| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:22.34 | Nastassya Saad | The planning commission meeting for Wednesday, March 12th. It is 6.30, Director Phipps. |
| 00:00:36.87 | Director Phipps | Thank you, Chair. Just a few words before I call roll. Good evening to you, Chair. Vice Chair Junius, 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. Members of the public may also access this meeting and provide a public comment through Zoom. And with that, I will move to call roll. Commissioner Luxenberg. Present. Commissioner Merlot. Here. Commissioner Feller. Here. Vice Chair Junius. Present. Chair Assad. Here. We have achieved quorum. All are present. Back to you, Chair. |
| 00:01:06.59 | Kristina Feller | here. |
| 00:01:09.67 | Nastassya Saad | here. |
| 00:01:14.64 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. Item two is the approval of the agenda. So moved. |
| 00:01:19.65 | Director Phipps | Second. |
| 00:01:20.71 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. Director Phipps. |
| 00:01:22.42 | Director Phipps | Commissioner Luxenberg. Yes. Commissioner Merlot. Yes. Commissioner Feller. Yes. Vice Chair Junius. Yes. Chair Hassan. Yes. Motion passes. Yes. |
| 00:01:27.38 | Nastassya Saad | Yes. Yes. Item three is public comment on items not on the agenda. Director Phipps, can I look to you for some direction? |
| 00:01:39.27 | Director Phipps | Absolutely. This is the time to hear from citizens on 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 that the subject 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, Maria Hernandez. If you'd like to make a comment in the Zoom application, please raise your hand and you'll be called upon when it is your time to speak. To raise your hand from a phone, press star nine and each speaker will be notified when their time has elapsed. Thank you. I see one gentleman filling out a speaker card, or I believe he's filling out a speaker card. I will give the gentleman that time. Not for this item. Okay. Confirming that there are no additional members in the chamber who wish to make a comment. Mr. Giavari, you'd like to make a comment? Very good. We'll forego your speaker card. Feel free to step forward. You'll have three minutes. We'll forego your speaker card. Please step to the dice. You'll have three minutes. |
| 00:02:58.64 | Art Giovara | Excuse me. My name is Art Giovara, and I am the owner of 599 Bridgeway. And And I'm proposing to build a senior housing development there. My site is 4,500 square feet, so I'm proposing to put three units there. I've submitted... three applications now, and the problem I'm having is each time that I've submitted the application, the fees have varied from And what I want is a conditional use permit to find out if I can put the senior housing there. And the fees have been from 17 to 23,000 to now 9,000. And I don't understand. Why? If I'm only looking for a conditional use permit and I'm building a on the second floor up, I see that it is permitted, but The other thing that I wanted to mention was that I believe that the place that you should be concentrating housing is in the downtown area. I believe that from San Carlos all the way to the north end of Bridgeway should be a place that you should be looking because... Uh, there's a predominant hill behind that except for Princess Street. So it doesn't obstruct anybody's view. Uh, it would change the downtown area. Thank you. which is dying Uh, and I don't see how you're going to meet the housing requirements because as a developer, if you only need 20% for controlled units, That means that you should be building 200 and 40 or over 2000 units to, to, to meet your goals of low-cost housing. We did a project in Hawaii, and we had to give the land to a developer to build, and he wanted us to give money on top of it. you giving him the lamb. So I don't, you know, I think that Builder's Remedy is coming, and you're going to have to wake up. |
| 00:05:55.27 | Art Giovara | That's my speech. Thank you. |
| 00:05:58.83 | Director Phipps | Thank you, Mr. Giavara, for being present and for your comments this evening. That does it for interested speakers in the chamber, as far as I can see. Looking to the Zoom application, I am seeing no raised hands at this time. I will give folks a final opportunity to raise their hand. Going once, going twice, seeing none. Back to you, Chair. |
| 00:06:21.95 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you, Director Phipps. Item four will be approval of the Planning Commission minutes. We have two. 4A are our Planning Commission minutes from February 19th. I'll take them one at a time. Does anybody have any feedback or comments on Planning Commission minutes from the 19th of February? |
| 00:06:40.27 | Jeffery Luxenberg | A motion to approve. |
| 00:06:41.72 | Kristina Feller | I have comments. |
| 00:06:43.09 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 00:06:43.14 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 00:06:43.19 | Nastassya Saad | Okay. Mr. Fillers? |
| 00:06:45.72 | Kristina Feller | Unless you want to take a second first. |
| 00:06:48.25 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I'd take a second first so we can talk. Second. |
| 00:06:50.62 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 00:06:50.67 | Nastassya Saad | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:06:51.29 | Kristina Feller | Yeah, these are minor, so. Sure. I just wanted to note, maybe staff can make note on page 5, between line 14 and 15, you referenced me as Chair Feller. I'm just Commissioner Feller. |
| 00:06:52.84 | Unknown | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:07:05.45 | Nastassya Saad | Sharing our hearts. |
| 00:07:07.25 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. Thank you. And on page nine of 10, I just wanted to point out that, um, And one of the reasons that I'm making comments on these is that they're related to some pretty critical matters with the city. And so documenting these properly, I think, is important. So on page 9. Um, when you on line 13, when you mentioned motion was withdrawn, it was withdrawn because the city attorney would not allow the motion. It wasn't withdrawn for any other reason. And I think we should. note that and then on page on line 28 of the same page I would just say that it says the motion died for lack of a second. I just said it did, I would say it did not receive a second. It didn't just... flavor around. And these are notes that I think will be referred to a lot. So sorry to be a little nitpicky, but I think it's important to clean them up. |
| 00:08:16.88 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you, Commissioner Feller. Do you accept the changes as stated? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Director Phipps, can we go on 4A, please? |
| 00:08:25.86 | Director Phipps | Happy to Commissioner Luxenberg. Yes. Commissioner Merlot. Yes. Commissioner Feller. Yes. Vice Chair Junius. Yes. Chair Son. Yes. Motion passes. |
| 00:08:28.27 | Nastassya Saad | Yes. And... Yes. Yes. Okay, thank you. For B's, the Planning Commission minutes from January 15th. Looking for a motion or any comments? |
| 00:08:45.06 | Kristina Feller | I have comments. |
| 00:08:46.21 | Nastassya Saad | Okay. |
| 00:08:47.53 | Kristina Feller | Page two, line 45, development is spelled incorrectly. page three, there was a pretty important... recommendation. This was a study session, so there was no motions being taken or no action. But if you look at the tape at 3 hours and 51 minutes, there was some direction provided, or recommendations I should say, not direction, recommendations provided in that study session that I think were very material to what ultimately came back to this commission that we voted on And again, in this spirit of trying to keep a clear administrative record for the purposes of HCD and so on. I would just Thank you. I would like to request that we ask staff to revise those and include that information. |
| 00:09:47.99 | Director Phipps | Would you mind being more specific? |
| 00:09:50.25 | Kristina Feller | Sure. There were comments about, and these were just comments. This isn't necessarily all of us, but there was a lot of comments by at least three of us about a lack of confidence in certain aspects of ViewSync. And I'm just reading off my notes here. So there was a recommendation. once again to pivot to include the public GPS coordinates, the shadow ordinance, solar path, and those kinds of things, so that it's not just reliance on one computer system, but that there are multiple metrics that even might um, represent a redundancy, but in that way, we're as absolutely objective and bulletproof as possible. |
| 00:10:39.26 | Director Phipps | Appreciate that, Commissioner, and appreciate your sensitivity to making sure that the admin record on this is accurate. Based on what I'm hearing from you, this will require some additional work from staff. And is your thought here that staff will bring this revised minutes based on your direction back for commission approval? |
| 00:11:00.79 | Kristina Feller | That would be something I would recommend. And this is consistent, by the way, with other areas of the notes where you are specific about these kinds of recommendations. So this is not an anomaly. |
| 00:11:12.92 | Nastassya Saad | Very good. Thank you, Commissioner Feller. Do we have a motion? |
| 00:11:20.65 | Andrew Junius | move to continue this matter to a future date when the notes are ready. |
| 00:11:25.64 | Kristina Feller | Second. Dr. Pips. |
| 00:11:27.77 | Director Phipps | Thank you. |
| 00:11:28.23 | Director Phipps | Commissioner Luxenberg. Yes. Commissioner Merlot. Yes. Commissioner Feller. Yes. |
| 00:11:31.75 | David Marlatt | Thank you. |
| 00:11:33.26 | Kristina Feller | Yes. |
| 00:11:33.78 | Director Phipps | Vice Chair Junius. Yes. Chair Saad. Yes. Motion passes. We'll bring that back when it's ready. Thank you. |
| 00:11:36.02 | Nastassya Saad | Yes. |
| 00:11:39.85 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. Item five is communications. Director Phipps, I'll start with you. Anything from staff? Absolutely. |
| 00:11:47.87 | Director Phipps | Thank you for the opportunity, Chair. One communication item this evening has related to the housing element. As commissioners may be aware, the City Council held a public hearing to review the amended housing element on February 25, 2025. This followed the Planning Commission study session on SAME. Although the Council provided direction to staff on the amended housing element, the housing element was not adopted by City Council. This lack of adoption is due to new state housing law, which requires HCD certification and approval of a jurisdiction's housing element for a city can adopt and achieve full state compliance. Based on this update, staff are currently working to prepare an amended housing element based on council direction provided at the February 25 meeting. And once this amended housing element is prepared, we'll provide it to HCD. HCD will initiate their process of review, which could take up to 60 days. And I look forward to collaborating with them throughout this process. I'll continue to keep commissioners apprised of any additional updates. Thank you. Back to you, Chair. |
| 00:13:02.15 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you for the update on the housing element. I will first look to my colleagues. Any form of communication? |
| 00:13:10.59 | Jeffery Luxenberg | No, I just have a question. You mentioned you said we had a study session, but we we made a recommendation at that meeting. Once the HCD does their thing and certifies the housing element and it comes back to the city, do we does the Planning Commission have to take any further action at that time? |
| 00:13:27.74 | Director Phipps | No. I appreciate the question, though, Commissioner. |
| 00:13:31.67 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. The only announcement I would have to make, just because it's still on the website, is that our regularly scheduled meeting on March 26th is canceled. Is that correct, Director Phipps? Can you comment? |
| 00:13:43.95 | Director Phipps | Yes, I believe I sent out that update to commissioners approximately one hour prior to this meeting. |
| 00:13:50.42 | Nastassya Saad | Exactly. You just want to call it out for all the members of the public who are looking forward to that date. Thank you very much. No further communications. We can move on to. |
| 00:14:02.23 | Kristina Feller | Chair, do you mind if we ask the attorney if she has any updates for us or anything to keep an eye on for state legislation as well regarding housing? |
| 00:14:10.57 | Nastassya Saad | Absolutely. Thank you for the reminder. |
| 00:14:16.44 | Director Phipps | Good evening, commissioners. I don't have any sort of presentation or update at this moment in time. Unless you have questions. |
| 00:14:26.26 | Nastassya Saad | Just any general comments from anything that Commissioner Feller touched on for any updated state housing laws that might be relevant? |
| 00:14:35.81 | Director Phipps | you would like me to get that ready for next meeting. I wasn't prepared to talk to you about any of the up-getting laws. There's, There's quite a few. I wasn't thinking we were gonna talk about that this evening, but I'm happy to do that in the future. |
| 00:14:48.62 | Nastassya Saad | Absolutely, we'd appreciate that. I'll work with Director Phipps for something of that nature. Thank you. |
| 00:14:52.96 | Director Phipps | Thank you. |
| 00:14:55.16 | Nastassya Saad | Actually, I think we need to take public comment on communications, so I'll open it up for public comment on item five, which are communications. Director Phipps. |
| 00:15:04.65 | Director Phipps | Looking to the chamber for interested commenters. Seeing none, looking to the Zoom application for raised hands. Going once, going twice. Seeing none, back to you, Chair. |
| 00:15:16.39 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. We'll close the public comment section, and then now we will move on to item 6, which is our special presentation this evening from Southern Marin Fire. We will be receiving a staff report and presentation. We will not be taking any action. Thank you very much for being here. It's a very important topic, so we're looking forward to it. |
| 00:15:33.12 | Fred Hilliard | Thank you so much. I really appreciate being here, commissioners, to talk about what we talked about at the city council meeting, which is in light of the fires, unfortunately, that happened in Los Angeles, which, by the way, we were a big part of. Actually, Battalion, sorry, Deputy Chief Matt Barnes was actually one of the division leads, so he actually ran one of the divisions at that fire. We also in the entire county, we had about 80 fire crews that were down there, including engines and support. And that's what we do in the state of California and outside of the state of California. We've actually been to Nevada, we've been up to Oregon. We've had some where there's been some devastating fires. But I wanna also point out that at no time were we understaffed here. This was all people that were on overtime overtime and these were reserve engines that we had out of county so we were fully staffed nothing changed here and it's a testament to not just the the fire district but it's the firefighters because they all come in on overtime they have to come in when it's their normal time off to cover these positions so a great group of people which i've been involved in for the last 31 years actually. So my name is Fred Hilliard. I'm your division chief fire marshal for the Southern Marine Fire District. I've been with the fire district for 25 of that for 31 years. I grew up here. I actually grew up in Tam Valley. And a lot of people know me through my mom actually who's one of our board members, Catherine Hilliard, so who does a lot on a lot of different different commissions and whatnot to the county. So what I'm here to talk about is what happened a little bit and how that impacts us and what we're looking to do as we learn from all these fires. So, The LA fire and the fires that we've seen in the past are not uncommon. What's more common now is the frequency of when these are happening. We do understand that there's gonna be these 50 year to 100 year fires that come in with force where it's really difficult to stop these type of fires. We have what we call the common fire, the common wildfire, which is a fire that starts for whatever reason, camping, cigarettes, um utility lines whatever it might be that normally um if we have good profession prevention methods um and measures taking place we can get to those fires and we could put those fires out There's differences in the methodology of how we treat wildfires. Wildfires are normal. That's normal in a forested area. That's a normal thing. We've planted houses in these areas, and these fires still happen. And that's normal for the regeneration of the earth, right, is we need to have these fires. Federal fires, they manage those fires. they don't necessarily put them out they actually let those fires burn because that's the natural vegetation state and how things reoccur in the cycle of life. And they, but they're able to kind of move those fires in the proper direction dependent on weather and, Also, you know, they do hand line. They do have crews out there, you know, keeping those fires in check. It's those fires that come in from a forested area into an urbanized area where things get really ugly. Right. So Cal Fire, which is the biggest fire agencies in the state, collaboratively to to fight wildfires. They put as much crews on the ground to mitigate those fires when they're. threatening an urbanized area or an urbanized area, but they can't do it alone. They don't have enough crews. They have to weigh out and use local government in order to put some of those fires out. Next slide, please. We talked about that. Next slide, please. So in acknowledging what happened in Los Angeles, we have been looking at the data, just like we did for the Tubbs fire, just like we've done for a lot of different fires that either we've been involved in or we look at as a similar type situation to our fire district. We weigh out what occurred, how it occurred. the weather conditions, the topography, and also what prevention methods have been put forth prior to that fire. And from that, in this particular fire that we saw in Los Angeles, we saw that there's specifically something that if put in place, may have saved more structures. Now, it's not a guarantee. You have to understand that it's not guaranteed. But what we did see was We're. The vegetation management process of creating what's called defensible space, that's the area, the safe zone of clean vegetation around structures and out to about 150 feet, doesn't allow the fire to actually burn up into the structure. What we saw in the Los Angeles fires where there was a lot of structures that burnt down because of the vegetation that was what we call zone zero. And you may, you shake your head like you know, and you should, because when we send our mailers out to you and we do a lot of our workshops, we talk about zone zero being zero to five feet from the structures and then zone two, which is five to 30 feet from the structures and then 30 feet to a hundred feet zone three. We found that a lot of the structures had uh, They trapped embers within that zero to five feet. When we when fire crews drove past the structures, you know, everything's good. There's some embers blowing around because what happens is these fires create massive ember plumes and embers are burning material. They would get into. Vegetation and structures, little small structures, storage sheds, you know, things just things that are around the house that are flammable within that zero to five feet. They would drive past, they go put a fire out in somebody's on somebody's roof, or they would prep and they'd come back in the, in the structure beyond fire. And that was because the embers were getting into the material that was burning within the zero to five feet. So that's something that we're looking to try and get in place here in the district, but across the state. And you've already seen that the governor's put out a notice saying that, you know, zero to five feet, we've got to, we've got to work together collaboratively and figure out how we can, requires zero to five feet and enforce that and I'll talk about that a little bit more moving forward here The other thing that's really important to understand is that we can't do this alone. You know, there's no, we do not have enough firefighters. We do not have enough vegetation management specialists. We have to rely on homeowners to do the work as well. We can give you all the material. We can set up programs, which we already have in place. We have programs for chippers. You cut your brush, you call us, we come pick it up. We, if there's dead standing trees and we have a fund for that, we can remove dead standing trees from problems. properties. But a majority is really up to the resident, the property owner that that to remove and prep that house for an event like what we just had, what we just witnessed in Los Angeles. And of course the focus is on that right now. But what we've seen also in the past is like the Tubbs fire, which I'm gonna talk about in a minute, The Tubbs fire happened. We gave all this information. We got, you know, the MWPA got stood up. We have funding. We were doing this. People are engaged. And then in a few, you know, six months, it kind of fades off. And then a year fades off. And then we're back to square one. And that's not where we want to be. So since then, we've been doing a lot of work. to bring that, you know, awareness up and to tell people, hey, look, we have programs in place that can help you. So you're not alone. Next slide, please. |
| 00:23:52.38 | Fred Hilliard | So the importance of information and misinformation is also something critical that we should point out. There's a lot of disinformation that was pumped out during that fire, during the Los Angeles fire. Things like, you know, firefighters didn't have access. Yeah, we had access, but the news likes to pick out those one access points where, you know, you see a bulldozer pushing cars out of the road. That happens, but we did have access. They also tagged on to water supply, that there wasn't enough water to fight the fires.. Now we had water, but there was low water supply, but we were still getting water delivered via water tenders big tanker trucks that would come up. And, you know, I'll talk about that a little bit later as well. And then what have we done here to prep ourselves for wildfire? Well, since MWPA, which was stood up just five years ago, we've done a tremendous amount of work in the district. Next slide, please. |
| 00:24:55.93 | Fred Hilliard | So I want to bring us back really quickly to October 8th of 2017, which was when we had the Tubbs fire. During the Tubbs fire, We had the fire was active for 123 days. It burned three 36,807 acres in the Napa and Sonoma counties. The fire spread from near Calistoga all the way into the into the Santa Rosa counties. And then, of course, it jumped the highway, which is, you know, unbelievable in itself. And it destroyed five thousand six hundred and forty three structures, causing seven point eight billion dollars in itself. And it destroyed 5,643 structures, causing $7.8 billion in loss. We have actually sustained, and I say, you know, Sonoma County, we're attached. We have the same type of vegetative structure. We have the same kind of demographic as far as, you know, where the houses are built, the built environment. And it's funny that the fire actually burnt there before this fire. It actually is same exact fire track it burnt in the past. It was, I think it was 60 years prior it did the same exact thing. The reason I bring that up is because we're not We are aware of what's happening with these fires and these events that happen. What we're trying to solve is not the problem of the massive, out of control LA fire and the tub fire. Of course, we want to solve that problem. Don't get me wrong. But what's achievable? What can we actually achieve? We can't change the built environment. We can't pick up houses and move them to where they should be. We can't take the trees down and move the trees into a different place and just start over fresh. What we can do is we can look at ways that we can keep ourselves safe from that normal fire. The fire that starts in somebody's backyard or it starts from a structure fire. or it starts from outside of the in the forested area and then comes kind of into the urbanized area. That's what we can work on. So following the 2019 Civil Grand Jury report on wildfire preparedness The Marine Wildfire Prevention Authority was established through a countywide tax measure to foster a comprehensive wildfire prevention strategy across the county. So MWPA generates about $20 million annually. Actually, this year was $21 million. I didn't update this since when I did the presentation for the council to give 17 member agencies the ability to work together to provide fire protection and prevention services in the area. And this is important. This is why I'm bringing this up. Vegetation management, wildfire detection systems systems evacuation planning and alerting so you you all probably know that as l rad you probably heard that term long range acoustical device public education initiatives empowering residents to protect their properties and then grants to local residents for wildfire preparedness fostering community involvement so that's why mwpa and the reason mwpa got stood up is because quite honestly, the only, um, Fire jurisdictions in the county that had money to do any type of wildfire prep was Moran County fire, it would do that in like the West Marin area with their fire tam crews. Mill Valley fire department and southern fire district and so that. We would we did that here in City Sausalito and we have have done that prior to the Tubbs fire. Um, Let's see. Yeah. So next slide, please. Okay. So the Southern Wind Fire District has laid out a comprehensive plan for 2025, focusing on enhancing community safety and forest health through targeted projects initiatives throughout the city of Sausalito. The key components of the plan are major fuel breaks, So what is a major fuel break? A major fuel break is something that we do. A lot of people think it is a greater fuel break, which encompasses areas behind homes and strategically in areas that have dense forested material that could spread up into the housing area. So we do projects. We have seven total in process right now. Sausalito Boulevard, High Vista, Alexander, Marion, Hetch, Wolfback Ridge, and Edwards Avenue. A lot of these encompass the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. So they've been really good to us. We work hand in hand with them. They do what they can. The hardest part with the federal government is getting the permissions, getting the permits. It's always been a struggle because they have their own process. And when we do a project, it's really important for everyone to know, we go through the environmental impact. We go through permitting. We look at bird nesting. We look at, you know, CEQA. We do all that background work. And we do that prior to the projects. We go out and we do community talks, like coming to talk to you, and we do resident talks, where the projects are going to happen. The federal government doesn't really care about that. We can send them that packet and say, this is all we've done all the legwork for you here. Look, all you gotta do is issue us a permit, but they have their own process. So when we develop a project that goes into the general into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, we have to go through their process. And it's very unfortunate right now because a lot of those people have been recently laid off. And now we're trying to figure out exactly how we're going to continue with those projects. Because as you know, Sausalito is surrounded by GGNRA, which is where we want to do a bunch of the work. We have been able to do a lot of the work though, strategically where private properties meet up to the GGenRA, but there is a large swath of area that we still need to do projects. We have the funding, we're ready to go. So we're navigating. I don't want anybody to think that we're not, we've just like said, well, they're all gone. We're not doing anything. No, we're still working to find a process that we can continue to do the projects and get the work done. And once we have the approval, We're good to go. Another part of what we do is the community fuel breaks and forested health restoration. We have five total sites that we're looking at, and we have been doing work in those. But this is another area that we're doing some of these projects. We have Cypress Ridge at Rodeo. We're doing Nevada Street at Kindle Court, the terraces. The open space Sausalito and Willow Creek. Those are the areas that we're looking to do some more of the fuel break and forest health restoration, which forest health restoration is just a big word for maintenance, right? We're going to maintain some of the areas that we've already done work. And that's also really important to point out. These areas that we're doing the maintenance are is we don't just go in and cut it down and it's done. It's not like painting your car or doing something like that. You don't do it once and then walk away from it. It's a constant cycle of maintaining the work that you've done. The big money comes in the business. you know, doing the project phase, the initial phase, getting rid of the big stuff. And then we come back in and we do the maintenance and which costs a lot less so we can do a lot more. One of the other projects that we do is we do evacuation route clearing. And you've probably seen, hopefully you've seen our trucks going up your street. They're chipper trucks with crews. They, you know, they basically go up the street and we are just trimming back. All we're doing is we're trimming back the road material so that, you know, we have the full width of the roadways. As you know, we don't have 20 foot wide roadways, a lot of them here in Sausalito. So we have to trim vegetation back so that we can use every bit of the roadway to either get up or for people to evacuate. And it's on a rotation and it's zoned out. by the rotation. And then there's the emergency notification systems. So currently we have two LRAD sites in the city of Sausalito, the old fire station too. on Spencer. That was easy for us to get permission to do that one. And then Cypress Ridge, we also have a location there. In the future, we're looking at one more, one to two more sites. The one site that we want to do is over in Hurricane Gulch, Old Town. We want to get a site out there. And then we also want to get one more site that's over towards the beginning of of Sausalito. We haven't picked a specific spot out there yet. important to know that We do have a campaign and we do test these sites, and you may have been involved in that too. We We notify everybody that these are tested. And we and on our website we have. Can you hear it? It's a it's basically you go on. to their website if you heard it, you'll see it says can you hear it. And then that lets us know if there's dead spots. Nothing's perfect in the engineering world when it comes to sound travel, right? You can predict it, but there's wind influence, there's slope, there's all kinds of influences. So when we put the first sites in, we went with Genesis, who their engineers looked at, you know, where we're at, what we have as far as the slope and the houses and all that. And said, these are the areas where you should at least start putting these in. And then as we continue to test and get input from the public, then we continue to add sites where we need to put those sites. But. I'd also like to point out that if we had a major disaster here, it wouldn't just be one or two of these sirens going off. It'd be like 17 sirens throughout the entire area, right? It would be Mill Valley, be unincorporated, Tam, Alto, be over in Alto, Tiburon, and then also the city of Sausalito. So, you know, more sound traveling because of more sites going off at once. I talked about the chipper program, but the chipper program has been a really talk about low hanging fruit for us. We send a chipper out. We notify the public. We send letters out to the houses. We promote it on our website. We have a communications coordinator in our department that pushes out on social media. We come into your neighborhood. All you got to do is cut it, put it at your curb. We come pick it up. It's a beautiful thing. It works great. And we have, when it first started, we did it, you know, started four years ago. It was we we didn't have that much participation, quite honestly. But as the education surrounding wildfires and things have grown and people have taken more of a stance in what they can do. Now we're getting a lot more people that are participating with the Chipper program. And then last is our hazardous tree removal. So our hazardous treatment mobile program It also Um, If we, obviously trees are really expensive. Let's not kid ourselves. Like a tree could cost, depending on where it is and the size of it, could be between 20 and $60,000. I mean, that's reality. If you have to pull a crane into it, you're looking at $60,000 if you have to get a crane. We look at Thank you. where can we be the most effective with the money that we have? And that would be areas where you have canopies that grow into each other. It looks at like... trees that are growing over structures, or what we say, what I was telling you earlier, dead standing trees, dead standing trees are dangerous. not necessarily because of um you know they're they're a dead tree standing it's it's the it's the all the um you know, the leaves and all the branches, those are just kindling ready to go. So a lot of times if we can't afford to cut the tree completely down, we can cut all the branches off, maybe chop the top, and then we come back for it in phases. So we don't like to do that because it doesn't look particularly great. And I know, you know, we want the seaside town to look, have a certain look to it and get that, but you know, we have to do with what we can, what we can with the funding. Next slide, please. So quickly, I'm going to go over MMWD, and there's actually two slides here, but I'm just going to talk to this particular slide because we do, at the city council meeting, we had a representative from MMWD. That's Marin Municipal Water District, I'm sorry to say that first, but who talked about their program and what they do, defensible space. But it's important that we know that the fire flow program was established in response to water system delivery limitations for firefighting demands. This is a program that... Basically inception was back to 1996 and we had here a lot of water flow issues in the city of middle valley which over the period of time since 1996 have improved we've gotten more flow we have hydrants that have better water capacity or newer hydrants. The primary objective of the fire flow program is to enhance district infrastructure, specifically in areas with substandard fire flow. And that's what I was just talking about. Areas where smaller streets that have smaller pipes, they may be a four inch pipe or a six inch pipe, are brought up into a larger pipe diameter. And, you know, they every once in a while pull wood pipes out of the ground. yeah, it's amazing that they do. Um, So, During the period of the fire flow program, they've achieved 50 miles of fire flow improvements averaging about three miles per year. And that was from 1997 to 2012. And like I was saying, a lot of that happened early on. The fire flow master plan from 2012 to current is basically focused on another 26 miles of flow improvements averaging around two miles per year. So MMWD has been a great partner of ours. We work really well with them. When they're doing improvements, they call us and they say, hey, Fred, do you need a hydrant moved? Is that a good location? Do you need to add a hydrant? You know, codes have changed where they were 500 feet separation between hydrants. And now code is 350 feet between hydrants. So sure, we're going to put a hydrant in there wherever we can when they're doing projects. Thank you. Next slide, please. And next slide, that was the infrastructure slide. So, Finally, I wanted to talk to you really quick about the fire code cycle and why is this important well every three years the california state of california adopts a new fire code as well as building codes that we work together with the community development department to talk about like what are these changes what do they mean what do we need to do we have obviously an ordinance that does enhances some of these codes makes it a little bit more stringent or it adds components to it that are not in some of the code areas and that's for better protection to the community So every three years, and it happens to be that 2025 is a code cycle year. So in July, we'll see the new codes. Brandon and I will sit down and we'll go through that. We'll make sure that we're in alignment. We'll see where the old codes in our ordinance or the old ordinance components. We can maybe that's now into the code and we can take those out. So, you know, there's a balancing act going on there. We're also hearing that there's a new proposed wildland urban interface code that's going to come out as a separate code. We hear that it's going to replace chapter 49 in the fire code, chapter 7a in the building code, and then it's also going to be in alignment with Title 14. |
| 00:41:47.77 | Fred Hilliard | Sorry about that. So we'll be working together to adopt that and we'll be coming to the city council for first reading. Actually, Brandon will be coming to the city council first reading. In the second reading, we're going to actually come in with a ratification because the city of Sausalito, which was annexed into the district in 2010, the codes now are adopted by the fire district. And then the fire district, you have the city ratifies the code for the use of the code in the city. But I just want you to know that I work closely with this man over here. And when he gets, when we get where we feel it's, it's, it's right. And you know, tight and right. Then that's when we get where we feel it's it's it's right and you know tight and right then that's when we we adopt the codes Next slide, please. So in conclusion, it's really important to understand that there's a lot of work being done. We're doing a lot of work and we have been, and we've been doing a lot of work prior to 20, when the MWPA was established, you know, four years prior, we've been doing a lot of work. I actually in 2010, I was in station one down here as your brand new fire inspector. I came from the fire from operations. I was actually a driver, An engineer and I moved into fire prevention because of the annexation and I moved in because very specifically. There was a need and I was. Looking at my future in the fire service, and I was looking at what the community needed, and I felt that it was the right time and the right place for me to do that job. And I haven't turned back, and I've loved every minute. I really have. My firefighting friends think I'm crazy that I went into fire prevention from operations. But the reality is that it's a big team that we work together with. And, you know, having some understanding and growing up here i knew a lot of the community and that really you know that helped in the whole process so what we want to make sure that we do in the future is we take every possible avenue to protect the city and the community and our citizens and what can we do and what's important to us right at this very moment and what are we doing to continue this work and what's important to us right now in this very moment is zone zero we see a definite need for zone zero to happen where we provide that specific defensible space within zero to five feet of the structures. Like I was talking about the ember production where it blows into plants, any type of flammable furniture or anything like that within five feet of the structure. So we keep those fires away from the structure. Because once you get a fire going at the structure, any portion of the structure, that's direct flame impingement, and the structure cannot survive that. And I just wanted to, to, to what we're asking for is zero to five. We're asking for five feet. That's five feet. We're not asking for a big fuel break. I mean, bigger is better. And what you put on the ground after five feet is important. But we're asking for the clearance of vegetation, five feet, non-flammable, putting rock down or whatever you want to put in that area that's non-flammable material. And we're going to come back several times with public education on that and what that means and show graphics and show people what that looks like and how what the survivability of that zone is and of course I'll work with Brandon on that. So with that, Oh, are you happy to answer any questions? |
| 00:45:32.90 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you very, very much. This is incredibly informative and we appreciate it. It's one of the most important topics that we have, and it's also nice to see your joy talking about it. So it helps spread the word, and thank you for the continued service and for all the work that you guys did. We heard about that, but for the L.A. fires. So we appreciate you on all fronts. I'll turn to my commissioners to see if we have any questions. Commissioner Marlis? |
| 00:46:00.82 | David Marlatt | Yeah, thank you very much. And thank you for an excellent presentation and your service. Just a couple of questions. What role do fire sprinkler systems play in wildfire mitigation, or are they just overwhelmed when you have a wildfire like we saw in Eden Fire or Pacific Palisades? |
| 00:46:18.94 | Fred Hilliard | Okay, so and just point of clarity, we're talking about exterior fire sprinkler systems, not interior fire sprinkler systems. |
| 00:46:25.50 | David Marlatt | I was thinking of interior fires. |
| 00:46:27.43 | Fred Hilliard | So interior fire sprinkler systems, they don't necessarily play a role because once the fire is in into the structure, then that's already a late sign of what, you know, the fire is already rolled into the structure. Normally, it's either through the attic or it's through the crawl space. And once it's entered the structures, by the time it hits the fire sprinkler heads, it's usually too late unless we can get in there. The other thing, too, is to understand what residential fire sprinkler systems are designed to do. They're not necessarily designed to suppress the fire, put the fire out completely. They were designed specifically to suppress the fire so that you could get out of the house. So it's different than in like the council chambers here. You look up and you see the fire sprinklers and there's a whole ton of heads in here you know there's a lot of heads it's designed to actually put the fire out so residential again is designed to get people out and suppress the fire so they can get out now with that being said a lot of homes if you know enclosed in environments like bedrooms and in areas like that, it will actually put the fire out. But it does not play a role in wildfire suppression on the interior. |
| 00:47:40.82 | David Marlatt | Got it, thanks. And then my second question is a little bit about the timing of the zone zero. I know that it's been on people's minds and on the books for a long time. Is there any advice or speculation about when Solito, for example, will have a zone zero requirement? |
| 00:47:57.02 | Fred Hilliard | So this dates back to an assembly bill is, uh, 3075 in 2020. They was passed. And then what happened is once it was passed, they said, OK, well, how are we going to implement this? They kicked it back to the California State Fire Marshal's Office and the Board of Forestry. And there it sat. And they couldn't come to some agreement on how that process was going to roll out. And so that's why you saw the executive order from Governor Newsom, because he was like, OK, guys, time to get it together. I expect to see that in the next year within this code cycle. |
| 00:48:38.24 | David Marlatt | Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. |
| 00:48:40.42 | Nastassya Saad | Commissioner Fallon. |
| 00:48:41.85 | Kristina Feller | Thank you, Chair, and thank you so much for being here. This is a really important topic that we We really strive to schedule once a year here at the Commission. not just for our education, but to help our community those that are listening in at home, those who are here in the chamber, And they can, of course, always refer back to this discussion at any time. And by the way, thank you for letting us know that part of Southern Women Fire was represented down in Los Angeles. That certainly makes me very proud and glad they were effective there. Um, So I have a number of different questions, and these are sort of meant to help tease out some information that might just help our general public here. First is that there are new fire maps that were just published within the last couple weeks. And I'm curious about what we've learned or what CAL FIRE has learned from some of these more recent fires that have just been devastating. I mean, not just Eaton and Pasadena, but Tubbs and so on. |
| 00:49:40.11 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:49:58.23 | Kristina Feller | um how you know what criteria went into sort of changing those maps and um So maybe I'll ask that first and a couple more questions. Sure, no problem. |
| 00:50:09.23 | Fred Hilliard | Sure, no problem. So yes, there are brand new maps. They were issued February 24th of this year. Those maps are called fire hazard severity zone maps. And for our area, it's local response area or local response area. So those maps came out. So let me just backtrack a little bit. Um, Cal Fire issued the SRA, which is a state responsibility area maps earlier in the year. And this those maps went into effect immediately because it's the state responsibility area. They didn't have to get permission or anything like that. They say this is what it is. Local is different because. The state can't necessarily enforce local, but they look to local agencies to enforce the local response area. So Sausalito got a, get a lot more of the very high and high fire severity zones in this new LRA map. I want it to, you know, just to be clear, we have a wildland urban interface map that was adopted by the city of Sausalito. That map also covers a majority area. And I kind of pat myself on the back a little bit because when I did that map, I actually used the fire modeling that they use now. And I picked like almost exactly the same area. So I was like, yeah, I did a good job on that one, but there is some area that they extended further that and, and, Those areas that are in the very high fire severity zone, those areas are gonna have a little bit more regulation Thank you. |
| 00:51:46.94 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:51:47.29 | Fred Hilliard | than in the high fire severity zones, but no different. Not not very different than what we're already enforcing with the with the wild and urban interface maps. |
| 00:51:57.72 | Kristina Feller | Okay. And one of the reasons I'm asking about that is that there has been interest that certainly we've heard at this commission to recommission the Spencer Firehouse or Firehouse 2. And, um, I know that's not something necessary to talk about tonight, but there's a rising concern or interest or the community is paying a lot more attention, they're very sensitized to the issue. And so with the new fire maps, are you going to be updating the citywide evacuation, maps and or possibly designated additional evacuation, official evacuation routes. |
| 00:52:38.74 | Fred Hilliard | So we've been doing that already with the city. So we have safe zones. We have the evacuation maps built on the platform that we've already done. And like I said, you know, using that wildland urban interface map, a lot of those targeted areas have already been included in those evacuation maps. So those maps are the ones that we have right now are current to what these maps, the new maps have. I can't necessarily speak to what we're gonna do or what the proposal station two is because quite honestly, there hasn't been a lot of talk about. It's just been a thought. But also, it's important to know that we've done an analysis, several of them actually over the response area for our district and where the stations lie and what the response times are. And if we need more stations, if we need more personnel. And at the time that we did those the last round, it did not show that station two was we were it was a need for station two. But it doesn't mean that we wouldn't want to do that. |
| 00:53:40.10 | Kristina Feller | Yeah. |
| 00:53:40.14 | Fred Hilliard | It's an expensive endeavor. It's several million dollars to have a fire station. |
| 00:53:44.89 | Kristina Feller | Sure. I'm not here to advocate one way or the other. I'm curious if it's with these new fire maps, if that is something that is – |
| 00:53:45.28 | Fred Hilliard | at them. You know, |
| 00:53:54.46 | Kristina Feller | been considered. The other thing I wanted to ask, you know, because we deal with this a lot at the commission and certainly... you know we're hearing a hearing later on about you know a tree removal and things you know we hear that these sorts of things a lot and and we rely heavily on your on on southern moon fires and or cow fires. vegetation list of desirable and undesirable species so i'm curious if the new fire map or any. intel from any of these more current fires have affected that vegetation list or that would be revised in any way. |
| 00:54:32.45 | Fred Hilliard | So it's important to understand that anything burns at a certain temperature, right? And it doesn't matter, right? If it's considered non-flammable, flammable, it's flammable. It all burns. We can burn concrete, right? Yeah. |
| 00:54:38.03 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 00:54:38.05 | Unknown | WOULDN'T BE. |
| 00:54:43.52 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:54:44.99 | Fred Hilliard | These maps, I would say that It's not gonna change the characteristics of the vegetation that we're talking about. We're still asking for specific species, juniper, acacia, in some cases, eucalyptus, bamboo, things like that, that we see that could be a hazard. Those are the species of plants that we go after. saying, you know, let's replace that with something that has less oil content and less flammability. But the big thing is, you know, breaking up those canopies, breaking up that stuff. I don't think that it's going to necessarily be affected or we're going to change. |
| 00:55:22.80 | Kristina Feller | Okay. We also, and I was really happy to, you know, get an update from you about building codes and and so on and and you know delighted you're working with director phipps who is always on top of these things which we're very thankful for but we also have we're developing a hillside ordinance here in sausalito which is mainly to address something very different than fire, but it's focusing more on erosion control and issues like that. But these two things really do intersect. And so one of just, I mean, and I'm just thinking out loud here, but that would be the kind of draft ordinance that I would ask Southerman Fire yourself or others to certainly review in its draft form and input on it, because you'll have a very different perspective And I think that would be really, really helpful. So that's really just a comment. |
| 00:56:25.86 | Fred Hilliard | Absolutely, 100%. It would be me. |
| 00:56:27.43 | Kristina Feller | THE END OF THE END OF THE And then For the public, you know, these chipper programs and all these other things, if there are contact details or something specific on the website, that would be helpful to kind of blast out or, you know, staff even. you know adding another piece in uh salsa little currents just so people always have a place that they can look if they can't remember. or some sort of reference point, because I think the more we do these sorts of things, the more the public can actually you know, self-police that Zone Zero. before it becomes mandatory. Thank you so much for being here. |
| 00:57:14.18 | Fred Hilliard | Yeah. for. And we do work, we work with Tabitha on doing with the currents we send, we have a rotation of information that goes out depending on the season where we're at. So you'll be flooded with the chipper programs and grant programs and stuff through the city. And then, of course, on our website directly, you can, it's like right on the main page talking about vegetation removal and, you know, information. And we have a whole... |
| 00:57:17.96 | Kristina Feller | Good. |
| 00:57:39.37 | Fred Hilliard | A link to a ton of information if the public needs that. And then we have inspectors that are free will come out and we'll we'll we'll inspect your property. We won't cite you. |
| 00:57:41.95 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:57:49.43 | Fred Hilliard | No citations, educational. |
| 00:57:49.46 | Unknown | No. |
| 00:57:51.25 | Fred Hilliard | So please invite us to your property so that we can, you know, we can give you a free survey of where you're at. |
| 00:57:58.59 | Kristina Feller | I think that's amazing that you provide that service and the more Director Phipps we can get that information out to the public, that would be great. And then Something just came to mind as you were saying that. You know, you're right that we're surrounded here by GGNRA. And then of course you've got Caltrans going through there as well. Do you, is there some sort of like, joint power authority that you oversee all of that? Or is it just GGNRA? Or how does that work? |
| 00:58:34.96 | Fred Hilliard | Yeah, so we have relationships. So our relationship with Caltrans has been really good over the years. As a matter of fact, in Tam Valley just last year, or actually the year before, we did a million-dollar project on Highway 1 going from – |
| 00:58:49.52 | Larry Yi | Bye. |
| 00:58:49.71 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:58:49.72 | Larry Yi | I'm not sure. |
| 00:58:50.25 | Fred Hilliard | tam junction all the way up towards um erica road and so we have good um we have we work with them over in mill valley just right on the east blightdale on ramp going southbound that whole hillside we worked with them to do a bunch of clearing on and they they also do that they have a maintenance program um but you know state can always use help it's funny we put in for a grant from the state and then we use the grant on state property anyway um but but it you know we do work with them very closely and especially um from about rodeo all the way up um to the tunnels around the corner we do we do maintenance with them and then what they can't do we do we'll extend it and right now we're trying to find a way to extend these. We want to extend the fuel breaks to 200 feet instead of just a hundred feet. So we're working with them to do that. And GJNRA, we had a really good contact with one of the rangers here and the vegetation management specialist. And now we just have to see how that works out with what's happening right now. We also work with Marin Open Space in the water district. |
| 00:59:57.88 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. |
| 01:00:00.33 | Nastassya Saad | Absolutely. Commissioner Luxenberg. |
| 01:00:03.26 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you chair and again, thank you for the excellent presentation I just have a follow-on question regarding these new maps and I'm glad to hear that they're similar to what we've been Doing all along but and with some minor changes but who who needs to adopt these new maps and Will they affect insurance rates and also whether or not the insurance companies are going to renew policies? Because the number of the major carriers are leaving the state so to speak |
| 01:00:32.19 | Fred Hilliard | Yeah, yeah. I'll address the first part of it, which is the maps are actually – um, I don't think that they're necessarily going to change that demographic. Um, the new maps. Um, I believe that, you know, a lot of what we're already doing is going to continue to, to, to continue to do that. Um, the insurance is always a big question. So the insurance is, uh, Okay, so I can tell you I'm on the state. I'm on a state task force through the Cal Chiefs, California Fire Chiefs Association, just on this specific thing. And we met in while the actual L.A. fires were happening in L.A. to talk about this and talk about it. It wasn't related to the fires. It just happened to be the same timing. We put this meeting again and we're talking about how can the fire service What can we do? to influence the insurance companies for insurability in areas that are in a forested area or not in the area. How can we get people insured and keep them insured? And so we're looking at like things like code development. We're looking at the zero to five feet. We're looking at the ways that we can present this to the insurance companies and say, if we do this, Will you continue insuring? I can't answer for the insurance companies. They have an entirely different matrix on how they... You know, insure homes, they could Google map. I've seen I've heard where they and actually seen it where they Google map and they're like, oh, yeah, we can't see your house. because it's covered with trees, so we're not going to insure it. I mean, this is a real thing. And even though below all that, they've done 100 feet of clearing, 0 to 5 feet. It's home-hardened, meaning it has Class A siding, windows, vents, everything. And there's no rhyme or reason. It's really difficult to pick out how the insurance companies, what they use for maintenance or for metrics. So I think that what we do is we continue to work with this task force to get that, you know, the insurability, that type of thing. Um, I don't know if you know what's going to happen. I can tell you that we've seen in every major conflagration, like what we just saw in L.A., a lot of insurance companies do pull out because they simply the risk is too high for them and they go other places. Did I answer that whole question? I think I missed something. |
| 01:02:56.37 | Jeffery Luxenberg | I think so. Thank you. |
| 01:02:57.58 | Fred Hilliard | Thank you. |
| 01:02:57.68 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:02:57.72 | Fred Hilliard | Thank you. |
| 01:02:57.77 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:02:57.89 | Fred Hilliard | Thank you. |
| 01:02:58.01 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:02:58.04 | Fred Hilliard | Thank you. |
| 01:02:58.07 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:02:58.21 | Fred Hilliard | I'm going to go. |
| 01:02:58.51 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:02:58.63 | Fred Hilliard | Thank you. |
| 01:02:58.75 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:02:58.85 | Fred Hilliard | Thank you. |
| 01:02:58.88 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. Thank you, Chair. Almost there. |
| 01:03:01.33 | Fred Hilliard | Absolutely. |
| 01:03:01.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Vice Chancellor. |
| 01:03:02.46 | Fred Hilliard | Thank you. |
| 01:03:02.56 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:03:02.65 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 01:03:02.98 | Andrew Junius | Thank you, Chair. And again, obviously, thank you for the great presentation. And that last comment you made, I think, really highlights the specific situation in Sausalito here. For every shrub you pull out, for every five feet you can do right around your house, we've got all these beautiful coastal live oaks that are in proximity to your house and overhanging your house. And that's a real issue. So not sure how we're going to resolve that going forward. But I have a really specific question about eucalyptus trees and about the giant ones. We've got sprinkled all over Sausalito. We've got mature eucalyptus trees that are this big around at the base and they go up 150 feet and there's that. And then there's the giant forest of eucalyptus trees just to the west of 101 that I think is also technically in Sausalito. |
| 01:03:42.49 | Larry Yi | So, I'll... |
| 01:03:53.17 | Andrew Junius | Do you have any thoughts on exactly how dangerous those trees are in a fire and how difficult they are to remove? |
| 01:04:00.44 | Fred Hilliard | Yeah. So the first thing is they don't explode like an unexploding tree. I mean, if any tree gets to a certain temperature, they could burst it. And it's really not has to do it. It doesn't really necessarily have to do with the oils. It's just the expansion of the water that's inside of the trees. It boils and the trees burst. I've seen that. If a eucalyptus tree is maintained, like all the duff that falls off, that's why they're inherently dangerous is because they are very oily tree, right? They have a lot of oil. They can carry a lot of fire up the tree and into the canopy, which is called a crown fire. And that's what we want to try to stay away from because crown fires move. Uh, wait, uh, much more rapidly than a ground fire. Right. So you want to you want to try and get that stop. So if people are maintaining it, if they're picking up the ground litter, then they're not as Um, They're not as big of an issue. They're limbing stuff up and keeping that ladder fuel from, in other words, the ground fuel being able to burn up into the tree, they're not as hazardous. Do we like them? Not necessarily because there's a lot of maintenance involved in those trees. They were all planted. As a matter of fact, just really quickly, I know we're running out of time, but so when I was a firefighter, I went on a medical aid over in Mill Valley at Marin Terrace. And we took a lady to the hospital in the back of the ambulance when I was talking to her. I said, how long have you been here? Because I grew up here. And she goes, I was here so long. I planted all those trees. My dad gave me a nickel for every tree that I can plant. The idea was that there was a family that lived in Tam Valley that they planted eucalyptus trees because the wind would blow in and the trees grew quickly and then they would As you planted one, they would sprout trees rapidly and they would continue to grow. And that's where you get the eucalyptus forest. And that happened all over Marin when everybody found out that that's a rapid tree that you could plant, it grows quickly and it provides that wind screening. It was like, okay, this is, so we don't have the wind problem from the, from the ocean. And it's just taken on a life of its own. They were not, they're not indigenous to us. They're actually Australian, you know, so, so it's, they came over and they put that in. We would like the eucalyptus trees removed. We put it as a hazard tree. And the reason that we put it a hazard tree is because it allows those people who have the eucalyptus trees on their property to just take the trees down without going through a process of permitting and everything. Because they are a hazardous tree and they're difficult to maintain. So we will continue with that program. We'd love to get a majority of the trees either thinned out or removed, but we also, you don't want to change the demographic of what we have in this beautiful town, because a lot of people moved here because they like the smell of the eucalyptus, I don't get that, but they do, and the wind, and it blocks the wind, so we're working on ways to thin those forests. Absolutely. |
| 01:07:12.90 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you very much. I don't have any further questions, so we really appreciate your time. We're going to open it up for public comment, though. The public might have some feedback or comments. Director Phipps? |
| 01:07:20.23 | Director Phipps | THE FAMILY IS THE FAMILY |
| 01:07:25.71 | Director Phipps | Thank you chair, looking to the chamber for interested speakers. All right, Mr. Giavara, welcome back to the dais. You'll have three minutes. |
| 01:07:37.56 | Art Giovara | to the government. to put the insurance in perspectives, A few years ago, my fire insurance was $4,800. And we're now looking at $36,000. And the place that I own is Concrete Garage, the 599. Um, I've gone to quite a few of these meetings and the people have come up and they talk about We want the fire station. No, we don't want the fire station. We want housing. One idea is you could have both. There's many places where they build a firehouse and there's housing on top of it. So that's just an idea. But now the map that they came up with, along South Salido is now, or along Bridgeway. is a low fire. but up on top. I imagine there's going to be a lot of people that are going to be canceled. because of that. I don't know where they go to get the insurance. But it's a major thing. that, But it was just an idea that I thought of when I was listening to everybody. You know, we want the fire station. No, we want housing. We want this. And it was one of your opportunity sites. But there's many places that you can have bunk. That's all. It's just an idea. |
| 01:09:20.75 | Director Phipps | Thank you, Mr. Giavarra, for your comments. Looking to the chamber once again for interested speakers. Signe looking to the Zoom application for raised hands. going once, going twice. Back to you, Chair. |
| 01:09:34.77 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you very much. There are no further comments or questions. And yes, Commissioner Feller? |
| 01:09:41.02 | Kristina Feller | I obviously want to thank Chief Hilliard again. But having these sort of discussions kind of goes back the discussions that we had during the housing element when we took a vote and made a recommendation to city council and trying to prioritize primary infrastructure and directed staff to really engage in those conversations with our electeds and others within the county and state to really focus on primary infrastructure, whether it's water, whether it's power, whether it's fire, whether it's traffic circulation, whatever that might be. And so I just want to reiterate that, and I think this is part of it, and I want to thank you. |
| 01:10:30.46 | Nastassya Saad | Absolutely. Thank you very, very much for your presentation, for being here this evening. |
| 01:10:34.90 | Fred Hilliard | Thank you so much. And the map does get adopted by the city council, so I will be going to the city council in the next 30 days for the first reading. It's an ordinance through the city. So that's the part of the question I didn't answer. |
| 01:10:49.26 | Jeffery Luxenberg | THE END OF |
| 01:10:49.44 | Fred Hilliard | Thank you. |
| 01:10:49.48 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yeah. |
| 01:10:49.51 | Fred Hilliard | you |
| 01:10:49.58 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Thank you. |
| 01:10:49.65 | Fred Hilliard | Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. |
| 01:10:51.79 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you very much. Have a wonderful evening. . We're now going to be moving on to item seven, which is the public hearing. This is for 32 Sunshine Avenue. It's a tree removal permit. Just before we get to the staff report, I'm going to look to the commission to go through any potential ex parte communications. Commissioner Marlon. |
| 01:11:12.85 | David Marlatt | None for me, thank you. |
| 01:11:14.01 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. None for me. Thank you. Commissioner Luxenberg? |
| 01:11:17.08 | Jeffery Luxenberg | Yes, 32 Sunshine is located greater than 500 feet and less than 1,000 feet from my home. However, pursuant to statute 18702.2A, my property would not be affected by the criteria in subsection 8. Therefore, there is no materiality, so I will participate in the hearing. I did visit the site at 32 Sunshine Avenue. The contractor was on site at that time. He did show me the crack in the hearing. I did visit the site at 32 Sunshine Avenue. The contractor was on site at that time. He did show me the crack in the foundation, but there were no ex parte communications. |
| 01:11:50.21 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you very much, Vice Chair. |
| 01:11:52.59 | Andrew Junius | Nothing to declare. |
| 01:11:53.33 | Adam Blair | Thank you. |
| 01:11:53.52 | Nastassya Saad | Okay, I also have nothing to declare, so I'll look to you. Adam, thank you for being here this evening. |
| 01:11:59.29 | Adam Blair | All right, thank you chair and good evening commissioners members of the audience. It's a pleasure to present before you all this evening. I'm Adam Blair assistant planner with the Community Development Department. The item before you all this evening is an application requesting approval of a tree removal permit. to facilitate the removal of one Coast Live Oak Heritage Tree in the front yard area of 32 Sunshine Avenue. Next slide. So here's a site map showing the location of 32 Sunshine Avenue. The parcel is identified by assessor parcel number 065-163-28. The subject tree is circled in front in red. It's right in front of the property, as you can see. The property is zoned R-1-6, which is our single-family, medium-low-density residential zoning district per Sausalito zoning ordinance and general plan. Next slide. All right, so applicant Tree Masters on behalf of property owner Larry Yeh is requesting approval of a tree removal permit to facilitate the removal of a Coast Live Oak tree in the front yard area. You can see it in the top. right photo there. The tree measures 25 inches diameter breast height. It is a heritage tree because its diameter breast height is greater than 10 inches. The request was brought forth due to concerns about the subject tree and its both current and potential impacts posed to existing property. Piggybacking off our earlier conversations on fire and zone zero, the tree is located right in front of the existing residents about like a foot or two away. I might be able to fit my foot in that gap. You could see in the bottom right picture there. Um, as you could, you'll be able to see it better on the next side, but the tree roots have uplifted and produced a crack in the foundation of the existing residents. And we could show that on the next slide. |
| 01:13:45.82 | Adam Blair | Okay, so the subject Coast Live Oak tree, per the arborist, Dr. Kent Julian with Arbor Science LLC's report, the tree stands about 35 feet tall and again measures 25 inches diameter breast height. First photo shows the tree a little bit better. Photo in the middle, you could see my finger pointing at kind of the top of the foundation crack. The lighting at the bottom isn't the best, so you can't see the crack as well towards the bottom, but the crack does run from the bottom up to where my finger is. While the tree was not reported to be in poor or declining health, the subject tree is recommended for removal to prevent further structural damage to the existing house. The arborist further recommended that the stump be was wrecked that the stump be removed, probably ground to prevent Uh, potential re sprouting. And then the applicant Through some correspondence, they had initially proposed a replacement tree of a Japanese maple, but through working with tree masters and trying to find a similar tree that's on fire-safe Marin's recommended plant species list, the closest tree that staff does recommend for replacement would be a 15-gallon vine maple tree. We do recommend that the tree be planted at least out of zone zero, so at least five feet away. from the subject property and you can see a picture of what the vine maple tree would look like in that bottom kind of center left photo there. Next slide. Alright, so with that being said staff recommends the planning commission approve application 2025 dash 00009 for 32 sunshine avenue and adopt the attached draft resolution approving the tree removal permit. Staff finds the proposed project is in conformance with the criteria listed in municipal code 11.12.030 subsection B1 through 3. and fails to meet the findings, which are grounds for denial, listed in Municipal Code 11.12.030, subsections B3A through E. And with that, that concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions. |
| 01:15:47.03 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you, Adam. Commissioner Luxembourg, any questions? Thank you. |
| 01:15:50.97 | Jeffery Luxenberg | No question. |
| 01:15:52.74 | Nastassya Saad | missionary my |
| 01:15:53.23 | Kristina Feller | THE FAMILY. |
| 01:15:53.29 | Nastassya Saad | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:15:53.58 | David Marlatt | No questions. |
| 01:15:54.34 | Nastassya Saad | Commissioner Feller. |
| 01:15:55.61 | Kristina Feller | Just a quick question. Was there any indication where the applicant wanted to plant this maple replacement tree? |
| 01:16:05.01 | Adam Blair | I did not receive any in the application materials, nor did the arborist and their report suggests a new planting spot for the tree. The recommendation was part from the fire conversation this evening and I think in the report it did met my staff report it did mention that we should plant it further away from the residents than where it is now so. |
| 01:16:22.76 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 01:16:23.08 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. Vice Chair? Thank you, Adam. No questions for me. Can we, do you know who will be from the applicant? who will be presenting this evening. |
| 01:16:37.05 | Adam Blair | My understanding, I think someone from tree masters is in zoom. And then we have, I think the property owners here, and then they have a, um, engineer who I guess is also here as well. I think he'll be speaking during the public comment portion, but. I think an applicant isn't Zoom. No. Thank you. |
| 01:16:52.91 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. |
| 01:16:52.93 | Adam Blair | Thank you. |
| 01:16:52.95 | Nastassya Saad | I don't think I... |
| 01:16:53.03 | Adam Blair | I don't. I guess no applicant in Zoom. |
| 01:16:55.01 | Nastassya Saad | Yes, I didn't see anybody in Zoom |
| 01:16:57.08 | Kristina Feller | I think the engineer is part of an applicant team. I don't think they can speak during public comment. |
| 01:17:02.58 | Adam Blair | Okay, noted. Thanks. |
| 01:17:04.57 | Nastassya Saad | Well, I'd like to invite the applicant team up to the podium if you'd like, because you'll have 15 minutes for presentation. Anybody is welcome to speak. We can have 15 minutes on the clock. If I can ask that you state your name and address for the record, and we will give you the 15 minutes. If we stop you for any questions, we will pause the timer, and you can reserve some time for the end if you wish. Otherwise, please go ahead. |
| 01:17:36.76 | Larry Yi | Thank you. Good evening. My name is Larry Yi. I'm the owner of 32 Sunshine Avenue. |
| 01:17:42.78 | Nastassya Saad | I'm sorry, can I just ask you to speak a little further into the microphone so the public can hear you in Zoom? |
| 01:17:46.90 | Larry Yi | My name is Larry Yi and I'm the owner of 32 Sunshine Avenue. And we moved. to this area a couple weeks a couple years ago we love this place we love the trees actually when we move in we we feels like oh this is great place with a lot of trees we love it But... something happens and there's one tree very close to our house. Actually, the branches are right at the door, right at the balcony. And when it's getting windy, right, as there's a lot of noise, actually, it's not only the leaf noise, there's a kind of cracking things going on. So that is why we hired a professional. I'm not professional, right? I just feels like it's probably might be a safety hazard. So we hire a professional and also when we do the renovation. And we asked Rory Moore to do the renovation for us. He did a little more investigation from the foundation and we hired the structure engineers and we hire a different professional looking to whether it is a hazard or not. And I believe we found there is a hazard. So that's why, you know, we're here just hopefully you can approve this remove. That's all I want to say. Thank you very much. |
| 01:19:13.35 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you very much. Can I ask you to just stay at the podium? You've got 13 minutes and 24 seconds left if you wish. I'm going to open up to the Commission for questions. Commissioner Feller? |
| 01:19:15.85 | Larry Yi | Thank you. I don't know. |
| 01:19:22.83 | Kristina Feller | Can I just ask, was somebody from Tree Masters wanting to speak from your team? |
| 01:19:28.62 | Larry Yi | Actually, they're sending some assessment, and I was asking them whether they can come in, and they said probably, you know, they already put everything into this writing. Okay. |
| 01:19:41.97 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 01:19:42.00 | Nastassya Saad | I just want to. |
| 01:19:42.09 | Kristina Feller | I just... to clarify. |
| 01:19:43.03 | Nastassya Saad | I don't see anybody available. |
| 01:19:43.28 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 01:19:45.32 | Larry Yi | I know. |
| 01:19:47.42 | Nastassya Saad | Commissioner Marla, any questions? Thank you. Commissioner Luxenberg no question Vice chair. Okay. We will thank you. Thank you very much. If you you can go ahead and sit down. You'll have 13 minutes and 24 seconds after we have this open for public comment. Director Phipps. |
| 01:20:01.34 | Kristina Feller | All right. |
| 01:20:09.95 | Director Phipps | Looking to the chamber for any interested speakers in connection with this specific item. Seeing none, Chair. Looking to the Zoom application for any raised hands. Seeing none, back to you. |
| 01:20:22.70 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. I will. Look to the applicant if you wish to use any more of your time. This is your chance. Otherwise, we're going to bring it back up to the dais for discussion. Thank you. Okay. I will look up here to the commission. Commissioner Feller, do you want to start us? |
| 01:20:43.02 | Kristina Feller | I'd like to make a motion to approve the tree removal request, which is Project ID 2025-00009, and with one caveat that we ask that The applicant, tree masters, and staff work together on the location of the replacement tree to ensure that it can be successful wherever it is placed. |
| 01:21:07.73 | Jeffery Luxenberg | seconds. |
| 01:21:08.10 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. |
| 01:21:08.96 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you very much. Any discussion on the motion? |
| 01:21:11.17 | Andrew Junius | Yes. |
| 01:21:12.11 | Nastassya Saad | Yes, sir. |
| 01:21:12.96 | Andrew Junius | Just a comment more directed toward the arborists who serve the city and provide these reports. So maybe the staff could pass this along. I think when a coastal live oak is at this age and this size, recommended for removal for any reason, there really should be a much more robust report. I was really disappointed with the number of photographs in the arborist report. I couldn't really tell where the crack was in connection with the relationship to the tree. I felt it was just a completely inadequate arborist report. So I hope that message gets through to that arborist for the next time. |
| 01:21:51.06 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you very much, Vice Chair. No further discussion. I'll look to you, Director Phipps, take roll. |
| 01:21:56.23 | Director Phipps | One item of clarification is related to Commissioner Feller's recommended addition to the motion related to working with staff. Are there any distance related conditions to the home that you'd like to impose, for example, as related to zone zero? |
| 01:22:15.53 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. Well, thank you for the question. I mean, certainly, I think out of zone zero, not just for fire, but we need this tree to be successful. One of the problems with this, the unfortunate situation with this live coastal oak, which I never like approving a tree permit to take one down, but this one is obviously compromising the structure. No tree, not just because a fire should be that close to a foundation, because as it is successful and grows through its life cycle, it will inadvertently and... undeniably probably undermined the structural integrity of a foundation. So, with that said, the direction would be to place it somewhere where it can be successful, not just initially, but through its life cycle. And finally, I really appreciate Vice Chair Junius' comment. I couldn't agree more. |
| 01:23:17.53 | Director Phipps | Appreciate the clarification. Commissioner, with that, I will call roll on the proposed motion and seconded motion. Commissioner Luxenberg? Yes. Commissioner Merlot? Yes. Commissioner Feller? Yes. Vice Chair Junius? No. Chair Assad? Yes. Motion passes. |
| 01:23:27.72 | Kristina Feller | Yes. |
| 01:23:27.97 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. Yes. Thank you. |
| 01:23:31.99 | Director Phipps | Thank you. |
| 01:23:34.00 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you very much. And the final. Item is adjournment. So moving. |
| 01:23:40.44 | Kristina Feller | Thank you. |
| 01:23:40.82 | Nastassya Saad | Thank you. Thank you. All in favor? Thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner. |
| 01:23:45.52 | Director Phipps | Thank you, commissioners. Thank you, staff. Thank you, members of the public. Thank you, applicants. Have a good evening. |