| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:06.19 | Jeffery Luxenberg | going to call to order the April 10th meeting of the Sausalito Planning Commission. Recording in progress. |
| 00:00:10.16 | Unknown | Recording in progress. |
| 00:00:13.40 | Jeffery Luxenberg | with that, we've got it. I'll turn it over to the director to call to order. |
| 00:00:21.29 | Director Phipps | Thank you very much and yeah, please quiet in the chamber. Good evening Chair Luxenberg, Vice Chair Saad, Planning Commissioner, staff and members of the public. This evening's meeting is being held at City of Sausalito Council Chambers at 420 Litho Street and is open to members of the public. This meeting is also being held remotely at 3890 Kamehame Road in Princeville, Hawaii as permitted by the Brown Act and is also open to the public. Members of the public may also access this meeting and provide public comment through Zoom. With that, I will move to call roll. Commissioner Junius. Present. Commissioner Feller. Here. |
| 00:00:56.90 | Kristina Feller | Here. |
| 00:00:57.14 | Director Phipps | Commissioner Merlot. Here. Vice Chair Assad. Here. Chair Luxenberg. Here. OK. We have achieved quorum. We're all here. Back to you, Chair. |
| 00:01:06.38 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Director. I'm looking for a motion to approve the agenda. Thank you. |
| 00:01:11.58 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. |
| 00:01:11.63 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:01:11.65 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. |
| 00:01:11.67 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:01:11.68 | Andrew Junius | I'll move back. |
| 00:01:14.30 | Kristina Feller | Can I make a friendly amendment to the agenda? Absolutely. Could I just make a suggestion that we move number seven communications back up to where it normally is after the minutes? |
| 00:01:16.58 | Unknown | Absolutely. |
| 00:01:28.62 | Andrew Junius | I have no objection to that amendment. |
| 00:01:31.12 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay. |
| 00:01:32.05 | Kristina Feller | Then I'll second the motion. Thank you. |
| 00:01:34.80 | Jeffery Luxenberg | And with that, can you call the roll? |
| 00:01:38.43 | Director Phipps | Yes, Commissioner Junius. Yes. Commissioner Feller. Yes. Commissioner Merlot. Yes. Vice Chair Saad. Yes. Chair Luxenberg. Yes. Motion passes. |
| 00:01:41.09 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 00:01:41.11 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. |
| 00:01:41.42 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 00:01:44.56 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. THE END OF THE END OF THE Next item on the agenda is public comments for items not on the agenda. Director Phipps, if you can give instructions, please. |
| 00:01:54.58 | Director Phipps | Yep, thank you, Chair. This is the time for the Planning Commission to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda, except in very limited situations. State law precludes the Planning Commission from taking action on or engaging in discussions concerning items of business that are not on the agenda. However, the Planning Commission may refer matters not on the agenda to staff or direct the subject be agendized at a future meeting. Video or audio public comment is limited to three minutes per speaker. If you'd like to make a comment, please submit a speaker card to me or my colleagues to my right, Adam Blair and Maria Hernandez. And if you'd like to make a comment in the Zoom application, please raise your hand and you will be called upon when it is your time to speak. To raise your hand from a phone, press star nine and each speaker will be notified when the time has elapsed. Thank you. And looking to the chamber for speaker cards or raised hands, Seeing none. I'm looking to the Zoom application for raised hands. Seeing none. Back to you, Chair. |
| 00:02:55.95 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Next item on the agenda is Planning Commission Minutes. We have two sets of minutes. I'll look for first a motion for the November 1, 2023 meeting minutes. |
| 00:03:09.15 | Andrew Junius | Move to approve. |
| 00:03:10.58 | Kristina Feller | Second? |
| 00:03:11.56 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Any discussion? |
| 00:03:13.12 | Kristina Feller | I will abstain since I was not president |
| 00:03:15.78 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, with that, Director Phipps, please call roll. |
| 00:03:21.26 | Director Phipps | Commissioner Junius? Yes. Commissioner Filler? |
| 00:03:22.40 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. |
| 00:03:24.57 | Director Phipps | We'll be abstaining. Commissioner Merlot. Thank you. I'll abstain. That was prior to my appointment. Thank you. Vice Chair Saad? Yes. Chair Luxenberg? Yes. Motion. |
| 00:03:29.85 | David Marlatt | Thank you. |
| 00:03:29.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. you |
| 00:03:31.31 | Nastassya Saad | THE END OF THE |
| 00:03:32.59 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. Thank you. |
| 00:03:33.48 | Director Phipps | classes. |
| 00:03:34.34 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Now looking for a motion to approve minutes for March 27th 24th |
| 00:03:39.84 | Andrew Junius | Still moving. |
| 00:03:40.79 | Kristina Feller | Second. |
| 00:03:42.06 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Any discussion? Director Phillips, who's called? |
| 00:03:44.67 | David Marlatt | Thank you. Sorry, Chair. |
| 00:03:47.17 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:03:47.22 | David Marlatt | I'd share Commissioner Commissioner Marla so I just had one question or refresh my memory the I noticed in the draft we're requiring the applicant to work with staff on the metal color but and correct me if I don't remember this correctly but I recall that we were looking at the materials board that was presented by the applicant and discussing that that would be sort of the guideline, the parameters, and that they would be looking at both the wood siding and the metal siding, or am I not remembering that correctly? |
| 00:03:47.79 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:04:22.39 | Kristina Feller | I believe that's correct, but that was part of their submission, so I think it goes with the full approval since it was part of their submission. |
| 00:04:30.67 | David Marlatt | Okay, that's fine. It's just that it was just noted that applicant will work with staff on metal color, and I thought that was vague. But I'm okay with that, if that's clear for everyone else. |
| 00:04:43.48 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, with that, please call Royal Director Fitzpatrick. |
| 00:04:46.81 | Director Phipps | Commissioner Junius. Yes. Commissioner Feller. Yes. Commissioner Merlot. Yes. Vice Chair Saad. Yes. Chair Luxenberg. |
| 00:04:49.40 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. |
| 00:04:53.13 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. Yes. |
| 00:04:54.77 | Director Phipps | Yes. Motion passes. |
| 00:04:57.20 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Next item is communications. Director Phipps, is there a report from CDD at this time? |
| 00:05:05.82 | Director Phipps | I'll say nothing to report, but I will, I suppose I'll do a brief report. I just wanted to notify commissioners that we are making a few changes to our website, working primarily with planning staff to provide higher levels of communication in connection with some of our current projects on the residential and commercial side. And that will also come with some robust, frequently asked questions and answers to those questions. Some of those things relate specifically to the number of housing mandates imposed by the state upon California cities. So look forward to those being published, I believe early next week. And I'll provide a further update at our next commission meeting verifying that those pages have been made live. Thank you. |
| 00:05:56.53 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you for that, Director Phipps. I think that would be very helpful. At this point, we have reports out from commissioners. I will start with those. At the last meeting, Commissioner Feller requested Chair Luxembourg to reach out to council members who pushed to overturn the Planning Commission's decision for insight into their decision to better inform Planning Commission and understand council's expectation. This was related to the fines for the lack of a tree removal permit on Santa Rosa Avenue. To address this request, I read the CDD staff report and I watched the City Council public hearing on this appeal. From that effort, I'm going to note the following for the record. After the Planning Commission decision, staff conducted foresight visits and found Rosen occurring. The staff report suggested further site visits rather than erosion control reports and given that the trees were not removed the staff reiterated their recommendation for $500 per tree rather than what the Planning Commission approved it was which is $1,000 per tree. The City Council actually upheld the Planning Commission's decision but they did lower the fine to $250 and they adopted the staff recommendation for periodic site visits until April 15th. The public record on the City Council's decision is clear as follows. The applicant attempted to submit an application through an inactive portion of the City's website and one of the council members indicated that had the Planning Commission had that information we have may have made a different decision there was some lack of clarity on how it got submitted whether it got submitted but that was entered in and created some confusion at the council meeting all the members of the City Council Fenta felt that a fine was justified given that the work proceeded without a permit. Given the confusion and with the initial application and the applicant's cost to appeal plus all of the erosion control reports, one of the members of the City Council asked the applicant what he felt was a fair fine and he indicated $250 per tree. The majority of the council given the initial problems with submitting the application were willing to go with the lower $250 fine rather than the staff's recommendation of $500 and the Planning Commission's $1,000. If it were not for this original application submittal problem I think the Council would have gone with the CDD staff recommendation. Since the public record is clear that the City Council supported the Planning Commission's determination that a fine was appropriate and would support court enforcement fining $500 in the future for anybody conducting tree work without a permit. And I don't think it's necessary to contact individual City Council members for further insight because I think it's somewhat clear. It also appears clear that from the City Council's comment that the thousand dollars would be more appropriate for a tree removal rather than a tree alteration. Given that they denied the appeal that up to held the Planning Commission decision as well as the cost that the applicant has occurred, I don't think that anybody in the future is going to purposely take down a tree or not get a permit because they lowered the fine to $250. Anyway, that's my report on that. If the Commission would like me to do further investigation or further comments, I'd be happy to do that. But I wanted to follow up because that was requested at the last meeting. |
| 00:09:41.31 | Andrew Junius | Thank you very much. That was awesome. Thank you. I really appreciate it. |
| 00:09:41.36 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you very much. |
| 00:09:42.35 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 00:09:43.62 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. You're welcome. With that, other commissioner report outs. |
| 00:09:48.45 | Kristina Feller | Well, I appreciate the report out on that. I was hoping to get some insight by actually speaking to the city council members. We can all look at the public record. But I do have a report out from the sea level rise. It's not really the task force. They've asked for sort of a group of people to work with their consultant to help basically scope what they're doing in terms of looking for um, additional grant money how they're working with the general plan and so on. So I was one of those people that was asked to participate earlier this week in a meeting with them. It was a larger group with other people from the community and members of EDAC were there, members that just happened to live down in the Marin ship were there, and we had county participation as well. So it was interesting. Some of my comments, which are rather relevant for tonight, and I'll expound upon them later on, for our business items is that there's quite a lot of overlap between what the Sea Level Rise Task Force is doing and what the Landslide Task Force already did. So the good news is that they're all seeing the same thing. but I'd really like to try to suture that together to be more effective and efficient with time and efforts and consulting time and things like that. But it was a very interesting... body of work that they, presented, it will eventually come to the Planning Commission for information. And it's really interesting how they're modeling a lot of different things. And I know that we've worked with the Sea Level Rise Task Force on some of the applications that we've gotten in front of the Planning Commission. And I'm delighted that there is focus and attention that is being put on these issues. Salsalita is very unique. A lot of communities, obviously, are affected by sea level rise, but we have some unique issues with subsidence and sea level rise and so on. So I just wanted to report out that that is happening here in the city. |
| 00:11:54.96 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Is there an estimated timeline and when it might come to us? |
| 00:11:58.86 | Kristina Feller | That's a good question. I don't have a great timeline, but they estimated, I'm hoping that it'll come before our summer break in August for information purposes, so we can maybe have a study session or just a public hearing, like a business item on that. But I'm really hoping that they will actually coordinate now more directly with the landslide task force and the stuff that Director McGowan has done with his consultants. And we can talk about that more because it's an agendized item, but that could affect the timeline because they haven't done that yet. |
| 00:12:35.78 | Jeffery Luxenberg | further questions or comments on that item. Any other report outs from commissioners at this time? Okay, with that, we'll move on to, is it still item five for public hearing or we renumbered it to six? I don't know how to, how do we address that? Yeah, we can. |
| 00:12:52.64 | Director Phipps | Yeah, we could call it former item 5, current item 6A. |
| 00:12:55.86 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Current item. Which is now item six. Okay. At this time, I'm going to request commissioners to indicate any ex parte communications. Commissioner Junius. |
| 00:13:08.33 | Andrew Junius | No ex parte communications. |
| 00:13:10.17 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Commissioner Marlott. |
| 00:13:13.39 | David Marlatt | Thank you. |
| 00:13:13.41 | Jeffery Luxenberg | know. |
| 00:13:13.97 | David Marlatt | of expertize communication. |
| 00:13:14.98 | David Marlatt | education. |
| 00:13:16.51 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Vice Chair Saad. |
| 00:13:18.94 | Nastassya Saad | I passed by 86 San Carlos and 31 Harrison, but no ex parte communications. |
| 00:13:26.89 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, Commissioner Feller. |
| 00:13:28.82 | Kristina Feller | No ex parte communications. However, I do want to declare that I am within 1,000 feet of 86 San Carlos Avenue, but not within 1,000 feet of 31 Harrison Avenue. I've consulted the FPPC Conflicts of Interest and Political Reform Act, particularly Section 18701 and 18702, and there's no financial impact, so I don't see any conflict of interest. |
| 00:13:53.03 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Fowler. I will give a longer description for me, but pursuant to Section 18702.2, materiality standard, I hereby declos it. My home is located greater than 500 feet, but less than 1,000 feet from the project at 86 and Carlos and 31 Harrison on the agenda this evening. this project would not affect my property's development potential, income-producing potential, the highest project would not affect my property's development potential income producing potential the highest and best use of my property change the character of my property by substantially altered traffic levels intensity of use parking view privacy noise levels or air quality therefore further will not affect the market value of my property thus any decisions regarding this project I feel are not material With regard to ex parte, I revisited the site at 86 San Carlos three times trying to ring the doorbell, but there was no phone number to call, so I was not able to get onto that property. The trees from Harrison are visible from the street. I did visit Mr. Osterkamp's house at 2 San Carlos to see the view from his deck, but there was no ex parte communication. And I also visited 35 Harrison, rang the doorbell, but nobody was home at the time I visited. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Adam, who's going to do his first presentation before this body this evening. Thank you, Adam. |
| 00:15:25.67 | Adam Blair | Thank you, Chair Luxembourg. Uh, Good evening, commissioners and members of the audience. It's a pleasure to present before you this evening. As I mentioned earlier, I'm Adam Blair, assistant planner with the community development department. And the item before you this evening is a tree removal permit application requesting the removal of two heritage trees at 86 San Carlos Avenue and 31 Harrison Avenue, both of which are owned by the same property owner. Next slide, please. |
| 00:15:51.92 | Adam Blair | that up. |
| 00:15:58.67 | Adam Blair | Thank you. So here's a location map showing the two properties. 86 San Carlos is identified on the left in yellow, as well as the red marker on the Google Maps image there. Then 31 Harrison Avenue is just southeast of that parcel, identified in blue in both exhibits. As noted in the staff report in the attachments for this agenda item, 31 Harrison Avenue is not an addressed parcel however it is referred to as APN 065-164-11 in the Marin County GIS system Marin map for the sake of this project though we'll be referring to it as 31 Harrison Avenue and the zoning for both parcels is R-1-6 single-family medium low-density residential per Sausalito zoning ordinance and Sausalito general plan next slide please So a project summary slash overview. The applicant, Ted Horton, with Enteas Properties Incorporated, on behalf of property owner SASP LLC, is requesting a tree removal permit for the removal of two trees, the first being a coast, two heritage trees, the first being a coast live oak at 31 Harrison Avenue, measuring a 25 inches diameter breast height, as could be seen in the blue parcel to the right, and a Victorian box or a pitosporum tree at 86 San Carlos, as is visible in the red, Parcel on the left, measuring 18 inches diameter of breast height. The request was brought forward. Due to concerns about the health and stability of the trees from the property owner and the arborist report was prepared by James McNair of McNair and Associates. Next slide, please. All right, so tree number one, as identified in the Arborist Report, is the Coast Live Oak at 31 Harrison Avenue. It was reported as having a leaning asymmetrical crown form extending downslope. This is kind of more visible in the photo on the bottom that I took during my site visit to 31 Harrison Avenue. Impact targets in event of tree failure are a power generator, neighboring carport and vehicle, potentially vehicle, electrical service drop, and telecom cables. The the arborist reported that the trees at moderate to high risk of failure over the next three years and is recommended for removal. Next slide please. Tree number three, as identified on the arborist report, is a Victorian box tree at 86 San Carlos Avenue. It was reported as being in advanced decline with low vigor and foliage, as can be seen in my photo taken at the bottom during my site visit to 86 San Carlos. Bark sap exudate, a fungal infection, and signs of bark detachment were all reported. The tree is recommended for removal. And then as noted in the staff report, the reason why this tree is identified as tree number three is because there was a second tree that was assessed in the applicant's harvest report It was a Victorian box tree kind of at the southeast corner of 86 San Carlos, measuring 40 inches diameter at breast height. The arborist recommended that that tree be kept under frequent monitoring so it was not included as part of this tree removal permit application. Next slide please. staff recommends the planning commission approve application 2024 dash 00041 for 86 san carlos avenue and 31 harrison avenue and adopt the attached draft resolution approving the tree removal permit staff finds the proposed project is in conformance with the criteria listed in sausalito municipal code 11.12.030 subsection b1 through 3 and fails to meet the findings which which are grounds for denial listed in Sausalito Municipal Code 11.12.030, subsection B1 through 3 and fails to meet the findings which are grounds for denial listed in Sausalito Municipal Code 11.12.030 subsection B3A through E. That is it for my presentation. Thank you and I'm open to any questions. that you have. |
| 00:19:38.87 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Uh, Adam, thank you very much. Very thorough report and appreciate it. Uh, with that, um, we're going to have questions of the commission, uh, commissioner junior. |
| 00:19:49.55 | Andrew Junius | Thank you, Chair. Adam, just a quick clarification. The Pittosporum, the tree number three, is the reason that's a heritage tree simply because of its size? |
| 00:19:53.30 | Adam Blair | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:19:56.55 | Adam Blair | Yep. |
| 00:20:00.70 | Adam Blair | Correct, yeah, because it's more than 10 inches diameter of breast height. |
| 00:20:04.54 | Andrew Junius | but the species of tree is not, if it was smaller, it wouldn't even require a permit. If it was a small pitosporum, it would not be a heritage. Correct, correct. Great, thank you. |
| 00:20:12.67 | Adam Blair | Thank you. |
| 00:20:12.72 | Jeffery Luxenberg | you |
| 00:20:12.75 | Adam Blair | I'm not sure. |
| 00:20:13.11 | Jeffery Luxenberg | with it. |
| 00:20:13.17 | Adam Blair | Correct. |
| 00:20:13.75 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I'm going to go. Commissioner Marlott, any questions of staff? |
| 00:20:19.65 | David Marlatt | Thank you. |
| 00:20:19.67 | Jeffery Luxenberg | you |
| 00:20:22.22 | David Marlatt | You're muted. Not quick enough on the unmute. Sorry, no questions. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Feller. |
| 00:20:29.63 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:20:30.76 | Kristina Feller | Thank you, Chair, and thank you very much for the presentation and the report. It's most appreciated. Just a couple quick questions. The first is I do want to acknowledge the public comment that we've received in writing. And from my count here, we have four public comments. One includes an arborist report dated April 7th from a neighboring property. Did we receive any additional comments in writing that you're aware of? |
| 00:21:06.28 | Adam Blair | outside of the attachments for the agenda item? |
| 00:21:08.41 | Kristina Feller | the agenda item. |
| 00:21:10.08 | Adam Blair | No, we did not. |
| 00:21:11.24 | Kristina Feller | Okay, good. I just thank you for that. I just want to acknowledge that we've all received those, and I've certainly read those. The other question I have in working with the applicant is related to the coastal live oak. There's not any reference to any issues with the vascular system of the tree, which is something that most arborists look for. |
| 00:21:34.75 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:21:35.15 | Kristina Feller | if they're going to make any recommendation at all |
| 00:21:35.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:21:37.99 | Kristina Feller | And did you have any conversation with the applicant about that specifically? |
| 00:21:44.59 | Adam Blair | We did have a conversation about the condition of the tree as noted in the report There was no internal cavity detected upon hammering and there was no symptoms of sudden oak death However, the arborist did conclude as per the report that the tree was in declining condition The tree also as you could see had kind of an extreme lean So there were concerns by the owner and the applicant regarding safety, if the tree were to come down, if it were to fail. But no other conversations beyond that. |
| 00:22:14.02 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. |
| 00:22:16.45 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 00:22:16.78 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Vice Chair, any questions? |
| 00:22:20.11 | Nastassya Saad | Do we expect the applicant or the arborist to speak this evening? |
| 00:22:26.71 | Adam Blair | The applicant is present tonight. Thank you. |
| 00:22:29.32 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 00:22:29.44 | Adam Blair | Thank you. |
| 00:22:29.93 | Nastassya Saad | Open. Great. I will reserve my questions for the applicant. Thank you. |
| 00:22:33.47 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I will also reserve my questions for the applicants because they're related to some confusion about the the oak and some other questions. So with that stay nearby and is that Mr. Horton that's going to do Ted Horton do the presentation? Okay, you have 15 minutes to do a presentation, up to 15 minutes to do a presentation. If you don't use all that time, you can save some of that time if you need any rebuttal after we have public comment. |
| 00:23:02.43 | Ted Horton | Yeah. Um, my name is Ted Horton. uh, been working on 86 San Carlos since this owner bought it back in 2015. |
| 00:23:13.54 | Kristina Feller | Excuse me, sir. I'm so sorry to interrupt you. Could you speak into the microphone? |
| 00:23:16.44 | Ted Horton | Yeah. Thank you. Ted Horton, been involved with the property since 2015. uh, the, need for the tree removal permit was actually George and I have a history Oh, four or five years of trees. |
| 00:23:36.23 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Can you speak to the commission rather than to the committee? |
| 00:23:38.96 | Ted Horton | Yeah, yeah. |
| 00:23:39.10 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. you |
| 00:23:40.03 | Ted Horton | Um, |
| 00:23:40.45 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:23:41.02 | Ted Horton | Certainly. Georgine mailed me on February 6th and said, hey, I don't know if you've noticed, There's an oak on the what we call on the back lot of the Friedman property does not appear to be thriving. Just looking at the leaves, which should be fully green after the rains we're having, most are brown, and they're not a lot of leaves total. So, there were a couple of trees on the property that i had an eye on i figured well this is time to get the arborist out i brought them out to look at three trees that i was concerned about number one was the one that george had sent me the email about number two is a pitosporum up in the northeast or north southwest corner that's kind of leaning over 78 san carlos and then the third was a big pitosporum in the middle that's kind of leaning over 78 San Carlos. And then the third was a big pitosporum in the middle that's got mushrooms growing out of it. I walked the property with the arborist. He basically said the live oak on the bottom, he said, it doesn't have a very vigorous canopy. It's got a pretty severe lean. I said, well, can we, restore it? Can we work with it? And he said, the problem is If you take there you can't take enough weight off the tree by pruning it. That would really make a difference. He said, there, there are three issues that you've got here. Number one is you can't take enough weight off the tree by pruning it to make a difference in if in its lifespan number two is the structure it's a 30 to 40 percent slope uh that that lot is and then you've got the tree coming out at an angle so it's a pretty heavy lean I'm not sure. And... He said the third thing is He said, if you were to take it down, he said, would you be willing to plant other trees? I said, certainly. We'll plant some other live oaks. He said, but I wouldn't plant it in this, where this tree is in this exact location because you're actually adjacent to a bay laurel tree that's on George's property that is a host of sudden oak death, the algae fungus that causes sudden oak death. He says, the problem is sudden oak death happens so quickly within a year. that, you might not notice it, and this tree would be dead, and then it would then we would have to go through this tree removal process. THE It was those three things that made me say, OK, I'm going to put the tree removal permit in. And And then The second tree, the large pitosporum, the one with the mushrooms on it, we're just going to watch that and prune it. I pruned it a couple of years ago. George and I, like I said, have a history. We were pruning it last year after George and I had talked. Uh, I, hadn't contacted george saying hey my our my tree guys are going to be out there taking this off and we had this little amusing episode of the cops showing up and it's worked through everything but it's i'm very sensitive to neighbors saying hey you've got a tree that's got some issues here and you know called the arborist, worked through it, did the report, and now I'm in front of you. |
| 00:27:10.21 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, stay up there for questions before we go to others. Let me, I just want to get one clear, a couple of clarifications. So the first one is the coastal oak is, it's leaning, but there's also another tree that goes into that. and it's unclear to me whether those are actually connected underground. Are you planning just to take out the leaning one, not the other one? |
| 00:27:35.06 | Ted Horton | Just take out the leaning one. The other one actually is healthier. |
| 00:27:38.61 | Jeffery Luxenberg | The other one is on that separate trees. Yes. Okay. It's unclear. It's hard, hard to see. I couldn't get onto the property. It's hard to see exactly. So the second question is if you were to plant new trees, you said you'd put them north to keep them away. Could you also plant them to screen the, that large generator, which is not very attractive? |
| 00:27:39.01 | Ted Horton | They are too bad. |
| 00:28:04.02 | Ted Horton | We're looking at that right now. I had to, that standby generator was screened with a stand of timber bamboo. And the bamboo, uh, Thank you. went to seed this winter. And if once bamboo goes to seed, it dies. So the bamboo went to seed, we took it out, and now we're figuring out what we're going to put in to screen that. |
| 00:28:23.70 | Unknown | I don't see. |
| 00:28:31.85 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, that would be a good thing. Have you, I know you said you talked to George, there are abutters on all sides and we got a lot of letters. Have you talked to all the abutters? |
| 00:28:42.63 | Ted Horton | Yeah, I talked to Ann this morning, and she raised the same question you did. She said, well, there are actually two oaks there. And I said, well, there's only one that I'm really concerned with. The other one seems to be sort of getting along, and I'll keep an eye on that like I keep an eye on the other trees. But... |
| 00:28:44.13 | Jeffery Luxenberg | this morning and |
| 00:29:04.94 | Ted Horton | That's the issue. And then she also raised the point about screening the |
| 00:29:10.04 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:29:10.07 | Ted Horton | and I think that's a good |
| 00:29:10.86 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay. |
| 00:29:11.03 | David Marlatt | Okay. |
| 00:29:11.25 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. And then the last question, I'll turn it over to others. You said the issues of the weight of the tree, the slope, and those are the primary ones. Have you trimmed it and could you get enough weight off of it and still make it viable? |
| 00:29:28.97 | Ted Horton | His point was, you can't prune it enough to take off enough weight to make a difference in the lifespan of the tree. He said, number two, the structure of it, because you're on a 30 to 40 percent slope hill and it's sloping, off of that, he said, it's, it's, you get one good winter storm because that, lot, 31 Harrison's exposed to the southeast where we get most of our winter weather, the winds coming in off the bay, that would, he said it could go, he gave it an estimate of one to three years, but he said it could go at any time. All it takes is one good winter storm. |
| 00:30:12.32 | Jeffery Luxenberg | How tall is that tree, would you say? |
| 00:30:15.46 | Ted Horton | Thank you. |
| 00:30:15.48 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 00:30:15.65 | Ted Horton | Bye. |
| 00:30:21.54 | Ted Horton | Well, again, because you've got the slope, and you've got this. |
| 00:30:24.61 | Jeffery Luxenberg | And you've got this. I mean, so it's. Just give me a range because I'm going to have a follow-up question. Just give me a range. |
| 00:30:38.66 | Ted Horton | 20 to 40 feet. |
| 00:30:40.33 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, and then what would the replacement trees, when you first put them, how tall? I'm just trying to get an idea of how different it'll be. The replacement trees would be how tall? |
| 00:30:50.29 | Ted Horton | Oh, the trees would be 15 gallon, I'm proposing, so 15 gallon oak would be, I mean, it wouldn't be a screening tree. It basically would be there eight to 10 feet, six to eight feet tall. |
| 00:31:06.15 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Six to 10 feet, six to 10 feet, okay. Thank you. Other questions, Commissioner Marlock? |
| 00:31:15.74 | Jeffery Luxenberg | You're... |
| 00:31:16.48 | David Marlatt | No, sorry, yeah, no questions, thank you. Okay, Commissioner Junior. |
| 00:31:17.00 | Jeffery Luxenberg | All right. Thank you. No. |
| 00:31:20.87 | Andrew Junius | Thank you, Chair. So the arborist isn't here, so you're representing the property owner. The staff report referenced that the arborist on the coastal oak that we're talking about here said that there's no sudden oak. So we understand that. That's pretty clear and pretty serious if there is. But it says that the lack of thriving is likely cause of root disease, but there's no other evidence. It's only his opinion with respect to why the tree might not be thriving. |
| 00:31:24.38 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:31:24.39 | David Marlatt | Thank you. |
| 00:31:24.50 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay. |
| 00:31:24.65 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:31:36.46 | Unknown | Right. |
| 00:31:47.06 | Ted Horton | the three might not be. It's the foliage, when you look at the foliage, and the foliage is sparse, and especially after a winter like we've had. I mean, if you look at most of the coast live oaks around here, they're just. They're bursting right now with foliage. And this fella's trying to do the best he can, but I've watched it over the past couple of years, and it's just diminished year by year by year. |
| 00:32:16.64 | Andrew Junius | But there was no real evidence in the record except that that opinion. |
| 00:32:22.04 | Ted Horton | There's no evidence of sudden oak death, no. |
| 00:32:24.32 | Andrew Junius | No. Or no evidence of root disease either. |
| 00:32:28.30 | Ted Horton | We haven't looked for it. Yeah. |
| 00:32:30.36 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. |
| 00:32:30.71 | Ted Horton | Thank you. |
| 00:32:32.20 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Junius, Commissioner Fellowship. |
| 00:32:38.07 | Kristina Feller | Thank you, Chair, and thank you for your presentation. I just wanted to follow on with something Commissioner Junius brought up, because I'm curious if you've noticed that there's been decline in this tree. Have you been working with an arborist with some sort of normal pruning or fertilizing or soil replacement, anything that would give it an opportunity to thrive. |
| 00:33:09.73 | Ted Horton | Unfortunately, that sort of lower lot, that back lot, I've been doing so much work in the upper lot over the past six, seven years. I haven't had much time to devote to it. So the answer would be no. It's been doing its own thing. |
| 00:33:29.25 | Kristina Feller | Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair. |
| 00:33:31.43 | Ted Horton | Thank you. |
| 00:33:31.45 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Vice Chair, any questions? |
| 00:33:34.01 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 00:33:34.03 | Nastassya Saad | Just one question. Because there is that second oak that's nearby, did the arborist mention any, I know they're separate trees, but any attachment in terms of survival? I mean, would the other tree be at risk if this first oak were to be removed? Was that discussed at all? |
| 00:33:56.39 | Ted Horton | He didn't bring up any risk related to the proximity of the two trees and the first one being removed. No, we didn't. We didn't cover that. |
| 00:34:07.90 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:34:10.41 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. You triggered another question, so thank you. One last one. You know, there have been some comments about screening and you've mentioned that you were you or the owner would be willing to replace trees with a couple different trees. So did you have some idea in your mind, if any of these trees were taken out, how many you would be willing to replace them with? |
| 00:34:40.14 | Ted Horton | The application said two, but I could do, I mean, I could do three. I mean, I haven't really identified a location where we'll put them on the lower lot. I've gotta talk to our guys that actually dig the holes and do this, because we'll have to do this. I haven't gotten into that yet. |
| 00:35:04.36 | Kristina Feller | THE END OF THE END OF THE The reason I'm asking is that particularly with live coastal oaks, they, they, um, they're really, they create a habitat in and of themselves because usually they're multiple um uh live coastal oaks together so what you know when you're taking one out i think that's what vice chair sawd is mentioning you know uh it's it's looking for a mate or you know some sort of uh um you know friend there in the forest so um that's why i'm asking you the question is i was curious if you or the arborists have uh recommended anything or would be willing to um you know, provide multiple trees to create that habitat situation for live |
| 00:35:47.68 | Ted Horton | Yeah, not a problem with the multiple trees. Again, I just want to keep the new oaks that we would introduce away from that bay laurel just because of the existing bay laurel from what the arborist's advice. |
| 00:36:04.82 | Kristina Feller | And with the pitosporum, There were two that were mentioned, but the one that you're talking about, I'm just looking at my papers here. Um... Is that screening anything that would impact the neighbors now? |
| 00:36:20.70 | Ted Horton | We've planted ligustrum up and down that property line with 78, and we would just be continuing that screening. I specified ligustrum because that's what the Japanese garden designer has been planning, and they figured they like it there. They seem to be doing well, so we'll just do a few more of them. |
| 00:36:47.55 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 00:36:49.73 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Fallow. At this point, thank you for your presentation. We will now open this up for public comment. Director Phipps, if you could explain the procedure, please. |
| 00:37:01.62 | Director Phipps | Yes, members of the public will have three minutes to speak. This applies to members of the public speaking in the chamber or on the Zoom application. If you'd like to speak in the chamber, please submit a speaker card to me. I'd also be willing to entertain raised hands as we don't have too many people in the audience this evening. And to raise your hand from a phone on the Zoom application, press star 9. I'll start with speaker cards. I have received one thus far. George Osterkamp. Osterkamp? please step forward. You'll have three minutes to speak. |
| 00:37:41.50 | George Osterkamp | Good evening and thank you for taking this issue so seriously. I live next door to the property and the tree is doing very well in my opinion and also in the opinion of a certified California arborist who is quite clear in saying that there's no immediate danger from the tree. Ted brings up the next storm which might blow them down and I will point out that we've had several significant winter storms already and somehow the tree is still standing. I don't think there's much difference between the two trees. I think he won't be satisfied with one tree coming down. They are close together. The condition of the two is exactly the same. I would say that the condition is good. One of the things I sent was a picture of the tree. It has very good foliage. It improved a lot. And I did write to Ted calling his attention to it a couple of months ago, and the rains have improved it. My intention was certainly not to have the tree come down. It was to nourish the tree and have an arborist who wasn't determined to knock it down. |
| 00:38:40.75 | Unknown | And. |
| 00:38:58.53 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:38:59.65 | George Osterkamp | So I think I've said most of what I want to say in the written material. I just want to read a short section, four sentences from the California Native Plant Society about these oaks. And what they say is, The Coast Live Oak is an iconic majestic tree that serves as a cornerstone for wildlife and the surrounding ecosystem. It is easily recognized by its gnarled branches and grand canopy. The Coast Live Oak flowers each spring, and its acorns attract a wide variety of birds and butterflies. Over 270 species rely on these trees for habitat and food. With its rich green foliage and unique branching pattern, the Coast Live Oak is a favorite choice for both residential and commercial landscapes. These resilient trees can live for centuries often surpassing 250 years. It's much too soon for this oak to go. Thank you. |
| 00:40:05.56 | Director Phipps | Thank you very much, Mr. Osterkamp, for your public comment. Next speaker is Mary Schonbrunn. Mary, please step forward. You'll have three minutes. |
| 00:40:16.99 | Unknown | I would like to speak out on behalf of the Coast Live Oaks at Number 2 San Carlos Avenue. I've driven by them countless times over the past 38 years that I have lived here. I would definitely recommend keeping them. Coast live oaks are an integral part of Sausalito today and throughout its history. I would also recommend An annual safety pruning by an arborist report and accompanied by an arborist report to continually monitor the health, and the future for the tree. The California Oak Foundation is dedicated to the conservation and perpetuation of California native oak woodland. I hope we, In Sausalito. can do our part in furthering the protection and conservation of our beautiful California live oaks, coast live oaks. They are beautiful. I've lived here a long time. and just marveled at are hills that are covered with them. And I would think if there is a problem in it truly falling immediately, it would be important to take it down. but I would have it monitored every year and go by the report and recommendations of an arborist. Anyway. Thank you. |
| 00:41:41.43 | Director Phipps | Thank you very much for your comment. That does it for speaker cards that I have received. Looking to the audience once more for raised hands on this item. Seeing none, looking at the Zoom application for raised hands. Going once, going twice. Back to you, Chair. |
| 00:41:55.35 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Mr. Horton, you have some time left over. Are there any rebuttal or any other comments you would like to make this evening? |
| 00:42:10.08 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, with that, I will close the public hearing and bring it back up to the die. Commissioner Junior. |
| 00:42:19.11 | Andrew Junius | I'm not sure. |
| 00:42:19.18 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Bye. |
| 00:42:19.26 | Andrew Junius | I'm happy to start. Thank you, Chair. Well, let me start by affirming, I think, what everybody in this room knows, that the coastal live oak is an extremely important tree in Sausalito. It might be the most important heritage tree we have. There are a lot of oaks in Sausalito on hillsides that look just like this, and I hope they all stay for a very long time. I'll start by saying I don't have any issue with the removal of tree number three, the pitosporum, not really an issue at all. Clearly there's some evidence in the record that it is sick and it is again only a heritage tree because of its size. And so the species is common and not nearly the level of importance of the coastal live oak. But I can't in any way support the removal of tree number one. |
| 00:43:00.78 | Unknown | MOVING. |
| 00:43:04.59 | Andrew Junius | There's certainly no evidence that the tree is sick. I think this testimony in the first arborist report from James McNair doesn't conclude the tree is sick. There's now conflicting evidence in the record that how healthy the tree is. The arborist report presented by Natalie Carey clearly says that the tree's canopy is slightly thin, but quote, is also putting on healthy new growth at the time of inspection, close quote. Thank you. We see trees like this all the time. They're tall, they're spindly. It looks like it might have been improperly pruned in the past, so it's probably suffering a little bit of that. But the coastal live oak sits on slopes all the time. It bends like this, and it can last for decades and decades and decades. So I'm very comfortable with proposing the denial of that portion of the permit so I think I'm you know I'm ready to make the motion but I'd also certainly want the other commissioners to chime in |
| 00:44:08.44 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Juniors. Commissioner Marlin, any comments? |
| 00:44:13.68 | David Marlatt | No, I think that Commissioner Junius stated very well. I don't pretend to be an expert on, you know, basically I agree about live oaks and their importance to the city, but I'm certainly no arborist. We have two conflicting arborist purports. My natural tendency is to defer to staff when there's kind of a tie, but I'm also very sympathetic to the idea that maybe not all measures have been taken to assure the health of this coastal I vote going forward. Thank you. |
| 00:44:45.03 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 00:44:45.13 | David Marlatt | Thank you. |
| 00:44:45.16 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Commissioner Merlot. Commissioner Feller. |
| 00:44:48.79 | Kristina Feller | Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Junius, I agree with everything you're saying. There's really no evidence. I actually don't necessarily think these two arborist reports are completely conflicting either, because there's a lack of evidence in the one we received from the applicant that, you know, there's sudden oak death or that there's, you know, an issue with the vascular system of this tree. Those are really the telltale signs of an unhealthy tree, and neither of those present themselves here. So we don't really, as a general statement, support taking trees down just to take trees down. So I would support a motion to deny the live coastal oak and support the removal of the pitosporum with replacement. |
| 00:45:37.73 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Vice Chair Saad. |
| 00:45:40.09 | Nastassya Saad | I'm going to concur with my colleagues here. I just wanted to note that the adjacent, the neighbor's arborist report, the only difference, of course, a visual inspection is a great idea, but they do note that they were only able to view it visually. They couldn't do the full, of course, without access to the property. But even barring that second report, there's just a little bit of, it's just lacking in the McNair report, unfortunately. So, with that, I'd be happy to support that |
| 00:46:10.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:46:11.02 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. So. Thank you. |
| 00:46:16.26 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you, Vice Chair Saad. Further comments? |
| 00:46:19.18 | Kristina Feller | it. we were gonna make a motion. |
| 00:46:21.32 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Commissioner Jurens, would you like to make a motion? |
| 00:46:24.22 | Andrew Junius | Sure, thank you. So I would like to move that the permission be granted for tree number three to be removed. But with respect to tree number one, the commission cannot make the findings required under section 11.12.030, with respect to granting the request, but can make the findings with respect to denial of the request under 11.12.030B3, and specifically B3 small d, which specifically says the value of the tree to the neighborhood is greater than its inconvenience to the owner. The effects on visual audit and wind screening privacy and neighboring vegetation must be considered that in my opinion is the overriding factor here I very much appreciate the comments from the from the public I don't believe we need to further condition this tree I think it's a healthy tree there's a lot of trees like this I don't think they need careful monitoring I would hope you know that the owner would continue to try to take care of it and prune it as necessary but I think it's frankly a healthy tree that can probably be left alone for decades without problem and so that would be my motion |
| 00:47:39.99 | Kristina Feller | I will second that motion with the request for a friendly amendment and that is a replacement tree for a tree number three that we are granting removal. |
| 00:47:49.49 | Andrew Junius | I would definitely agree with that amendment. |
| 00:47:51.41 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I'm going to, Commissioner Feller, if you point to the resolution that we have, the wording is there for the replacement of the tree. So it indicates that the condition would be to replace it with three, hold on, |
| 00:48:09.23 | Director Phipps | Chair, I can read out the condition of approval. So as related to the three trees that you were just about to mention, the replacement would be three five-gallon logostrum trees. |
| 00:48:10.41 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. |
| 00:48:13.72 | Jeffery Luxenberg | uh, |
| 00:48:14.26 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 00:48:22.78 | Kristina Feller | Sounds good. |
| 00:48:23.64 | Andrew Junius | And do we need to reduce, I mean, that was assuming that both trees would be removed. Now that we're only removing one, allowing one, do we want to reduce that? I mean, I don't know. |
| 00:48:32.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:32.57 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. |
| 00:48:32.72 | Director Phipps | The other tree to be removed, which we are discussing not removing at this time, had been planned to be replaced with two additional 15-gallon Coast Live Oaks. So the three five-gallon ligustrum is independent. Is just for the tree number three. Correct. Sorry about that. Thank you. |
| 00:48:32.74 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. |
| 00:48:32.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:32.81 | Andrew Junius | the- |
| 00:48:42.16 | Andrew Junius | Functional. Okay. |
| 00:48:47.41 | Andrew Junius | Just for tree number three. |
| 00:48:51.51 | Jeffery Luxenberg | And just to clarify, the motion that you're making is using the resolution that was provided with the additional information about striking that tree and citing that specific section. |
| 00:49:03.84 | Andrew Junius | Correct, that finding under three small d. |
| 00:49:10.91 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I just want to check with Attorney Branham. Is that sufficient for, do you need to have that read back to you? |
| 00:49:21.61 | SPEAKER_02 | I would actually ask if staff feels that they have the directions that they need, because we do have the recorded record of the meeting, so it shouldn't be a problem. But if staff feels like it's unclear, I would defer to staff to see if they need any additional feedback. |
| 00:49:36.61 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Staff is not a yes, so I will take that in the affirmative. |
| 00:49:37.39 | SPEAKER_02 | South of the... |
| 00:49:41.24 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I'm not sure. |
| 00:49:41.27 | SPEAKER_02 | Okay. |
| 00:49:41.61 | Jeffery Luxenberg | then please proceed any further discussion of the motion and there was a second right so with that director phipps please call the roll |
| 00:49:42.38 | SPEAKER_02 | Thank you. |
| 00:49:50.11 | Director Phipps | Happy to, Chair, thank you. Commissioner Junius. Yes. Commissioner Feller. Yes. Commissioner Merlot. Yes. Vice Chair Hassan. Yes. Chair Luxenberg. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. |
| 00:49:53.66 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:49:53.72 | Kristina Feller | Yes. |
| 00:49:53.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:49:57.15 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:49:57.17 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes. |
| 00:50:01.87 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, next item on the agenda is now been renumbered to be seven new business, and it is to receive and file a presentation from Miller Pacific Engineering Group regarding the draft geologic hazard report for the city of Sausalito, and our Public Works Director, Mr. McGowan, is here to start that presentation. Thank you. |
| 00:50:26.56 | Kevin McGowan | Good evening, Chair, members of the Planning Commission. Maybe a little more light might help. Sorry. I'm Kevin McGowan, Public Works Director for the City of Sausalito. And this evening we have a short presentation from Mike Jewett from Miller Pacific Engineering Group. So before I turn it over to Mike, I just want to mention a couple things. This particular study has taken more than a year to develop. It's quite detailed. And the Landslide Task force has been involved with this since the beginning. And just to kind of give you some clarity on it, just to get through some of the documents and the things that Mike has put together for this report, it took us more than an hour just to go through his presentation. So I've asked Mike to cut his presentation down just a little bit in order to kind of get to the meat of the whole issue. But it's taking him a long time to put this together with many different GIS maps. many different points of data to pull things together with it. So many thanks to Mike and his crew for putting this forward, and I'm sure there will be plenty of questions associated with it because it's an interesting subject, at least it is to me. So with that, I'll turn it over to Mike to lead us through his presentation. |
| 00:51:48.73 | Mike Jewett | Thank you, Kevin. Thank you, Commissioners, for having me here tonight. Thank you, staff and public for bearing with me. Um as kevin mentioned my name is mike chewett i am an engineering geologist with miller pacific engineering here in marin we do on-call engineering services for the city among many many other clients and so we're pretty familiar with uh Wethertown and both its beauty and its hazards. Go ahead and start with the first slide. So this all began with the task force. Very briefly, the purpose here was to provide an evaluation of the unique hazards that impact Sausalito. |
| 00:52:17.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:28.30 | Mike Jewett | and to develop some means by which those hazards might be mitigated or prevented or otherwise handled. Good, next slide. The first step to this involved doing some geologic mapping. We updated the The geologic mapping in town, previously the only or best available mapping was done in the mid 70s on a very blurry old topo map that itself actually came from the 1920s. We have created this in a nice digital format that's compatible with MarinMap and all your favorite GIS software platforms. Um, it is now in full color and the, the refinement here is based on both some field reconnaissance, boots on the ground, making sure things are where they're shown. And, um, also some interpretation of satellite data where we can't get access to things like private property or protected habitat, et cetera, et cetera. actually. Once we had our geologic map, we developed this geologic hazard zone map, which is really the meat of the presentation, and I will show you that completed map in just a minute. The hazards that we addressed in this study include slope instability, aka landsliding. The process for creating those hazard zones involved preparing a landslide inventory map, simply a catalog of existing and known historic landslides. involved preparing a map showing different slope angles in the hills and valleys around town. Thank you. and involved assigning each of the rock and soil materials in town a unique value representative of their strength. For liquefaction and settlement, those are a little more straightforward where really the basis for defining those zones has to do with the geology and the geology alone. Thank you. Thank you. For landslide hazard zones, the methods we used here are really patterned after the methods that the United States and California geologic surveys use. This involves having, again, some field reconnaissance to identify an inventory existing slides. Involves assigning some strength values for materials. Understand that this is the part that can be a little bit gray area because we don't have drill holes and drill holes and lab data and lab data. and then combining those two maps, slope angle plus material strength, gives us a sense for which areas are more susceptible versus which areas are less susceptible to sliding. That is a key distinction. This map shows relative susceptibility, which should not be misconstrued with probabilities. Next slide. liquefaction and settlement. I did hear some illusion previously during Ms. Feller's sea level rise talk. Settlement occurs where you have got new loads placed on the old marsh, the very soft, stinky bay mud y'all are very familiar with. When you put your weight on it, you sink into it. And so most of MarinShip where artificial fill was placed in order to accommodate the development, As you well know, those areas have historically settled, and some of them are continuing to settle. Liquefaction occurs in those very same areas. The difference is that the bay mud itself is not liquefiable, it is in fact the fill that was usually placed and not very well compacted and it's saturated with groundwater and when you shake it, it essentially turns to strength, you know, lacking liquid. Some of you have walked along the tide line at the beach and tried to sink your foot into the sand, and it works really well where there's water, but not so much on the dry beach. Um, Typical effects here are subsidence of the ground surface, which sounds pretty benign, but that also impacts your drainage systems and surface drainage patterns and subsurface utilities. And can also cause pretty significant damage to structures, including foundations, utility connections, framing, all that good stuff. The image on the left there is the geologic zone hazard zone map that we've come up with. The purple areas represent the settlement and liquefaction zones that I just described. As you can see, those are mostly concentrated in the Marin ship slash Waldo point and kind of downtown ferry landing areas. There's a very small strip of fill along bridgeway there, um, on the Southern waterfront told toward old town. The other colorful zones represent the different landslide susceptibility zones. And so the red colors are the very high susceptibility zones. These are areas where the slopes are either extremely steep or underlain by very weak materials, or in many cases, both. The green and yellow zones are areas of low and moderate susceptibility, respectively. The gray areas are zones of very low susceptibility, which of course represents most of the flatter and gentler slopes in town. |
| 00:57:41.38 | Mike Jewett | All right, this is the fun part. Those are the maps we made. Now the question is, well, what do we do with them? I'm going to cover a few different things here. There are a couple general considerations. This topic gets a little more in-depth and complex than I think it seems on the surface. But some of the more tangible recommendations we've got have to do with monitoring and documentation in a lot of these areas, have to do with maintaining the existing facilities that are out there, of which there are many, and have to do with evaluating proposed new development or redevelopment. |
| 00:58:18.93 | Mike Jewett | Right off the top, a couple things to be clear. Really, the primary purpose of these recommendations is in the interest of life safety. We're geotechnical engineers. We're really driven by compliance with building codes and making sure that people don't get hurt. There may be other considerations that play into this, which we'll touch on a little bit. A secondary purpose here, which shouldn't be ignored, is that the point of these is really to aid the city in most effectively and cost efficiently allocating the resources it has at its disposal, because there frankly is a lot to address and with every jurisdiction, the resources are limited. Very general recommendations, and some of which may already be in progress and some of which might be worth kind of refreshing. Developing cooperative working relationships with critical stakeholders. There are a lot of entities who own infrastructure, property, facilities that either by themselves impose some hazard or risk or are integral to risks and hazards that the city has borne. Examples of these are Caltrans, GGNRA, the Water District, your local sanitary district, Everybody's in this together, and it turns out that approaching some of these issues oftentimes works a lot better when people are on the same page and able to share information. That's a big key. um, As a dovetail to that, this study has been provided in digital GIS format. This is a relatively new software suite. I'm sure everybody is at least cursorily familiar with it through things like MarinMap and the Sea Level Rise Viewer. This is something that the city really can build on and should be seen, I think, as kind of a living document. It's something that could be used both in-house by city staff for evaluating planning or zoning decisions or what have you. Could be used by the public to investigate, you know, what hazards they might face or what might be entailed with, you know, proposing work on their property. There are a few ways this could be refined, which we could talk about in detail probably as part of the Q&A here in a minute. I suspect there will be some questions. One of those things I think that really could be beneficial would be using this as a basis an infrastructure database to be kept by the Department of Public Works. I'm not sure. Excellent. Um, Monitoring and documentation springs me to my next point. Developing an infrastructure database for the purpose of prioritizing evaluation and monitoring and maintenance and repairs at specific sites. What we've done is provide kind of a broad brush overview, something the city can use to identify areas where there are concentrations of hazards or, you know, general hotspots. But we have not gone to the level of identifying, you know, each and every site and developing, you and developing pre-design or design level concepts to fix those things. being able to catalog all the critical improvements in older structures. You know, how many retaining walls does the city own? Where are they? What condition are they in? At what point might they be ready for maintenance or replacement? You know step one is to catalog the the facilities and areas that the city is responsible for maintaining The second step is to actually inspect those and document them on a regular basis most jurisdictions we do this and we we do re-inspections on a rolling one to three year to five year interval, depending on what their local DPW staff has observed, depending on how severe the winter was, et cetera, et cetera. We use those successive inspections to kind of evaluate the rate of activity and level of risk. Things that were a high priority last year but hasn't changed very much may now be lower priorities if something much more severe has suddenly cropped up in recent time. Once we've got that database and have a sense for, you know, really which are the highest priority sites, we've been using that to sort of develop some conceptual or schematic options for repair and start to get at preliminary cost estimating. And that helps DPW plan for annual maintenance, for CIP projects, things like that, both kind of near and long term. And then, you know, once you have all that in hand, Again, beyond geotechnical, there are always other considerations, such as how much money do we have, how many neighbors will be annoyed, how many people will complain if we do do it versus don't do it, et cetera, et cetera. At least having a sense for overall level of cost and what the likely work would be might help you prioritize those in a way that makes the most sense. Lastly, funding's always a big thing. Where's the money gonna come from to do all this inventory and databasing? That's not something we normally would comment on, but is something we've sort of been asked to touch on here. So I will get to potentially creating a geologic hazard abatement district. Which brings me to maintaining existing improvements. Lots of them need to be maintained. I'm sure a lot of you have hillside homes, you've dealt with drainage systems and retaining walls and collapsing pavement and you name it. That stuff is very expensive, it turns out. I'm sure Mr. McGowan can attest to the cost of doing public works maintenance these days. The idea here is that this geologic hazard abatement district would provide an administrative and funding mechanism for maintaining and improving infrastructure in these hazard zones. Within the liquefaction and settlement zones, you know, this could accommodate regular updates of the database. It could accommodate periodic surveying of the ground surface. How quickly are our drainage facilities settling and how much time have we got before the flooding becomes untenable? Ultimately, it could fund new improvements or mitigation such as underpinning buildings or rebuilding storm drains or what have you. Within landslide zones again, this could fund annual roadway maintenance could fund retaining wall improvements or stabilization drainage system maintenance things like that and The big trick here to me and something the city probably should consider carefully is how do you delineate the boundaries of this zone? One thing to note, you probably saw on my map, there's a whole lot of red area in the town. It's also a lot of gray area. just because someone lives in the gray area doesn't mean they aren't necessarily reliant on the public infrastructure in those red zones for emergency access, utility service, what have you. And so rather than simply saying, hey, the limit of the zone on the map is what we should use for any, you know, if an assessment district or something were to be considered, I do think that's something that warrants a little bit of consideration because, as I'm sure you anticipate, there will be opinions on both sides of that fence. |
| 01:05:34.94 | Mike Jewett | All right, lastly new development and redevelopment this really is the point that probably has most to do with this commission's function and interest The idea here would be if you don't already have one and forgive me I personally am not usually involved in submitting permit applications. I only respond to comments when necessary I do not know if the city has an existing Hazard zone ordinance or hillside development ordinance or anything similar. To be frank, only a few of the jurisdictions in Marin really do, and the one I work with most often goes back to 1971. It really predates the modern practice of geotechnical engineering and has no teeth, is the bottom line. you know, the the idea here would be to require, you know, adequate more stringent engineering evaluation than is currently codified for development and redevelopment in areas that lie in these hazard zones or could affect areas in these hazard zones. Um, we did in our report provide a fairly extensive section with some very specific recommended language, um, that speaks to different requirements at different levels of the permit process. In other words, one document with a certain level of complexity and data might be required at the planning level, whereas something more detailed and appropriate for design analyses and things like that would be required at the building permit level. The language we've used is really frankly modeled after ordinances that do exist elsewhere in California, San Francisco, LA County, City of San Diego, Carpinteria, Santa Barbara, places you've probably seen in the news is dealing with landslides and mudslides. Many of them have something like this on the books. You know, the best part of this, this is, again, something we don't do in Marin, but does happen quite a bit at the state level when we work on schools and hospitals and such. It really creates clear and consistent expectations for applicants. It lets the applicant and their consultant know right up front, here's what you should come in with in order to expect an efficient permit review process. Thank you. It really is intended to streamline the preparation and the review. It makes it easier for applicants, and it should make it easier for staff by having a simple checklist to say, did they bring this or did they not bring that? Um, You know, other goals here are really to reduce the risk of unexpected conditions during construction. I think I put it on my last slide, but fairly plain, the goal here is not to tell people what they can or can't develop. There's no, there's no bent toward prohibiting anything in particular. The goal is merely to make sure that things are designed and constructed safely and with an adequate standard of care. Um, You know, and lastly, reducing the likelihood of adverse post construction impacts. In other words, if we permit this to be built, are they now going to be dumping drainage on their neighbor's lot and creating issues down there? Ultimately, that's, you know. Thank you. in the spirit of the reason you have these things on the books, but the lack of specificity, I think, in the current codes leaves open a lot of gray areas for these. And we spend a lot of time doing peer reviews and going back and forth with applicants, partly because I think the expectations regarding the level or standard of care required in these really scary areas, those expectations just aren't clear and on paper. Um, Oh, I did put it there. It's in bright red. This is not intended to restrict development. Let me reiterate that. This is really just getting in line with what everybody else is doing in 2024. Next slide. So here we go, the Hazard Map Ordinance. Specific language is in there. We've got minimum requirements. Another really key note here is something we've learned in the process of consulting from our attorneys and our insurers is that we don't want to dictate the standard of practice, so to speak. The code lays out certain requirements for design and investigation and requires engineers like us to make recommendations. It is up to the engineer to justify those recommendations based on a scope of study they come up with. There's a very fine line here. And so the idea is to provide some minimum guidelines, but let the applicant's consultant determine what above and beyond that may and may not be required for them to stamp it. Um, again, this includes requirements at the planning and the building permit phases, again, for the purpose of streamlining things and not having people come in with building documents that have missed some very, very big red flags or critical issues. Includes requirements for the very specific scope of study. And then I think this is the last bit here, other bright red things. This has all been written up from a geotechnical consulting perspective. There are probably some ancillary dovetail considerations with things like public finance policy, with legal advice. The city or if the city decides to consider incorporating some of these guidelines or developing an ordinance based on these guidelines Really recommend that you work with the city attorney as needed You know just to make sure that there's nothing in there that might come back to Haunt the city or or create some kind of conflict amongst the constituents and again lastly ultimately the the responsibility for the scope of work on any development projects should be up to the engineer who is stamping those drawings. We really do think that the city's best interest is simply to make sure that those engineers are doing something that seems reasonable and is supported by science and data. Thank you so much for bearing with me. Happy to answer any and all questions you may have. |
| 01:11:49.23 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you very much. Very thorough. This report is badly needed here, obviously, given the hillsides and what we have and the number of slides that we've had and the water and all of that. This is critical. I understand the monitoring of infrastructure. I think that's an important piece that lands with our public works department. That's very helpful. Can you talk a little bit about, you talked about two phases, like the planning stage and then the building permit stage, but the state of California has adopted a whole bunch of laws with regard to development requiring what are called objective design and development standards. And have you seen, I mean, it's great to say the engineers will review it and make sure it's okay at those two stages, but basically our ordinances now really have to be written to say, one, reviewing it when you see it, which is that on a certain slope of land, you know, you can build on a slope up to X percent or if it's over X percent, you have to do these things or you have to tie it into the bedrock or all of those standards. Have you seen this in a way that's not so much being reviewed by the engineers in a review process, which is somewhat subjective? Have you seen very specific design and development standards for these hazards? |
| 01:13:19.21 | Mike Jewett | Yes, but only in rare situations, I think. In other words, the building code has a little bit of that in the appendix that deals with grading, where it provides minimum standards for things like setbacks from slopes or proximity to the crest of slopes. There are some areas... And to be frank, they're not areas we we do a lot of work in. It's mostly Southern California, which have frankly happened on by happenstance through reviewing other projects. There are some areas that say things like, |
| 01:13:51.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:13:51.54 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:13:51.73 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:13:52.89 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Harry. |
| 01:13:53.36 | Mike Jewett | Um, |
| 01:13:54.04 | Jeffery Luxenberg | It was on... That's okay. Keep going, Mike. Keep going. No, that's okay. |
| 01:13:58.22 | Mike Jewett | No, that's okay. There are areas that dictate certain minimum standards. In other words, if you have a slope steeper than two to one, thou shalt not use shallow foundations. Thou shalt drill piers. To be honest, it's pretty rare, and I think that is where you kind of butt up against this notion of who is really the engineer of record. remember that should something go wrong on a project that's approved and constructed, Well, first, everybody gets sued, right? All the consultants and the city that approved the project. But when it comes down to it, the liability for the design it's in everybody's best interest if it's born by the engineer. Um, You know, speaking from a peer reviewer capacity as a consultant to the, to the town of Fairfax, for example, where we do a lot of this, if I get up there and I say, you know, applicant, your house is on a steep slope. Your engineer recommended this drainage system. I personally don't think that's enough. You need to use this minimum detail. If anything goes wrong, now it's effectively the town that's engineering the project. And that gets to be a really sticky area when it comes to insurance claims or lawsuits and honestly licensure. Our licenses are regulated just like attorneys. You know, we report to a board, they take action when people are unscrupulous either for ethical or malpractice reasons. Um, You know, and the bottom line is I think that imposing Design standards, there are situations where it may be worthwhile and beneficial, but I think those will be few and far between. |
| 01:15:38.39 | Jeffery Luxenberg | So how do you, so in that case, how do you, how do you make sure on a slow plot that somebody wants to put housing, for example, because that's most of the state laws, and if the city's not gonna set minimum standards, then they're gonna rely on the applicants, engineers, and then in the review process, you as a peer reviewer say, no, that's not gonna work, and they say, we wanna build this, we're allowed to build this by right, what do you do then? |
| 01:15:49.60 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:16:09.09 | Mike Jewett | Well, and that that is also a tricky situation. The approach here is to have the code be clear about What data the engineer must collect and interpret in order to justify his conclusions? The part that the city won't have any control over frankly is that justification of conclusions part Right. I get reports all the time where I disagree with a particular design value that somebody used. They might say things like bedrock imposes no active pressure on walls. I can tell you that's ridiculous and doesn't make sense for the last 30 years of engineering study and frankly observations in the field. |
| 01:16:50.47 | Kristina Feller | I think that's getting way too in the weeds for what the purpose of this is. |
| 01:16:50.90 | Mike Jewett | but. |
| 01:16:54.95 | Mike Jewett | Anyway, and excuse me, maybe if I backed up and- |
| 01:16:57.20 | Kristina Feller | Because it's really, you're right, it's the means and methods of an engineer and that's correct. I think what we're talking about more is the level of documentation required and, you know, what that sequencing would be. And if I might comment to... |
| 01:17:00.00 | Mike Jewett | It is. |
| 01:17:09.10 | Andrew Junius | And if I might comment to the question that Chair Luxembourg is raising, the objective standard world that the planning department and the planning commission is being forced into with respect to zoning issues and building envelope issues and design issues has absolutely nothing to do with this. Correct. |
| 01:17:27.91 | Unknown | to do with it. Correct. |
| 01:17:30.16 | Andrew Junius | There's absolutely no way that those two parts bleed together. There's plenty of subjectivity, frankly, in how engineers decide which is the best solution. And ultimately, the project engineer is going to sign off on the project and be responsible. But the objective, the concept of objectivity, nothing that doesn't bleed into the building of the building. It's only reserved for the planning of the building. |
| 01:17:51.98 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I was looking to see if you had seen an ordinance that limited, you know, slope above a certain thing or if a slope is above a certain thing, what are the standards that are required? Have you seen that even in LA or anywhere else? |
| 01:18:04.94 | Mike Jewett | So the way they approach it is the same way I've recommended here, which is true. The standard you're setting is what the applicant's submitted engineering report must contain and must address. It is not dictating what construction design methods or details or materials they shall use. So what we're suggesting is that at the planning level, when you have projects that are in a high risk zone, Um, at the planning level they should come in with something like a geotechnical feasibility study. This need not go to the expense of taking subsurface samples. It's merely a screening level Report geared toward identifying critical issues and big red flags that would affect planning level decisions So in other words, Sausalito common issues are It's very steep and the parcels are pretty small a lot of these houses are built very close to their lot lines And they're all butting up against the minimum setbacks and Shoring deep excavations gets really expensive when they get more than about 10 or 15 feet, and usually the effective approach is to use soil nails. At the planning level, it's really helpful to know if their shoring design is going to wind up being on someone else's property. That's come up several times. So the idea at the planning level is that you would get from the geotechnical engineer commentary on things like probable foundation systems, probable drainage system requirements. What kind of grading will be required? Are we looking at doing 10 and 15 foot cuts? Can those hold vertical during construction? Do they need to be sloped or short? This, you know, A, helps the Planning Commission helps the applicant develop their, their project enough to come in for things like design review and setbacks and variances. Um, It also saves them the expense of getting full design plans without really understanding the critical problems that could ruin everything later on. Once you get through planning, then you come with a design level investigation at the building stage. And that's where really some more thorough review of the actual design values, you know, per the building code is warranted. One thing that most jurisdictions do or should do, and again, I'm not sure when or how it happens. Before a building permit is issued, most places require that the geotechnical consultant look at the plans and provide a letter stating that yes, they incorporated my recommendations, and This is something I can certify when it's time to close the permit out. And then during construction, We suggest there be a requirement that the geotech actually be on site to observe those critical portions. Oftentimes when you start building, things are not what they thought you were. There is always some changed condition. Oh, there's a pipe we didn't expect, or there's an old foundation, or hey, the neighbor's sewer line is right under here. That's where our foundation was going. It's helpful during construction for the engineers to be on site in order to respond to different conditions. and keep the owner from from potentially or their contractor from making poor decisions that might have an adverse effect either on city interests or on their neighboring properties. |
| 01:21:22.90 | David Marlatt | Thank you. |
| 01:21:22.91 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:21:22.93 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 01:21:23.03 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:21:23.37 | David Marlatt | Good. |
| 01:21:23.44 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Okay, thank you. |
| 01:21:24.50 | Mike Jewett | Thank you. |
| 01:21:24.52 | Director Phipps | And if I could, if I may, I'd just like to frame this issue a bit from the community development perspective. So my concern here, and I really appreciate Mike and Kevin for the perspective and kind of suggestions that they're providing at this meeting. What I'm most concerned with is something like the Housing Crisis Act, which prohibits a local agency from enacting a development policy or standard or condition that would reduce residential development capacity on a given site. So when we talk about avoiding these kinds of restrictions at the planning level, that gives me some confidence that the Housing Crisis Act will not be violated in this process. And some of the details and kind of more engineering and technical... confidence that the Housing Crisis Act will not be violated in this process. And some of the details and kind of more engineering and technical oriented evaluation can be done a little bit at the planning phase, but not in a way that's gonna restrict development and then can be finalized during the building permit application phase. So just wanna point that out and kind of frame it. |
| 01:21:24.62 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I've. |
| 01:22:27.61 | Kristina Feller | Can I make a follow up comment to that? Yes, Commissioner. Just from the standpoint and the perspective of being in these working groups with both Mike and Director McGowan, this issue did come up and we did discuss it to make sure that there wasn't anything that we were doing directly or inadvertently. |
| 01:22:29.13 | Director Phipps | Yes, Commissioner. |
| 01:22:47.66 | Kristina Feller | to impact the housing element and the demands on Sausalito here. So there was great care taken to make sure that we sidestepped that. |
| 01:23:00.67 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. May I make a- Vice Chair Saad. |
| 01:23:01.18 | Nastassya Saad | of the May I make a... I'm coming from the opposite angle here, but it's on the same topic. Because this is such a critical set of information that we have needed for such a long time. And all of the work that Commissioner Feller has done on the task force all of this time since 2019, I believe, is a long time coming. And while there is the Housing Crisis Act, and there are a lot of laws that sort of tie our hands, can this not be used as a resource to show constraint within our city when we have to go to a bag and we have these RHNA numbers to show that we have these types of hazards for you know buildability or lack thereof is this not |
| 01:23:52.12 | Kristina Feller | Well, I mean, that's not new. Yeah. I mean, we have 80% of Sausalito is on a slope of 30% or more. Exactly. That's extreme, and, you know, all of that's already documented with ABAG and others. So it's a good question. I don't know if Commissioner Junius has something to add. |
| 01:23:54.72 | Nastassya Saad | Yeah. |
| 01:24:00.59 | Nastassya Saad | Absolutely. |
| 01:24:10.38 | Andrew Junius | Interesting. Well, I mean, I think from the housing element and the RHNA goals perspective, I think it's pretty obvious we're not going to meet a significant amount of that goal on the hillside. So, you know, in reality, huge amount of small, you know, small privately owned parcels. And, you know, I agree it's a very important issue. And I've got some interesting questions. And I think this is really important. but I don't think anybody's going to be proposing 1,000 units that's going to require the complete excavation of half the city to build. I'm not too concerned about that. |
| 01:24:12.73 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. you |
| 01:24:12.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:24:45.65 | Mike Jewett | Well, and one thing to keep in mind is even if they did propose that, from an engineering standpoint, I mean, the... The core idea of being an engineer is being able to solve problems, right? Given infinite budget and time, we can design and build you anything. The problem is the budget required is most often incongruent with what applicants are thinking. Um, It's all doable. It's all, frankly, common in steep hillside jurisdictions. And at least from my perspective, I don't think that there's a reason imposing an ordinance that requires a standard of care for engineering should necessarily conflict with things like housing mandates or zoning or development envelopes or things like that. They're related issues, but I don't think that they're inherently Um, you connected at that level, so to speak. |
| 01:25:39.56 | Andrew Junius | Yes. So I think there's something I've never fully understood, and I've been on the planning side for a million years. Doesn't the California Building Code basically address this? Isn't there, I mean, where's the, I'm kind of always shocked. |
| 01:25:52.22 | David Marlatt | It really does, Commissioner Junius. It really does. And I'm sorry I didn't want to interrupt. But a lot of the issues, super critical issues, but many of them are addressed. But over on the building side, Sausalito already requires geotechnical reports, already requires that the geotech reviews the foundation that's submitted as part of the building permit process. evaluated information can be subjective. Sacramento doesn't deal with, you know, objective building code. as part of the building permit process, evaluated information can be subjective. Sacramento doesn't deal with, you know, objective building code standards. And I'm just fascinated, kind of starting back where Chair Luxembourg joined in, is |
| 01:25:56.61 | Andrew Junius | Yeah, please. |
| 01:25:56.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:26:30.11 | David Marlatt | What can we as planners do? I'm a little bit skeptical, honestly, of introducing a requirement to at a planning level to submit a geotechnical report, for example, for housing or commercial or anything, because I'm wondering who's going to evaluate that at the CDD and on what basis. That sort of information always occurs on the building side. Sometimes I wish it would occur on the planning side because it would avoid a whole lot of headache later about shoring and soil nails and all that sort of thing. But in my experience, and maybe Mike has different experiences in San Francisco and other places, The planning department just kind of puts blinders on and goes, yes, I know those might be problems down the down the low down this down the road. And I've heard the Planning Commission do exactly the same thing in San Francisco. But those are building problems. Building will deal with that, of course. building is thrilled when that happens, as you can imagine. um so i'm just really interested if there's any what can we do as planners can we say that i'm just throw something out you know kind of crazy but like is portion of wolfback ridge off limits, just rezoned, you know, unilateral, uniformly, or a lower density or a lower number of stories. Um, I'm just wondering what we what can we do as planners within the technical expertise of both the commission and the planning staff to avoid these future, you know, over engineered project projects that turn out to be unfeasible when they reach when they're approved by us, but they later reach the building building department stage. |
| 01:28:02.55 | Kristina Feller | So maybe we should go back to the recommendations, the 12 recommendations that were in the 2019 report, because I think that the report, this report that we're looking at tonight, that Mike, his team and Director McGowan had put together actually addresses a lot of what was asked out of here. One of them was to, actually consider creating the GAD, the Geological Hazard Abatement District. What might that look like? Number nine is we said direct staff to address the Sausalito Municipal Code. Yes, we have the California Building Code, but we have our own Sausalito Municipal Code, which is woefully out of date. We know that. But there are inconsistencies in here. And so part of the recommendations that we're also looking at are you know you know asking you know Mike and his team to you know make make those recommendations of where we can be more consistent with 2024 and beyond and not 1970s so that was a really big piece of this the other that we had talked about is this hillside ordinance because again 80% of Sausalito is on a slope of 30% or more, there are unique conditions here that we have to think about. and what would that be and what would that look like? And a lot of that is also focused on the documentation and sort of sequencing of work and considerations of neighbors and other affected or sphere of influence of building on a slope like that. So I think that those 12 recommendations that the task force originally made in 2019 that the city council adopted and then directed staff to implement is where we're coming up with this whole document that Mike and his team and Director McGowan have put together, it gets into more of the detail of actually how to implement it or actualize it. and creating these databases. And I really think we need to talk about the maps as well. I think these are some of the best, most powerful maps we have in Sausalito, and they're incredibly telling and they're going to be really helpful for the planning department and the commission when we're looking at some of these areas. So I want to make sure that we're level setting and connecting the dots together here and what we're doing and why we're doing it, because this started back in 2019. |
| 01:30:24.65 | Andrew Junius | Can I follow up on that? I really appreciate that because I'm curious both, frankly, what Commissioner Feller has thoughts on the specific local ordinance that we might end up with and maybe your experience, Mike. Because, again, I've done a lot of work in San Francisco and the specialty zones. Sorry. And you might have as well. But, for example, Edge Way up in San Francisco, the middle of the city, has got its own little world of this. And while I completely understand the need for, again, with all due respect to Commissioner Marlott, totally agree, but at the technical level, right, you're trying to go the next step and have a localized ordinance that fits the conditions and specific situation for the local jurisdiction. But then it seems like what you don't want is constant passing the buck and nobody really wants to make a decision and there's peer review after peer review after peer review. And nobody can really agree and your bottom line I think was exactly right. The project engineer still is the one that has to sign but at some point you create such a confused kind of chasing your tail situation where nobody wants to sign the documents anymore because nobody can agree whether they're complying with whatever guidelines, codes, requirements there are. |
| 01:30:26.22 | Kristina Feller | Really? |
| 01:31:44.18 | Unknown | with her. |
| 01:31:48.35 | Andrew Junius | which again really isn't a planning department issue or a CDD issue, It does. cause enormous frustration for developers. |
| 01:31:56.37 | Mike Jewett | No, absolutely. And for planning staff and peer reviewers alike, believe me. You know, San Francisco specifically, the way they operate is their hazard maps, just like the ones I prepared, actually, those were the inspiration for the way I did this. Those are done by California Geologic Survey. And San Francisco relates those to something called the mayor ordinance, M-A-H-E-R.r and in those little green zones they require that hey you got to drill a hole to the bottom of your foundation you need to tell us something about groundwater if you're on a certain slope you need to perform slope stability analysis don't just wave your arms and say you're not going to collapse the hill prove it um the spirit of what I've written up here is very much in line with that. |
| 01:32:41.27 | Kristina Feller | Excellent. I've also seen where, you know, a peer review is required for the structural. Again, we don't want the city taking that liability. planning department, certainly not this commission, but You know, those are what we're talking about in terms of an ordinance. We don't want to get into the means and the methods of engineering things. What we want to make sure is that there's some recognition of some of the challenges in some of our areas here. And, you know, everyone stay in their lane from there. |
| 01:33:10.08 | Mike Jewett | To be clear, when we review these for Fairfax, what our letter technically is commenting on is whether or not the material submitted are in conformance with the town code. and the California Building Code, not in conformance with my opinion about how they should engineer it, not in conformance with somebody else's opinion on how they should engineer it, in conformance with the code and the building code. And that's the one thing Fairfax has control over. And I think from their perspective, or at least what I interpret from DPW and planning and legal over there, is that that's really what they need to be confident issuing permits. but not being responsible for every applicant's bad decisions and poor organization um, Part of the purpose of requiring things at the planning level is that, especially with the steep slopes and the complexity of these projects now and applicants wanting to maximize their floor area ratios. Oftentimes when a critical geotechnical thing isn't really brought up at planning and it only gets realized at building level, I mean, one half the time people are out there great they're already started before they have a building permit, or dug a giant hole in the hill because they've, you know, they've expedited the grading and excavation thing only to realize that, oh, wait. Now we can't build the drainage this way. Now we got to do it out in the street. Or now we got to do it on the neighbor's property. And it has the potential to A, stall and delay construction, which on some of these aggressive jobs, once they go through the winter, that's oftentimes a big safety consideration. And frankly, it adds more cost ultimately for everybody involved. And so I think the spirit of requiring that extra step at planning is again in streamlining the process for the city and providing a more logical process by which planning and building can sort of coordinate to make sure that they're not getting the cart before the horse. |
| 01:35:00.47 | Kristina Feller | Yeah, and I think it's kind of interesting. You know, we, our last meeting, we heard the capital improvement program that Director McGowan put together. And, you know, some of the comments are make sure that what we're talking about here is included as priorities in there as well, because, you know, there could be a situation where, you know, there's a big building project somewhere. It could be an opportunity for DPW to actually upgrade or focus or repair primary infrastructure in that area to support whatever that development is, that would obviously impact the sequencing of a CIP or something like that, but I mean, we really wanna make sure that again, here in the city we're connecting the dots and not working in silos, but we're actually you know, these are meant to inform one another and be evolved together in that way as well. And again, our municipal code is so out of date. It is so out of date. And so we wanted to make sure that we could use these things as an impetus to really bring ourselves up to current standards |
| 01:36:11.57 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:36:11.84 | Kristina Feller | and certainly be a little more friendly to the development community in doing that. That is the goal. We want development, but we want it, you know, not at any cost whatsoever, but, you know, it needs to be. you know, within a reasonable realm of building codes and ordinances and so on. |
| 01:36:31.84 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Commissioner Junius, you had other questions? |
| 01:36:33.99 | Andrew Junius | I'd like to explore, I had not heard of a geologic hazard abatement district. That's an interesting new concept. Oh, yeah. |
| 01:36:43.93 | Mike Jewett | Commonly referred to as a jihad. Jihad, exactly. They, you know, I've heard a lot of bluster about them. I know they exist in other parts, specifically the South Bay and the East Bay. To the best of my knowledge, I have not seen one yet in Marin. Had lots of talks with lots of other communities about them where they have a common interest in hazard mitigation. the approach or at least the notion here is that a lot of the hazards are kind of beyond any one individual stakeholder's ability interest in hazard mitigation. The approach, or at least the notion here, is that a lot of the hazards are kind of beyond any one individual stakeholders ability to address. In other words, for example, the 2019 slide on Sausalito Boulevard there, that had to do partly with Caltrans' drainage infrastructure and partly with a right-of-way that GGNRA owns and maintains and wouldn't let the CETI into. And so You know, being able to being able to cooperate with those guys and have a clear picture of what's going on, you know, is one thing, but it's not like the city could take individual action to rectify that whole situation. There's got to be some coordination there. Also, a lot of these hazards are. not cheap to repair and any one stakeholder may be overwhelmed by the financial impact of having to fix retaining walls or underpin buildings or what have you the idea with the abatement district is that it would set up some kind of special tax assessment that would go into a fund specifically for maintaining that database or actually funding the design and construction of the improvements. And as a concept, it's really common. It's not any different, I don't think, than any other tax measure or assessment district. To me, the most you know, um, touchy part of that is probably actually delineating the boundaries. And I touched on that earlier. There's lots of people in the low risk zone who might rely on Spencer Avenue for emergency access or who might rely on a water transmission line through one of the nasty landslide areas. And so That's another one where I think some careful consideration amongst planning, building, legal, whoever, Um, you I guess as an off the record comment, or I guess I'm not off the record, so I'm on video, but as a Marin County taxpayer, I suppose, and someone who's lived here for 26 years in this part of the county, |
| 01:39:00.08 | Unknown | because I'm on video. |
| 01:39:10.00 | Mike Jewett | probably makes sense to assess it citywide. I mean, I think these hazards, frankly, are widespread. and in a way affect all of your constituents. Thank you. |
| 01:39:19.66 | Andrew Junius | But yeah, I think it's really interesting, and I don't wanna dwell on it too much, but I'm fascinated by it. So, but it's clear from where you're thinking and the other districts you've heard about in the Bay Area maybe, they're, forget the funding part, that's, you know, relatively straightforward in some respects, but the scope of it, it would, such a district would need to be, you know, cover or at least to direct its funds and its efforts for improvements clearly in the public right of way. And for dealing with the public's property, right? It doesn't have anything to do with paying for people's retaining walls on their private property. That seems pretty clear to me. |
| 01:39:32.73 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:40:02.57 | Mike Jewett | Mm. I think that would be the ideal setup. Yes, I mean, in a perfect world, yes, private property owners would handle their own problems. That's something that, you know, when we consult for cities, we encourage them to do all the time. Oftentimes the citizens aren't able to handle their own problems. Oftentimes the retaining wall that we think is private is in fact in the city right away. Totally agree. Or the homeowner doesn't have a half million dollars laying around to fix a retaining wall. So I think, you know, in considering a district like that, a couple things that come to mind are creating some kind of charter document that specifies what is and is not the district's jurisdiction or responsibility to handle what? Specifically can those funds be used for and what's the process for dispersing them and approving? payment on things So. |
| 01:40:50.23 | Kristina Feller | There is an example. |
| 01:40:51.54 | Mike Jewett | Thank you. |
| 01:40:51.56 | Andrew Junius | One more follow-up. So what I'm really trying to get at here, though, is have you ever seen for this specific type of work, local jurisdictions requiring private property owners to upgrade their properties so that they don't create problems? I mean, for example, again, back to where I know everything, much more about than Sausalito, San Francisco has earthquake ordinances that, you know, they've taken 30 years, but virtually every building that needed to be upgraded, you know, the fixed, all that kind of stuff, the building owners were slowly ground into, pulled into either doing it or figuring out a way to comply with the law. And it was not pleasant. It was not pretty. But it needed to happen. And there certainly wasn't public funds to go to thousands of private property owners. So it just got figured out in kind of one of the ugliest, most difficult, drawn-out ways possible. But you would think that this would be kind of a similar situation. If somebody... |
| 01:41:08.01 | Unknown | more. |
| 01:41:14.34 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:41:48.24 | Andrew Junius | has. a failing retaining wall on their property you know, maybe cities like Saucyutas should have an ordinance that said, says you got to fix your wall or you're in true we're going to make you know we're going to make you fix it and you're going to figure out a way to do that |
| 01:42:01.39 | Mike Jewett | That's the way most cities handle it. San Francisco is the only example I can think of that has put an ordinance on the books that says, Thou shalt fix your existing structures. And we're giving you 10 years, and we don't care what it costs. And to the best of my knowledge, most of those still haven't been fixed. |
| 01:42:17.20 | Andrew Junius | Yeah. |
| 01:42:18.95 | Mike Jewett | One key distinction here is that the recommended guidelines are purely for |
| 01:42:19.38 | Andrew Junius | They're trying. |
| 01:42:25.37 | Mike Jewett | Applications for Development. There is no intent. I hadn't even thought about the potential for requiring people by default to retrofit things that the city happened to see. I will say anecdotally that comes up all the time. We get called to look at storm damage issues on an emergency basis. There are you know, five times out of 10, I come down and there's a retaining wall that fell on the roadway. Um, you know, when I look up above and there's another retaining wall that's about to go. And there's always a big hubbub about, well, who's paying for it? Where's the right away? We need a survey. And when we find out that it's a private wall, that's either causing problems or if it falls, is going to block the road. Typically, most jurisdictions approach is to have their attorney or their public works director write a letter and say, hey, we observed there's a hazard. We feel it's a risk to this, that and the other thing. Recommend you consult with Pick one, lawyer, geotechnical engineer, whatever it is, and go from there. And I think from the city's perspective, at least they have documentation that they were proactive about addressing the issue. but cognizant of the fact that if they don't own the property, they have no real right or responsibility to deal with it. |
| 01:43:40.02 | Kristina Feller | One of the areas that the jihad came up with, or the GAD, we decided to call it a GAD instead of a jihad. Fair enough. I'm okay with that. The GAD, when we were doing the original 2019 report, was Montecito. They had, remember, those terrible, terrible mudslides that really just plowed all the way down the hill. Like, it affected everyone, so it was sort of an an opportunity almost as an overlay tax district to to fix and clean up all of that because it wasn't just a municipal issue and then the only other example just just if it's helpful although it doesn't have anything to do with landslide or mudslide is up on Wolfback Ridge they're trying to underground all their PG&E wires. And so they're looking at an assessment with a district up there to do that, just for an example. |
| 01:43:49.47 | Mike Jewett | Fair enough, I'm okay with that. |
| 01:44:36.08 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Other questions? Commissioner Marlott, any other questions? |
| 01:44:41.80 | David Marlatt | No, not really. Just kind of follow up on one comment coming off of what Commissioner Junius had mentioned. Some of these things are already addressed, but again, over on the building department or DPW side, a building inspector can see a failed wall or a failed building and red tag it. So the building, you know, San Francisco, Sausalito, and elsewhere, of course. So there is that ability to, you know, to compel private landowners, you know, to make their buildings and also their walls safe. I'm just interested in how maybe this GAD, not Jihad, it could be very creative, however, if there's a sum of money that's collected, but there's a part of that is budgeted to a sort of a grant program that is based on need to provide not just the stick, but the carrot to help some of these private land people, because that's in the public's interest. So that's pretty interesting as a concept. |
| 01:45:39.16 | Kristina Feller | Yeah, the GAD is a district though. I mean, you're kind of self-imposing your own tax. It's not the government imposing a GAD. |
| 01:45:45.35 | David Marlatt | Bye. but it's like self-insuring because If I might live in a house with malaria in a gray zone, I'm contributing to a fund, I guess, that would potentially be used to help private landowners offset some of their costs based on need. |
| 01:46:04.45 | Kristina Feller | I'm expecting that. |
| 01:46:04.52 | Andrew Junius | you |
| 01:46:04.54 | David Marlatt | I'm expecting that. |
| 01:46:04.98 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. |
| 01:46:06.12 | Kristina Feller | Based on the boundaries, yeah. Totally based on the boundaries. |
| 01:46:06.19 | Andrew Junius | Based on the boundaries, yeah. You can draw the boundaries. Mike made a good point. You can draw the boundaries any way you want. |
| 01:46:11.37 | Kristina Feller | Yeah, exactly. |
| 01:46:12.20 | Mike Jewett | Yeah. There may be other alternatives here too. And one thing, you know, obviously local and state resources are what they are, but there are, you know, things like FEMA hazard mitigation programs out there that have grant money for you know, fixing areas where when they're out here responding to emergencies, not only are they looking to me to say, hey, how do I restore this to pre-storm conditions? But then sometimes we'll ask questions, OK, are we going to be back here two years from now? Because look, that wall's fallen over and hey, that pipe, you know, we can fix this pipe. But what about that one? They do have I don't know. Personally have not applied for it. I don't know how competitive it is, but I have had other jurisdictions apply for that when they've been either denied on storm damage funding or for organizational or other reasons, just haven't gone after it. You know, so the tax assessment district is merely one concept and idea that we spoke to in there because it was requested specifically by the task force and alluded to many times. But would like to point out that that may not be the one and only mechanism by which some of these bigger scale questions could get answered. |
| 01:47:23.99 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Other questions? Commissioner Junius was at the |
| 01:47:28.05 | Andrew Junius | I just want to really thank Commissioner Feller for the years of dedication and hard work in trying to move this forward. It is obviously extraordinarily important, and we very much appreciate that, Commissioner, so thank you. |
| 01:47:28.07 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I'm not. Yeah. |
| 01:47:43.04 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Vice Chair, additional |
| 01:47:45.23 | Nastassya Saad | No, this was an interesting conversation. I actually had the exact same question about private property and where the onus lies. This is a very specific question about springs, and I think, Director McGowan, it might be for you just from your tenure here at the city and general knowledge, because I was reading in that report that there wasn't a lot of information on springs that was found. But there are so many springs that are under different streets. Now a lot of the streets have been repaved recently. But prior to that, you could even just in the summertime see the wetness coming up from underneath the hill in the cracks on the roadway. Do we not have anything further to contribute to where maybe from? |
| 01:48:38.19 | Nastassya Saad | knowledge of the hills and as DPW and having so many people on the ground that they could contribute to any of the potential springs just merely from observation. |
| 01:48:49.37 | Kevin McGowan | We would love it if we can get a GIS layer that would show what we know and have more people who have been here longer than I have, even though I've been in Marin for 60-so years, to let us know where they do see springs. I mean, we have Spring Street. That's obviously where we have a lot of water. |
| 01:49:05.07 | Nastassya Saad | That can be |
| 01:49:07.31 | Kevin McGowan | Star on the map, yes. Yep, that one's on the map. But, you know, just from a history perspective, before the Golden Gate Bridge was built and we had sailing ships, they would come to Sausalito to fill up their water supply. And so Old Town has a lot of springs as well. We have them in different parts of the hillside. When we do get a GIS system in place, that is something that we would want to add. |
| 01:49:31.46 | Nastassya Saad | Yeah, it's just interesting. It is built on springs, yes. |
| 01:49:34.97 | Mike Jewett | There is a layer in our database that does show all the springs that we have on it. It's also on the paper printed map. The only real document I was provided or was able to dredge up was from 1888. It was an original Wells Fargo survey map, really of the Hurricane Gulch area. So the accuracy is a little questionable. Did the best I could to field truth where those things are, and I think they're pretty good. Yeah. |
| 01:49:48.65 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:49:59.51 | Mike Jewett | To be frank, I agree with you. I know there are areas where it runs. In fact, I just heard two of you say live not too far from San Carlos and Harrison. And I know right at that intersection at the top of it, it's constantly running and flowing down there. That one I put on my map. There are lots of areas and understand I did my recon in the summer. And so that's kind of the best time to have a look at, you know, is this a broken drain pipe or rainwater? Is this actually, you know, a consistent spring? I did put everything on there. There were a couple spots where it's like I can't tell if someone's just washing their car right above me and it's running down the gutter. So I don't want to wave my arms and interpret things without the data, but there are some springs shown on there. And for the most part, they really are concentrated in the Hurricane Gulch and kind of the southern facing aspect of the Hill neighborhood, not far from where you guys are. |
| 01:50:52.56 | Nastassya Saad | Sure. Interesting. Thank you. |
| 01:50:54.01 | Mike Jewett | Thank you. |
| 01:50:54.03 | Nastassya Saad | Yep. |
| 01:50:54.08 | Mike Jewett | Yeah. |
| 01:50:54.81 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 01:50:54.84 | Mike Jewett | you know, and... |
| 01:50:55.02 | Nastassya Saad | Bye. and, I'm not sure if you have any questions. No, I just wanted to also thank everyone, and especially Commissioner Feller, because those original recommendations, I think, in the 2019 conversations you had at the Landslide Task Force are a solid foundation that let us get to this report today. |
| 01:51:10.73 | Jeffery Luxenberg | today. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:51:11.98 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you very much. |
| 01:51:13.57 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Commissioner Fowler, do you have any final comments since you shepherded this through? |
| 01:51:16.05 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 01:51:16.10 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. Thank you. No, look, and the landslide task force was an amazing team, so I want to make sure that that was an amazing team with the best minds in the business. So when we originally did this in 2019, I was one on a team. But thank you, Mike, and the Miller Pacific team and Director McGowan. Just a couple additional thoughts and comments here that I know we've talked about maybe in the task force but I want to make sure that the Commission has the benefit of some of that as as well as the public and that is this issue with coordination with this sea level rise task force or sea level rise and subsidence task force there's a lot of those low low-lying areas that you've mapped you know, that is exactly what they're mapping. And they're developing a GIS, you know, mapping system with open source technology, and I know you are as well. And you know, It doesn't matter if you're in the low-lying areas or up in the hills. These things are all connected and those springs have to get somewhere and they go straight out into our fill areas, our low-lying areas. and usually straight out into the bay. So all of these things are very interconnected. But the efforts as well, I would like to see an opportunity where those two things can be combined because there's so much common ground And I know you haven't had a chance to do that yet because we just met a couple weeks ago on the latest, which is what we're hearing tonight. But I want to make sure for the benefit of everybody that that is a lot of what we've seen is that the good news is that everyone's seeing the same thing, but I don't know that we have to be redundant in the efforts, and I think that everyone's looking at it from different perspectives. And so, again, putting those amazing minds together into one platform, one GIS system, one city, you know, resource and tools, I just think we're going to be so much better off. So, you know, can't I just think we're gonna be so much better off so you know can't can't thank you enough for for taking taking the lead on these things the other thing is I just I also want to be mindful and make sure that you know, the Landslide Task Force put this report together in 2019. And here we are in 2024 with another amazing report I don't want it just to sit for another five years. I want to make sure that what we're talking about here is actually actionable and that we're moving these efforts forward into actually implementing or some kind of evolution within CDD, DPW, that can be better tools for our staff. and for the city and for the community as well. And certainly technology is far beyond where it was in 2019, even though it's pretty good then. So I would just, I would really encourage you and I wanna support in every way, I'm sure that this commission does to make sure that it makes it easier for everybody and that these tools will be really powerful in sort of the planning and the maintenance of DPW and certainly this commission and other bodies here in the city. So thank you. |
| 01:54:34.77 | Mike Jewett | Absolutely. Thank you. And I think to that end, you know, we owe the city a deliverable in GIS format. And one thing we should discuss as our report gets delivered and finalized with the task force is to whom you would like us to deliver that data. It's not clear to me if the city has its own GIS in-house tech or department or administrator. What I do understand is that the city is part of the MarinMap joint powers agreement. |
| 01:55:02.06 | Kristina Feller | That's right. |
| 01:55:02.82 | Mike Jewett | And if that hasn't already been discussed, it seems like that might make a really logical platform to put a lot of this on where it could keep, be combined with the sea level viewer for in-house city purposes it might make sense to have it run parallel with your own in-house database for public works use etc but something worth discussing as we deliver this here and something that's certainly within the realm of feasibility |
| 01:55:25.92 | Kristina Feller | It's a great question. I'm not sure that this commission, certainly myself, I'm not the right person to give you an absolute answer. That is something that I think the city and the leaders of the two task force, which is Councilmember Hoffman and Councilmember Kelman. Councilmember Hoffman's actually on both of them, and Councilmember Kelman has really driven the sea level rise and subsidence task force to where it is today. But I would also you know, just for clarity here, I want to be clear. I would really, before you submit a final, and Director McGowan, we haven't talked about this, but I wouldn't want you to submit a final without at least having that conversation. with the Sea Level Rise Task Force and their consultant just to make sure that you know, you guys are copacetic, you know, |
| 01:56:18.86 | Mike Jewett | Absolutely. We'll we'll be in touch on that. And that's something we can facilitate for sure. |
| 01:56:23.33 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 01:56:25.00 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. With that, any further comments, we'll end this item in the agenda and move on to item eight. |
| 01:56:33.05 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 01:56:33.08 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:56:33.10 | Kristina Feller | public comment? |
| 01:56:33.11 | Jeffery Luxenberg | public comment. Thank you. I'm sorry, you have to take public comment. That's correct. At this point we're going to take public comment on item which is now seven which is the geologic hazard report. Anybody on Zoom and anybody in the audience can raise their hand. Nobody in the audience. I don't see anybody on Zoom. Do you see anybody on Zoom? |
| 01:56:34.48 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:56:34.50 | Mike Jewett | want. |
| 01:56:56.98 | Director Phipps | No, I agree, chair. |
| 01:56:57.01 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. I agree, sure. Thank you. Okay, so we will end this item and appreciate the great efforts that you folks have put in and well done presentation this evening as well. Item eight I guess is adjournment. Is there any other items? So moved. Second. |
| 01:57:16.03 | Director Phipps | baby. |
| 01:57:16.31 | Jeffery Luxenberg | for. Aye. |
| 01:57:17.83 | Director Phipps | Aye. Thank you, commissioners. Have a good evening. Thank you. |