CITY OF SANTA CRUZ
809 Center Street
Santa Cruz, California 95060
CITY COUNCIL AGENDA
Study Session
August 15, 2023
1:30 p.m. GENERAL BUSINESS, ZOOM/COUNCIL CHAMBERS
The meeting may be viewed remotely, using any of the following sources:
Click on Zoom link (no time delay): https://zoom.us/j/94684401344 Online at http://www.cityofsantacruz.com/government/city-council/council-meetings Online at Watch – Community Television of Santa Cruz County Comcast Channel 25
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Enter the meeting ID number: 946 8440 1344
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Correspondence to be included in the agenda packet must be received by 5:00 pm on Monday, August 14th
The City of Santa Cruz does not discriminate against persons with disabilities. Out of consideration for people with chemical sensitivities we ask that you attend fragrance free. Upon request, the agenda can be provided in a format to accommodate special needs. Additionally, if you wish to attend this public meeting and will require assistance such as an interpreter for American Sign Language, Spanish, or other special equipment, please call the City Clerk’s Department at 420-5030 at least five days in advance so that we can arrange for such special assistance, or email [email protected]. The CalRelay system number: 1-800-735-2922.
Si desea asistir a esta reunión pública y necesita ayuda - como un intérprete de lenguaje de señas americano, español u otro equipo especial - favor de llamar al Departamento de la Secretaría de la Ciudad al 420-5030 al menos cinco días antes para que podamos coordinar dicha asistencia especial o envié un correo electrónico a [email protected]. El número del sistema Cal-Relay es: 1-800-735-2922.
August 15, 2023 City Council Study Session 2
Agenda and Agenda Packet Materials: The City Council agenda and the complete agenda packet containing public records, which are not exempt from disclosure pursuant to the California Public Records Act, are available for review on the City’s website:
www.cityofsantacruz.com/government/city-council-meetings and at the Office of the City Clerk located at 809 Center Street, Room 9, Santa Cruz, California, during normal business hours.
Agenda Materials Submitted after Publication of the Agenda Packet: Pursuant to Government Code §54957.5, public records related to an open session agenda item submitted after distribution of the agenda packet are available at the same time they are distributed or made available to the legislative body on the City’s website at: www.cityofsantacruz.com/government/city-councilmeetings and are also available for public inspection at the Office of the City Clerk, 809 Center Street Room 9, Santa Cruz, California, during normal business hours, and at the council meeting.
Need more information? Contact the City Clerk’s office at 831-420-5030.
City Council Study Session
1:30 P.M.
Call to Order
Roll Call
General Business
1. Understanding the Dynamic Coast (CM)
The City Council and community will participate in a study session about the dynamic coast, including the utility of adaptive management strategies to guide decision making.
Adjournment
City Council Study Session
AGENDA REPORT
DATE: 08/08/2023
AGENDA OF: 08/15/2023
DEPARTMENT: City Manager
SUBJECT: Understanding the Dynamic Coast (CM)
RECOMMENDATION: The City Council and community will participate in a study session about the dynamic coast, including the utility of adaptive management strategies to guide decision making.
BACKGROUND: On November 27, 2018, City Council passed an emergency resolution stating “an existential climate emergency threatens our cities, towns, region, state, nation, civilization, humanity and the natural world”. In the resolution, the City committed to “consider revising its existing policy, priorities, processes, and distribution of resources to enable emergency climate action measures in the City”. As reiterated in the City’s Climate Adaptation Plan (2018), to address the impacts of climate change, “the City must be prepared to implement challenging climate adaptation and resilience strategies, which include new ways of building, maintaining, funding, and engaging with the built and natural environment”.
The Santa Cruz coastline, including West Cliff, is a dynamic piece of the California coast - ever changing and constantly evolving in response to shifting environmental conditions, such as weather, wind, and ocean currents. The ongoing impact of a changing climate with forecasted increases in sea level rise, frequency and intensity of storm events, and temperature (air and ocean) will continue to transform the coastline. The accelerating significant effects of climate change on the City’s beaches and bluffs will necessitate a dynamic and iterative approach to coastal resilience planning. This is especially so as scientific information, community consensus, regulatory certainty and political will are gained along with an understanding of changing onthe-ground conditions.
To navigate this fluid decision-making environment, while also preserving the possibility of a diverse range of options, a new planning paradigm has emerged - adaptive management.
Adaptive management can be defined as monitoring the results of a management decision, and updating actions in response to new information and results from monitoring efforts.
DISCUSSION: City staff and Farallon Strategies will present to Council and the community an overview of the dynamic Santa Cruz coastline, highlighting progress made by the City towards managing the dynamic coast and emphasizing the usefulness of adaptive management strategies to guide decision making. The Council will participate in a brief activity to visualize the future of the Santa Cruz coastline over the next 50 years.
1.1 The intent of this study session is to set the foundation for upcoming outreach activities to develop a 50-year vision for West Cliff. By the session’s end, Council and the community should have a better understanding of the dynamic coast and adaptation pathways with an improved ability to engage with the community, City staff, and regulatory agencies about coastal issues.
FISCAL IMPACT: None.
Prepared and Submitted By:
Laura Schmidt
Assistant City Manager
Approved By:
Matt Huffaker
City Manager
ATTACHMENTS:
1. AGENDA.PDF
1.2 Study Session Agenda
1) The Dynamic Coast – history, City context, current challenges, future management
2) Interactive Activity – future coast and resilience
3) Wrap-up
1.3 1
Rosemary Balsley
From: Dorinda Parker <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2023 10:03 AM
To: City Council; TPWC
Cc: Matt Huffaker; Renee Golder
Subject: Input for upcoming City Council study session and Transportation/PW meeting regarding West Cliff Drive
We have been to several meetings and have been reading the information regarding West Cliff Drive repairs and coastal resiliency projects and are glad to see the communication and progress being made. We wanted to provide some neighborhood input for the meeting on Tuesday, the 15th and also the TPWC meeting on August 21. We live on Woodrow Avenue which is normally a somewhat busy street. With West Cliff Drive being closed at the end of Woodrow, our street has gotten much busier with car and motorcycle traffic and the cruisers that used to be cruising down West Cliff Drive now come down Woodrow and speed up the hill from West Cliff Drive. Woodrow is also a very busy pedestrian street with lots of people walking and we have observed several near misses of pedestrian vs. car at Pelton and Woodrow.
We are strongly urging you to work to open up West Cliff Drive to two way traffic once storm repairs are made. West Cliff Drive has been a main avenue for car traffic to get from Bay Avenue to Natural Bridges State Park area and many people drive that road to view the ocean, especially on weekends or at all times when tourist season is going on. We need the ability for two way traffic to use West Cliff Drive as our other streets in the neighborhood are not able to handle the increased traffic along with pedestrians, bikes, strollers, etc. Our City population is growing as more (needed) housing comes on board and our infrastructure (such as 2 way traffic on an arterial road) needs to be maintained and used effectively. While it would be wonderful to have less car traffic on West Cliff Drive, the traffic in our growing City which hosts tourist as well as local traffic needs to have roads to get around our City. We need to have two way traffic on West Cliff Drive to provide arterials for getting around the City without adversely impacting other streets which are already stretched to their limits.
Thank you for the excellent communication we have seen on this project. Please do consider our input to return West Cliff Drive two way traffic when repairs have been made. Thank you.
Jonathan and Dorinda Parker
216 Woodrow Avenue
831‐430‐6208
1.4 1
Rosemary Balsley
From: Bob Goldbeck <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2023 1:16 AM
To: City Council
Subject: Understanding the Dynamic Coast study session - Two-way West Cliff Dear Councilmembers:
We are writing to urge the full reopening of West Cliff Drive to two‐way traffic as soon as the January storm repairs, the West Cliff Stabilization Project (c401501) and the West Cliff Drive Bethany Curve Culvert (c402402), are completed. We are opposed to any permanent reduction of West Cliff Drive to one‐way traffic, let alone its closure to vehicular traffic altogether.
Living at the corner of Woodrow Avenue and Oxford Way, a block up from the Bethany Culvert closure, we’ve seen close hand the overwhelming impact that traffic restrictions on West Cliff Drive have on the surrounding neighborhoods. When the Bethany bridge closed, the thousands of vehicle trips taken daily on West Cliff were suddenly diverted to Oxford Way, a roughly tenfold increase over our pre‐storm baseline. Not only is West Cliff an iconic draw for sightseers and beach visitors, but when weekday rush hour traffic suddenly filled our little street mornings and evenings, we discovered that it is also an important arterial for commuters crossing the west side for work or errands. (Indeed, West Cliff Drive was originally intended as part of the Pacific Coast Highway.) With it closed, way too many confused and impatient drivers were running stop signs and trying to cram through neighborhood intersections like Woodrow and Oxford that weren’t designed to handle anything like this volume. We were grateful when at the end of May, after 5 months of dangerous chaos, the city installed physical barriers blocking Oxford Way that forced most drivers back on to the official detour route. (We say most because some cars, trucks and motorcycles still drive illegally through the flexible delineators at the center of the barriers, incidentally destroying 3 sets of delineators in 2 months.)
This history showed that only physical barriers were effective in calming the surrounding traffic chaos created in January by traffic restrictions on West Cliff. However, those barriers are only temporary, slated to go away once the Bethany bridge is reopened. Reopening the bridge while keeping traffic restrictions in place, either one‐way or both ways, is thus an unacceptable scenario for neighborhood traffic flow. Visitors understandably like the idea of dramatically increasing the width of the bicycle/pedestrian pathway. But accommodating tourism needs to be balanced against protecting the safety and quality of life of the neighborhood. There is no physical reason that the repaired roadway and revetments won’t be able to accommodate two‐way vehicular traffic and a recreational pathway. If the roadway were to be made permanently one‐way (presumably west bound), where would the return traffic go? Into neighborhood side streets we’ve learned, because drivers would rather shortcut through neighborhoods than drive to the nearest arterial, in this case Delaware Avenue. This scenario would only be worsened if both east
1.5 2
and west bound traffic were restricted. Either way, an extensive system of permanent physical barriers would be needed to keep the arterial commute, service and visitor traffic previously carried by West Cliff Drive from overwhelming neighborhood side streets.
Please preserve both the safety and quality of life of our neighborhoods and the indispensable arterial function of West Cliff Drive by returning it to two‐way traffic as soon as possible.
Bob and Jennifer Goldbeck
303 Woodrow Avenue
1.6 1
Rosemary Balsley
From: Megan Dawson <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2023 4:10 PM
To: City Council; TPWC; Matt Huffaker; Bonnie Bush
Subject: restoration of West Cliff Drive
Dear City Council, City Manager, and TPW Staff,
We have appreciated City efforts to engage with our neighborhood regarding the dramatic traffic impacts resulting from storm damage detours. Our house is situated at the corner of Woodrow and Pelton – a busy enough intersection in normal times - but since the closure of the Bethany Curve culvert/bridge, neighborhood traffic volume, speeds, and noise have become unbearable. Though recently installed traffic calming measures have helped somewhat, many drivers still treat Woodrow and Pelton as speedways or drag strips - on a daily basis we see drivers blow through the stop signs, screech to lay rubber, and floor it to fly down Pelton or to race up Woodrow. Large, extremely loud motorcycles are among the worst offenders. The dangerous driving, sideshow recklessness, and nonstop elevated traffic noise is seen throughout the lower West Side, and is particularly bad on weekends, when locals and visitors alike are in “party” mode.
We write today to vigorously support restoration of two-way traffic on West Cliff Drive.
Thousands are drawn to the Santa Cruz coastline - the world-famous West Cliff experience is a treasure - beautiful, iconic, and FREE. We appreciate that the City is working diligently to repair the storm damage to re-open West Cliff Drive to locals and visitors alike.
We urge you to make restoration of two-way traffic a foundation of the plan.
Thank you - we are grateful for your efforts!
James and Megan Dawson
204 Woodrow Avenue
1.7 City of Santa Cruz
Council Study Session
Understanding the Dynamic Coast
August 15, 2023
1.8 Meeting Purpose
Councilmembers and the community will have
a better understanding of the dynamic coast
and adaptive management, enhancing the
ability to engage with the community, City
staff, and regulatory agencies about coastal
management in the face of climate change.
1.9 Erosion - The wearing away of coastal land (City of Santa Cruz Local Hazard Mitigation Plan 2018-2023 Update).
Armoring - To fortify a topographical feature to protect it from erosion (e.g., constructing a wall to armor the base of a sea cliff), or to construct a feature (e.g., a seawall, dike, or levee) to protect other resources (e.g., development or agricultural land) from flooding, erosion, or other hazards (California Coastal Commission Sea Level Rise Policy Guidance, 2018).
Living Shoreline - A living shoreline utilizes a variety of structural an organic materials to stabilize to reinforce the shoreline, minimize coastal erosion, and maintain coastal processes while protecting, restoring, enhancing, an creating natural habitat for fish and aquatic plants, and wildlife (Natural Resources Agency Safeguarding California: Reducing Climate Risk, 2014).
Resilience - The ability of a social or ecological system to absorb disturbances while retaining the same basic structure and ways of functioning, the capacity for self-organization, and the capacity to adapt to stress and change (Natural Resources Agency Safeguarding California: Reducing Climate Risk, 2014). AllTrails
1.10 Historical Coast Management Issues
Santa Cruz Sentinel, 1961
Green Sheet, Bob Smith, 1979
Santa Cruz Sentinel, 1963
1.11 iStock 1.12
Key Documents and Policies
1.13 City’s Jurisdiction
Land → Ocean
1.14 Response to January 2023 Storm Impacts
1.15 Interagency Coordination
1.16 Future Impacts of Climate Change
1.17 1.18
Adaptive
Management • A structured, iterative process of robust
decision making in the face of uncertainty,
with an aim of reducing uncertainty over
time via system monitoring.
• Makes use of management interventions and
follow up monitoring to promote
understanding and improve subsequent
decision making. Adaptation
Pathways
1.19 Adaptation Pathways at Mitchell's Cove
1.20 Feedback from June Community Outreach
1.21 Fifty years from now, how do you think the community will use West Cliff?
● Preservation of West Cliff
● Concerns about the impacts of
climate change
● Maintaining recreation opportunities
along West Cliff
● Transportation and mobility
● Coastal management and disaster
recovery
● Tourism and community
● Discussions about walking, biking,
running, and various recreational activities
such as surfing, yoga, and meditation.
● Some mention of prioritizing pedestrian
and bike access over car access and
reducing vehicle traffic in neighborhoods.
● Calls for improved coastal
management, management, monitoring, and
disaster recovery plans
● Positive comments expressing love
and appreciation for West Cliff, its
natural beauty, and surf culture.
● Concerns about climate change
impacts, potential road closures, and
house abandonments due to extreme
weather events.
1.22 Examples:
Rising Tides, Rising Solutions: Santa Cruz Coastline’s Path to Climate-Resilient Transformation From Vulnerability to Vigor: Santa Cruz Coastline’s Resilience Journey Amidst Climate Change Coastal Access Improved Along the Santa Cruz Coastline
Crisis at the Coastline: Santa Cruz Coastline’s Race to Adapt in the Face of Climate Change Headline Activity
What headlines do you envision for the Santa Cruz
coastline in the next 50 years?
1.23 What headlines do
you envision for the
Santa Cruz coastline
in the next 50 years?
Santa Cruz Blogazine
1.24 Headlines and Outreach Activity Feedback
● Preservation of West Cliff
● Concerns about the impacts of
climate change
● Maintaining recreation
opportunities along West Cliff
● Transportation and mobility
● Coastal management and disaster
recovery
● Tourism and community
Adaptive Management Strategies
● Upgrade stormwater infrastructure
and manage informal access trails
● Sand management
● Update revetment to soil nail wall or
seawall
● Construct sand retention wall/groin
● Remove armoring/managed retreat
1.25 Discussion How can the City avoid these headlines or work to reach these headlines?
Lookout Santa Cruz
1.26 Future
Management of
the Dynamic Coast
1.27 Upcoming Outreach for 50-Year Vision
2022 Income
● Youth-focused outreach
● Focus group
● Public workshop
● Staff study session
50-Year Vision for
West Cliff in
January 2024
1.28 Thank you
For other questions, please contact:
Erika Smart
[email protected] 1.29