| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.81 | Unknown | Here's a public service announcement from Sausalito Beautiful and Radio Sausalito. Can you think of a business or property owner in Sausalito that has created a fabulous green space around town? Why not nominate them for a beautification award? For the fourth year in a row, a panel of judges will review the nominees with an eye for sustainability, aesthetic appeal, and water conservation. Last year's winners included Molly Stones, Waldo Point Harbor, Valhalla Signworks, and Golden Gate Sotheby's. |
| 00:00:30.76 | Unknown | you Just a garden in the rain |
| 00:00:35.20 | Unknown | Nominations are now open for the fourth annual Beautification Awards to acknowledge businesses and property owners that have improved the aesthetics of Sausalito's public spaces. Email your nomination by May 31st to awards at sausalitobeautiful.org. |
| 00:01:08.69 | Unknown | I need your love so badly. I love you so much. |
| 00:01:22.11 | Wendy Richards | I'm sorry. No, I think it's a closed session item. I'm not allowed to. |
| 00:01:25.66 | Unknown | But I don't see. |
| 00:01:26.92 | Wendy Richards | Still? |
| 00:01:28.20 | Unknown | you |
| 00:01:28.37 | Wendy Richards | you |
| 00:01:28.42 | Unknown | you |
| 00:01:28.49 | Wendy Richards | All right. |
| 00:01:29.03 | Unknown | I can do it at the beginning of the year. I wish we knew. |
| 00:01:35.04 | Wendy Richards | Thank you. |
| 00:01:35.78 | Unknown | you |
| 00:01:35.95 | Wendy Richards | you So it said the thing, I read the thing, it said beginning and it said six times. |
| 00:01:39.04 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE I thought at last I'd found you. |
| 00:01:43.04 | Wendy Richards | Amen. |
| 00:01:50.81 | Unknown | But other love surrounds me. |
| 00:01:58.97 | Unknown | And I don't stay. Just a good change. With you |
| 00:02:15.84 | Unknown | If you turn around Just for a dinner. This or two. |
| 00:02:26.83 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:02:32.60 | Unknown | you might discover |
| 00:02:35.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:02:38.06 | Unknown | Said I'm the lover meant for you. And I'd be |
| 00:02:50.75 | Unknown | But what's a good of scheming? |
| 00:02:58.79 | Unknown | I know I must be dreaming. |
| 00:03:07.14 | Unknown | Cause I don't stay. |
| 00:03:12.96 | Unknown | Mr. Borges. Would you? |
| 00:04:33.96 | Unknown | Your future is. |
| 00:04:38.33 | Unknown | Just for a tip. |
| 00:04:51.14 | Unknown | You might discover |
| 00:04:57.17 | Unknown | I'll burn it for you And I... Thank you. But what's the use of scheming? |
| 00:05:19.75 | Unknown | I know I must be dreaming |
| 00:05:26.65 | Unknown | Cause I don't stand again you Sturge Thank you. Yes. was you. |
| 00:05:53.58 | Unknown | Thank you. Amen. you you |
| 00:06:05.43 | Unknown | Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum You came along and everything's starting to hum. Robert, should I break down to the office? |
| 00:06:22.17 | Unknown | Thank you. Anything else? |
| 00:06:22.87 | Unknown | Still it's a real good bet, the best is yet to come. |
| 00:06:23.53 | Unknown | you |
| 00:06:30.32 | Unknown | . The best is yet to come, and babe, won't it be fine? You think you've seen the sun, but you ain't seen it shine. Wait till the warm-up's underway. Wait till our lips have fit. . Wait till you see that sunshine day You ain't seen nothing yet. |
| 00:07:03.27 | Unknown | Hey! |
| 00:07:05.58 | Unknown | . Thank you. The best is yet to come, and babe, won't it be fine? you The best is yet to come, come the day you're mine Come the way you're mine I'm gonna teach you to fly We've only tasted the wine We're gonna drain the cup dry. Wait till your charms are ripe for these arms to surround. . You think you've flown before, but you ain't left the ground. Wait till you're locked in. |
| 00:08:04.11 | Mayor Burns | All right, good evening. Welcome to the Thank you. Meeting of Tuesday May 14th search to get a quick roll call. |
| 00:08:14.27 | City Clerk | Councilmember Huffman? Thank you. |
| 00:08:16.53 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:08:16.64 | City Clerk | Bye. Councilmember Whitney? Here. Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles? Here. |
| 00:08:22.77 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | All right. |
| 00:08:23.41 | City Clerk | Mayor Burns. |
| 00:08:24.20 | Mayor Burns | And council member Joan Cox is in route and will be here at some time during our closed session. Of which we will be adjourning into closed session to consider items on the agenda as D1 through D3. Prior to that, I'll take any public comment. Is there any public comment on closed session items? I see Wendy Richards. Wendy, come on up to the microphone. |
| 00:08:46.51 | Wendy Richards | Thank you, Mayor Burns, council members. So I'm here tonight to speak about the item on your agenda for the labor negotiations with the city staff. I have seen from the past council meeting and the meeting later tonight that this city is in a severe financial crisis. That there is a lack of accountability and a very clear lack of skill in handling our city finances. And at the very same time, You're charged with negotiating a labor contract with the very same people that are failing us right now. |
| 00:09:31.62 | Wendy Richards | I'm here to ask that you shine some light on the process for the citizens. And let us know what is at stake in this negotiation. I see very enthusiastic young people on our staff here. Are those young people being promised to retire and be paid at the age of 55 when they're going to have lifespans of 110? Are we even considering a two-tiered process so that we can start to chip away at the benefits that we're going to be saddling not only ourselves with, but our children and their children to cover pension liabilities that were designed years ago for a world we no longer live in. I, for one, and many of my neighbors would like to know where this negotiation is headed and please do so publicly. I am not asking that you tip your hand or in any way jeopardize issues that are at stake, but given the financial crisis. I don't want to sit here and watch our city go bankrupt on your watch and meanwhile be burdened with cost of living increases forever. On people that are double dipping because at 55 they can go get a job in another district. So please, tell us what's at stake, where we are with it, bring the public up to date and shine some light on this process. Thank you very much. |
| 00:10:55.44 | Mayor Burns | Thank you, Wendy. Is there any other public comment? Any other public comment on closed session items? Seeing none, I'm going to close public comment, and we are going to go into closed session, and we'll be back out at 7 o'clock. Thank you. |
| 00:11:14.29 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Every time. Thank you. We sing. I I die. you Is there anyone else back there? Every time. We say goodbye. I wonder why I'm going to measure. Thank you. |
| 00:11:54.13 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:11:55.38 | Unknown | Why the God of the peace |
| 00:11:56.41 | Unknown | Oh, Thank you. |
| 00:12:03.12 | Unknown | Who must be in the know? |
| 00:12:07.55 | Unknown | Oh. |
| 00:12:10.87 | Unknown | Thank you. Think so little of me |
| 00:12:13.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:12:20.83 | Unknown | They allowed you to go |
| 00:12:31.88 | Unknown | When you're near There's such an air of spring. About it. |
| 00:12:46.49 | Unknown | Without it. Thank you. |
| 00:12:50.26 | Unknown | I can hear somewhere Okay. begin to sing. |
| 00:13:08.92 | Mayor Burns | Good evening. |
| 00:13:20.66 | Mayor Burns | Good evening everybody. I'll give you a couple seconds to wind down these important conversations and then. We're going to start here. It's seven o'clock on Tuesday, May 14th. Welcome to the City Council meeting. We did just come out of closed session. There are no closed session announcements that I know of. And as promised, Council Member Joan Cox has joined as we did do a roll call prior to going into closed session. Um, |
| 00:13:58.68 | Mayor Burns | We, I'm going to ask now to do the pledge allegiance, right? But we did the roll call once. Let's do a roll call again. OK, I thought we'd just do it once. Serge called a roll call. |
| 00:14:10.87 | City Clerk | Councilmember Cox? Here. Council member Hoffman. |
| 00:14:14.85 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Here. Yeah. |
| 00:14:15.81 | City Clerk | Council member Whitey? Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles. Here. Mary Burns. |
| 00:14:21.41 | Mayor Burns | Here. Pledge of Allegiance, John DeRay, please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. |
| 00:14:30.41 | John DeRay | Thank you. |
| 00:14:30.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:30.44 | John DeRay | I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, |
| 00:14:30.63 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. To the fire. Thank you. United States of America. understand. THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:14:38.11 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes. |
| 00:14:38.39 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:38.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:14:38.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:39.94 | John DeRay | indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. |
| 00:14:40.23 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:14:47.15 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I love you. Envious. |
| 00:14:54.73 | Mayor Burns | Next up, we have the approval of the agenda. |
| 00:14:57.71 | Jill Hoffman | Move approval. |
| 00:14:59.54 | Mayor Burns | All in favor? Aye. |
| 00:15:00.43 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 00:15:00.92 | Julia Carter | Thank you. |
| 00:15:02.00 | Mayor Burns | That passes 5-0. Special presentations and mayor announcements. Anything? I have one, and this is really for the people in the audience. We have some sports fans in here, and today's age of the media, if you hear or see on your phones any scores, please don't belt them out. Especially the score to the Kent Field-Tiberon girls softball game that's probably in the fourth inning right now, or the Warrior game. So keep it to yourself, because some of us are going to do that about 2 AM this morning. |
| 00:15:35.08 | Jill Hoffman | It better be sooner than that. Yeah. |
| 00:15:39.43 | Mayor Burns | Public communications, this is the time for the city council to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on this agenda. We have a posted agenda. If you have any items you'd like to speak that are not on this agenda, please fill out a green speaker card. Thank you. Are there any public comments? Yes, one, bring it up. |
| 00:15:59.00 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | Yeah. |
| 00:16:02.66 | Mayor Burns | Yep, great. You can give that to our city clerk right here. And go ahead and go to the mic and introduce yourself. Thank you. |
| 00:16:15.39 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:16:19.76 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. Sebastian. |
| 00:16:20.71 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | Hi. Yeah, thank you. My name is Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz. I am a native Sausalito resident. I was born and raised in Sausalito and lived here my whole life. I am the lead designer at Engineered Fluids, which is a company that was started on Gate 5 Road two years ago. And we design cooling systems for data centers. So we basically have a non-toxic biodegradable fluid that we've developed, and we dunk electronics directly in it, which results in a 90% decrease in power consumption, so a lot lower carbon footprint. And all our development's done in Sausalito and all designed, too. So here's some kind of photos of server systems, Bitcoin miners, and what we build down on Gate 5 Road. so Red Dot is where we are. That's the industrial area, and right now we're growing really fast, and we're looking to hire about 40 new people in the next two months, and I always knew this area as industrial growing up and where all the workshops were and all the cool warehouses. You can kind of pop your head in, and the president and I have been searching for a place to rent recently. And we've probably looked at 10 places. And I was just really surprised to find out that there's, we actually can't even find one kind of warehouse to rent. It's all office buildings. So I didn't know about that. And for example, this is kind of a big red bar and I always had my eye on. And it's actually for rent online right now, right in the industrial area. But I went over there and one of them is being turned into an office building. And the other one is, they told me it's getting torn down and turned into an office building. I just thought this was a relevant, you know, something to bring up that I didn't even know was happening, and I didn't realize until we actually were trying to find space, and, you know, we're a company that started in Sausalito, and we're all from Sausalito, and I think there's a lot of other people that, you know, we're industrial companies that need more warehouse space, and we don't really have anywhere to go at this point, so I thought it was relevant for your planning in the future, just to keep that in mind. |
| 00:18:39.86 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. |
| 00:18:47.47 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. Thanks for your presentation. We have questions? Yes, we have questions for you. |
| 00:18:51.97 | Jill Hoffman | Well, and may I say one thing, I want you to know that we have a general plan process underway and we will be holding a Marinship workshop, which has yet to be scheduled. But if you would give your name to our city clerk, I want to make sure you're invited to that workshop so that you can share your perspective with many people who will be |
| 00:19:02.20 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Perfect. |
| 00:19:12.86 | Jill Hoffman | considering what the best future for the marineship is. Thank you so much for- |
| 00:19:17.64 | Mayor Burns | That would be great. |
| 00:19:18.43 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:19:19.60 | Mayor Burns | I'll give it to him, Sebastian. I'll give them that. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? I THINK THAT WAS MY IDEA, BUT I CAN'T REMEMBER. |
| 00:19:29.54 | Jill Hoffman | And Mr. Mayor. AND I WANT TO TALK ABOUT May I ask that we consider as a future agenda item, I was not aware that that office use is a permitted use in the Marin ship without a CUP. So I'm surprised to hear that we are converting warehouse space into office space without having gone through the planning commission. So I would love to get some follow-up on that. |
| 00:19:51.46 | Ray Withy | Well, furthermore, I'd like staff to investigate. You can't tear down a building without a demo permit. |
| 00:19:51.51 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. . |
| 00:19:57.46 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:19:58.21 | Ray Withy | So. |
| 00:19:58.56 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. Thank you. you |
| 00:19:59.27 | Ray Withy | We can check off |
| 00:19:59.98 | Mayor Burns | about permits that have been applied for. |
| 00:20:01.35 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:20:04.55 | Mayor Burns | Next up, Jeff Jacobs. Jeff, you have three minutes. |
| 00:20:17.29 | Jeff Jacobs | Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council, and citizens. here bearing some Good news. |
| 00:20:31.27 | Jeff Jacobs | This is part of the prayer that we do. We the Israelites, on the count between Passover and the next... festival. I'll do it in English. We implore you by the great power of your right hand Release the captive. Accept the prayer of your people, strengthen us, Purify us, awesome one, mighty one, we beseech you. God is the apple of the eye those who seek YOUR ONENESS. IT'S NOT THAT MUCH DIFFERENT FROM THE PRAYER WE DO the pledge that we do to the flag. |
| 00:21:20.00 | Jeff Jacobs | I'm gonna move on to the Torah portion for this week. IT TALKS ABOUT THE PRIESTLY CAST, THE COHANS, AND THE LEVITES, As it says in Ezekiel 44, I am your inheritance. I AM YOUR POSSESSION. says John. You are to have None else. |
| 00:21:55.35 | Jeff Jacobs | These were the people that were at the sanctuary cities, If families had trouble, they would go to them and get counsel and even judgment. |
| 00:22:09.88 | Jeff Jacobs | They were born into it. And this cast of people still exists to this day, preserved for thousands of years. under a lot of duress. I have some good news for Ms. Jill Hoffman on the right hand side of the dais. I'm glad that she showed up. She's been here for more than half the meetings since I brought up Form 700. I've talked about it with Serge a little bit. To live without possessions or inheritance. is what Ms. Hoffman is saying she does. On Form 700, you have to file this when you assume office. Here's what you have to declare investments, interest in real property and business positions held on the date you assumed office. We have this problem everywhere. WE HAVE IT WITH THE RABBIS, WITH THE PRIESTS. people who are getting a paycheck with the non-profits, People who are not working for the oneness. |
| 00:23:15.02 | Mayor Burns | Thank you, Jeff. |
| 00:23:16.15 | Jeff Jacobs | So you can amend your report anytime with no punishment. Great. Thanks, Jeff. Jill. |
| 00:23:18.24 | Mayor Burns | Thanks. Great, thanks, Jeff. Have a seat. |
| 00:23:21.60 | Jeff Jacobs | to avoid a recall election. |
| 00:23:22.44 | Mayor Burns | Jeff, thank you. |
| 00:23:24.52 | Jeff Jacobs | Okay. |
| 00:23:26.33 | Mayor Burns | Any other public comment? Any public comment on items on the agenda, seeing none, closing public comment and bringing it up here for action minutes of the previous meeting, two meetings. |
| 00:23:37.41 | Jill Hoffman | I had a correction to one. Yes, please. They don't have page numbers, but the meeting of March 26, 2019. One, two, three, four. On page four, we're missing the identity of the person who seconded the motion to approve the six month pilot program. |
| 00:23:38.95 | Mayor Burns | Yes. Thank you. |
| 00:23:56.57 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:23:57.48 | Jill Hoffman | I made the motion, but I don't remember |
| 00:24:00.16 | Mayor Burns | We'll check the video and add that to it. Thank you. |
| 00:24:01.34 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:24:03.43 | Mayor Burns | Any other corrections, comments on meeting minutes? Motion with that correction. |
| 00:24:08.85 | Jill Hoffman | move. Second. |
| 00:24:12.04 | Mayor Burns | All in favor? Aye. Both pass 5-0 with correction. |
| 00:24:12.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:24:12.93 | Laura Bowen | I'm... |
| 00:24:13.22 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:24:17.12 | Mayor Burns | Council member committee reports. This is a time where the council members report on committees that they have attended in the past couple weeks, related to their duties here in the city and our committee structure. Is there anybody who would like to lead off on their committee report? |
| 00:24:40.10 | Ray Withy | Yes, I have attended nothing. |
| 00:24:42.97 | Mayor Burns | I was going to say, wow. |
| 00:24:44.69 | Unknown | Yeah. Two or ten. |
| 00:24:46.50 | Ray Withy | If you haven't been following him, |
| 00:24:47.41 | Unknown | Didn't you attend TAM for me as an alternate? |
| 00:24:53.00 | Ray Withy | I guess I did, okay. Before I got sick, I attended tan. Yeah, thank you. It was a long time ago. It was shortly after our last meeting a month ago. Policy bills that were currently in the legislature, which I think had been discussed in detail before, were updated. And, uh... we had some very interesting presentations on in particular the plans for the Route 37. So the details of which are certainly not able to go through tonight. But thanks for letting me attend. |
| 00:25:54.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:25:58.30 | Mayor Burns | Jill. Anything? Susan. |
| 00:26:02.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Last Thursday I attended the Sustainability Commission, which had a very full schedule. And there were some. a good number of people from the public there which was great we discussed the plastic ban ordinance which will likely be coming to the council either later this month or in june we talked about the zero waste grant report and spent quite a bit of time talking about the request from the general plan advisory committee to have boards and commissions come and present to them And so the sustainability commission is looking forward to that on June 4th and identified priorities to raise with the G-PAC. |
| 00:26:45.77 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. Joan. |
| 00:26:47.73 | Jill Hoffman | I have attended several housing legislation committee meetings with the Association of Bay Area Government and Metropolitan Transportation Commission and I, for your reference, provided an overview of the bills that we have discussed together with the feedback from Marin County. So I sit on that committee with Supervisor Judy Arnold and Vice Mayor Alice Fredericks from the City of Tiburon. The comments are the collective comments of the Marin group, not the comments of other municipalities who don't who surprisingly don't always agree with Marin's perspective. |
| 00:27:35.65 | Ray Withy | Can I just say that list is very helpful. |
| 00:27:38.13 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 00:27:38.66 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | HE'S A LITTLE BIT OF A |
| 00:27:39.13 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, people kept asking and I had to put it together. There's so many bills and so much feedback, I had to put it together just to keep track for my funds. |
| 00:27:43.11 | Ray Withy | Yeah. No, extremely helpful. |
| 00:27:47.10 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great. And then do you know, does the League of California Cities have a similar list and oppose or where they are on these? |
| 00:27:54.28 | Jill Hoffman | So I know that on one bill they have recommended oppose until amended and they have taken that position for various other bills as well. I don't know if they maintain a list in this format. OK. Great, thank you. |
| 00:28:08.12 | Mayor Burns | Thanks. Anything else, John? |
| 00:28:09.67 | Jill Hoffman | I attended our WAG Festival, which was our best yet. Handed out some, I got to pull the raffle tickets for the prizes. So it was a great, we had a great day and a great festival. |
| 00:28:21.18 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:28:21.50 | Jill Hoffman | my doctor. |
| 00:28:22.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | the dog attended. |
| 00:28:25.01 | Mayor Burns | Unfortunately, I missed our community safety meeting on 5-8 and library trustee meeting the following night, but I did attend today a Marin Ready Together meeting and that is the group put together of 16 fire districts and the mayors of the communities as spearheaded by Katie Rice, Supervisor Katie Rice. And it is the start of a discussion on how we combat fire in a larger way than 16 separate districts or 11 different communities. So it's very early in the discussion. However, there's a pretty severe time frame that we're looking at in getting the community polled, and they're going to do a serious polling of the community as far as the appetite for creating a financial mechanism, revenue mechanism to have one opportunity to fight, prevent fires through veg management and sustainable building and all that stuff. So very promising start, however, we'll know much more, maybe when we return from break September, October, when those types of things really start kicking in with their polling being complete. That's it, any other questions or items? Seeing none, councilman reports closed. Consent calendar. Removal of items on the consent calendar are Consider routine and non-controversial. Require no discussion. And are expected to have a unanimous council vote and may be enacted by the council in one motion. Do we have a recusal on any items on the consent calendar? I believe we have maybe 5D for you, Joan. |
| 00:30:08.27 | Jill Hoffman | So I will simply abstain from that vote. So I will move approval of public comments. |
| 00:30:13.38 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:30:13.40 | Mayor Burns | I'm gonna do public comment. I just wanted to ask if we had one. |
| 00:30:15.09 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 00:30:15.39 | Unknown | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 00:30:15.85 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, yeah. |
| 00:30:16.49 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. Is there any public comment on items on the consent calendar IC1 from Sybil? Any other public comment on consent calendar items? |
| 00:30:31.86 | John DeRay | Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. I just want to thank you for considering supporting this bill, which deals with bringing the age friendly principles to the state planning process. Salcelito has been a leader on this from the beginning, from 2013, when the council gave us authority to join the World Health Organization, a group of us volunteers. We were the third city in the state of California to become a member of the global network of H. Finley cities and communities. And we really not only inspired other cities in Marin, but we were the inspiration for AB 2132, which was a bill copying our building permit, age friendly building permit, which Mark Levine took to the state and which is now state law. And so now the state is looking at including the same age-friendly lens that Mr. Withey first proposed reuse here in South Salido. And so I'm very happy that you're taking it up and I hope you all vote in favor of supporting it. Thank you. |
| 00:32:02.13 | Mayor Burns | Thank you, Sybil. Any other public comment on consent items? Seeing none, closing public comment. Any comments up here on items? I have one. I'm just going to note that item 5F, we're increasing the size of the community safety disaster preparedness committee. And I think this is an important time to remind our community that we do look for our community members to get involved in these committees. And this is one that's expanding by two positions. Simply their scope is going to take a larger scope. So if anybody's out there and you're interested in getting involved in this committee, we're accepting applications to the Community Safety Disaster Preparedness Committee. |
| 00:32:39.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Can I just add on to that? Actually, when I was talking about the sustainability commission, I failed to mention that one of our members will soon be moving out of town. And so there will soon be a vacancy. on the sustainability commission so just adding on to that and hopefully had a lot of interest in that committee so |
| 00:32:58.17 | Mayor Burns | you THE FAMILY. |
| 00:33:01.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And then I have a comment on something else. |
| 00:33:03.42 | Mayor Burns | on this? Yeah. OK. |
| 00:33:05.38 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, so I just wanted to note that tonight we're re-adopting our local emergency ordinance. And I have been bugging our city manager and public works director about the state of affairs on Crescent and the giant debris pile that is there and just urging them to please continue to move as expeditiously as possible in getting that cleanup started and i understand that there are a number of reasons why the schedule is the way it is but i would just note that there is a lot of concern in that neighborhood about the pile and the impacts that it's having on the community so just would urge the city to move as quickly as possible . |
| 00:33:47.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:33:48.00 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 00:33:48.12 | Jill Hoffman | Ironically, |
| 00:33:48.51 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I, I, |
| 00:33:48.78 | Jill Hoffman | I've had the same exhortation with the city manager. I understand we're going to get a full report at our next meeting. So I look forward to that full status update. |
| 00:33:58.75 | Ray Withy | Thank you. So I move adoption, do you want a separate vote on 5D? Please. Okay, I move adoption of consent calendars 5A through 5C and 5E through 5H. |
| 00:34:03.91 | Jill Hoffman | BEFORE. |
| 00:34:13.75 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:34:13.84 | Ray Withy | All in favor? Aye. I move adoption of consent calendar item 5D. |
| 00:34:15.20 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 00:34:24.77 | Ray Withy | THANK YOU. |
| 00:34:24.97 | Mayor Burns | Yeah. |
| 00:34:25.09 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:34:25.13 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:34:25.82 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:34:26.71 | Mayor Burns | All in favor? Aye. |
| 00:34:27.71 | Ray Withy | Bye. |
| 00:34:28.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Aye. Abstain. |
| 00:34:28.70 | Mayor Burns | at the end. Thank you. or with one abstention. Next up, we have our business items. We're going to start off with business item 7A, a general plan update. And providing that will be Lily Whalen. |
| 00:34:46.36 | Unknown | Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members. I'm here to introduce Tom Ford, who's the project manager for the general plan update, and an update on the economic study that you discussed at your last meeting. |
| 00:35:00.50 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. Welcome, Tom. |
| 00:35:01.96 | Tom Ford | Hi, thank you. Good to see you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council Members. You saw, those of you that were here last two weeks ago, we saw this slide. It's just reminding you where we were. When we left, you had approved Task 13, except you had asked us to go away, and in the very right column, work with our sub consultant EPS to reconsider the scope of the economic analysis. So we've done that, and Ashley Connett from EPS is here tonight, and she can speak to that a little bit. But also just let me point out that in the middle column, starting next Tuesday, we're going to be picking back up with the GPAC and starting a whole series of meetings. Council Member Cleveland Knowles referenced the Sustainability Commission. They'll be coming in June, but we'll start this coming Tuesday with Sausalito Beautiful and another commission at that meeting. So those are going to start in the next... Do I do this? I guess. So that puts us at the top row there, GPAC meetings, getting started May 21st. And this is a very ambitious schedule to get us to adoption in October of next year. And so this is where we're starting, and we've already started initiating down at the lowest column, or the lowest row, getting the EIR started to be thinking about gearing up and traffic counts and all of the things that go into an EIR and getting that started. |
| 00:36:37.86 | Mayor Burns | Thanks, Tom. On this document, one of the words that we've been using a lot is vision. Where does it fall, the visioning process on here? |
| 00:36:45.43 | Tom Ford | A lot of the visioning has been done already, so it falls off to the left of the calendar. We're sort of finishing it right now with the GPAC, listening to the different commissions and committees. But a lot of that has already happened to the left of May 2019. |
| 00:36:48.45 | Mayor Burns | falls off. |
| 00:37:05.15 | Tom Ford | So with that, this is just an outline of the scope of work that you got from EPS, which folds into task 13. It's task 13.13. And I'll let Ashley give you an overview, and we can answer any questions that you might have. Can I ask a question? Yes, please. |
| 00:37:20.80 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:37:22.13 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, please. |
| 00:37:23.04 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:37:23.33 | Unknown | you |
| 00:37:23.46 | Tom Ford | Thank you. |
| 00:37:23.90 | Jill Hoffman | I'm surprised to hear you say that a lot of the visioning has already happened because none of the visioning has been brought to the city council for consideration. The GPAC has given feedback on some Not huge issues, but one of the major aspects of our visioning will not happen until after this economic study THE FAMILY IS DONE. but it doesn't show up. on the calendar. Coming up. you |
| 00:37:53.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:37:53.36 | Jill Hoffman | And I don't think any of the visioning is done until the recommendations from the GPAC have been presented to the city council for consideration. |
| 00:38:03.99 | Tom Ford | I understand. |
| 00:38:05.51 | Mayor Burns | I would go a step further and say to the community as well. We've been pitching that the vision would come from the community. |
| 00:38:07.62 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:38:07.88 | Tom Ford | Thank you. |
| 00:38:11.88 | Tom Ford | Thank you. |
| 00:38:11.89 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:38:12.03 | Tom Ford | Thank you. |
| 00:38:12.28 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:38:12.41 | Tom Ford | Thank you. |
| 00:38:12.99 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:38:13.22 | Tom Ford | Susan. |
| 00:38:14.19 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, I mean, that was definitely one of my comments. I was very surprised to hear that statement that we're almost concluded with the visioning, so thank you, Councilmember Cox, for that. I think on the calendar, what is important is the decision points of coming back to the council for check-in. So I know this is kind of a broad strokes, but at some point I would like to have a better sense of when and how many meetings we will have here to kind of touch base with the GPAC. |
| 00:38:48.05 | Jill Hoffman | And may I request, at our last meeting you announced, or the M group announced that we had had 28 meetings instead of the 18 that had been planned. So may I request that you advise us now of how many meetings you anticipate having between now and the end of the process so that we can manage ourselves to be sure that we're not having more meetings than what we planned to and that we're accomplishing at each meeting. the charter for that meeting. |
| 00:39:18.14 | Tom Ford | We will. I'm planning to bring on the 21st just an update of what's in Task 13 just so you can see because those are actually meetings that we know what's going to happen. It just doesn't get worked in. And so we know, for instance, on July 17th or whatever, what we're doing or what we have planned. And then we can also work that into the next monthly council report. and any other reports that we need to do. |
| 00:39:45.62 | Jill Hoffman | And for the benefit of council member Withey, who wasn't here at our last meeting, May I ask you to confirm that all future reports to the council will be business items and not consent? Thank you. |
| 00:39:54.86 | Tom Ford | Thank you. |
| 00:39:54.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:39:55.07 | Tom Ford | Thank you. |
| 00:39:55.84 | Ray Withy | Just for reference, one of the advantages of recovering from being sick is you've got a lot of time in your hands. I've watched the video of the whole of the last meeting. |
| 00:39:59.57 | Jill Hoffman | I'm just like, |
| 00:40:06.22 | Jill Hoffman | I'm sorry. |
| 00:40:09.01 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:40:09.11 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:40:09.12 | Ray Withy | It's painful. |
| 00:40:09.17 | Jill Hoffman | work. |
| 00:40:09.46 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:40:11.11 | Jill Hoffman | I'm not. |
| 00:40:12.41 | Ray Withy | You should have been here. |
| 00:40:12.97 | Mayor Burns | I'm sorry. |
| 00:40:13.04 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:40:13.36 | Jill Hoffman | We only went until 1 in the morning. |
| 00:40:15.94 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:40:15.97 | Mayor Burns | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:40:16.23 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:40:16.24 | Mayor Burns | THE END OF |
| 00:40:16.30 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:40:16.33 | Mayor Burns | Yeah. |
| 00:40:16.40 | Ray Withy | ATHLETES. |
| 00:40:16.65 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:40:16.78 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Okay. Tom, I want to reiterate that we're only partway through the visioning. I mean, we certainly can't get there until we've done the Marin ship, for sure. But the other thing is, I'm wondering... Is there, what is the planned work product that will capture all of the visioning options for the GPAC to look at and then will be the basic framework that comes to the council for discussion of those visioning options. I mean, so are you guys planning a actual sort of holistic work product that brings all of it together? |
| 00:41:04.15 | Tom Ford | What we have planned right now is starting after the August break, we would start coming to the GPAC meetings with an element by element policy review, saying for this element, land use. The land use element, based on what we heard in some of the earlier meetings, this is what we think some of the policies should be and have that frame the GPAC discussion that night. The next GPAC meeting would would be a different element after that's been done we will take those recommendations from the gpac to a council meeting and that's in the schedule as well following that we'll actually take the elements the elements themselves to the gpac and then following that they would go with with GPAC recommendations for changes or not to the council as well. So that's what that document looks like. I assume it fits into an 8 1⁄2 by 11 memo, but if we need to add graphics that support it, we can do that. |
| 00:42:03.77 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:42:07.59 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So. I get the element by element because that's just the way that the state law requires general plans to be written. But it may also be helpful just to think about more of the kind of areas of town like we've got our downtown our neighborhood commercial district we've got marinship i mean i don't really want to be talking about circulation all the way through I think it would be more useful to talk about circulation in segments as an example. So that's, I mean, maybe that's something for the GPAC to consider, but it's an, the elements are kind of an artificial organizational structure that may make it difficult to talk comprehensively about the topics. So, I'll just put that forward. |
| 00:42:58.97 | Tom Ford | Thank you. |
| 00:42:58.99 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:42:59.02 | Tom Ford | Okay, thank you. |
| 00:43:01.64 | Mayor Burns | any other questions? Questions at this point, seeing none, I'm going to open up. Do you have any more, Tom? I'm sorry, because we kind of interrupted you. Well, I did bring Ashley to talk. |
| 00:43:08.42 | Tom Ford | Well, I did bring Ashley to talk about the actual. |
| 00:43:11.73 | Mayor Burns | We got it in on Mexico. Yeah, please, continue. |
| 00:43:15.17 | Tom Ford | you |
| 00:43:15.22 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 00:43:15.88 | Tom Ford | She drove over here, so here we are. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:43:19.64 | Ashley Cannon | Really, I'm happy to just move along. No, no, no, please. My name is Ashley Cannon. I'm a principal with Economic and Planning Systems. Thank you for having me here tonight to talk a little bit about the scope of work. |
| 00:43:20.94 | Tom Ford | No, no, no, please. |
| 00:43:22.00 | Mayor Burns | . |
| 00:43:29.99 | Ashley Cannon | We are wanting to respond to direction received from the Council. and reports from the business advisory committees And we've really been wrestling with how to conceive of the scope and what are the questions that need to be addressed in order to really shine a light on the trade-offs that are occurring in the marineship. |
| 00:43:45.98 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | you |
| 00:43:46.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:43:46.20 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | THE CHILDREN. |
| 00:43:49.05 | Ashley Cannon | And so we have hopefully in response to direction that we've heard. conceived of this scope of work. The first task we're calling the economic and development context. This is really to make sure that we are understanding the regulatory and the physical and the environmental constraints as well as the opportunities that are present in the marineship. We want to make quick work of this, but we do want to make sure that the analysis that follows is based on meaningful levers, meaningful tradeoffs, meaningful relationships. So we do want to spend a little bit of time up front establishing the existing context. Task two is the economic evaluation of the development scenarios. It's really the heart of it. And in this we are planning on looking at some broad scenarios for the Marin ship. We expect that these will be nested within the existing regulatory context, so perhaps one of the scenarios is no change at all. Another scenario might be, what if the fair traffic initiative, Ordinance 1022, stays in place, but there's some modest modification that can happen. Another scenario might be taking that a little bit further, but we're trying to capture that range, that continuum of potential opportunities. Those are the broad scenarios that we're talking about. But we also want to get a little bit more granular, a little bit more focused. and develop some prototypes, some site-specific prototypes. And this allows us to say, this isn't site-specific in terms of addressing a particular property owner's parcel or anything like that. But it's more if you take a parcel and you are allowed to change the land use, or you are allowed another increment of FAR, or if we can adjust some of these regulatory levers, what is the increment of value that is created through those adjustments? And we think that that's really important because it allows us to draw some connections between the regulatory constraints and potential down the road to finance offsite infrastructure. And that's the connection, those are the trade-offs that we think are important to bring back to the GPAC and back to the community. Um. And we want to tie all of this, offer some thoughts on public financing, so what that increment of value means for the potential for bonds, whether general obligation or CFDs or other types of public financing in which the city may be a partner. We have the third task is the fiscal and related financing considerations. So up until task three, we've been talking about private investment and what can come from private investment. Task three is really about what is the increment of tax revenue that the city might benefit from under these different development scenarios, and how do we leverage that potentially? And this all culminates in the MarinShip workshop. Each of these tasks is focused on deliverables and trade-offs and just trying to shine a light on the decision points for the community. And I hope that provides a broad overview. Happy to answer any specific questions if there are any. |
| 00:46:59.32 | Jill Hoffman | Questions? What is your ETA? Assuming we say go forward and conquer tonight. |
| 00:47:06.63 | Ashley Cannon | Sure, so we believe that this will take us about six weeks. There is a little bit of iteration involved. We do want to reach out to stakeholders. There's iteration with M Group. There's information that we need from the city. But if all things go smoothly, that is our ETA. |
| 00:47:22.34 | Jill Hoffman | So your proposal said that it depends on the development of prototypes and scenarios. So what do you need from us for that? |
| 00:47:27.37 | Ashley Cannon | Yes. |
| 00:47:31.01 | Ashley Cannon | from you. Nothing, unless you want to provide some input. I really think that it's about looking at tasks |
| 00:47:33.32 | Jill Hoffman | YOU CAN'T GET A LITTLE BIT |
| 00:47:39.23 | Ashley Cannon | I think Tom might want to say something. But it's really understanding the context and reaching out to those stakeholders to make sure that we're just looking at an appropriate continuum. I think any |
| 00:47:50.40 | Tom Ford | Anything you want to give comment tonight on how we very briefly outlined what we see the three alternatives basically being framed as? If you wanna comment on that or, |
| 00:47:50.50 | Ashley Cannon | anything you want to. |
| 00:48:02.33 | Tom Ford | add to it or comment in any way, that would be really great to hear tonight. |
| 00:48:08.24 | Jill Hoffman | And we received late mail from one of the GPAC members who pointed out that a MarinShip specific plan analysis and evaluation by PlaceWorks occurred back in 2014. And that analysis recommended an economic sustainability study. including Um, Capturing Economic Cluster Dynamics. In other words, how different businesses correlate with one another, similarly oriented businesses. and I think that benefit from being clustered and also inquiring whether Your analysis of the future would include. The potential economic impact should businesses be allowed to operate at full capacity and properties be utilized. per the marineship specific plans allowable uses Is that part of what you intend to undertake? |
| 00:49:04.65 | Ashley Cannon | We are not contemplating an industry cluster analysis. We wanna be as forward-looking as possible, and we'll try to stay a little higher level in terms of the land use categories that we're evaluating. Really we want to understand the incremental value of additional regulatory allowances, additional FAR or parking allowances, the sorts of things that you can affect in a general plan and a zoning code. |
| 00:49:31.03 | Jill Hoffman | When you say FAR, FAR for what? Are you talking about for a residential use, which is right now not permitted in the Marinership? |
| 00:49:40.14 | Ashley Cannon | Mostly non-residential is what I have been contemplating, yeah, and floor area ratio, I'm sorry, I'm using it now. |
| 00:49:45.62 | Jill Hoffman | Right, but you're talking about FAR for commercial use, not for residential use? |
| 00:49:50.50 | Ashley Cannon | That's my understanding. I want to be sort of open right now to the development scenarios and the prototypes we might be evaluating, but that's my understanding right now. There was a second part to your question. |
| 00:50:06.03 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, would your, so From our direction at our last meeting, we were asking you to look at future scenarios. And I want to be sure that one of the scenarios we're examining is if we were to fully utilize the Marin ship at its current level. light industrial and marine use zoning. There are many areas not being fully utilized to their potential right now through landlord decisions. So I'm wondering if your analysis will include. THAT. |
| 00:50:39.44 | Ashley Cannon | That could be one of the development scenarios. |
| 00:50:45.09 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I think Ray. |
| 00:50:45.58 | Mayor Burns | Ray has a question Susan but |
| 00:50:48.87 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I had a question on the last page of your scope. You said as part of the discussion of public financing capacity, you said this task does not include estimating the infrastructure investment required in the Marinship. Sorry. Apparently I took council member with these questions away. What is that? mean. I mean, I'm having a hard time thinking of how We can develop scenarios if we're not really sure what our vision of good infrastructure in the marine ship looks like and we have some at least ballpark rough cost estimate of varying levels of infrastructure development to kind of compare potential changes in revenue against. So could you just talk about the absence of that in the scope and how that might affect our ability to use this information? |
| 00:51:52.93 | Ashley Cannon | Yes. So we, I'm not an engineer, I'm an economist, and so I am not going to have the information about the level of infrastructure needed, and especially not in the timeline that I think we're working within. So we tried to come at it from a different way. If we think about broad development scenarios for the Marin ship, we can look at the increment of value. And from that, there are industry rules of thumb, and we can bring our knowledge to bear about bonding capacity and those sorts of things to estimate the amount of investment that the incremental development or that incremental value might be able to support. When there is better information about the infrastructure needs and the infrastructure costs, there's then an ability to compare that. But we felt like we needed to start this discussion and start highlighting and shining some light on some of these trade-offs. Thank you. |
| 00:52:51.91 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:52:52.09 | Ashley Cannon | you |
| 00:52:52.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:52.21 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:52:52.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:52.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 00:52:52.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:52.82 | Ray Withy | So as a follow up to that, Then maybe this is for Tom. We did a pretty good existing conditions, infrastructure analysis in the marineship, I think. We do have a sea level rise consultant. Did we bring on any civil engineers as a consultant? I can't remember whether we got some. Yeah, we do, right. So how is this going to fit to follow on from |
| 00:53:20.05 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | Yes. Bye. |
| 00:53:27.99 | Ray Withy | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles question, how do you see the sea level rise piece, the engineering piece, I realize we're not going to get engineering estimates, but we need to be looking at this at the 35,000 foot level. How is that going to start getting integrated into the economic analysis, post economic analysis? |
| 00:53:52.54 | Tom Ford | So we do have a civil engineer on our team. and they helped create that existing conditions report. So they can look at what we typically call utilities, like electric lines and sewer and things like that. And that'll be part of the work that they'll actually be doing for the general plan. When we started working in the last two weeks to fiddle with this, I called them and I said, the marine ship. recommendations and they had no problem doing that. But I think when you look at the Marin ship, what I consider part of the infrastructure is dealing with sea level rise. And that's a huge cost. Not only is it a huge cost, it's a huge cost to do the analysis, and it's a time sink that didn't really fit into what we're trying to do here. So that's why we started trying to develop the economic analysis to come at it from a different direction rather than saying, okay, well, we got $2 million per acre of infrastructure costs. How do we get the right development to fix it? And so instead come from, well, let's see what the community wants for three different kinds of alternative visions and see what the added value might be. So let me also just point out that was Mott McDonald that did the report in the existing conditions report. They're not doing any analysis of costs for what it would take to protect the Marine ship or any other part of Sausalir. They're just doing what they've done. And so you've pretty much have seen their scope of work. |
| 00:55:27.32 | Ray Withy | So I think this discussion of the interrelationship between this needs to come back to GPAC, basically. |
| 00:55:35.34 | Tom Ford | In what way? What would you like to do? |
| 00:55:37.38 | Ray Withy | I think we need to have a discussion, quite frankly, as to how we're going to integrate. We got the sea level rise consultant. We've got engineers. We've got the existing conditions. We've got options we're going to explore. We can't do this in silos. That's my point. And these all come together into an integrated discussion. That's what I'm trying to say. |
| 00:56:08.21 | Mayor Burns | Jill, anything? |
| 00:56:09.43 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:56:09.45 | Mayor Burns | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:56:09.51 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:56:09.63 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. Any other questions before we open it up to public comment? Thank you. We'll be asking, or kidding, asking me more. Oh, we got one more. See, I told you. |
| 00:56:17.28 | Ray Withy | you One more question, Ashley. Is there a plan? Are you guys just going to sort of like go away six weeks later, come back? Or is there any plan to touch base with GPAC in terms of this is how the scenarios are developing, what's in the work scope? |
| 00:56:38.07 | Tom Ford | Presently there isn't, but if that needs to happen, we need to talk about how to get that into the schedule, particularly if we want to front load the workshop with this information. Yeah, understood. |
| 00:56:49.79 | Ray Withy | Understood, I'm not trying to increase the scope because we have a time constraint, so I'm cognizant of that. Thank you. |
| 00:57:00.53 | Mayor Burns | If there's any public comment, please fill out a green speaker card. I have one now. I'm going to call up Peter Van Meter. Looks like we're going to get a couple of any other speakers. Please fill out a card and provide them to our city clerk search. |
| 00:57:14.87 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. I was very pleased with your direction and response that has come from our consultants on this. They've addressed the concerns about looking at these different scenarios in the marineship, and I really endorsed their plan, and I think it was responsive to the Council's concerns and my own personal concerns. Regarding this last comment on having a link to all these other things, What you're really doing with this analysis is coming to the financial contribution ability of landowners under these different scenarios to make a contribution. There will not be enough money to pay for all the fixes needed, but at least we'll get a handle as to how much contribution they can potentially make under these different development scenarios. Now the other part of this is that the work plan doesn't specifically say that this discussion is limited to the I-zone or the I-district. I presume that there's going to be no contemplated changes to the W district. through this. So although I am, because everybody wants to keep that enhanced, the W district, I don't see really any increased development scenarios happening there. Although they could, if they're doing some questioning of businesses in the W district, they could ask those. AND I THINK THAT'S A GREAT Are there any ancillary uses or any changes in the regulatory environment that can enhance your business and help the waterfront businesses do even better than they are today. But I think the economic analysis is going to be limited to the I district. and the different scenarios there. And I do think that it's extremely important that the question you just asked about JPEC blessing. the scenarios, because we have six variables here. scenarios, and then you've got the three prototypes merged on top of that. So I do think there has to be a quick presentation inserted somewhere in our calendar in the next couple of meetings where we, in fact, bless that. before it goes forward, because if they come through with scenarios that we turn around and say, no, that isn't really what we wanted or we weren't thinking about, We're going to be in deep you know what. I'm not sure. In the course of their study, in addition to these very essential residual analysis as part of their work plan, I think they can also look at the question of what happens if there's, I think it was actually mentioned in the comments earlier, of little tweaks to just one variable. For instance, let's say you don't change any FAR of existing buildings, and just look at existing buildings, but say, make office of permitted use, for example. What would be the change in the economic environment from just that kind of tweak? And so, although they're Scenarios and prototypes might include all variables can emerge in each one of those six cases that little tweaking I think they'll come across. Easy for them to do within their work plan, because they're going to have the numbers in front of them I'm not sure. I'm trying to do this within my 15 seconds. THEIR HIGHER. Finally, I really like the fact that they talked about the public financing opportunities of taking that study one step further. So that's great. So please endorse this work plan. |
| 01:00:15.64 | Mayor Burns | Any questions, Peter? |
| 01:00:17.46 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. |
| 01:00:17.51 | Mayor Burns | the news. We'll be right back |
| 01:00:25.39 | John DeRay | Thank you, John DeRay, member of GPAC. Before I start my council, I did want to say, please don't think that I don't want to see any changes in the Marineship. One change that I really would like to see, that young man that was here who wanted to hire 40 people in Sausalito and couldn't find a place, to me that's an aberration, that we're going to lose possibly 40 jobs because he can't find some industrial space for his company that's growing Okay, so thank you for considering the Expanding the scope of the economic analysis last meeting. I was kind of disappointed as to how it all worked out Really? I was a proponent of that idea and what I wanted to see was the same thing that other maritime communities had Morro Bay Providence Rhode Island Portland Maine there's a whole list of them that we provided so we're not going to get that and to me may question the credibility of the analysis of people if people look at that and see that we are missing that One thing that we know the analysis can show is that maritime is by far the greatest economic driver of the community. 2,040 boat slips. If you do the math, that's about $12 million a year. That doesn't include the house boats. It doesn't include haul outs. It doesn't include painting, engine repair, instrumentation repair, sail repair, varnishing. It doesn't include any of that. So maritime is going to come out as the big winner here I think regardless the other thing I wanted to point out one because we're talking about infrastructure In the MarinShip, you have several businesses that have taken on the task themselves. One. I'm not gonna name any names. One has spent millions of dollars raising the level of their property and even building a beautiful new bathroom on the property. Another upgraded its utility infrastructure and built a concrete barrier and moat system to protect from sea level rise that exists. And another one, is planning an expansion that is going to use a floating foundation concept for sea level rise so there's some some technologies that can be used and i hope eps and m group look at those alternative technologies so i'm a little optimistic um and uh another another thing i want to point out is i think everybody realized you can't look at the marine ship through only an economic lens. You have to look at it through a cultural lens and a maritime lens. And I also remember last year what Mayor Burns said. when he was vice mayor, and I wrote it down. I listened to it again. I wrote it down. He said, we want to protect the water-based businesses and the maritime businesses not only as they are, enhance what they are. I can see them being even better, not just more economic. It doesn't always have to be dollar driven. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:03:22.39 | Mayor Burns | Any other public comment? No public comments seen, and bring it up here for discussion. Who would like to kick in? |
| 01:03:36.24 | Jill Hoffman | I'll just say I endorse Councilmember Withies and GPAC member. I think it's a good question. Van Meters. recommendation that the GPAC even if it's in a short presentation. sort of here. what the M group has in mind about the three scenarios to ensure they're on the right track in terms of exploring various potential uses of the marine ship. |
| 01:04:06.64 | Ray Withy | Yeah. |
| 01:04:12.29 | Ray Withy | Yes, I listened to fully the discussion on April 30th. I'll come back to that in a moment. Let me specifically talk about this work scope. I was really worried that just focusing on a survey was going to lead us down a rabbit hole, to be honest. I'm extremely pleased with the revised scope of this. I think it's dynamic. It looks at, importantly, various scenarios. To be frank, this is one of the first times we're really starting to grapple with some scenarios. We haven't been doing that, and I'm really pleased we're doing this. I actually want to compliment John DeRay. Of course we need to look at this through a cultural lens. the economic analysis is not the only driver but it's an important data set so that we can make balancing decisions of what we want that is consistent with our values versus what is the economic output of it so that we can make compromise decisions that make sense, that fits into our cultural values. So I agree with you, John. Let's not forget on the infrastructure side that things are moving in Sacramento. It might peter out, but there is a lot of effort going on by a number of our legislators to ask the question, how can we bring back the concept or at least the good parts of redevelopment and that is a work in progress. It may very well be if we can actually get the timing right that we might suddenly find revenue streams coming out of the state that for which this would be a perfect opportunities. I think it was mentioned at the last meeting that we need to be looking at public-private partnerships. This is really important and it's all going to come together once, you know, Let's not try and make this economic analysis perfect. It's going to give us stuff, and if there's some holes that we need to fill in, we'll figure out. We'll see them, and I'm really interested in the integration. So I'm very pleased with the scope. I just want to make a couple of comments, if I may, about the last meeting. And I was fascinated. In fact, I was glad I wasn't there because now I was a fly on the wall to listen to the comments and The city council meeting, the April 30th city council meeting. I've had time on my hands. I've been watching a lot of video. And, you know, I think some really important points came across. Thank you, Council Member Cox, for reiterating the thing I've been trying to say for a while, that we need to be involved in the council more and needs to come back. Also, I think I heard loud and clear, which I agree with, policy is made here. And I fully endorse that. But in order to actually have policy made here, we need to actually see the policy options come here. And so I think it's our work, Council Member Cox, as liaisons, to make sure that happens. And the final comment I'm going to make, and actually this is somewhat I've, Council Member Cox and I as liaisons have sat down with the M group and staff and one of my primary messages to the M group was Stop being so passive. It's time to be proactive. It's time to start giving us real options. Not just collecting what everybody wants anecdotally, but to actually synthesize it into options so we got some real concrete things that we can get our teeth into. And I'm actually feeling very encouraged by this and by a sort of rejuvenation of what we're doing. |
| 01:08:44.05 | Jill Hoffman | May I just add to that, I'm very encouraged by the recent change in leadership. That I believe we have the caliber team from the M group now that will be able to provide us with the type of work product we're seeking. |
| 01:08:57.70 | Ray Withy | I think that's kudos to you, Tom. |
| 01:09:02.51 | Mayor Burns | I, I think that's great that you have that feeling. I gotta tell you. I see a general plan as a vision document on how to plan for the future. And We've lacked vision. The last time I provided an opinion on what our city should look like was at the Spinnaker. That was a long time ago. And That is what that document is supposed to do. So I don't want to pull away from the work and the commitment that the GPAC has done and all the analysis they've done and that we're going into. But at some point, we simply have to ask, what do we want to look like in 20 years from now? What's the end product going to look like and how do we drive towards that? Then you do economic analysis, then you do cultural analysis, then you do those things, but what do we want to look like? What do you want to be when you grow up? Then you choose your college. What do we want to look like? And we have not done that. So, and that was, even during the campaign, I kept saying, the best part of a general plan update process is you get to reinvent yourself. You get to say, this is what we look like. I love Sausalito, and frankly, I don't know what our true identity is to the rest of the world other than a great view of San Francisco. I know what it is for us, and I know so many of the things that we like to do. But what are we really leveraging as what we think the Marineship is to to all and what do we want it to be? I, I, Started off with vision. visioning question because I still think that, and now it's going to be running hand in hand with this process. And that's, it's going to be in tandem. And that's fine as well. Let's not lose that we have to get out to the community. It's not the input of the hard working 12 or 13 members. It's the community that needs to tell us what. this community is going to look like in 20 years from now. That said, I completely agree with the direction now of this economic analysis, that it does take in a lot more components. I could have told you that if you increase floor ratio, you're going to get more revenue. Or if you increase zoning, you're going to get more revenue. We knew that, and I was really concerned that we were going to get a survey or a report that said what we all could have assumed anyway. If this can go further and provide the committee with elements that they can make into recommendations to us, then great. And knowing the talent that we have on that committee, I think they will be able to take that information and do that for us. So I support this, I just really want to push that we need TO HAVE WE NEED TO HAVE HAD THAT BROADER VISION AS WE CAN FOCUS IN ON SOME OF THESE ITEMS. BECAUSE WE HAVE MORE TO GO. MARINESHIP WAS A BIG ONE, BUT IT'S NOT THE ONLY ONE. SO THAT'S KIND OF WHERE I STAYED. ANYTHING ELSE? |
| 01:11:45.87 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, so Thank you. Great comments all around, but I think that this economic analysis is going to be really helpful in kind of carrying out exactly what you're talking about. We can have a grand vision, but if we can't actually achieve it through a real economic scenario that's acceptable to the community, then it's not a vision for us. then that's not something that we can actually achieve so i think this study is the logical and great next step so and i think the scope of work um is going to be very helpful for the gpac and then the city council in being able to match potential visions with reality and to ground our general plan document in achievable and realistic scenarios so I'm excited about that. Just on a very small point that came up and maybe when the scope of work and this will come up. So, you know, generally I think the message of not looking at housing in the Marin ship has sort of been a general direction, but on our blue ribbon committee and in some discussions there's been the thought of some strategic either workforce housing, senior housing, we talked about possibly maritime housing for workers, dorm type, rooms for people that might be students learning trades in the area so I don't want to lose that concept completely so if there's a way to sort of have a alternative or a small piece allow us to just take a look at what that might look like. That would be my only input on the scope, so thank you. |
| 01:13:46.58 | Mayor Burns | Any other comments on this item? If not, I'll take a motion. Let's get the motion out. You got to move something. Yeah. |
| 01:14:00.47 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So do we have a staff report that we want to approve the revised scope of work for an economic analysis specific to the marinship? |
| 01:14:09.75 | Jill Hoffman | I would say that with the additional feedback that we've provided tonight. about including the G pack in three scenarios and um, And. uh, including the visioning as a parallel track with the upcoming GPAC meetings. |
| 01:14:32.01 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | OK, with that revision, so moved. Thank you. |
| 01:14:35.01 | Jill Hoffman | Second. |
| 01:14:36.50 | Mayor Burns | All in favor? Aye. That motion passes five to zero. |
| 01:14:37.36 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 01:14:37.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Bye. |
| 01:14:37.51 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 01:14:37.76 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Bye. |
| 01:14:37.93 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:14:37.96 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:14:38.00 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 01:14:43.19 | Mayor Burns | All right, easy peasy. Next one up. you is 7B. Mid-year review and adoption of a resolution to adjust the fiscal year 2018-19 budget. |
| 01:15:00.95 | Mayor Burns | Thank you all for |
| 01:15:02.84 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right. |
| 01:15:04.68 | Mayor Burns | Julia Carter will be presenting this report. |
| 01:15:09.13 | Yulia | Good evening. Mr. Mayor and City Council, the item before you tonight is continuation of the fiscal year 2018-19 mid-year budget review. Um, |
| 01:15:27.97 | Yulia | So the mid-year budget was presented to council at the last meeting. Since that meeting, we also discussed it with the finance committee. on May 7th, 2019. this is kind of big picture summary of what has been already discussed at the last meeting and presented at the finance committee. The fiscal year 18, 19 budget continues to be on track. and is structurally balanced as we discussed at last meeting. The revised Projected general fund balance is estimated to be about 9.3 million, which is about 55% of operating expenditures. and the That figure also includes a little bit over $3 million in undesignated fund balance. available for any use based on gun sale direction. both of these figures represent the pretty healthy fiscal condition of the city. The recommendation before you tonight is to adopt a Dutch resolution. The resolution is attached in attachment one to your staff reports. So this resolution approves all the adjustments to fiscal year 18-19 budget as was previously discussed at the last council meeting and the finance committee. And I think I will probably stop here and happy to answer your questions. |
| 01:16:50.87 | Mayor Burns | Thank you, Yulia. Any questions for Yulia to this point? |
| 01:16:56.34 | Jill Hoffman | yes. So when we adopted our budget last year, and we had the spreadsheets up on the screen, we were at a break even point. In fact, we needed to get some revenue from one of our measures in order to break even. Is that correct? And if you don't know, from looking at the meetings, I guess the city manager would know. But I recall that we were at a break even point. |
| 01:17:20.93 | Mayor Burns | After we contributed money to the funds. |
| 01:17:22.39 | Jill Hoffman | After we contributed our surplus to the pension funds and to the other contributions, we were at a break even. |
| 01:17:25.60 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:17:25.63 | Mayor Burns | Yeah. |
| 01:17:26.04 | Ray Withy | I did, right. |
| 01:17:27.81 | Jill Hoffman | Now... |
| 01:17:27.96 | Ray Withy | Now. Council member Cox. Do you mean break even in the general fund? |
| 01:17:36.70 | Jill Hoffman | I mean the general fund surplus was down to a break even point. |
| 01:17:41.07 | Ray Withy | It was about 24 seconds. |
| 01:17:41.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:17:42.02 | Ray Withy | that. |
| 01:17:42.19 | Jill Hoffman | Exactly, 24,000. Yeah. |
| 01:17:42.27 | Ray Withy | . |
| 01:17:45.06 | Jill Hoffman | If I understand this, we are at 1.5 million. |
| 01:17:51.91 | Yulia | In undesignated the fund balance, yes. |
| 01:17:54.61 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, in undesignated fund balance. So we're much better off. We'll be actually... |
| 01:17:59.03 | Yulia | a 3 million in designated fund balance. |
| 01:18:01.46 | Jill Hoffman | But we have some adjustments to make from that 3 million that brings us down to 1.5 million. So we're 1.5 million better off than we thought we would be when we adopted this budget a year ago. |
| 01:18:12.26 | Yulia | Is that right? It is correct. And part of the reason for this adjustments, we actually finished the previous year at much better note than we expected at the beginning of the year. |
| 01:18:12.31 | Jill Hoffman | Is that right? |
| 01:18:21.00 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Thank you. |
| 01:18:25.73 | Mayor Burns | In your experience, does that mean we might be near bankruptcy or anything else that we might have? We're good. |
| 01:18:33.54 | Julia Carter | Well, as I said before, in the executive summary, we are in quite healthy fiscal conditions. |
| 01:18:40.41 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. Thank you. Questions for Julia? |
| 01:18:45.30 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I just have a quick comment that I met with Ms. Carter in the interim after our last meeting and I really appreciate her walking me through this report and I'm supportive of this. I know that's not a question, but I just do appreciate the time that you spent. |
| 01:19:04.59 | Mayor Burns | Seeing no other questions, I'm going to open it up to public comment. Public comment on item 7B, which is our mid-year review. Is there anybody who would like to speak to this item? Seeing no public comment on item 7B, closing and bringing up here four comments. And a vote. Yes, please, Ray. |
| 01:19:26.51 | Ray Withy | I am very sorry I was not at the last meeting on this. I may have been able to help a little bit. Just to let you know, I've watched the last meeting in its entirety. having some time on my hands, I also went back. and reviewed. the budget discussions in June 2018 of the June 12th, June 19th, and June 26th meeting. That's six hours worth of video. Thank you. I can. quite by the way. That's the materials from last year, that including the presentation from June 26. And if it is inconceivable to me that it is One would not know what our budget was from all these materials. Thank you. The next thing I want to say is I have enormous respect for her. But Wendy Richards stated at the in the comments to our closed session. that we were in a financial crisis that is a misunderstanding of our financials. It's just that simple. We are not in a financial crisis by any stretch of the imagination. We have, there's been a lot of talk and there was a lot of talk at the last meeting about the fact that we appear to be $2 million over budget on the general fund. That is not true. We actually, unlike having a simple surplus of 24,000, our current estimates is we're going to have a surplus of several hundred thousand or more if you look at the general fund operations. In the resolution that was passed in June 26, it was Inartfully done, there's no question about that. But it was very clear on page two of the resolution how all of the fund balances were going to work. Including the one point, I'm making numbers up, 1.3, 1.x million dollars, I can go look at it, but whatever it was, of fund balance that we were going to use. It was very clear. Now, what our previous finance staff failed to do was to point out that that will show up as an expense on the general fund ledger. And so for some of, I know our residents are not as familiar with the budget as I am. And so it's very unfortunate that we have created the impression that we're $2 million in the red. It's just not true. The second thing is there are numbers being thrown around, four or five million, we've way over spent, again. Look at the use of fund balances. This is what we all voted on, was the use of fund balances to pay for capital expenditure. And that is extremely clear. Um. Some finance directors would not care, to be quite frank, about the fact that there wasn't a nice ribbon tied around and the correct both general fund and city wide funds, P&Ls were not accurately reflecting that. We have a administrative services director who is very conservative and that is to our enormous advantage. It means our accountant will come out in a much more precise and accurate way. And I'm very pleased she's very conservative. And so has rightly said, hey guys, if you're going to use fund balances, you've got to show it up on the P and L's. I mean, you just got to do that. And so that's been cleaned up, and I'm very pleased that's been cleaned up. Finally, the We have incurred more expenses than we had initially thought, especially in the administrative services, Yulia's gone through this in detail. It's her bucket three, I think. And it is clear to me that, and the thing that I found actually really quite surprising was that nonetheless, we can incorporate those increases into our general fund P&L and still have several hundred thousand of structural positive balance. That speaks to the health of our revenue streams. It speaks to the health and control of our expenses. Now, are we going to have challenges? Sure we are. I pointed out last time that there were general areas of risk. The first area of risk was revenues. Remember, we hadn't passed measure L and M. Well, we have now. That risk has been ameliorated by a significant degree. The second area of risk is the MOUs, and we're still in that process. That remains a risk. And the third area of risk that I was concerned about is that professional services was going to balloon and escalate. We will see in the budget process what our new projections are for that. And I'm hoping that we will have means to make sure that those are under control so that our P and L for our general fund can remain in structural balance. So overall, I was actually pleasantly, I was disappointed in the mistakes. I was disappointed in the presentation mistakes. I am delighted that we have some now both a administrative service director and accountant who are on top of their game and have really sorted all of that out. So I'm very pleased with that. It's going to be important as we look down the road for our strategic planning in the fall to see how our long range planning is working. Remember, we took an enormously conservative, I mean that means large numbers, for our projections for the actual cash flow on the unfunded actuarial liabilities that we were projecting. And it's going to be important to understand whether those projections still hold. Because we put in a financial model that actually paid for all of that. And let's not forget that. There are cities... There are cities in this state, there are cities in this county that don't even know what their future cash flows are. So I am optimistic and we are not in a financial crisis. |
| 01:27:38.77 | Mayor Burns | Thank you for that report, Ray. Thank you. Do you want to add to that? |
| 01:27:43.60 | Jill Hoffman | I do, I just want to reemphasize. |
| 01:27:43.61 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:27:47.56 | Jill Hoffman | Councilmember Withy's last point. which is we looked at various pension scenarios, including the continued reduction of the rate of return on the CalPERS investments. And we created a strategy to invest in our pension trust in such a way to heavily invest our surplus in the next several years. To ensure that our general fund balance remains in the black for the next 20 years. Even if the rate of return that CalPERS earns continues to go down, increasing our required cash payments over time. And so I'm very proud of that work. It's something very few municipalities have done. We're going to be seeing many, unless things change, we're going to be seeing bankruptcies across the state of California from municipalities that have not addressed their ability to meet the cash flow requirements of the unfunded pension liability. That will not happen here. I'm not sure. carefully and thoroughly planned for those eventualities. I'm also pleased that through this process that Yulia has undertaken, we will now going forward properly track city council direction in our So not only will we understand the fiscal impact, it will actually get recorded in our books. And I am pleased to hear that we will now be seeing quarterly financial reports so that we won't be looking at a mid year budget adjustment. a year after we adopted the budget, we'll actually see quarterly reports to see how we're doing. So, thank you. |
| 01:29:30.65 | Mayor Burns | Thank you, Jill. |
| 01:29:33.94 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | So my concerns at the last city council meeting that I was pretty strong about voicing, I met with Yulia over the over the break that we've just had with another resident that's attended every city. a council finance committee meeting. And so, frankly, It, you know, when When Ray says he's disappointed by the mistakes, or council member with me, my apologies. Says he's disappointed in mistakes and disappointed in the presentation of mistakes, yeah, I mean, yes. Me too, and I don't think that what's been done since then to now, really addresses those concerns or corrects those concerns or creates confidence. in how we're managing our budget and how It's being managed from the staff level. So just to recap here. These are the highlights. This is not all of the concerns that I have with the way the budget was presented, but these are just the high level highlights because otherwise it would be incredibly boring and I would go on way past my time. But when you look at revenue transfers and increases of about 5.7 million in the presented you know, budget 1.7 this is a real increase in revenue, $4 million is merely transfers from other funds. But I don't believe that the transfers from other funds have been adequately identified or explained. All the other funds total expense increases by $6 million. Total expense increased by $6 million. Of this 4.8 is corrections to the adoptive budget. $1.2 million previously approved changes or new adjustments. So in the general fund. |
| 01:31:26.94 | Unknown | this. |
| 01:31:29.59 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | A small increase in revenue but large increase in 1.9 for spending and transfers out of which 1.2 million is for corrections to the adopted budget. Um. And so, We can go on and on. But I understand, I'm going to be the minority vote tonight. I'm going to vote no, and the reason I'm going to vote no is because I don't have confidence in this budget. I don't have confidence in the way that it was presented. I don't have confidence in the way that the acknowledged mistakes and corrections have been explained. |
| 01:31:57.01 | Mayor Burns | Thank you, Susan. |
| 01:32:00.69 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I don't have a lot to add. I appreciate the comments already made by council members with Ian Cox. And as I said earlier, I was able to meet with Ms. Carter and had her explain the documents in more and thorough detail. And I do agree that our presentation at our last council meeting was not as clear as it could be. And, but I'm confident now that these issues that council member Hoffman just described have been accurately and adequately described in all of the attachments, that we received so i think i'm confident that we are now on track and that this is a good basis to start our mid-year or mid-cycle budget review so i'm in favor of the resolution |
| 01:32:57.61 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. I really appreciate Yulia and her staff, your entire staff, for digging in. You've had to do so much work, and from our CAFR, the audit, and what you've found when you came into the department, the changes that you're making are going to benefit us in a way that we can then overcome some of these questions and concerns because I think we'll have better data going forward and I hear councilmember Hoffman's concern on the past and yes that was a concerning process that we were in Thank you, Ray, for understanding through all that the true sum of the numbers. But to get there, we needed a lot of staff time. And we could go into meetings, and Yulia and her staff were busy crunching and doing all this to get us to this point in a process that we started late. We had an abnormal amount of work to get us back on track in a shorter period of time than normal. And I feel like we are now on track or within moments of being very close on track. So thank you, Yulia, and to your staff. When you get in tomorrow, make sure you thank them for us. I'm willing to take a motion at this point. |
| 01:34:21.04 | Ray Withy | So I move that we adopt the resolution in our packet to adjust the city's fiscal year 2018, 2019 operating in capital budget. |
| 01:34:34.00 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:34:34.01 | Jill Hoffman | Second. |
| 01:34:34.40 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 01:34:35.52 | Mayor Burns | All in favor. you |
| 01:34:36.49 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 01:34:36.51 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:34:36.55 | Ray Withy | I'm not sure. |
| 01:34:36.70 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:34:36.80 | Ray Withy | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:34:36.97 | Mayor Burns | Bye. |
| 01:34:37.02 | Ray Withy | Thank you. Bye. |
| 01:34:37.27 | Mayor Burns | Aye. Nose. . That passes 4-1. No. |
| 01:34:46.75 | Mayor Burns | Thank you, and we are now on to item 7C, the preparation. For the fiscal year, look at that, we're already into 2019 and 20. you Our methodology budget calendar. |
| 01:35:02.09 | Yulia | time. So the previous meeting was a perfect segue to this topic, and I'm very excited to introduce the The new item before you tonight, the introduction of the budget process for fiscal year 1920, which is the second year of the two year cycle. And, um, |
| 01:35:30.39 | Yulia | Tonight, we're just starting this conversation, so we're not going to bring you a lot of numbers to look at yet. We just want to start the conversation to talk about the budget timeline, the calendar. remind or refresh everybody's memory on the council's priorities and goals. as they were originally adopted or those priorities that went into the fiscal year 19-20 when the budget was originally adopted? We'll talk a little bit about budget process methodology and some of the key based budget assumptions and touch base on next steps. So now let's look at the budget timeline. Well, as you can see, there are a number of steps that go into the budget process itself. THE FAMILY. We have to do some of the steps in parallel, As you can see, back in April, we sent out and released the budget instructions to departments We did share these instructions with the finance committee, so if anybody is interested, you the internal instructions look like? But they kind of speak to the methodology and what you will see later on during the budget study sessions. Well, the item that we just had discussion on was a perfect segue to the process. So it's very critical and important to for the council to approve the mid-year budget review because that would serve as a basis for adequate ways for the new budget cycle and some of the assumptions will be used. from that work. The finance committee meeting took place back on May 7th, again as a second item. In addition to midyear, we discussed some of the preparation steps and the budget instructions. that were distributed at the time. And tonight, we are holding our first council budget study session. And again, this is just an introductory meeting to the process itself. |
| 01:37:33.92 | Yulia | We don't have to spend a lot of time on this slide, so this is just a reminder or kind of a background slide for the budget process itself. the fiscal year 19-20 budget. was originally adopted with these strategic goals. priorities in mind, the strategic plan was adopted in December 2013. It was a six year plan. It went into fact into the cycle of fiscal year 14-16. you may have noticed, well you know the last, Review of the strategic plan was presented to you at the last meeting. and I just want to point out again that this new budget cycle also concludes the six year strategic Plan And as we go into the new two-year cycle, you will start this process all over again. |
| 01:38:36.49 | Yulia | Well, this is kind of Silly slide shows that there are multiple approaches to the budgeting. There are different approaches, different strategies, and different methodologies that cities use. THE FEDERAL how different public agencies use when they build the budgets. So what we recommended to do in this upcoming budget to move forward with the implementation of the modified zero-base methodology, and that's kind of MEETLE. point of this picture. And what it means, it's actually systematic financial management strategy to achieve more cost effective delivery of public services. it. In theory and practically, it helps to redirect some of the efforts and funds from lower priority to the higher priority programs. So the conversation we will be having with you. during the budget process. Ah. going to be at the program level. All expenses will not be just assumed because they took place in the previous years. They will be demonstrated as needed and you will see it through the process as we go along. And each program that we are going to be bringing forward to you will be considered in light of potential trends. And again, weight against the priorities. There are a number of advantages to this methodologies. Well, first of all, it's efficient allocation of resources. So the resources will be based on needs and benefits rather than the history. Then the analysis of alternatives. The classic example of this will be. Do we want to provide the service in house? Do we want to contract out and we will be in the chat. This kind of discussions throughout the process will depend on what item will be discussed. This methodology also defects potentially inflated budget and eliminates some of the redundancies that may be. existing throughout the departments. multiple departments kind of tackling the same priorities with the same programs. in a different way. another um, big kind of main focus on the or priority for the advantage of the modified zero base methodology is a mission focus. As it forces us to think from the mission perspective. and overall goals for the organization. So we kind of, throughout this methodology, we're kind of forced to communicate a little bit better internally, end with you as we discuss the programs. And the It creates, as a result of it, it creates the more fiscally disciplined culture overall. So now, how are we going to do this? Well, first of all, we will establish the base. And again, the base will be established at the current level of services. We will develop the base budget assumptions for revenues and expenditures and through some key assumptions later in the slides. Well, some of this... Examples could be medical prostrates. some inflationary adjustments, some of the step increases. Things that will take place no matter what, it's a current level of service. once we build it all together, You will see. whether we have surplus or deficit, pretty much how we presented it to you throughout the mid-year. and based on mid-year work that we've already done, I'm, Pretty confident that we will bring you surplus, but again, We haven't done this step yet, but again. Hopefully, it will be surplus this year. And any new program level approach will be brought to you as a decision package. So all service enhancements or potentially reductions will be at the program level, so we will have this conversation like what will it do to the service to the community. we will not be chasing individual changes at the line item. level. departments will be ranking all the priorities within their departments. So when they come to the city manager, he will be fully aware of what priorities are in each individual cost center, so departments. So when the city manager ranks priorities citywide, you will see how it translates from the individual department priorities to the city manager's and to you as part of recommended budget. And finally, we will present. recommended budget or any changes to originally adopted budget. for you for approval. |
| 01:43:45.37 | Yulia | And just again summarize the same information one more time, just last keywords. So all the new. Budget requests are going to be prioritized. All of them will be structural. in nature. or programmatic, We don't want to bring you anything below $10,000, so we will We want this to be a structural enough change for us to have a constructive conversation. And the outcome of this process will be your adoption of the fiscal year 1920 operating on capital budget. |
| 01:44:22.97 | Yulia | Now let's. take a look at some of the key revenue assumptions that we already THE END OF THE END OF THE know of or plan to build in the base budget. So, property tax is our largest revenue source. project to We project that the property tax will increase by about 1.5%, this number is coming from the information that we here from the county. we believe it's realistic approach at this point. Oops, shouldn't be in that order. So the sales tax is our second revenue source. We are still... trying to estimate what would be the most reasonable approach to this revenue stream. Based on information that we are getting from our sales tax consultant, or former muni services. It's going to be between two and two and a half, but the problem is they're a little bit behind how they present the quarters of their own calendar year, So we just want to make sure that we get the right number to you and by the time we have a finance committee meeting, we will have this information available, but it's going to be within this range. TOT, or transit occupancy tax, as you may have noticed, in the mid-year budget will already build in 5% increase based on the actual projected actual for this revenue stream. so for the base budget we will incorporate the full year impact of the increased tax rate that went into effect in January. Same thing for the business license, we are going to, FACTORY THEN INTO THE BASE BUDGET AND WE WILL make sure to build some additional information to discuss this with the Finance Committee on how we want to tackle that item or any potential controversy around it. And some additional revenue projections will be determined based on individual department feedbacks like charges for services for example, some external sources and trend analysis that we're going to build in. Now let's talk about general fund expenditures assumptions. Personnel expenditure assumptions will be based on the current 74 full time equivalent positions that we have city wide. So we'll build the salary and benefits projections based on that. will Well, clearly plug in employee pension contribution rates that are already available and provided by CalPERS We'll build in salary steps and increases for all the employees who are eligible for those. and we will have to put some sort of since we're in negotiations right now we will put some sort of placeholder I wouldn't recommend to put specific budget on the books, but something that would be easily modifiable and changeable based on how this process will go. Other key expenditure assumptions will include the 2% increase for professional services and some key operation expenses categories just to account for normal inflationary process increases in key city contracts, so that's again standard practice, standard initiative, unless department tells us something different. that they already know that specific contracts go up by More or less, we will include that information in the budget as well. |
| 01:48:23.35 | Yulia | And just to kind of finish this introductory presentation, I just wanted to share a copy of the actual template of the budget expense request form. So you can see that when we give instructions to departments, We want to make sure that we guide them through this process to keep the budget conversation at the service level. the city provides to the community We ask them to fill in the request and think about all the factors that involved into the request. All the changes and all the impact of these changes, especially if we end up talking about some service level reductions. So they will also be thinking about alternatives to whatever the request is going to provide. And the form kind of cut off here. But again, if you pull the information from the finance committee meeting, you will see that at the bottom of the form, we have a cost summary table. that will include any information for any of certain revenues or any of certain information that should go together with the expense request. We want to again bring this conversation to you at the program comprehensive service level approach. And back to the next step. this conversation We kind of keep. It's a kickoff of the budget process. So the next step from this point will be finance committee meeting on May 21st. At that time, we are planning to bring base budget to the finance committee to have a little bit more Okay. in-depth conversation what the base budget will look like and hopefully some of the CIP. uh, review of the CIP program as it was originally adopted and any changes that will be included in the budget recommendations. And all the future meetings include two additional Finance Committee meetings. two budget study sessions, and the whole process will end with the council adoption, formal adoption of the budget on June 1st. 18th. And that concludes my presentation. |
| 01:50:51.68 | Mayor Burns | Thank you, Yulia. Any questions for Yulia? |
| 01:50:52.44 | Yulia | Yeah. |
| 01:50:52.58 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:50:52.60 | Yulia | . |
| 01:50:52.68 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:50:52.78 | Yulia | which is great. |
| 01:50:52.97 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:50:54.08 | Yulia | Thank you. |
| 01:50:55.28 | Jill Hoffman | Julia, you said that decision packages will not involve line item decisions. But I want to be sure that at least at the Finance Committee level, we still will have the opportunity to review line item expenditures, that's how last year. we identified maybe six priorities that we wanted to fund if we identified surplus funds as we went through the budget cycle. Like license plate readers and other critical priorities that we didn't at that time have the funding for but that we hoped we would. So I do not want I am hoping that your approach is not to remove a line item review of budgetary spending from our decision packages. |
| 01:51:43.46 | Yulia | We can present that at any level you want to look at, we can give you line item Thank you. |
| 01:51:49.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:51:50.78 | Yulia | break down how the budget will be. |
| 01:51:51.76 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. I mean, last year we did look at line item by line item. And I think that level of detail is important for transparency for our community and for us. Even if you have an overview summary that wraps it up into decision packages or recommendations from staff. I still want to be sure we have the ability to input. And the same is true. |
| 01:51:54.69 | Yulia | I mean, like, |
| 01:52:07.86 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | THE FAMILY. |
| 01:52:08.03 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:52:08.11 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | Thank you. |
| 01:52:08.13 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:52:08.16 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | to the next episode. |
| 01:52:19.10 | Jill Hoffman | with Budget requests less than $10,000. So one comes to mind, for example, is Sister City. We contribute $3,000 to Sister City. That's a decision we consciously make. I don't want to just not give them money because it's under 10,000. Or just assume that we're going to give them money. without reviewing those decisions, so I want us to be able to weigh in. at different levels and the appropriate level of detail depending on how we perceive the process to be proceeding. Let's have her ask to quit. |
| 01:52:49.64 | Yulia | It's a... Right, and I should have clarified this. So all the requests that come from outside sources, community organizations, placed an additional level of discussion. What I meant at structural approach is the internal department level approach. So to give you an example, if we And this is completely hypothetical, so let's say if the department's training budget is inadequate because the cost of training went up. So we will build this increase in cost of training. into the base budget and explain it to you why it was the assumptions, the different assumptions was made. But it's still the base level budget. But if we want to do something different and train employees or suddenly recommend you that the city would pay for certain certifications, that's a new request. So that. level. Approach is kind of at department level. All the requests and we already started receiving some of the requests from outside organizations. They will be just forwarded to you. as well as items that we receive from you. So there is no then sell them threshold applicable to those. |
| 01:54:06.79 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. Any other questions? Questions for you, Leah? I see no questions. Any questions from, sorry, any public comment? This is open for public comment on this item. Seeing no public comment. General thoughts or A? |
| 01:54:23.65 | Ray Withy | Yeah. |
| 01:54:25.40 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 01:54:25.42 | Ray Withy | Yeah, Ray. Yeah, so, This is, uh... It's going to be an interesting one for me because this is the first budget since I've been on the city council that I'm not actually rolling up my sleeves and doing. That is good. |
| 01:54:40.80 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | . |
| 01:54:42.10 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:54:44.91 | Ray Withy | But I just want to tell you, therefore, I've decided the lens through which I am going to be looking at this is In the past, I have had colleagues, some of whom sit in here, at the city council who've not been involved in the budget, basically saying, I don't know what's going on. Well, we've got to make sure that doesn't happen. And I'm going to be looking at the budget and the presentations of the budget through that lens, as if I was a member of the public trying to understand what is being presented to us as the budget develops. So that's what I'm going to do. My only other comment is this. In watching the mid-year budget present, first of all, I was delighted that our budget discussions were at the 8 o'clock, 8.30 time frame. Oh, you get grumpy at 10. I get grumpy at times. |
| 01:55:53.07 | Jill Hoffman | Not 11 o'clock like last week. |
| 01:55:54.12 | Ray Withy | Like last. I was struck. |
| 01:55:55.27 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:55:59.35 | Ray Withy | when I was watching the video from April 30th, that you were talking about extremely complex issues at 11 o'clock at night. That is the responsibility of the agenda setting committee. I would request that To the extent possible, budget discussions are early business items, if not first business items. The budget item, the budget, and the development of the budget is the most important thing we do. And we should be doing it early when we're fresh and we've got the public who are actually present and want to watch. So I really think it's beholden of the agenda setting committee to take that under advisement and actually Put the budget discussions first. |
| 01:56:51.68 | John DeRay | or |
| 01:56:51.98 | Ray Withy | Second, I realize if you've got a whole bunch of guests for a presentation, that's going to be problematic. But quite frankly, I'm not interested in sidewalk ordinances or this or that or whatever. The budget is the priority. So that's the lens at which I'll be looking through this time. Joe. |
| 01:57:17.78 | Joe | I just second everything Ray just said and that's it. Well said, Ray. |
| 01:57:27.91 | Jill Hoffman | All right, Ray, Joe and I accept your challenge. to do this. |
| 01:57:33.60 | Mayor Burns | I don't want to be defensive. I was a little bit more on resolution processing at that discussion. |
| 01:57:38.07 | Unknown | Oh my gosh. |
| 01:57:41.19 | Mayor Burns | But you're right. |
| 01:57:44.61 | Mayor Burns | Yes, we're going to do that. So we are going to accept this document. And thank you, Yulia. We have no further comments. Thank you for this. That completes our business items. We're going to take a quick five and come back with our and come back with our public hearing. Thank you. |
| 01:58:23.53 | Unknown | Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do- Bye. |
| 01:58:30.68 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:58:30.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:58:31.04 | Unknown | We dream. |
| 01:58:35.24 | Unknown | So I put this here. |
| 01:58:37.69 | Unknown | Yeah. for one is change. Thank you. you |
| 01:58:43.31 | Unknown | One side. |
| 01:58:47.61 | Unknown | As sweet as sheep every day. you Thank you. Once I had a guess. She was oh so right for me. hide the sandy hair. Your eyes so soft and soft. That you couldn't. |
| 01:59:08.92 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:59:09.36 | Unknown | Sometimes technology takes |
| 01:59:11.98 | Unknown | When she looked at you, she called me. |
| 01:59:13.68 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:59:13.73 | Unknown | dumb. She called me? |
| 01:59:16.33 | Unknown | Just in the future, don't put dots because Windows might think that the dot is the extension. Just do like a space. So we're going to delete that, right? |
| 01:59:20.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:59:20.75 | Unknown | Thanks. All right. |
| 01:59:30.71 | Unknown | she's |
| 01:59:32.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:59:33.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:59:33.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:59:33.97 | Unknown | We try to sleep. Yeah, you could've actually, um, Baby, I just stay. Baby, you're for me. |
| 01:59:38.03 | Unknown | Baby. I just... Baby, you're for me. won't you take |
| 01:59:50.38 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:59:50.65 | Unknown | But I pushed her, so I think whoever's doing number one wouldn't let her do it. Maybe close yours and then open up number two. Push to follow up. Thank you. |
| 02:00:03.06 | Unknown | Now I'm pushing |
| 02:00:05.13 | Unknown | I could hear you. So the easy way to do here is, if you want to look pro, is you do, you open this and you go, |
| 02:00:06.79 | Unknown | So, Oh, cool. |
| 02:00:15.70 | Unknown | you |
| 02:00:16.46 | Unknown | All hells. All right, so I memorize that. You see, they're all piled up on each other. They're not going to be like that. So. |
| 02:00:37.08 | Unknown | See you, everyone. I'm getting a little bit. So when you're done, you can go through. Oh, boom. Hmm? |
| 02:00:46.61 | Unknown | Hmm? you |
| 02:00:49.24 | Unknown | Yeah, that's no problem. I just want to make sure that it go back to order. Yeah, it works. |
| 02:00:49.51 | Unknown | That's no problem. Thank you. I just want to make sure or did he get that? So... I'll put them all out every time. |
| 02:01:18.54 | Unknown | It's so lonely. Through the dark. Only |
| 02:01:25.04 | Unknown | And you can either use, you know, you can use this thing. |
| 02:01:25.37 | Unknown | And you can either use that's it. |
| 02:01:28.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:01:28.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:01:28.66 | Unknown | THE FAMILY IS |
| 02:01:28.97 | Unknown | Amen. |
| 02:01:30.79 | Unknown | you |
| 02:01:31.03 | Unknown | Control L is big. |
| 02:01:33.83 | Len Rifkind | you |
| 02:01:37.93 | Unknown | Lord, I... Thank you. |
| 02:01:39.01 | Len Rifkind | I'm going to have a little |
| 02:01:42.42 | Unknown | Well, listen to my power. Keep her close to me. you So she'll come back to life. and call me |
| 02:01:56.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:02:00.00 | Unknown | Baby, baby, oh. |
| 02:02:17.06 | Unknown | Radio Sausalito thanks the Sausalito Marin City School District for its generous donation, which helps us share community radio with young people here in Southern Marin. |
| 02:02:23.41 | Unknown | . |
| 02:02:23.44 | Mayor Burns | All right. |
| 02:02:23.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:02:27.34 | Unknown | Radio Sausalito is here. |
| 02:02:28.60 | Mayor Burns | All righty, welcome back. |
| 02:02:30.60 | Unknown | If you hear some music that you'd like to know more about, if you have some questions, comments, or if you want to help us out by volunteers, Thank you. |
| 02:02:36.65 | Mayor Burns | Thank you all. We are now up to... |
| 02:02:37.41 | Unknown | We are now up to... |
| 02:02:40.38 | Mayor Burns | I'm not sure. |
| 02:02:40.87 | Unknown | or you can call our phone number, 415-332-JAZZ. That's 415-332-JAZZ. |
| 02:02:45.97 | Mayor Burns | Level six, item six, which is our public hearing. This is on a property on Wolfpack, and I have an announcement to make. |
| 02:02:47.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:02:48.04 | Unknown | IS OUR PUBLIC HEARING. |
| 02:02:49.33 | Unknown | Thank you. THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:02:51.47 | John DeRay | I'm pretty on the back of, and I am having Excuse me? I will be recusing myself from this issue. |
| 02:02:57.44 | Mayor Burns | I will be recusing myself from this issue due to a professional relationship on the hill that is in close enough adjacency to the property. That in discussion with the city manager thought it would be best if I recuse, so I am going to turn the gavel over to. |
| 02:03:00.95 | John DeRay | professional relationship. |
| 02:03:01.53 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:03:14.93 | Mayor Burns | VICE MAYOR SUSAN CLEVELAND-KNOWLS. |
| 02:03:17.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Right? |
| 02:03:17.78 | Mayor Burns | I want that back later tonight. |
| 02:03:17.86 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I want that back later. Thank you. |
| 02:03:19.04 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:03:19.06 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:03:19.08 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:03:19.09 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I will give it back to you. |
| 02:03:19.77 | Mayor Burns | And I will be in the back room and leave my Can you paint any stuff there? |
| 02:03:23.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I wonder what you're doing. |
| 02:03:23.95 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 02:03:23.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Don't forget about your announcement not to say anything about the Warriors game. |
| 02:03:32.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, welcome everybody. So tonight we're going to hear the appeal of a planning commission decision granting an appeal to the Community Development Department's determination of the front property line at lot five of Wolfback Estates. And so just to, there's a couple of procedural issues that I wanted to go through before we get started with our staff report. First of all, on the agenda, we have the order of presentations listed. Given the kind of interesting procedural nature here, we have decided to give both the current appellant, who's the applicant, and the former appellant, the neighbor, 10 minutes equal time. So you'll have 10 minutes for your presentation for your whole team. Your team includes everybody who is with you, architects, lawyers, property owners, landscape designers, anyone who might be here. Everyone else, every other member of the public will have three minutes to speak. We will take staff presentation, then city council questions, then the presentations from the applicant and the appellant. and the neighboring property owner and then public comment. And then each team will have five minutes of rebuttal. I also just wanted before we get started, I thought that I should just explain we only have four council members that are going to be able to vote on this issue tonight and so I wanted to give the city attorney an opportunity. Hopefully we will have some resolution on the council tonight, but in the event that there is a 2-2 tie, I just wanted to make sure everyone is clear on what that would mean at the outset. So, Ms. Wagner, if you could give us an explanation of what a 2-2 tie would mean. |
| 02:05:28.15 | Mary Wagner | Sure, and thank you, Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles. So this issue comes up periodically and it seems to be coming up frequently at the moment. I think this is the trifecta of cases where we have this 2-2 issue. So a 2-2 vote of the council means there's no action. The question then becomes, well, what do you do then? And it depends on what the nature of the item is in front of the council. If it's a legislative action, which is not tonight. there would have been no action and the council would either need to continue the item or continue deliberations on the item. In the case such as this where there's an appeal of a final determination which but for the appeal, THE DECISION. the council has the option in the 2-2 scenario of allowing that decision to stand. I checked with other jurisdictions following our discussions about the 416 Napa Street appeal and confirmed that that is a common practice in other jurisdictions. It really hasn't come up often here, and it hasn't come up in this situation where the fifth council member isn't absent, but they're actually recused from participation. So unlike 416 Napa, which was the most recent iteration of this issue, where Councilmember Hoffman wasn't able to attend the first hearing but was able to attend the second hearing and give you a full body, that would not be the case tonight. |
| 02:06:46.77 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great, thank you very much. So we'll have our stuff report. Oh, sorry, yes, we should go through our ex parte contacts. And would you like to start? |
| 02:07:05.07 | Jill Hoffman | So I visited the site on Sunday. I, prior to visiting the site, forwarded to the folks that I was going to be visiting with Sausalito's site inspection policy for its planning commission, which we as council members also adhere to. And so I visited with Chris Patterson, whose family trust owns some of the parcels up there. And I also visited with the owners and counsel of 151 Wolfback Ridge Road. But my conversations and visit were limited to the physical aspects of the sites and the application. And we refrained from discussing the merits of the appeal. |
| 02:08:04.97 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Unfortunately, my work commitments did not allow me to do the site visit, so I was not able to do the site visit, and I have not discussed it with any applicants. I have reviewed the materials, Howard. |
| 02:08:21.24 | Ray Withy | I visited the site on Saturday morning at the invitation of Ms. Brekus. The present were also the owner of 51 Wolfback Ridge and one did not discuss the merits of the case. We all received emails from Mr. Hurd inviting us also to visit the site. I contacted Mr. Hurd and said I'd already visited the site and did not see the point of visiting again. Just for reference, I've watched both Planning Commission hearings. |
| 02:09:00.69 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, so I'll say I also responded in similar kind to Mr. Hurd and I did watch both planning commission hearings. |
| 02:09:09.30 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, I met with both the attorney for lot four and lot five and the property owner of lot four and also the property owner of one canto gal. you was there as well. And I did emphasize that we did have a site visit policy and that we should adhere to that. you And I have watched the Planning Commission tapes. So OK. Anything else? All right. Calvin, get started. |
| 02:09:40.05 | Calvin Chan | Thank you, Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles. My name is Calvin Chan, Senior Planner with the Community Development Department. The item before you is an appeal of a Planning Commission decision, which grants an appeal of a Community Development Department determination of a front property line at lot 5 of Wolfbeck Estates. |
| 02:10:00.13 | Calvin Chan | I'll begin the presentation with a summary of some recent events surrounding this project. In November of 2017, the Community Development Department, or CDD, received a request for a determination of the front property line at Lot 5. In the image on the right-hand side, you see the Lot 5 outline. The Community Development Department did issue a decision or determination of this front property line at lot 5. That would be the Western property line being the front and I'll talk about this more in just a moment. The CDD decision was appealed to the Planning Commission, or PC, abbreviated in the slideshow. In March and April of 2019, the Planning Commission did conduct two public hearings to consider this appeal. Ultimately, at their April hearing, the Planning Commission granted the appeal, which in essence overturned the Community Development Department's determination. the Planning Commission's decision to grant the appeal was appealed to the council, and that brings us up to date to this evening. This evening, the City Council has requested to conduct a public hearing for this appeal and then provide direction to city staff. And I'll go through some options for action in just a moment. The project is deemed to be statutorily exempt under Sequel Section 15268, which concerns ministerial projects. |
| 02:11:31.91 | Calvin Chan | The options for City Council action this evening are to grant the appeal, to deny the appeal, to continue the public hearing, or to remand the matter for further review. And I'll go into more detail at the end of my presentation. |
| 02:11:49.83 | Calvin Chan | Going back to November of 2017, I touched on this just a moment ago. The community development department, we received a pre-application meeting request from Couture Architecture, who is the architect and official applicant for a proposed new residence at the site. The graded pad where the development would occur is shown by the yellow star on that image on your left. The request was for the Community Development Department to determine the front property line for this irregularly-shaped C-shaped lot here on Wolfback Ridge. |
| 02:12:32.90 | Calvin Chan | The determination of the front property line comes from Sausalito Municipal Code, or SMC, Section 1088-040, which is our definition section in our zoning ordinance. It reads that the property lines means the recorded boundaries of a lot of record as follows. And I'll just read the very first point. |
| 02:12:49.44 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | Thank you. |
| 02:12:49.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:12:49.49 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | and I'll tell you. |
| 02:12:52.51 | Calvin Chan | Front property line means the line separating the parcel from the street. In case a lot abuts on more than one street, the parcel owner may elect any street parcel line as the front parcel line provided that such choice in the opinion of the community development director will not be injurious to adjacent properties. And down on that page, you see also, once you determine the front property line, you also, by way of that, also have reconciliation of the rear property line as well as the side property lines. |
| 02:13:29.75 | Calvin Chan | In November of 2017, former Community Development Director Danny Castro and I conducted a site visit to Lot 5, as well as Lot 4, the adjacent lot to the left or the north. After evaluation of the existing site conditions, the pattern of development, consideration of potential development opportunity on the site as well as surrounding areas, as well as the stated purposes of design review and setbacks. The community development director determined that the western property line of this lot 5 property would be the front property line. |
| 02:14:10.74 | Calvin Chan | Here is an excerpt from the Community Development Department's memorandum, which determines the front property line. Line segment A at the bottom of the screen is the western property line. So you have line segment A, which forms the front, line segment H, which forms the rear, and all the lines in between the front and the rear being sides. |
| 02:14:42.40 | Calvin Chan | Staff's determination of the front property line for lot five of Volpeck Estates is supported by the Municipal Code. The municipal code provides that where a lot abuts on more than one street, the parcel owner may elect any street parcel line as the front parcel line, provided that such choice in the opinion of the CDD director will not be injurious to adjacent properties. Lot 5 abuts on multiple streets and some streets abuts more than once. The lot 5 property abuts Canto-Gal, Wolfback Terrace, and Cloudview Trail. |
| 02:15:18.95 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Can I just stop you right there? Yes. Can you go back to that slide? |
| 02:15:21.11 | Calvin Chan | Yes. |
| 02:15:25.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | so there was some discussion at the planning commission that it doesn't abut wolfback ridge road but on this diagram here you see that wolfback ridge road gets very wide at the end and it looks like the line is going up and abutting at the corner of a and b |
| 02:15:47.05 | Calvin Chan | It doesn't actually, that's just a feature of the graphic and my Sharpie. |
| 02:15:49.56 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | That's the sharp B. because it also looks on the subdivision map as if that is the case. |
| 02:15:57.42 | Calvin Chan | . |
| 02:15:57.95 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I mean, a very like minuscule, but on my iPad, it does look like there's kind of a bulb. |
| 02:16:09.19 | Calvin Chan | Okay. I do have the subdivision map in PDF and we can pull that up for further discussion. I will talk about the line segments in more detail. |
| 02:16:10.06 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | . But, okay. |
| 02:16:14.79 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. Okay, thank you. |
| 02:16:17.39 | Calvin Chan | Okay. Thank you. |
| 02:16:27.48 | Calvin Chan | So lot five is accessed via Canto Gal. Circled on the screen in the yellow is the portion of the Cantegal roadway that bisects this western property line. The definition of front property line in our municipal code simply states that the front property line means the line separating the parcel from the street. The code does not require the property line to be contiguous with the street, nor does it require that that line abut a street. Segment A, going back a slide, shown on your screen where my mouse is pointing, segment line A is here. So segment line A directly abuts Cantogal in that portion that you see circled in yellow before traveling parallel to Wolfpack Ridge Road. The establishment of this line segment A as the front property line will not be injurious as it will not cause physical damage to the land, interfere with access, or harm existing structures. And this is the intent of that definition that we have in 1088. design review. |
| 02:17:33.88 | Jill Hoffman | Councilman. |
| 02:17:34.28 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. COXO. |
| 02:17:34.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:17:35.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | question. |
| 02:17:35.74 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 02:17:35.82 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:17:36.28 | Jill Hoffman | At the beginning of this slide, you said that lot five is accessed via Canto-Gal. But I actually accessed Lot 5 and parked on it via Wolfback Ridge Road. I had to cross the landscape easement, but I actually couldn't get to it from Canto Gal. I got to it from Wolfback Ridge Road. So why do you say that Lot 5 is accessed via Canto Gal? |
| 02:18:06.57 | Calvin Chan | If you were actually to drive into the property, you have to drive through Cantalgal. |
| 02:18:12.27 | Jill Hoffman | Right, because that's part of lot nine. |
| 02:18:16.64 | Calvin Chan | So I'm not sure I understand your question. |
| 02:18:19.59 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I came down Wolfback Ridge Road and then went right on to the property. |
| 02:18:25.58 | Calvin Chan | Did you turn into the property to go up the graded pad? |
| 02:18:29.64 | Jill Hoffman | I just took it off the dirt. You know, I backed up to where the stakes were. |
| 02:18:35.81 | Calvin Chan | where did you see the public notice posted for the hearing? So that was posted at the entrance to Kanto Gal, leading up to that graded patch. So where the notice is posted is approximately right here. |
| 02:18:52.77 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. I then walked down Canto Gal, so maybe I'm misunderstanding. How Far Up Canto Gal Extends. |
| 02:19:01.51 | Calvin Chan | So let me zoom out. |
| 02:19:02.44 | Jill Hoffman | music. |
| 02:19:05.82 | Calvin Chan | Canto Gal, my mouse is moving up Canto Gal right now. |
| 02:19:12.31 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | people at all. |
| 02:19:12.82 | Calvin Chan | and it curves around to go to the residence at one canto camp. So this is the section of the Canto-Gal roadway that is bisected by the Western property line. |
| 02:19:26.60 | Jill Hoffman | All right, so where is 51? |
| 02:19:28.76 | Calvin Chan | 51 Wolfpack, or Lot 3, is right here. |
| 02:19:32.76 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, I turned around, sorry. Okay, I was totally turned around, sorry about that. |
| 02:19:53.10 | Calvin Chan | So as you're well aware, design review has not been conducted for this project. The Planning Commission's public hearings were to deal specifically with the appeal of the Community Development Department's decision of the front property line. And design review will be conducted in the future, at which time there will be every opportunity for the public, as well as members of the Planning Commission, to weigh in on views, massing, compatibility, and all those other design review findings that we traditionally look for in that process. |
| 02:20:27.93 | Calvin Chan | The Community Development Department's determination was appealed by attorney Elizabeth Reckes, who is here this evening and will provide you a presentation. On behalf of her client, Steve and Joan MacArthur, who reside at Lot 3, which is at the upper portion of this image, Lot 3 is commonly known as 51 Wolfback Ridge Road. As mentioned, the Planning Commission conducted two public hearings to consider this front property line determination matter. The Planning Commission considered the Sausalito Municipal Code definition of front property line, and I've broken it down into these color-coded sections to talk about the three criteria that really make up this definition of a front property line. So criteria one is that the line separates the parcel from the street, Criteria two is that the lot abuts on more than one street, and criteria three is that the parcel owner may elect any street parcel line as part of this exercise to determine the front property line. |
| 02:21:31.48 | Calvin Chan | A majority of the Planning Commission articulated that the Community Development Department's determination in November of 2017 did not comply with criteria one and three of this definition, criteria one being lines separating the parcel from the street, and criteria three being that has to do with the street parcel line aspect of that criteria. So a majority of the Planning Commission conveyed that one and three are not complied with as the uphill section of line segment A, which is circled on your screen in the dashed blue circle, does not meet the definition of a, street parcel line because it cannot be combined with a downhill section of line segment A, which is circled in orange there, to form a continuous front property line. the downhill portion of line segment A, the orange part, The Planning Commission also articulated that because it does not bisect the street, it doesn't meet the definition of a street parcel line to ultimately culminate in that determination of a front property line. |
| 02:22:40.95 | Calvin Chan | Any questions on that before I move on? |
| 02:22:49.02 | Calvin Chan | Moving on to the appeal of the Planning Commission's decision to grant the appeal of the CDD decision to the City Council. The appeal was filed by attorney Riley Hurd on behalf of his clients, the property owners of lot five. Thank you. Within Mr. Hurd's appeal document, there are four appeal grounds listed in his executive summary, and I'll go through each of these appeal grounds rather quickly, but can come back and provide more elaboration as needed. |
| 02:23:21.83 | Calvin Chan | Appeal Ground 1 states the legally acceptable front property line at 99 Wolfpack Ridge Road, also known as Lot 5, is the line that parallels Wolfpack Ridge Road. As you can see in our November 2017 CDD determination, that would support this appeal ground. The CDD determination was that line segment A, the Western property line would be the front property line for this particular lot. |
| 02:23:52.45 | Calvin Chan | Appeal Ground 2 states, Other properties on Wolfpack Ridge Road utilized the exact same front property line as the one requested here. In our research, we have seen that other properties on Wolfpack Ridge also have very similar layout conditions. It was requested of staff to investigate that after our March Planning Commission meeting, and we returned to the Planning Commission in April with that information. You have in your staff report packet, beginning on pages 409 and 410, some description of this as well as the image that you see on your screen. I'm happy to go into this in more detail as desired. |
| 02:24:34.78 | Calvin Chan | Appeal Ground 3 states the Planning Commission deliberations inappropriately consider design review issues and other factors not found in the code. So as we've come to understand, a public hearing by the Planning Commission to consider this design review has not occurred. It has also not been scheduled yet. we have to deal with the appeal of this Frank Property Line determination first. The findings for approval of a design review permit are identified in our zoning ordinance, specifically in section 1054.05.0, In italics on your screen right now is the stated purpose of design review. Design review permits provide for discretionary review of the architectural and design features of selected projects for which design review is required as established by this section. The planning commission may approve, conditionally approve, or deny the design review permit application. The next italicized section talks about the purposes of setbacks in yards. All of this comes from our zoning ordinance. Each zoning district establishes minimum setback requirements. Special situations exist where setbacks will be applied differently or must be increased. From this, we learned that the appropriateness of established setbacks, the separation between structures is all evaluated under the design review process by the Planning Commission. It's important to understand that prior to design review, the applicant needs to have very clear metrics and a base starting ground to begin their preparation of plans for design review. And of course, knowing your front property line and the resultant minimum setback requirements is part of that exercise. Absent such determination of a front property line to establish some of these base metrics, a project cannot be designed for zoning ordinance compliance, let alone meet all the other design review criteria. As previously mentioned, there will be every opportunity for planning commission review and public comments on the proposed single family residence at this site. |
| 02:26:47.78 | Calvin Chan | Lastly, appeal ground four states, if the front of lot five cannot serve as the front property line, the remaining lines are nonsensical choices as the front. As we've stated previously in this presentation, the Community Development Department's determination of the front or western property line at Lot 5 would support this appeal ground. The Planning Commission's appeal granting in April overturned the Community Development Department's determination. an alternative front property line determination besides the western property line was not determined. |
| 02:27:34.73 | Calvin Chan | The options for City Council action this evening are to grant the appeal of the Planning Commission decision which grants an appeal of the Community Development Department's determination of the front property line at Lot 5. We've provided in your packet Attachment 17, which is a draft resolution to uphold the appeal and maintain the Community Development Department's determination from November 2017. And the Council may provide staff any direction to revise the resolution as necessary. Option two is to deny the appeal of the Planning Commission decision, which grants the appeal of our department's determination of the front property line at Lot 5. And similarly, we have provided a draft resolution in your packet, attachment number 18. Attachment number 18 would deny the appeal based on the findings contained within the Planning Commission's resolution from April. Option number three is to continue the public hearing for further consideration by the City Council. The continuation of this public hearing would allow for additional information to be submitted. you and the appeal would return to the City Council for further consideration. Option number four is to remand the matter to the Planning Commission for review with very specific direction. After the Planning Commission's review, the item would return for council consideration. I'll pause my presentation there and am available for any questions that you may have. |
| 02:29:02.89 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great, thank you so much. We really appreciate, as always, your thorough presentation. Are there questions for Mr. Chan? |
| 02:29:10.09 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Um, Who owns and controls the landscape easement between Lot 5 and Wolfback Ridge Road? |
| 02:29:27.37 | Calvin Chan | So there is a landscape easement within the bounds of lot nine that fronts lot five. That landscape easement on title belongs to the Patterson Trust, but it is a landscape easement that is separately assessed and billed directly to the property owners of lot five. |
| 02:29:48.01 | Jill Hoffman | um, There was an issue raised at an earlier planning commission meeting about whether GGNRA was consulted or rather consultation or feedback from them was required. What is the status of that? |
| 02:30:02.74 | Calvin Chan | So staff has been in constant communication with the GGNRA, specifically their chief of planning and environmental review, Brian Aviles. We talk to him constantly and send him every single public notice. He is very responsive. The applicant at the very initial application submission, they did submit a neighborhood outreach summary, which talked about their efforts with GGNRA and their preliminary planning processes, which the Community Development Department was involved with as well. We've reached out to GGNRA to corroborate that this neighborhood outreach has occurred. They have said yes. They've been very pleased with the outreach that has occurred so far. They were not able to send a representative this evening, but look forward to being continually involved with this matter. |
| 02:30:48.29 | Jill Hoffman | When I visited the site, I was notified that there is a landscape easement between 51 Wolfback Ridge Road and Wolfback Ridge Road. I'm not sure. Does that landscape easement separate the 51 Wolfback Ridge Road property from the recorded boundary of that lot? |
| 02:31:10.11 | Calvin Chan | So the landscape easement that Council Member Cox is mentioning is in the location where my mouse is hovering right now. Looking at the Wolfpack Estates final subdivision map, if you look at the majority of the pages of that map, it does show that a continuous landscape easement runs in front of that lot. If you look at page six, there is a void where the landscape easement starts and ends. So there is some discrepancy there. And we have reached out to our city's engineering department. We talked with our interim public works director as well as our senior engineer today to review that matter again because the planning commission also asked that. |
| 02:31:53.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Was there an answer? on that. |
| 02:31:55.33 | Calvin Chan | So the answer is that there is some inconsistency. in the final map, but on the majority of the final subdivision map pages, it does show a continuous landscape easement that runs in front of Lot 3. |
| 02:32:11.45 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And that's, so the map that I'm looking at is the recorded final subdivision map is attachment eight. To the staff packet. What page is that? I'm sorry about that, iPad doesn't give me staff packet pages, but I could. says final subdivision map for wolfback ridge road attachment eight |
| 02:32:39.56 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I just wanna make sure we're all |
| 02:32:41.98 | Calvin Chan | Well, I can pull up the PDF if that is helpful. |
| 02:33:07.41 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, are there other questions for Mr. Chan? Yes. Oh, Chan. Okay. |
| 02:33:12.40 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry. |
| 02:33:13.26 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:33:13.41 | Jill Hoffman | Um, During the planning commission meeting, Council for Lot 5 contended that Canto Gal is an easement over 99 Wolfback that is inside the lot. So is it true that Um, that a section of the Canto Gal Street is within the lot five. Property. |
| 02:33:41.97 | Calvin Chan | That's correct. So you see on this image on your screen, you have, so this is Kanto Gao going up the property. To the east, you have a portion of Canto Gao that is outside of the property lines that leads and connects to Wolbeck Ridge Road, but you also have a portion of Canto Gao. And I'll zoom out to a larger image here, the same image here that is actually within the bounds of the C-shaped Lot 5. Thank you. |
| 02:34:10.35 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and then my final question is for the city attorney. So is it the opinion of the city attorney that pursuant to the definition in Sausalito's municipal code that the uh, Front property line of a lot need not abut the street. |
| 02:34:40.77 | Mary Wagner | So the definition of a front property line is the line that separates the parcel from the street. That's the definition of the front property line. |
| 02:34:49.38 | Jill Hoffman | And so here, if you go back to your diagram, Calvin. So property line A that was identified by the community development director does not abut Wolfback Ridge Road. But it is the line that separates the parcel from the street. you Is that what you're saying? Yes. And so, in your opinion, that falls within the definition of a front property line? Correct. Thank you. |
| 02:35:23.84 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Are there other questions? |
| 02:35:29.14 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Are there other questions? Okay, great. So thank you, we might have questions. So now we'd like the appellant and your team, the property owner, Mr. Hurd. |
| 02:35:46.52 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And once you get your presentation set up, you'll have ten minutes. |
| 02:36:00.80 | Riley Hurd | Good evening, my name is Riley Hurd and I'm here on behalf of the owners of Lot 5. An incredible amount of ink has been spilled and resources expended over this singular and truly narrow issue. When this storm of distraction occurs, it's helpful to refocus on the one thing that actually controls, the municipal code. And here I would submit the language of that code is actually clear. When a property line abuts more than one street, The parcel owner may elect any of those lines at the front, so long as the director determines it won't be injurious. That's it. There is nothing in there about front door location, home orientation, address selection, or excluding lines that aren't perfectly straight. Very few are. We, did not write this code. This is how the city says this is supposed to work. So let's take a look at lot five. It abuts not less than four streets. So this means the owner chooses, and that's what sticks as the front as long as the director finds it to not be injurious. Here, as you heard, the owner selected line A. It's really important to note that line A does abut a street. It abuts Canto Gaul. Right here. That's not in dispute. you Um, This selection of A was informed by the general layout of the neighborhood. As you can see, lots one through five all front on Wolfback Ridge Road. So after this choice, the director takes a look at it, he visits the site, reviewed the code, and finds it not to be injurious. We heard that. The question is why? And the injury that the code considers is the effect on light and open space for adjoining lots. And that's because front property lines usually have a zero foot setback. So where you put them is important. The director needs to make sure that the chosen front line doesn't make the house too close to a neighbor on the other side of that front line. Having that reduced setback towards Wolfback Ridge Road makes the most sense. It pulls the house away from Canto Gal and has really no impact on lot three because the new house is 215 feet away. There is no different property line. that will improve the light and open space between these properties. And that's why the director came down where he did. And as you heard, There's a reason the process is set up this way. It's because you need to know the basics before you design a house. The code purposefully front loads this decision and unusually, but appropriately, vests the authority in the development director to make this determination at the outset, instead of like now, seven months later, after all the design work has happened. Now it is true that the neighbors sued your city and forced this hearing. But the thought behind the code remains. Instead, we've got the process turned on its head. The neighbors and their lawyers have conflated this simple issue with the design of the house. I implore you, Please make no mistake. You're going to get a crack at this house. But the mere selection of the property line is not the forum for design commentary. That is why we have design review coming up. And this, in my personal opinion, is I think where the Planning Commission got off track. in a somewhat veiled attempt to address the size of the house and the buildable area Um, rather extreme machinations took place to deviate from the language of the code. My best understanding of the basis for their decision was that because property line A turns a bit right here, after its abutment with Canto Gal. that that turn somehow invalidates line A because the remaining portion supposedly doesn't touch a different road Wolfpack Ridge. There's a fair bit to unpack there, but before doing so, I'd like to note that the import of their decision is that the property line parallel to Canto-Gal would have to be the front. That's all that's left. There's a big problem with that and we go back to the code and as you heard Miss Wagner say the opening sentence of that section is that the line needs to be one separating the parcel from the street Here, Cantogal is an easement inside lot five. The property line of lot five is shown with the blue arrow. that most certainly does not separate the lot from the street, it separates it from lot four. And the inside of Canto Gal, seen with the orange, cannot be the front property line because it isn't a property line. So we have a big problem here because you look at the rest of the site, there are no other options for a front property line. In moments, you will hear a litany of supposed reasons that property line A should not be the front. And as you listen to those, I ask that you keep two things in mind. Is that actually found in the municipal code? And two, is that how the neighbors at lot three treat their own property? One argument you will hear is that line A does not totally touch Wolfback Ridge Road due to a landscape easement, so it can't be the front. First, this ignores the fact that line A absolutely touches Canto Gal. No part of the code says the whole line must abut a street. Thank you. The argument ignores the fact that the landscape easement does not run the full length of the front of lot five. And that part of this, as was touched on by Councilmember Cleveland Knowles, actually touches a vehicular easement attached to Wolfback Ridge Road. And third and finally, this argument conveniently ignores that this is the same situation as lot three and they treat Wolfback as the front. So oddly, while fighting my clients, the owners of Lot 3 decided to start adding a second story without city approval. and That's mostly a separate issue except for the fact that the plans to legalize this work show the exact same layout that we're proposing. Wolf back at the front. And the side even has the same kind of kink that the front of lot 5 has. Staff has confirmed that lot three has the same landscape easement in front of it, as shown in yellow here, and does not directly touch Wolfback Ridge Road. What's going on with this gap here? We don't know. Yet, they've always used Wolfback as the front. Those arguments can't be reconciled with what's going on today. Something else you're going to hear about? Views. you will be asked to stray from the code and say, well, if they get this as the front, They're going to be able to build that, and that will impact our view. So first and foremost, The front property line guarantees nothing. Second, you have a view ordinance, and you're going to hear all about this when you consider the house. But finally, the claim is without merit. This is what it looks like today. Here again is the rendering of the home. So even if view impact was a test, There is none. Before I conclude, I want to point out something very unusual, and that is the tone of the staff report that you received. Traditionally, when a Planning Commission decision is appealed, the staff report is crafted in a way that defends the Commission's decisions. That's not the case here. And if you take a look at the two resolutions before you to be considered for approval, it tells you why. It tells you why the staff is still indicating that the Commission's decision doesn't comport with the law. the denial resolution is not supported by the code or the facts, whereas if you compare that with the approval resolution, it carefully tracks the process in the code and how it works with the owner's choice and the injury. that shows you which one is the legally supportable and correct decision. I'd also like to point out that this is not new news. Property line A has been supported by the analysis of two community development directors, One seasoned planning professional who we just heard from, the opinion of the city attorney, which you just asked for and was also clearly articulated in a November 15th letter to the attorney for the neighbors. And I would submit that this many staff did not get this wrong this many times. So We've been promised a decade of litigation over this house. This whole property line issue was a Hail Mary by the neighbors as part of their crusade to stop this development. Somehow it got traction at the commission level. but I would ask that you not let the city serve as a pawn in this campaign. and that you correct the injustice that occurred at the Planning Commission and grant this appeal. I'd also like you to know that the architect, Scott Couture, is here this evening for any of the more technical questions that may come up. Thank you. |
| 02:45:46.95 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right, thank you very much, Mr. Hurd. Does any council members have questions for the appellant property owner? Okay. Thank you. |
| 02:45:57.02 | Riley Hurd | Thank you very much. |
| 02:46:02.49 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right, can we have a presentation by the neighboring owner, Ms. Spokes? |
| 02:46:21.37 | Elizabeth Brekus | Thank you, members of the council. I'd like to agree with Mr. Riley Hurd on two points. One is that this is a really surprising decision, and it has proceeded in a very unusual way. Mainly when an application is accepted for the city's consideration and approved, the city requires as a condition of approval indemnity. |
| 02:46:41.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Can I ask that you speak into the microphone please? |
| 02:46:44.65 | Elizabeth Brekus | Yes. The city would require indemnity and here because of the decision that was made, the city has no protection, no indemnity, and that makes it a very unusual, decision that was made secondly i would also agree that we found that the staff report was very unusual as was counsel's uh statement that The parcel separating the line from the street is now legally, in her opinion, this this definition of abutment that wasn't the opinion at the Planning Commission and in The appropriate thing to say is, It is up for the Planning Commission and or the Council to decide these definitions and what the code is meaning to to the city, and so that's for your consideration. And the fact that the SAF report didn't give that deference to the planning commission is highly unusual. The requested action that we are asking for is that you uphold the Planning Commission resolution and deny the appeal. Declared the staff decision void because no notice was given. No hearing was held and no appeal right was afforded contrary to the city's regulations. And also that you find the SAF decision was void because it applied the wrong standards As to what is injurious to adjacent owners. and failed to consider the impact on adjacent owners. As you can see, here's the proposed project with a ten foot setback. Here it is with the 20 foot setback. On the east side, we see what unfortunately is not a great view of the city that day, but 20 foot, not as designed, but that would be this. And then of course, much more of the city viewscape is preserved with a 34.5. which would be normal given the length of the building. So the setbacks matter. Notice and a hearing were required under your code. This was the basis for the writ of mandate, and that writ of mandate, had the city not settled with us, would have prevailed in a court of law, because your code unequivocally, provides that notice and hearing is required. Any action by the community development department is appealable. You have what we call a catch all appeal provision and it specifically says that a decision made by the community development department or director is appealable. Here's the settlement agreement. Design review is particularly crucial for development of this heavily restricted site in particularly complicated subdivision, and the authority is with the design review board. The subdivision EIR contemplates a need to limit building height and increase setbacks given the visual impact of development in this subdivision. from the EIR. And the EIR also contemplates, contrary to what the appellants designed, i.e. a 7,040 square foot new house and garage on lot five, a 2,000 to 4,000 square foot home. The recorded deed restriction, i.e. the view easement that the McArthur's negotiated when they purchased this property. set and limited height and building envelope of any development on lot five. And lot five is an unusual C-shaped lot. The appellants could see the particularly restricted nature of any development on lot five. Now, the staff decision purported to determine much more than a front property line. the decision and properly decided setbacks. And staff also decided not just setbacks, side and rear property lines. and establish setbacks contrary to the code. This is the nitty gritty analysis that needs to be undertaken here. First off, property lines means the recorded boundaries of a lot. Not the noun boundaries, the boundaries. Front property line means the line separating the parcel from the street. And planning commission determined that because the following sentence says, if in case a lot of butts on more than one street, that the parcel may elect any street The Planning Commission interpreted that as not allowing Wolfback Ridge residents to select Bridgeway, for example, as a front property line. but required them to select a street that abuts. That was the determination. Now, this first phrase about front property line provides that their If the property owner selects a proper street, Then a second analysis happens. The CDD determines whether it is injurious to adjacent properties. However, you first have to have the property owner select the appropriate street. And this section, again, definitions, hoping to aid the construction of other areas of the zoning code. Isn't a standalone provision that trumps other places where there's notice, hearing, and the right of appeal. It simply is one portion of your code. I also would like to point out that rear property line ordinarily, but not necessarily, means that it is the line the furthest opposite the line selected as the front. So when? the applicants come in and say, hey, we'd like to determine the front. And by the way, we want to select this property line way down the hillside as the rear, and staff says sure. Take a look, rear property line, there's no CD authority. To select that? And the parcel owner, the property owner, doesn't get a selected. But that's what happened here. The applicants proposed rear property lines, side property lines, and the CDD gave it to them even though the code doesn't allow it. |
| 02:53:05.14 | Elizabeth Brekus | The applicant's selection fails to satisfy even their own questionable interpretation of section 10.88.040. Instead of selecting the front parcel line as a front, they purported to connect two line segments and then proposed a street that never touches or butts on the parcel. And the planning commission found that this doesn't work, that a street parallel to the front property line that doesn't touch is not what 10.88.040 contemplates. And these statements were supported by statements in the record by your commissioners interpreting this. And the appellant's own home as designed. It does in fact propose that the driveway, the front door, all of the improvements that show a front will be on Canto Gal. Now there's this argument that's been raised here that because Kendo Gal goes inside this lot, It somehow doesn't work. Well, does abut Canto Gal. It may be within, but it abuts. I would also point out that that thin, narrow sliver that dissects Canto Gal that is argued to be the front Canto Gal's a 20-foot road. If you take a look at your own planning commission, your own municipal code, it requires 30 foot frontage on the floor. a street in order to be a front parcel line. And so. This particular Um, Front doesn't meet the definition because you don't have 30 feet. on the front. That would be 10.40.030. 51 Wolfback Lot 3 is not analogous and was not considered by staff in making its determination. First off, 51 Wolfback Ridge actually touches on Wolfback Ridge Road. And it was a developed site by 1938, before the subdivision existed, breaking up the parcel that 51 existed on. and adding acreage and land to other properties. |
| 02:55:22.08 | Jill Hoffman | Can I ask you a question? Hold on, hold on. Can you pause? |
| 02:55:22.76 | Elizabeth Brekus | I don't know. |
| 02:55:23.03 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Can I ask you a question? Sorry, did you just say that our code requires a 30 foot frontage? For a street property line? That's correct. So does lot three have a 30 foot frontage? |
| 02:55:34.57 | Elizabeth Brekus | That's correct. |
| 02:55:39.70 | Elizabeth Brekus | I haven't measured how long the front where the interruption of it is. I have not surveyed, had an opportunity to survey that, but I would still point out that at the time that That 51 Wolfback Ridge Road |
| 02:55:56.20 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, that was, you don't know. Can I ask the city attorney a follow on, because at the first planning commission meeting, The staff report. presented by Calvin Chan. stated that. The front setback was required to be zero plus ten feet required by the settlement agreement yielding a net of ten feet. |
| 02:56:20.37 | Mary Wagner | So I think there are two separate issues. |
| 02:56:22.26 | Jill Hoffman | And that the rear was 20 plus 10, yielding a net of 30. |
| 02:56:26.34 | Mary Wagner | So I think that the setback issue is separate from the minimum lot size requirements, which are set forth in that chapter. 1040 that Ms. Brekus referred to. And what the section actually says is, Minimum parcel requirements, all parcels shall meet minimum parcel standards. and that the width of any parcel shall not be less than 30 feet at any point. It doesn't say that your front property line has to be, 30 feet. This subdivision was created in the late 80s, early 90s as the result of a litigation and a permit streamlining act issue. It's not standard in many ways, and I don't know if this minimum parcel standard existed when that subdivision went into place, but the lot sizes are what they are. |
| 02:57:19.74 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, great. Thank you. |
| 02:57:24.44 | Elizabeth Brekus | As I was saying, The appellant's current argument that 51 Wolfback, Lot 3, is somehow analogous to Lot 5 formed no part of, the decision of staff coming to this decision. because as Calvin Chan stated. that determination or thought occurred to him the day he was putting together the planning commission. Um, presentation. |
| 02:57:51.00 | Jill Hoffman | I'm going to ask another question. Sorry to keep interrupting you. You're saying that the treatment of 51 Wolfback had no bearing on staff's decision. But tonight, we're here considering the Planning Commission's decision. Correct? You're asking, the appeal is to overturn the planning commission decision, which overturned the staff decision. |
| 02:58:18.49 | Elizabeth Brekus | Right, so essentially you would be reinstating staffs, no notice. No hearing. No right to appeal, neighbors didn't even find out about it till nine months, eight or nine months after. And you would be reinstating that and blessing that decision and saying, guess what? For the Pattersons that own four more lots up here. Head on into the planning commission in the planning department and you can get a secret determination. |
| 02:58:43.01 | Jill Hoffman | And now you announced to the planning commission at the hearing that their hearing was de novo, that they were starting over. That they didn't have to consider anything that the staff had done, that this was a de novo hearing for their sole determination. |
| 02:58:43.05 | Elizabeth Brekus | Thank you. |
| 02:58:55.89 | Elizabeth Brekus | That's correct. |
| 02:58:56.45 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:58:56.82 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks. And they're sold determined. |
| 02:58:57.09 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes, and they're so determined. I had that same question. So if this is a de novo hearing, we're actually not reinstating- Correct. Any decision? |
| 02:59:04.02 | Jill Hoffman | Correct. |
| 02:59:07.23 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | where we can create our own decision, is that correct? Okay, thank you. I think we're being asked. |
| 02:59:11.63 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. to do. |
| 02:59:13.34 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | that. |
| 02:59:13.54 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:59:13.56 | Mary Wagner | Yeah, to judge this ourselves. If I may, Madam Vice Mayor, correct. Your hearing is de novo and this is a noticed public hearing. |
| 02:59:13.59 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:59:13.61 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | . |
| 02:59:13.96 | Jill Hoffman | to judge this ourselves. |
| 02:59:15.38 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 02:59:24.98 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 02:59:26.05 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same procedural I think we're on the ground. |
| 02:59:30.43 | Elizabeth Brekus | I think we're on the same procedural. I just would point out though, what the staff report is doing is saying that our determination was appropriate. even though staff never went on, as you heard, to 51 Wolf Back, or to 1 Canto Gal, or for that matter, to Butts. Butts' property, which is right behind. So what you would be doing is saying that's an okay determination. even though neighbors didn't have an opportunity to be heard or object Or for the decision makers to consider that. |
| 03:00:02.41 | Jill Hoffman | But tonight is de novo, and so there has been opportunity provided. All the neighbors are here. I've heard from many of the neighbors. And so whatever decision we make tonight is no longer tinged with any misstep by the community development director. You've already settled that through a settlement agreement, no? |
| 03:00:23.71 | Elizabeth Brekus | No, I would not agree with that. The decision that was made by staff and that you're being asked to uphold is a decision that was made using- |
| 03:00:34.14 | Jill Hoffman | We're not being asked to uphold anything. We're being asked to hear, the planning commission decision is being appealed to us. We're not being asked to uphold staff's decision. We're hearing this matter de novo this evening with proper notice. So would you not agree that any missteps have now been cleansed through this new noticed de novo process? |
| 03:00:58.81 | Elizabeth Brekus | I would not. I would say that the staff reports laser like focus as well as the appellants on this definition section. And saying that it looks at it in a vacuum and doesn't read it in conjunction with your other code sections that requires an original planning decision on the matter. That is not a proper. No, I would not agree. |
| 03:01:21.13 | Jill Hoffman | Is it not true that staff provided us with two separate resolutions, one sustaining the appeal and one denying the appeal? And did not take a position about which we should adopt, but gave us four options, a poll, |
| 03:01:30.26 | Elizabeth Brekus | . |
| 03:01:30.30 | Unknown | And |
| 03:01:37.23 | Jill Hoffman | Deny, remand. Continue. |
| 03:01:41.77 | Elizabeth Brekus | I believe that the council has- |
| 03:01:42.90 | Jill Hoffman | Without recommending either of those, any of those. |
| 03:01:45.80 | Elizabeth Brekus | I believe the council has been given improper standards, including for example, this claim that injurious to property means essentially, damage to property, which is facially you Ridiculous. |
| 03:01:59.94 | Jill Hoffman | I look forward to hearing your definition and substantiation for it. |
| 03:02:03.62 | Elizabeth Brekus | Thank you. |
| 03:02:03.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sure. |
| 03:02:04.15 | Elizabeth Brekus | Thank you. |
| 03:02:04.53 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | What? Okay, so we've got 35 seconds. |
| 03:02:10.51 | Elizabeth Brekus | Staff decision failed to undertake any meaningful consideration of whether the choice of property line A was injurious. And staff failed to even consider what injurious to adjacent properties actually means. until more than 15 months after the staff After the fact, when staff came up. with the idea. DEAD. What it means is avoiding physical injury to property. that definition flies in the face of logic. In the staff report for the council hearing, Now the city council is being told. that it means interfering with access or harming existing structures. |
| 03:02:49.24 | Unknown | with access. or high school. |
| 03:02:55.97 | Elizabeth Brekus | Under any reasonable interpretation of the term injurious to adjacent properties, means. That the property would be designed with a setback. |
| 03:03:03.23 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So excited. |
| 03:03:05.67 | Elizabeth Brekus | which can dramatically increase the building envelope. as the appellants acknowledge. |
| 03:03:10.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, thank you. you Are there any further questions for the NEIGHBORING PROPERTY OWNER. |
| 03:03:19.29 | Jill Hoffman | I'm, yes. I am having a hard time with this nexus that you are asserting between the I'm not. decision about the front property line. And the design review decisions that will concern the home's size, height, and building envelope. |
| 03:03:42.80 | Elizabeth Brekus | What should happen is the applicant should get some direction, and the applicant has tools available. The applicant can ask for a planning session with the planning commission. But the fact is your code Red as a whole? requires that the Planning Commission consider any project that contemplates new construction. It does not allow a planning commission decision that separate from it or a CDD decision separate. So what I would propose is this section, red, As a definition section. does not allow staff to make that decision, it still has to be a planning commission decision. |
| 03:04:26.93 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:04:27.03 | Elizabeth Brekus | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:04:27.55 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you That's what happened here. |
| 03:04:29.03 | Elizabeth Brekus | Thank you. |
| 03:04:29.14 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:04:29.74 | Elizabeth Brekus | No. That's not what happened here. What happened is staff made a decision and the planning commission then considered it. They didn't agree with it and they reversed it. But what your decision would be, if you made the decision to grant the appeal, would essentially be to reinstate the staff decision which was made without notice. |
| 03:04:49.84 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Without notice. Okay, I think we've been around on that. Okay. And I think we disagree with that. |
| 03:04:52.07 | Elizabeth Brekus | Thank you. |
| 03:04:55.55 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I think as you said at the Planning Commission hearing, this is a de novo hearing tonight. |
| 03:05:00.08 | Elizabeth Brekus | I would agree, and it's also without any deference to any of the designs that were submitted by the architect, contrary to his letter to the council saying that they should consider such a thing. |
| 03:05:10.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, thank you. Okay, so now we're gonna take public comment. Any member of the public who is not part of one of the two teams who has already spoken will have three minutes. If you can fill out a speaker card, that would be helpful. And then after public comment, we'll have five minutes for each side for rebuttal. |
| 03:05:42.24 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, I've got... Sorry, I had Benjamin Graves first, but Mr. Rifkin, go ahead. |
| 03:05:48.68 | Len Rifkind | Oh. I'm happy to see the floor. No, go ahead. |
| 03:05:52.04 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | No, go ahead. |
| 03:05:53.68 | Len Rifkind | Good evening, Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles and members of the Council, my name is Len Rifkind, I represent Bruce McMillan, one canto gal. And I have actually attended both Planning Commission hearings and now here, I will say I agree with You, that is a de novo hearing, of course you hear and you can make your own decisions. And so I want to try to make this, I think, as simple, it's not complicated. The job tonight, the sole issue before this council tonight is trying to determine what's the front property line so that we can get on with this project. On your page of your staff report, we have this thing that we've seen, this C-shaped thing with all the multi, the alphabet on it. And there's only two choices, right? Segment A that somewhat parallels Wolfback Ridge and segment G that parallels Canto-Gal. So we got a 50-50 shot here at picking which one that you guys are going to pick as the front property line. That's what I think that we got to do. So, if we're trying to pick a front property line, which one makes the most sense? you pick a line that it doesn't, everyone agrees here, doesn't abut or touch Wolfback Ridge or do you pick a line where it touches a road? And clearly it touches Canto Gal. We can make all the arguments about whether it's an easement inside or whatnot, but the only line that actually touches a road is segment G that fronts Canto Gale. If we're trying to pick From a policy standpoint, all things being equal, you want a lot. Where the front property line is abutting the street, so I think that's a very That's a no brainer on that one. The second part of the definition says it can't be injurious. And now we've had a whole bunch of discussion about what does injurious mean? Well, I'm a lawyer and so I can give you 27 different definitions of what injurious means. And so staff tells you it's physical harm to the land or the building or access. I agree with my, I'll call him my colleague Riley Hurt, even though he's on the opposite side here. And he says it means, you know, related to setbacks, light, Or a setback, and so I actually agree with Riley on this one. And I think that by picking the front property line, it affects the whole design of the property and it will be injurious to one canto gal. Why, if you pick segment A, because what it does is it makes less of a setback by one canto gal. So I'm a one canto guy gal here. Guy gal. I'm the guy for one canto gal and I think that I want a selection of a property line that is the least injurious as your code requires when selecting a front property line. And that is canto gal and the reason why is because you get a bigger rear yard setback if you pick that one. And farther away is less injurious. Thank you with two seconds to go. Have a nice evening. |
| 03:08:54.38 | Jill Hoffman | A question for you. You just said to pick the line that is least injurious. |
| 03:09:00.84 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 03:09:01.28 | Jill Hoffman | And I thought that the definition said, that It's, So long as that the choice in the opinion of the community development director will not be injurious. It's not least injurious, it's in the opinion of the community development director will not be injurious to adjacent properties. |
| 03:09:20.80 | Len Rifkind | Thank you. Well, I think, you know, Um, you're picking exact language. I think, in my opinion, I think that Any project on lot five is going to be somewhat injurious. I mean, just by definition, you're going to get, you have a flat lot and there's nothing there and hasn't been there since time immemorial. We're going to get a house. We all agree there's going to be a house on this lot. So that's why I'm using the language lease injurious. And so I think it makes a big difference. What you pick is the front property line because it drives the whole design. Because that's how the architect then will decide. what's gonna be the rear, I mean you pick the front and then by definition of your code, The opposite is the rear and the sides come in and now the architect has the parameters of how to design a house for the next round of this at design review. So that's why Madam Cox, I said least injurious. Thank you. |
| 03:10:15.40 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great, thank you. Benjamin Graves and then Laura Bauer. Bowen. |
| 03:10:21.55 | Benjamin Graves | you |
| 03:10:21.71 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sorry. |
| 03:10:23.23 | Benjamin Graves | The Pressure Manninger. for me. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Benjamin Graves, and I represent the owners of lot four directly to the north of lot five. arguably the most affected parcel. If you've seen the parcel or if you've looked at the topo, You can see it's graded at the same level Lot four and whatever is eventually built there looks across lot five to the views that are part of what's at issue. THE FAMILY. Our client also owns lots eight and nine to the south. And so I'm up here tonight to offer the council a new resource and tool by which to make their decision. I think Mr. Hurd's argument is perfect, and I was hired to look critically at his plan because whatever is built on five will affect lot four. I found his plan to be compliant and commonsensical that all the homes would face the same direction along the ridge, including Lot 51. So what I'm offering to the council is Should you decide that. you would like to make the approval of Lot 5's position conditional of a grant I knew it. so that there is no question of the abutment not only is it common sense but it is achievable. At a low budget, no change in the impact for building, We can comply with lot line adjustment or 10.64. and the council could decide that it is approved conditional upon a new property line that abuts Wolfback Ridge Road. I assure you the legal description will depict that and that could resolve all the issues before the council now you could satisfy the abutment piece Our client is not injured by this design. It's been a collaborative effort. And I thank you for your detailed look at all the matters in front of you. |
| 03:12:37.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I have a question. Sure. We have a question for you, Mr. Graves. |
| 03:12:42.53 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:12:46.71 | Jill Hoffman | You mentioned that lot four is graded at the same level as lot five. Lot three is actually significantly below grade of lot five. Not lot three, lot one. Sorry. |
| 03:13:01.85 | Benjamin Graves | So it steps down, lot three is slightly higher than four, which is just slightly higher than five. So they all look down across. |
| 03:13:04.11 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. Right. Then five. Right. Right. But one canto gal is significantly downgrade from lot five. |
| 03:13:17.90 | Benjamin Graves | grade from lot five. That is absolutely correct. If you were looking at an elevation From the city, looking back across these lots, you would see that lot one of Mr. McMillan's property, it's a beautiful property, is set down below. |
| 03:13:24.01 | Jill Hoffman | Right. |
| 03:13:24.28 | Laura Bowen | Thank you. |
| 03:13:34.50 | Benjamin Graves | So if you were to project a straight trajectory across the surface of five, you would just barely touch his roof. That's correct. And that's a proper observation. |
| 03:13:47.90 | Jill Hoffman | And with respect to the grant of the landscape easement that is currently on lot nine, staff told us earlier that that easement is already assessed, paid for, and controlled by Lot 5. Is that correct? |
| 03:14:04.62 | Benjamin Graves | It is. However, a grant would not change the use or protection of the landscape there. Right. But it would satisfy this hyper technical definition of abutment. If the city council saw that that would satisfy that appeal element. |
| 03:14:11.97 | Unknown | THE FAMILY. |
| 03:14:21.48 | Benjamin Graves | I think that it's a fair way to resolve this. And we're doing this for no compensation at our expense as a neighbor from the property that is most affected by the building that's going to happen. Thank you. Thank you. Any more questions, ma'am? Ms. Knowles? |
| 03:14:40.79 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, has that offer been made to the owner of lot five? |
| 03:14:47.54 | Benjamin Graves | 20 minutes ago. |
| 03:14:48.82 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | OK, all right. So he was just made aware of that this evening. |
| 03:14:53.23 | Benjamin Graves | That's correct. |
| 03:14:53.90 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, thank you. you All right, Laura, and is it, I'm sorry, is it? Bowen, sorry, thank you. Ms. Bowen. |
| 03:15:07.72 | Laura Bowen | Good evening. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I apologize for not knowing names, ranks, and serial numbers. I just appreciate your time. |
| 03:15:12.77 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | . |
| 03:15:12.97 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | Thank you. |
| 03:15:17.47 | Laura Bowen | I was walking my grandchildren on March 24th, which was a Sunday. I've been visiting Wolfback Ridge for eight years on my vacations. It's a beautiful place and I love hiking in God's beauty. I was walking with my grandchildren down Canto Gal and we were almost killed. by one of the lawyers coming up CantoGal to show somebody something on lot five. I'm here to talk about why setback is important and I'm speaking as a citizen, it's important because it drives the size of this home. However, this home manifests at the end of the day. cramming as large a home as you can on that buildable envelope creates a situation of danger. for people walking their grandchildren and their pets their spouses. We were almost taken out that day. What you don't see, but what you just mentioned, was the fact that Canto Gal is lower. We were on the corner of Canto Gal right behind... Lot four has an easement to lot three. We were on the easement to lot three and on CantoGal. It's... The concern is that if you've got a building taking up as much square footage as possible on the buildable envelope, your vision is curtailed. And the vision of, in this case, my grandchildren and myself, if I might. Thank you. |
| 03:16:54.18 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Can you stay with the microphone because we're being recorded. If you want to point some, tell us what you're going to point out and then you can walk over and point. |
| 03:17:03.20 | Laura Bowen | Right. you We were walking down Canto Gal toward Wolfback Ridge Road. We weren't, thank you. um, The car coming up Canto Gal was not able to see us. I was with my grandchildren here. Um, And then we began our long anticipated hike into This beautiful area. And as we had our hiking gear, we had our water bottles, we had everything, we were ready to go. walking down Canto Gal when a car comes careening up here and comes in here to talk to somebody about something, I don't know what it was. I'm here to express the concern I have about danger. about precedent setting because as we mentioned tonight, there are other lots that will be developed here. So let's get this right. And it should be. the, it should be a structure So, in a reasonable size relative to the people living there, relative to nature that's already there, and relative to people like myself who use this and have been using it for eight years. So we are setting a precedent. We're making decisions tonight that will affect the rest of the development of the lots. Thank you. |
| 03:18:11.15 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great. Thank you, Ms. Bowen. |
| 03:18:11.17 | Laura Bowen | Great. |
| 03:18:14.53 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I think so. And then Bruce McMillan. And that's all the speaker cards I have, so if there's anybody else who would like to speak, if you could give a card to staff, please. |
| 03:18:27.91 | Bruce McMillan | I'm Bruce McMillan and I live at Canto Gal, where this lot five is. Thank you, council members, for your time and work. I am more injured if Wolfpack Ridge Road is called the front I wasn't consulted, I wasn't informed, The front door of this proposed house is Canto Gale. with Canto Gal the North as the front, logically the south The Butts property line is the back. And I'm less injured with the south as the back because that will increase the back setback from 20 feet to 30 feet. And I will have less of this massive proposed house looming over my only outdoor living area My kitchen. Eating a good? living room and front door. I hope that the city council can settle tonight that the northern line, Canto-Gal is the front, And the southern line at the Butts property is the back. Thank you. |
| 03:19:46.19 | Jill Hoffman | Great, thank you. I want to ask a question. Okay. So I visited your property on Sunday, and when I stood down at your house and looked up the grade, which is like 20 feet above, I could not see the story poles from there. |
| 03:19:57.11 | Bruce McMillan | Yes. From my outdoor living area. Correct. Are the story polls correct? I'm not sure they are. At times they've not been. |
| 03:20:01.51 | Jill Hoffman | Correct. |
| 03:20:09.93 | Bruce McMillan | But the outdoor living area, I don't think you extended into my patio. |
| 03:20:13.82 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I walked all the way back there. And you can see the story holds that up. You were at the top of the hill talking down to us. |
| 03:20:15.05 | Bruce McMillan | You were at the top of the hill talking down to us. Oh, no, yes, that's the front door. Yeah. |
| 03:20:20.92 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 03:20:21.24 | Bruce McMillan | And then the outdoor living area where I barbecue and sit outdoor and look at the view. |
| 03:20:24.30 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 03:20:27.50 | Bruce McMillan | the house looms over that back area because it's closed. If Wolfback Ridge is the front, they're going to call down the cliff, the back, where the 30-foot easement would apply. And it's closer to the Butts property line and more extended over my house and the outdoor patio. It doesn't show here. you see how close it is at this Yeah, I was there. |
| 03:20:55.55 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I was there, but it's 20 feet above. |
| 03:21:00.02 | Bruce McMillan | Thank you. |
| 03:21:00.07 | Jill Hoffman | you. |
| 03:21:00.24 | Bruce McMillan | Thank you. Yes. Okay. But the corner of the house at the eastern-southern line would be moved up. |
| 03:21:01.71 | Jill Hoffman | OK. of the house |
| 03:21:08.09 | Jill Hoffman | Right. |
| 03:21:09.98 | Bruce McMillan | and it would be less over my outdoor patio area and my kitchen. and my eating nook and looking in the windows. |
| 03:21:18.72 | Jill Hoffman | We have no way of knowing We have no way of knowing if it will exceed or if they'll seek some reduction in setbacks, because we don't have the design before us. Do you have further questions? I have no further questions. |
| 03:21:29.03 | Bruce McMillan | Do you have further questions? I have no further questions. Thank you. So I'm hoping that there'll be a little more space and air |
| 03:21:32.89 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:21:32.93 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 03:21:33.13 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | THE FAMILY. |
| 03:21:33.31 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:21:33.57 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:21:33.62 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:21:33.77 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | you |
| 03:21:37.92 | Bruce McMillan | at that section where we intersect, and that's the southeastern corner. |
| 03:21:44.18 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great, thank you Mr. McMillan. Okay, Mr. Hurd, you've got five minutes. for rebuttal. |
| 03:21:55.22 | Riley Hurd | Good evening, Riley Hurd again. I'd like to start by going on the record to say that I am not. the reckless lawyer driver that was previously described. Now to the merits. I have no idea why we're hearing about notice and the right to appeal. This is my third hearing on that, and I heard a lecture about DeNovo and the last two, so that ship has sailed. Um, Then we heard about views, house size, design issues, and EIRs. perfectly demonstrating my point about the conflating of the issues here. um, really importantly, uh, The front property line does not determine Where the house goes. setbacks... are a minimum, they are not guaranteed, and if you were to feel that the house, for example, was too close to Mr. McMillan's property, or loomed, or blocked the view of the MacArthur's, or any of those other things in a way that violated the design review guidelines, you have the absolute authority to require changes in the design to conform to those guidelines. This has nothing to do with that. God. We just keep getting stuck in the trap of talking about the design, and it's not before you. That's why the injurious argument really is about the quote from your code that I posted about what setbacks do. Space, air, light. distance between the two. Just to be clear, again, it seems to still be confused to some of the speakers. We're not saying that this line abuts Wolfpack Ridge Road. We are not saying that. The staff didn't say that. The staff determination as well as our position is that this abuts Kent O'Gal. I think there are some interesting and creative arguments about the interplay with Wolfpack Ridge Road But that is not what we're saying. Finally, in regards to the lot line adjustment, That's interesting. but It's absolutely not needed as a condition to approve this appeal. So we may do it anyways. So I'm about to have to speak out with my client who's watching his son tonight. And so, Uh, It's probably not needed as a condition of approval. And finally, This is probably one of the most restricted lots I've ever seen. When you take the settlement agreement, The CCNRs. the private deed restriction, it takes about an acre and just smashes it. So that's what we're already working within I just want to point that out. setbacks are already much greater than you'll see at any other lot in town. Thank you for all the work that was put into preparing for this, and I'm available for questions. |
| 03:25:04.24 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | Yeah. |
| 03:25:14.46 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So I just have one question. Are you saying that you would not be prepared tonight to have a condition of, I'm not, I have no idea how this will go, but a condition of approval about the uh landscape easement of lot nine becoming part of lot five being granted to lot granted to lot five |
| 03:25:35.62 | Riley Hurd | Granted. Right, yeah, I do not have client authority for that. I do not think it's necessary legally to make the findings. Depending on how this shakes down and what happens next, we may find ourselves taking them up on that offer for various reasons. |
| 03:25:39.91 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:25:53.14 | Riley Hurd | But right now, my answer is no. |
| 03:25:55.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, thank you, appreciate that. Any other questions? Okay, thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:26:00.38 | Riley Hurd | Thank you. |
| 03:26:01.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right. |
| 03:26:06.37 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sprechus. |
| 03:26:10.33 | Elizabeth Brekus | Okay. Going back to the termination of injurious Things that are injurious can be so for various reasons, and obviously setbacks is one of them. Where improvements are, size, mass. Those are things that staff do not consider. that the council is not considered at least yet in its deliberations, but the planning commission did. and appropriately so. The staff report, the city attorney, and the decision or resolution previously proposed to you, seems to read 10.40.88 in a vacuum. totally ignoring other provisions of your code. Which say, for example. that if A development proposes to impact views It goes to staff, it goes to planning commission. And then planning commission would look at anything that impacts views. In the design review process, So this code section, which reports to say you can select, A front property line, it exists, that's true, and it may be appropriate to do some code clean up after this. However, It doesn't mean that it happens in a vacuum outside the planning. Commission. design review process. And that, is an erroneous interpretation and when you're being led uh, down. in the course of this. Finally, this deed at easement The city approves a subdivision, what is it doing? You have a subdivision act within your municipal code. You're looking at lot size. Is it adequate? You're looking at drainage. Is that appropriate? You're looking at lot size. Is that appropriate? Do we approve the subdivision based on things like road access, drainage, lot size? What the subdivider can't do, is after getting the approval for various lot sizes, then take a portion of the lot size and deed it. And subvert the city's approval of lot sizes in this subdivision. So while a lot line adjustment can normally be done, it can't be done as this is being proposed, and it is quite the gimmick. that Lot 4 is doing. Finally, I believe the city of Sausalito has determined that adjacent neighbors have standing when they have a right of first refusal. I'd like to bring back to the fact that the MacArthur's, in addition to having driveway easement. on lot four. also have a right of first refusal. And given that the house can be 12 very narrow. And certainly not what What council saw when they were out at the site. The likely purchaser of that property is the MacArthur's. Thank you. |
| 03:29:13.28 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Can I ask a couple of questions? Um... When was the driveway easement issued and what was its expiration date? On lot four. Wasn't it a two year easement? Thank you. |
| 03:29:28.08 | Elizabeth Brekus | No, the purchase agreement specifically says the driveway easement will remain in existence. In the deed restriction, there is a provision about the right of Lot 3. to use the driveway easement for construction As to that construction use, and only that construction use. then the right to use it for construction was to go away. It was not to expire. And it is correct that that is the subject of litigation. And when the lawsuit was filed, I would point out that Mr. Graves, who is attorney for the Patterson Trust, was not in possession of the addendum. which specific and did not know of it, which specifically stated that the driveway easement is to remain in existence. garages underneath that house, none of which are served by any other access other than this. I would also point out the subdivision map. Also includes this driveway easement. So again, you can't get approval for a subdivision map and then willy nilly as the developer circumvent what the city's decision was on, hey, adequate access, adequate drainage, adequate lot size, and just start eliminating rights shown on the map. |
| 03:30:52.57 | Jill Hoffman | is the Access to the driveway by lot four superior to the lot three driveway easement |
| 03:31:03.98 | Elizabeth Brekus | I'm not sure I understand the question. |
| 03:31:05.63 | Jill Hoffman | Is it not necessary for lot four to use that driveway to access lot four? Assuming that lot three does not exercise its right of first refusal to purchase lot four. There's no other way. for lot four occupants to traverse the path to their house without utilizing that driveway. |
| 03:31:26.71 | Elizabeth Brekus | Is it possible that you meant lot three and not lot four a moment ago? You said that lot four? Okay, so what you're asking is can lot four, Can 51 Wolfback Rich access the front door and the home and that kind of thing without using the lot four easement? |
| 03:31:37.69 | Jill Hoffman | Right. |
| 03:31:43.55 | Jill Hoffman | No, I'm asking. If, as you say, the 51 Wolfback Ridge I'm not sure. property. is Um, owns the driveway easement Does that not adversely impact the access of the lot four. occupants to their homes. |
| 03:32:07.92 | Elizabeth Brekus | Well, lot four doesn't have a home. you |
| 03:32:10.06 | Jill Hoffman | But- |
| 03:32:10.14 | Elizabeth Brekus | But it's a very common situation to have an easement, a driveway easement that is shared by two parcels. Right. So I don't know that it adversely impacts. |
| 03:32:16.12 | Jill Hoffman | Right. But it would need to be shared. |
| 03:32:19.15 | Elizabeth Brekus | Yeah. |
| 03:32:21.42 | Jill Hoffman | someone other than 51 Wolfback Ridge to build on lot four. |
| 03:32:27.88 | Elizabeth Brekus | Well, I don't know, are we adjudicating the driveway easement? To me, it's a provision in a purchase agreement. My clients purchased a property in 2008, they've been using this driveway easement. |
| 03:32:28.25 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 03:32:41.58 | Elizabeth Brekus | for cars in their garage till 2019. So is a court, let's assume that there's some discrepancy as you're seeing it between the deed it restriction. And the language in the purchase agreement and the deed driveway easement on the map. What's a court going to do with that and how is that relevant to the front property line information? |
| 03:33:03.26 | Jill Hoffman | You raised it, I don't see how it's relevant at all, but you raised it. So I was questioning some of your assertions. You raised the issue. I don't see the relevance. |
| 03:33:06.94 | Elizabeth Brekus | I was called. |
| 03:33:11.89 | Elizabeth Brekus | What I was saying is the relevance is that my client has an easement, |
| 03:33:14.03 | Jill Hoffman | is that |
| 03:33:18.39 | Elizabeth Brekus | which is adjacent to the to this lot. i.e. Lot 3. And they also have a right of first refusal and therefore they have standing as a right of owner of right of first refusal on lot four. and adjacent, therefore, to Lot 3. |
| 03:33:33.02 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. Thank you. Do you have further questions? Lot five, I'm sorry. Yeah, hold on. |
| 03:33:35.55 | Elizabeth Brekus | Block five, I'm sorry. |
| 03:33:37.76 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:33:43.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Do you have any questions? John. |
| 03:33:46.87 | Jill Hoffman | You said that... the You made reference to plan, well never mind, I don't need to, that's fine, I'm good. Okay, all right, great, thank you. |
| 03:33:58.02 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you Okay. We are up for council deliberation, unless there are questions for staff or anything. I actually have one question for Calvin, for Mr. Chan. so there was some uh discussion about the timing of a front property line determination and whether it's appropriate to have that determination occur at the beginning of a process or at the design review process do you happen to know if it's common in other jurisdictions and it seems to me to make sense that an architect and a design team would need to know what the setbacks are in order to start. um, to design a building but do you know if other jurisdictions have a front-loaded property line determination as well, or is this just not something that's that commonly disputed? |
| 03:35:05.41 | Calvin Chan | I did not look at other jurisdictions and how they handled the situation, but when the former community development director and I, we were approached with this pre-application, so we didn't even have a formal application. We didn't know what the house was going to look like, but we had to provide some guidance in order for the person to design a design review application to bring forward for planning Commission consideration. You can't design for zoning compliance if you don't know your zoning metrics. So as Council Member Cox would frequently say in the Planning Commission in my early years here, these development standards, they're not Not for granted. It's not for certain. These are base metrics that from then on the planning commission and through the design review process can figure out what is most appropriate for our community. |
| 03:35:56.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 03:35:56.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Can I follow on to that? So the Saucido Municipal Code um, 10.88.040 specifically makes reference to the opinion of the community development director regarding whether the choice of property line will be injurious to adjacent properties. So that determination is separate from the design review process of the planning commission, is it not? It is separate. the community development director does not typically that we're going to have weigh in on planning commission decisions during their deliberations. |
| 03:36:34.94 | Calvin Chan | A brand new residence is strictly designed review by the Planning Commission. |
| 03:36:38.73 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:36:38.98 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Great, okay. so okay great council member withy |
| 03:36:50.86 | Ray Withy | I'm surrounded by three lawyers up here. I'm also two of them being former planning commissioners. But I think those of my colleagues who've dealt with me on zoning issues know that I know our zoning code very well. Um, To me, this is very simple. |
| 03:37:22.72 | Ray Withy | The front lot line is determined by 88 miles. .040, period. And so that determination is made by the property owner if there's multiple streets. The Community Development Director's job is to ask Could this be injurious to adjacent properties? I've sat here for seven years listening to many appeals, and I always feel enormous sympathy to neighbors involved in every aspect of this because, you know, it's their homes, their lives are at issue here. but not here. That's why we have a design review process. Our code clearly has distinguished The determination of a front property of property lines, front property line in particular, that then drives all the others. with the community development director and the code is That aspect of the code is completely divorced from those sections of our code that deal with design review. I think Mr. Chen or Calvin has made an excellent point. You can't even begin to design and prepare an application unless you know what your property lines, your setbacks are. But also, during the design review process, All of the neighbors and all the property owners, the applicant, are going to debate. And it's up to the planning commission to decide where the envelope of the house is. The setbacks are not guaranteed. They're not a right. They're going to be, the planning commission is going to weigh in and determine where the house should be placed. I understand, again, the neighbors are worried about views, they're worried about privacy. Quite frankly, I have completely ignored all of the information that we received, all of the presentation materials that we received that deal with use, that deal with privacy issues. They are not relevant to 88.40. They are relevant to the design review, and this is where the property owners, all of the other neighbors and so on, are going to get their chance to make their point. That's the way our code works. So, I intend to vote to grant this appeal. And all of the various reasons, this is a de novo hearing, of course. But I actually was, as I listened to the Planning Commission and all the various arguments, I was, quite frankly, thought that Commissioner Morgan Pierce actually presented an eloquent explanation as to why the staff decision, the original staff decision was correct, and why I am going to vote based on, again, everything I've heard tonight, and a clear reading of our code that I intend to vote to grant this appeal. And again, I'm a layman, but I do know our code. |
| 03:41:37.28 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right. Thank you. Anybody else? Chill, chill. |
| 03:41:45.55 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, sure. Do you want to go? |
| 03:41:47.99 | Jill Hoffman | I want to take a quick look at the resolutions again. |
| 03:41:52.47 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | That's what I was just looking for. |
| 03:41:53.85 | Jill Hoffman | All right, well, they're on page 713. 774 and 776 of our packet. |
| 03:42:15.65 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, let's see. |
| 03:42:24.73 | Mary Wagner | And while you're looking for that, Councilmember Cox, members of the council, I think there are a couple of revisions that staff would suggest to those resolutions when you're prepared for it. |
| 03:42:36.73 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I'm seeing the resolution denying the appeal. you |
| 03:42:42.58 | Ray Withy | So attachments 17 and 18. |
| 03:42:44.88 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, but I'm, here it is. Here we go. Okay. It's 767, page 767. Okay. |
| 03:43:00.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | This does. It does actually state that we would uphold the Community Development Director's determination. Thank you. |
| 03:43:06.26 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I don't think we should characterize it in that way. I think we're just going to determine the property line. to the city attorney. this is framed as us. Granting the appeal, that's correct, but we're not upholding the Community Development Department's determination. Particularly if that determination was not properly noticed or had other procedural issues. So can we not simply make a decision without having to uphold a prior decision? we can grant the appeal and then make our own decision. |
| 03:43:43.37 | Mary Wagner | You can grant the appeal, and if you're inclined to say that lot A is an appropriate front property line under the definition of front property line, in the municipal code and that the determination of that property line is not injurious to adjacent properties, you can just make that determination if you prefer to do it that way. |
| 03:43:57.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:43:57.27 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:43:57.29 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:43:57.41 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:43:57.46 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:43:57.64 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:44:02.94 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Wouldn't we also... Would we remand it to the community development director to make |
| 03:44:03.20 | Mary Wagner | And we also... |
| 03:44:07.28 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:44:07.30 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | No. No. |
| 03:44:07.92 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 03:44:08.21 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | This is de novo, we're making the decision here. Wouldn't we also note in there that this is a de novo review, just so there's no. |
| 03:44:10.62 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | What would mean? |
| 03:44:15.48 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Questions? |
| 03:44:15.60 | Mary Wagner | Just to be clear, you're correct. The decision you're being asked to make today is to put yourselves in the shoes of the Community Development Director when this decision was originally made, and then the Planning Commission when they made their decision. |
| 03:44:27.12 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | Yeah. |
| 03:44:29.86 | Mary Wagner | So you are going back to that. I think any procedural irregularities, if there were any, which I think there's debate about, have been corrected through the process, but if the council would prefer to say, that, as I indicated, you know, that you are able to determine that the line selected by the Property owner applicant line A. is an appropriate front property line as defined in our code. with the additional language about not being injurious to adjacent properties, I think that you can certainly do it that way if you'd prefer. Thank you. |
| 03:45:03.58 | Jill Hoffman | So right now, the resolution does not contain any rationale. It simply says the city council grants the appeal. And so I would want to revise paragraph two. |
| 03:45:17.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Do we want to just finish with our comments? Yeah. Okay. I mean, I don't disagree with you, but. |
| 03:45:19.69 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. Yeah. |
| 03:45:22.61 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So, Do you want to comment or do you want me to go ahead? |
| 03:45:25.44 | Jill Hoffman | Sure. Thank you. |
| 03:45:26.86 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:45:26.96 | Jill Hoffman | THE FAMILY. I agree with the non-lawyer at the dais. wholeheartedly. and I too have been very careful not to include in my consideration of this matter Um, views, privacy, or other matters that will be the subject of that will properly be the subject of design review. And It appears to me that the Planning Commission got sidetracked a bit with setbacks and such, but as Calvin, pointed out. Setbacks are minimum threshold requirements. Thank you. That does not mean that that is exactly where the house will be placed. It could be placed further back, it could be scaled smaller. In fact, the settlement agreement, already requires that it be placed ten feet further back than our normal development standards. Um... I really have focused only on 10.88.040 and the strict language of that statute I tend to agree with counsel for lot 5 that I don't believe that it's necessary to grant the landscape easement to um, by the owner of lot nine to lot five. Although it probably would not hurt at some point down the road, but I don't believe it's necessary to our determination here to make that adjustment. |
| 03:47:12.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, thank you. Yes, I am also in agreement generally. I guess I would clarify that I do think that line A technically meets the definition in the code for the reasons set forth by Mr. Chan in his staff report and in his presentation tonight. I think I would also like to emphasize a point made by council member Withy that the code is very clear that it's the property owner's decision. I think where I differ from the two of you is that I do think we need to give consideration to the second part of the sentence that talks about injury to neighboring properties. And I think we have had, we have two neighbors here that are impacted by this development. And they have made excellent cases for how and why. And I think the code does ask us to look at injury to adjacent neighbors. And, but I am of the opinion that the kind of the rationale put forward. that it really is about injury related to the setbacks and the lot determination is the. kind of breadth of the injury that we need to consider and that the other injuries and the other impacts will be determined at the design review phase. But I wouldn't want to suggest that we didn't look at injury to adjacent neighbors by looking at the Canto Gal neighbor's impact and the Lot 3 impacts. So, but I have looked at those and, um, but the neighbors impact and the lot three impacts. So, but I have looked at those and believe that those issues that have been brought to light are not things that are created by the lot line determination. They are things that will be addressed. later and adequately addressed in the design review phase so there isn't injury that would rise to the level of something that I think would preclude us from making the determination. |
| 03:49:23.03 | Ray Withy | Madam Vice Mayor, sorry, at some point I want to make sure that on the record, I considered very carefully. |
| 03:49:25.81 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | and |
| 03:49:34.00 | Ray Withy | whether this would be injurious to the adjacent properties exactly according to our code. My view is that views, privacy, etc. cannot be determining factor of such injury because that is determined by the design review process. You can't even begin to craft the by an envelope of a building unless you know essentially what the front property line is. And so it would be a circular, it would be a tautology to actually say you've got to take views into account and previously into account because that's part of injury. And yet, you know, so I care. I want to make sure you understand for the record I carefully consider it. |
| 03:50:31.59 | Jill Hoffman | Absolutely. Yeah, I want to say the same thing. So I did stand on each of the various lots and did consider the relationship of those lots one to the other in terms of space and air. you And on that basis, you I believe there is no injury. that. resulting from the designation of line A as the front property line. And I agree with Council Member Withey that other injuries and impacts will be assessed at the design review phase. |
| 03:51:07.42 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great. I was also, I mean, I don't think it's definitive, but I thought the pattern of development in the area is a helpful check as to whether the code is being implemented in a way that makes sense. I just wanted to. address some of the issues raised by the neighbor lot three that I understand the issues raised that the community development director was not informed by... input from the neighbors as to whether the neighbors were injured, that there wasn't a noticed hearing. And so that's something for the city to consider moving forward. But I think in this particular case, we have, as suggested by Council Member Cox earlier, we have cured those deficiencies, if any, by the numerous public hearings and the adequate input from the neighbors during the process. So I think that has been addressed. and i agree that we do not need to address the issue of granting a portion of lot nine to lot five this evening and to make that a condition. I think those were my thoughts. too. |
| 03:52:38.15 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. Yes, now I'm ready. I'm glad to say that my analysis is consistent with, that's why I wanted to hear two former planning commissioners to make sure I was on the right line. But I agree that this, really it's quite a simple to me determination about whether or not the issue falls within the municipal code 10.88.040. I did think about the injury aspect of it. I did not, consistent with the other council members, I didn't see that the injury that was articulated was something that was specific to the lot line and not specific to the type of development that might be on the lot that would be addressed later in the design review. So those were the things in my analysis that I found persuasive. And so I would agree that we would grant the appeal. |
| 03:53:32.95 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. so it looks like we have a direction so now we need to get to a resolution that we can live with. So I think we're all, so first of all, I think there's some added language that staff wanted to add about indemnification. Is that correct? Does somebody have that language? Thank you. |
| 03:53:53.74 | Mary Wagner | Yes, thank you. It's up on your screen. |
| 03:53:54.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:53:58.17 | Mary Wagner | Mm-hmm. Staff would also like to add some additional language about CEQA when you're prepared for that. We don't have that written for you, but we can easily articulate it when you're ready. |
| 03:54:06.82 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | OK. |
| 03:54:08.57 | Mary Wagner | And then it sounded as though there might be some additional language that |
| 03:54:11.93 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Why don't we deal with these non? |
| 03:54:11.94 | Mary Wagner | Why don't we do that? |
| 03:54:14.83 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | controversial La Sequa. Why don't you want to just give us that? |
| 03:54:18.68 | Mary Wagner | Sure, so the language you have in your resolution indicates that it's exempt because it's ministerial. Yep. But because this is being brought through this process, I think we should add language regarding the fact that CEQA does not apply |
| 03:54:28.99 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 03:54:39.69 | Mary Wagner | the general sequel rule that it only applies to projects which have the potential for causing a significant effect on the environment and that it can be seen with certainty that there's no possibility that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment. I'd like to add that to your CEQA determination. Because this determination of the front property line doesn't have impacts on the environment. Those impacts of any potential development on the site will be assessed again through a design review process. And there will be a CEQA analysis, including an analysis of the prior CEQA work done on this lot. |
| 03:55:17.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So are you proposing? Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry. Given that there's just been some argument tonight that this does have an impact, I know that's not our position. There's a categorical exemption for single-family homes as well. Is that not correct? |
| 03:55:17.67 | Mary Wagner | And given. |
| 03:55:32.86 | Mary Wagner | There is, yeah. We can add that if you prefer as well. |
| 03:55:37.08 | Jill Hoffman | think we should I think we should use the ministerial at this point I think we should rely on the categorical exemption of single-family homes and the |
| 03:55:37.92 | Mary Wagner | I'm not sure we should. |
| 03:55:50.19 | Mary Wagner | The general rule. |
| 03:55:50.82 | Jill Hoffman | the general one that you just denunciated. |
| 03:55:52.96 | Mary Wagner | Yeah. |
| 03:55:55.27 | Jill Hoffman | AGREE. |
| 03:55:55.62 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 03:55:59.79 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, so |
| 03:56:09.17 | Jill Hoffman | And so that would also affect the last whereas on the first page of the resolution. |
| 03:56:13.85 | Mary Wagner | Correct. |
| 03:56:16.30 | Jill Hoffman | So the last whereas as well as. |
| 03:56:16.52 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, so then has everybody got 767 and 768 in front of them? |
| 03:56:17.80 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 03:56:24.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So, and you've made that change, you'll make that change to the whereas and to the resolved number one. |
| 03:56:31.18 | Mary Wagner | All right. |
| 03:56:31.38 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay. |
| 03:56:32.72 | Mary Wagner | And then again, staff would recommend that this condition be added. The community development director did have an opportunity to speak with the appellant applicant who concurred with, I believe, concurred with the addition of this condition. Great, that'll be a new number three. |
| 03:56:47.94 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:56:47.97 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | That'll be a new number three. |
| 03:56:49.29 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:56:49.30 | Mary Wagner | you |
| 03:56:49.35 | Unknown | you |
| 03:56:49.64 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. |
| 03:56:49.66 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you |
| 03:56:49.71 | Mary Wagner | Yes. |
| 03:56:49.96 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you Okay, so now we just have paragraph number two, which is we grant the appeal, Thank you. |
| 03:56:59.28 | Jill Hoffman | also the title. |
| 03:56:59.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I've heard the Sorry? |
| 03:57:01.39 | Jill Hoffman | Also the title. of the resolution. So I'd like to edit the title to say, granting the appeal and determining the front property line at Lot 5 of Wolfpack Estates. |
| 03:57:18.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:57:18.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:57:22.53 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:57:28.27 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | And then do we want to say because? |
| 03:57:31.54 | Jill Hoffman | I would say, and so. |
| 03:57:32.22 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Line A meets the definition and the municipal code. |
| 03:57:36.94 | Jill Hoffman | and because there's no injury. So, So I would say the city council grants the appeal. and determines |
| 03:57:46.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:57:48.11 | Jill Hoffman | and take out upholds the community development and just say and determines that. |
| 03:57:49.30 | Unknown | community. |
| 03:57:55.39 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | front property line at lot five of both back estates as described in the attached document is depicted as is depicted as |
| 03:58:02.96 | Jill Hoffman | and it says line A. |
| 03:58:04.30 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you |
| 03:58:09.04 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:58:09.06 | Mary Wagner | So if I may. |
| 03:58:09.97 | Jill Hoffman | or is properly depicted as line A. |
| 03:58:09.98 | Mary Wagner | I'M GOING TO BE ABLE TO Thank you. |
| 03:58:12.28 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:58:13.49 | Mary Wagner | May I interject, Madam Vice Mayor, members of the council? So if I'm understanding correctly, we would be saying that the council grants the appeal and determines that the Applicants, property owners, selection of property line A as the front property line meets the definition of Section 1088.04 over the Sausalito Municipal Code and is not injurious to adjacent properties. And therefore is the front property line for this lot. |
| 03:58:43.65 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yep, and then I think we just wanna Refer to line a in the attachment Because is that correct Calvin the attachment that you have referenced here planning division? |
| 03:58:49.52 | Mary Wagner | because, |
| 03:58:55.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So, |
| 03:58:56.02 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. We can add that graphic if you'd like just as an exhibit to the resolution. |
| 03:58:58.75 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | What's the big thing? Yeah. We should have the graphic. So we just need to refer not to the planning division memoranda, but just to the exhibit. |
| 03:59:09.00 | Jill Hoffman | That's right. And do we want to explain that it's not injurious to... adjacent properties because it does not have an adverse impact on light and air utilizing that setback definition, hold on, yeah. That because it does not adversely impact the provision of light and open space between structures on the same and adjoining lots. Yep, that's perfect. |
| 03:59:44.03 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:59:45.93 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you get that |
| 03:59:46.48 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. did as i did think calvin and lily did as well one question if i may for the the council although this didn't come up from owners or adjacent property owners tonight you know in staff's interpretation in looking at that determination of a front property line and whether or not it's injurious. |
| 04:00:05.73 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Can I just ask the audience to keep it down, sorry, I was having trouble hearing you. |
| 04:00:11.01 | Mary Wagner | It would also include things like circulation and access to other properties. So if we're creating this for definition purposes for future application, it might be helpful to include those types of things and I would look to your |
| 04:00:21.20 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | Mm-hmm. |
| 04:00:25.42 | Mary Wagner | community development staff to add anything that I'm missing that they think you know, would go into that analysis. |
| 04:00:31.57 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So the things that you mentioned were circulation, access. And access. I agree with those. |
| 04:00:33.84 | Mary Wagner | Access. |
| 04:00:34.77 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. So I'm trying to draft this from the dais tonight so that this doesn't come back to us for further hearing. |
| 04:00:44.96 | Mary Wagner | I think I've got it, and if you'd like me to try and reiterate it again, I'm happy to. But I think that we understand that what we're doing is saying, you're determining the front property line selected by the property owner as line A, depicted on what we're going to attach as the exhibit. that you've looked at tonight with the the Calvin's Sharpie lines. that that will be incorporated and attached as the appropriate front property line and that it's not and that's the front property line that meets the definition of the municipal code, as well as the fact that you're finding that, That determination is not injurious to adjacent properties because There's no adverse impact to those properties, to air and open space. Light. And in addition, there are no impacts to adjacent properties related to, no negative impacts or injurious impacts to adjacent properties related to circulation and access. |
| 04:01:29.50 | Sebastian Sutter-Faunholz | It did. |
| 04:01:39.18 | Jill Hoffman | And you said air, I want to say light, light and air and open space. Thank you. |
| 04:01:46.35 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, because we made changes to the resolution, I would give either of the two attorneys 30 seconds to a minute to comment. If there's anything you want to say or add. I'm sorry, of course. |
| 04:01:58.39 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I didn't say your ad. Oh, I'm sorry. Did we want to put in there that this came on, we conducted a de novo review? I do think we should make mention of the fact we conducted a de novo review. |
| 04:02:06.08 | Mary Wagner | No question. |
| 04:02:09.96 | Jill Hoffman | Sure. |
| 04:02:09.96 | Mary Wagner | Should we include that in one of the recitals? |
| 04:02:10.30 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. in one of the recitals. |
| 04:02:12.65 | Mary Wagner | where it says |
| 04:02:13.30 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | The third from the bottom? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, conducted a de novo review of the matter at a duly noticed public hearing to consider, what I would suggest. Thank you. |
| 04:02:22.75 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 04:02:22.94 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. So add a de novo review, you |
| 04:02:27.46 | Jill Hoffman | of the matter at A. |
| 04:02:28.05 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Or at A. By the matter, at A. |
| 04:02:29.64 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | you |
| 04:02:29.88 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:02:29.89 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:02:29.91 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 04:02:29.96 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:02:31.17 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great. Thank you. It's helpful. Okay, so neither of you feel any need to comment? |
| 04:02:41.30 | Jill Hoffman | to the wording of the resolution. |
| 04:02:41.33 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sure. Yep. and we're going to Well, he's an affected property owner. |
| 04:02:50.78 | Len Rifkind | Len Rifkind for |
| 04:02:51.19 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | kind. |
| 04:02:52.71 | Len Rifkind | Bruce McMillan won Canto Gal. |
| 04:02:54.70 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:02:54.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:02:54.88 | Len Rifkind | You know, I've heard that |
| 04:02:54.93 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | You know, I've |
| 04:02:55.96 | Unknown | I've heard. |
| 04:02:56.49 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | I'm sorry. |
| 04:02:56.50 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:02:57.64 | Len Rifkind | you know, That the council says made. |
| 04:02:59.76 | Unknown | as you know. |
| 04:03:00.76 | Len Rifkind | a determination that is not injurious and I've listened to all the words. I'm not hearing any findings being made. You understand what a finding is under Topanga. analytic gap between what it says in the code and what your conclusion are that it's not, doesn't affect light, air, circulation, all these things. But I haven't heard the rationale of how you've come to those conclusions. That's the gist and the basis of a finding that you're required by law to make. I don't know how many of you stood at Bruce McMillan's house and was able to look up and understand that we were going to have a project, not design review like, but finding like. And I know you guys will answer, but I'm just trying to help you now so that your resolution's a little better. We understand we'll get a chance at design review where we're going to do this round again, but I haven't heard findings about injury here. |
| 04:03:56.53 | Elizabeth Brekus | Okay. Yep. And I have a couple of points. Number one, I think that it's concerning that the city, instead of recognizing- |
| 04:04:07.36 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So this is just about the resolution, right? |
| 04:04:09.73 | Elizabeth Brekus | We're... . |
| 04:04:10.08 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Right. |
| 04:04:10.57 | Elizabeth Brekus | Right. And I think the resolution should go further. |
| 04:04:11.46 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | AND I THINK |
| 04:04:13.84 | Elizabeth Brekus | And what it should say is that in the future, the city of Sausalito is not going to bless and authorize and staff making this kind of decision. We have Other properties up there that could run in. and try and get this kind of backdoor decision. It's not appropriate. Instead, it should go to a planning commission as part of the design review process, and so the city should make clear that that is the case. Secondly, I would point out. that stating that that there is indemnity as suggested by staff kind of came out of thin air. It wasn't really one of those things that was talked about either in the staff report or the resolution. Now, it's obvious you guys had a closed session. but it seems not appropriate. to have a agreement from the appellant not even reviewed before this hearing. as to indemnity. |
| 04:05:08.50 | Jill Hoffman | It did not come out of thin air. You raised it in your arguments. You raised the lack of an indemnification clause in the arguments you made. And so we're now addressing that. |
| 04:05:17.76 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | So we're now addressing it. |
| 04:05:19.67 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 04:05:19.72 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | In our resolution. |
| 04:05:20.03 | Jill Hoffman | in our resolution. |
| 04:05:21.14 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. But also, it is a standard condition of approval, and if there's anything, it's a standard condition of approval for any applicant. So it was just missed in this particular case. So is there anything you'd like to add? |
| 04:05:30.42 | Mary Wagner | I would agree. |
| 04:05:35.23 | Mary Wagner | No, that's exactly the case. It's a standard condition of approval. was an oversight and not including it in this resolution. So we corrected that oversight by giving you that language tonight. |
| 04:05:48.34 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, thank you. |
| 04:05:53.25 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Okay, I am going to suggest that we take a five minute break for two council members to confer with the city attorney about the resolution and whether we need additional findings. Or whether what we have drafted at this point works. Okay, and I will... Council Member Cox, are you willing to talk to the... Certainly. Okay. And myself. Is that okay? All right. So we'll take a five-minute break. |
| 04:06:27.19 | Unknown | in love. |
| 04:06:28.00 | Unknown | Bye. Bye. Thank you. |
| 04:06:31.63 | Unknown | For the dinner hour, it's ballads and vocals. |
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| 04:06:37.92 | Unknown | followed overnight by more Straight Ahead Jazz. |
| 04:06:44.57 | Unknown | No matter what you like to listen to, you'll always find great music picked by jazz lovers just like you and played to suit your day. Spread the word about the commercial free station you enjoy. We're always online at radiosausalito.org. Here's a public service announcement from Sausalito Beautiful and Radio Sausalito. Can you think of a business or property owner in Sausalito that has created a fabulous green space around town? Why not nominate them for a beautification award? For the fourth year in a row, a panel of judges will review the nominees with an eye for sustainability, aesthetic appeal, and water conservation. Last year's winners included Molly Stones, Waldo Point Harbor, Valhalla Signworks, and Golden Gate Sotheby's. |
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| 04:07:35.19 | Unknown | Nominations are now open for the fourth annual Beautification Awards to acknowledge businesses and property owners that have improved the aesthetics of Sausalito's public spaces. Email your nomination by May 31st to awards at sausalitobeautiful.org. |
| 04:07:59.24 | Unknown | you Bye. |
| 04:09:52.81 | Unknown | You're listening to Radio Sausalito, a non-commercial, Part 15-compliant radio station broadcasting great music and community information 24 hours a day. You can hear us on 1610 AM in Southern Marin, also heard on cable as the audio accompaniment for Marin TV. Our FCC IDs are NWXAM1000 and MQ5FM10TX. Our phone number is 332-JAZZ. |
| 04:16:43.60 | Unknown | you Hey, hey, hey, hey, Thank you. Oh, my God. Thank you. |
| 04:16:50.91 | Unknown | Oh, my God. Bye. . . Thank you. Oh, my God. so |
| 04:17:13.48 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Sasslito City Council, and we're going to finish item 6A. First, I just want to note that we did have a speaker card from a member of the public. rich or rick and he has been given the opportunity to speak and declined so we apologize to him all right so we um just added two additional points to our resolution a whereas clause and a resolve clause and i'm just going to ask the city attorney to read those into the record. We do not necessarily think this is a Topanga type situation, but just an abundance of caution and thanks to Mr. Rifkin, we're going to add. some sort of the articulation that I think we've already all made orally about how we reached our conclusions. So, thank you. |
| 04:18:10.00 | Mary Wagner | Thank you, members of the City Council. So we're suggesting that you add an additional recital to your resolution that would come right before the recital, indicating that the council conducted a de novo review of the matter. And that recital would read, whereas a majority of the City Council conducted site visits at the subject and adjacent properties, at which time they assessed impacts to light, air, open space, circulation, and access potentially arising from the designation of the front property line. And then they would go on with the rest of the recitals. We asked also suggesting that in addition to the other changes you've already heard, we would add an additional resolved section, a new section that indicates based on site visits and evidence in the record, The city council finds that the designation of line A as the front property line is not injurious to adjacent properties. Because ample light, open space, and air will remain and there are no other unusual consequences. |
| 04:19:20.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Great. Thank you. Is there anything else anybody would like to add? |
| 04:19:25.24 | Ray Withy | Um, |
| 04:19:27.00 | Jill Hoffman | I'll just add that the resolution is going to be signed by Vice Mayor Susan Cleveland and not by Joe Burns as reflected on that. |
| 04:19:31.84 | Ray Withy | not. The new resolve is a number three, but doesn't number two still need to be changed or is number two being superseded? |
| 04:19:46.44 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | We already redrafted number two. |
| 04:19:49.68 | Ray Withy | Could I hear that? |
| 04:19:50.67 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah. |
| 04:19:50.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:19:51.16 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:19:52.23 | Jill Hoffman | The city council grants the appeal and determines that the front property line at lot five of Wolfback Estates as described in the attached document is depicted as line A. |
| 04:20:03.36 | Ray Withy | Yeah, okay, that's good. |
| 04:20:04.76 | Jill Hoffman | And then resolved three is the indemnification clause and what Vice Mayor Cleveland, or what the city attorney just read is resolved four. |
| 04:20:14.74 | Mary Wagner | Sure, or you can reverse the order if it makes more sense to you. |
| 04:20:17.79 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 04:20:17.81 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:20:17.84 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 04:20:18.01 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:20:18.03 | Ray Withy | you know. That makes sense, thank you. |
| 04:20:20.17 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yeah, let's have the indemnification clause as number four. |
| 04:20:26.28 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | OK. So. |
| 04:20:33.18 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | That's fine, honey. Any objection? |
| 04:20:39.27 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes, you want to hear it? Yes, okay. Thank you. Quickly, please. Great. |
| 04:20:49.67 | Len Rifkind | So I want the Len Rifkind for Bruce McMillan, One Canto Gala. I want the record to reflect what I just observed and I think is on the record. That the city attorney and two members of the council. Left the dais. And two members are half of the council reflecting a quorum as far as I'm concerned. I went in the back room. to discuss. And the public hearing that we've just had, I believe that's a violation of the Brown Act. This is our meeting, this is a public meeting and all deliberations are to be in public unless there's a closed session for litigation. It's just a normal public hearing that we're having right now. And so, I want the record to reflect that's my opinion of what I just observed. |
| 04:21:25.70 | Mary Wagner | right now. |
| 04:21:31.62 | Mary Wagner | Can I respond to that, Madam Vice Mayor, if I may briefly? |
| 04:21:34.66 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | You may respond, and I would also like to just respond that the entirety of what we discussed was just read into the record. But in any case, go ahead. |
| 04:21:41.83 | Mary Wagner | But in any case. Absolutely, and just to be clear, a quorum of the city council is three members. There's no violation of the Brown Act for two members to discuss a matter that's on their city council agenda. As Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles just pointed out, All that discussion is being suggested to the council and what they want to add to this resolution or not. The public was also given an opportunity to comment, which if you now would like, you've got other people who would like to comment on that. So I strongly disagree with Mr. Rifkind's statements. |
| 04:22:19.41 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right, thank you. Yes, and if there's anybody who would like to add Please have a minute. |
| 04:22:27.66 | Riley Hurd | Hello, rightly heard for the owner of lot five. I'd like to respond to what Mr. Rifkind just said simply by suggesting that the proposal that was come up with by two of the council members is open for discussion End debate. does not have to be accepted or not accepted, by any of the council members, even those who you know, proposed it and that that's what the vote is for. So if anybody doesn't agree or does agree, They should say so. This is why we have the open session now for your consideration of this. Thank you. |
| 04:23:14.31 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:23:18.73 | Elizabeth Brekus | On behalf of 51 Wolfback Ridge Road, What just occurred was that two council members went in the back and as the city attorney advised, two council members are the determining decision here. to vote it for. It goes one way. Two voted against. It goes another way. And what the Brown Act requires is open deliberation so that the public may view and witness that. What happened was that a finding The council went back to make findings and strengthen findings and deliberate this decision. And then they came back and announced that decision. And it's unfortunate, but it is a Brown Act violation. Thank you. |
| 04:23:59.16 | Mary Wagner | Madam Mayor, if I may, or Vice Mayor, excuse me. Yes, absolutely. |
| 04:24:01.67 | Elizabeth Brekus | Yes. |
| 04:24:02.01 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes, absolutely. |
| 04:24:03.68 | Mary Wagner | The council has not decided the content of this resolution. The council has been discussing potential changes to this resolution. some of which were suggested by staff, some of which arose during your discussions. THE COUNCIL a subset of the council. There's nothing to preclude you. from having a conversation with staff and with the city attorney. It is not a violation of the Brown Act. In addition, as pointed out previously and I will point out again. You now have the opportunity to discuss all of those proposed changes to the resolution that's in front of you. You have received public comment on those proposed changes, and you can accept them or not, or make further changes if you would like. |
| 04:24:53.60 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Are there any other members of the public that would like to speak? |
| 04:25:03.55 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | We're trying. Do you have any input on the additional whereas clause and resolve clause? |
| 04:25:07.13 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:25:07.15 | Unknown | Do you have any... |
| 04:25:08.97 | Unknown | but. |
| 04:25:17.88 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | I have nothing to add, but I do accept the language as proposed. Thank you. |
| 04:25:21.51 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. |
| 04:25:22.86 | Ray Withy | for the record I asked question carefully listened to the city attorney and I think I am very satisfied with the draft that was presented to me thank you |
| 04:25:41.84 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | All right. Thank you. Okay. Can the clerk take the role? |
| 04:25:46.69 | Jill Hoffman | Well, do we have a motion pending? |
| 04:25:48.24 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. So now we have a resolution. Does anybody want to make a motion? |
| 04:25:56.00 | Ray Withy | I move that we adopt the resolution that is currently in draft form and has been debated thoroughly tonight. as the city attorney has basically read out. So my motion is to adopt that resolution. Right. |
| 04:26:17.65 | Jill Hoffman | Can I just, may I recommend that we adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Sausalito granting the appeal and determining the front property line at lot five of Wolfback Estates with the amendments read into the record this evening. |
| 04:26:34.63 | Ray Withy | So why don't you make that motion? |
| 04:26:37.80 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | It's a good thing. So, |
| 04:26:39.24 | Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles | Moved. Second. |
| 04:26:40.87 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Thank you. Okay, Sarge, will you call the roll please? |
| 04:26:46.69 | City Clerk | Councilmember Cox. |
| 04:26:48.20 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes. |
| 04:26:49.12 | City Clerk | Councilmember Hoffman? Yes. Councilmember Withey? Yes. Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles? |
| 04:26:50.47 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes. |
| 04:26:55.25 | Susan Cleveland-Knowles | Yes. Okay, that motion carries four to zero. Thank you to everybody for all your hard work on this appeal and for all of your testimony. So we're going to ask our mayor to come back. |
| 04:27:56.69 | Mayor Burns | Okay, we are now up to item eight. Item eight is our city manager report, city council appointments and other council business. I'm going to ask for any public comment on items 8B through 8E. Is there any public comment? Seeing none. you I will ask the city manager for his. information to Council. |
| 04:28:19.10 | Adam Politzer | Just very briefly, as you heard earlier, we started the special event season. So one of the big events that will be coming up will be the 4th of July. And in our last council meeting, we had an update on the Dunphy Park project, which indicated that although the park will be substantially complete by 4th of July, the grass will not be in condition for anyone to enjoy it. So the Parks and Recreation Department, working with the Park and Rec Commission and the community, We'll have the parade come down Caledonia Street, but it will make a right here at Litho, and we'll close Caledonia Street from Litho, and we'll have a big block party, including all of Robin Sweeney Park. So I wanted the public and the council to make sure that they heard that. because that discussion also happened in the late hours of our last council meeting. Happy to answer any questions to the council on any other matters. |
| 04:29:16.78 | Mayor Burns | Any questions for Adam? Seeing none. Appointments to boards, commissions, and committees, we have none tonight. Future agenda items, I have one, I just want to see if there's a nod for anybody here. We sometimes, I'm just so loud, we seem to vote in the same order. Is anybody interested in having a random selection on how we vote on an item, or does that matter to anybody at all? Seeing none. Okay. I don't know. Okay, thank you. |
| 04:29:46.16 | Jill Hoffman | And we sort of defer to one another if we're not THEIR OWNERS. |
| 04:29:49.00 | Mayor Burns | in comments but I'm in a vote as as the roll call is called by a city clerk |
| 04:29:49.75 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 04:29:53.53 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, yeah, I end up being odd man out because I'm always called first. |
| 04:29:58.61 | Mayor Burns | No, exactly, and the mayor's always called for no reason. |
| 04:30:01.65 | Jill Hoffman | But it's fine. I'm |
| 04:30:05.19 | Mayor Burns | Okay, we won't put that on a future agenda yet. But thank you for asking. |
| 04:30:06.65 | Jill Hoffman | But thank you for asking. That was very considerate. |
| 04:30:09.04 | Mayor Burns | That was actually something the Vice Mayor brought up some time ago and I wanted to. I've had time on my hands for the last two hours. Other reports of significance? Seeing none, you guys ready to go? |
| 04:30:24.84 | Unknown | Stay till midnight. |
| 04:30:26.17 | Mayor Burns | Thank you. |
| 04:30:26.19 | Jill Hoffman | Well, future agenda items, I did just want to have staff report back on that issue about, and it doesn't need to be an agenda item, but I would like to hear back from staff about |
| 04:30:26.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:30:26.32 | Mayor Burns | So, |
| 04:30:26.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:30:26.37 | Mayor Burns | Bye. |
| 04:30:26.39 | Unknown | WE HAVE TO BE ABLE TO |
| 04:30:26.46 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:30:26.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:30:26.58 | Mayor Burns | Bye. |
| 04:30:39.55 | Jill Hoffman | buildings being demolished and turned into office space in the Marinship without. |
| 04:30:46.39 | Mayor Burns | which are not sure code enforcement to |
| 04:30:46.40 | Jill Hoffman | I'm not sure where it was. Yeah, code enforcement, I guess. how that has arisen, but at least you now have an address from that young man, so you can take a look. |
| 04:31:00.48 | Mayor Burns | And I'll recognize Council member with these comments on budget earlier in the meeting. |
| 04:31:06.38 | Jill Hoffman | And then we promised Vice Mayor Cleveland Knowles that we would come back with a report on our... anchor out pilot program by June at the latest. So I just want to make sure that makes it to, maybe that's part of the waterfront update on May 28. I just want to make sure that makes it to the 28th. |
| 04:31:26.26 | Mayor Burns | And then you also have a blue ribbon or a small task force on the school district. Do you need time on that? Or do you have a date you want to present anything? |
| 04:31:37.42 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 04:31:39.22 | Mayor Burns | Yeah, shoot us a date if you see something. I mean, it's kind of liquid. I mean, there's more items coming out as we speak. So I encompass those maybe in that as well. I think the biggest issue is now out on the maintenance issue. |
| 04:31:42.12 | Jill Hoffman | I'm not sure. Yeah. Yeah. |
| 04:31:48.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:31:48.92 | Jill Hoffman | biggest issue. |
| 04:31:49.26 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:31:49.42 | Jill Hoffman | NOW. |
| 04:31:53.19 | Mayor Burns | which I wanted to speak to tonight. you Okay, any other future agenda items, other reports of interest? We'll adjourn this meeting at 1125. You beat the, you beat it. |
| 04:32:02.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:32:02.76 | Mayor Burns | Mm-hmm. |
| 04:32:02.78 | Unknown | Woohoo! |