Planning Commission’s conversation, they spent a lot of time talking about sites where there is commercial currently and they care about commercial in the future, but they had a polyline that specifically excluded the area that would remain commercial and it would be 100% residential on the remainder. She asked if those sites are the subject of this comment.
Planning Director Murdock responded affirmatively. He stated that those sites are subject to it, but they are articulating one of the strategies to try to preserve some amount of commercial in the mixed use configuration, likely a horizontal mixed use, and recognizing that, on that site, there may be a diagram subset where they have to allow a 100% residential project on an otherwise mixed use site.
Chair Hauser stated one minor specific comment is on the designations. She was under the impression that the appendix in the submitted Housing Element further restricted these particular polygons to the sites where housing was intended. She asked if that is still the case.
Planning Director Murdock stated that, if he is understanding the concern, this is a citywide overview map; some of the sites in their entirety are intended to be Housing Element sites, and there are some sites that have been diagrammed, including those referenced in the figures that are more particularly described as to where the Housing Element site is considered to be.
Chair Hauser reiterated they are not recommending changing the polygon in the appendix.
Planning Director Murdock responded affirmatively.
Chair Hauser stated that it ties to the commercial question. She noted that the polygon changed across diagrams for the Fairmont Shopping Center.
Planning Director Murdock stated they were trying to limit it to the actual parcels in question, as there are multiple parcels inside the middle of that shopping center, but the parcel discussed and contemplated by the Planning Commission is still included in that site.
Chair Hauser thought they had delimited for Fairmont Shopping Center the key corner as the only part of the shopping center that was proposed for development. She asked if they were coming back and saying that the area along Gateway is now also being proposed.
Planning Director Murdock stated they had that feedback from the Planning Commission that focused on that southwest corner. They have not yet prepared a site specific diagram for that site; that could be part of the upcoming phase 1 rezoning.
Chair Hauser asked if the decision-making bodies here now will be alerted to changes and the polygons or site areas that were subject to be Housing Element sites before it’s done.
Planning Director Murdock anticipated that changes to the polygons that have been drafted would be put forth to decisionmakers, but where there is no polygon currently, he didn’t have a City Council Joint Study Session 20 September 25, 2023
polygon to present for revision.
Chair Hauser is still confused about the Fairmont Center. What is hard for her to understand is the area where they said housing would go in the Manor Shopping Center is now removed.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they are trying to do their best to clean up the APNs that are in play for some of these sites and this is an iteration of the first draft of the map. He wasn’t aware of the revision running afoul of the Planning Commission’s prior discussion but he will make a note and look specifically at the Pacific Manor Shopping Center site.
Chair Hauser asked if it would be appropriate to ask staff generally that, if they are going to change the polygons for these complicated sites, that they do come back to a study session.
Planning Director Murdock asked if the concern is, as they incorporate revisions and draft and need to make further changes, are they committing to coming back before Planning Commission or Council. He stated there will be another opportunity to look at them.
Chair Hauser stated, if staff is recommending changes to the polygons, she asked if they can clarify what those are now.
Planning Director Murdock wasn’t sure he understands what she means by the polygons.
Chair Hauser stated she is saying the figure in the Housing Element that was sent to HCD was deliberated on at length and that polygon is now different.
Planning Director Murdock agreed, adding that they never committed to diagramming the blue polygon they are showing on the overall city scale map. He wasn’t understanding the concern.
Consultant Hamilton stated that the parcels are indicated on the overall map and the polygon is not indicated here. On the site-specific map, the polygon is drawn.
Chair Hauser concluded that the polygon was not being proposed to change, but is just staff’s exercise in accurately highlighting the APN.
Planning Director Murdock responded affirmatively.
Councilmember Boles asked when they get to see the polygons and comment on them.
Planning Director Murdock stated in a repackaged Housing Element draft for those sites that have had Planning Commission direction for the polygons and potentially for others as part of a follow-on rezoning program after Housing Element adoption.
Councilmember Boles clarified that they aren’t going to have another study session or ability to provide input until they have put those polygons on a final document for their review.
Planning Director Murdock thought that was correct and they were trying to strike a balance of time versus in-depth review. They could set forth a process that brings all of this information and detailed polygons back to the Planning Commission or Council or both; the consequence of that is more time prior to having a Housing Element that is prepared for adoption. That is the direction they need if there is a desire by the majority of Council to take that time while recognizing the consequences that further delay Housing Element adoptions.
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Councilmember Boles asked if they can put together a document they can share with all of them plus the public who will have all of these in one place. She thought, outside of a meeting, they could submit comments.
Planning Director Murdock stated he can think about ways they might be able to consolidate that information, but he needs to go back to something that was said earlier, i.e., there are bits and pieces of information that are parts of different processes. It is hard to fuse all of them together because the work the Planning Commission has been doing is related to the Phase 1 rezoning program that will come through the decision-making process for adoption next year. It is separate from the Housing Element document adoption except for the sites that have already been diagrammed. They can take the time but there will be significant delay and potential consequences to doing that work now as opposed to follow-on Phase 1 work.
Councilmember Boles was asking for the consolidation of the ones they have already done, such as on the Oceana High School site where the Planning Commission was very thoughtful about reducing the polygon and increasing setbacks to allow public open space.
Councilmember Bier asked if they can just share that information with the community.
Commissioner Devine asked if they are specifically referring to design elements the Commission discussed for specific sites.
Councilmember Boles agreed, adding that they are all related to the maps and the densities and numbers of units are related to the input that they gave.
Commissioner Devine confirmed her understanding.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they can certainly consolidate those polygons that are in existence currently and post them on the Plan Pacifica website. He stated that there are already polygons in the draft Housing Element’s appendix for sites where they had the foresight in the initial drafting to diagram the sites, and there will potentially be more as a consequence of the Planning Commission’s objective development standards discussion. Some of them haven’t yet been prepared and he doesn’t have them to share with anybody at this point.
Mayor Bigstyck thought it sounds like they are talking about two different documents and that the detailed polygons that may come as a result of the extensive Planning Commission work that already happened will not necessarily be pertinent to this document that they are transmitting to HCD.
Planning Director Murdock stated that work leading into more site-specific diagramming beyond what is already in the appendix was intended to be part of the Phase 1 rezoning program, which is separate from the Housing Element adoption process that they are undertaking currently.
Mayor Bigstyck stated that it might be helpful for clarity’s sake for the public on the Plan Pacifica website to give two different sections for each process so all the data is there in one place but clearly delineated that one’s details are different than what they are currently discussing.
Mayor pro Tem Vaterlaus stated, if the map and the polygons match, that would make it easier.
Chair Hauser doesn’t understand why the shapes in the map changed.
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Planning Director Murdock understood and stated there was no intention to change the sites that are subject to the site list or to modify the subsets of those sites that are already diagrammed in the draft Housing Element. He stated that, what they did is to try to make it better and, where there are redundancies or unclear information, improve on that. He stated that there were instances where some sites may have had multiple parcels that weren’t intended as part of the Housing Element sites so they tried to pare those down so the bare minimum parcels that they have mapped through the assessor’s parcel information and that resulted in the donut for the Fairmont Shopping Center site. He stated that there were extraneous parcels that weren’t intended to be the Housing Element sites and don’t include the diagrammed polygons. It was extraneous in their judgment and they took it out for greater clarity and precision in the parcels that are in question.
Chair Hauser recapped that they have taken out extraneous parcels where the polygons wouldn’t have overlapped at all and the polygons still exist.
Planning Director Murdock agreed. He stated that, where there may be a fine line, like the Pacifica Manor Shopping Center, they will go back and double check. The intention was not to change the sites or polygon, but to clean up and be more precise in the mapped parcels for the sites.
Chair Hauser appreciated that clarification. She stated that HCD commented that some sites would allow 100% non-residential use and she agrees that it is untenable. They are requiring a minimum density on those sites and it should be taken at minimum density. She then referred to the bullet point where it says staff recommends a program to clarify that 100% residential project would be permitted; she says that means that Linda Mar Shopping Center could be 100% residential or all the places where they identified that was really important to have mixed use but still hits that residential density goes away. She recognizes the state density bonus program, and HCD in their letters has already said getting rid of commercial space is a concession or in some cases a waiver. She doesn’t agree with the solution they are proposing to address it, as we need to have mixed use sites or at least encourage them.
Planning Director Murdock understood, and he attempted to draft this policy summary with those points in mind. They have to make clear by Council and Planning Commission throughout the Housing Element process, the earlier General Plan and Sharp Park Specific Plan processes. He stated that this is the second iteration of that slide and they are trying to recognize that there are potentially other instruments to be used to achieve that outcome, like more site-specific diagrams or allowance for horizontal mixed use so that, if there is 100% residential project that doesn’t take up the whole site, there is an opportunity for a commercial project in the future. They do need to recognize that HCD might view a required commercial component as a constraint. Unless they went so far as to find entirely non-commercial sites, which would be inconsistent with a lot of community feedback through this process, he doesn’t know a better way to strike the right balance with this particular problem.
Chair Hauser stated that mixed use is a proven and wonderful thing. She stated a new policy to address HCD’s comment which is inconsistent with the other state laws they have already put into place was to the detriment of Pacifica. She thinks they need to find a way to address their comments as well as hold our ground and say we want to have commercial and housing and, in a lot of cases, have it at 60 dwelling units per acre because those two things work well together.
Commissioner Wright stated that they spent a lot of time saying they wanted ground floor City Council Joint Study Session 23 September 25, 2023
commercial here and they do want to maintain the tax base and the revenue generation and the jobs and the housing. If they can’t, then they need to maintain the same amount of retail space on the lot by not doing it up and just divide it in half the other way and do all residential in one place and all commercial in another place. He stated that they need both and they should come forth with something that works for both.
Chair Hauser thinks they are nuanced in each different site: When they discussed Linda Mar Shopping Center, the polygon was 100% residential, but along Oceana, they thought it deserves to have ground floor commercial to complete the commercial shopping district. She thought they were thoughtful and nuanced and precise, and they only had six different things they worked on and this is one of the six. She thinks it is important.
Commissioner Devine understands the constraints they are dealing with concerning HCD, but she thought it was bordering unreasonable. She wonders how they reach a medium or a diplomatic approach to saying no. She understands where they are coming from as they have more depth and experience than other communities dealing with the same issue, but she felt this contradiction between existing state policies and what we’re facing now. She wonders if they had experience with other communities where they have taken certain stances within reason and otherwise.
Consultant Hamilton stated that what they see in general is the HCD reviewers take a hard line.
They see a requirement to have ground floor residential to be a constraint and they don’t see ways to effectively mitigate. At the prior study session, they mentioned that some places are experimenting, and they are talking about how they will study things related to additional density bonus on top of what they are already entitled to. The way the state density bonus law works now, that’s not that valuable. They are taking a hard line on it. He stated that they should be cognizant of the risks associated with that, and they are putting forward many sites; the intention is to clear the way so those can reasonably be developed, but the reality of how many sites actually will get redeveloped is worth weighing because it is not going to be every single site two years out from now. You may lose a mixed use site and need to consider the tradeoffs.
Commissioner Wright would be in favor of counting on our surplus to cover us in leaving it the way we’ve outlined it or eliminating it from the sites and finding other sites.
Councilmember Boles read aloud HCD’s comment on sites that allow 100% non-residential uses. She understood that whatever residential units we call out are actually getting called out as residential and not that they have to make them 100% residential sites.
Chair Hauser concurs with that read and adds that, when they do the rezoning, by creating a minimum density, they have rezoned it to have to have residential for any sort of changes.
Asst. City Attorney Murphy stated that they are excellent comments, and she thought similarly when she read it. Her understanding when talking with their consultant team is that when talking about going more granular or coming in with more comments, based on experience in other jurisdictions in response to this comment, HCD is pushing for that type of program proposed which would allow 100% residential projects because they feel like the commercial component of it is a constraint.
Consultant Hamilton agreed that is how the comment is written and that is the logical read of that comment but they also need to look at how it’s laid out in other jurisdictions. He stated that an interesting fact in Pacifica is that they don’t have the same market pressures as other City Council Joint Study Session 24 September 25, 2023
jurisdictions have, so that comment is a little less relevant to the reality on the ground.
Councilmember Boles stated that we don’t have the vacancy in commercial spaces like a lot of cities have and our environment here is very different if you’re looking at other cities. She feels very strongly on this and she would not want it as a blanket statement either. She is willing to look at our sites list and if there are specific sites that we want to consider that are all residential, we can go to that level of detail.
Commissioner Ferguson thought they already did that at length. They are looking for commitment not to have 100% commercial; maybe the commercial is a restraint on residential, but he doesn’t know how they can read that comment and not say that they require residential development as a condition of development as a perfectly good response to that comment.
Consultant Hamilton stated that is what they have seen and that is what he can report.
Commissioner Ferguson stated it would have been easy for them to say that they need you to go 100% residential on these sites.
Chair Hauser added comparisons to different cities should be logical, thoughtful, and nuanced.
Planning Director Murdock stated that, in other efforts in the Housing Element update, they have taken the concerns and effectuated them through site-specific diagrams. He stated that all this policy is suggesting that we will continue to do but recognize that we need to be explicit that, in those diagrammed areas, we may get 100% residential projects. He is struggling to reconcile the resistance he is hearing with the approach that is advocated here and the approach that they put a lot of time and effort into. He asked if there is something more or different.
Chair Hauser stated they talked about 30 sites and we were very clear that these are the sites where no commercial is required but commercial is allowed. There was always a sentiment that this was what we were going to prescribe and if somebody wants to do 100% residential, they would have to provide enough affordable units to justify that.
Commissioner Wright added that, with the bowling alley, they did the same thing. They put in big incentives for them to keep a bowling alley there.
Mayor Bigstyck stated that a nuance that he isn’t sure if he missing or not is whether or not what this program says is that entire site is 100% residential period or merely that polygon is 100% residential and what falls outside that polygon which might be commercial that currently exists is not a part of this program.
Planning Director Murdock thinks the policy is proposing is that, within those diagrammed polygons, the subsets of the overall sites, a 100% residential project would be permitted. He thought that’s staff and consultants’ interpretation of what HCD is seeking and would satisfy the comment. He is hearing that there was a different impression and understanding working through some of the associated standards that would go with the polygons that those themselves may not be 100% residential. This differs from his understanding of the process they were undertaking and that may help to understand why there is perhaps some resistance to this program as structured.
Mayor Bigstyck stated it would be helpful for him to see one of the maps in front of him so they can dissect it in such a way that he fully understands if everything is actually on par with all the City Council Joint Study Session 25 September 25, 2023
discussions that happened to begin with or if there is a large discrepancy that they would like to find some way to reconcile their way.
Chair Hauser asked to pull up some figures.
Planning Director Murdock stated he was unable to quickly pull them up on the screen.
Commissioner Godwin asked if there is a percentage of residential that would satisfy the state if they guarantee them that.
Consultant Hamilton reiterated the state’s comment that requiring commercial on the ground floor is a constraint to a viable product that would pencil out for a developer. That is the challenge they are trying to solve.
Commissioner Godwin concluded there is no ratio or anything they could give them that would make them happy with commercial versus residential.
Consultant Hamilton stated that there are multiple issues at play. He stated that piece is part of it, but the piece regarding requiring there to be commercial is a constraint.
Commissioner Godwin asked what if they can structure something that says 100% residential is allowable but no more than 30% commercial.
Consultant Hamilton stated that solves the first problem but not the second problem. He stated that they could think of caps among all these sites in the event that 30% of them get developed as 100% residential, but if it’s 5%, it isn’t going to work.
Commissioner Godwin thought there might be a number where they say they have this program of mixed use sites but no more than one-third of the total mixed use sites we approve is commercial.
Consultant Hamilton stated, to be clear, if there is a requirement to build commercial on the ground floor, that might make it more difficult to build that site. It might not pencil out if that is the concern they’re trying to address.
Commissioner Wright asked if they can add incentives that you can get twice as much housing if you go vertical and have that solve our problem.
Consultant Hamilton stated that, in the last Housing Element, yes, but not this one.
Commissioner Wright asked if we don’t get credit for the half that is 100% housing.
Consultant Hamilton stated the incentive is not as strong as it used to be.
Commissioner Ferguson stated that, in his opinion, as much as the whole purpose of this thing is just to avoid the builder’s remedy and being allowed to do whatever they want, he stated that this is one thing that matters as far as steering the development and is at the top of the list.
Councilmember Bier thought what was so frustrating about this whole thing is that HCD doesn’t care about our specific needs or the work that has already been done but we do, so how can we move forward that way.
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Commissioner Ferguson stated, if they’re going to cave here, he doesn’t have any desire to do any more input.
Chair Hauser stated she would do the work ten times over if it meant having a sanguine Pacifica that HCD could get behind. She pointed out the Safeway site in Manor along Bill Drake Way and where it could be residential, as well as the small key corner at the Fairmont Shopping Center. On the Linda Mar Shopping Center we had ground floor commercial. She stated that she could keep going and going, and she could show everyone these polygons. The thought that was put into it isn’t as important as the fact that it matters for Pacifica as we don’t have a lot of places to shop, to eat, buy groceries, etc.
Commissioner Wright thinks our direction should be to eliminate all commercial sites from the element.
Mayor Bigstyck stated that, when he was visiting the Association of Bay Area Governments annual assembly, one of the cities said they have the exact opposite problem of everyone else, as they are land rich to the point where it is absolutely no problem at all for them to put housing.
The problem is that, as they are developing all the housing, they aren’t giving any thought to their commercial development whatsoever and all the housing is a detriment economically being viable in the future. He asked is there any compromise in any direction, in any which way.
Consultant Hamilton stated, if there is a happy medium, it is that the sites inventory in RHNA is meaningful but we don’t have redevelopment. You’re creating capacity for development in the zoning. The Housing Element isn’t going to 100% shape the future development of the city.
There are practical limits on the impacts that the Housing Element will have. The market will have much greater impact on what gets built or doesn’t get built. This is over an eight-year period of time and there is a likelihood that you lose a ton of those sites. The state wants to see that you provided exactly your RHNA number plus your buffer. They want to see that it’s a bolster but that doesn’t mean that all of those houses get developed the way that the regulations around those sites shape. There will be an application for housing site next door that won’t be able to quickly abide with the same shape, and they will come before the City Council to negotiate. If there is a happy medium, it is recognizing the limit of policy. He stated that these things play out over a longer time. He isn’t saying that the concerns aren’t valid but there are limits to the efficacy of a plan.
Mayor Bigstyck felt it was deeply sobering that we maybe got to 75% of our last RHNA which was 413 and, if so, it was because the vast majority were ADUs.
Councilmember Beckmeyer didn’t think so, but she would defer to staff. She was concerned about giving away the farm. The state and developers in the free market don’t care. She is worried that, if we don’t have some little way of preserving, the city is destined to change in ways that will be shocking for people.
Councilmember Bier asked what that will mean if we hold the line.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that the market forces are bearing on what developers will do. What she is hearing that everything you put in your plan doesn’t happen anyway and developers just like places where it is easier.
Chair Hauser hears a lot of cities that she works with saying that they are over retailed. They City Council Joint Study Session 27 September 25, 2023
want more industrial space and more houses, but they don’t need more retail. We are the opposite. She feels like it would be compelling if we explained the differences between Pacifica and our neighbors in San Mateo County, then there could be a justification that HCD would understand better. They aren’t proposing a lot of new retail, as we are losing some retail, but we’re trying to maintain something so we can be a healthy city and continue to give housing because there are people who work here that process housing applications.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they hear them loud and clear on the concerns and they will put their thinking caps on for different approaches and work as hard as they can with HCD to find something they will accept other than what they have proposed here based on their experience and judgement. There are other program items that they would ask for feedback on tonight. He explained B.3.10.A, Emergency Shelter Zoning: HCD flagged that this is an area of non-compliance that they believe the city has not completed, even though it was required some years ago. He thought stated they would recommend working on this emergency shelter zoning ordinance. They started that work with the intent to take it to Planning Commission for a public hearing in November and City Council as soon as possible thereafter. This is involving identifying one or more zoning districts where housing is allowed to also allow emergency shelter as a permitted use subject to some minimal objective criteria, such as maximum numbers of occupants. This direction is just confirming that staff should work on that and do it as soon as possible, noting that it’s required before Housing Element certification can occur.
Councilmember Beckmeyer asked if he anticipates that it would need to be larger than what we have in our by-rights designation already.
Planning Director Murdock stated that it absolutely would, as they are talking about looking at allowing 20 occupants per shelter, more than likely. He stated that the overall capacity will be based on the last homeless census, ensuring that there is capacity for shelters of at least 20 for at least 161 people and some certain square footage requirements associated with that as well.
Councilmember Boles asked if he can explain the difference between shelters and transitional housing.
Planning Director Murdock explained it was immediate emergency kind of need versus longer term and more supportive services to transition them into permanent long term housing. They are all stages in the process sometimes called the continuum of care.
Councilmember Boles asked who would build it. She asked if HCD is asking us to change our zoning and not actually build.
Planning Director Murdock agreed, stating it is the same framework as with long term housing.
We need to make sure our land use regulations allow this and we remove obstacles and constraints to construction. We currently have significant obstacles in HCD’s opinion because we don’t allow shelters that are large enough and we haven’t demonstrated the areas where capacity allows them to be built in enough capacity in numbers to meet our local needs.
Councilmember Boles asked if they see identifying specific sites as part the ordinance.
Planning Director Murdock stated that is not the similar more general approach that he is guiding now, as they are still honing in on the appropriate zoning district. He stated that there are different tools and he is putting forth the one he thinks is the right fit for Pacifica and Planning Commission and Council will have the final say.
City Council Joint Study Session 28 September 25, 2023
Commissioner Godwin asked if these emergency shelters have to be permanent or is it something that can be rolled in like FEMA does for trailers for a period of time.
Planning Director Murdock stated he doesn’t know the answer to that as he isn’t sure the emergency shelter ordinance that he is envisioning will necessarily discern between those two types and is more about the use and some of the other criteria associated with the use like parking and onsite management, etc.
Planning Director Murdock then continued with B.3.10.B. There are a handful of these types of comments where we have to do some zoning update program. State law has evolved significantly over time in relation to these and many other types of uses that cities are obligated to allow and typically impose no greater restrictions on other residential uses so transitional and supportive housing fits in there. He stated that the good news is we can have a program that allows us to undertake it later rather than having to do it immediately like the emergency shelter zoning ordinance.
Planning Director Murdock continued with B.3.10.C, Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Zoning ordinance update. He thinks anyone who has been working on these knows that, once you finish yours, three new bills pass that require further amendments. HCD has flagged some of them, and they will talk to them to ensure that they’re fully understanding what is in our ordinance in our local context and then undertake the program to make those amendments.
Councilmember Boles stated that she agrees with the public comment about trying to keep the parking in the coastal zone if we can.
Planning Director Murdock agreed and referred to our last process for updating our Accessory Dwelling Unit ordinance which included required parking and analysis of parking issues in coastal visitor parking zones. The Coastal Commission is looking out for visitor parking needs but also the consequence of that is our ADU occupants will have off-street parking in those locations in most instances. He expects a very similar approach coming through this time.
Mayor Bigstyck asked, once they pass the Housing Element, will they need to amend our LCP and get that amendment through the Coastal Commission.
Planning Director Murdock responded affirmatively, adding that there is likely to be a number of items, not least of which are the rezonings that are required. He stated some of those are along the way with our ongoing LCLUP update and some of them will be new, so there is followon work that has to be programed into the work plan to implement this.
Planning Director Murdock continued with B.3.10.D, Single Room Occupancy (SRO) Zoning.
The recommended approach is to clarify the definition to allow SROs in the same location and subject to the same standards as boarding houses where those are located currently.
Councilmember Beckmeyer asked if board and care homes are part of this.
Planning Director Murdock stated no, as board and care homes is the type of congregate or community care facility. State law requires those to be treated as residential uses, typically up to six residents. Larger than that, cities may require a use permit. That would not be included in the boarding house definition.
City Council Joint Study Session 29 September 25, 2023
Councilmember Boles assumed we didn’t need the lodging and meals for an SRO and some of them might have their own small kitchens.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they are trying to take a light touch approach and see if it will satisfy HCD’s requirement. They could take more time to study the different types of SROs that might be out there and most likely to be constructed or converted but they were simply trying to demonstrate where they can be operated.
Councilmember Boles concluded that doing the zoning doesn’t necessarily mean that they can have a kitchen or must have meals provided.
Planning Director Murdock responded affirmatively, adding that is not intending to imply that kitchen requirement or meal requirement to the SRO. They were just saying wherever a boarding house could go, an SRO could go; an SRO can be an SRO and doesn’t have to be something else.
Councilmember Boles read somewhere that they should be in more than just R3.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they have a fair amount of R3 zoned land area, very little undeveloped R3 zoned land area. HCD was not particularly specific in this comment and they are trying to directly address what they said which is demonstrate that SROs are allowed where boarding houses are allowed essentially; they will do that by adding it explicitly into the definition. They haven’t pointed them to anything that he can think of in the way of clear statutory requirements for SROs. He thinks it is qualitative and an important type of housing. It shows what you are doing to make sure it can be provided in Pacifica. Hopefully this will satisfy the comment.
Planning Director Murdock continued with B.4.1, Off-Street Minimum Parking Requirements.
Along the lines of HCD trying to identify perceived constraints to affordable housing development, they consider off-street parking requirements to be a potential constraint. In his planning judgment and experience, parking is expensive to provide and so to think about having to provide more than one space for a very small unit could cause a disproportionality in terms of the cost of parking relative to the housing unit itself. What HCD says is setting your required offstreet parking to one space per studio or one bedroom would satisfy this requirement and eliminate that constraint.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated he was suggesting changing from 1 1/2 to 1.
Planning Director Murdock stated she was correct, for the one bedroom.
Chair Hauser stated, for benefit of Council, this is something that they discussed extensively at Planning Commission. She clarified that they said one parking space for 0-1 bedroom with no guest parking and then there was a comment earlier about how everything else was for the Sharp Park Specific Plan but that was just for commercial. They kept the two parking spaces for 2 or more bedrooms and a 1:4 guest parking ratio. At the Planning Commission level, they were consistent with this.
Councilmember Beckmeyer appreciated that effort and thought it was a good compromise.
Planning Director Murdock continued with B.4.3.A, Permits and Findings for Housing Approvals.
He stated HCD looked at our regulations related to the permits associated with approving City Council Joint Study Session 30 September 25, 2023
housing projects and, in their assessment, specifically they identified the site development permit and use permit requirements that seemed duplicative and redundant for various types of housing projects as burdensome and a constraint, along with the finding that they lead to a lot of discretion and a lack of focus on objective standards as complicating the housing development process. To respond to that, staff proposed a program to try to streamline and minimize the number of permits required for types of development and get to the heart of the types of findings that are needed to evaluate projects for their impacts and for compliance, recognizing that, combined with the extensive objective development standards work that is going to come, as part of the Phase 2 rezoning. This simplified process with the objective standards should serve to address this comment from HCD.
Planning Director Murdock continued with B.4.3.B, similar comment but with slightly different flavor and implication. This had some interface with the Hillside Preservation District (HPD) and potential cause for concern for some. To clarify, this program would not propose to modify the coverage formula or any of the standards of the HPD, but would seek to address issues related to the planned development (PD) zoning process and, more particularly, the findings associated with approving projects in the PD. He thought HCD correctly analyzes there is an extensive amount of discretion associated with that process currently, which they analyze as a barrier or burden to accomplish housing constraints to housing approvals. What HCD has suggested and what they are proposing is to try rezone properties that are not currently developed out of the PD so that it is not mandatory to go through a legislative process with the City Council for every project which is one of the constraints that they have identified. Similar to the other permits they talked about with the other comment, look at the criteria for approval, the findings in the PD, and determine if there is a way to make those more directly tailored to objective standards rather than highly discretionary activities. Thus, it is a similar approach but different aspects or components of our zoning code.
Councilmember Boles asked him to explain the original intent behind PD. She sees it as a way to get more flexible designs.
Planning Director Murdock stated she was correct, as there is currently a two-step process.
You need approval of a development plan, which is the site specific zoning instrument and a legislative action that needs Council approval, full discretion for Council to approve or not for many reasons, and not strictly zoning non-compliance. He stated that the second component is the specific plan approval, which is a permit; it measures the permit against the development plan and the intended uses and layout, etc. He stated those are the two parts of the PD, and the first part, the mandated discretionary legislative action, is what he thinks HCD is really taking exception with. He stated that an applicant could pursue this voluntarily to get, but mandating them to go through this process is the constraint that HCD has identified.
Commissioner Wright referred to a question he asked in the beginning and asked if they are able to keep up with their regular workload in servicing the public on top of all this.
Planning Director Murdock acknowledged that it was exceptionally challenging but these are legally mandated processes and there are serious consequences of not accomplishing these tasks.
Commissioner Wright stated it requires a time of outreach, feedback, and a ton of work.
Chair Hauser asked if it was staff’s intention to make these changes to Housing Element sites only or to any Hillside Preservation District sites.
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Planning Director Murdock stated that HCD sees this as a broad constraint across all types of housing projects, and this will affect all of the PD zoned sites and would propose to have fewer sites zoned at PD by default and obligate those sites to go through the PD process.
Chair Hauser asked if we will still be able to preserve our hillside.
Planning Director Murdock explained that there are a few different issues at play, and nothing associated with this would change the coverage formula or other standards in the HPD overlay; but what the HPD overlay says is, unless you’re in the AG district, you need to rezone to PD as part of the project. While there is an objective formula that a developer can figure out for the HPD coverage and figure out how to comply with it, there is not a formula or objective standard to figure out how to navigate the right development plan for this site and protecting aesthetics and community character. Those are subjective or qualitative criteria that HCD is saying is a constraint. He stated that they can still impose the HPD coverage and consider exceptions where warranted, but the fundamental underlying process of the PD is really where the issue is.
They are different but happen to be related and grafted onto another.
Chair Hauser thought the PD process is extraneous and she agrees with HCD. Her question is, if someone is looking at 100% HPD zone and they also have a zoning of residential, whether there is a way for staff, within the ordinance or what remains of the ordinance, to come up with a thoughtful and nuanced way to preserve.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they will do their best. He thinks the Planning Commission will have its work cut out during the Phase 2 objective standards process in thinking about this as a hypothetical. He thinks there is a conception that the HPD is a development limiting tool but it isn’t really. He stated that, if they look at texts, it says high rise development is acceptable in the interest of preserving the natural slopes. He stated that they might be contemplating taller buildings than they have historically in Pacifica to accomplish the density we need but to also uphold the HPD coverage limitations. There will be more to follow as the projects begin to come through as there is nothing inherently inconsistent with very tall buildings in the HPD as written today.
Councilmember Boles asked regarding a possible the General Plan change that made anything over a certain percentage slope automatically added to HPD in the General Plan.
Planning Director Murdock stated that there are some recommendations in the General Plan for new areas to be added to the HPD that didn’t happen upon adoption of the General Plan and there is follow-on zoning work needed to implement that. They didn’t get to their traditional comprehensive zoning work that would follow a comprehensive General Plan update because of the Housing Element update but they will turn to that eventually and try to add those parcels.
Councilmember Boles stated there was also language about parcels with a certain slope also being considered and, knowing that we don’t have those identified now, that they will evaluate those when they get a site plan and they tell them what the average slope is.
Planning Director Murdock stated that he was familiar with some language that discourages development on sites over the prescribed grade, but if there is another policy he isn’t recalling off-hand, they tried their best to find sites that were not particularly steep. There are a few in there that have some important slope. He doesn’t know how to avoid them, but there are at the base of much larger topographical features and, on balance, it’s a compromised approach to City Council Joint Study Session 32 September 25, 2023
find the sites for our RHNA.
Councilmember Boles stated that she wanted to keep the HPD regulations but she doesn’t know if the PD related to the HPD is as important, but she thought that is part of the ordinance so taking PD out of the HPD would require a vote of the people.
Planning Director Murdock stated he hasn’t come across that in his research so far but he thought revising the PD standards would not require a public vote.
Councilmember Boles thought the HPD standards require a rezone to PD.
Planning Director Murdock responded affirmatively.
Councilmember Boles stated that would be a change to the HPD ordinance which they can’t do without a vote of the people.
Asst. City Attorney Murphy stated that they will look into this so when they prepare the program, it will address it in a manner that does not require a public vote.
Planning Director Murdock thought what they were trying to get at with those sites is that they may not be able to eliminate the rezoning requirements. But streamlining the findings and having more objective standards will significantly diminish the constraint as identified by HCD, although they don’t have a clear mechanism to completely eliminate the rezoning requirements.
Councilmember Beckmeyer stated that she always thinks about hazards and conflate the two when she thinks about HPD.
Planning Director Murdock stated there are still a variety of tools that could come to bear if there is a truly hazardous site that may not be able to be safely developed. The option of last resort is in the building permit process and the requirement for the geotechnical engineer to design and ensure that it can be constructed in accordance with accepted engineering principles. He stated that, preceding that, it may be the case that where there are extreme hazards that cannot be mitigated, the city may be able to deny a project despite all of the pro-housing policies and state law; in some instances, CEQA might be required depending on the nature of the project and those hazards could be identified and hopefully mitigated; but, if not able to be mitigated, an EIR would be required and the Council would decide whether or not to override that factor.
Mayor pro Tem Vaterlaus made a motion to extend the meeting to 1:00 a.m.; seconded by Mayor Bigstyck.
Planning Director Murdock took a vote by verbal roll call.
CITY COUNCIL
MOVE TO EXTEND MEETING TO 12:00 AM
RESULT: ADOPTED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Sue Vaterlaus, Mayor pro Tem
SECONDER: tTygarjas Bigstyck, Mayor
AYES: Bigstyck, Vaterlaus, Beckmeyer, Bier, Boles
Chair Hauser moved to extend the meeting to 1:00 a.m.; seconded by Commissioner Wright.
City Council Joint Study Session 33 September 25, 2023
Planning Director Murdock took a vote by verbal roll call.
PLANNING COMMISSION
MOVE TO EXTEND MEETING TO 1:00 AM
RESULT: ADOPTED [5-0]
MOVER: Samantha Hauser, Chair
SECONDER: Greg Wright, Commissioner
AYES: Hauser, Devine, Ferguson, Godwin, Wright
ABSENT: Berman, Leal
Councilmember Boles asked, to the point of hazards, with any SB 330 and builders remedy applications, if they have to do full geotechnical including borings where the buildings are going.
Planning Director Murdock stated not as a preliminary application requirement.
Chair Hauser stated that all projects need to do CEQA no matter what and SB 330 requires that public health and safety findings are a way to deny a project: if something is unsafe, they have to make findings and they can deny the project.
Councilmember Boles stated that they might not know that without a geotechnical report.
Asst. City Attorney Murphy stated that, for SB 330 projects that have a preliminary application, they still need to go through the environmental review process. In doing the CEQA process, there is a section that analyzes hazards and geology, and through that process that typically does require some geotechnical work, thus CEQA requirements during the project review.
Planning Director Murdock clarified that her question was SB 330 preliminary application and that does not include that as part of the initial application package. As Asst. City Attorney Murphy outlined, once that evolves to a regular application, all the regular application processes apply, including CEQA and any other local requirements such as in the coastal zone needing further geotechnical hazard analysis, etc., but at the initial onset of the application, that detailed type of technical information is not required and the city cannot require it under SB 330.
Councilmember Boles stated, if that information is coming later, she doesn’t understand the process and how much discretion they have.
Chair Hauser stated that it is grounds to deny a project if the project is hazardous.
Councilmember Boles understands that but asked if it would be part of public meetings.
Asst. City Attorney Murphy stated it would be part of public meetings as it would be part of the CEQA document.
Councilmember Boles has been looking at their grading ordinance and wondered if work on that could help them provide more objective standards that help reinforce HPD.
Asst. City Attorney Murphy stated that any additional objective standards that the city wants to adopt regarding work on hillsides, grading, etc., would provide clear standards for developers who want to come in as well as clear regulations for protections for the city.
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Councilmember Boles thought that was something they might want to consider in the future.
Planning Director Murdock continued with 4.6.B, Group Homes for 7-plus Persons. It is in the category of zoning updates to comply with state law: eliminating the distance separation requirements and discretionary permit criteria for these types of facilities.
Planning Director Murdock continued with C.4, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. It relates to actions the city would require in the course of marketing an affordable housing unit that is available, ensuring specific intentional actions are taken to market these units, particularly to schools that will reach families located outside of the highest resourced areas in Pacifica to increase the opportunity for those families to find housing within the highest resourced area.
Commissioner Ferguson asked if he could identify one or more of these areas in Pacifica.
Planning Director Murdock stated that the entirety of Pacifica is considered a racially concentrated area of affluence but within the community there are some areas that are mapped in the draft Housing Element as having more racial segregation and having lower income, etc.
This program will be focused on trying to market those units in those parts of the community.
Commissioner Ferguson asked if it could apply to the whole town.
Planning Director Murdock agreed and noted the program could be to submit this information to every school.
Commissioner Ferguson stated he couldn’t tell if it was some concentrated areas in Pacifica or if it applied to the whole city, but that was clarified.
Planning Director Murdock continued with D.1, Housing Rehabilitation. This relates to developing a proactive program for the city, managed enforcement division, to identify properties in need of maintenance or where someone reaches out or complaints received engaging on a complaint basis and to connect those individual occupants of property owners with the appropriate resources to rehabilitate their property to keep them in a habitable condition. This is trying to change the existing process which is primarily complaint-driven and perceived as punitive to a more proactive results-driven resource connecting type of process to try and resolve those property maintenance issues outside of the enforcement scheme.
Councilmember Bier asked if it is to keep those properties affordable.
Planning Director Murdock stated that it wasn’t expressly intended for that and they could explore if there is a way to add that on as an additional program component.
Chair Hauser thought they want to consider some sort of fine for properties that don’t comply with recommendations.
Planning Director Murdock stated that there already is the basic code enforcement process. He stated that this is trying to identify a different process, a more cooperative program. As he mentioned in the staff presentation, many of the people are overwhelmed and don’t have the mental or physical capacity to undertake these improvements and may not have family nearby to help them. There are very complex cases, and once it gets to an enforcement stage, the city is in a different position than if it was proactively engaging in trying to head off an enforcement City Council Joint Study Session 35 September 25, 2023
process.
Chair Hauser stated that includes single family homes.
Planning Director Murdock agreed, adding any housing unit type. There would need some judgment in terms of prioritizing, given the limited resources.
Councilmember Boles asked if he can explain how the property identification program works.
Planning Director Murdock stated that is not contemplated in this program to expand the mandatory inspection process. As he is envisioning it, this would be primarily exterior maintenance related and there may be an opportunity to visit a property and learn more about the interior conditions. He stated that there are other existing programs requiring multi-family unit inspections from the county with varying degrees of success but primarily related to their resources. This is not meant to supplement or replace those inspection programs for interior health condition.
Councilmember Boles asked what we can do to make the process easier for tenants.
Planning Director Murdock stated that this isn’t going to provide legal advice to tenants about eviction or displacement but intended to address HCD’s comment about including programs related to property rehabilitation and maintain the habitability of properties. The vast majority of our housing stock is single family residences, and many of those are longtime residents, who drive a lot of complaints to code enforcement. This is a way of satisfying HCD while achieving a better, more efficient outcome than a complaint-driven process. They are trying to get ahead of that and make a better neighborhood environment and better living condition for these residents outside of a punitive enforcement process. He doesn’t imagine multi-family apartments likely being a priority of this program, at least for the foreseeable future, given the different resourcing and management structures and ownership structures of most of those buildings. He thinks the traditional code enforcement process likely would remain the preferred tool for a lot of those properties.
Commissioner Wright asked what they mean by resources and what resources will they be recommending. He asked for more information on this contemplated process of offering help and resources.
Planning Director Murdock stated that the program is not yet developed and they don’t have all the potential resources identified. From his prior work experience, there are various non-profits that can connect to social services as well as financial resources through grants and loans and other assets of funding support to help people accomplish the property renovations needed in addition to some government programs and communities. They have to be economical with our limited resourcing that they would have to commit to this and it may only be a handful of properties a year but that is improving the community and avoiding an evolving neighborhood issue that explodes into a feud at some point.
Planning Director Murdock stated that concludes the programs and his suggestion would be to not try to tackle sites this evening. He stated that it could be a point to have a clean break and think about it.
Chair Hauser reiterated, to be sure they all understand what decision is being made, a reorganization of housing site inventories, B.3.1; the AB 2011 sites, B.3.2.B; and the City Council Joint Study Session 36 September 25, 2023
infrastructure constraint with the Rockaway Beach pump station, B.3.9, that are left.
Planning Director Murdock stated she is correct.
Chair Hauser asked when staff is proposing that would come back to this group.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they would need to do it in the next 2-3 weeks.
Scheduling is challenging, but they are trying to make it a successful process to give them the time and space about sites.
Chair Hauser was interested in continuing.
Mayor Bigstyck stated that he was interested in trying to tackle the first one and seeing how they do as a group.
Councilmember Boles stated, before they do that, there were a couple of comments from HCD that are more policy related that she hoped they could get to: C.4 Priorities and Metric Milestones and D. Tenant Stability.
Planning Director Murdock explained that the comment was talking about meaningful actions to overcome identified patterns and trends; specific commitments, metrics, and milestones, all in the programs they identified; addressing housing mobility enhancement; new housing choices and affordability in high opportunity areas and issues related to the sites list; place-based strategies for community preservation and revitalization and displacement protection; and the quantified metrics that target beneficial impacts for people, households and neighborhoods.
Consultant Hamilton added that, when they think about place-based strategies, they think about the housing basket and everything that comes along with housing. He stated transportation is part of this and one that speaks to this is code enforcement which as a program does double duty and also advances on part of the place-based process.
Chair Hauser suggested they launch into the last three, starting with B.3.9 as that seems to be the most material: Infrastructure Constraints, Rockaway Beach Pump Station.
Planning Director Murdock recapped the earlier mention of the current draft Housing Element that had over 600 sites identified in the Rockaway Beach sewer pump station catchment. They have honed that down to a little under 200 sites on the core RHNA sites list. This comment relates to the infrastructure capacity constraint of the Rockaway Beach sewer pump station that, during wet weather periods, does not have sufficient capacity for all of the storm water that infiltrates into the sewer system. They are trying to right size the number of new units relative to already planned infrastructure improvement to replace sewer mains in the Vallemar and Rockaway Beach neighborhoods that will reduce inflow and infiltration (I & I). While they were not confident that 600-700 units of new development could be accounted for with this I & I reductions, they were more confident in working to confirm that the sewer replacements that are already planned over the next several years will provide enough capacity offset to allow less than 200 new units in this area. That would mean we need to demonstrate the lack of constraints primarily for the core RHNA sites; then the surplus and buffer sites potentially could remain and potentially infrastructure constraints are identified in the review process. One other option is to reduce or eliminate the number of units or sites from the surplus buffer sites list. He stated we don’t have good options to relocate the core RHNA sites of approaching 200 units.
City Council Joint Study Session 37 September 25, 2023
Mayor Bigstyck stated that they are keeping the 179 and the other 520 are relegated to surplus.
Planning Director Murdock stated that was the current structure. He added that there has been in-depth discussion by the Planning Commission on Site 26, Site 34, and Site 36.
Chair Hauser asked if they should take those three off.
Planning Director Murdock stated, if Council and the Commission is going to enter a detailed discussion of removing specific sites, they have Planning Commissioner Devine who has a potential conflict of interest related to sites in this vicinity. They would advise that she disclose that conflict and recuse herself through the course of that detailed site discussion.
Commissioner Devine stated that she owns real property in the Rockaway Beach neighborhood and must recuse herself from this item. Commissioner Devine left the room.
Commissioner Ferguson stated that, as he has built about a dozen stormwater and sewer pump stations in the last five years, he has a couple of questions on this analysis. He asked if anyone has done a peak flow dry season versus wet season as the capacity is peak flows in the morning and afternoon during a rain event. He also asked is there an analysis of infiltration project that they are doing to reduce storm water infill into the sanitary sewer and is there a timeline of when they predict those flows to go down. They typically see between 5 and 10 times as much flow on a rain event than they do in a dry season event and there will be some analysis done to try and take that 10x and bring it down to the 2.5x and, in that timeline, does that allow for these units to build in the timeframe they are talking about.
Planning Director Murdock stated that he didn’t have all the technical answers for him on a lot of the wastewater engineering considerations. He thought they don’t have a flow study and that is one of the options he discussed with his colleagues in the wastewater division. The challenge is the timing of the Housing Element process relative to the next rainy season and the opportunity to put a flow meter in.
Commissioner Ferguson thought that probably the 200 houses are marginal compared to a rain event in terms of increased capacity in this area. The buffer sites can be left off the RHNA, but it won’t stop someone from developing Sea Bowl or other sites that they don’t need them to rezone it and take advantage of the builder’s use. That still puts the strain on the infrastructure.
Planning Director Murdock agreed, but stated that in those instances, they are not having to analyze the constraints and demonstrate that they can be built. They can undergo the CEQA process and identify those as potential environmental impacts.
Commissioner Ferguson stated that they would require them to pay for the upgrades.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they require appropriate mitigation and proportionate contributions. He stated that they have to demonstrate that those types of burdens through the CEQA process won’t unexpectedly materialize for core RHNA sites in a way that would render projects unaffordable.
Commissioner Ferguson stated that they haven’t asked DPW to conduct any type of analysis on this Rockaway pump station of how many marginal units they think it can take and when.
Planning Director Murdock stated that is the analysis that is ongoing. They have had City Council Joint Study Session 38 September 25, 2023
conversations with their staff and they’re engaging their consultant that has the most familiarity of the modeling of this segment of the system. They are trying to structure this approach and validate it with the appropriate technical analysis.
Commissioner Ferguson was trying to figure out how they arrived at this 200 number. He thought 200 was good but not any more than that.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they have a RHNA they have to meet and a bunch of other sites and they start whittling away at them. This is the bare minimum number that they could make work across the rest of the Housing Element backdrop and feel that they have a reasonable chance of saying all these sewer mains in two neighborhoods versus the new flows from 200 units seemed like a workable proposition. He stated it can go up or down once the technical study is done, and they are trying to structure that as an approach now. They had a Housing Element backdrop and they probably couldn’t relocate another 200 units, but they are trying to make an educated guess of whether it is enough fewer units that they think a massive infrastructure upgrade might be enough to warrant doing the technical analysis. He didn’t know if he would feel comfortable analyzing it for 700 or 800 units, but cutting that back demonstrates to HCD significant quantitative reduction combined with a planned capital improvement.
Commissioner Ferguson asked if HCD identifies this constraint without prompting from the city.
Planning Director Murdock stated that they identified a pump station capacity constraint as a potential infrastructure constraint in the draft Housing Element, but they said the city’s analysis of the impact of that constraint was inadequate. Thus, they are trying to intensify the analysis.
Commissioner Ferguson feels comfortable with what they have there with the 200 units.
Chair Hauser stated, when they went through all of these sites as a Commission, there were two that they literally did not put development standards to: sites 12, on the west side of Highway 1 across from Vallemar, and 34, Vallemar Station. They couldn’t figure out how people would get onto Highway 1. She loves the idea of not just moving it to surplus, but also removing those two sites. Sea Bowl was an important part of the Kosmont study that the city commissioned for the commercial, and if they are hearing that commercial and residential are so difficult to achieve in the discussion, and maybe these three are projects that should be removed, understanding that there are builders’ remedies.
Commissioner Wright asked if she wants to take Sea Bowl off the list. He understood Vallemar Station and Caltrans. If they are trying to build stuff here, then taking Sea Bowl off will likely reduce trying to achieve their RHNA numbers, as that spot is very likely to be built.
Chair Hauser didn’t think 219 units are likely to be built and didn’t know if that was what was being proposed. If an affordable developer did come with a proposal, she would be happy to entertain that outside of the Housing Element process.
Commissioner Wright stated she is using that as a vehicle to build something more beneficial.
Chair Hauser agreed. She stated that they paid a lot of money for an economic study that said we need to capitalize on Sea Bowl the week that Sea Bowl sent the letter that they were closing.
She emphasized replacing it with something that is economically a boon to the city.
Consultant Hamilton stated that, on the Rockaway site, when they look at the breakdown, there City Council Joint Study Session 39 September 25, 2023
are 250 low-income buffer units between site 34 and 12, and that is a significant amount. As important is the location and spreading around the potential low-income sites around the city and particularly adjacent to more affluent areas and all of the housing basket things that go along with that. They want to try and preserve at least some of those sites in this area.
Mayor Bigstyck stated that they don’t have the studies now to have an accurate analysis of what the actual flow rates are but, as they go along, he asked if they will be updating their analysis to determine whether or not these sites can accommodate the flow.
Planning Director Murdock stated that was the goal. They hope to have their expert staff or consultant opinion to validate this assumption, but this reduction in I & I from the sewer main replacement that is already planned in the next 3-4 years would be equal to or greater than the new flow from 180 units.
Mayor Bigstyck stated that there are another 266 units they are talking about between sites 12 and 34. As they do the analysis, might it say that it could accommodate those 266 also or, if it doesn’t, could they adjust in terms of our CIP.
Planning Director Murdock didn’t think he can speak to the CIP component. He doesn’t know what other I & I related capital improvements could be made in that particular area. He stated that they can hopefully get a sense from that technical analysis if the numbers are more than 180 and figure out if there is a priority order to retain sites. If they can get more, they would prefer to keep the Rock, then the Sea Bowl, and our last choice is the Quarry, Caltrans, and Vallemar Station.
Mayor Bigstyck stated that the other question, regarding Sea Bowl, was why it has become above-moderate when before it was lower-income serving and whether that would get in the way of what Chair Hauser was referring to in terms of the economic development study.
Planning Director Murdock thought there are some unknowns, such as the resolution of that 100% on residential policy that came up earlier and how it relates to the site diagram in that context. He thought the cleanest thing is to not have the Sea Bowl as a Housing Element site if you’re concerned about other non-housing considerations because, to some extent, HCD is going to have its hands in the dough on that site and what the city might be obligated to approve ultimately. He stated that there are a lot of other laws that will complicate that process even without the site being in the Housing Element and, if the city has aspirations for a mixed-use project there, perhaps having it in the Housing Element is not the best way to further that objective.
Mayor Bigstyck suggested keeping sites 12 and 34 and removing 36.
Commissioner Ferguson stated site 36 seems to be one of their best housing sites in the city.
Mayor Bigstyck thought it will wind up housing either way and, in which case, it will apply toward the RHNA. He was enamored by the fact they were trying to retain economic use of that site in terms of bringing tax revenue, not the least of recreational opportunity for all parties involved.
Commissioner Wright asked if it would be helpful to staff and their consultants to prioritize them, and as they tried to meet the demands and announcements, they understand the pecking order and how we would like them to proceed.
City Council Joint Study Session 40 September 25, 2023
Planning Director Murdock stated that type of feedback would be helpful to them. Assuming that this analysis checks out for some number of units, if there is an opportunity to include more units and the sites are deemed to be appropriate for the Housing Element, getting priority order policy direction would be helpful.
Chair Hauser asked if they are looking for 200 buffer units.
Planning Director Murdock stated he didn’t have a number of the buffer units. They have the core RHNA sites which are most important to staff and then any number of extra surplus buffer sites is good from their perspective, provided they can check that out from the technical standpoint with the sewer capacity issue.
Councilmember Bier liked the idea of prioritizing. She would rather remove site 34 and site 36.
Councilmember Boles wanted to ask questions about some of the other sites as well as a couple of questions about our sewers as well. She referred to site 12 and asked if that was part of the access to Pacifica Highlands.
Planning Director Murdock didn’t believe that parcel is utilized for that project access. The parcel in question is mixed use neighborhood and it was redesignated as such in the General Plan update process and was one of the late modifications they made during that process.
Councilmember Boles asked if their access would come across one of these sites.
Planning Director Murdock stated it is possible.
Councilmember Boles didn’t know if that is an issue and that is an application that they already have. Regarding site 35, at the Planning Commission meeting when that site was discussed, she was surprised to hear that it required a vote of the people to have housing on that site.
Planning Director Murdock stated that was not accurate. He stated the zoning applicable to that site requires a public vote to rezone, as the zoning is currently C1, which allows housing in a mixed-use configuration. The density assumptions here reflect that existing zoning limitation and would not be able to intensify beyond that without a public vote.
Councilmember Boles stated that the direction given was for a purely residential site.
Planning Director Murdock stated that would be irreconcilable under the current zoning and that would be an issue that will need to be analyzed when they put together more detailed information for the site, currently talking about allowable density. There is nothing inconsistent with the current zoning about the number of units that has been discussed.
Councilmember Boles noted that site now is zoned commercial recreation and therefore similar to the Sea Bowl in terms of the intent of a public.
Planning Director Murdock thought it was visitor serving commercial in the 2040 General Plan, which does not allow residential use.
Chair Hauser stated that there are different land uses and she agrees on the commercial.
Because of the vote of the people, they didn’t go into more detail on that and were comfortable with the zoning and gave a couple of additional criteria to make sure that it would set back far City Council Joint Study Session 41 September 25, 2023
enough from Highway 1.
Councilmember Boles stated that she thought site 35 would be a great place for a restaurant in terms of economic viability. She agrees that site 26 is problematic and some discussions brought up was that we may need some of this land as we are dealing with these intersections and trying to think about overcrossings. She would rather see that site discussed as part of the Quarry Specific Plan and looking broadly at the whole area instead of piecemeal. She then stated, besides the pump station, the sewage treatment plant had to release partially treated sewage in the creek this past winter. She wanted to be sure whatever analysis they are doing is not just looking at I & I for the pump station but also for the sewage treatment plant.
Chair Hauser asked if they want to remove some sites and leave other sites and get direction on that. Chair Hauser, Mayor Bigstyck, Councilmembers Bier and Boles, and Commissioner Ferguson discussed keeping or removing 26, 34 and 36.
Mayor pro Tem Vaterlaus stated she sees Sea Bowl as one of the main places that is going to be built and, if they are taking it off this list, she thinks that is a problem.
Commissioner Wright stated that taking it off this particular list doesn’t stop it from being built or anyone applying to build something. He stated that somebody is going to build on that site with the bowling alley closed. Chair Hauser added that the goal is to leave them with a little bit of discretion and maybe there is none because of what is happening now. Commissioner Wright thought the goal was that they want to maintain some of the commercial aspect and they have more control over that if they leave it off of this list.
Mayor pro Tem Vaterlaus understood.
Chair Hauser asked if the General Plan currently allows housing at Sea Bowl, and Planning Director Murdock stated that it is visitor serving commercial so no housing allowed.
Planning Director Murdock stated that he heard consensus to remove sites 26 and 36.
There was consensus on removing site 36. There was majority yes on removing site 26, with one no from Mayor Bigstyck.
Commissioner Devine returned to the meeting from recusal.
Mayor Bigstyck reopened public comments.
Pat Kremer, Pacifica, stated that what they just discussed may preclude what she is going to say. She expressed her concern about the general process of rezoning of properties included in the Housing Element and the pros and cons of preference for residential or commercial property.
Mayor Bigstyck closed public comments. He then asked direction from City Manager on a future study session.
Asst. City Attorney Bazzano stated that they should continue this item to a special study session to a future date which sounds like it should be uncertain so staff can view the materials and prepare for the next session and poll Council and Planning Commission for availability.
City Council Joint Study Session 42 September 25, 2023
Mayor Bigstyck asked if he needs a motion.
Asst. City Attorney Bazzano suggested a motion from both.
City Manager Woodhouse anticipated that it will be very difficult to schedule a follow-up session in the 2-3 weeks and requested some flexibility about scheduling the session with those who are available as it has to be a quorum for each group.
Councilmember Bier moved to continue the study session to a date to be determined; seconded by Mayor pro Tem Vaterlaus.
Planning Director Murdock took a vote by verbal roll call.
CITY COUNCIL
CONTINUE STUDY SESSION TO DATE UNCERTAIN
RESULT: ADOPTED [UNANIMOUS]
MOVER: Mary Bier, Councilmember
SECONDER: Sue Vaterlaus, Mayor pro Tem
AYES: Bigstyck, Vaterlaus, Beckmeyer, Bier, Boles
Commissioner Ferguson moved to continue the study session to a date to be determined; seconded by Commissioner Wright.
Planning Director Murdock took a vote by verbal roll call.
PLANNING COMMISSION
CONTINUE STUDY SESSION TO DATE UNCERTAIN
RESULT: ADOPTED [5-0]
MOVER: Alex Ferguson, Commissioner
SECONDER: Greg Wright, Commissioner
AYES: Hauser, Devine, Ferguson, Godwin, Wright
ABSENT: Berman, Leal
ADJOURN JOINT STUDY SESSION
Mayor Bigstyck adjourned the meeting at 12:46 a.m.
Transcribed by Barbara Medina, Public Meeting Stenographer.
Respectfully Submitted,
Sarah Coffey, City Clerk
APPROVED: 5 - 0; 10/23/2023
__________________________
Tygarjas Bigstyck, Mayor