| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.03 | Mayor Withy | June 13th. Lily, would you take the roll, please? |
| 00:00:08.05 | Lily | Subcommittee member Cleveland Knowles here. Subcommittee member Cox here. here. Vice Mayor Theodorus. Yeah. I'm there with you. |
| 00:00:18.70 | Mayor Withy | here. Um, so good morning. Uh, Sorry for the early hour. It was either that or no meeting. And so we're trying to diligently move forward. and work through these issues and solve what appear to be some difficult issues. So bear with us. I'm going to hand this straight over to... Let me just tell you some logistics. As you know, we have... our Planning Commission Chair, Commissioner Joan Cox, on the phone. We have our consultant Karen Warner, who's on Skype. And in fact, she is being projected on the screen there. Um, So, You're up and running in life, Karen, so you know. And I will hand this over to either Lily or Jeff, who's going to kick off? |
| 00:01:17.27 | Lily | And I'll hand it off to Jeff. I just wanted to briefly remind folks to definitely use the microphone, please, when you want to make a public comment, especially because we have Karen on Skype and Joan on the phone. They won't be able to hear you if you make a comment. So it's really important that you use the microphone. and then I'll hand it off to Jeff. |
| 00:01:36.45 | Jeff | Thank you, Lily. Thank you, Mayor. We're the members of the subcommittee. I'll jump right in here, get us started, try to. to catch up. Briefly, as the subcommittee is aware, we had a lengthy meeting before the council on May 20th, and after a lot of public testimony and questions and answers amongst council and staff, we were directed to consider additional options for the HMU and VMU programs as currently constituted and come back to this group, the subcommittee, with alternatives HMU and VMU programs as currently constituted, and come back to this group, the subcommittee, with alternatives to the HMU and VMU programs as they currently exist. A quick recap of the VMU-HMU program to keep this conversation in context with what we need to accomplish to maintain certification for the housing element. As the subcommittee is aware, the city was not able to adopt an element in the 99-2006 cycle due to a rezoning controversy. Our group was hired, along with Karen Warner, in the fall of 2011 to try to work through that and come up with some alternative solutions. Based on council direction and a December 2011 community workshop, our direction was very clearly laid out to pursue a balanced, low-impact approach to address the arena. Focus on infill rather than trying to identify large vacant lots, as is typically done, and stay away from areas' open space. and also to explore mixed-use infill within the commercial districts, which has been a strategy a lot of cities have been able mixed use infill within the commercial districts, which has been a strategy a lot of cities have been able to use successfully to meet the arena in combination with other efforts. The draft element relied on this strategy, sometimes referred to as the three-legged stool of ADUs, live-awards, and infill sites. an approach that was seen as reflective of the community, focusing on smaller units, on smaller sites, and using innovative approaches that hadn't been used before within the state, such as the liveaboards. The ACD comment letter we received recognized our approach and agreed that it met a number of the requirements for the element, but found we lacked sites for higher-density housing, specifically to support the needs of families within the community. Public advocates and outside advocacy group wrote a letter essentially echoing HCD's concern that the small sites could not realistically accommodate actual affordable housing projects. In response, staff and the consultants working with the Housing Element Task Force at the time came up with the mixed-use overlay concept to allow 100% residential projects on selected sites. At the time, it was limited to just four sites. Based on input, Putting it mildly, we received a lot of input. The program was modified to become two separate programs. The VMU program was created to allow residential on the upper floors throughout the CN1, the CR, and the CC, which are really the three main commercial zones within the entire city. And secondly, to create the HMU policy, which was limited to just two sites, smallest size able to justify with HCD as being viable for multifamily rental housing. |
| 00:05:21.69 | Jeff | So those two programs and policy directions came to live within the housing element as Program 8A, VMU, and Program 8V, HMU, where the city set the course that they would adopt those programs through their ordinances. |
| 00:05:38.68 | Jeff | HCD got back to us in August of 2012, confirming that that approach would work. |
| 00:05:47.61 | Jeff | So just to recap, the VMU and HMU program is designed to provide adequate sites for realistic development potential for multifamily rental housing. So typically we're talking about households of at least three or four persons defined as a family. The VMU purposes is very similar but focuses on second story residential in the commercial zones. of not adopting the program as outlined in the housing element or some similar program that can meet similar needs. |
| 00:06:27.11 | Jeff | You may recall this from the previous meetings. These are all our different vehicles we used to obtain the site's capacity. And highlighted in red here is the commercial district capacity. which includes both the VMU and HMU programs. You can see it's a fairly substantial number of 51 units. . And we don't want to lose that. The penalty, if we do lose that and we have a carryover of the 16 very low income units on the two bridgeway sites, we would need to have a rezoning of at least one 24,000 square foot site by January of 2016. That would be a statutory requirement. Site must have at least a 16 unit capacity. At least 50 percent of the rezone sites must be all residential versus the mixed use strategies that we're pursuing now. And housing must be allowed by right on those rezone sites. |
| 00:07:16.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:28.25 | Jeff | The arena becomes cumulative, so the 16 very low get added to the 40 very low in our new arena for the next cycle. So we now have a total of 56 in that lower income category that is harder to plan for. Risk of litigation, as we've discussed, loss of local control over future affordable housing is always a potential in that situation, and the city becomes ineligible for a number of state housing grants. They're currently coming out through MTC and ABAC, So having said all that, we went back to the drawing board and looked what we could do to modify the existing HMU-VMU programs to have a similar effectiveness to what was in the adopted housing element. And this may get a little confusing because we essentially have four major alternatives, but some of them have an A and a B. And so as I'm going through these slides, you can refer back to this chart to keep them all straight. So alternative one is to substitute the HMU on both of the CN1 sites, and that's the 1901 Bridgeway and the 2015 Bridgeway for clarity. For a VMU program, we have a lot of different |
| 00:08:54.87 | Jeff | on the one CN2 site that we've identified as the most likely candidate. And that one site is identified on this map. as what we're referring to as the Tommy Walk, Two Pals Liquor, either book and tenants within that building at 3001 Bridgeway, a site of nearly an acre. So this option would eliminate both the 1901 and 2015 bridgeway sites from the VMU, excuse me, from the HMU program entirely. It would extend the VMU applicability to the CN2 zoning district. But we found, however, because of the restrictive FAR within the CN2, it's only 35 percent instead of the 50 percent that's allowable in the CN1. This would not leave enough. floor area available to provide any significant amount of commercial on the ground floor. Additionally, it would require a very small ground floor commercial building and a very large upper floor residential building that would essentially be overhanging the parking lot. So it would meet the technical requirements of the vertical zoning, but it would result in a very unattractive and non-viable development scenario. |
| 00:10:11.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:10:11.63 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:10:11.68 | Unknown | I don't know. But it was... |
| 00:10:24.19 | Jeff | The second alternative, 2A, would be to substitute the HMU on one site in the CN1 for HMU on a site in the CN2. So this would remove the HMU overlay from either 1901 bridgeway or 2015 bridgeway and apply the... overlay to the 3001 Bridgeway site. We found this option to be viable. |
| 00:10:56.82 | Jeff | So this map shows how you could retain the HMU. on one of either of these two sites, and then pick it up on the 3001 Bridgeway. And the HMU, of course, would allow ground floor, residential, exclusively as well as upper-level residential so that the issue with the restrictive FAR is overcome because there's no requirement for ground floor commercial. |
| 00:11:35.90 | Jeff | So option 2B is a variation of 2A, which would substitute the HMU on both sites within the CN1 for the largest site within the CM2. |
| 00:11:51.43 | Jeff | So as you see here, the overlay would be removed from both of these sites. And because this site is much bigger, it could accommodate 21 units prior to any density bonus, whereas these two sites can only accommodate 8. |
| 00:11:56.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:12:11.71 | Jeff | Alternative 3A eliminates HMU on one site in the CN1 for the residential overlay on the CN2. What we did with the – so this is a new terminology to reflect a new idea, and it's to address the community and council concern of losing community-serving commercial areas within these properties we're talking about. |
| 00:12:40.77 | Jeff | So as this diagram on the right suggests, you it would allow residential on the upper floor, it would allow residential or commercial on the ground floor, similar to the HMU. However, it would require a certain percentage of commercial on the ground floor as well. So a 100 percent housing project or affordable housing project could not occur on this site. because the site is significantly larger than the other two sites we've been talking about, however, and we have been able to validate with HCD that they believe this approach would be successful. |
| 00:13:14.02 | Unknown | We have an... |
| 00:13:28.83 | Jeff | So this shows how with this residential overlay concept It would allow for residential in this configuration with residential over and next to commercial, or it would allow for residential in separate buildings like that on the larger site. |
| 00:13:57.91 | Jeff | So we're calling that a hybrid of the HMU and VMU policies, or concept. |
| 00:14:10.85 | Jeff | This brings us to alternative four, which is to address the concern that the VMU program dictated and required that any new construction or significant rehabilitation of buildings, any upper store uses would have to be residential. Obviously, that was very favorable in terms of the housing element context and trying to show a significant capacity for housing. But the concern expressed from the community was that that went a little too far and would impair the city's ability over time to maintain that mix of uses you have in the commercial areas where there's a real mix of upper-level offices, residences. in the past there's been some retail or restaurant activity on the upper levels, all signs of a very healthy commercial area. So in an attempt to accommodate that and still maintain a viable housing element capacity approach, we created a policy that see. that would allow smaller commercial enterprises on the upper floors defined as 1,000 square feet or less. So any of those smaller spaces, which are the great majority of the sites because the parcels are so small, could accommodate the smaller commercial uses would be allowed. The larger assemblages of parcels or some of the larger parcels upon development would trigger the all-residential scenario. And again, we, we validate these concepts with HCD and they're comfortable with them. The one caveat is if we're reducing the capacity a little bit with this VMU policy, so the the recommendation to the subcommittee to maintain ACD certification with these new approaches going forward is that we maintain some overcapacity on the residential overlay program and keep one of the existing bridgeway sites in combination with the larger Tommy Walk site with the 21 units in combination with this change, if that's the direction the city goes, that package at this point we find to be approvable by the state. |
| 00:16:48.77 | Jeff | So that's the consultant's recommendation to the subcommittee. And obviously the subcommittee needs a recommendation to the council. |
| 00:17:02.72 | Susan | Jeff, could you just repeat, my staff report doesn't have your preferred recommendation. Can you just, using the numbers of the alternatives, just repeat staff's recommendation? |
| 00:17:09.73 | Jeff | Sure. |
| 00:17:22.45 | Lily | If I may. |
| 00:17:24.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:17:28.31 | Lily | So I think what Jeff meant to say is that he was presenting the options to the subcommittee for the subcommittee's recommendation to the council. I think staff has a preference towards the residential overlay approach because that keeps some commercial on the ground floor. |
| 00:17:48.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:17:48.27 | Lily | So that would be 3A or 3B? |
| 00:17:48.32 | Unknown | Thank you. that would be. |
| 00:17:48.74 | Mayor Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:17:48.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:17:53.10 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:17:53.60 | Mayor Withy | Hmm. Okay. So the way I think we should do this is let's have the subcommittee ask any clarifying questions that we have of staff or our consultants and then we'll open this up for public comment. If I may, I'd like to sort of kick off the questioning and also help try and as I've gone through this I've thought through that there's a logical way to discuss this So the first thing is, Do... You've thrown a new concept at us, which is the residential overlay. Um, Could you... first of all uh... help us understand the extent to which this is used in other jurisdictions. It's difficult initially to see the difference between it and an HMU policy. I understand the mechanics in that you're making a certain percentage of the units commercial. forcing to |
| 00:19:10.99 | Joan | I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm having a hard time hearing what Ray is saying. |
| 00:19:16.61 | Mayor Withy | Well, I don't know how we can do any better because I got the microphone on. |
| 00:19:23.65 | Mayor Withy | Can you hear me any better, Joan, now? Okay, so I will get closer to the microphone and speak louder. Um, |
| 00:19:34.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:19:35.31 | Mayor Withy | Okay, you're welcome. So could you help us understand a little bit more about the residential overlay as it's a new concept that basically is the first question I have? |
| 00:19:46.07 | Jeff | Sure. The residential overlay, as we envision it, is very similar to the HMU, except it requires a small amount of commercial to be provided on the ground floor. And so far we've defined that as a minimum of 20% of the property frontage shall be devoted to commercial uses. So that provides a requirement for a certain amount of commercial space. |
| 00:20:13.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:20:18.74 | Jeff | But it provides some flexibility, whether that's provided in a standalone commercial building or in a two-story building with the commercial space incorporated into the first floor. Most series. usually allow or require mixed use, but they allow for the actual layout to be designed on a case-by-case basis typically, unless they have a standing rule that everything, like in a downtown core, most cities would require anything on the ground floor to be retail or restaurant. They wouldn't allow office or residential on the ground floor because those uses are seen as not adding to the vitality of the commercial core. In other commercial areas like this, typically there'd be an allowance for mixed use, and there wouldn't be a strong regulatory requirement for how that is resolved. So essentially we're treating this as sort of a commercial core of the community, and we're getting very specific about the type, not so much the type, but the amount and location of the commercial, and then the mixed use, i.e. the residential, is allowed to fill in around that. |
| 00:21:43.15 | Susan | Yeah, so just two follow-up questions on that. First, does Sausalito have a definition of neighborhood-serving commercial retail as opposed to just commercial in general? |
| 00:21:53.46 | Jeff | I believe there's some language in the general plan, land use day, explanations, as well as a little bit in the zoning code |
| 00:22:02.58 | Susan | I mean, just to me, the only value of having commercial on the ground floor in the areas that we're talking about is if it's actually community serving, you know, as opposed to an office. So that's just a question. Secondly, I thought the residential overlay also contained a change that it's 25% two bedrooms instead of 30% three bedrooms as in the HMU. Is that correct? |
| 00:22:27.58 | Joan | I'm sorry, I cannot hear Susan. |
| 00:22:29.32 | Susan | Okay, Jordan, my second question was, the difference between the residential overlay was described as the 20 percent commercial requirement on the ground floor. And I think our staff report also said that it changes the HMU requirement from a 30 percent three-bedroom to 25 percent two-bedroom. Is that correct? Yeah. |
| 00:22:54.16 | Jeff | Sort of. But we're also recommending that change for the HMU because I believe we presented that at the May 20th council meeting in the attempt to make the overall unit smaller that is being required through the ordinance to mitigate future view impacts at the U.S. |
| 00:23:16.00 | Susan | Okay, our staff report on page two of eight. says that the 30 percent three-bedroom requirement and 50 percent affordability requirement would remain as provisions of the HMU overlay. |
| 00:23:31.47 | Jenny Reingers | Thank you. |
| 00:23:31.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:23:31.66 | Jenny Reingers | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:24:01.97 | Joan | . Thank you. |
| 00:24:05.15 | Susan | Okay, but is it- |
| 00:24:05.76 | Joan | Can I ask a question? Go ahead. |
| 00:24:09.02 | Susan | Go ahead, Joan. |
| 00:24:11.75 | Joan | I'm sorry, I finished that. Conversation, all right. |
| 00:24:15.28 | Susan | I was just going to ask if it was still possible to... Change the HMU. to a 25% two bedroom, or if that's off the table, if we recommend the HMU approach. |
| 00:24:30.10 | Jeff | But I think the intent was to Stick with the change we had discussed prior for the HMU as it applies to the 2015 and 1901 bridgeway sites because of the size issues and the view issues. But if the HMU program was applied to the larger CN2 site through the ordinance, we could revert back to that original idea of providing the 30 percent three-bedroom because of the size of the site and under this option with the HME where we're not requiring any commercial as opposed to the residential overlay, we could still maintain the larger three-bedroom size as envisioned in the housing outlet. |
| 00:25:02.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:25:15.37 | Jeff | Thank you. |
| 00:25:15.56 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 00:25:15.69 | Jeff | Thank you. Sorry for the confusion. Thank you. |
| 00:25:17.73 | Mayor Withy | Joan, did you have a question on the residential overlay? |
| 00:25:17.82 | Jeff | that you |
| 00:25:22.56 | Joan | Yes, I do. One of the concerns expressed by various residents regarding the HMU overlay is its attractiveness to developers and potential financing. My question is... . What is the nature of this? How attractive to developers is this proposed residential overlay. given that it's mixed use, is it as attractive to developers as the HMU overlay? |
| 00:26:00.41 | Jeff | Based on the logic that's been presented by Melinda Coy from HCD, this would be slightly less attractive because it does require some commercial space. However, our discussions with her have been because this site is so much bigger than the other two sites and we provide the ability to push out the commercial to the edge of the site if necessary, that |
| 00:26:26.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:28.07 | Jeff | is still attractive enough from her perspective. Does that make sense? |
| 00:26:36.36 | Joan | Thank you. Okay. |
| 00:26:37.08 | Mayor Withy | Okay. Tom, do you have anything on the residential overlay concept? |
| 00:26:43.88 | Tom | No, they have two. One question is, I think when you... had the slide up you said that HCD you weren't sure of there potential approval or has it been run by them? I'm not quite sure what the prognosis is on that. |
| 00:26:57.20 | Jeff | Oh, sure. We've run all these options through HCD. And what we're presenting is certifiable by HCD based on our conversations right up until yesterday with Melinda from HCD. The one caveat I was trying to sneak in there through a recommendation, which Lily correctly pointed out isn't an official recommendation, because our recommendation is that you consider all these options and pick up those options. I was trying to sneak in there through a recommendation which, Lily correctly pointed out, isn't an official recommendation because our recommendation is that you consider all these options and pick the one after hearing from the public that you feel the best about, one or more of these. The one caveat I was trying to communicate was, and you may recall from the May 20th council meeting, when I said, that we can change the VMU and take out the requirement at the upper level is all residential. Melinda kicked Karen and Karen kicked me. Um. Because Melinda hadn't. She hadn't signed off on that concept yet, and she was nervous about it, because in her view that was a good productive policy that would facilitate over time all these small residential units in the upper levels. So what we're seeing now is we start to change the HMU and the HMU programs. There's some linkage now between how far we go with the VMU and what we're doing with the HMU. And so there's some sensitivity to not just drop the two HMU sites at 1901 and 2015 Bridgeway and pick up the Tommy Wach site on the thinking that, oh, that's 21 and those other two are 16. We're good to go because we've actually, if we do the VMU change, we've lost some capacity there. So there's a, once again, there's a balancing act to try to keep all these things in mind, make the numbers work, but also have effective policies that sort of passed the test of being viable and reasonable over the life of the housing element. |
| 00:29:14.80 | Tom | And that's why in the small print there it says on the VMU option that it's viable if we adopt either 2A, 2B, 3A, or 3B. |
| 00:29:25.24 | Jeff | Correct. |
| 00:29:27.16 | Tom | Okay. Yeah. And the other question is, we've been talking about the Tommy Walk site in the CN2. Have we looked at other sites in the CN2? Are they potential sites to use in this? |
| 00:29:39.77 | Jeff | We've looked at all of them. Unfortunately, they're all much smaller than the Tommiwak site and yield in the range of 9 to 11 units, and even one of those requires the combination of two smaller sites. And so we've been really focusing on the larger sites, the larger site. And the added complication with the smaller sites is that by requiring even that small amount of commercial, they become non-viable because they're very similar in size to the other two sites we've talked so much about at Bridgeway and Olive and Bridgeway and Easterby. And so the HMU could work on these smaller CN2 sites, but the residential overlay concept of providing the small amount of ground floor commercial does not work on those smaller sites. |
| 00:30:36.72 | Mayor Withy | So, you I want to follow up directly on that one. |
| 00:30:39.36 | Jeff | I... |
| 00:30:39.68 | Unknown | I want to. |
| 00:30:39.96 | Jeff | Bye. |
| 00:30:40.01 | Unknown | I have one more question. directly on that one. |
| 00:30:44.59 | Mayor Withy | If you were to take one of your options, I don't know which one it is, where you leave an HMU on one of the previously designated sites, either 1901 or 2015. And you. You don't mess with the VMU, so you don't add that extra complication. We can come back and ask that in a second, but you don't mess with the VMU, so you don't add that extra constraint. Um, Are you saying that there are other sites than the Tommy Wop site that you could put a an HM, as long as you keep one of the of the two previous sites. There are sites in CN2 where you can just simply do an HMU and get your eight units. |
| 00:31:42.48 | Jeff | Yeah, and we have a slide that would show that. |
| 00:31:46.05 | Mayor Withy | And so which option is that? |
| 00:31:48.10 | Jeff | we didn't list that as one of the options. |
| 00:31:50.96 | Mayor Withy | Okay. |
| 00:31:53.03 | Jeff | So, |
| 00:31:53.25 | Mayor Withy | Thank you. It's towards the back. |
| 00:31:54.75 | Jeff | Thank you. |
| 00:31:54.77 | Mayor Withy | Thank you. Why not? |
| 00:31:54.82 | Jeff | I'm sorry. Well, within the CN2, we were trying to focus on this residential overlay concept. |
| 00:32:04.24 | Jeff | But- It's not like you just outlined. And we had certain assumptions that the VMU was gonna change and that we wanted to address the concern about loss of commercial space. But by all means, that could be a viable option as I see it. Do you want to go to the reference slides? There's the map that has the... |
| 00:32:33.60 | Joan | I'm sorry. Greg, can you just say the second half of that option again? We would keep... at one of the Bridgeway sites. And then what's the second you have? |
| 00:32:42.07 | Mayor Withy | Well, and as a replacement, pick one of the CN2 sites for simply the HMU overlay You know |
| 00:32:53.53 | Joan | I might put That was my question as well, which is why are, must we as one of these options, use the entirety of that EN2 site. Isn't that several parcels? between Tommy's walk and Powell's liquor. |
| 00:33:13.66 | Jeff | That's one parcel. |
| 00:33:18.00 | Mayor Withy | Yeah, it's only one parcel, Joan, we're talking about there. |
| 00:33:21.89 | Joan | Okay, I see this. articulation, you know, And that's why I thought it was four separate parcels. |
| 00:33:32.71 | Joan | or separate sites. We're showing 13 units on one site, 11 units on another. |
| 00:33:35.06 | Jeff | Thank you. |
| 00:33:38.94 | Joan | Nine on another and 21 on another. |
| 00:33:41.37 | Jeff | Within the CN2 zoning designation, which this shape here represents the entire property with that designation within the city, there are five parcels. We've identified four possible housing opportunity sites by combining these two smallest parcels at the end. the site we've been talking about the most at 3001 Bridgeway has a number of tenants in it with Tommy's Walk at the northernmost end and Powell's Liquor at the southernmost end. And that site is simply the largest site within this zoning district and within this block of properties. But... What Ray was asking was could we simply maintain the HMU designation on one of these smaller sites assuming we left the VMU alone. I think the short answer to that is yes. |
| 00:34:42.78 | Susan | Can I ask a follow-up? Would the residential overlay work on the site that's marked as having 11 units? That's the one that has, I think, Dario's on the street front and then an office building in the back. I mean, that seems to mirror at least the diagram that you have of a commercial use building and residential in a different building. Did you analyze that at all? |
| 00:35:15.62 | Jeff | What we found that by requiring even a small amount of commercial on these smaller parcels, it was not viable. Me neither. |
| 00:35:25.37 | Susan | Meaning it reduced the number of residential units below eight? |
| 00:35:29.82 | Jeff | Correct. You could not get even small number of residential units and anything more than two to three thousand square feet of commercial space. It's a similar dynamic It's actually, these sites are more restrictive than the other two sites, 1901 and 2015 Bridgeway, because the FAR is much lower. The maximum FAR in the CN2 is only 35%, whereas those other two sites, it's 50%. So trying to live within that constraint and adding a commercial component resulted in just that one site being viable. |
| 00:36:11.91 | Tom | Thank you. in. On the Tommy Walk site, I know that if we just, without the overlay portion, if you just did a swap, there'd be 21 residential units. Does that decrease the number of residential units if you include this commercial requirement? |
| 00:36:28.52 | Jeff | Is it increased or decreased? No, we held the residential component steady, meaning... |
| 00:36:29.88 | Tom | See you. |
| 00:36:39.45 | Jeff | Based on the assumed maximum density of one unit per 2,000 square feet of land area, we assumed that through this residential overlay, that became the fixed object. And any amount of commercial space had to work around that. |
| 00:36:56.78 | Mayor Withy | Okay. |
| 00:37:00.29 | Tom | some other, I'm sorry. |
| 00:37:01.96 | Mayor Withy | Okay. No, that's okay. The third area of questioning I have, and I'm sure my colleagues up here may have more areas of questioning, but my third area of questioning is, Um... Could you address up front right now the and then the analysis or Are we considering an analysis of previously rejected or previously filtered out infill sites, in particular in the R3. We're gonna get a lot of public comment. People are gonna come up here this morning basically saying you don't know what you're doing and that there's obvious low impact strategy in the R3 area and we're just missing it. Um, Is that true? What are we doing about it? |
| 00:37:58.85 | Jeff | We have started the analysis to look at the R3 sites, and we have some very preliminary findings, but they'll be more fleshed out for the council meeting on the 24th. In summary, there are a lot of R3 sites, over 500 R3 sites. However, only about 14 of those are big enough to accommodate even eight units at the R3 density. So this is a universe of very, very small R3 parcels. Of those 14, and these are the details we're still working on, a lot of them are already built with archery developments, and we can't count those. Others have significant constraints. that filters them out as being viable candidate sites. We will package that up and bring it back for review. |
| 00:38:58.69 | Mayor Withy | I realize that you haven't completed that analysis, but I'm gonna push you a bit more. Because again, you're gonna be asked this in a moment, so you might as well get it answered now. the There's a... There's a perception among some of our residents that that the filtering process that occurred previously back in 2011, 2012, was somehow I don't know, arbitrary, let's use that word. It's not the most accurate word, but let's use it. Could you help explain the fact that if you're gonna propose sites to HCD, HCD doesn't just look at it, oh, that's very nice, yes, but they actually analyze it along with you and want to see that you've analyzed the constraints. So could you explain then how a filtering process works? Sure. I didn't mean to lead you quite in that question, but you know. |
| 00:40:04.57 | Jeff | Sure. Bye. |
| 00:40:07.37 | Mayor Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:40:07.43 | Jeff | Thank you. No, each site within the opportunity sites analysis results in a very detailed explanation of what that site is all about. So you have to show its size. You have to show whether it's vacant or something's built on it. If something's vacant, then it's much easier to show it has viable development potential, assuming some other factors are in place, such as it has access to a public street, it has access to utilities, it's not a sheer cliff face, it's not underwater, it's not in the middle of a creek. You have to show it's a fairly normal piece of property that you could reasonably build something on. And that's just for vacant parcels. It becomes much more difficult for what we call underutilized parcels. That's a parcel that has anything built on it, from a very small, dilapidated outbuilding to a two or three unit duplex or triplex. If we're showing a site that has structures on it, we have to make a very strong argument that it's feasible and reasonable to expect that site could be redeveloped within the planning period. So someone would have to come in and demolish an existing building and build a new building housing project on that site. And so we developed some of the criteria that, quite frankly, pushed the limits on what reasonable people could expect could be built. We used a very steep slope standard. We pushed the size criteria down to 3,000 square feet, which is absurdly low in any other community. We had sites that could accommodate one net new unit. So we're showing two-unit projects, essentially, on these postage stamp lots, and those sites are within our inventory. So we did everything we could to come up with criteria that we could filter out the least sites and get enough sites on our inventory to meet the RHNA. |
| 00:42:24.70 | Mayor Withy | So does – I'm sorry for sort of leading the questioning here, but I wanted to sort of divide it up into what I thought were logical conversation areas. Does anybody else on our committee have any further questions, clarifying questions for staff? |
| 00:42:42.62 | Susan | Thank you. I have a very small kind of technical question on the VMU, the new VMU proposal. How did you land at 1,000 square feet as the maximum amount that could still be commercial on the second floor? I mean, is that a typical office size? Is that, I mean, where did that number come from? |
| 00:43:04.81 | Jeff | That was the number I recommended based on Knowing the general sense of how big the parcels are in the town and a sense of how small some of the tenant spaces are, Typically, a tenant space under 1,000 square feet is considered a small office or a small retail space. |
| 00:43:30.59 | Jeff | That was the extent of the analysis. |
| 00:43:33.61 | Susan | And is it your opinion that in the areas that the VMU has proposed for that there would still be space for residential on the second floor with 1,000 square feet of commercial? |
| 00:43:49.68 | Jeff | In total or on a site-by-site basis? |
| 00:43:51.53 | Susan | It's kind of on a typical site. |
| 00:43:55.16 | Jeff | On a typical side, I think you'd have to decide whether you're going to do commercial. One or the other. Yeah. |
| 00:43:58.78 | Susan | one or the other. |
| 00:44:01.86 | Jeff | Theoretically, if there was a large site or someone put together a larger site, the intent of this provision would be to allow a thousand square feet of commercial and An adjacent residential level. |
| 00:44:17.81 | Susan | Okay, so... So that's true. I mean, if you can't fit another residential unit on that second floor, then it seems like the whole floor should be commercial to me. Otherwise, you're just going to force someone into having unused. You know, say the second floor is 1,500 square feet. |
| 00:44:39.21 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:44:39.24 | Susan | you you or 1,800 square feet. So you can't get a residential unit Anyway, I'm a little bit, I'm not sure that I really agree with that 1,000 square foot cap in all circumstances. So if you have a, or that it would actually work in practice. So it's just a question for now and we can comment on it later. Thank you. |
| 00:45:02.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:45:02.16 | Mayor Withy | Okay. |
| 00:45:02.71 | Susan | Thanks. |
| 00:45:05.23 | Mayor Withy | Joan, at this point, do you have any other questions of staff before I open this up for public comment? |
| 00:45:16.65 | Susan | enough of mute. |
| 00:45:18.32 | Mayor Withy | Tom. Okay. Joan, can you still hear me? |
| 00:45:28.14 | Joan | You know what? I'm, um, listening to the streaming, and so I'm like 10 seconds behind you. Because I can hear the streaming so much better. |
| 00:45:38.76 | Mayor Withy | So my question was, |
| 00:45:38.79 | Joan | So my question was... I don't have any questions for the moment. |
| 00:45:40.55 | Mayor Withy | moment. Yeah, you don't have any questions at this point. Okay, so at this point, why don't we open this up for public comment? We have three minutes. Each person has three minutes. Please try and stick within that time. So who would like from the public to make some comments? |
| 00:46:20.42 | Mayor Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:46:21.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:46:21.47 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:46:28.66 | Mayor Withy | So Joan, just for your reference, a member of the public has distributed a portion of our zoning map. So please. |
| 00:46:46.01 | Riley Hurd | Good morning, Mayor Withy, members of the subcommittee and staff, my name is Riley Hurd. I represent a relatively large group of people and they're growing in size. They are concerned Sausalito citizens So, Mayor, before I begin, I did hear your request for three minutes, but I'm here on behalf of approximately 60 people, and I would like to request five minutes based on that fact. |
| 00:47:15.05 | Mayor Withy | Does that mean that no other member of your – that you represent is going to talk? |
| 00:47:19.60 | Riley Hurd | I think it means that about 45 of the 60 won't talk. you |
| 00:47:27.22 | Mayor Withy | that's fine, go ahead. But that does not apply to anybody else. But as you're going first and you're representing a large group, I'm going to allow some flexibility. My colleagues may not like that, but |
| 00:47:39.28 | Riley Hurd | Thank you. By way of background, I have been through this process also. I sat through 24 housing element update meetings with Jeff at my side as Deputy City Attorney in Belvedere. I also filed the only successful appeal to ABAG of arena allocation, So I want to let you know that I don't come at this stage of the game lightly, because I know you're at a later stage. But I think stepping back and realizing the importance of this decision is critical. And I'll give you an anecdote that explains if you zone it, they will come. In my other legal life, I represent developers. and the Mill Valley Planning Commission decided to select a hillside lot for 21 units. Immediately thereafter, my client bought it, came in, and said, I want my 21 units. Members of the Housing Element Subcommittee and the Planning Commission showed up at these development hearings and said, whoa, whoa, we didn't think this was really going to happen. We thought this was a mental... Planning Commission showed up at these development hearings and said, whoa, whoa, we didn't think this was really going to happen. We thought this was a mental exercise to satisfy HCD. It's not. The Housing Accountability Act gives incredible rights once you complete this process, so I think it's just important to remember that this is very real. |
| 00:48:55.74 | Unknown | I'm going to go. |
| 00:49:05.82 | Riley Hurd | I have reviewed a letter from Mr. Flavin that talks about an alternative housing element plan and I found it very impressive. Um, although I understand the stage we are at, But had it been advanced from the beginning, I think it would have worked. uh, In reviewing the viability analysis of these four items, there was one thing that was missing, and I would like to know if it was considered, and I'll take the answer afterwards, and that is the fact that your new density bonus laws actually allow for greater FAR than the FAR of the zone. So a lot of these alternatives were ruled out based on the 35% FAR, and I think that FAR Exceedances are a tier one. You only have to go to the planning commission under your proposed new rules. So I'd like to know if that was considered when considering these limitations. My final comments will be only about HMU. And I want to go back to the definition of what mixed use is. It's supposed to be a mix of uses in a single compact development designed to increase efficiency. Horizontal mixed use is the jumbo shrimp of zoning. It isn't mixed use. It's self-contradictory, and it can be 100% residential. HMU is a bad idea anywhere in the city. It is a terrible idea at the corners of Spring and Olive Streets. I'd like to respond to the question about whether there's a definition of neighborhood commercial. The answer is yes. 10.24.020 says that neighborhood commercial is local serving retail and service businesses in a location and manner that serve nearby areas. That's the reason I've printed out your zoning map for you. I'd like to refer you to the corners of Spring and Olive Street where they intersect with Bridgeway and you see a CN1. What's important about this is surrounding those sites is intense residential uses. This is exactly what CN is designed to do, to make it so that those people don't have to get in their cars and go to other parts of town or other towns entirely And if you begin to erode the commercial uses in that area, you completely undermine A, your zoning code, which says neighborhood commercial should be local serving, and B, the entire point of what we're doing, SB 375, transit-oriented development. That's why we're doing this. And so these two sites are completely inappropriate for HMU. |
| 00:51:36.49 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:51:56.86 | Riley Hurd | I would also like to note that the CEQA document you utilized, the negative declaration, said that your low income family housing would be satisfied in the residential zones, R1, 2, and 3. It never contemplated the use of the C zones, so if you do that, you have a CEQA problem. So I'd like to conclude in my final 30 seconds by saying, we'd prefer you take a stand against HCD. We'd prefer you follow Mr. Flavin's recommendations. But if you're going to choose from the menu before you, choose the option with no HMU. and choose an option on the least amount of parcels, HGD has said we will accept 3B. And the SAP report says we'll accept that with your VMU change. Why would you ever choose an HMU if they will accept that option? |
| 00:52:47.10 | Unknown | understand. |
| 00:52:57.14 | Mayor Withy | Thank you. Thank you, Riley. Yes. |
| 00:53:08.95 | Robert Buchel | Hi, I'm Robert Buchel, and I've spoken to you before. You've heard from me, and I hate to be redundant. First, I don't want to take away any of Mr. Hurd's thunder. I think he had very useful points. I also would like to thank you for all the hard work. I've been coming to some of these meetings, and it's an amazing amount of work you've put in city council members and subcommittee members. At a prior meeting, I mentioned that the decisions you make at the subcommittee and at the city council will be your legacy and the legacy for our city. And so I guess I just am the conscience of the city, the quirkiness, the charm, the character. We do need to really question whether HCD knows what's best for our city and whether they're right. Because their functionary who came here said, density is a proxy for affordability. I don't see that in the law. No. |
| 00:53:11.24 | Unknown | you |
| 00:54:12.89 | Robert Buchel | In the past, as I mentioned before, Sausalito has taken a stand against inappropriate development. The Marinchello Project in the 60s, Sausalito took it to the Supreme Court. and one. and preserved the GGNRA. So don't rule out. HCD. is not infallible. They can be wrong. They certainly can be wrong for what's right for our city. We are the stewards of a world-famous tourist location. It's virtually historical. It's different than Belvedere, Tiburon, Fairfax, Nevada. And we have to protect it. even if it means having a court of appeal tell HCD they're wrong, and this can be done another way, such as Mr. Flavin outlined in his letter. Thank you. |
| 00:55:01.24 | Mayor Withy | Thank you. Thank you. Yes, please. |
| 00:55:07.92 | Jenny Reingers | Good morning, my name's Jenny Reingers. I own 511 Olive and I'm gonna be redundant because I've told you all this before, but I am so worried about the development on Bridgeway, the proposed sites, 2015 and 711. Just like to examine the idea that, you know, that 2015 was an apartment and I assume it was built in the 50s. |
| 00:55:10.84 | Pat Zook | Thank you. |
| 00:55:35.63 | Jenny Reingers | And back in the 60s when I grew up on Olive Street, we all owned, everyone we knew had one single car. And children played in the empty lot across the street and we went up to the park on Easterby Street. And so traffic and parking weren't big deals back then. We were in the car so seldom that going for a ride on Sunday was a treat. |
| 00:55:39.19 | Unknown | We are. |
| 00:56:04.05 | Jenny Reingers | My concern is if 2015 becomes high density housing, or the 7-Eleven for that matter, Where is everyone going to park? And 2015 is particularly interesting because in order to leave that complex, you have to turn right onto Bridgeway, which means that you will have to turn right onto Spring Street and do a UE, which is gonna make Spring Street incredibly more traveled. Also the parking overflow. Even if we all have enough spots for ourselves, we all would like to have company come and visit us once in a while. And that does hugely impact a neighborhood if you have to park a couple of blocks away. I would like to thank you all for your attention to this. I know it's complicated and hard, and we really appreciate you being so careful in your analysis of this. And I would also like to say, I'm finding it a little hard to follow some of the handouts because of all the acronyms. I think maybe you had a cheat sheet a long time ago with translations, because it's hard to follow, and it's so important. It's really, really crucial. So thank you so much for your hard work in this. We appreciate it. |
| 00:57:20.42 | Mayor Withy | Thank you. Is there anybody else who would like to talk? |
| 00:57:34.22 | Mayor Withy | Hi, John. |
| 00:57:35.84 | John Flavin | Good morning, Mr. Mayor, subcommittee members. My name is John Flavin. I'm a resident here in Sausalito. I have written a letter to you all proposing you asked for an alternate. We've given it to you, and I hope you'll consider it. The points I want to make, Riley Hurd has already mentioned the idea that the NGVIC may be in jeopardy. I also want to point out that when I was doing acquisitions, the things I always was afraid of were dry cleaners and gas stations. On one site, you have a dry cleaner on site. The other place, you have a gas station immediately adjacent to the parcel. And there are poons and everything else that you all know. Environmental is an issue here. |
| 00:58:15.26 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:58:15.28 | Unknown | Environmental is an issue. |
| 00:58:17.51 | John Flavin | Alternative, I don't view this any longer as the housing element committee. I view this as a new construction committee. All we're talking about here are ways to make new construction available for developers. I think we have, in the form of lily pad, we have a very viable way, a very viable option, of meeting the HCD requirements for multifamily housing, for all types of things, with some creative reuse of existing stock. Nothing is more environmentally clean than an existing building. |
| 00:58:22.89 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:58:57.20 | John Flavin | So when you start building new construction, higher density, all that, you have a number of issues that arise. I have read the response to my letter from staff, and I'm always amazed how Lily gets all this stuff done in such a short period. But you look at that letter, and you realize that most of the responses are based on HCD guidance. So the council was out, don't violate the housing element. Most of the responses are based on HCD guidance. So the council was out, don't violate the housing element because they will usurp your right to zone locally. |
| 00:59:09.22 | Unknown | Bye. Thank you. |
| 00:59:17.06 | Unknown | I stayed in respect. |
| 00:59:31.73 | John Flavin | it's already been usurped, and it's clear from that letter. The final thing, point I'd like to make, is Arenda. And if you're not sure what happened in Arenda, you ought to find out. Thank you. |
| 00:59:47.67 | Mayor Withy | Thank you, John. All right. |
| 00:59:54.83 | Pat Zook | Pat Zook, I don't know what you're going to do today, but I'm wondering if you can, in fact, do anything in the sense that the consultant indicated that they were going through the R3 property analysis and had narrowed things down to 14 sites but hadn't really finished with their filters. all we need is one or two of these eight unit sites to satisfy the capacity for multi-unit housing potential. one unit one site of the 14 would remove the hmu and the vmu from one of those bridgeway spring street areas two of them would would remove both so i hope you don't make a determination today to go with you know menu items one through three in the absence of knowing that there is potentially something out there. Secondly, I'm concerned about projects creep. We were talking two units, two properties with eight units. That's what Amanda had said at her hearing. And the thought had been to put one eight unit, you know, leave one eight units, thing on Spring Street and move one eight unit thing on up to upper Bridgeway. Now we're looking at 21 units on the Tommies Walk site and potentially leaving the VM, the which, which MU, whichever MU it is. |
| 01:01:38.98 | Mayor Withy | I think it's H. |
| 01:01:40.52 | Pat Zook | Yeah. on the strength, all of a sudden we're dealing with 21 plus extra here. This is displeasing to me. on the one hand. On the other hand, the notion of a housing overlay seems to be very responsive to what people want in this town in terms of commercial viability. So I wish I had been able to stand up here and say, take 3B, which is what I would say in the absence of anything, in the absence of other considerations. |
| 01:02:18.23 | Mayor Withy | So could I just ask a question of staff? Sonia, before you speak, could I ask a question of staff because you made a point there, um, Pat, that I think needs some clarification. Um, The... If we removed the HMU from any site, from either or both of the current sites on the table, 1901 and 2015, Um, The VMU would still apply, and Pat seemed to indicate that the VMU would go with it. So I just want to clarify what you're proposing. |
| 01:02:59.91 | Jeff | Correct. You're correct, Mayor. |
| 01:03:02.29 | Mayor Withy | Okay. So Pat. No, I think he's saying I'm correct and that That if we remove the HMU design, let's pick one, let's say 1901, let's say we remove the HMU designation, Um. Unless we got rid of VMU completely, VMU would still apply to that site because it's being applied to all commercial zones. I just wanted to make sure that clarification was there. |
| 01:03:41.24 | Sandra Bushmaker | Here we see. Other fellow subcommittee members, staff, consultants? Hi, Joan. I have, actually, just, I'm really looking for an answer to the questions that I asked in the memo that I sent. So, I will ask them now. In the context of the housing element, when I read or hear the words buffer or extra cushion, I ask myself, why are we providing more, in our case much more, than the state is asking for? Do we really need an 88% buffer? Or put another way, do we really need 146 units over the required target? I'll take these after, thank you. And why have the three bedroom units versus the two bedroom units reappeared? Since it sounds like from the previous meeting it was determined that we did not need the three bedroom units. The HCD claims that the process does not erode local control. And yet, Melinda Coy, and hello Melinda, is, to use a... Well, Melinda is talking clearly to staff and consultants under the table, which seems to me is eroding local control. So you're listening more to HCD than you are to the residents. Um... I think that those three are, one is sort of more of an observation and then I do have the two questions that I would appreciate an answer. Thank you. |
| 01:05:08.84 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 01:05:12.57 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:05:12.65 | Mayor Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:05:12.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:05:16.35 | Mayor Withy | I would agree. The third one is an observation. So could staff address the first two questions? |
| 01:05:24.89 | Jeff | I thought it might be a good opportunity to test out our Skype connection with Karen Warner. Karen, did you hear Sandra's questions clearly? Sonia. |
| 01:05:33.34 | Mayor Withy | on. |
| 01:05:41.17 | Jeff | That was one of them, and the other one was the buffer question. |
| 01:05:52.31 | Mayor Withy | Karen, if you could hold a second because we're having trouble hearing you. |
| 01:05:56.95 | Jeff | Okay. I'll take a stab at it. Karen, jump in. if you have anything. So to take the buffer question first, The RHNA, as we all know, is a number. And whether it's 10 units or 1,000 units, Our practice and HCV guidance, again, this is not state law, is to provide a minimum 10 percent buffer or overage. And the reason's quite simple. If you come in with your arena spot on the nose of 10 or 1,000, you've satisfied your arena and you could walk away with a certified housing element and everything's good. However, As Riley mentioned in Mill Valley, if someone comes in to pull the trigger on one of those sites and says, I see my sites in your tables, your opportunity sites tables, I see you have it programmed for 20 units, let's do this deal, approve my project. And the city, in their normal discretionary process, either denies the project or reduces it for a lower number of units, right off the bat, the city has to go back and make up that loss. So you've turned a development project into a policy project where through the normal workings of the development review process, you have to go back and revise your housing element to make up that difference. So from a practical matter, we always recommend the cities come in over the arena. Unfortunately, in this case, we didn't come in over enough Our overall buffer is a big number, yes, but on a per income level group, we're down to zero in the very low income category. |
| 01:07:59.68 | Mayor Withy | Do we have that slide? Thank you. you |
| 01:08:01.18 | Jeff | We do. |
| 01:08:02.04 | Mayor Withy | Oh, there it is. |
| 01:08:05.96 | Jeff | So on an overall basis, |
| 01:08:10.48 | Jeff | We do have a, this is looking at the existing planning cycle that we're in right now, 2009 to 2014. Our arena for that cycle was 165. And so people could say, you know, you're crazy. Why are you coming in with 79 units over your buffer when you don't have to? There's the first reason I talked about maintaining normal discretionary review over projects. But on an income level approach, By category, where we also have to meet these numbers, not just the total number, but by category, we are just squeaking by in the very low and the low, with zero in the very low and two as a buffer in the low. So within these categories, we effectively have no buffer. In the moderate, we have 79 units over. And a lot of that is just the function of where units are able to be placed. |
| 01:09:19.41 | Jeff | For example, any units that don't meet the default density for very low and low go into the moderate income category. So by trying to meet these numbers, we wind up with some extras in the moderate. |
| 01:09:39.18 | Mayor Withy | Could I just also... to make the point or ask you whether this is correct. I think Remember, a lot of our numbers And a lot of our numbers that come through as. is being called the buffer. are numbers that result from our infill strategy. And what our infill strategy is just saying is There's underutilized capacity there. We're not changing anything, it's just there. By saying why do we have some buffer, it's like saying, why do you have so much buffer? It's like saying, Why do we have this underdeveloped capacity? So is that correct? Is that a correct way of thinking about this? |
| 01:10:26.90 | Jeff | Yes, because as we went through the sites analysis, we were simply looking at sites that had existing zoning in place and existing general plan designations that allowed a certain amount of development. And by putting those units that we found into these categories, we wound up with a certain number of units. |
| 01:10:45.02 | Mayor Withy | Okay, now there was a, Pat, I know I'm sort of being a little informal at the moment, but that's okay. Pat. |
| 01:10:57.49 | Pat Zook | Two questions in response to your comments. The last time I was here, I asked on what basis a project could be denied. In other words, does discretionary review have any meaning in this context? You said there were three things that needed to be found. One of three findings had to be made. The project was in conflict with state law. The project offered an impairment to the health and welfare or some such thing. And the third was that the project proposer could not economically validate his proposal. Those were affirmative findings that would have to be made to deny a project. That's what you, I thought that's what you said. |
| 01:11:40.71 | Jeff | May I, Mr. Mayor? Please. Those findings, which you very, very ably paraphrased, are from what the city would have, the findings the city would have to make to deny a density bonus request, which is just one piece of a project approval process. So those findings are specific to the |
| 01:12:06.22 | Pat Zook | Those are specific to the density bonus, not to the project itself. Correct. So the city could, in fact, say on the 7-Eleven site, hypothetically, well, you've proposed eight units. We are only going to permit four. |
| 01:12:09.46 | Jeff | Correct. |
| 01:12:23.64 | Pat Zook | for various reasons. |
| 01:12:27.60 | Jeff | So, So, just so we're talking about the same thing, someone comes in, they apply for an eight unit project, no density bonus, right? So we're not talking about those three findings at all. and through their normal decision making, the Planning Commission Council could approve it for four units. That is correct. However, based on the slim margins in these income categories, we would be back to finding a site to backfill those. |
| 01:13:01.42 | Pat Zook | As usual, the answer is confusing. but maybe only to me. Second question. Second question is, all of these buffers that we are creating, the 10% that you are recommending, are these numbers that we will be able to reuse in the next RHNA cycle, or are these numbers that apply to this cycle? We've used them up, and therefore the next time around, even though we have 88 or 108 or 2,000 extra sites that we're applying as buffers here, we couldn't apply them then. True or false? |
| 01:13:35.26 | Jeff | It depends. If the site is still in the same state that it was when we identified it, i.e. it's vacant or underdeveloped, then yes, we could count it in the future. If someone came in and actually got a project approved or built on that site, then we could show it as progress under the housing element, but we wouldn't count it towards the renums. |
| 01:13:59.71 | Jeff | Thank you. |
| 01:13:59.76 | Mayor Withy | So there was Sonja's second question. I'm trying to be rigorous. The trouble is I can't remember what it was, Sonja. |
| 01:14:07.25 | Tom | Thank you. at the bedrooms. |
| 01:14:09.02 | Mayor Withy | Oh, that's right. |
| 01:14:12.69 | Patty Bacon | Patty Bacon, to a person who cannot understand these confusing details but gets the gist of it, I have to call it the three walnuts because it does not feel creative. In other words, what are the options, and I applaud the question, Mayor Withy, you asked. What are the most creative solutions others have done and we could do? I feel like all we're doing is moving three more nuts that equate to a tic-tac-toe board. So if you move Walnut A here, you can have 1, 3, and 5, but you can't have 6 and 7. I think... It doesn't feel like weight. Just do more than move the three women. Bye. Any other options? in this community has been exhausted, fine. That's just a little hard to believe. |
| 01:15:10.89 | Mayor Withy | Thank you. Is there, we'll come back to the three bedroom, two bedroom in a moment. Is there any other members of the public that want to say anything? Okay, so let's close public comment. Jeff, could you just go through again Oh, Mike, please. Sorry. Sorry. |
| 01:15:39.81 | Mike | Thank you. I just have a couple things to mention. Again, concerning the 1901 and 2015 buildings, we are still extremely concerned about our views and about density in there. The letter that Sonya submitted had some beautiful pictures in there. |
| 01:15:58.49 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:15:58.51 | Unknown | that. |
| 01:16:01.53 | Mike | I don't know if those are available to show or not. Thank you. Sonia's pictures. |
| 01:16:06.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:16:06.93 | Lily | Thank you. |
| 01:16:06.95 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:16:07.03 | Lily | Thank you. |
| 01:16:07.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:16:07.79 | Mike | There's handouts. |
| 01:16:08.04 | Lily | There's handouts at the front. |
| 01:16:08.90 | Mike | Thank you. Yeah, the handouts don't show very well because they're not colored pictures that are nicely done on the computer. Mm. But if you refer back to those on the Olive Street building, she has a view looking down Olive Street with the big red building on it on the color views |
| 01:16:27.01 | Unknown | and |
| 01:16:27.11 | Mike | there's five houses right behind that red building which is the olive street 2501 building and that the house those five houses that we own were all built to specifications to city heist and so forth as was that 2501 building at the time everything behind it is is higher looking at the lower building below if the and I'm going to say I'm going to repeat myself if that building is allowed to go higher which it can be under the state density bonus laws that are available to any developer who comes in there when you make that building higher you're going to ruin all of our views from behind it and all of those houses were cited to look over the top of that building. I don't think it's fair to have someone come in after the fact and build a higher building and ruin all of our views and values of our properties. uh... you're giving up local control with the state that the bonus laws i think we're all aware of that i don't think they're fair to anyone in the state of california to have someone come in later and and obfuscate all of the building laws that we have put into place to preserve our views and our and our community and uh... have that allowed to be able to have to allow that to come in you know it's a state issue but again we've lost local control over this Jonathan at the last meeting City Councilman Jonathan started to ask staff about is there a way and I'm going to paraphrase his question is there a way for us to not permit hype to go up any higher in it on either of these two sites and staff kind of pledged pledged an answer that didn't really come up with the answer, but the answer that I've gotten from all of you in talking to all of you, and I know it's true, is that you have no control once a state debt-sea bonus is asked for. Once it's asked for, you pretty much have to give it to them. So we will lose our views if this is allowed to go through. So what I request is that we, again, remove 1901 and 2015 Bridgeway, their inappropriate sites for the neighborhood, for density, for parking, for views, for ruining our neighborhood. Thank you. |
| 01:18:47.41 | Mayor Withy | Thanks. |
| 01:18:54.55 | Unknown | Mr. Mayor, staff, and subcommittee members, for several months now, or a couple months now, the community's come back and said that we are adamantly against the HMU and BMU. And during the last city council meeting, we were challenged, the community was challenged, to come up with another legally viable plan. To that end, Mr. Flavin came up with a plan, and it was clear there are some differences between what HCD says in terms of meeting state statutes versus what the law identifies. There are gray areas there. I think what we need to do as a community, take a long-term view. I know there's a rush to meet our certain dates that we've got to pass our housing element plan. What I'm asking is that we take the time to show a little intestinal fortitude to push the maximum extent of the statutes and the laws. I know on June 24th, Jeff's going to get up here and he's going to tell us about the R3 properties of those 14 that are out there. We've got two that can support eight units on those. That's going to help us satisfy some of our requirements out there. So the bottom line, I just want to say to the staff here, we are a community. All of us are in this together. And what we decide and determine here is going to be something that will last for years and change the fabric of our community. So let's get it right now, and let's push it to the limits of what we can do without destroying our commercial space, our walkable communities. Thank you. |
| 01:20:35.51 | Mayor Withy | Thank you. Okay, now don't be shy. I previously closed public comment, and some of you still wanted to talk. Really, does anybody else want to say anything? Okay, so seeing none, I really am going to close public comment now. So, I Joan, can you still hear us? because we're now in the comment and decision-making period of this. And actually, before we do that, Sonia is reminding me at the back. |
| 01:21:13.51 | Joan | I'm sorry, I had you on mute. Yes, I can still hear you. |
| 01:21:16.59 | Mayor Withy | Okay, good. |
| 01:21:18.17 | Joan | And I did want to ask to have one question answered by our staff, if I could. |
| 01:21:24.08 | Mayor Withy | Yes, and there is also staff also needs to answer Sonia's question about two-bedroom versus three-bedroom, which does seem to be a moving target, I must admit, at the moment. So some further explanation would help. Joan, why don't you go with your question? |
| 01:21:41.34 | Joan | The question I would like staff to address is the one raised by Riley Heard, which is |
| 01:21:48.80 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:21:51.92 | Joan | have we considered the impact of the density bonus on the CN2 sites on which staff is proposing to either do this residential overlay or this HMU Overlay. I want to know whether If we contemplate a density bonus, on that site, would that violate our 35 percent? FAR restrictions. |
| 01:22:23.85 | Jeff | We, We tried to fit the project parameters within an envelope that did not include the density bonus for the simple reason that we're not allowed to use a density bonus to show a project being viable for the simple reason that the density bonus, as much as... people have strong feelings about it within the community is optional. And within the housing element, we can't make it mandatory for an applicant to use the density bonus to make a project viable. So we lived within the 35% FAR. That is not to say, just like on the other bridgeway sites, an applicant could pursue the density bonus and would fall under the Tier 1 and Tier 2 parameters that we have within the project. |
| 01:23:11.00 | Joan | I mean, I think your logic is completely appropriate for most sites, except that Mm-hmm. CN2 site that we're talking about is subject was the subject of a Voter Initiative. And I don't think we can in good conscience I recommend approval. and options. that could Um, violate that voter initiative under any circumstance. Hypothetically, in evaluating that parcel, I think we have to... look to see what the impact of allowing a density bonus would be or whatever we're proposing. |
| 01:24:01.22 | Mayor Withy | Joan, I think our city attorney has something to say about this. Mary. |
| 01:24:09.50 | Unknown | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I did want to add to that discussion that staff explored with HCD a lower FAR than the.35? And as you know and as we've discussed previously, The Fair Traffic Initiative allows for zoning changes provided that the FAR in that zone doesn't change. and I previously provided you with some background information that was presented to the council at the time the initiative went into effect from the drafters of the initiative indicating that they never intended housing to be affected or residential zones to be affected by the Fair Traffic Initiative because the belief was that that was not the traffic generator that they were concerned about. It was commercial uses that were particularly of concern. So we did ask HCD or we explored at the staff level of even lowering the FAR below the.35 to then do the math to figure out what the density bonus would add to that. But it's not,.35 I understand from HCD's perspective is very low and lower as Jeff indicated than the.5 that's in other districts, so that wasn't an opportunity. I think that we've met the letter of the Fair Traffic Initiative and its intent by limiting the FAR to the.35 as it currently exists in that zone. There are other legal issues. ADA is another one that comes to mind. are They don't apply, for instance, in Vina del Mar when we needed to go in and make some ADA improvements there. Those federal requirements superseded the initiative that was in effect there, Ordinance 1128. So I think the argument or the discussion would be the same in this instance, that the provisions of state law would overrule or supersede the initiative's limitations. |
| 01:26:21.25 | Mayor Withy | Okay, thanks. Joan, do you have any follow-up on that? |
| 01:26:26.01 | Joan | I have a comment. I mean, I have an opinion, but this is our opportunity for questions. |
| 01:26:30.71 | Mayor Withy | No, this is we're in the comment period now, but we're trying to discuss what just what recommendations now We're going to make to the City Council |
| 01:26:32.59 | Joan | I think. |
| 01:26:42.59 | Mayor Withy | So, |
| 01:26:44.50 | Joan | I mean... Bye. I appreciate you. it the city attorney's analysis regarding ADA. I think this is... situations. is inapposite because here We are creating a potential violation of the Fair Traffic Initiative with action we are taking. This is not something that's being... imposed on us after the fact, this is something We are undertaking... that could have this ramification. This is of great concern to me. |
| 01:27:22.35 | Mayor Withy | Okay. noted, will Um, What I want to do now is try and figure out how for us to craft a recommendation to the City Council. and I'm gonna jump in with some ideas, if I may, because it's very clear that we cannot just pick one of these options and say, City Council, this is what we think needs to happen. because As Pat said, quite rightly, we still have some outstanding analysis to do on the R3. Now, I don't want to presuppose what the outcome of that is. |
| 01:28:09.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:28:09.55 | Mayor Withy | Thank you. But I'm guessing that, well, I don't know. it would mean that we would have to change the filters and constraints. We're going to have to go back to HCD and discuss them. That's going to be a... an unraveling and an analysis that is gonna take a while. So that's my view, I may be wrong. But anyway, we don't have the answer, we don't have the data, so we can't make a decision around that versus one of these options. And so anything we say here that, would be a preferred alternative, is also subject to the City Council hearings another option that may be on the table by June 24th. The other thing is I think that what we can probably more do is eliminate some options versus actually just pick one. And so it seems to me we've got With this understanding that we're looking at the R3, so we're not saying this is the option, but... You've either got remove the HMU from one or both of the sites in the Spring Street neighborhood, Spring Olive Street neighborhood. and put either an HMU or residential overlay on the Tommy Wap site. or, You... remove the HMU designation from just one of the two sites in the Olive Spring Street area And... you either do the residential overlay or VMU overlay on Tommy Walk site and that will give us more numbers than we need. Or we pick one of the other sites, possibly the one with Dario's Pizza or one other, or one of the others, and simply put an HMU. designation on it because we wouldn't be able to use the residential overlay Um... on that smaller site, as I understood the situation. So those seem to be the options on the table, right? Unless my colleagues have any other ideas. |
| 01:30:35.91 | Tom | No, I mean... |
| 01:30:40.23 | Tom | Well, you know, I think I agree with you, gentlemen. We have to deal with that. But I think we could use the short time we have for exploring a little bit more. I just want to know, Jeff, just pushing you a little bit more on the R3 sites. We started 500 and then there were 14 that were big enough, but my understanding was Your preliminary look at it, you've reduced that number further down yet, correct? Thank you. |
| 01:31:06.52 | Jeff | So we have an inventory of sites within the existing housing element, and obviously it includes our three sites. We actually have 16 on that list, and those go down as small as 3,000 square feet and as large as the 1757 bridgeway site with 11 units factored in. So we have an inventory of our three sites. The question is, as Ray said, do we want to go back and change all of our filters and criteria for what makes a viable site? And so we need to dig back into those 14 sites that didn't make the cut, or some of which didn't make the cut, some of which did, and see if there's any rational way to push them back onto the list. |
| 01:31:52.15 | Tom | And most of those were considered the first time around, I take it. |
| 01:31:55.30 | Jeff | Yes, absolutely, we looked at every site. |
| 01:31:55.32 | Tom | Yeah. |
| 01:31:59.32 | Mayor Withy | Yeah, I think this is important. When, during 2011 and 2012, um, The M group basically went through every single parcel in the city of Sausalito. So this isn't, this is something you need to, and we all need to remember. |
| 01:32:25.88 | Tom | Well, and I think the other thing is, and again, for our time, because we had Mr. Flavin's proposal put forth several times, and I think it's probably worth... |
| 01:32:30.44 | John Flavin | Yeah. |
| 01:32:39.03 | Tom | Um, going through somewhat. And because there's some, and unfortunately it came in kind of late and I've gone through it, but including you know they in Mr. Flavin even mentioned lily pads and I'm familiar with that because shared housing and which this is part of, is a great thing. It'd be wonderful accounted toward the housing. And my understanding is that HCD said that it doesn't end Lily pads are somewhat less than ADUs. They don't even require bathrooms in them. It's a little bit hard for me to to fathom that they would be able to count against it. And also, by the way, we can have But also, ADUs, my understanding is that we have enough of the ADUs in our number, Having more ADUs or ADU-like things won't help us. We need these larger units for families. |
| 01:33:32.49 | Susan | Just on a policy basis, I agree with that. I mean, I think part of it is how do we meet the RHNA, but part of it is accommodating families in Sausalito, and there's just a huge growth in families in town, and our school system is great, our parks are getting better. So I think this family housing is very important. And if we can do that through the RH3, then that's great. It sounds like we're still waiting for the data. But if we can't, I really, just from a from a policy rationale, I think relying on ADUs or shared situations is just not going to meet the city's need for families. If we can find good RH3 housing, great. So I'm supportive that we're continuing to look at that. Do you want to? |
| 01:34:32.14 | Tom | Maybe in the interest of time we should get our proposals. Thank you. |
| 01:34:35.72 | Susan | Thank you. |
| 01:34:35.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:34:35.90 | Tom | Thank you. |
| 01:34:36.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:34:36.36 | Tom | Yeah. |
| 01:34:36.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:34:36.92 | Mayor Withy | And so that's exactly what I want to do. So, you know, the recommendation is that if we can, if the analysis in the R3s can produce the sites previously eliminated because of the filters applied, that could allow for the family housing, you know, is... Susan said, we don't need any more small units. We've got plenty of them. We've got more than we need. You know, um, then great, of course we'd go for that. It would be the obvious lease impact strategy. Um, But... It's likely if we tried to just do that, our housing element will fall out of compliance. But we'll wait for the data. I'm not gonna presuppose. So let's come up with a recommendation that includes Let's go for an R3 if they're viable, and if not, what's our alternative? |
| 01:35:32.77 | Susan | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:35:33.48 | Tom | You wanna start? Well, so when we come back to the council, and we're talking about the next thing. This is recommendation to the council. The council is that we take a look at that, and we won't have that data until we come. And then of the options that we have, I think we, |
| 01:35:38.66 | Mayor Withy | This is recommendation to the Council. |
| 01:35:44.96 | Unknown | the opposite. |
| 01:35:47.54 | Tom | We need to really... I would imagine that we need to bring them all to the council, but I think our recommendation is... I mean, I'm looking at 3B or whatever. what I would call five, but is what you recommended, is looking at moving some of the, either or both of the HMU to other sites in the CN2 other than the Tommy walk sites. And that would just be a straight swap. So we should keep that option on the table as well. |
| 01:36:06.05 | Robert Buchel | or above. |
| 01:36:16.68 | Susan | Can I just get clarification, Tom? You're saying remove both of the Spring Valley sites? Well, the option |
| 01:36:25.57 | Tom | Well, the option five would probably have subparts, but it would be move one. I mean, we have several other sites, so we'd have to look at moving one or both. to one of the other four in the CN2, other than Tommy Walk. So we probably have subcategories of that. Does that make sense? |
| 01:36:48.85 | Mayor Withy | Well, I let |
| 01:36:48.98 | Tom | I thought it made sense, but maybe it's the approval. |
| 01:36:50.75 | Mayor Withy | No, no, no, it makes perfect sense. Let me just get Jeff to talk about Clarify for us. As I understood this, We could... Remove. the HMU designation from both the Olive Street and Spring Street sites. And... We could. Thank you. transfer that number of units two The Tommy walks side. either as a resonant overlay or residential overlay or as an HMU. Sure. or, right, We take... one or both, of the All the streets, spring street sites. Remove the HMU designation. and find two sites other than Tommy, Sorry. that we would put an HMU designation on, but we wouldn't have the opportunity to use a residential overlay. |
| 01:37:57.05 | Unknown | of the world. |
| 01:37:58.98 | Mayor Withy | That's what I heard. Thank you. |
| 01:38:02.00 | Jeff | Correct. advising at least two out of these three sites to be selected. |
| 01:38:10.23 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:38:10.25 | John Flavin | Thank you. |
| 01:38:10.32 | Unknown | What's your... |
| 01:38:10.59 | John Flavin | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:38:10.86 | Jeff | Correct. Two of these smaller, not the big one, but two of the smaller sites to replace the two Spring Valley sites. |
| 01:38:10.87 | John Flavin | Yes. |
| 01:38:18.03 | Tom | or we should consider one if we had to say two. I mean, there's subcategories of the options. |
| 01:38:22.37 | John Flavin | Thank you. |
| 01:38:22.38 | Jeff | Right, right. One or two. |
| 01:38:23.94 | Tom | One or two, right. One or two, and which sites would be appropriate, which wouldn't. Right. |
| 01:38:24.69 | John Flavin | Thank you. |
| 01:38:30.13 | Susan | We... So just that's option five, which we don't have an analysis of, right? I would call. |
| 01:38:31.01 | Tom | just that. |
| 01:38:34.72 | Tom | I would call. Today. |
| 01:38:38.68 | Mayor Withy | It's sort of 2A, but in 2A, the analysis of 2A, |
| 01:38:39.41 | Tom | Now, I- |
| 01:38:46.11 | Mayor Withy | presume the Tommy Wok site, whereas a 2A could be accomplished by another site is I think correct. |
| 01:38:52.45 | Susan | Yeah. 2A or 2B? |
| 01:39:01.99 | Mayor Withy | 2A or 2B, yeah. |
| 01:39:03.47 | Tom | Yes. |
| 01:39:03.88 | Mayor Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:39:04.20 | Tom | However you label them, I'd like the other sites to be considered as potential targets for a swap on either or both of the current HMU sites. |
| 01:39:15.77 | Susan | So I don't have one best preferred option, but I would just like to give my thoughts on the various components, if that's okay. In my opinion, if... the some designation is going to remain on one of the Spring Street area sites, then it would be 2015. Bridgeway for a lot of good reasons that have been put forward. One being that the 7-Eleven site actually has neighborhoods serving commercial uses on it that people use. It keeps car traffic down. It is a sustainable, viable, neighborhood commercial. site. I mean, 2015 Bridgeway has some local businesses in it, but it is not in my, kind of opinion of neighborhood serving commercial, the kind of in and out traffic that you would normally consider like a laundry mat and a 7-Eleven. So if one of them is going to be removed, I would recommend retaining |
| 01:40:15.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:40:22.40 | Susan | That would just be my opinion, the 2015 Bridgeway. I also like in the staff report, and I understand there's a lot, you know, of feeling about that site, and I respect that. but it's already fairly densely developed and I think having two sites in two different parts of town has both an advantage in terms of the buffer and in establishing, you know, not putting a lot of development in one area. so that there's that advantage. In terms of the HMU versus the residential overlay, I prefer, generally, the residential overlay especially in the CN, too. I think keeping and retaining some aspect of neighborhood-serving commercial is very important, and that area all along there is already has a commercial character, and that retaining some commercial would be, you know, mixed-use development is appropriate for that site, so I would lean towards the residential overlay, and I think that the 25% two-bedroom units is more appropriate for that. I mean, you can do three-bedroom units still, but the minimum requirement would be two-bedroom. Um, In terms of the VMU, change, I think it comes at a price. We haven't heard a lot of criticism about the VMU in our hearings, since we've mostly been focused on the HMU. I like the flexibility of the approach that's being proposed. I think it will lead to better decision making for the town. But it comes at a price of we'll be losing units for our housing element. count, so I think it's a better policy decision to have some flexibility. I don't think the 1,000 square foot CAP will work in practice for the reasons that I mentioned earlier. I think if you have only a 1,500 square foot second floor, you're going to have to allow the whole second floor to be commercial. But anyway, we could work out the details on that. I respect Joan's opinions and comments on the CN2. I feel, given our options, that I would prefer to see at least some of the residential overlay in the CN2 than concentrating it in Spring Street. And I feel like I... understand the city attorney's opinion on this matter, and I think we're consistent with the Fair Traffic Initiative. So those are my I realize it's not an absolute recommendation. I'm open to what other members of the committee have to say. |
| 01:43:23.08 | Mayor Withy | Yeah, I'd like to make a further couple points. In general, I think I agree with everything that Susan just said. One thing that I do want to briefly address though is that there is another option which... I think, riley sort of laid out there and is essentially inherent in John's letter. which is take HCD on. Let's And that is a decision for the City Council. It's not a decision for this group. This group has been chartered with the presumption that we are actually moving forward with the housing element. So it's a valid question, but it's a policy question for the City Council, not for this group. So this group would not be recommending to the City Council to not proceed with something, simply because that's not the charter in which this was set up. Um... So that's the first thing. And I don't think we're gonna be able to just give one recommendation. I think the analysis of the options and our general feeling about the options that are being presented is a useful input for the City Council meeting on the 24th |
| 01:44:46.83 | Tom | I agree. I don't think it's appropriate to give one recommendation from this group. But also, they are now focused and specific enough, I think, that the council can choose from them. I think the only thing I would ask, I'd ask staff to prepare, is this presentation. Mr. Flavin's alternative and that represents some other alternatives that basically we go back to the drawing board I think that should be presented as well at the council a good look at that including explanation of what lily pads are what is |
| 01:45:12.46 | Unknown | to look at that, including |
| 01:45:13.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:45:16.49 | Tom | the differences. There's a lot of elements to it that we've looked at. And actually a lot of them have been. And of course the R3 thing. And I would also caution everyone because this process has been going on for years. Every piece of property in Sausalito has been looked at, and the potential R3 properties that could be substituted have been through the process of what you're sitting there, and they've had quite a bit of hearing on them. So it's not going to be, I'm not optimistic of finding something that will certainly easily lend itself to. So I just want to give you that kind of cautionary note about what other ones are, because we've been down that road on a number of them. But with that, we're going to have them all presented, at the council, we should have the alternate as well. So we basically have the... that alternatives and these options one through five and all the sub options. present to the council on the 24th, correct? |
| 01:46:14.80 | Mayor Withy | Yeah, and so I'd like to see the staff report sort of, if you'll forgive me, zone in on the actual actual options, which is move this one to this site, or this one to this site, rather than generally talk about CN2, or both of them onto this site. And if you do both, you only can do, you know. What are the real options? They all go on the TommyWalk site, one of them goes on the TommyWalk site, one goes on another site, one, and with those choices You can do residential overlay in some cases. You can't do in others because the numbers don't work. So that's how I think that should be. should be done. And other than that, I have a general bias towards Thank you. Um, the meeting our house and commitment by trying to have this diversified across as much of the city as possible. And so I would lean where in the direction that Susan was leaning, which was to remove just one of the sites, and if I had to choose, the one I would remove would be 1901. I've actually learned a lot in this process and I've come to recognize that concentrating to HMU overlays in just one area is a very significant change to that commercial neighborhood and that is too much of a change. Because very much picking up on what Susan said about residential serving uses, I think that's a very significant change That's right. That's what that zone was for. And we should... make sure we don't put in a policy that destroys the basic intent of that zone, which is resonance serving commercial. Likewise in the CN2, you've got the same thing. You don't wanna just cram something in which destroys the commercial flavor of that zone. That's my personal view. Right. Um, Joan, oh and finally on the fair traffic initiative, which was Joan's point, I think, The staff report that goes to the council needs to grab a hold of that and Um, make sure the council is fully aware of this issue. In the end, The City Council is the only body other than presumably a court that can determine Thank you. the scope of this fair traffic initiative. |
| 01:49:08.78 | Mayor Withy | So Joan, We're sort of not coming. |
| 01:49:12.10 | Tom | We never did Sonja's question. We should, we have to do that. |
| 01:49:15.98 | Mayor Withy | Sonia, sorry. Two bedroom, three bedroom. Let's clarify that and then we'll get Joan's comments. |
| 01:49:19.43 | Jeff | Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I think the quickest way to explain that is within the VMU, vertical mixed use program, within the housing element, we have a bullet point. Affordable units must have a minimum of two bedrooms to accommodate families. So that's one end of the spectrum. Within the HMU program, which is the very next program, we have the very first bullet point is ensure a minimum 30 percent three-bedroom units to accommodate larger families. So between those two programs, we were trying to meet the need for family housing, one through two-bedroom units and one through three-bedroom units. |
| 01:49:55.78 | Mayor Withy | Okay, direct question. If we just said now our recommendation is that any of these programs, whatever it is, we just go with the two-bedroom option. Can we do that and make, and. |
| 01:50:12.35 | Jeff | The short answer is yes. I think the longer answer is it's really a policy. Yes, the answer is yes and it's a policy question. |
| 01:50:19.60 | Mayor Withy | I understand this policy question. I'm talking about it from the numbers, from family requirements. |
| 01:50:22.81 | Jeff | from From a pure compliance standpoint, we have agreement from HCD that two bedrooms counts as family houses. |
| 01:50:31.15 | Mayor Withy | Okay, does this group want to make a recommendation one way or another about that? |
| 01:50:38.06 | Unknown | Go ahead. |
| 01:50:38.57 | Tom | you Well, I would make the recommendation that the assumption be two bedrooms going forward. I mean, I think that's really the lowest impact. And if it's something that's acceptable, HCD, I think we can do that. |
| 01:50:51.58 | Susan | I agree. |
| 01:50:52.49 | Mayor Withy | And I agree. So make that part of our recommendation going up. Thank you. Joan, we've been doing a lot of talking here. |
| 01:50:56.17 | Jeff | Bye. |
| 01:51:01.79 | Mayor Withy | Is there anything you'd like to add? We're making a very general recommendation up to the city council, but... |
| 01:51:12.71 | Joan | it. I'm generally in favor of the comments that I've heard Um, I want to point out with respect to taking on HCD. that some of the challenges we find ourselves facing. with respect to the housing element that we've already adopted are of our own making. because we failed to adopt a housing element for the 1997 to 2004 cycle. And it's for that reason that we had a cumulative number of units. to me. Um, And so... you know, that's the punishment that's built in. So yes, we could take on HDD, but... the punishment that we were facing, essentially, the having to identify 372 units, some of which were you know. had to be family serving. Right. you know, not... We have a certain vulnerability if we decide to take on HCD at this late point. in my opinion. So that's not for us to decide. That's just my perspective on that. Okay. in terms of Bye. two bedroom or three bedroom option, I fully endorse the two bedroom option. one of the I think that will assist us if we are seeking to resist Thank you. density bonus concessions. out. And I also just think it's a less. impactful. Approach. I want to make sure as we continue to consider changing. development standards for the CN2 site. that we've apprised. those business owners. and that neighborhood of these considerations. |
| 01:53:22.78 | Mayor Withy | Joe, Lily, could you comment on that because I know you've got a plan there. |
| 01:53:29.50 | Lily | Sure. I have a notice prepared that will go out this afternoon notifying the property owners and occupants within 500 feet of the CN2 sites of the council meeting on the 24th and inviting them to attend the meeting. specifically stating that residential uses may be considered in that commercial district |
| 01:53:43.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:53:44.01 | Mayor Withy | So- |
| 01:53:48.82 | Mayor Withy | So, Joan, that's a 10-day notice we're giving. |
| 01:53:52.75 | Joan | Okay, perfect. And other than that, I'm not going to reiterate. Susan's and Ray's comments, I I do believe that if it is the city council decision. to at this with the HMU. approach that the wealth so to speak, should be split. and not imposed solely on the Spring Street NEVER HIT. |
| 01:54:20.71 | Mayor Withy | okay Any other comments from Committee members? In that case, at exactly 10.30, I'm adjourning this meeting. Thank you. |
Robert Buchel — Against: Encouraged the council to question HCD's authority and protect Sausalito's unique character, even if it means legal challenge, referencing historical stands against inappropriate development. ▶ 📄
Jenny Reingers — Against: Expressed concern about parking and traffic impacts if high-density housing is developed at 2015 Bridgeway, noting it would increase traffic on Spring Street and create parking overflow issues for the neighborhood. ▶ 📄
John Flavin — Against: Advocated for his alternative plan focusing on creative reuse of existing stock rather than new construction. Criticized the process for being overly guided by HCD, eroding local control, and warned about environmental issues (dry cleaners, gas stations) on the proposed sites. ▶ 📄
Pat Zook — Neutral: Urged the subcommittee not to make a determination until the R3 site analysis is complete, as one or two sites could satisfy the multi-unit housing need and remove HMU from Bridgeway. Expressed concern about 'project creep' (increasing from 8 to 21 units) but found the Residential Overlay concept responsive to community desires for commercial viability. ▶ 📄
Sandra Bushmaker — Against: Questioned the need for an 88% buffer over the state's RHNA target and the reappearance of three-bedroom unit requirements. Observed that HCD's behind-the-scenes guidance erodes local control, as staff listens more to HCD than residents. ▶ 📄
Patty Bacon — Against: Criticized the options as uncreative, likening them to moving 'three walnuts' on a tic-tac-toe board, and expressed skepticism that all creative solutions for the community had been exhausted. ▶ 📄
Mike — Against: Strongly opposed HMU at 1901 and 2015 Bridgeway due to view and density concerns. Argued that state density bonus laws would allow taller buildings, ruining views for surrounding properties and demonstrating a loss of local control. Requested removal of these sites. ▶ 📄
Unknown (Speaker after Mike) — Against: Called for the council to show 'intestinal fortitude' and push the limits of statutes to protect commercial space and community fabric. Suggested waiting for the R3 analysis (due June 24th) which might identify sites to satisfy requirements without using HMU. ▶ 📄