Sausalito City Council Meeting - September 25, 2024

Meeting Transcript

Time	Speaker	Text
00:00:00.03	Jeffery Luxenberg	The Sausalito Planning Commission order. Director, will you please call roll? We have two people participating remotely.
00:00:09.58	Director Phipps	Yes, thank you. Good evening to you, Chair Luxembourg, 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 at 604 through 8006-416 Shimomaru Yacho Nakagyoku, the well-known in Kyoto, Japan. Members of the public may also access this meeting and provide public comment through Zoom. With that said, before I call roll, I'd like to just communicate that Commissioner Feller is attending this meeting pursuant to the Brownaxe teleconferencing protocols, and please correct me if I'm mistaken. Additionally, I'd like to ask Commissioner Saad if they are attending this meeting virtually pursuant to AB 2449's just cause or emergency circumstances provision.
00:01:10.87	Nastassya Saad	Thank you, Director Phipps. Yes, I am. I'm attending for Just Cause due to illness.
00:01:18.45	Director Phipps	Thank you for confirming, Commissioner. Based on that, AB 2449 would consider that appropriate just cause, which does not require any vote by the Commission. And I'd just like to ask, can you please let us know if there's anyone over 18 participating in the room with you?
00:01:34.92	Nastassya Saad	There is nobody over 18 in the room with me.
00:01:37.43	Director Phipps	Thank you, Commissioner Saad. With that, I will move to call roll. Commissioner Merlott. Present. Commissioner Junius. Present. Commissioner Feller.
00:01:45.60	Kristina Feller	Here.
00:01:46.51	Director Phipps	Vice Chair Saad.
00:01:47.83	Kristina Feller	here?
00:01:48.69	Director Phipps	Tara Luxenberg. Thank you.
00:01:49.73	Kristina Feller	right?
00:01:49.80	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you.
00:01:49.94	Director Phipps	Thank you. We have quorum. Back to you, Chair.
00:01:52.54	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you. Our next item on the agenda is approval of the agenda. I'll look for a motion.
00:01:57.65	Kristina Feller	So moved.
00:01:59.54	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you.
00:01:59.71	Kristina Feller	Second.
00:01:59.74	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, Director Phipps, call the roll please.
00:02:05.08	Director Phipps	Commissioner Merlot. Yes. Commissioner Junius. Yes. Commissioner Feller. Yes. Vice Chair Saad.
00:02:09.38	Kristina Feller	Yes.
00:02:11.18	Director Phipps	you
00:02:11.23	Kristina Feller	you
00:02:11.28	Director Phipps	Yes.
00:02:11.35	Nastassya Saad	Yeah.
00:02:11.39	Director Phipps	you
00:02:11.47	Nastassya Saad	Thank you.
00:02:11.84	Director Phipps	Chair Luxenberg. Yes. Motion passes.
00:02:15.08	Jeffery Luxenberg	Next item on the agenda is public comments for items not on the agenda. Director Phipps, if you could give instructions, please.
00:02:21.95	Director Phipps	Yes, this is the time to hear from the, for the commission to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda, except in very limited situations. State law precludes the commission from taking action on or engaging in discussions concerning items of business that are not on the agenda. However, the commission may refer matters not on the agenda to staff or direct the subject to be agendized at a future meeting. Video or audio public comment participation is limited to three minutes per speaker. If you'd like to make a comment, please submit a speaker card to me and or my colleagues to my right, Adam Blair. If you'd like to make a comment in the Zoom app, please raise your hand and you'll be called upon when it is your time to speak. And to raise your hand from a phone, press star nine. Each speaker will be notified when their time has elapsed.
00:03:12.76	Director Phipps	Chair, no hands raised in the Zoom app and no hands raised or speaker cards submitted in the chamber. Thank you. Back to you.
00:03:20.03	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you. We'll move on to item number four, approval of the Planning Commission minutes from July 24th, 2024. I'll look for a motion.
00:03:29.74	Andrew Junius	So move.
00:03:30.75	David Marlatt	Second.
00:03:31.78	Jeffery Luxenberg	Is there any comments, discussions?
00:03:35.95	Kristina Feller	Yeah.
00:03:36.72	Jeffery Luxenberg	Seeing none, I have three. There's just some typos in there. On page 4 and 5, the bullets, they're listed instead of 1, 2, 3, are listed 5, 6, 7. Should be 1, 2, 3, 4 on page 4 and 5. And on page 6, they're listed 9 through 12. I think it's some sort of formatting thing. And they should also be 1 three four and then on page 8 line 18 this is regarding the fine I thought we put the the amount of the fine in the motion Does anybody remember that? I would think it should be in the motion just for the sake of the record.
00:04:25.07	Kristina Feller	I recall that we had chair
00:04:27.21	Jeffery Luxenberg	Okay, so if if we could correct the minutes if CDD can just when they finalize the minutes put in the amount from the resolution into the into the minutes that would be appreciated and I suggest all of the items that I mentioned as an amendment. This is... make of the motion accepting it.
00:04:46.70	Andrew Junius	Thank you. Thank you. Yes, that amendment is accepted. Yeah.
00:04:49.00	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you.
00:04:49.01	Andrew Junius	Thank you.
00:04:49.03	Jeffery Luxenberg	Yes. Yes.
00:04:49.08	Andrew Junius	Yes. Absolutely.
00:04:51.09	Jeffery Luxenberg	With any other changes, seeing none, Director Phipps, please call the roll.
00:04:56.73	Director Phipps	Yep. And thank you, Chair and Commission, for the attention to detail and direction. Commissioner Merlot. Yes. Commissioner Junius. Yes. Commissioner Feller. Yes. Vice Chair Sotz.
00:05:04.96	Nastassya Saad	Yes. Yeah.
00:05:06.97	Kristina Feller	Thank you.
00:05:06.99	Director Phipps	Thank you. Chair Luxenberg. Yes. Motion passes.
00:05:10.92	Jeffery Luxenberg	Next item on the agenda is communications. First, we'll look to Director Phipps. Is there any updates from the commission?
00:05:19.49	Director Phipps	Yes, I have one communication item this evening, and that item is related to the amended housing element and the in-progress objective development and design standards. Specifically, the City Council will hold two study sessions on the evening of October 1 to consider and discuss both of these projects. The housing element study session will focus on the amended opportunity site inventory that adds new sites, removes sites, reduces densities at some sites, while adding densities at others. The intent of these amendments is to prioritize sustainable waterfront development, as well as preserve the city's historic downtown district. And following the housing element study session, the council will conduct a session on the updated draft objective development and design standards. The purpose of this session is to review the updated draft odds document, which incorporates work conducted by the odds peer review group to simplify the building type standards and to incorporate objective privacy, view protection, and historic preservation standards. We invite you all to attend, and we look forward to seeing you there. And as always, I want to give a shout out and thank you to Commissioner Merlot for his continued commitment and collaboration associated with these revised odds as an invaluable member of the odds peer review group, and of course, your well-known commissioner. Thank you, David. And that does it for my updates today.
00:06:42.62	Jeffery Luxenberg	Can we just mention the schedule for the planning commission related to those items, the dates that we are planning, if we could, which would be? Thank you. October, let me look at the calendar. I think it was October 23rd in November, I don't know.
00:07:00.69	Director Phipps	Yes, Chair, you're correct.
00:07:01.06	Jeffery Luxenberg	Chair, you're correct. On the 23rd and November 13th,
00:07:04.08	Director Phipps	Yes, those are the two dates that are upcoming, that are tentatively scheduled for the commission to hear some of these items in a more formal public hearing format. So following council's study session on both of those matters, the commission will also get a study session on the same two projects, which will be followed by a formal public hearing. And that's that tentative November 13 date.
00:07:08.69	Jeffery Luxenberg	Yeah.
00:07:30.44	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you. Also, if we could, because I don't think we mentioned at the last meeting because we missed the meeting there, the hire of a new associate planner. Can you mention that as well?
00:07:41.16	Director Phipps	Yes, I was going to save that for when Ms. Nelson had the opportunity to present for the first time, and I believe that may occur at the next commission meeting, but I'll just say CDD is very pleased to have welcomed our newest associate member to our team. Her name is Katie Nelson. She comes from Paradise, California, where she held multiple positions, including the position of assistant planner. So we're very pleased to welcome her, and I look forward to introducing you all once again to her when she is here in person for the first time.
00:08:11.60	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you, Director Phipps. Commissioners, are there any updates that any of you have at this time?
00:08:16.22	David Marlatt	Oh,
00:08:16.44	Adam Blair	Thank you.
00:08:16.93	David Marlatt	I'd just like to also, on behalf of the peer review group, express our gratitude to the staff for working so closely and open-mindedly on a tough assignment. A lot of ambiguity that I think we're getting to some logical and mutually satisfactory results. We have our study session on Tuesday, but it's been a very fruitful collaboration. And on behalf of the peer group, I'd like to thank staff and the consultants and counsel as well. Thank you.
00:08:47.93	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you, Commissioner Marlott. Any other comments from any of the commissioners? Seeing none, we will move on to the next item on the agenda, which is our public hearing this evening. This item is 6A. It is a revision to the Sausalito Municipal Code regarding formula retail, which is Chapter 10.44.240. And Matthew, Mr. Mandage, is going to do a presentation from the seat. Thank you, Mr. Manage.
00:09:22.15	Matthew Mandich	Thank you, Chair Luxembourg. All right. Great. Thank you, Adam. So yes, as just mentioned, this is a public hearing on a amendment to the formula retail ordinance in our Sassolidum Municipal Code, Title 1044240. Next slide, please.
00:09:47.11	Matthew Mandich	Let me clear the Zoom app from the side. Thank you so the request this evening is to conduct a public hearing on the proposed ordinance amendment and adopt a resolution with a recommendation to the city council next slide please. So just a little bit of background on our current ordinance, which you all are probably familiar with. It was adopted in 2003 for the first time and then amended in 2007, so it has been a while since this ordinance has been touched. The ordinance as it stands today requires a conditional use permit or a CUP to establish a formula retail use in specific commercial zoning districts. It also requires a CUP for the expansion of any formula retail establishment of over 500 square feet or more it currently limits formula retail to locations in the central commercial commercial shopping and commercial neighborhood zoning districts and the current definition of formula retail as it stands today in the current ordinance does not clearly define how many locations or so called standardized elements constitute a formula retail business in the city next slide please So we have some problems with this ordinance that were highlighted by our city attorney recently. And I know that a memo was also sent out to commissioners regarding some of these issues. So I'm just going to go over the main issues that we're dealing with here. One is the conditional use permit requirement. So a CUP must run with the land and cannot be establishment specific, as that permit must be able to transfer to a subsequent procedure. So a CUP can be required for a land use type, such as a restaurant, but cannot be required for a specific establishment, such as a McDonald's. So if it were required for just a McDonald's, you would have to replace that with a McDonald's. That would be the only way that conditional use permit could carry forward. But if you establish it for a land use, like a restaurant or a coffee shop or a drinking establishment, any one of those same uses could then take that CP forward as it runs with the land. So it's really about. sticking a cup with a use not the user so that's one of the fundamental issues with the ordinance right there um the other issue which we tapped on was the it's not clearly defined what formula retail is in the current code the way you read the current code now if you were to take a broad reading of it um the definition could apply to almost all businesses in the city that have a logo sign or trademark so we need to tighten that up um the current ordinance also increases risk to the city as it violates recent court rulings, which I actually skipped over there. Sorry, there was a Malibu ruling in 2014 on Measure R, which was a CUP requirement for formula retail in Malibu. That went all the way to court through the developers that were building the shopping center that wanted some formula retail in there. And that CEP process was ultimately considered facially invalid and unconstitutional. So they lost that in court. So violates recent court ruling, skipping back to the bottom and land use law. Too vague currently to enforce and could be understood also to discriminate against interstate commerce due to the commerce clause. Next slide, please. So some of our proposed changes to fix some of these issues within the current ordinance are the removal of that CUP requirement, which is not the best permitting format for formula retail use. Instead, we'd like to adopt a zoning clearance for these types of uses, which would be very similar to our OUP process or occupational use permits, which every business in the city is required to get in order to establish their business in the city. These would be approved administratively by the planning department, just as we do our OUPs. However, they would be capped on how many formula retailer establishments are located in each zone already. And we'll get to that in a little bit of a second. Clearly defined formula retail. So our new definition, what we'd like to put forward for what is formula retail is a business that has six or more locations worldwide, and at least two or more standardized elements. These are described in the ordinance, but they're things again like logo, uniform, paint, color, things like that, identifiable features that are considered standardized. And we define each one of these in the ordinance. I didn't want to put them all in, but you can read through that. So it has to have two or more of those things plus the six. So it's a broader definition in general for what formula retail is and a more specific one as well. So existing formula retail right now, as it stands, are grandfathered in. So a clearance will not be required for those existing formula retail establishments that we have in the city. And then certain uses are exempt, such as grocery stores, pharmacies, banks, medical services, real estate, service stations, which are gas stations, movie theaters, and courier services. So those would be exempt from the clearance requirement. The commercial waterfront zone is a zoning district that we would like to add. As we talked about before, there are only three commercial zoning districts, we have five in the city. So we'd like to make it allowable also in the commercial waterfront. However, we are still prohibiting formula retail uses from locating in the commercial residential zone or the CR. um formula retail uh zoning clearances will be allocated by zoning district as i discussed so there'll be a certain amount that each zoning district will allow to have and i have a table for you i think on the The retail zoning clearances will be allocated by zoning district, as I discussed. So there'll be a certain amount that each zoning district will allow to have. And I have a table for you, I think, on the next slide for that. And as part of these proposed changes, we'll also be amending table 1024.1, which is our land use and commercial districts table. And that was one of those late ads that we had for you today in the supplemental material that was posted to the agenda earlier today. Next slide, please. So here is the table proposed changes formula retail by commercial zoning district. We can see that the proposed limit is there in the first column existing slash grandfathered in uses and those are non exempt uses. And then the future capacity of each one of those zones. So for the central commercial district, we've proposed to have a limit of six. There are already four and I will discuss each one of what these four are on the next slide, but want to give you an idea of some of the numbers first. And that would allow future capacity of two more formula retail uses to locate in the central commercial. The CN1 proposed limit four, we currently have one, so that would create room for three. The CW, we have now for the first time allowed it. There aren't any there so far. So two, and then that would be equal to in the future. The CS, which does have Molly stones. And that's kind of pretty much, that is the only parcel that's in the CS, but that's an exempt use. So if that were to move out, you know, we've allowed for one to come in there and replace that if it were another grocery store, but it would also be exempt anyway. But we do have that capability. And then CN2 also as zero. So one and one. So for the next slide, we will look at what do we have so far. So existing formula retail in the CC as discussed, we have four existing formula retail we have Lapperd's ice cream, we have Benetton crazy shirt and a more there. We also have Engel Volkers, but they are exempt real estate. In the CN1, we have 7-Eleven. That's our only current existing one. CW0, CS0, except for the exempt grocery store, Molly Stones. And CN2, also zero due to the exemptions of Shell Gas and UPS Store, which are both courier and service station. There are a couple other formula retail uses in the city. There's the FedEx, which is right by Molly Stones. That's actually in an industrial zoning district. And it's also exempt due to the fact that it's a courierier and then there is so-called Sausalito equator which would be considered formula retail it's also in the commercial residential zone which formula retail is not allowed to locate but they had a deal a long time ago with the city that allowed them to change their name from equator to Sausalito equator and that kind of circumvented the CUP process for them So, next slide next slide please uh yes this is just a map of the zoning districts themselves um the see is this working no it's not okay let's see maybe this one yes all right so um those in red right here so this is cn1 cc cn1 cs and CN2. And then the yellow circle right there would be the new introduction of the CW. So we already have formula retail allowed in those four circles that you're seeing there. Excuse me, five circles plus the sixth one. So those are the zoning districts and how they're spread out through the city. Next slide, please. So this is the amendment that we brought forward today in the supplemental material of the table 10.24. One land use is allowed in commercial districts. We added a footnote. First of all, we removed formula retail from the retail table here. Added a footnote, which I am sorry is very hard to see in this slide, but footnote 10 is right here under retail. Footnote reads as follows. Formerly retails shall be permitted whether P, M-U-P, C-up cup is required based on applicable land uses and are further subject to the requirements of the updated ordinance of 1044 240 so basically breaking that down what that really means is discretionary use permits will still be required for formula retail land uses that require these permits so if it's a restaurant we're talking about that's formerly retail, say it's Applebee's or Pizza Hut or something like that. If to locate in that specific commercial zone, they require a CEP, that land use will still require a CEP. So being formula retail doesn't give them an automatic zoning clearance in that sense. It just caps the number of zoning clearances we'll give to specific formula retail establishments, but it doesn't change the fact that if they need a discretionary permit, such as an MEP or a CEP, to locate in that specific zone, those will still be required. So next slide. I think that brings us to the conclusion here. So staff recommends that the Planning Commission adopt a resolution recommending approval of the proposed ordinance to the City Council. And I know that this is a topic that a lot of commissioners would love to discuss and have a lot of questions. So I look forward to having a fruitful discussion and seeing how we can help push this forward. Thank you.
00:19:41.06	Jeffery Luxenberg	Mr. Manager, thank you. That was an excellent, both excellent staff report and excellent presentation this evening. With that, I have some questions, but others probably do as well. I'll start with whomever comes up.
00:19:55.07	Andrew Junius	Commissioner Junius. Sure. Thank you, Chair. Nice report, Matthew. This is an interesting subject for sure. You did clarify an important issue there at the end. So the underlying requirement for a discretionary permit is still there. This is just an additive requirement.
00:19:56.05	Jeffery Luxenberg	Sure.
00:20:11.81	Andrew Junius	I suppose we want to call it.
00:20:13.88	Adam Blair	Mm-hmm.
00:20:14.20	Andrew Junius	Thank you. Are there what are the I should know this, but I apologize. What are the zoning districts in the city that allow a restaurant as a permitted use? Thank you.
00:20:21.19	Matthew Mandich	Are there any? Yes, there are many. The CC allows it. The CR requires a CUP. But the CC, the downtown commercial. The CC downtown is a permitted use. However, there is a caveat with that in the sense that you need a CUP for alcohol sales.
00:20:35.37	Andrew Junius	Yeah.
00:20:35.40	Matthew Mandich	Thank you.
00:20:35.47	Andrew Junius	I'm not sure.
00:20:35.65	Adam Blair	Thank you.
00:20:35.67	Andrew Junius	All right.
00:20:35.69	Adam Blair	I'm not going to be a good guy.
00:20:35.97	Andrew Junius	However, if there was a formula retail restaurant that wanted to go in the CC district Um, and it was under the limit, let's assume that the limit that we're proposing is in effect but not been reached yet, it would be ministerially approved. Correct. There'd be no hearings. Yes. At all.
00:20:51.13	Matthew Mandich	Correct. Yes. AT ALL. Yes. Yes. I mean, that's the way it is for any restaurant that wants to locate right now. And again, there's this added layer for the alcohol that you would need a CP. So
00:20:56.75	Andrew Junius	understood right now. And
00:21:02.20	Andrew Junius	And then it also seems that the list of exemptions is pretty broad. I think we'll talk about that maybe a little later when we get into the details. But with that list of exemptions, which are a lot of important city-serving uses that a lot of them, I think, really make sense, what it really seems to come down to is the formula retail controls are focused on food uses, restaurants, and general retail. Yeah. You know, t-shirt shops and retailers and merchandisers that sell stuff, right, that would be foreign agents. Okay. Yes. For now, those are my questions. Thank you. Okay.
00:21:27.02	Matthew Mandich	Yeah. you know,
00:21:33.87	Director Phipps	Uh,
00:21:37.38	Director Phipps	And if I may, Commissioner, just like to add that restaurants are also permitted in the commercial waterfront district.
00:21:45.90	Matthew Mandich	Without a CP. Yes.
00:21:48.16	Director Phipps	Yes, permitted.
00:21:54.66	Jeffery Luxenberg	Commissioner Fowler.
00:21:59.71	Kristina Feller	Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Commissioner Junius for that clarification. That actually helps a lot. I appreciate staff's report on this, and I'm absolutely delighted to see this. in front of the planning commission. I know we've talked about this on and off over the years and, certainly know that this needs to be updated. But let me just dive into a couple of the details to make sure I'm understanding all of this correctly as well. Um, The first question is, are there any preferences or considerations for any locally founded companies. Um, For example, not necessarily local to Sausalito, but maybe Marin or Southern Marin. Is there any consideration or preference to supporting local?
00:22:53.18	Matthew Mandich	not as it's written into the code, but some of what this was designed for was to allow for more regional, kind of let's say chain stores that exist in California and the Bay Area to be able to come to Sausalito and not have to go through an onerous and, you know, frankly, illegal process with the CUP.
00:23:09.84	Kristina Feller	Okay, thank you for that. The other question I have, and I'm trying to um, you know, project forward as, as Sausalito evolves, particularly with, um, you know, the impacts of you know, future housing developments and things like that. how convenience retail may or may not be affected by this. And you've listed a bunch of exemptions, which I appreciate. But What about smaller coffee shops or dry cleaners or things like that that could be viewed as formula retail or a chain as you've defined it? How would we be handling that?
00:23:47.20	Matthew Mandich	Well, again, they'd have to have at least six locations worldwide. And they would have to also, on top of that, have the standardized array of merchandise and logos, trademarks. So, you know, the barrier, the threshold for becoming a formula retail use is a little bit higher now. So certain things that have, you know, under that, if they're a little bit more convenience, it's only a couple of them, then they wouldn't even need the clearance.
00:24:09.90	Kristina Feller	Okay, that's what I wanted to get at. I wanted to make sure that as we're looking at revising this, that we aren't inadvertently further limiting ourselves with what we know future impacts might be with population growth and housing. So that's helpful. want to make sure that we're, We're eyes wide open on that. The other question I had is what about things like you know, wineries and tasting rooms and things like that. They're not really a bar or a restaurant. They sell merchandise or wine or those kinds of things. How is that being handled? Or where do you see that being addressed?
00:24:47.83	Matthew Mandich	So yes, if they're not serving food and they're, they would be considered drinking establishments, um, by our code. And I think drinking establishments need to CUP in almost any district they locate. So whether they're formula retail.
00:24:58.35	Adam Blair	Okay. Thank you.
00:25:00.54	Matthew Mandich	Thank you.
00:25:00.56	Adam Blair	Thank you.
00:25:01.23	Matthew Mandich	But yeah, I'm not, I mean, I'm not really aware of many formula bars, I guess maybe like Margaritaville or something like that. I'm just trying to think off the top of my head.
00:25:10.73	Kristina Feller	No, I... And I'm not. I'm not biased here or anything. Just, I'm trying to think ahead, like, you know, a lot of, you know, are, you know, we're, we're so close to wine country and a lot of those vineyards are looking to. you know, you know, penetrate a market closer to San Francisco and stuff. So I just want to, again, make sure that that we are doing our due diligence here is the commission because ultimately, we As we take action, it's really a recommendation to the city council So I want to make sure that we're doing our due diligence here and vetting this to streamline the entire process. Um, so the other question I have is, um, You know, you mentioned it. You mentioned in the proposal that the CDD or CEDD director would be the one approving this or his or her designee. And my question is, is the CEDD director doing this as in his or her capacity as zoning administrator And in addition to that, I think we need to maybe better define the designee to make sure that the skill set is there, should this be designated to somebody else to make these findings. in this process as it's defined. So could you speak to that?
00:26:35.87	Matthew Mandich	Yeah, absolutely. So it would not be in a ZA hearing. So that would be a discretionary hearing for like something like a minor use permit. So it would not be a ZA hearing. It would be the language that I've included in that ordinance and that we included there is a language that you find in other parts of the code, such as the zoning permit, changes to an approved project, things like that. So basically it operates, it's any designee is who the director would select. So it would be a planner in the department. You wouldn't have a permit. things like that. So, um, basically it operates, it's any, any designee is, you know, who the director would select. So it would be a planner in the department. You wouldn't have a permit tech or someone from the building department signing it off. It would, it would definitely be a planner. We would be keeping, you know, a consistent list of the amount of formula retail clearances we have left. And, um, if a formula retail, uh, use came in, you know, that would take one of those away. And then once we're capped, no, you know, no more, you know.
00:27:25.58	Adam Blair	Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:27.32	Matthew Mandich	So yeah, that would be something that we would have to, I understand we're going with it as far as like having an institutional knowledge and knowing where that this list is accessible and kept and all the planners need to have access to it. And all the planners also need to be aware of what constitutes formula retail, whether that's, you know, are we over the sixth threshold? There are certain things that are very obvious formula retail, but there are other things that are maybe not quite as obvious. One example would be the Morvair. You know, they have about 10 or 11 locations, but they're not a big chain by any means. So it's not something that would, you know, strike you as formula retail right away, like a Taco Bell or something like that. So.
00:27:27.86	Adam Blair	Yeah.
00:28:02.62	Kristina Feller	Right, right. So would you be willing to sort of entertain a friendly amendment with maybe some additional definition about what designee means to basically say, that it should be a planner within the planning department or the senior planner or Um, you know, maybe, you know, I don't, you know, however the director wants to run the department, but maybe, a deputy director so that that person is automatically the designee, whatever that might be. I'm just, I think I would feel a little more comfortable, that we're clear that it's actually a planner and someone from the planning department and not somebody from DPW or somebody from other you know, from the library or something, that it's actually within this department. Because that's not actually clear in the language. when we look at proposals and amendments like this, it transcends any individual, any one of us. Like we happen to be the stewards of the commission today, but we might not be tomorrow. And same goes with the staff. So I wanna make sure that it's very, very clear and there's a clear roadmap and formula for how this is handled by the city so that it's kind of bulletproof and a no-brainer in the future.
00:29:19.33	Matthew Mandich	Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, absolutely. I understand that. Understand your concern with that. I will say that that language of the community development director and her slash designee does appear in the code in other places. This is not something that is a new way of defining how permits are approved. So it does appear in other parts of the code. So that's why we used it. we could certainly incorporate something a little bit more rigorous. Our plan, as we kind of have it now, speaking with Director Phipps about how we want to process these is kind of expanding the OUP. We already have a formula retail section built into our occupational use permit application form. So expanding that out a little bit more and perhaps having maybe a director signature spot or something like that could
00:30:05.91	Adam Blair	We'll see you next time.
00:30:06.11	Matthew Mandich	know, could make it a little bit more, a little tighter.
00:30:06.16	Kristina Feller	Thank you.
00:30:09.79	Matthew Mandich	Yeah.
00:30:10.11	Kristina Feller	I appreciate that. And again, I just think we have to like evolve forward. We have an opportunity to do that here. And just because we mentioned it.
00:30:10.72	Matthew Mandich	I appreciate it.
00:30:19.39	Kristina Feller	different ways in the code. We know that the rest of the code is older than this actual particular ordinance. So I would, you know, enthusiastically support kind of evolving some of this language for clarity. So there is no ambiguity, you know, in the future. And that's really the only intention. to my comment at all here. I really, really appreciate this. By the way, your table was really helpful. So thank you for, you know, providing that to us and going over that. here in the presentation. Um, Chair, those are all my questions for the moment, so thank you.
00:31:01.61	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Feller. Commissioner Merle.
00:31:05.39	David Marlatt	Thank you, Director. Just a couple informational questions related to the districts and the number of formerly retail uses in them. Can you walk me through the logic of how the numbers were derived? I'm not saying they're wrong, but why six here and two there? Was that something that staff developed internally? Was it developed on some history or size of the zones?
00:31:19.70	Nastassya Saad	Thank you.
00:31:19.72	Matthew Mandich	uh,
00:31:20.16	Nastassya Saad	you
00:31:23.59	Matthew Mandich	Yeah.
00:31:27.35	Matthew Mandich	It was. It was developed by myself, Director Phipps, with some input from city attorney Sergio Rudin as well. But yeah, the idea was that you have to create room for new uses to come in. There's a certain amount of uses in each zone that exist already. So we had to create some space. So we kind of looked at where the most formula retail is already. Do we want to oversaturate certain zones? We looked at the geography of city too where these zones are located um the cn zone specifically is one that has very little formula retail in it so that's why we felt we could expand a little bit more in there having a couple more um we wanted to include the commercial waterfront because we do um have a number of restaurants in that zone already um if vacancies were to come up in the future, we wouldn't want to preclude, you know, economic development in those areas through, you know, different restaurant uses or other uses there. So, and as Director Phipps already mentioned, CW has a permitted use for restaurants. So I think we looked through and we put our heads together and came up with some numbers. There's not a specific formula or ratio or rhyme or reason that was used. It was more of a common sense equation, just looking at how many are where and trying to derive some numbers that allowed for additional uses to locate in that zone without, in our opinions, oversaturating.
00:32:48.28	Director Phipps	Yeah, I think just to dovetail off of that, that was the real crux of senior planner managers and my discussion. It was really centered around what represents an overconcentration of formula retail in these districts and what feels unreasonable to us. So we did do an informal evaluation of kind of size of each district and backed into, I would say, a general ratio, not a fixed ratio or objective one, but a general ratio related to the size of the district, number of parcels and retail pads within the district, and derived what seemed to be a reasonable number from there. And as Matthew mentioned, the numbers change between districts, partly because each district has its own unique identity, and it may be the case that certain formula retail establishments would be better suited for certain districts, let's say, for example, outside of the central downtown district.
00:33:43.82	David Marlatt	Thank you for that clarification. Yeah, I have no particular question. opinion about it but it's wondering if it came from some other process or study that may be something that council may um opine upon whether one more formula retail district use goes in one district or another my uh second question and again just for my information why not have formula retail in the cr district was that something that as a new member is there a history there or was it something that was discussed
00:33:55.26	Nastassya Saad	is
00:34:12.89	Matthew Mandich	It was indeed, yes. And there is quite a bit of a history there in the sense of the fact that, you know, the CR and that commercial residential zone on Caledonia has often been considered, you know, among locals, the local downtown and the non-visitor serving, the non-tourist district. One that, you know, a lot of local residents, I think, hold very dear. And it's one that was originally left out of the formula retail ordinance. The original ordinance does not allow formula retail to locate in the CR. There was discussions about expanding it to locate in every commercial zone. But we felt that just kind of the history of Caledonia, the general, I hate to use it, but the general vibes just around that area were something that we felt like that we would be, if we were allowing formula retail to locate in that zone, it would be going against a lot of longstanding history and kind of feelings about that area. So we chose specifically to leave it out. There was discussion about putting it in. We originally were thinking of expanding to all commercial zones, but ultimately after several conversations decided to leave the CR as it, as it stands and, and not bring that as an additional zoning district.
00:35:24.36	Adam Blair	THE END OF
00:35:24.70	David Marlatt	Thank you. I appreciate the level of thoughtfulness that went into that. That's the just in my question. Thank you.
00:35:31.76	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you, Commissioner Marlott. Commissioner Sott. Any questions?
00:35:36.57	Nastassya Saad	Thank you, Chair. No, excellent report. Matthew, thank you and my colleagues. everything I was curious about. So I'll just thank you for, and thank you staff for this, because I know this has been in the works for a long time and I think it's, um, Very well done. So nothing to add right now, Chair.
00:35:55.34	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you, Commissioner Saad. Thank you, guys, sir.
00:35:56.49	Adam Blair	Thank you.
00:35:56.54	Nastassya Saad	Yeah.
00:35:56.55	Adam Blair	I'm sorry.
00:35:56.59	Nastassya Saad	All right.
00:35:56.64	Adam Blair	Thank you.
00:35:57.30	Jeffery Luxenberg	I have two questions. The first is to carry on from Commissioner Marlott's question. So the CN District 1 and the CN District 2 are roughly the same size. There's two CN1s, but when you add them together and you look at what the properties are, I guess I'm struck about we've got four in CN1 and a capacity of three, but in CN2, we only allow one. And the whole idea is not to have so much formula retail that it overtakes the district. But, for example, in CN2, if a restaurant were to come in that was formula retail and then a clothing store was to come in that was formula retail i don't think that would harm the district so i guess i'm concerned of why and in the case of cs i understand one it's only one parcel so i guess if if molly stones went out it could be broken up into multiple uh uses uh multiple um you know tenants so to speak but the but the CN2 being one what it was already more thought, it just seems highly restrictive.
00:37:10.13	Matthew Mandich	Thank you.
00:37:10.16	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you.
00:37:10.18	Matthew Mandich	Thank you.
00:37:10.21	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you.
00:37:10.25	Matthew Mandich	Thank you. Yeah, no, that's a fair comment. I think the CM1 objectively is a bit larger if you combine both of those commercial neighborhood zones together. So it's bigger than the CN2 when you combine both CN1s. But yeah, I think that our feeling was that there's only really about five, six parcels in CN2 and that allowing one felt like a good number there, whereas the CN one has quite a few more parcels in it and only has the one existing formula retail use. And CN two has one, two, but it's exempt. It's the shell station. So that was kind of the thinking behind that. If you think that that number should increase, I mean, I'm happy to take that on board as an amendment and we can bring that forward and just to also be clear too about the cm1 and the cn2 the way they're defined in in the in the zoning code and in the definitions for in front of the commercial land uses is it's just the cn um there is no cn one or two we've like demarcated that on the zoning map but as far as that goes and if you look at the table of uses, there's just CN. So it's really kind of all one zone. So we could actually even if we wanted to, if we wanted to make an amendment to even abandon the distinction of one and two, we could just make it. add one in and make it four for CN. Thank you. and then they could locate accordingly. That CM1-2 distinction is, yeah, it's really something that is interesting. It occurs more really only finding on the zoning map and it's not really in the code is at all. So, um, I think, you know, we could, we can make an, uh, an amendment or a change to that. I, that's definitely something we could take on board.
00:38:40.55	Nastassya Saad	Thank you.
00:38:40.68	Adam Blair	Thank you.
00:38:40.72	Nastassya Saad	I'm sorry.
00:38:49.76	Jeffery Luxenberg	OK? Second question is on transferability and the mechanics of how this would work. So let's say we had, which we don't, but let's say we had a small restaurant downtown that serves lunches. And it happens to have six of them throughout the Bay Area, one in Berkeley, one in San Francisco, whatever. There's six of those. And and that's a restaurant and they and mcconnell's wants to come in to that space do do they need new clearance or do they need is uh uh or are they can just transfer it those are the same use under the that question is is that the same use one's fast food and one's not is that same use under the land use table and and i'm also not so my two real questions is that are those the same use is that how general the land use tables are and i'm not sure the difference between a clearance process and a transfer process so what are the distinctions between
00:39:57.58	Matthew Mandich	Yeah, that's a good point. So you're talking about basically transferability of one formula retail to another.
00:40:02.42	Jeffery Luxenberg	Yeah, so there's an existing restaurant that is formula retail, a small local Bay Area thing, which a large chain wants to come in and replace them.
00:40:15.99	Matthew Mandich	Yeah, if it's two restaurant uses and they're both formula retail, the clearance would pass over to them.
00:40:21.32	Jeffery Luxenberg	The clearance would pass over to them. It would be transferable. They would not have to apply. They would not have to apply for that. And if they don't make any modifications to the space, if they just come in there.
00:40:22.62	Matthew Mandich	be transferable.
00:40:33.19	Matthew Mandich	Yeah. Don't expand. Yeah.
00:40:34.45	Jeffery Luxenberg	don't expand. I mean, obviously, change the colors, but they would not... Thank you.
00:40:42.53	Matthew Mandich	Yeah. So let's just say that that zoning districts capped, like, let's say it's the CC and there's six already. And one is a formula retail restaurant, a small mom pop, but it's still qualified to formulate. Say I have seven, you know, and they're all the same name. They move out and like a Quiznos or something wants to move into that spot. They can take that clearance. and transfer that clearance to them so they're not recapped like going
00:41:04.24	Jeffery Luxenberg	They don't have to apply or they don't have to do anything. They don't have to...
00:41:08.37	Matthew Mandich	It would transfer over. I mean, it's a good point, good question about how that would work physically with the paperwork and the applications. It's an important point you bring up. I don't know if maybe we could defer to our city attorney on that, director, to see about the transferability issue and how that would maybe function in practicality.
00:41:16.71	Jeffery Luxenberg	and I'm not sure.
00:41:29.65	Jeffery Luxenberg	I did send that question to the city attorney earlier this week. So he should be aware of it and hopefully he has an answer. So Mr. Cody, welcome aboard.
00:41:32.47	Matthew Mandich	I'm not sure.
00:41:36.57	Matthew Mandich	Thank you.
00:41:36.60	Adam Blair	Absolutely.
00:41:36.79	Matthew Mandich	to the
00:41:42.43	Mr. Cody	Good evening, commissioners. So I agree with the analysis that it's transferable. In terms of the mechanics of how that would work, my, you know, my initial point is that would be at some level worked out between the business owners, right, the seller and the buyer of that business, So I think that I'm not sure you have to get into that, into the ordinance, if that's the question. I think if you want to PB, Harmon Zuckerman, And I'm not sure you have to further specify in in the ordinance. But if if we wanted to specify that there should be some sort of review of that, then I, you know, we can we can make that clear. But I think it's within the scope of the ordinance as it's drafted, that the city could um, have some level of review. But again, I think it's fine to clarify that as well.
00:42:51.05	Director Phipps	Appreciate that, Matt. And if I could just dovetail off of that, I'd say, you know, the city intends, as Matthew was referring to previously, keep a rigorous record of these formula retail establishments, the location of these formula retail establishments as related to these specific zoning districts and these, you know, kind of ceilings that we've put on the number of formula retail establishments that can exist. And that's something that we will put into our track it system, put into a geo located kind of map of the city. And I believe internally, you know, we can hash this out, Matthew, following this hearing, but I would imagine the only real change we would need to do is update the name of the business and ensure that we don't lose that number, that formula retail count as a result of any transfer. So I think responsible administration is going to be the solution to this question.
00:43:47.89	Jeffery Luxenberg	So what you said was, what was it, an O something P, what was the?
00:43:54.24	Director Phipps	occupational use permit. Matthew's suggesting that this retail clearance will be akin to that as OUP is kind of a high level zoning clearance.
00:44:00.82	Jeffery Luxenberg	Mm-hmm.
00:44:04.58	Jeffery Luxenberg	So when they come in for the OUP, they will say, we already have this clearance, as opposed to somebody who's coming in new, because they do still need an OUP, correct?
00:44:19.24	Matthew Mandich	Yeah, I mean, any new business located in the city would require an occupational use permit. So depending on how, again, the mechanics of how we set up the application form. So right now on the current OUP, there already is a section for formerly retail. It asks kind of a yes or no section, like are you formerly retail? Yes, no. We're looking at the mechanisms to expand that section a little bit and make it a little bit more detailed and have a little bit more of like a question and answer flow chart that, you know, requires applicant to fill out. Yes. Are there, you know, formula retail clearances available in the zone? Yes or no. How many, if yes, you know, kind of like walks you through, can you even get this clearance, you know, walking through the steps. So that's kind of how we're envisioning that process to work. But yes, if someone has a, if there's a formula retail clearance on file for the same land use, um, you know, we'd have to find a way we'll transfer that over to the, to the new, the new owner of that parcel or the new tenant in that parcel. And I think they would just fill out the form accordingly. And really you wouldn't be, I mean, in a sense, you'd be losing one. Someone's leaving, but someone else is coming back in. So it would just be approving the clearance again. I think, I don't think it's that. that difficult. I don't know if our attorney wants to add anything on that. or if anyone has any
00:45:43.86	Jeffery Luxenberg	I did appear to be. Commissioner Feller has a question, though. Commissioner Feller.
00:45:48.34	Kristina Feller	Well, you know, Terry, you bring up a good, I like the line of questioning and the discussion because, you know, just to use like one example, You know, we had a Starbucks that theoretically would have been grandfathered in, but the building caught on fire. next to the Schnell building across from Benetton. So that's an example of like, can you put Can the Starbucks go back in there because it, that there's, it conveys with that property? I mean, how does that work?
00:46:30.45	Director Phipps	Thank you for the question, Commissioner. I would state that the approval of that Starbucks treated that use as establishment specific and highlights some of the concerns that staff have with the ordinance as it's currently drafted.
00:46:53.82	Jeffery Luxenberg	Okay, other questions, Commissioner Marillette.
00:46:56.89	David Marlatt	Thank you. I have a similar but slightly different line of questioning, or two questions, not a line, regarding what happens when an establishment of permitted use either is not formula and becomes a formula by expanding in the San Rafael and Mill Valley and so forth. So its status changes, but it's actually the same business that's operating. And then conversely, if a formula use closes locations, so it falls below the threshold and it's no longer formula. First of all, does that trigger anything with the occupational use permit? I guess it does not. But does that change the quota system? So instead of zero retail, formula retail establishments being available in the zoning district. This formula retail is actually no longer formula retail technically, therefore does that open up a slot or has there been any thought about what happened when the status changes for the same business?
00:47:56.53	Director Phipps	Wondering if Attorney Cody can provide some feedback on their experience in this realm.
00:48:05.86	Mr. Cody	Well, I'll say the ordinance does not speak to that. And so if... I think that would be an open question. frankly, and maybe an area where you want to specify with that. you know, now expanded business count towards the limit? uh, Yeah, that may be I mean, be a little difficult to implement. Right? Because you'll kind of have to get them to come back.
00:48:39.02	Adam Blair	Yeah.
00:48:39.69	Mr. Cody	Um, But so I think that's a question, kind of a policy question to see if you wanna address that here.
00:48:48.60	Director Phipps	Well, I'm happy to at least provide some initial feedback. So my initial thoughts on this after talking it through with Matthew and drafting this ordinance is that upon the receipt of a request for a formula retail clearance for a particular formula retail use, it will trigger essentially a reevaluation of the number of formula retail establishments within that district and staff will need to act accordingly based on changes to status.
00:49:17.09	David Marlatt	But those changes of status may not be reflected in that establishments occupational use permit. In other words, it was permitted originally as a non formula. Use and it grew into a formula use so it would be recognized as such for the purposes of permitting future formula uses.
00:49:38.60	Director Phipps	Do you have any suggestions? Thank you.
00:49:41.66	David Marlatt	Oh no.
00:49:42.49	Director Phipps	Right. Thank you.
00:49:43.04	Matthew Mandich	Thank you.
00:49:43.09	Adam Blair	Yeah, I mean, it's definitely
00:49:43.14	Matthew Mandich	All right.
00:49:43.46	Director Phipps	and the other.
00:49:43.51	Matthew Mandich	Heh heh. you
00:49:45.47	Director Phipps	Thank you.
00:49:45.57	Matthew Mandich	I mean, it's definitely an interesting question. Absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, when a business comes in and gets an OUP, if they don't qualify at Formula Retail at that time, you know, they've been granted an OUP, they're open, they're running business. I don't think you can then go back and say, oh, well, we found out you opened two more stores in San Rafael. Now you need to come back and get a zoning clearance or like we've already given them the permit that they need to operate.
00:50:02.04	David Marlatt	Sam Ravel, now you need to
00:50:08.02	David Marlatt	And it's not all my intention that we disrupt an existing business.
00:50:08.08	Matthew Mandich	No. It's more about, I think what you're saying, the other side of it is actually the part that I think is a little more thought provoking side about if somebody closes, and then now do we have an open zoning clearance that we can provide to a new business and that yeah I think we need that's an interesting point.
00:50:25.84	Jeffery Luxenberg	I think what you said, Director Phipps, is sort of the answer. When you go to somebody comes in for formula retail, you're going to reevaluate all the ones that are out there. So if one of them has dropped and no longer has six sites, you can make the argument that you can accept the one above the cap because they're no longer taking part of the cap. On the other side of it, I think what you can do is if they if you're at the cap you're there's nothing you can do but if you're not at the cap you can when you re-evaluate it decide that they're now taking a spot and give them a clearance and and add them to your for your list uh because they now qualify before more people can come in so i think that's probably the only way to really do it so Commissioner Fowler.
00:51:19.84	Kristina Feller	I just have two additional questions. So thank you for indulging me. And these are kind of hypothetical just so I can get my head around this and make sure that we are bulletproof here. Um, What? It... What? What would be the situation Um, if a formula retail entity wanted to open more than one location in Sausalito. Would that be permitted?
00:51:49.76	Matthew Mandich	I imagine yes, as long as they were able to get the zoning clearance.
00:51:54.38	Kristina Feller	So there's no limitation at all for multiple formula retail outlets. The number of them, the same brand, let's say within Sausalito.
00:52:06.43	Director Phipps	Yeah, you're correct, Commissioner. There is no limitation on the number of any specific type of business in the city.
00:52:13.80	Kristina Feller	Okay. So if, um, you know, some chain t-shirt shop wanted to open two or three locations throughout Sausalito, as long as they were meeting the threshold of the the neighborhoods as identified, they can do that, correct?
00:52:34.47	Director Phipps	Correct.
00:52:35.27	Kristina Feller	Okay. The second question I have, and again, this is sort of hypothetical conversation, um, In the downtown area, we know that the Wells Fargo building is empty and is up for sale. And someone might buy it or someone might, you know, occupy it. That is not a bank or financial institution. And Um, maybe it's a restaurant or maybe it's some other kind of chain or what, what have you, or a gap or something like what, What would be that process since it's theoretically exempt because it's a bank now under the current ownership if it changes use into something else that meets the formula retail sort of definition Um, you would, one would, and it wouldn't be exempt. You would need a CUP. Is that right? in the CC area.
00:53:31.68	Matthew Mandich	Yeah, so just a little bit of background on that specific site that you bring up. It actually has sold and the concept plan in right now for they've applied for all the permits they're trying to do a restaurant with a boutique hotel attached so.
00:53:38.28	Kristina Feller	Thank you.
00:53:38.31	Adam Blair	Oh.
00:53:47.36	Matthew Mandich	a three-room hotel and a fine dining restaurant on the ground floor. So.
00:53:51.73	Kristina Feller	And does that need a CUP?
00:53:53.96	Matthew Mandich	under your CUP for, yeah, it needs a lot of permits for all the things they're doing. I mean,
00:53:54.02	Kristina Feller	So you can do your...
00:53:57.40	Kristina Feller	Yeah.
00:53:57.85	Adam Blair	Thank you.
00:53:59.24	Matthew Mandich	Ha ha. Yeah, it does. I mean, it needs a CUP, it needs a variance. It needs an alcohol CUP. There's design review. There's a lot of things going on with that project. It's a big array of permits. Yeah. Um,
00:54:11.00	Kristina Feller	THE END OF THE END OF THE Well, glad to hear the progress down there. Yeah, good one.
00:54:13.58	Matthew Mandich	Yeah.
00:54:15.44	Kristina Feller	And is there any exemption for a city owned property?
00:54:20.53	Matthew Mandich	Not that... I am aware of, or I don't think we wouldn't be building that in. I don't think. you
00:54:25.76	Kristina Feller	Okay.
00:54:25.76	Director Phipps	The exemptions are related to land use types. Yeah.
00:54:29.49	Kristina Feller	I just wanted to make sure I understood that. Okay. Thank you, staff. And thank you, Chair, for indulging my questions.
00:54:37.73	Jeffery Luxenberg	I'll clarify further. The former use is irrelevant. Whatever use they're proposing is, if it's formula retail, it's formula retail. If they're proposing a bank, then it's exempt. But if they're proposing a restaurant, it's not exempt. It doesn't matter that it was a bank, right? Correct. Further questions from any commissioners at this time? With that, we're going to turn it to public comment. We'll direct your fix if you give instruction for public comment, even though we have no audience and nobody on Zoom that I can see. But we still have to do it.
00:55:15.16	Director Phipps	Certainly, Chair, happy to. Video or audio public comment is limited to three minutes per speaker. And if you'd like to make a comment, please submit a speaker card to me and or my colleague, Adam Blair, to my right. If you'd like to make a comment in the Zoom app, please raise your hand and you'll be called upon when it is your time to speak. And if you're joining us, us from a phone in order to raise your hand. Press star nine. Seeing none on both interfaces, physical and virtual.
00:55:43.39	Jeffery Luxenberg	So we'll close public comment, bring it back up to the dais. At this point, we can have some discussion and look for motion. Let me just – I heard two things in this conversation just to guide some things here, one of which is some question about CDD director or, I mean, sorry, community and economic development director and or his designee as a possible amendment and also some idea of either combining cn1 and cn2 into one district cn because that's what's on the zoning map anyways i mean that's what's on in the zoning tables and not on the map uh as would be one way to do that and you could add four plus one together and make it five uh another alternative i would suggest uh but i'm i'm happy to combine it i think that would be better but cn2 i i'm uncomfortable with one i would go at least two so three options one cn just by itself with six which is probably equal to the downtown or a cn two with two uh um and or cn as a total as five so those are three options i would suggest the other members consider uh with that uh other comments uh commissioner juniors
00:57:11.11	Andrew Junius	Thank you, Chair. I've actually got some significant concerns about this. First off, you know, I've been working with formula retail controls in San Francisco for since the beginning of time. So this is a real issue that's near and dear to my heart. I'm very familiar with how it evolved from the late 90s and early 2000s to where we are now. And I think a lot of cities have similar ordinances. Let me first, I don't think there's any question our ordinance needs to be updated. I do have some concerns that we're going a bit too far. I don't think, I don't think the Malibu case, which is seven years old, is, is creates an urgent situation that forces us to take what I'm seeing as some pretty dramatic action here. There's no question the definition of formula retail needs to be updated and what we've got in front of us is just fine. There's no question that we can, I think, appropriately limit the number of uses per zoning district and whatnot. But I really do think we should have a more, a little more discussion about the wholesale removal of the conditional use process altogether. Because it's not a perfect process, but I also think that, um, if we, if we have an ordinance where the staff is literally, you know, per law that, that maybe the city council will adopt, um, issues permits for formula retailers in our commercial corridor, our main commercial corridor without a public hearing, without any public input, aside from possibly an appeal, and I am aware that the ordinance allows for an appeal here. I think there could be some, some upset people in the community. And I think, um, and I think that should be, we could probably avoid some of that if we continued with a conditional use process. Um, The Malibu case is interesting in that it There's no question that it crossed a line. It identified a specific business as the, as the problem and didn't create a situation where the control was a land use control running with the land. And that can be easily fixed. It can be easily fixed and still retain a conditional use process. I shouldn't say easy, but it can be fixed so that it doesn't create the clear problem that Malibu created. So I think we should be talking about that. I mean, I do think this is a, you know, this is an issue where it's, it's, it's a very, very complex, intricate issue where it's a delicate dance between, you know, essentially private property rights, right? You've got businesses that want to be here, formerly retails that want to be here and you've got local owners that want to rent to them. There's no question that there's, you know, that there's, there's definitely going to be some pressure there, but at the same time, You've got communities, and I think Sausalito might be one of those communities, notwithstanding the fact that nobody appears to be watching tonight. So we're going to see how this happens. But, you know, I mean, again, my familiarity is with San Francisco, obviously a much bigger and much different city. But there are large neighborhoods in San Francisco that prohibit formula retail. You know, North Beach does not allow any formula retail. Hayes Valley does not allow any formula retail. Now that, of course, is balanced out that there are lots of other places where it's permitted downtown. And in neighborhoods, outside of those two districts that I just mentioned, you know, formerly retailers allowed with a conditional use. And all that really, in some respects, all that really does is, is require a national retailer. You know, we, we all know who they are for the, you know, the ones that I think we're, we'd be concerned about to come before the community and do some outreach and talk about what they're trying to do and show the community that they want to be there and give the community a chance to see what's happening as opposed to just wake up one day and realize, wow, there's a McDonald's down the street. You know, and that's, that's, I think, something that we should be a bit focused on here. And I do think that
01:01:13.72	Adam Blair	Thank you.
01:01:22.05	Andrew Junius	But again, the Malibu case is, um, I'm surprised it's seven years later, it's getting so much attention here. I just think that that by controlling the use and trying to figure out, trying to work a system where you would potentially allow the formula retailer in. But the real issue, I think, that neighborhoods like North Beach and cities like Sausalito and other cities in Marin County and all over California, with quaint little downtowns that don't have many obvious formula retailers, they want to maintain their character. right? They don't want to have big, colorful, branded signs, you know, in their commercial district. Now, whether that's a good or bad, I know communities, they're reactive about that. They want to talk about that, and some people get concerned about that. So, I'm actually, I'm not here trying to you know, really talk about in some ways the policy issue. I don't really, I'm very conflicted one way or the other, because again, communities have a right to, you know, I think be a part or have a lot to say about what their community, you know, looks like and feels like and what it is and businesses and property owners have a right to do what they can under the local laws with their property. So there is a conflict here and I don't really fall one way or the other. notwithstanding the fact that I've represented dozens of formerly retailers in San Francisco over the years. So my position right now is maybe a little odd to some, but I do think, we should be talking about this. Again, I'm just worried that if we go straight to what essentially is a ministerial process for for basically restaurants and retailers in the downtown in our most important central downtown zoning district we're going to have some people that are upset. Now they're not watching tonight and maybe I'm totally wrong. Maybe there, maybe nobody seems to, maybe nobody does care, but I do think that this is a major issue that, I'm wondering, I was hoping somebody would also bring up, and I guess I'm the only one that is concerned about this. um absent the the malibu question and i think i think a lot of people might be thinking well the city attorney said we've got a problem so we should fix it and i don't think it's that clear so i'd like to discuss that i've got a handful of other things but i'd really be curious if there's any reaction to that and then if we get if we get into the nuts and bolts i'm i'm totally in support of any other changes with respect to numbers those things are to me are not that important i do think there's some interesting things about the definitions that i'd like to speak to as well but I'd just like to start with that. Thank you for your attention.
01:03:50.40	Jeffery Luxenberg	Before we go to others, can I ask Attorney Cody, if you could come back on board on the video, is it possible to require a CUP in just the CC district and not the other districts and therefore solving the Malibu power problems?
01:04:13.45	Mr. Cody	So I think you can specify certain districts that would require it. a CUP, assuming that It doesn't violate the Malibu case, right? So I think that I'm not sure it avoids the or fixes the Malibu question.
01:04:34.87	Jeffery Luxenberg	What was the last time?
01:04:37.38	Mr. Cody	I don't think it would resolve any questions about the validity of that requirement under the Malibu decisions.
01:04:47.44	Jeffery Luxenberg	Meaning we can require a CUP or we can't require a CUP?
01:04:53.58	Mr. Cody	it. All right. I'm sorry. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, I so putting the Malibu case aside, you can you can pick and choose what districts would require the CP. But I don't think that resolves the Malibu question.
01:05:13.63	Jeffery Luxenberg	But I mean, theoretically, because we're doing it in CR, we could prohibit formula retail in the CC. So if we can prohibit it in the CC, why can't we require a CUP in the CC?
01:05:34.20	Mr. Cody	Well, that is, in essence, the problem that the city attorney has identified, and that is the Malibu decision could be read, you know, in a number of different ways. But the reading, one of the problems that we've identified is that the court criticized the use of the conditional use permit requirement as regulating a particular business and not a land use. And so I think that's
01:06:13.62	Adam Blair	Thank you.
01:06:13.76	Mr. Cody	Thank you. Yeah, those are kind of two different questions. Yeah.
01:06:18.41	Andrew Junius	And if I might, and as long as you don't regulate the specific business and you only regulate the land use so that national hamburger retailer A, B, C, D, or E could all go in after A gets in. But A couldn't, like McDonald's, couldn't turn into a Walgreens without another formula retail use. But a McDonald's could turn into a Jack in you know, a Subway or a Carl's Jr., right? I mean, so that's a land use control that works. It's a specific, you know, food. I mean, you actually raised a good point earlier about the food uses. Right. Once you start getting into the details of how the definitions work, it can get really complicated fast, and it really starts to become very discretionary. But I do think we could get over the Malibu problem by simply doing what the Malibu case said. Don't regulate it by – make it a right that runs with the land, with the specific land use control that's been approved, and move on. And we can still have a conditional use process. It's not, so that's, I mean, I really do think we can solve this and keep the CUP.
01:07:24.78	Director Phipps	So, Commissioner, this sounds to me, and I really do appreciate the comments. It's great to hear from your experience and wisdom and working with us for so long, so much appreciated. It sounds to me like you'd like to expand the nature of the formula retail CUP requirement to eliminate the establishment-specific attributes that came out of the problems associated with the Malibu case, and to ensure that it runs solely with the land and can be transferred to similar non, you know, similar land uses as, once again, highlighting the non-establishment specific nature of kind of your recommendation. So does that mean that we will expand the land use table to include greater amounts of land use types?
01:08:11.90	Andrew Junius	Well, no, this is where it does get a little funky, and I'm not sure we can solve this tonight. And again, I also don't think this is an emergency. I really don't. The case has been out there for seven years. I have no idea if Sausalud has been threatened with legal action. I can tell you that San Francisco hasn't, and San Francisco has been fighting the back and forth, the former retail wars for 25 years. And I don't remember any litigation. It was just kind of a given, even though you may not agree with it. It just became part of doing business. And like it, I like my comments earlier, it became part of the what the community expected in a way to participate in, in who comes to, you know, serve their neighborhood. But back to your, back to your question. I really do think it could be more of a, you know, kind of an overlay trigger. You know, you, it really shouldn't be a category of use. I kind of, Thank you. But back to your question, I really do think it could be more of a, you know, kind of an overlay trigger. You know, it really shouldn't be a category of use. I kind of, I think I agree with that. But it very well could be, if you qualify as a formula retrailer, you know, we're, you know, we're going to trigger a hearing so that you can come and speak to the community and possibly, you know, explain to us how you're going to deal with our signage controls and how are you going to fit into the neighborhood without um you know uh in terms of some design you know guidelines because i do think the city has an enormous amount of discretion there you know you look at the signage downtown in sausalito very subtle very fitting you know especially in the in the commercial core district and and i just it'd be hard for me to imagine a huge bright you know formula retailer coming in you know that we just that would just be inappropriate and
01:09:46.18	Director Phipps	Well, if I may just clarify, in that specific case, let's say a business with some golden arches decides to come into the city. In that case, if we were to approve the formula retail application or zoning clearance, they would still be subject to our sign ordinance. They would still be subject to the historic resource related constraints imposed on the historic district. That's the only clarification.
01:10:04.74	Adam Blair	Agreed.
01:10:04.98	Nastassya Saad	Thank you.
01:10:05.08	Andrew Junius	They would still be.
01:10:14.01	Andrew Junius	I understand. And I appreciate that. And I agree with that. So I also did before one more comment, though. You know, the issue about what is a formula retailer or not is really an interesting one. The idea that Amort Vert is a formula retailer. That's, I guess, kind of news to me. The beautiful thing about that type of retailer is they look so, generous and calm and fitting into the neighborhood and you'd never know it from again just I don't shop there because i'm a guy but. But it just seems it seems like it's very I think it's very possible that if the if the staff just took a really close look at emerald vert and and the service mark and the and the signage and the standardization. you might conclude that they're not. because The 10 stores, they might look a little bit different in every neighborhood. And I've actually been in situations where large national retailers specifically started a completely different, you know, branch of their business in a neighborhood where Formula Richer was required. They were clearly owned by a national chain, but they did something completely different. And you would walk into that store and you'd never know it was owned by Gap, but it's a Gap store. even though there's no Gap products in there, whatever. So this can get really, really interesting, but I really think a lot of it comes down to who the business is and are they willing to fit in and are they willing to speak to the community.
01:11:34.80	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you. Let me just add on to that, because back in 20, 30 years ago, when people started doing this kind of thing, I had a case when I was planning director where McDonald's came in, and it stayed with McDonald's. It had the same menu when you walked in there, but the outside was a historic downtown. It looked like the historic downtown. You could barely see the signage, and that was a result of the CUP kind of thing. So in that case it was a special permit, but same idea. But it was Commissioner Miller.
01:12:07.22	David Marlatt	Yeah, so I had a question and a clarification. One is I do appreciate Commissioner Junius' concern that there's more public input and participation in allowing formula retail into the Sausalito. Would it address your concern and perhaps also the concern raised by Commissioner Feller if the zoning clearance was simply subject to planning commission review rather than being ministerial? because these questions that come up, come up before the commission, and that would make that opportunity for the public. And then the second is just a clarification. If I understand correctly, the CUP runs with the land. And if we want a CUP to run from, I'd say, Burger King to McDonald's to Wendy's, but not to the Gap, isn't that really a question of how tightly the CUP is worded? In other words, the CUP can be worded tightly enough so that it's very restrictive.
01:13:08.19	Andrew Junius	Well, I think the answer there would be the ordinance would say, and I think the ordinance actually kind of does already say in terms of a transfer between use groups. So what you just described there would be going from a food retailer or a food use restaurant to a. regular general retailer so there would clearly be a jump and then you could require a new hearing under the order
01:13:25.50	David Marlatt	But the language of a conditional use permit, because it's conditional, can impose additional conditions. So this is conditional if it serves 50 hamburgers an hour. Well, yeah. But you can tighten up the language to restrict that use to whatever the intention was that it should be and still allow it to run with the land.
01:13:31.27	Andrew Junius	THE END OF THE END OF THE
01:13:31.48	Adam Blair	THE END OF THE END OF THE
01:13:31.54	Andrew Junius	Thank you.
01:13:35.48	Andrew Junius	Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:13:44.40	Andrew Junius	Commissioner, there's a million different ways we could skin this cat. There's no question about it. I think the idea, though, and whether you call it a conditional use permit or you call it anything that you want to call it, if the city wants to allow the community to participate in this absent an appeal to the city council, which I really don't think is that efficient, you would come up with a hearing process and a public notice process. And the obvious one here is a conditional use rather than make up a new one. It's a well-worn path. I think it's a little clunky and cumbersome and doesn't really fit for a lot of things, but it's what we got, right? It's the one thing that, like you said, you can add conditions and whatnot. But it really does allow just for a public process and the commission to weigh in on whether this is an appropriate use for this district.
01:14:10.85	Adam Blair	Um,
01:14:22.57	David Marlatt	Oh, yeah.
01:14:28.19	David Marlatt	Well, I won't belabor the point anymore, but I'm not an attorney, obviously. And I appreciate that the conditional use may feel redundant with the zoning clearance. But if it's correct that we have some legal exposure here because of the way we want to control this use, would it be just a pragmatic solution to make the zoning clearance subject to commission approval, not simply ministerial approval? I understand there's a kind of redundancy to that, so it's not as elegant.
01:14:56.88	Jeffery Luxenberg	Again? I think what Commissioner Junior is saying, and I would concur with that, is basically it is a CU, by another name it's a CUP, it's still a CUP. So if they need clearance from the Planning Commission, then it's a conditional use permit, because you have permits that are allowed as of right, or you have conditional use permit, or you have minor use permits. So minor use permits go administratively, the conditional use permits come to us, and the permitted uses are just done ministerially. So I don't think we would create a new category. But let me throw out another wrinkle in this, which is my concern is that we have a small restaurant comes in and wants to transfer it to a McDonald's. That's a problem. And so one way to solve that would be to take this restaurant use and divide that up into restaurants and fast food restaurants so that a fast food restaurant, if it's approved under a fast food restaurant, it can only transfer to a fast food restaurant. So if it was a regular restaurant, it couldn't transfer to a fast food restaurant. But I like the idea of keeping, I mean, I was hearing from, I thought I was hearing from the legal that we can't use a CUP. But if I'm hearing from Attorney Cody that we can use a CUP in some way in some districts or something, then maybe we should consider that. Commissioner Fellow has a question. Commissioner Fellow.
01:16:26.62	Kristina Feller	Karen Hollweg, um well I mean I like this discussion, some of the questions that I I sent ahead to the staff. before the hearing was really trying to understand if what's being proposed here actually circumvented sort of a legislative mandate of the guardrails that the Planning Commission you know, in general or generically is meant to have in terms of managing and overseeing the zoning and planning of of our city or any other city, you know, the commissions around around California. So, That was the one piece that I really What? I didn't want that to be circumvented because I think there's also you know, a fair expectation Um, by our community that the commission serves this particular purpose. Um, But again, similar to Commissioner Junius, I mean, I know that this ordinance needs to be updated. It's been a problem for a while. But I don't know that I'm completely willing to... to hand over or give away or syndicate that responsibility to, um, to staff entirely. I'm just not, I'm just not comfortable with that at this time. But. I like, I like a lot of what's in this particular proposal. otherwise.
01:18:00.16	Jeffery Luxenberg	Commissioner June.
01:18:01.17	Andrew Junius	Yeah, and I, and yeah, I think there's, there's, there's things here that need to happen. Like, I think one of the main problems of the ordinance that nobody will argue with is that the definition of form there, we really didn't have a definition of formula retail.
01:18:12.51	Adam Blair	Yeah.
01:18:12.83	Andrew Junius	Now we would. you This is a well-traveled, Or ordinance or definition of formula, which it works. It's proven in other jurisdictions. It's a, it's, that's a no brainer. Totally get that. And frankly. I think the findings that we have in the existing code for the conditional use permit for the retailer from the retailer. You know, those are a lot of the same kind of discretionary findings we have for a lot of things. Once you bring something to the commission and you open up the world of discretion, There's a lot of, you know, we have a lot of discretion, right? And I mean, I don't think we should just be you know, giving that away because in 2017, there was a court of appeal case in Malibu that went too far. I mean, I think, you know, I, you know, I totally respect the city attorney's office. And I understand we got to be concerned about legal challenges and whatnot. But I also think, this is a little too expedient and I can almost guarantee you that if this did get passed by the city council, there would be in future years a discussion at the city level that this doesn't give the community enough input. So what I'm really trying to do is to forestall that and try to cut that off bring the ordinance up to date so it works, I mean, I don't think we have, it's not like we've been deluged with formula retail applications, you know, in the last 10 years, or maybe we have. I mean, I didn't ask that question to the staff, but I mean, again, I think,
01:19:32.80	Nastassya Saad	Thank you.
01:19:32.82	Adam Blair	Thank you.
01:19:32.85	Nastassya Saad	Thank you.
01:19:32.87	Adam Blair	Thank you.
01:19:38.22	Andrew Junius	Changing the definition is great, but the ministerial process, I can't support that at the moment.
01:19:46.83	Jeffery Luxenberg	I think I'm hearing that the concept of the number of uses, if we combine the CN into one group, it works and the definitions work. But we were starting with a premise that the CUP had to go. If the CUP, I'm hearing from Attorney Cody that the CUP doesn't necessarily have to go, then I think we want to revisit that. Let me just understand what was in the land use chart, because you only gave us the revised one. Let me, Matthew, if you could come back to the thing. Was there a line item in the land use chart that said formula retail? Yes, there was. And it had CUP in all districts?
01:20:14.40	Adam Blair	Oh.
01:20:36.27	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you.
01:20:36.31	Matthew Mandich	Uh, yes. No, not permitted in any... Well, it's not permitted in the CR. It wasn't permitted in the CR.
01:20:41.15	Jeffery Luxenberg	The CR or the CW. The CUP and every other district. Yes, CUP required.
01:20:44.34	Matthew Mandich	not permitted at all in CR or CW, permitted with a CUP in those other districts, correct?
01:20:48.69	Jeffery Luxenberg	THE END OF THE END OF THE So if we possibly with the certain numbers, put it back, CUP back in some districts, but maybe CN it's okay to be P and CUP in others.
01:21:03.76	Matthew Mandich	I think the CUP though, that permit specifically is the issue. And I think that's what-
01:21:03.83	Jeffery Luxenberg	I think-
01:21:08.11	Adam Blair	Yeah.
01:21:08.87	Matthew Mandich	Matthew Cody was going to say to the CUP is the problem because it's not doesn't it runs with the land, not an establishment so if there's another kind of discretionary permit that you can come up with that allows for the planning Commission to have oversight over. Formula retail, then we have to think about that. But the CUP seems is the problem.
01:21:30.10	Jeffery Luxenberg	Isn't the CUP run with the land anyways?
01:21:33.19	Matthew Mandich	Well, CUP does run with the land, but right now we're having it run with an establishment. It's use versus user. And right now we're applying it to a user, not a use. Yeah, I believe it's transferable. It doesn't, the next person who buys that property, that CUP should run with it. Right now it's only...
01:21:42.00	Director Phipps	Yeah, I believe it.
01:21:48.92	Matthew Mandich	if it McDonald's replaces a McDonald's, like it's not a restaurant replaced by a restaurant.
01:21:52.31	Jeffery Luxenberg	So if we had a fast food category, as I suggested, and it was a Burger King and McDonald's replaced it, if we do a CUP, Burger King can't come in without another CUP?
01:22:03.97	Matthew Mandich	Yeah, see, well, that's just a totally different approach then. Yeah, I mean, now you're talking about...
01:22:04.68	Jeffery Luxenberg	It was Brentford.
01:22:07.84	Andrew Junius	Now you're talking about land uses like a fast food. That's what the Malibu ordinance says. I'm not sure that's what our ordinance says. I don't think our ordinance says anything at all about this, about the, about the form of retail being not a, not a, not running with the land.
01:22:09.73	Matthew Mandich	Smooth, man.
01:22:16.00	Matthew Mandich	Bye.
01:22:16.04	Adam Blair	I would get a little bit.
01:22:17.17	Nastassya Saad	THE FAMILY.
01:22:23.80	Director Phipps	Yeah, I think one of the findings that, and I'm hoping that we can all agree on this, is that formula retail is not a land use.
01:22:30.62	Andrew Junius	I would agree with that.
01:22:31.75	Director Phipps	Yeah. A restaurant is a land use. Right. And the issue with the CUP, I believe, is not related to the CUP as an approval sequence or a type of permit, but the way in which the CUP was being employed in a very specific way. Two things. One, establishment-specific.
01:22:31.76	Andrew Junius	you Thank you. But it. All right.
01:22:51.91	Director Phipps	Number two, does not run with the land. I think Matthew was suggesting, Cody and Mandich perhaps, if we use the CUP and sculpt it in a way that is not establishment specific and does run with the land, Commissioner Junius is suggesting that there is light at the end of the tunnel there.
01:23:10.61	Andrew Junius	That's exactly where I'm going with this. Yeah.
01:23:12.35	Kristina Feller	Yeah, I would support that.
01:23:16.09	Jeffery Luxenberg	Is it possible we send this back to staff to work on a way to do that?
01:23:16.23	Andrew Junius	THE FAMILY.
01:23:16.47	Kristina Feller	.
01:23:19.98	Director Phipps	So my questions to the commission would be when I,
01:23:22.74	Jeffery Luxenberg	City of
01:23:23.20	Mr. Cody	NEWS ON.
01:23:23.60	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you.
01:23:23.72	Mr. Cody	Thank you.
01:23:23.74	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you.
01:23:23.76	Mr. Cody	Thank you.
01:23:24.16	Director Phipps	Oh, excuse me. Go ahead.
01:23:25.53	Mr. Cody	I just wanted to clarify comments about where I stand on. Can you require a CUP? I just want to be clear. The city attorney has sent around advice on there is risk there. And so I just want to be clear about that. I'm not it. endorsing you know, going down that route. I'm just saying that that Malibu decision is subject to interpretation and I, I think Commissioner Junis has put forth various arguments and I seem obviously have a lot of experience there. And so, but there's definitely room for alternative views and that can carry some risk. So I just wanted to clarify that.
01:24:11.49	Jeffery Luxenberg	Okay, Commissioner Fallow, did you have an additional comment? No. I don't. Commissioner Hassan, was your hand up? No.
01:24:15.80	Nastassya Saad	No.
01:24:16.68	Mr. Cody	Thank you.
01:24:16.69	Nastassya Saad	I don't.
01:24:19.46	Jeffery Luxenberg	Yeah.
01:24:19.70	Nastassya Saad	It wasn't up. No, I just I was waiting to see if anyone else felt similarly. And Commissioner Junius had said. hit my personal feelings. I have, I have the same concerns. the transferability is also Just it's a flag. Personally, I am. Also. um, less in favor. of adding the commercial waterfront. I'm just gonna leave that out there for a second. It's not a hard no, but initial reaction to adding into the commercial waterfront. um, is something I'd be open to just hearing other people's opinions. If you too are interested in that being an addition. something new with the number for to establishments allowed. Um, I'd prefer to not see that, but curious to know other commissioners' feelings on that.
01:25:15.32	Jeffery Luxenberg	You know, the Commissioner of the Waterfront, uh, I'm okay with adding it, but it seems like there aren't that many parcels in commercial waterfronts, so two seems like a lot, if CN2 only has one, but I understand those concerns. Other, well,
01:25:37.54	Kristina Feller	Bye.
01:25:37.57	David Marlatt	Bye.
01:25:37.69	Kristina Feller	I'm sorry.
01:25:37.71	David Marlatt	you
01:25:37.76	Kristina Feller	Thank you.
01:25:37.79	David Marlatt	Thank you.
01:25:38.54	Kristina Feller	Thank you.
01:25:39.40	David Marlatt	I'm sorry, go ahead, Commissioner Feller. Commissioner Feller.
01:25:43.19	Kristina Feller	I mean, the only way that the CW makes sense is, again, some of our larger... higher density Um, proposed housing developments are in that zone. And obviously that needs, you know, new population or larger populations have to be supported by you know, all of those types of establishments, whether it's a restaurant or it's a dry cleaner coffee shop, you know, all those sorts of things. So, I mean, if we're really looking at this, like as you know, or ordinance, public policy, that's type of through that lens. then It might not be there today, but we have to allow for the potential for that to support communities within Sausalito I appreciate Commissioner Assad's point. I've asked the staff a question about the CW as well. because some of it is almost even like light industrial, but I think that that's really the intention of including it, but would like to hear from others.
01:26:56.18	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you. Mr. Romero.
01:26:56.87	David Marlatt	Well, my comment wasn't specific to that because I do support and I agree with Commissioner Feller that as the CW should probably evolve in the future with additional housing, it will require services. And these services could or should include formula retail where that's appropriate. So I think that that's kind of logical. Whether the number's right, one or two, I don't have any direct opinion. I want to make one comment, though, about the impact again to this issue of the CUP and community input and so forth. If we're agreeing and understanding that a conditional use runs with the land, that it's not user-specific, but we've been misusing it, perhaps, in the past, as staff has reported, so we want to address that. What staff is suggesting that we do is have this zoning clearance so that effectively the city doesn't cede control. So if Starbucks, I mean, we beat up on fast food so much, but if a nice clothing retailer that's a chain, a high-end clothing retailer gets their conditional use permit and then decides to leave and it's re-rented to a crazy t-shirt store that we for a variety of reasons we don't think is as appropriate and We're ceding control of that, if I understand right, because the conditional use runs with that. It's defined. And to Fluck, that's it. The city has to the public. The city and the public have no opportunity to question that, whereas they've been doing that effectively, maybe inappropriately, but they've been effectively doing that. So isn't, I appreciate the redundancy of the processes, but isn't this concept of a retail, or sorry, a formula, zoning clearance, subject perhaps to commission approval, not simply ministerial, bringing us functionally back to where we can exercise some control of the specific establishment and not just let a land use or run with the land with not having any control over the consequence? Aren't we ceding a control that we exercise today that is desirable?
01:29:02.88	Andrew Junius	I don't think we can solve all these problems, right? The example you just described would happen either way. You know, if we've got a conditional use process in place that allows transfers with no new CU once the form of the retail category approval attaches, whether it's through the staff approval or whether it's through our approval, yeah, that's not perfect. But it does, at least initially, for new category formula, again, like my example of what if it's a Walgreens going to a hamburger place, a Carl's Jr. or something, I think the community would like to hear about that and have a hearing on that. That's kind of what I'm trying to reintroduce here. And that's, I'll be honest with you, that's the only thing I truly care about tonight. I don't really have an opinion about the numbers. I actually think, You know, there's a good argument to say you shouldn't have any limits. If there's a conditional use authorization process in place that requires formula retailers and national retailers to come to the commission and speak to the community and talk about their use and conform with all our design controls, that may be enough. Why have numbers? Why have limits? I mean, if we want to, you know, open up the, you know, and let, you know, property owners rent to whoever they want or have at least an opportunity. There's an argument that we shouldn't even have the numbers. On the flip side, the numbers can be argued really importantly that you do wanna limit, and I do think we have the ability through zoning to limit the number of national retailers. So that's a, I'm not gonna step into that one, but I think the CU process is important. for the community and for us as decision makers in exercises of discretion about how the city's commercial corridors develop. So that's really pretty strimple for me.
01:30:46.49	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you. I think the numbers are important when it's ministerial. I mean, if we don't have a CUP, the numbers have become much more important. Let me make one comment, which we did not make explicit, but I will make explicit, to Commissioner Feller's comment about residential. So one of the benefits of – I agree that we should have the CUP. But one of the benefits of these exemptions is the things that are needed for residents, grocery stores, drug stores, banks, service stations, real estate offices, courier and delivery services, medical offices. Those are all exempt because those are uses, two things. One, that people or the residents need. And secondly, there's a consolidation in all of those industries where an independent pharmacy doesn't make it anymore. So if you want to be able to have a drugstore, it's going to be formula retail. So it's important that, especially with more residences, and even in the case of caledonia street which is supposed to be for the residents per the general plan that uses that serve the residents need to be able to come in and even if they're you know even if they're formula retail so i just wanted to make it clear why those kinds of things were being drafted this way so
01:30:48.90	David Marlatt	I'm not sure.
01:32:10.63	Kristina Feller	Yeah, I mean, my comment was really about CW, which is sort of a new... proposal. for what we're talking about here. And the examples I was giving weren't part of the list that you've identified as exemptions. I just wanted to point out that this is earmarked, you know, those zoning areas are earmarked for potential development. And so we need to think through that as we're thinking ahead of the future of how this ordinance will be used.
01:32:42.13	Jeffery Luxenberg	Are you are you I guess I misread your comment so you use you saying that the the commercial uses might pray prelude residential uses or are you saying that in a residential three story building on the first floor we would have possibly a grocery store or or a restaurant.
01:33:01.76	Kristina Feller	What I'm indicating is that there's There's an automatic conversion from commercial to residential and based on the new state legislation that has informed our housing element. But in addition to that, a lot of the convenience retail in the list that you've identified, which is what's in this proposal here as identified, and has been identified previously. Some of the items such as restaurants and things like that are not listed in there. So that's why I'm I was responding to Commissioner Saad's comments about CW and just saying that I actually Appreciate the comment, but I actually support including CW in their Because we know that these are earmarked for development. That's all I'm saying.
01:33:50.34	Jeffery Luxenberg	Okay. You're saying leave CW in or take CW in?
01:33:53.87	Kristina Feller	That is what I'm saying.
01:33:55.05	Jeffery Luxenberg	She said.
01:33:55.54	Nastassya Saad	Thank you. it.
01:33:56.03	Jeffery Luxenberg	And yes.
01:33:57.29	Kristina Feller	That is my opinion or my recommendation for my colleagues to consider.
01:33:57.63	Nastassya Saad	Bye.
01:34:03.39	Jeffery Luxenberg	Okay. All right. I think at this point, I think we want to look at some way to do a CUP that is still going to be legal and all that kind of other stuff. And we're okay. I think I'm hearing we're okay with some numbers, but we'd like to give some guidance to staff. uh so i guess in two regards can we talk about what we want to recommend on the cw and what we want to recommend on the CW and what we want to recommend on the CN1 and 2, Commissioner Phillips?
01:34:35.95	Kristina Feller	Chair, may I put a motion on the floor to continue this item? with some input from the Commission. We can do a date certain if you want, although it would need to allow staff to have time to do that, or we can do a date uncertain. But allow me to put that motion on the floor that we continue this item. And then we can add amendments or direction to staff from there if there's a second.
01:35:04.19	Jeffery Luxenberg	Um... I understand continuing the item, but we wanna give direction to the staff
01:35:15.46	Kristina Feller	Correct, but I'm putting a motion first.
01:35:15.48	Jeffery Luxenberg	Correct. I'm putting a motion first. We want them to do something in the meantime, correct?
01:35:21.67	Kristina Feller	Yeah, so I'm putting a motion on the floor to continue this item.
01:35:25.38	Jeffery Luxenberg	Okay.
01:35:25.79	Kristina Feller	And if there's a second for that, then we can identify some direction, conclude some direction to staff.
01:35:34.43	Andrew Junius	And I'm going to come back. Yeah, I'm going to second that motion. Thank you, Commissioner Feller. And I think now we should start to talk about
01:35:34.73	Kristina Feller	to come back.
01:35:40.77	Andrew Junius	what the staff should do next yeah if you don't mind me starting commissioner so i mean clearly we need to focus on things that um you know are not you know can't be construed as you know protectionist or you know um trying to keep you know out of state businesses from coming into the city none of that stuff but again focusing on neighborhood character focusing on aesthetic concerns. The reason why I think the definition for formula retail works is because it really does call out the unique character-defining issues that formula retail bring us. So I'm not sure this is going to be that. In some respects, it's relatively easy because there are other similar ordinances out there that I don't believe have been challenged and have been working just fine. But it is interesting to, about making sure that when a formula retailer comes in and is requesting a conditional use, that the staff's focus is on aesthetic concerns, the uniformity and the sameness, and what the effect of that business is going to have on the broader you know mix of uses you know maybe that's where the number comes in i'm kind of still i'm not agnostic about that but um and just kind of leave it at that i mean again the discretion that the stat that the commission exercises in
01:35:43.17	Adam Blair	Yeah. No, and that's fine.
01:35:46.59	Nastassya Saad	Yeah.
01:36:58.01	Andrew Junius	in a dozen other things here is equally as broad and and i think you know i think the staff and the city attorney should will be easy to come up with a process that focuses on um things that keep us out of the malibu trap but still allow a cup process and still allow some neighborhood input that that would be my direction
01:37:20.01	Jeffery Luxenberg	Okay, other direction we want to give the staff, Commissioner Marilla.
01:37:23.94	David Marlatt	So I would risk of going the other direction. I found that the zoning, I keep saying zoning, the formula clearance concept to be an elegant solution, notwithstanding that I would support eventually making that discretionary rather than ministerial, but in all other ways, I understand that the conditional use permit could be redundant for the first time, for the first retailer, McDonald's or whatever, but not for the second, the third, and the fourth, and the fifth. And so we would actually lose control over time because the land use that's granted under the conditional use, even if it's very specific to fast food or something, we only had the discussion with the community, with the public, for that first fast food operation, not the next one or the next one. And I think having the capacity We only had the discussion with the community, with the public, for that first fast food operation, not the next one or the next one. And I think having the capacity to revisit that on a per-retailer basis is a control that the city enjoys now, and that would have value and allow opportunity for the public to participate if it's in some sort of discretionary process. So that would be my guidance, which is not the same as Commissioner Junius, and I totally respect that.
01:38:33.06	Andrew Junius	I'd like to respond to that. And, you know, I'm not I really maybe I'm missing something here, but the way that the proposal was written for us today is it there's nothing more. There's nothing beyond. The staff gets an application. They check to see if it's in the right zoning district that would allow a form of the retail use. and they check to see they're under the number, and then they give you the permit.
01:38:58.26	David Marlatt	And I would support changing that ministerial approval to a discretionary approval. So then they schedule for a hearing for a formula, retail, whatever its final name is. And yeah, but it's not a conditional use. A conditional use approval runs with the land. This would be a zoning clearance, another type of license, so to speak. That's prohibited by Malibu.
01:39:06.97	Andrew Junius	name it.
01:39:07.35	Adam Blair	Rude.
01:39:07.73	Andrew Junius	Thank you.
01:39:15.44	Andrew Junius	That's prohibited by Malibu, I think that's the problem.
01:39:16.72	Jeffery Luxenberg	That's what we've been doing. We've been calling it a community service program, and that's what we've been doing. And I don't think it's a problem as long as it's not a community service. And that's what the city attorney says is potentially a problem given the malitudes.
01:39:19.17	David Marlatt	Yeah. And I don't think it's a problem as long as it's not a thing.
01:39:27.06	David Marlatt	Right, so the solution is don't make it a conditional use, but the city can issue licenses. Licenses can be finite. So it's a type of license, I guess. Like I said, I'm not an attorney, so I'm not going to pretend to understand all the nuances to that.
01:39:40.65	Andrew Junius	Well, I don't think it matters what it's called. I think if it's not an authorization that runs with the land, we have a problem. So a conditional use process is a process that the land use world understands. It runs with the land if it's properly crafted. And I think that's all I'm trying to suggest is that we go back and have the staff and the city attorney properly craft a basic conditional use process for foreign retailers. With numbers, without numbers, with the definitions, or with the list of exemptions or without the list of exemptions. I don't think it's much more, from my perspective, more complicated than that.
01:39:48.29	Adam Blair	Yeah.
01:40:14.30	Jeffery Luxenberg	Let me let me frame this in a slightly different way. I understand Commissioner Marlott's concern, but I think that's violating the Malibu decision. I think what you're saying is if we decide that a fast food, it would be useful to have fast food separate from restaurants. And that might be one solution here. But if we allow a, you know, Quiznos or some national firm to come into a space, what we're saying is in our whatever district it is, downtown, neighborhood district, that forever, that's to be a some sort of national formula kind of place. So once we approve it once with some restrictions on the number of tables, the way it works and whatever, then anybody that comes in doesn't matter the name you put on the door, they start to come in for a sign permit. and they still have to come in for alcohol if they want alcohol, but let's say they don't serve alcohol. The signed permit will allow us to change it later on, but we accept the fact that this is going to be that kind of place, and once we do it once, it won't violate the Malibu ordinance, but we'll have the chance to do it the first time. I think that's what it is.
01:41:27.84	Andrew Junius	Yeah, that generally speak, but I will also, this might make some of the commissioners here a little more relaxed about this. You know, there are, if that happens and the formerly retailer A goes dark for a period, it's possible that the conditional use would be abandoned. which would mean that the new one would have to come back. And that abandonment period can be adjustable. Maybe the abandonment period for Sausalito was in San Francisco, it's three years for everything. In Sausalito, maybe it's only one year. Maybe if the Quiznos goes dark and it's 14 months later, and another sandwich shop wants to come in that's a national retailer. They got to start the process because it went dark for that long and there's no, you know, and then it has to start over again. I mean, there are ways that we can, you know, adjust this around the edges, but that, but generally speaking, To solve the Malibu problem and make it absolutely clear that the right runs with the land. I agree with the description that the chair just had, I think, and I think that's the price we pay. And I think that's a completely legitimate way to approach this.
01:42:27.53	Jeffery Luxenberg	And quite honestly, with the exemptions, we're really talking about restaurants, either fast food or not fast food, and we're talking about some retailers. The retailers, this would be it, because once they come in, they come in. The fast food, and the goal is not to have them overrun the whole area. On the restaurant side, if they need, all of them are going to to need signs so that's coming before the city still and then any most of the restaurants might require alcohol and that's going to come for a cup so what we're we're sort of gonna uh you know uh if we can put the cup back in as you've suggested then i think we're you know we're pretty we're we're getting there not quite to your concern about the second generation or the third generation but uh Bye.
01:43:17.53	David Marlatt	I wonder what staff is going to come up with.
01:43:17.65	Kristina Feller	Yeah.
01:43:17.88	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you.
01:43:17.90	Kristina Feller	Thank you.
01:43:17.91	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you.
01:43:17.95	Adam Blair	Thank you.
01:43:20.50	Jeffery Luxenberg	Thank you.
01:43:20.53	Kristina Feller	So can I?
01:43:21.59	Jeffery Luxenberg	We have a motion on the floor in a second. Other additional comments or directions to staff?
01:43:27.30	Kristina Feller	Yeah, I just have one other comment to add because I'm in line with you, Chair and Commissioner Junius, but I, again, it sounds like it's a small thing, but I think in practice, it would be big. If we can please add a little bit of definition about CDD director designee and perhaps suggest for consideration by staff and legal Designee shall be a senior member of the planning department or something of that kind. So we know that we're hitting the right. uh, Tone here, I know that may be slightly amended with what we're talking about with the CUP anyway. But certainly we should be um, clear about, um, Zoning administration and so on within the department. Thank you.
01:44:19.54	Jeffery Luxenberg	So the question of the director, if we just took out or designee, if the director is not able to perform a function, isn't there a way for somebody else to perform the function without putting this language in?
01:44:19.56	Kristina Feller	So-
01:44:31.96	Director Phipps	It's usually the designee who would
01:44:34.04	Jeffery Luxenberg	Take on that function. It's usually a designee we take on that function, I see.
01:44:38.61	Kristina Feller	I mean, this might be moot because we're going back to a CUP or discretionary and not necessarily ministerial, but you know, I know that that language is sort of identified elsewhere within our code. So I just.
01:44:51.47	Adam Blair	All right.
01:44:51.59	Nastassya Saad	Yeah.
01:44:54.37	Kristina Feller	That is just one issue I just want to make sure because you know I've seen the city in really good times and really bad times. We're in an incredibly wonderful time now with CDD and our director and senior staff and all of that but we want to need to make sure that this again transcends any individual in any position and that it has the withstands the test of time. So I also want to make sure, and maybe we should go back to staff to make sure they're sort of understanding or harvesting direction here so far. And if before we go on to any other comments anyone might have.
01:45:31.45	Jeffery Luxenberg	Mr. Manage or Mr. Phipps, Director Phipps,
01:45:35.56	Director Phipps	I think I'm, I mean, if I could just take a stab at generalizing what I'm hearing from the commission, what I'm hearing is the commission would like staff to take another look at the possibility of integrating a discretionary process into approvals for certain land use types that may involve formula retail establishments. such that it does not conflict with the Malibu case. I also hear the feedback as related to designee and the semantics there. But yeah, we will explore that. And CUP will be one of the avenues that we explore.
01:46:11.95	Matthew Mandich	If we go back to a discretionary permit, the whole designee thing is moot. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm also understanding, just to summarize, that the CW sounds like we are on, the commission's on board with the CW being included. I think we're all on board with the changing definition of six and two of the other standardized logo trademark, things like that, those elements that we discussed. So changing the the definition i think i also heard that we that the commission all likes the exemptions as well that were included in the ordinance for things like grocery stores service stations medical banks etc um and i think the cn we can, I'm personally having spoken about it and having a little back and forth. I think we can just include it under one thing like it was and has been. And the CN 1, 2 distinction really only exists on the zoning map and not within the zoning tables or the code. So just call it CN and give it a number, which I think we were like four or five. And we can revisit that look a little bit of the size combined. I'm happy with all that. What else did I hear? I think the major hang up really is what we're stuck on. I think.
01:46:14.53	Nastassya Saad	as a result.
01:46:16.55	Adam Blair	you know. Thank you. Oh.
01:46:51.40	Nastassya Saad	Thank you.
01:46:51.45	Jeffery Luxenberg	And I think this
01:47:21.39	Matthew Mandich	generally what I heard was the commission was comfortable with, you know, a lot of the aspects of the ordinance, the exemptions, the definitions, the inclusion of the CW. It's more of the mechanism of approval, which would be, we like, the commission wants a discretionary approval. As far as I understand, based on my conversations with the city attorney and my reading up on, you know, the Malibu case, other cases, looking into a lot of zoning codes around California, the CUP process is not really the best permitting process for this because of these issues with running with the land as the verse being establishment based. Um, I don't know what other discretionary method there may be. Commissioner Marlott's mentioning, you know, discretionary zoning clearance, something like that. That's something we can explore a little bit. Obviously we require like a new type of permit. So, you know, again, adding the different land uses and stuff is something that we can explore as well. But again, it's going to require expanding the zoning table, expanding our definition section, you know, there's going to be. or edits that need to happen throughout the code for that, but something that we can certainly look into. So I think, you know, I hear the direction of the commission and I think that, um, Overall, Commission seems to be happy with a lot of the changes that we're trying to implement in the ordinance for clarification and for ease of movement for certain businesses under the exemption, but that it's the mechanism of approval and the lack of discretionary review and trying to wrap our heads around how we can make that work in different ways. So we can definitely put our heads together on that and look forward to. you know, having more discussions with city attorney, with the director and of course commissioners too is any input that they might have on that. So I think hopefully that summarizes a lot of the recommendations.
01:49:03.65	Jeffery Luxenberg	One of the things was to look at fast food versus restaurant food. Yeah, right.
01:49:07.09	Matthew Mandich	Yeah, right. Which would be another, that would be what I was talking about as far as changing the land uses in the zoning table and adding more land uses. So those are things that we'll have to look at.
01:49:16.81	David Marlatt	And I would add just a small point that came up earlier, just to think about some language to codify what happens when the status of an establishment either falls below the threshold or goes above, just so there's no ambiguity. I'm not advocating one position or another. Absolutely. There's no ambiguity about what happens in those cases.
01:49:30.84	Matthew Mandich	So we can. Right. So that would require fleshing the ordinance out a little bit more perhaps. And, you know, I know the transferability issue was brought up as well and kind of looking at that in a little bit more detail. So yeah, clearly good amount of work ahead. I'm sorry. Sure.
01:49:47.78	Jeffery Luxenberg	If we weren't going to change the other land uses, one of the things I was going to suggest is don't put the whole table in the amendment. Just put the changes in the amendment. Because when you put the whole table in, if you have some sort of typo, you've got to make sure that you don't accidentally, because when you're saying replace the whole table with this table, if there's some other change you type there was a typo you had a problem so generally you you don't in in the case of the formula retail you've changed most of the language so that makes sense but uh often i've seen just delete this line and add this line and not replace the whole table but uh but now that we're suggesting well it depends on what we may be having that's all we might need the whole table but But now that we're suggesting... Well, it depends on what we end up with. We may be having to replace that. We might need the whole table. But I just throw that out there. Okay. Thank you for that.
01:49:52.74	Matthew Mandich	Yes.
01:50:31.25	Matthew Mandich	Depends on what we're doing.
01:50:31.97	Director Phipps	Thank you.
01:50:31.99	Adam Blair	No, but we may
01:50:32.97	Director Phipps	THE END OF
01:50:33.04	Matthew Mandich	having to replace them.
01:50:33.97	Director Phipps	Thank you.
01:50:39.79	Director Phipps	I appreciate that. I just had one kind of follow-on question. I did hear a few types of land uses tossed around during this discussion. And just as we explore the process, as Matthew was mentioning, I'm wondering if the Commission has any particular sensitivity towards particular land uses.
01:50:56.90	Andrew Junius	Well, I...
01:50:57.74	Director Phipps	We did, so fast food, I heard fast food for example.
01:50:57.76	Andrew Junius	Thank you. You know, I don't want to keep, I mean, I could talk about this all night, so please, let's just keep the conversation going because it's endlessly fascinating for me. I understand where you're coming from, Chair, but I also worry that these definitions can get incredibly complicated and extremely difficult for the staff to start parsing between what's a restaurant and what's a fast food restaurant. And I hate to sound like the San Francisco zoning historian here, but I am in some respects. And San Francisco used to have about a dozen different food use restaurant definitions. Now they've got two. And it was because of this exact issue, even to the point the staff at that point in San Francisco, this was 20 years ago, was even making like little cartoon jokes about how difficult it was for somebody to come in and figure out what food use they were. Because it turned into there was large fast food, small fast food, small self-service. It was just unbelievably complex. And I'm a little worried that if we start with even a fast food restaurant definition, we to slide down the thing and and commissioner marlotta i you know i think we're going to come up with a very imperfect solution it's a lot of these questions but and i and i really do think a conditional use process that sticks to the the the knitting that says it has to run with the land once once you have a formula retailer in a restaurant grouping that restaurant could be you know, Marina Joe's across the country or McDonald's a you know it just again trying to make it simple from my perspective clear lines that give the staff plenty of discretion, but still leaves enough. Of an opportunity for most of these things to come most of the initial ones to come to the Commission for discretion, so that the community can see it it's not perfect. And I know, frankly, I know the ordinance in San Francisco is not perfect either. I think there are some problems with the ordinance in San Francisco. It's never been attacked, but what I'm kind of proposing here would be better than what San Francisco has because it solves these. I really think that if we do this the right way, there isn't a Malibu problem. because we've created you know, we've created a process that requires Formulary Retroes to come and get a land use entitlement. And it's a little funky because it's, you know, I think the complications really come when you start talking about, why are we really, you know, why are we really talking about all these weird foreign retail details versus any other restaurant? Well, it's, again, back to that aesthetic character thing and what the, you know, the downtown in Sausalito is supposed to feel like. So it's, this isn't, this is a very strange process. You know, this is not, I agree, there's a lot of gray area here, and we are touching, we're getting close to third rails. But I really, really do believe it can be solved. It just can't be perfect.
01:53:41.83	Jeffery Luxenberg	Yeah, I'm not suggesting we have six categories either. I'm suggesting there be no more than two. And the only primary use is, because the CUP helps, the primary use is the transferability. So if we have a sit-down restaurant and it gets replaced with a takeout counter kind of thing, those aren't the same uses and and since we're categorizing it by use uh that's why i think there's probably two simple definitions you can get it from somewhere else san francisco maybe somewhere else uh but yeah i but uh and i think retail retail is the retail ones are fine i'm i'm not thinking we need more of those it was just you know. That one thing is really all I was saying.
01:54:33.76	Jeffery Luxenberg	All right, so we have a motion on the floor. Is there any more discussion? Okay, so director Fipsky take the road
01:54:42.36	Director Phipps	Commissioner Merlin. Yes. Commissioner Junius. Yes. Commissioner Feller. Yes. Vice Chair Hassan. Yes. Chair Luxembourg.
01:54:46.63	Jeffery Luxenberg	Yes. Yeah. Yes.
01:54:50.77	Director Phipps	Motion passes.
01:54:52.03	Jeffery Luxenberg	Next item is adjournment. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you.
01:54:54.92	Kristina Feller	Bye.
01:54:56.34	Director Phipps	Thank you, commissioners. Thank you, members of the public. Thank you, staff. We'll see you next time.
01:54:60.00	Kristina Feller	Thank you.

City Council Meeting - September 25, 2024

Meeting Summary

Meeting Transcript