UnGovr Transcript
iHow this transcript is madeUnGovr transcribes the official recording with automated speech-to-text, separates speakers by voice, and matches voices to the seated roster. Names and attributions are AI estimates and may contain errors.Verify any quote yourself: click anywhere in the transcript and the official video jumps to that exact moment, so you can check any quote against the recording.0:00 – 0:0811 turns
Mm. you
Thank you. We can do roll call please.
Roll call, called by City Clerk
Show transcript
okay our translator might come up to the podium introduce yourself
Good evening, we have interpretation into Spanish available if anybody wants. I have headsets over here. Thank you. Gracias.
Thank you. Our city attorney Mr Rosen do you have anything to report from closed session?
Uh thank you mayor so for the closed session agenda item read into the record at 4 30 there is no reportable action
okay Okay at this time we'll have public forum so anything that's not on our agenda this evening and as pertains to this jurisdiction.
Yes thank you mayor for those who wish to speak on a non-agenda item please use raised hand icon and I will call on you. I have no speaker slips, I do have Frank DeMarco if you please unmute yourself you'll have three minutes
Thank you very much. I just want to publicly thank the Director of Public Works, Nina Buolna and Javier Garcia and the other staff on Public Works Department. I want to thank Mayor Perotti And our district representative, Stuart Kazdin and the rest of the city council for budgeting. The job of repaving and re-striping Pacific Oaks between Hollister and Excuse me, having trouble remembering that the streets here but anyway it's a beautiful job. I want to thank you on behalf of many Phelps Road by the way.
I want to thank you on behalf of many people in the neighborhood and The people that are using Gersh Park for the athletic events, both during practice during the week and on the weekends. The striping job is actually Quite a work of art and well done. The paving is wonderful, and I just wanted to say that I know there's more to come in the paving department throughout the city but what a great job you did on Pacific Oaks.
The one thing I would just hope for is that our new police chief will pay some serious attention Adherence to the speed limits on that portion of Pacific Oaks. Anyway, thank you all very much we really appreciate it.
Thank you so much
I have no more speakers for public forum here
0:08 – 0:167 turns
We do have a proposed adjustment to the agenda tonight for the council's consideration. So I'm looking at the agenda, just skipping past the consent calendar which you'll get to in a minute But we're recommending that you reverse the order of items, they are both public hearings. B1 and B2. So B1 is an item to consider a residential project, 56 unit single family home and associated EIR.
Consideration of adoption of an interim urgency ordinance and extending that for a senior mobile home park overlay. And we just feel that if you reverse the order, that would be a better way to go. So we'll leave that up to the council if you want to do that but that would be our suggestion.
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0
Show transcript
Thank you, Mayor. I can move on to City Manager update if you like? We do have two short updates tonight. There were two very interesting all-day meetings last week and we had a couple of Councilmembers may have attended one of them on Thursday. A summit put on by REACH, and then on Friday there was a more exclusive event but we did have a staff member there. Our finance director was able to attend so I have asked Shannon Kern to make a short presentation on the REACH event and then Mr. Rio to make a short presentation on the event he attended which was also at part at UCSB and part at the new Oasis facility. So with that Ms. Kern take it away.
Thank you. Good evening Mayor, Councilmembers. My name is Shannon Kern, Assistant to the City Manager and as Robert alluded to several staff members and councilmembers attended the third annual Reach Ideas and Action Summit on Thursday March 12th at UC Santa Barbara's Corwin Pavilion. So this event brought together more than 300 local leaders, thinkers and community shapers to dream big and accelerate progress for our region.
The theme of the event was turning bold ideas into transformative actions so I wanted to just cover a couple of the key takeaways and share with with folks here on online So the Central Coast role in shaping America's energy future, making it more resilient and with renewable energies was a big topic. How local high schools, colleges and universities unlock the opportunity pipeline to connect local talent to career pathways We also talked about, there's discussions about the persistent challenges of affordable housing and then as well as emerging approaches to permitting innovations and then ways to increase housing supply.
And also using strategic foresight to navigate disruption and build a resilient thriving region. At this event, several representatives spoke, including Senator Alex Padilla who recorded a video message for the group. Congressman Salud Carbajal was there as well as Nandy Coloretti, the Cabinet Secretary for Office of Governor Newsom. They all offered remarks on California's future.
And the summit reinforced the idea that Central Coast has a significant economic potential, but success will depend on regional collaboration, housing solutions, workforce development and continued investment in innovation and clean energy sectors. So staff we felt very invigorated by this summit and energized and all the unique opportunities for Goleta and the region Moving forward, and so one thing that REACH does highlight often that I wanted to share with the group is at this meeting and at others is this chart of the pilot subtexters. So this is from the California Jobs First playbook So California Jobs First is a statewide economic development strategic plan, basically. And it invests in key sectors to drive sustainable economic growth, innovation and access to good-paying jobs.
As you can see the central coast hits all five of these key sectors and we're the only ones besides the Bay Area who has each of these sectors so it's really ripe for economic development. And so California will focus on these subsectors over the next two years, making concentrated investments and taking of whole government approaches to growth across the state. So this targeted focus not only makes it easier for agencies to collaborate but also ensures that they're able to engage the full ecosystem within each sector including workforce development and other critical supports to maximize benefits broadly. So I just wanted to share that with the group. I thought that it was very interesting, and I was really glad I was able to attend.
Thank
you. With that, I will... Oh yeah, it is all within reach, right? California's Central Coast. So with that, I'll pass it over to Luke Rio to go over the Quantum Day.
I would like to provide a brief update on the quantum California convening that I attended, had the opportunity to attend this past Friday on March 13th at UC Santa Barbara and at the Oasis facility right across the street. So that event was organized by the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, also known as GO-Biz, and the UC office of the President and REACH. The event's goal was to bridge that gap between world class academic research and the state's jobs first economic strategy more focusing on quantum.
So that morning, it highlighted why this region is the epicenter of that emerging industry. We heard from senior leaders at UCSB from Microsoft Station Q including Nobel laureates affiliated with the campus. There was a reoccurring theme with UCSBS unique collaborative culture in that field and the lack of silos across departments would allow that campus to lead in quantum materials and nano fabrication. So then later that morning we toured the campus facilities including the NanoFab facility and then the California Nanosystems Institute and the Quantum Foundry. We then spent the afternoon at Oasis, so again that's UCSB's new 105,000 square foot innovation hub that's located across the street which is really designed to accelerate transfers and taking research out of that lab and into the marketplace.
So at Oasis, GO-Biz staff outlined that California Jobs First quantum strategy. And so that was set forth under Assembly Bill 940 that was signed last October requiring GO-Biz to publish a statewide quantum strategic framework by July 1st, 2026. So part of that afternoon it was spent in strategic breakout sessions to help inform that roadmap covering infrastructure and assets, talent and workforce, and market development Participants included representatives from the Department of Defense or Department of War, defense industry partners including Lockheed Martin, Quantum Businesses and Partners and leaders from other UC campuses and colleges from down south. Now GO-Biz will continue to seek input as it finalizes that strategy. Two themes that I thought I'd share that I noticed from discussion, there was this strong push for regional alignment supporting regional hubs information data sharing rather than forcing local governments or campuses and universities to compete for resources.
Then also what I kind of caught on to was the presence of major defense and private industry partners just really showing that growing interest of that quantum ecosystem within our region. But overall, that event I felt underscored both the strength of our local research community and the significant opportunity quantum technology represents for Goleta. Particularly given that Oasis is right across the street and serves as a key link between university research and commercial development. And so that kind of will conclude my report. I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you.
0:17 – 0:2415 turns
Madam Mayor, that's it unless there's any questions for Council for either the staff
Thank you. Okay, so we go on to consent calendar.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. That is item A1 approval of the City Council meeting minutes of March 3, 2026. Item A2 acceptance of the January 2026 check register. Item A3 an annual claim with the Santa Barbara County Associated Governments for allocation of fiscal year 2026-27 Transportation Development Act funds. Item a4 agreement with DUDEC for storm drain master plan And item A5 Strogo Park deed modifications, relocation of waterline easement and Strogo Park phase one construction beds.
Thank you. Council wish to pull any items from consent? Not seeing any do we have any speakers?
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0
Show transcript
Okay, ayes have it. Okay moving right along here.
Yes that will bring us to item B2 consider adoption of an interim ordinance extending senior mobile home park overlay and moratorium on conversion to an all ages park
Thank you
Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council Members. Last month your council adopted an interim urgency ordinance creating a senior mobile home park overlay and prohibiting conversion of senior mobile home parks to all ages parks. That was after the new owner of University Mobile Home Park, the only senior mobile home park in the city moved to change that property to an all-ages park Under California's government code, that ordinance will expire on April 3rd. That's after 45 days unless extended by a four-fifths affirmative vote.
So staff recommends that you extend that ordinance and the associated regulations as outlined in the staff report.
Thank you for that. Questions from Council? Oh, I guess I should say that this is a public hearing and we will open the public hearing at this point. And we heard the staff's presentation. We'll go to council for questions and then we'll go to the public for testimony and questions and staff response. More council questions if needed and then I will close the public testimony portion And council will go into deliberation. We'll close the public hearing and entertain a motion. Okay, questions from council?
No questions?
I'll just state for the record it seems like we don't have a lot of questions but we had a quite lengthy discussion on this topic at our last meeting.
Yes, we did. Okay so we'll go to the public
Thank you, Madam Mayor. For those of you on the Zoom webinar please use raised hand icon and I will call on you if you wish to speak this item. I do have three speaker slips our first speakers Fred Sloman. All speakers will have three minutes.
Madam Mayor City Council members and city staff My name is Fred Sleeman, past president of the University Mobile Home Park Residents Association. I'm here to speak on behalf of the University Mobile Home Parks and I just want to bring to your attention one of our residents has just received an email from the new owners Harmony regarding their rent increase which I believe is going to be very detrimental to the park residents.
The owners are requiring a rent increase from $575 to $1,995 effective July 1st so they're doing their duty by by giving the resident a three-month notice. Other than that, there's a couple of homes in the park that are for sale and the average space rent in that park was around the $350 mark prior to Harmony taking possession. They're asking now for these two homes that they own The space rent of $995, which is going to put a lot of senior citizens.
It's gonna put that out of their reach. We believe that if this company is allowed to implement these rent increases on residents all it's gonna result in is more homeless people in our city and the most vulnerable, in my opinion are going to be living in their cars that if they can still afford to have a car to live in. So we are asking the residents are asking the City Council to please look at our situation and And continue on with this ordinance of that park remaining an affordable park for senior citizens. I thank you very much for your time, and I'm sure that you will address our concerns in the ordinance. Thank you very
much.
Our next speaker is Dr. Yolanda Marquez.
0:24 – 0:295 turns
Mayor, City Council members and honored guests. My name is Dr. Yolanda Moniquez. I was born in Santa Barbara. I'm a Santa Barbara native. I got my degrees from UCSB and I live in the University Mobile Home Park. I've lived there as of tomorrow 16 years And the majority, more than the majority are senior citizens who live on a fixed income. I really want you to consider what is going on and that people who speak here or people who kind of challenge the status quo may get repercussions.
And I'm asking you to please, please make sure That 55 community stays. When I first moved there, I got sick with cancer. And I've had three bouts of it. And I live there because the people are kind, I've made great friends and it's a place where you know people, everybody sticks together. We're not out to stick anybody for anything. So with your help and not with Harmonies or Three Pillars who have gone to try and raise the rent on people who are trying to sell their house or trying to buy a house in the community. It is a senior park, there aren't any kids. There's no place for them to play unless it's in the middle of the street. So what can you do?
So again, I please ask you for your consideration. And I think I'm getting emotional here for you to really think of what this means to all the seniors in that park. Thank you for your time. Thank you for allowing me to speak. Thank you again. Thank you. Our
next in-person speaker is Lawrence Boehm.
Madam Mayor and city representatives, council members, employees, whoever else. Um, I just want to let you know that I'm probably the oldest member of the university mobile home park that has lived there the longest 28 years. I've been there with four different managers and The park was never set up to be a family park. There are no play areas, no open areas. The trailers are very close together.
I can open my back window and shake my neighbor's hand so that's where we're at. James has been over there several times. He knows the situation and it's not set up as a family park. That's why Harmony came in and wants to change the whole status and it's not even physically set up that way. We had our second manager, Linda, let in three different young men with their mothers and three different trailers.
These young men were all on drugs. One actually had a meth lab in his trailer with a pet skunk. The other two had gang members outside the park Every evening they would come in with black hoodies on and steal whatever they could steal to supply their drug habits. Linda, the manager was even afraid to go out at night so that's what happens when you bring in people that are not really seniors that are responsible and want to have a quiet beautiful You know, situation to live.
So it took the park at least a year litigation to get them out of the park since they left there hasn't been any stealing going on. I lost an iPhone several hundred dollars people just would walk into your trailer during their day if you had your door open And you're in the back room, they would help themselves. And all day long they would be going around seeing what they could steal and then at night bring their black hoodies in and steal whatever there was nothing if it wasn't, nailed down, it would be stolen. And that went on for a good maybe three years and finally they got them out of the park. And ever since it's been very harmonious there in a lovely place to live.
So I hope that can continue. Thank you.
Thank you.
That concludes our in-person speakers. We do have one hand up on zoom. Karina Munoz if you'll please unmute yourself, you'll have three minutes
0:29 – 0:399 turns
Hello.
Go ahead we can hear you.
Hello hi I'm sorry. My name is Karina Munoz and I am just currently at a class for my daughter but I am calling to represent my hold on one second. I'm so sorry. Come here. Come here. Sorry about this. I'm calling because or i'm here because I wanted to represent my mom who lives in the park who can't speak for herself she like many other of the people don't have a lot of people that can speak for them they're either seniors that you know are really far removed from what's happening currently in the environment or they don't speak English, or they just aren't able to really come and find transportation to these meetings. And so I can only speak on my mother's behalf but she moved in about three years ago we were able to find this nice park where we felt that she was safe.
She everybody around her was in you know seniors and you know this is a park that has a lot of stuff that needs to be fixed you know to to be able to call it a family I'm so sorry, just give me one second. And so basically I'm just trying to communicate that I think it's really sad to see that this company has come in to really take advantage of this really vulnerable community. They have come in and literally you know all right away provided rent increases they haven't taken the time to come and meet each one of the individuals, they haven't come in and like see who this park's about I don't even know who they are and I'm the one that's writing the check on behalf of my mom to ensure that everything is It's going in order. And what I'm just seeing is that these people that don't have a way to communicate or a voice are being taken advantage of, and I come here because I'm trying to represent her and other people too.
And I do believe that what they're doing is really sad because most of these people are on social security which you know isn't a lot They're either on disability, they don't have people that help them with income and they're living in very meager simple humble dwellings. And to see these people thrown out they're going to be your next homeless community because where else in Santa Barbara are they going to be able to pay rent? And unless the city is working on you know I know the housing projects that are happening maybe in Goleta will they be able to You know, have this be of ability for these people to to be part of this. I don't know but I just ask for your grace for these people, for my mom who's been there that we are you know pay what we can for a rent live on humble beginnings and meet and mean means and asked for be able to support this community.
I don't think that it's fair that they're trying to change in all ages to take advantage One of the few parts to help this community members and these people live, you know the way they are and have that opportunity. So I thank you so much for your patience in these talking and thing with my daughter, I apologize but I hope that you take what I said with what you can and I really honor your time. So thank you so much.
Thank you for speaking on your mother's behalf. Thank you.
And that concludes public comment for this item Mayor.
Okay Council Member Kasdan?
Yeah, I just want to belabor the stuff we talked about last time but just to clarify a couple of points that were raised here. And if I'm mistaken about this, please clarify me. But that first of all what we're talking about is and what Harmony's talking about is not pushing people out. It's about the people who are there could continue to stay there but Harmony would be doing would be opening up the parcels as they open up to be able to be eligible for people who are not seniors. So new residents that come in could be families, not just seniors. So this isn't about people getting shoved out as a result of the action.
The second observation is whether this was developed with adequate facilities for families and others and I guess I'd say that to me It's the decision of the families to make. There's not a lot of affordable housing in the city and, uh, the problem is it's so stretched that even things that aren't ideal necessarily as far as playgrounds and other things would be better than housing where its whole financially exceeds their ability to pay.
That's when I look at this, my concern is You know, why are we excluding certain groups from this opportunity? And the last thing to point out is that as far as I know people were commenting about the rent increases. We're not addressing the rent control. That isn't a topic here that this is about making this a senior only facility. To the extent that there's concerns about how they're managing the rent control process It's a separate discussion and that one I'm sympathetic because people can't move. mobile homes. If you have a mobile home in a spot, you're captive. There's nowhere to take it. You know there's no other sites available so you're subject to whatever the owner of the land deems to charge. So there's a rationale for the rent control that's different than rent control in other locations and other areas but to my understanding that isn't something that is the subject of what we're discussing.
And so anyway, I won't go on with this but that's it.
Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem
Smith? Thank you yes. I did want to address a you know I certainly hope residents will share if there's been separately we are focused on the issue of the age question this evening and that's the ordinance before us tonight But if there are any potential violations of our existing rent ordinance, hopefully that will be investigated to the extent possible by city staff.
But I also want to remind residents that city staff cannot act as your individual legal counsel There are resources available in the community, affordable resources for civil legal representation through Legal Aid Foundation and other places. So I do want to remind folks that that's a resource that is available because there may be individuals there who need or facing individual unique legal issues that need to be addressed on a case-by-case basis that's sort of separate from some of these larger policy items.
And there's no question that in any other context familial discrimination is prohibited in Goleta, in the state of California and nationwide in most circumstances. And discrimination based on the status of having children is a real thing that happens in our community and is highly discouraged. However, as a society we have also embraced an exception to that. to say we are allowing seniors facilities, senior mobile home parks, other senior apartment complexes because of the special and unique needs of seniors. That's long been accepted state and federal law in a value in our community. We have an ongoing aging population so I just wanted to state that I understand where Council Member Kasdan is coming from because in any other context, I would be in complete agreement with him.
But in this context the request from the community is to maintain that status quo for the senior residents and so I continue to support the ordinance as proposed. Thank you.
0:39 – 0:4917 turns
Thank you Madam Mayor. I'll just echo everything that was just said by Mayor Pro Tem Smith and I'll just add, and I don't want to get into a tit-for-tat here either we've already heard this matter and had public comment in a public hearing I'll just say that as the representative for this district and the representative of the Mobile Home Park, I've heard from a lot of tenants who have either received an eviction notice themselves or have been really impacted by a close friend or neighbor in the park who has received an eviction notice.
So for a matter that's supposedly not about evictions, I'm hearing a lot about evictions. I ultimately think at the end of the day, the State of California has identified the need to look out for seniors and preserve senior housing as a vexing and important public policy matter that deserves attention. There's a whole master plan on aging. The state refers to it as the silver tsunami coming. A lot of people retiring past retirement age are still having to work because they need affordable accessible housing.
We aren't always going to be able to provide senior housing, like at Heritage Ridge that's deed restricted. So there's not always going to be a lot of options. Our housing element identified deed-restricted housing that's gonna be coming off the rolls in coming years and you have to find a way to replenish that and you have to have strategies to replenish that. And I think a really good strategy is to not lose the non-deed restricted but senior Housing that we do have in our community and not just willfully allow it to go away. And so I'll be supporting the ordinance, and I also have a lot of respect for Council Member Kasdan's position. We just agree to disagree on this one.
Yeah,
just I don't know if we have available the information offhand but we contract with a mediator for if there are rent issues and so forth. And so yeah, if we can provide that information that would seem to me to be an appropriate venue if there's rent type of questions
Council Member Kasdan, the Rental Housing Mediation Program which we contract with the City of Santa Barbara for they don't operate in mobile home parks.
Really?
Sucks. Okay that's weird why would they exclude but anyway all right thank
you. Council Member Reyes-Martin
Thank you. I agree, I couldn't have said it better than Mayor Pro Tem Smith so thank you for your comments. I remain supportive of the ordinance and I do want to thank the residents who have continued to attend these meetings and provide your public comment. I know it's probably not easy always to get here and it's really important for your voices to be heard Ms. Munoz for speaking for her mom, I really appreciate it. A lot of times we have reports but to actually see and hear your voices and your stories is also really important so thank you for your engagement.
Thank you. I have nothing more to add that I haven't said in the past, I do want to say I so appreciate all of you for coming out again and speaking to us thank you and it's also if I choose We're going to have more public speakers. That's up to me, and I did see somebody raise their hand they wanted to speak. Did you still like to come up and speak? I haven't closed public comments, so
this is your chance. Hi my name's Holly Boniface and I was not prepared to speak but I would like to because of what was just said. This is in reference to eviction it was brought to my attention that my next door neighbor whose home was her dad's then her mom's then her brother's now it's hers they are not going to grant a lease So this is a person who I met, actually when my neighbor was walking by she said you heard about Gil. You know he actually passed away he owned a local business the vacuum cleaner business right there in Hollister and I met Debbie and her sister And then Debbie rents, and she was preparing to move in. And she had spent probably a couple days cleaning out things and was getting ready to move in. And I didn't see her for a long time.
And then I went away on a trip, came back, and there was a notice between my car and my house. So I picked it up, and it was for her, I think because it said 29. So anyway, I called her and I said hey, I got this notice. And then she said I guess you haven't heard what's happened? And I said what and she said they're not going to grant me a lease so Anyway You know, and she wants to actually it was something where I did give her information on legal aid.
But she works she was working for the homeless shelter now she's working for some other organization that helps people here in our town. And so I know it's something that's happening and I definitely would rather have her say it, but I did get permission to speak about it. And I did bring it to the new president, not Fred, but Dory. So anyway, I just wanted to mention that this is actually happening and I'm very upset about it. And so, I just wanted to mention it.
Thank you for bringing it to our attention. Staff have any comments or questions? I mean, have anything, any remarks to make at this point. Thank you for letting me know about the task force, the mediation task force. They don't deal with handle mobile home parks. Is
that
true? And
it's not like an add-on, like a pizza you can have extra service. I don't want to go
on and on about that but that was a surprise so if there's any other public that would like to say something now is your time otherwise I'm gonna please come back up otherwise I'm going to close the public comment after
Mayor, I do want to note everyone's entitled to the same three minutes so we would request new speakers. Well that's true. Otherwise?
I'll try and keep it as short as possible. Okay. I just wanted to add that there are eviction notice or as they say it termination notices that people are getting in the park and they are having their space rent raised at our new places And I don't think any of you have heard about any of it. It's new people, they're selling homes, they're jacking up the space rent to 995 or more where when I started in the park my space rent was $275. Now over 16 years it's at 330 plus what we agreed to on the agreement And they wanted to raise my rent over $220 a month.
And so we were able to work out with the group, which I am part of, as to an agreement of $30 more each month for the next five years going up $30 up 250. So there are things that are going on that some of you may not be aware of Council Member Kasdan, I'd like to point out that we are not trying to say that we don't want families in the park. It's just that it's always been a senior park. Sanders who owned it wanted it kept that way. He told his managers that every time we came in and we had to show our age by a license or something that showed who we were when we signed our agreement And I think even the renters that were in there at that time were 55, although one of them could be 45.
So I need you to realize that we're not speaking just for the heck of it, of saying we don't want anybody else in there. That's really not it. It's the fact that it's all, wait a minute let me finish. It always said it has been a senior park from the day Sanders had it. Thank you again and I apologize if I overstated anything and I apologize if I offended you. That was not my intention okay? Thank you.
0:49 – 1:1224 turns
You have the opportunity to speak now. Has the hand, did the person, have they spoken already? They
have for three minutes yes.
They have? They have. Okay yeah okay so I'm at this point going to close public comment and... Are we ready for a motion? You had your light on so... As I've
been waiting to make a motion.
Oh okay that's what you wanted to do.
When we're ready.
Are we ready any more deliberation okay
I'll move that we adopt on a four-fifths vote urgency ordinance number 26 next in line, U entitled an extension of an urgency ordinance of the City Council of the city of Goleta California adding chapter 17.22 to the Goleta Municipal Code to establish a senior mobile home park overlay district and moratorium prohibiting the conversion of senior mobile home parks to all ages parks and fighting the ordinance categorically exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act
I'll second.
And I did close the public hearing, yes? Okay all right so we have a motion and a second roll call vote.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–1 motion and a second roll call
Show transcript
Thank you, thank you both.
I'll take us to item B1, Shelby Single-Family Residential Project for 56 single family units in three open space lots with a final environmental impact report at 7400 Cathedral Oaks Road APN 077-530-019 case number 05-154-VTM-DP-DRB.
Okay, while they're getting set up I want to remind everybody this is another public hearing and we will have staff make their presentation. And before that we'll do an ex parte of the council members then questions from the council applicant will have I think 15 minutes and then more questions if there need be Public comment, I will open that and staff clarification of the questions. A rebuttal from the applicant if needed so you might wanna save some of your time if you need to have a rebuttal.
Council questions? Close the public comment deliberation and close the public hearing and entertain a motion. And that's how we'll do that this evening. Okay who's gonna kick this off? Okay.
Did you still want the ex parte?
Oh, ex parte, yeah absolutely.
Okay just make sure we actually do that if we have it. I've had a couple of conversations with Jim Youngson who's one of the representatives for the applicant. I did not receive any requests to speak from project opponents and so I don't have an ex parte in that regard.
No communication.
I had one site visit last year to the property and the information learned there is available in the current staff report. And then I did have a follow-up conversation today to clarify a few questions that I believe will be addressed during the meeting, but one was to confirm that the site is currently vacant and to request an update on the status of where things are with the water district.
But otherwise all the information is in the public record.
Council Member Reyes-Martin.
I had outreach from Mr. Youngson to see if I had any additional questions or needed clarification and I did not, but I appreciated that offer and any of my other information is part of the public record. Thank you.
I'll just add to mine I didn't learn anything that wasn't in the public record.
Okay I think now we can move on to staff presentation.
Thank you Madam Mayor, members of Council. This is the Shelby Residential Project. Before I start the presentation, I briefly want to give some introductions. We do have a city team here tonight to not only present but also answer questions. So obviously to my right I have Lisa Prossi, current Planning Manager as you all know. We also have Peter Emhoff, Planning Director, Winnie Kai, Assistant City Attorney.
We also have in the audience from the Public Works Department Mark Schleck And then via Zoom, we have RINCON consultants. We have Maddie Majors, Chris Julian and Megan Jones, RINCON consultants to prepare the environmental impact report. Then also via Zoom we have from BBK Hannah Park. So project location is 7400 Cathedral Oaks Road. The site's approximately 14.38 acres.
Existing setting, currently a vacant site mostly a fallow field. Previous uses were egg related most recently an avocado orchard. Three existing residences on site, excuse me three existing structures on site. One single-family residence as well as a barn and a garage. Current uses we know there's currently you know firewood storage happening as well as wood chips yeah in terms of the single family residence the tenant there wasn't was attendant apparently that tenant has now moved out of the property Surrounding uses, if you look to your south is Cathedral Oaks Road and to the south of that is the Crown Collection. That's a single-family residential neighborhood.
To the east north in the portion of the western property line you have Glen Inlet Golf Course which is in the county as well as El Encanto Creek adjacent to the western property line West of that you have Northgate Drive, and then to the west of that you have more multi-family residential types. The primary objectives for the proposed project really is to develop 56 single family residences located in Galeta.
This will provide residential development to fulfill the housing stock envisions by the city's housing element. Additionally, these will provide housing opportunities for extremely low, lower income, moderate income levels that will support the city's regional housing needs allocation requirements also known as ARENA. Another objective is to prove the accessibility and encourage active transportation mostly in the form of bicycles and pedestrians. And lastly, the residents will be designed and incorporate green building measures.
This evening the approval requests are four primary components. So one is a vesting tenant of a map to subdivide that property into 59 parcels, three of which would be open space, 56 would be for single-family residences. The development plan would of course be to construct those residences as well as associated improvements. This would be your roads and streets, your landscaping, as well as utilities.
Design review, the design review board did recommend approval of the project back on February 10th in terms of their design. And then lastly, the request is for council to certify the final EIR. Project history, this has a long project history really going back to the early 2000s. And so throughout the history of this project there's been project descriptions, there's been revised project descriptions, there's been numerous environmental documents prepared but in part the project was delayed in 2014 due to a water moratorium by the Goleta Water District In 2023, the applicant did submit a revised project description under Senate Bill 330 reducing the residential unit count as well as incorporating deed-restricted affordable housing units.
2024-2025, there was a lawsuit and settlement regarding the submitted revised application which brings us to last year City Staff Repair Environmental Impact Report which supersedes all prior other EIRs with the updated project description. Background this is a builder's remedy project and pursuant to the Housing Accountability Act by the state It prohibits a jurisdiction from denying a qualifying affordable housing project due to inconsistencies with the local zoning in our general plan if an applicant submitted a preliminary application while the jurisdiction housing element was out of substantial compliance with the state housing element law.
Builders remedy also allows for the project to be developed on the project site without a general plan amendment or rezone. It does permit the applicant to identify zoning district as well as land use designation of their choice, for example this is currently an agricultural parcel zoned AG 40, 40,000 acre minimum and the applicant is requesting RS7 single family residential 7,000 acre minimum State Density Bonus Law, this is a state density bonus law project.
Given the applicant is requesting a qualifying number of deed restricted affordable housing types they do have the ability to request concessions and waivers to our zoning ordinance and I'll get into detail on those a little later Native American consultation the city has conducted all required Native American consultation from the beginning of the project Person went to the Native American Heritage Commission To date that today. The city has not received any comments Design review board did as mentioned recommend approval for the project on February 10th Planning Commission on March 2nd, the planning commission also recommended approval to City Council of the project Existing structures, you'll see on your left the barn.
On the right is single family residence. There's another elevation of the residence on your left and then the storage or firewood on your right. Project description, one is to obviously demolish all existing structures on the site. Secondly, to subdivide the parcel to 59 lots. Also the construction of 56 single family units, 11 of which will be deed restricted.
Three lots will remain for open space. First went to state density bonus law. The applicant is requesting concessions and waivers, and I briefly want to go over these. There's four waivers in one concession so the applicants requesting a reduction in lot width for the lots from 65 to 60 for applicable parcels The applicants requesting rear and side yard setback reductions regarding the rear from 25 feet to 15 on the applicable lots, and then the side yard setback reduction on applicable lots from six-and-a-half to six.
Floor area ratio, this is the maximum allowable floor area they are proposing to exceed that standard within the zoning ordinance for 35 units Then lastly, the concession. The applicant is requesting a concession to the stream side protection area which is 100 feet. They are requesting about 7000 square feet to encroach into that buffer. In terms of the dimensional line it's roughly about 75 feet so 25 foot reduction.
Here you'll see a graphic of the Vesting Title Map. The north is on your right, you'll see the internal streets as well as El Ocanto Creek to the west, the Blue Line Creek which my cursor's currently on and then the other blue line with the SBA buffer. You'll see there's a few parcels in this area that encroach into that buffer. Here's a site plan. This is mostly to get kind of a perspective of the landscaping.
Here we have some renderings and perspectives, these are one-story and two-story homes. Materials are mostly smooth stucco finish, wood paneling, cantilever roofs. And here's a perspective of the two-story homes. Here's some similar views, so on your right you will see a photo simulation of what the frontage of the parcel will look like on Cathedral Oaks with the added residences as well as the landscaping.
And then a similar photo simulation from King Daniel Lane just south of the property and the entrance of the proposed project. Secret overview, we do have Rincon Consultants on the line. We have Maddie Majors. So Ms. Majors I'll hand this section over to you. Thank you
Thank you, Mr. Mimic and good evening Madam Mayor, Council Members, staff and members of the public. I'll jump into the CEQA and EIR overview here. So the California Environmental Quality Act is the state's primary environmental protection law and it requires that public agencies disclose the environmental impacts of projects that might have a physical effect on the environment.
Next slide please. Under CEQA, an environmental impact report from the EIR can be prepared as the informational document disclosing information about the effects of the project on the environment. And for any potentially significant impacts mitigation measures should be identified and feasible alternatives to the proposed project would be included in the EIR.
An EIR must be certified prior to project approval. Next slide please. This slide outlines the CEQA process and just from a high level, and from start to finish there are several instances along the way that affords the public the ability to provide input and comment on the project and the environmental review. So you'll see at the beginning during the notice of preparation and preparation of the draft EIR, there is an opportunity for the public to comment at that point. Midstream in the process when the draft EIR is published for public review is another opportunity for that public input.
And then finally, we're kind of in the middle of this green portion here and the end of the secret process. Um, and at the hearings like the 1 tonight. The public is provided the opportunity to comment on the project. And ultimately if the project is approved, the city adopts the final findings and the overriding considerations for any significant and unavoidable impacts and then notice of determination is filed for the project Next slide, please.
So on this side I'd like to take a minute to go over the impacts that were identified in the EIR and specifically be significant and unavoidable impact as well as those that require mitigation. So there was one significant and unavoidable impact identified in the EIR in the transportation and circulation section related to vehicle miles traveled And for that, so the vehicle miles traveled for the project exceed the city's threshold which results in that impact. Mitigation measure TRA1 in the EIR, which is a VMT reduction plan was crafted and is designed to reduce the number of vehicle trips, shorten trip lengths, and shift trips away from single occupant vehicles by including measures such as affordable units, pedestrian connections to transit, class one trail and bike improvements, a bus stop on Cathedral Road, and school and carpool ride share program.
These measures are based on the project specific reduction strategies provided in the traffic study for the project and developed with guidance from CAPCOA, the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association. So as detailed in that mitigation, the DMT reduction plan also requires review and approval by the Goleta Planning and Environmental Review Director to ensure that all feasible and practical mitigation measures are incorporated into the plan to reduce that impact to the extent possible.
Mitigation measure TRA1 satisfies CEQA by ensuring that the city requires all feasible evidence-based BMT reduction strategies that are applicable to this specific project type and location. Currents have consistently held that mitigation doesn't need to eliminate impacts entirely, but reduce them where feasible and disclose the remainder. So, in this case even with implementation of TRA 1 the project is a low density single family housing project. Which inherently is VMT intensive?
The project site is not within a low VMT core or high-frequency transit area. It's at the periphery of the city, and the land use context limits the maximum achievable VMT. In summary and disclosed in the EIR, VMT could potentially be reduced with the mitigation to 17.03 VMT per resident but that still doesn't get us below or get the project below The city's adopted threshold is 16.79 BMT per resident.
So the EIR ultimately concludes the impact is class 1 significant and unavoidable, and a statement of overriding considerations is required for that. With that I will go back to the Remainder of the impacts listed on this slide. So that was the only class 1, the other ones are listed here are Class 2 so these are potentially significant impacts but they can be mitigated to a less than significant level with mitigation that is in EIR.
Biological resources, cultural resources, geology hazards, hydrology and water quality land use noise. Tribal cultural resources and wildfire sections of the EIR all contain mitigation for those related impacts. Next slide please. So the draft EIR, as I mentioned in the CEQA process slide was circulated for public review. And I think it was ultimately a 48-day public review period. There were several comments that came up during that public review period in the areas listed on the screen here. All comments were formally responded to and prompted only minor edits in the final EIR.
Next slide please. Lastly, I wanted to touch on this streamside protection area buffer reduction that Daryl mentioned earlier. Let's see here. So the proposed encroachment residential structures and grading into the 100 foot SPA upland buffer is allowed pursuant to state density bonus law, and it meets the criteria for buffer reduction under the city's general plan and coastal land use plan as well as the municipal code all of which is detailed in the EIR.
CEQA significance is determined by whether conflict with a plan would lead to a substantial adverse change in the environment. While the proposed project would be inconsistent with a policy for the SPA buffer as Policy CE 2.3, the inconsistency is limited to the type of development residential rather than the extent or severity of physical impacts. Which in the EIR is detailed and are addressed through mitigation measures, Bio 3, Bio 4, Bio 7, Bio 8 and site design.
So ultimately, the proposed residential development within the SBA buffer has been cited and designed to minimize impacts to riparian vegetation would not involve protected tree removal and would not result in significant degradation of the streamside habitat or hydrology with those mitigation measures. Therefore, the project impact involving conflicts with policies related to the streamside protection area were determined to be less than significant.
And with that, I will hand it back to Mr. Minnitt to complete the presentation.
1:12 – 1:1817 turns
Thank you, Ms. Majors. With that, that does bring us to staff's recommendation this evening. Staff's recommendation is that the City Council adopt the following resolutions on your screen. You'll also see those on your staff report. These include the resolution with the certification of the EIR as well as the vesting maps and as well as a development plan That concludes staff's presentation. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Okay, we'll go to council now if you have any questions. Council Member Kasdan?
So I guess with CEQA that it, well I know the CEQA does not include the level of service any longer. The impacts on our congestion and so forth but under the terms of the builder's remedy is do elements of our general plan like requirements to maintain the level of service, are they still relevant or is that no longer applicable?
Good evening Mayor and Council Members. Yes, our general plan policies are still relevant however as outlined in the staff report and in the general plan consistency and in the traffic study that was provided The project, it won't trigger reduction in our level of service C at the nearby intersections. So the project does meet our general plan policies in that regard.
Okay so no mitigation measures are called for?
There are no mitigation measures called for because there's no, well there is a mitigation based on VMT.
Right I'm just thinking of...
There are no mitigations, it's based on VMT for mitigation measures and I think there are no conditions of approval related to LOS. And the applicant, I mean then the project does include the bike path and road dedication that would help facilitate improving our traffic circulation system.
Actually, I'm a bit surprised knowing Public Works they didn't propose a traffic circle? Sorry Nina. I was also curious as far as fire. So, you know one of the concerns in the past with respect to building on the other side of Cathedral Oaks was that there's a buffer of some sort that's being negated and has there been some sort of review from The fire marshal and you know some discussion as far as what that would look like now.
Yeah Madam Mayor and Council Member Kasson, so County Fire did review this project so uh you are correct so pretty much for all of Goleta Cal Fire has locally designated portions of the city in a very high severity zone, a high severity zone in a moderate severity zone This parcel, the majority of it is in a very high virus severity zone. But with that, you know these severity zones don't prohibit development and so they do call for some measures in terms of defensible space as well as implementing different materials into fencing. So this project was reviewed by County Fire.
They did find the defensible space adequate for the project as well as approved local fire safety plan And so with those measures and that review, we feel it's adequate.
So when the state designated certain areas about a year or two years ago something like that this was one that was designated as high risk but that didn't suggest that it shouldn't be built on at simply suggested different building materials and intense prayer Sorry. And the buffer that you speak of is the defensible space, that is primarily from the backside? Is that the stream and how much of a defensible space is that?
Yeah, so CAL FIRE requires for very high fire severity zones 30 feet. So obviously a lot of the parcel meets that in terms of the buffer zones and you know there was some area in the north kind of east portion of the site adjacent to Glenn Antigoff's course. That's where the Fire Marshal wanted to implement block walls to help protect that area so we're not going to meet that specific 30 feet defensible space standard.
So it includes
block walls? And I guess the last question is with exit and egress, is there just one road or how many opportunities? There's
two egress and ingress to the development. Exit
and egress are synonyms, aren't they?
Yes. So that circulation plan was reviewed by The county fire as well, and as part of the county fire safety plan. They also reviewed evacuation times and routes out of the development which was ultimately approved by County Fire.
Okay that's it thank you.
1:19 – 1:2410 turns
Thank you. I wanted to follow up on the vehicle miles traveled because that is a newer, I think it's the first time we've actually applied that analysis or at least at this level so I think we're all still wrapping our heads around making sure we understand it as a concept but I just want to make sure that my understanding is that Our local sort of standard is developed based on, it's considered which part of the city proposed development is relative to let's say job centers or other parts of the city. Is that correct?
Mayor and Councilmember Smith, Mayor Pro Tem Smith. Yes we the city adopted our VMT thresholds around July of 2020 and each area in the plan shows the VMT And yes, they are kind of area-specific. They were called what was it TMZs or TAZs traffic analysis zones? Anyway it is so it is kind of area specific and some portions of the city have a Higher VMT and some have a lower. And Old Town is one area that has much lower VMT because of the density and the amount of bus routes, high frequent bus routes where the rest of the city things differ based on what is present.
In my understanding, And my understanding is that there is no, at least currently, that MTD currently doesn't have a regular bus route along Cathedral Oaks in that area. I know the 23 kind of runs through El Encanto Heights. It runs through the neighborhood but I'm not aware of a route that goes along Cathedral Oaks.
Yeah, Mayor Pro Tem Smith. Yeah that is correct so that bus stop in that portion of the city as far as we've been told you know it's no longer in service.
I see so it's a pre-existing potentially previously had had service okay and am I assuming we haven't received any information from MTD that anything's changing in regards to that service anytime soon?
Correct.
OK, and then so does that inform sort of this now? Then then sort of this resulting analysis to say I mean, I also recognize that in terms of you know, Probably on average, apartment dwellers are maybe more likely to use bus services. But does that sort of existing service condition inform this VMT analysis in terms of mitigation or mitigation options?
If you're referring, sorry Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem Smith. If that's if you're referring to the bus system I do not believe that informed like the VMT analysis it might have an impact inform how we implement or how the mitigation measure is implemented but and maybe Miss Majors can add to that
Sure yeah, thank you for the question and comments on VMT. So the bus having a transit stop or a bus stop in the vicinity of the project does come into play in that mitigation measure TRA1 as one of the potential measures to reduce Or the VMT associated with the project. So, like Lisa said it didn't come into play with the analysis but more so with the mitigation and ultimately could be a measure that could reduce VMT.
Okay, yeah it's sort of an unusual situation where the physical bus stops currently exist but the service doesn't. And then I wanted to confirm that the alignment of the proposed driveway areas align with the existing streets on the other side of Cathedral Oaks is that correct?
1:24 – 1:2911 turns
Mayor Pro Tem Smith, that is correct. Let me pull up a graphic here. You'll see this is the best-in-time of map graphic you will see alignment on King Daniel as well as Royal Linda.
And at this time there's no, I don't know right any proposed signaling or stop signs proposed at this point?
Mayor Pro Tem Smith not at this point.
Okay is it anticipated that the striping potentially could could change you know I know that there's like a dedicated left turn lane In any case, just the fact now that there's gonna be traffic coming in both directions.
Yeah, that's a really good question. There's obviously the capability. It might be best for Public Works Mark Schlecht to come up and maybe have thoughts on that.
Good evening, my name is Mark Schleich, contract engineer with the City of Goleta. Regarding the private streets that are coming in which are aligned with the streets across the way this is a rather small subdivision with 54 units so the likelihood of a traffic control device is highly unlikely typically we go through a process Evaluating it based on warrants.
And so probably the first level of warrant we would look at would be four-way stop, which I don't think it would beat that either. And then based on more and more could result in a traffic signal. When we think of traffic signals, it's more like down the road at Glen Annie and Cathedral Oaks or Alameda where there's large volumes of traffic. As another example further to the west Placer Drive comes out, and as you know there's a school there and a lot of other traffic that comes out there. That does not meet the need for additional traffic control devices.
Okay, that's helpful. I guess I'll just note for staff, because the other question I have is about the striping. I know that there's already a dedicated left turn lane for Rio Linda and so if people are kind of now potentially turning left in front of that. In any case, that question sort of came to mind in terms of how that striping may need Adjusted to avoid Particularly where it's the those intersections with the existing The pre-existing left turns into the existing streets.
Yeah, I understand what you're saying and again, I don't think it elevated to the level of Restriping but is obviously something we'd pay attention to going forward
It is my understanding that there is a connection In the proposal, I believe it's connecting, I'm not sure if it's the bike path or pedestrian path towards Northgate and the crosswalk over there. Is that correct?
So the project intends to construct a class one bike path, multi-use path which will connect that path which already exists to the east, with the path to the west. Additionally we've requested an additional 20 feet of right-of-way for the potential that we may need to widen Cathedral Oaks or may need additional right-of way for other things in the future, which the applicant has agreed to do and we work through the design process to actually make sure their grades for their driveways and other impacts would be minimal to the city if and when we ever needed to do that.
And then just to clarify I believe there is that I think a connection up with it's that bike path or pedestrian path, I don't know if this is question for staff or the applicant, up towards Northgate.
1:29 – 1:3611 turns
Mayor Pro Tem Smith, that is correct.
Okay yeah because I'm just thinking too about then increased potential for pedestrian crossing in that region so there's that existing crosswalk okay. That's helpful clarification thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Reyes-Martin.
Thank you just a couple of maybe additional questions and comments Related to the vehicle miles traveled, I think none of us ever want to see a significant and unavoidable impact. But I appreciate the commentary from the team on what some of those mitigation strategies are. There also appear to be pretty limited things that we have any kind of control over. It would be great to have a bus stop there. I think there's limitations to the feasibility of that. Though I'm sure Mayor will keep advocating for that in the future.
You know, I appreciate what I heard about kind of a regular review. Some of the other things and maybe this is just comment for the record. You know, I know there's been a lot of discussion about the need or we've heard even public comment from employers who are supportive of housing so to the extent As a council or as a city, we can continue to encourage employer-supported programs that incentivize carpooling or anything that helps reduce not just the vehicle miles traveled but the congestion that we all know about in that area. I think we can do that. The other thing I wanted to mention too that might be just a note For the council to follow up on at a later date is working more intentionally with Dos Pueblos High School.
And maybe this is a topic for our future public safety committee meeting, but we know that the most impacted times are those peak morning and afternoon times at the high school. It is a fantastic institution with a great reputation. And as a result of that they've had increased numbers of transfers into the school from other parts of the district, which is great I think you know students and parents have a lot of great programs to choose from in their high school experience and Santa Barbara Unified.
And I realized that I'm not aware of what the policies are at the high school in terms Students driving their own cars or even what those increased transfers have meant for The enrollment at the school, not just for students but for staff. So maybe there's some opportunity there for us to work with the high school to kind of flush some of that out and see if there's anything more that can be done to maybe have an impact there. Just because it does seem like we're limited in what we can actually control but that does seem to keep coming up that we know that the real problem times are around the school and how can we support them I was curious about the defensible space.
I guess I was a little curious to hear that surprise is too strong a word, but curious that county fire said the defensible space was adequate. And so maybe a question on that and you may not know this and that's fair. But when they look at the defensible space are they looking The development as a whole or each individual parcel. You know, I know we've had presentations in the past about how much you want to have in your side yard setback and rear setback so we also heard that there are concessions made on the reduction of the side yard and rear side yard. So then to then hear that the defensible space is adequate, I just want to kind of understand
Yeah, Mayor Prodi and Councilmember Reyes-Martin. So when we went over to the defensible space with County Fire, County Fire is really not so much worried about the in words of the development but more so the perimeter. Okay and so when questions came up obviously you have whoops, you have your surrounding parcels that are currently vacant and so at this time there was concern from County Fire especially with the northeastern portion of the site maybe you can see my cursor You know, and especially kind of you see kind of lot 14 and 13. And so there was some questions about defensible space from that vacant parcel from the west in the north where you can see it doesn't really meet kinda the 30 feet guideline. And so this is where they really recommended the brick wall
fencing.
So it's really the perimeter of the site to answer your question.
And I take it we may hear from the applicant some more on the materials. I think that'll be important, you know as someone whose neighborhood is in I think medium high it's a topic of conversation with a lot of neighbors especially when your home insurance comes to renewal and we're all becoming experts in defensible space and material so that you can keep that insurance. So that's going to be something really critical for potential new homeowners. So those are my questions for now, thank you to
staff.
Thank You Madam Mayor almost all my questions have already been asked most of them were about VMT I do want to ask I don't know if it would be any of the presenting staff or perhaps Miss Graham but I'd like to learn a little bit more about the affordable housing component of the project and what different income levels would qualify. I'm trying to get a sense of what this project would potentially mean in terms of potential for sale cost for the housing, just those kinds of questions or should I wait for the applicant and ask the applicant that question?
1:36 – 1:4315 turns
Council Member Kariakis. I can briefly go into that and answer that. So per state density bonus law, there's 11 deed-restricted units that need to be considered as part of the project. And there is in the staff report kind of an allocation of very low income to low income to moderate. And that's what the applicant is requesting at this time.
I think in terms of your question about, I think you're asking how much would the very low or the low home go for? I don't think we could answer that question specifically but I know that typically to fit in those categories It's based on the median income of the county at a particular point in time and then it's based on the number of you know, it's a whole calculation based on the number of people in the household. And then, you know, you're not supposed to pay I believe it's more than 30% of your income towards your housing which I think it also includes your utilities and I think your insurance and all of that. So it's a long way of saying I don't think any of us could tell you right now what that would look like. I don' t know if Mr. Imhoff or Ms., okay, Ms.
Kye could...
In the past when we've had rental projects before us, we've been able to be told that based on the available data like this would be the range of what rents would be. And so this is a for sale project I was trying to see if we could make the math work to try and get a sense of what would the math look like for you know families that I don't know won the housing lottery or whatever the process would be for dispersing I kind of previewed my next question, which is so how would people
become qualified for the affordable housing units?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I believe it would be likely that we would outsource it. We would follow, as far as I know, we would follow our procedures manual for how we follow, I'm blanking what is that called? Our affordable housing procedures manual and I'll let Mr. Imhoff jump in.
Yeah, Ms. Prost is correct we would apply the Affordable Housing Policy and Procedures Manual and it would go through a lottery process to select.
One of the reasons why I'm asking this question is because you know we're presented with some different paths to be able to make the findings when it comes to the Statement of Overriding Considerations. And so to me the one that relates to affordable provision of affordable housing And the one that applies to helping the city meet its goals for RHNA is a very important consideration. So I'm trying to make sure I have a At least a somewhat clear sense of what providing these affordable housing units would actually mean and how it would impact real people living in our community. That's important to me to be able to make the findings.
Understood, Council Member Cariocco. And I think the development plan conditions do lay out the breakdown of the 11 affordable units in terms of low and very low so maybe we could refer to those and provide that to the council and then the specific For sale price would be determined later at the time of sale based on area median income and the definition. I'll stop
for now.
I'm going to jump in real quick. A lot of questions I had, I just crossed off my list but I will make a comment on MTD since They're always looking to redo their routes where there is need. I'm sure if there was, the reason that that no longer goes through that, there was no one using it. But if there's a need they will look at it and so once it gets developed then I'll make sure that if I'm still on the board that they're taking a look at that. So they're constantly looking at their routes is what I'm trying to say.
Some good questions, I really like the questions Mayor Pro Tem you brought up about. I need to go out there, I haven't gone out there for a while and really looked at where from this map that I'm seeing where the streets come out to what streets are they going? What's across the street? What is on the other side? What are the names of the streets on the other side? I'm having a visual but I can't picture it.
Mayor,
it's
King Daniel and Royal Linda.
Okay okay so there's nothing being proposed to help say pedestrians that children that want to go visit their friends on the other side of the street? There's nothing they just cross there And the only reason I bring that up is that, you know, I've lived in that area down in the canyon for a very long time. And Cathedral Oaks, it's gotten better but it used to always be called the Cathedral Oaks Freeway.
It's a very wide street and they go very fast. Even though we've reduced our speed limits on that street, unless more and more people get tickets then they will maybe slow down. So that's my only concern is getting across that area if they want to visit friends or if they want to cross the street to go to school on the other side of the street or if they're on a bike I'm concerned about what they're looking at. And it may not be a problem with their development right now, but with all the added traffic that's coming, it could at some point.
1:43 – 1:4816 turns
Mayor Prodi, as we mentioned there is a bike path proposed along the north
side. On one side?
On one
side. I'm talking about the other side.
Well but it's gonna sorry it is going to connect over to the west to Northgate where there is the stop sign and the pedestrian crossing and that is where right this city has taken steps. Yes they have flashing beacons. Right to narrow it and that does lead to the elementary school over. So I mean that is what's proposed. Okay all right, that's good to hear and you know at most at least according to the EIR based on you know the projections the most was 11 students in the complex Say that again?
A population estimate is only 11 school-age children in the subdivision.
This is 56.
Based on the 66 homes...
They're just guessing.
Oh,
okay. And the other question I understand about the water. What is water wheeling? And I know that that's not, I'm not familiar with that phrase. They will not know until the application is complete if there's water from the Goleta Water District but I would think with all the rains that that's not a problem but I just circled that term water wheeling. They would get water from somewhere else
Right. I will start off by saying Mayor Parodi and council members, the applicant has secured what they what we what Galita Water District calls a preliminary condition letter. So that's a really good indication And that's like the second step in the process. Then the next step would be to get their Cannon-Wilsurf letter, which they would get at the time there or they have to at least provide it to the city at the time they get their building permits. My understanding is that if and when the city approves this project, they would then be in a much better position to apply to the Water District to get that cannon will serve letter. So, you know it's all a series of steps.
I understand that maybe Ms. Park was going to answer the question on water wheeling or does she want me to provide what I understand about water wheeling?
Sure, I'm happy to provide the legal framework for water wheeling and good evening mayor and council members. As introduced earlier this evening my name is Hannah Park of Best Best in Krieger and i've been assisting the city throughout this CEQA process. Water wheeling from a high point of view is the concept of purchasing water from a third party outside of the Goleta water district where that third party or the seller transfer its water supply through the existing facilities of Goleta Water District to the project site. So for example, if Goleta Water District for some reason would not be able to provide water which is unlikely to happen for this project then the developer You know, may purchase the water from a different third party. It requires certain agreements with Goleta Water District to funnel that water through their existing facilities but that in general is the concept of water wheeling.
Okay now I know thank you. Council Member Kasdan. No it's okay.
Just a clarification, so with the affordable housing that's for sale in this case if the original owner chooses to after a number of years chooses to sell it future it's still constrained by the deed. For how long is that the case?
It's evergreen. An initial period is 55 years and every time it sells, it resets the clock at 55 years.
Wow. Okay. And I was just curious... Oh, just an observation with respect to bus routes that if and when the Glen Annie comes, change the landscape as far as what sort of that's a thousand units it'll be you know just reset everything. But I was just curious with respect to fire marshals authority For cities, we're highly limited in what we can do with respect to conditioning units, conditioning housing. We can't reduce basically density under almost any circumstances it seems.
What authority do fire marshals have? Are they able to, what range of options or do they essentially have to find a way to make it, you know, to deal with it one way or the other.
1:48 – 1:5724 turns
That's an interesting question. I don't know if Mr. Rosen wants
I agree, Council Member Kazin. It is an interesting question. The two do sort of have to work in tandem. There's not an express carve-out for the State Fire Marshal associated with the protections of the Housing Accountability Act or the other sort of streamlined I think Ms. Prossy may be mentioned earlier or potentially Mr. Mimac that there are some added incentives associated with sort of the role of the State Fire Marshal in very high fire hazard zones and what their review looks like, but it doesn't change sort of the underlying requirements associated with the housing project.
Okay, so they essentially have to ultimately approve it at the density that's there and they try to find a way to live with it by proposing different materials or putting up walls. But basically they can't say no you should create greater A greater buffer by reducing the density. That's not in their authority. Councilmember
Cason, I'll just add to what was previously said and say that yes the Fire Marshal is just looking to make sure that the development meets fire code requirements so they're not going to address something like density but they will review the plans and they did review the plans to make sure that they have for example access to the entire subdivision that individual residences will meet certain kinds of clearance requirements, including defensible space requirements. So those are the kinds of things that they would look at and then of course fire code also in our building code address materials and flammability of materials.
But in other words we shouldn't be over-interpreting the Fire Marshal's review to the fact that it's being built in a high risk area Doesn't mean all of their concerns are necessarily addressed. They're only able to get changes within a range of options and anyway, just an observation.
And if I may add just that they've looked at it from a standpoint of looking at the subdivision design. They will, the fire department will get we'll look at this again when it actually submitted for building plan check And they will look at it in very in-depth for, you know, window openings and materials. And also so will our building department because there are restrictions and requirements in the Building Code. And every year, you know, the Building Code gets more and more strict.
And that's partly why we adopted the Building Code and we adopted amendments two months ago. So those will be the standards that this project will have to meet is the current building code and then when it comes time for the certificates of occupancy, the fire department is one of those agencies that also has to sign off on each and every building permit or yeah home For CO to make sure that their requirements have been met. So I just want give you that assurance that this isn't the only time the fire department will look at it.
Yeah, I'm just thinking of it in terms of what lessons did the state learn from all the fires that have happened in recent years. And the lessons are to force the fire marshal to accept it within the range of options that are available to them and build.
Council Member Custin, one point that Ms. Prossy and Director Imhoff alluded to The project will be subject to the latest California Building Standards Code requirements. So, the state does have a hand certainly in updating those standards including the fire code and sort of a number of provisions and requirements associated with state standards that relate to building development and those are incorporated into the project and they will have to meet those standards and the current version of those standards.
Yeah.
No, I appreciate that. You know, this comes back to where we were several years ago when we were speculating about where should new development go. And so the extent that we were thinking on the other side of the Cathedral Oaks wasn't an ideal location that you know they'll the fire marshal will build walls is wasn't one of the things we were anticipating Anyway, I'll leave it at that. Thank
you.
Thank
you Madam Mayor. I kind of wanted to follow up a little bit on that. So this is an SB 330 project as was observed in the report and one of the elements to an SB 330 project is that there's a cap on the number of hearings that you can have right? I believe that cap is five and this is hearing number four so here's my question When we get if we get past the stage and project goes for a building permit, it goes to plan check, fire gets another bite at the apple.
If there is some determination based on the latest codes or based on an assessment or whatever that something needs to change, is there a scenario where that would need to come back for another hearing? And my question to you then is does SB 330 Does that cap end once project approval happens or does that live on all the way until the darn thing is
occupied? Council Member Kariakou, the SB 330 is relevant to project approval and so the council's being asked as the final decision-making body to make the findings associated with the project entitlements and the environmental document. So the project would be subject to the conditions of approval including the incorporation The building standards codes and the other provisions that the city has put in place associated with the development. So, the council is fulfilling its SB 330 duty associated with considering the project as entitled and then after this stage whatever action the council takes if it was to approve the project would move to post entitlement phase permits and that's a separate process but with other provisions of state law that dictate sort of timing and controls.
Okay,
so we don't run a
risk if this has to go for I'm just speculating if it had to go to DRB down the road after an approval to satisfy some change or the developer kind of changed their mind and wanted to slightly alter design which has happened in our city before I think not Winslow Cortona I think after approval went back to DRB and made some changes So just to be clear, if this gets through tonight the whole five peering thing goes away. That's what I think I'm hearing.
The City Council is considering sort of as the final decision maker project approval to the extent that conditions of approval require follow up with city staff or departments That's a separate process after the project has been entitled. I think you're saying yes, but I'm not completely sure
you're
saying that's fair It's it's complicated But the easiest answer is to say yes, the City Council is being asked to make a final decision on the project
Okay And then density came up what is the actual density of this project? Because there was some discussion about You know with the fire marshal have the ability to alter the density or make findings. Do we know what the density is?
I believe it's five units to the acre. We can look it up real quick in the attachments. So
that's not terribly dense and it's probably relatively consistent with crown collection
across
the street, which we could also call Shelby 1.0 because I think that was the original Shelby project. Okay.
1:57 – 2:072 turns
Okay, I think it's time for if the applicant has a presentation and if you'd like to reserve a little bit of time. If there's anything you would like to rebuttal at the end?
Thank you Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor, Honorable Council Members my name is Mark Lloyd from L&P Consultants representing the applicant First of all, I'd like to compliment you on your thoughtful and insightful dialogue. It would take me 30 minutes to answer all those questions and I believe I have 15. So what I propose too is to quickly run through my presentation reserving rebuttal and then get into your questions. I have a whole slew of experts here tonight to address those for you.
I have Ryan Mills our architect. Nicole Greer is available online as our landscape architect I have our attorneys, Beth Collins, Ginger Anderson, Mark DeLaGarza. Our environmental consultant is available. Robert Lewin who is our fire protection plan expert is here with us tonight and then I have Scott Shell also from AT as our traffic expert here tonight so I would encourage if we get into a question answering and we can be specific about your specific questions. With that, we have a presentation slide. Can you move on with the slides please? Next slide please.
This slide is a regional neighborhood infill slide for you. You can see the Shelby project, it's surrounded by the Glen Annie Golf Course there. You could see the layout of the units that is the footprint of the buildings in the gold tan color, the streets but what I wanted to point out to you is that this layout and this density and our density is 3.9 units for our project and the zoning ordinance is five so we're 80% of the density But how the density of this project and its layout is really reminiscent of the single-family housing that you see all around us in this area. These 1960's, 70's and 80's developed housing were very consistent with that housing in our layout, the single family design and what not. Next slide please.
This slide is presented to you just to show the proximity. Shelby is in the blue star there and to show its proximity to public use areas such as green belts, parks, schools. You have the shopping of course over on the Hollister Avenue corridor so not only is it consistent and compatible with the single family housing And you can see the spread of that across this area. But it also has good proximity to schools, parks and transit. As you know there are three main east-west arterials in the city. Hollister, The Freeway and Cathedral Oaks and we're on one of those so this is a very appropriate site in our mind. Next slide please Project benefits. We think that 56 new single-family homes is a project benefit in itself. As you know from your general plan update, your housing element specifically and the rezoning you did there, most of your projects were multifamily, very few single families.
We believe this 56 unit single family provides a diversity of housing for you. Another big benefit we think is the 11 affordable houses that we are going to have deed restriction affordability for sale. A little background, when we first proposed this project as you saw the history back in 2011-2016, this was a fully market rate project. We were paying in lieu fees for the affordable housing. We availed ourselves of the SB 330 process We had to include the inclusionary process or housing on site. We chose voluntarily not to dumb down the affordable housing. We took our market rate housing and the sizes, the style, the quality of finishes and we kept that. We didn't knock those down. They're about 1800 square feet. We didn't knock them down 800, 1000 or 1200 square feet.
These are market rate houses that will be affordable. There was some talk about what the price range of that is. We'll adhere to the staff's premonitions that needs to be figured out. I will tell you that a family of five with an income of $53,000 qualifies for the three low affordable units and that is unheard of. This is a great opportunity for the citizens of Goleta. New transportation improvements, I'll get into that a little bit later but the last bullet here is the fire hardening of the site. That's a really important element as your discussion triggered.
I have our fire protection expert with us tonight. We have a whole slide to talk about all that we're doing there. Love to get into that with you and question and answers, but I would just highlight it by saying the codes we have to build this project under including the fire barrier walls around it The defensible space, which as mentioned by Daryl is 30 feet but it's actually 100 made up of multiple zones and so all that is adhered to. We actually hardened this site to make it more fire suppressive than it exists now. This not only protects our site but also protects the neighborhood and we can get into that as deep as you want as to the standards and the codes that govern that.
On to the next slide please. The affordable housing, I'm highlighting here in the purple dots where the affordable housing is. It's spread around the property as I said it is one of our market rate units we have five unit types. It is the smallest one it's 1,773 square feet I believe and so that's where they're located next slide please We've been through DRB and the Planning Commission. We got very positive comments and results on the architecture. In fact, through nearly 20 years of presenting this design it's timeless. We get great compliments to this day.
I'm not going to get into it. You see it there? There's our five unit types there in profile with their front elevation. And we can get into that as deep as you'd like. Next slide please. SBA buffer. So this is a little exhibit to help you out with that. So in the white background, black hatching is the 100-foot SBA through our open space lot. The red with black hatching is where we are encroaching on that 100-foot SBA.
The first house that you see there, that house encroaches into the SBA by 20 feet. The next house up, it encroaches about five feet and then to nothing. And then it's just backyard encroachments all the way. We have a six-to-seven foot wall on that property line. We have no access to the SPA buffer nor the ESHA. In fact who is accessing the SPA buffer and the ESHA are the golfers in their golf carts Okay, our residents will have no access to there. There's no walls or gates that allow access and where we have excess buffer in green is actually where we don't have houses so we think our design actually meets the mandate of the SBA which is a protective buffer. We think we're protecting the ESHA.
Next slide please. This is the Cathedral Oaks frontages as they exist now and then next slide please. And then here's our improvements. As pointed out by some of the staff, we are dedicating a 20-foot Additional road dedication for the widening of Cathedral Oaks to bring it out to a full 104 foot wide arterial. If and when Cathedral Oaks gets widened, it's there. As your contract engineer mentioned, we actually designed the driveway entry so if and when that happens and the driveway entries need to be torn out and moved back 12 feet they don't have to tear up the road chasing up into our project because it's already designed to meet that future grade. So we've already taken that into account. And then we have Right now from the existing right-of-way, we have a 40 foot open space buffer to the housing.
When the new street dedication and improvement, if and when it happens, we will still have a 20 foot buffer between that right-of way and the back lot lines of our houses, something else you don't see on any other development along Cathedral Oaks Road. And then of course we have the bike and pedestrian path improvements. This drawing is a little more illustrative as you go to the left there, you can see that we have the new class one bike and pedestrian trail. Right now your bike trail is on the street, class two. And then when we get by our project, we actually are improving that bike trail and running out to Northgate which has full four quadrant crosswalks for it So that people can cross the street there with the full protection and the flatchers there.
Going the other way, we have the bike trail there you get to I believe it's Placer that's got the lights on it. Full crosswalks there so we think that there is more than adequate pedestrian access to be able to cross the street and reach all these public benefit places I pointed out to you earlier. And with that let's go to the next slide City's VMT model, boy a lot of talk about that tonight.
I would just say to you and well let me this we put the slide in here to show you something this is your own VMT model figure 3.2 and you can see that the old town area is highlighted in blue And if you didn't realize it, virtually any project that is proposed in the city that has over 10 housing units is gonna trigger a class one VMT impact. It's unavoidable. That's how the model's set up. So you need to get used to a lot of overriding considerations coming your way and that's just how it is with the model as you have it.
We are not the only project that will have that. There'll be a constant parade of them until these parameters change. Next slide please. As I said, I'm going to move fast. Concluding thoughts again we think 56 single-family homes is a great benefit to the city for the diversity of housing. I talked about the 11 for sale deed restrictions they look taste and feel like a market rate house something different than all the other affordability that you see no compromise in the quality of finishes the look They'll integrate fully with the neighborhood. You can't tell what an affordable house from a market rate house in this development. New transportation improvements I talked about, fire hardening. Again, I have my experts here to answer any questions you have and we think it's a great location addition to the city of Goleta.
Next slide please. And I am here to answer any questions you may have.
2:08 – 2:1516 turns
Questions?
Well, I can do it again.
But he has time at the end. You stopped the clock, right? Yes. Okay. I thought I
was...
And
as your questions come up, I'll pull up our expert and we'll drill into it.
Okay so we can ask any questions. Anything.
I was curious and others Councilmember Reyes-Martin also raised in another earlier context insurance is that in a sense A motivator in, you know with the fire hardening. So even if it's not like as I was implying that the Fire Marshal might not be the hammer insurance I imagine and their costs or their restrictions could be that sort of hammer that would make any development and not yours per se development sort of respond knowing that their residents would be faced by challenges like that. Is that accurate?
Yeah, Chair Parodi and Councilmember Kastan I deal with these insurance questions a lot in projects here and certainly insurance companies all know are Denying coverage on people, especially for people that are seeking mortgages. It can be a difficult problem. I believe the price points of these houses probably fit under the California Fair Plan so people would be eligible for insurance to get that.
Still, I'm not underestimating the problem that we have systematically in the state about where insurance is at and I just continue to be frustrated that our legislators don't deal with the issues that the public needs dealt with in this regard. I don't know if our fire expert has any further comments as to that. He certainly has more depth into this question than I do.
Thank you, Mayor and Council. The short answer of course when the new maps came out their intent was not to be used for insurance rating. The good thing about this project is it will be the model in the community for a project that's built to the highest standards. The IBHS organization is concerned about what's going on with the insurance industry in California and homeowners that build their homes level of regulation will be essentially meeting all the requirements to get an IBHS certification that should help them get insurance and also actually reduce the cost of that insurance if they chose to do that.
Thank you,
Robert. Thank you. Council Member Reyes-Martin?
Well, thank you for your presentation. Since you do have Mr. Lewin here and it's good to see you back from their county OEM time. It would be great I do see in the information you have some additional information could you speak to more beyond just defensible space other considerations that have been taken on fire protection with the design or with any of the materials?
I know that to your point it's not just about Protecting the site itself, but the surrounding neighborhoods. I think that the public would appreciate hearing any anything else you have to add on that
Thank You mayor and council member Yes in fact I think if we look at the slide that's up on the screen The new regulations which went into effect on January 1st of this year Which this project will comply with? will be the most strict requirements of anywhere really in the country for fire protection. Now, the intent of these regulations is not to prevent development It's to be able to provide a way to do development in a very high fire severity zone such as this. This area was not designated anything prior to May when your council adopted the state map, you didn't really have a choice. State maps came out and this area went from no designation to a very high fire severity zone Parts of it are in a high fire severity zone, but regardless they require now the strictest regulation.
So what are those regulations? For the best part about them is they harden the individual homes through having hardened siding. The windows are dual glazed outside this tempered glass though the venting will not allow ember intrusion and The landscape is designed so that there's no combustible materials in the first five feet and then the next 30 feet out is lean, green and clean.
There is a question that Council Member Kasdan asked, which I was really impressed that you could come up with this issue of setback. And how does the fire marshal play into that? There is a regulation in Chapter 6 of the Wildland Urban Interface Code that requires a 30-foot setback. However, it has exceptions because it recognizes that people can achieve that and still be able to meet the housing densities that local jurisdictions are faced with. So those mitigations are being implemented in this project That includes hardening of the siding, the ember intrusion. The defensible space requirements of the zero to five feet and this wall that we keep talking about a solid wall that will act as a barrier This is a slide that shows the map.
area. So this part where this development is, is fortunate in some regards as you all know from living here and the experiences we've all shared in the big wildfires here is the worst days for fire is during the sundowner winds or Santa Ana winds that affect this community where the fires are driven downhill. This area is protected fairly well by the golf course and by this belt this green belt that we're going to be creating along the western edge of it. So, the ability for fire to transmit from the wildland into this community are reduced greatly. Now, the real issue is ember production. The embers can get into the community and into the communities across the street but because this project is being developed to prevent embers from igniting the materials in the project area It will prevent the spread of fire into the community as long as maintenance is done.
And the agreements that are going to be part of this project will include strict maintenance for the project.
Thank you, I appreciate that and to confirm a previous point of Mr. Lloyd all of those same features applied to both the market rate and the affordable.
Indeed Madam Chair, Councilperson. Again on this block wall or solid wall it's around most of the site it is to protect the site from off-fire coming in again that hardens our site which protects people across the street.
2:15 – 2:2111 turns
Yeah. Maybe if you have like, I don't know, a trough with water in it and then you could Just an observation, and it's not specific per se to your design and so forth. But I recall that when the Glen Annie project was initially being discussed when the county was proposing it, the fire marshal was unenthusiastic saying that was not a good location for it Yeah, and was troubled by that proposal. And I guess one question is how much of the you had mentioned some of the things that produces a safe location in Shelby is the fact that you have the golf course there?
Is that undermined if presumably, if they build there and boards just depend on what comes next? And you can't really forecast it because you don't know what their design will look like.
Well Madam Mayor, Council Person Kessin we don't know exactly what's going to be proposed at Glen Annie but we do know what policies will affect that so by example as we have the SBA policy that is on our property on the west side That'll also affect that project. So there will be no housing built in that buffer, so that golf hole may not remain as a golf hole but it's probably going to be some public or private open space component of that project with trails and whatnot. So I think that buffer is going to continue to exist. Up above us, there's a golf hole up there and a slope. There'll still be a buffer from housing because of that. It's too steep for them to build on. And they have a wetland on the east side that again, there's going to be policies that are being inherent to keep that development further away.
Would I love to have the golf course exist and have golf course frontage houses, which was my original intent? Yes. I'm resigned to the fact that they may not happen but for the attributes I described to address your question, um, I don't think the Atlanta area is going to have a big effect on us as far as fire protection in our local area. Certainly impacts of other kinds.
And thank you. And just one question for staff, the VMT, that formula that they've described that is you had described for instance we're going to be having to deal with a lot of class 1 Is this something, I don't remember us having a discussion. This is something I guess the state really just handed us here's what it's going to look like and we approved something that was basically designed in Sacramento? Is that right or? Mayor
and Council Member Kessler, Ms. Prosser can address this in more detail but we did create a model based on the SBCAG travel demand model That was prepared by a highly qualified traffic consultant that is essentially designed to implement SB 743. That was the state law that shifted the measure of traffic impacts under CEQA from LOS to VMT, so we went through the paces and complied with that. And Ms. Proce, I don't know if you have more detail that you'd like to add?
That is correct but I would just want to add that when we did the SB 743 analysis, we chose as a city to set our thresholds 15% below what the average VMT was for our city. So that was a choice we made It's possible that at some point in the future we may want to revisit it because that would change what the thresholds are to then decide whether or not there is a class one versus not.
I will say that depending on what secret route different housing projects take, we may or may not be in this same situation Because if a project is ministerial, then they are not subject... Right. They're going to have an exemption and even if it's a lot of units in a small area they might you know we'd have to find it to be exempt and that's
Well, we certainly don't want to drive people to choose routes that are ministerial. You know, that are... We've built in a process that it's so onerous that they're going to accept things to be ministerial.
I'm not sure we made those choices. I think some of that came from the state.
Oh, no doubt. But I just meant when we think about our VMT if there's unintended consequences and that we want to think about it. Okay. That's it for me. Thank you. No good deed goes unpunished. Certainly true.
Thanks. I think I'd like to go to public comment now.
Thank you Madam Mayor.
Yes, for those of you on the Zoom webinar, please use the raised hand icon if you'd like to speak to this item. I do have three in-person speaker slips. Our first speaker will be Dustin Hoyseth. All speakers will have three minutes.
2:21 – 2:3719 turns
Hello Mayor Parodi and council members. My name is Dustin Hoyseth, I'm the Director of Economic Development with the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce which represents business interests from Goleta to Carpinteria. I'm proud to offer the chamber support for the Shelby project tonight. Lack of available housing supply continues to be the top challenge for local employers their workforce and the regional economy The Shelby Project will add 56 much-needed homes to a region of Goleta that is close to jobs, schools, parks and public transit.
Additionally these units are a perfect fit to meet the workforce housing needs of the local technology and manufacturing companies our community is so proud of. Same companies who are struggling with recruitment and retention difficulties directly tied to a lack of housing supply. Currently many of those employees are commuting from Ventura, Lompoc or even further These units will easily serve these employees and their families, not to mention the 20% of deed-restricted affordable units that will serve low income residents and are inclusively incorporated into the project.
Designed and incorporated just as they're market rate units. We believe that this project's density in home size are compatible with surrounding neighborhood and it is a welcome addition to this area. This site is essentially surrounded by residential zoning given the county's plans for Glen Annie which have been discussed tonight and aligns with the state's goals of focusing on and encouraging urban infill development.
This project has been in planning for nearly two decades, with the chamber's backing since the beginning including during various zoning hearings during the city's housing element process. Further delays of this project do not serve the community's desperate need for more housing options. Please approve the much needed workforce housing our community needs. Thank you for your time.
Our next in-person speaker is Kristen Miller
Good evening Mayor Parodi and Council Members. I'm Kristen Miller, President and CEO of the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce representing 850 business members and 75,000 jobs on the south coast. The chamber supports the Shelby Residential Project This is a project I have personally been familiar with for many years, dating back to when our organization was the Goleta Chamber of Commerce. From the beginning we were supportive because this proposal extends an already existing neighborhood located inside the urban boundary. Over the years, we've been consistently impressed by the owner's willingness to work with the community, the city and neighboring residents to thoughtfully design and create a beautiful new place to live for Goleta families and our local workforce.
Back then I was personally excited about the opportunity to buy one of these homes for my family, but alas my kids are now grown and they graduated from Dos Pueblos High School went off to college and have since moved on with their careers. But hopefully now a new generation of families will have the opportunity to call Goleta home in this great location on the Shelby property The chamber has consistently supported this project through multiple stages of planning because the need for housing in this community is so great.
Over a number of years, we gathered data showing that when new housing is built in Goleta it is filled mostly by Goletans. The second highest category of occupants is people who work somewhere on the South Coast. Whether rental or for sale, the data is remarkably consistent. We've also long advocated for Goleta to provide a wide variety of housing types that support the changing life cycle of a local resident from starter homes to condos to rentals to higher-end move up housing.
A diverse local economy depends on a diversity of housing choices and the Shelby project adds an important element to that mix. We supported the single-family residential plan for this location then, and we continue to support it today. Finally, we have been strong advocates for housing for our workforce. Housing remains the single biggest challenge facing employers in our region. Local businesses particularly in our technology and manufacturing sectors are competing for talent in an extremely difficult housing environment.
At a time when housing production is improving but still not keeping pace with normal growth cycles moving forward with this well-planned project as an important step. Thank you Thank you.
Our next in-person speaker is Randy Berg. This is our last in person speaker before we move on to the Zoom speakers.
Mayor Parodi and Council, thank you for hearing us and thank you for considering this important matter I am the recent past chair of the Chamber of Commerce and a tech executive in the Goleta region for 38 years. I am one of those affected by housing in the region, and I've been lucky enough to live here and raise my family in this region, and I want more people to have that blessing.
The chamber and the tech community are delighted with the Shelby project And we're delighted it's moving forward and the Planning Commission has worked hard and approved this to move it to the next step. Tech keeps great workers in this region at all levels, not just the geniuses that invent quantum computing although we have How many? Eight Nobel laureates I think now.
But others that actually build the parts, test the parts and deliver those parts and then service all the payroll and administration. All of those people need housing and we appreciate the elements of this housing project that have income levels that are not just at the highest level. The chamber is looking forward to future housing projects, and we see and have heard that not only Quantum the concept but Google's Quantum project is intending to continue to hire. Those are exciting jobs, well-paying jobs. They will help the businesses in this community, but they also need workers at all the levels that I've mentioned. So we strongly support this project, and thank you for considering it.
Thank you.
We will move on to the Zoom speakers. We do have three hands to raise. Our first speaker will be Craig Minus. Please make sure you unmute yourself and you'll have three minutes to speak. Good evening, Mayor
Parodi and members of the Council. My name is Craig Minus I serve as Executive Director for the Coastal Housing Coalition Our organization advocates for workforce housing and specifically those households earning 120 to 200% of the area median income. That equates to a household earning, of four, earning roughly between $144,000 and $240,000 annually. Organization provided a detailed public letter which is part of your packet so I'll simply summarize the main points.
First, our organization has reviewed the project against our Project Advocacy Criterion and fully endorsed the Shelby Residential Project. One of the most important aspects of the Shelby Project is the opportunity it creates for real housing equity in our community. Nearly 20% of these homes will be deed-restricted affordable, meaning teachers, healthcare workers, young families and members of our local workforce will have a real opportunity to purchase a home in the City of Goleta.
Moreover, we are particularly pleased that of the 11 deed restricted affordable units, three of those units will be available to households earning 120 to 200% of the AMI. This new single-family dwelling project adds to the strata of available housing. When someone moves into one of these homes, it often opens up another door where a rental unit becomes available or a starter home becomes obtainable for the next family. Housing mobility creates a ripple effect that benefits the entire community.
Approving Shelby is about making sure that the people who work here, serve here and raise their families here can actually remain here part of the community. On behalf of the Board of Directors I urge the Council to support the project. That concludes my public comment. If you're interested, I did do the back of the napkin math on what the sales prices would be and just a snapshot in time today, assuming a 20% down payment, a 6% mortgage at the 80% AMI level, I would anticipate the homes would sell between 800 and I'm sorry 600 and At the 120% of AMI level, so a household making $144,000, it'd be about eight to a million. And 160 would be about 1.2 and 200% of AMI. So a family making about $250,000 a year, the home prices I would anticipate would be about 1.1 to 1.4.
So don't quote me on that, but I thought I'd share that information because I did the back of the napkin math over here.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Kurt Vonch. If you'll please unmute yourself. You have three minutes. Yes we can. Kurt, we can hardly hear you. Can you speak into the mic please? Can
you
hear me
better?
It's much better. Thank you. Okay,
good. So my name is Kurt DeVanche and I'm a resident of Goleta's 4th district and I have three points that I'd like to make. First, I appreciated the overview of the project that was provided by the applicant but I noticed when he addressed the encroachment on the stream side protection buffer area, he effectively said that despite violating the 100-foot buffer and I quote we think we're protecting the Esha.
That doesn't make sense to me He went on to mention the additional buffer between Cathedral Oaks on the front side of the neighborhood, the south side. Instead of respecting the 100 foot buffer on them backside of the neighborhood, the northwest side. So I don't understand why does this street deserve a protective buffer more so than the creek? I don't think it does and so violating the 100 foot SPA buffer. I think it's unnecessary for this project and I would urge against that violation.
Second point, I live adjacent to El Encanto Creek about one and a half miles downstream. Near Phelps Road. And I've seen the creek flood into the streets of my neighborhood twice in the past three years, including flooding into Pacific's Palms on January 4th of this year causing damage to homes. So this is a creek that is a flash flood risk and further development in the watershed upstream is as a source of concern for me. I see that the project has stormwater detention And I'm happy to see that retention, I should say.
But I'm very concerned is it enough to mitigate the additional runoff and flash flood nature of this Creek? So, I'm concerned about that and then my 3rd comment it's not specific to this project. But I support building housing in Goleta. I just wonder, where are the projects that provide the most impact on the housing crisis and the least impact on our beautiful environmental resources like view sheds, watersheds, creeks, open spaces?
Where are the multi-story apartment condo buildings in places like Old Town for example, that would provide low cost of living options and walkable areas that need revitalization and where wildfire and flood risks are minimal So this project is not near public transport and it would have a terrible walkability score. I'm not saying I'm against it, but I would love to see the multi-story buildings in Old Town Goleta.
And that's all I have so thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Our last Zoom speaker is Jennifer Kubel if you'll please unmute yourself we have three minutes
Yes, thank you. My name is Jennifer Kubel and my family has lived off of Evergreen Drive in Goleta just south of the project for over 50 years and I would kind of like to add on to what Kurt was saying. I think it's a travesty that a lot of our historic farmland is being built over for these housing developments. It's something Known for, and I think it's really sad that like he said we're not taking advantage of building housing in say old town Goleta or places that are already urbanized. And we're trying to build over open space.
Um, and historic farmland, I think that's it's just tragic to lose that. And it's what makes the leader particularly special. I think. Addressing the fire danger, a lot of the trees within that El Encanto Creek there are eucalyptus which are highly fire flammable. You know so in terms of embers and fires being right next to that development I think that is a large issue to consider and that brick wall is going to do nothing to stop The fire coming into that neighborhood.
Also, as far as the traffic Cathedral Oaks is very, very crowded there windows Pueblos High School when the kids are coming to school and leaving school. There's also a lot of kids that are on electric bikes. There's a lot of kids that are trying to go to Goleta Valley Junior High and to El Rancho in Brandon, it's very crowded during the times that the schools are in session and adding More people, more traffic to that area. I don't think it's a good idea and like the mayor was saying Cathedral Oaks there's a lot of traffic especially in the evening when the sun goes down there's a lot of people that use Cathedral Oaks as a drag strip and you hear them screeching their cars along Cathedral Oakes and doing high-speed donuts in the intersection at Evergreen Anyway, I just think the extra noise and the traffic.
It's just a bad idea not to mention The impact on the creek also one last thing the soils there. I pulled up a soil report on that site and it's all Hi, Clay Diablo clay. Um, which has had a huge impact on our house, the shrinking and swelling of the clay we had to put caissons under our house and our house is continually cracking and moving because of the clay. And that is the soil that is under that entire site. So I think that makes it an unfavorable favorable site as well. Thank you. I appreciate your letting me speak.
2:37 – 2:4822 turns
Thank you.
I have no more speakers for this item, Mayor.
Okay does staff have anything they would like to clarify from speakers or have anything else you'd like to say? No okay does the applicant As far as flooding, we have a full stormwater detention basin set
up. Strictly calculated to impound peak flows will not contribute to any flooding. And then, well I'll just leave it at that as to any rebuttal comments and in closing I would just encourage the council to follow the staff recommendations and adopt the necessary findings and approval for the project and thank you for your attendance.
Thank you. Okay back to Council. Council Member Cariocco?
Thank you, Madam Mayor. Are we still in questions or are we
moving into
deliberations? There was a public comment about the stream side protection area and the city as I'm sure you know has fought really hard to preserve the 100-foot buffer. So my first question is, at the most impactful intruding point of anywhere in the development, what is the setback? Is it 70 feet at the narrowest point, 50 feet at the narrowest, 40?
So as I indicated earlier that the one, the first house along that area, that house encroaches 20 feet. So it's an 80 foot. Yes. But again my point about the buffers is that you know over time this is a frustrating thing for me for decades now over time Buffers have become almost like Esha and they're not. They are a protective area of the Esha. And so my point about the golf course, you have no protection in the buffer area to the extent of whatever golfers may do in there. I'm not saying they're damaging the Esha but certainly our project isn't as I said we have a wall there we have no access to the buffer And therefore, we have no access to the ESHA. So we think our design actually fulfills the mandate of the SPA buffer which is protect ESHA.
Please don't ascribe any malice to the question. I was actually going to make the point that while our rules say 100 foot, we allow you to go as intrusive as a 25-foot buffer under the right circumstances. And I'll just also point out that the county's streamside protection area buffer I believe So if you're at 70, you're 20 better than the county requires.
And when this project was first proposed your buffer was 50?
Yeah
and in fact you may recall the project with 60 units
yeah
I lost four units that's
it well that was gonna be the last question I asked so what happened to the four units where well nine I know that they're gone but what replaced them did you open use them open space an increase in the SBA okay which is good for the creek We believe so. Okay, I think I'm done with questions. I'm happy to go into statements.
Really just an observation or just a comment that we had a couple of people commenting about congestion and traffic impacts and my encouragement for them is to stay involved. This is 56 units. The Glen Annie project, which is a county project, is 1,000 units. So if your interest is on the impact in the area, the impact on congestion, be attentive. Stay involved because that's to borrow from Al Jolson, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Thank you.
Can I go to make my statement?
Yes, go ahead.
Okay. So I'll just begin by kind of responding to one of the
public comments. Excuse me, may I pretend you have a question? Okay, all right, go ahead.
So to begin with, I just want to respond to one of the public comments that actually two of the public comments that talked about why can't we do taller denser development and why can't we do it in Old Town and I'll just point out Old Town already is dense and in certain places it's tall. There are also projects in Old Town that are coming down the pike, there's an adaptive reuse project that would churn a three-story office building into housing and some retail.
There are sites in the city's housing element that if they get built, and I would remind our members of the public that the city has accountability for development but we don't build We're not builders, we're not in the building business. We wouldn't be very good at it if we tried. That's not what we're for. We're in the calling balls and strikes business and deciding whether or not a development makes sense somewhere.
So but I would say that if you're interested in having a lot more dense development Immediately adjacent to the new roundabout at Hollister and Ward, between that roundabout and the back of Gleda Valley Cottage Hospital you're going to have as much as 2,600 units of tall dense walkable housing. It'll all be credited to the county because it's county land But that may be the kind of housing that you're looking for. So, that's coming and some of it's coming in different levels of builder's remedy versus actually in-the-county housing element. But trust me if that's the kind of housing you want, it's coming right to the doorstep of Old Town. So if you like that and if that what you want, it' coming.
The next thing I just wanted to say is I wanted to actually kinda move on to the actual project. And so, you know, to begin with I do, I've said this before and I'll say it again. We need a diversity of housing choices if we want to have a diverse community. If we really mean that, if we mean it in our environmental justice documents, if we, if we mean that in our housing element, we have to have diversity of housing choices.
I see this every day as a private sector human resources professional. I've been working for 10 years to try and recruit and retain employees every day. And when I look at this project, in where it's at now as opposed to where it was a year ago five years ago 10 years ago 20 years ago the life changing and generational wealth creating potential of this project now blows me away The opportunity to have a small infusion of new single family housing will be really beneficial to employers who have prospective employees they're trying to attract, who are used to new or newer builds and really have to go to Oxnard or Camarillo right now to find that.
The architects I think are to be commended, the design review board and planning commissioner to be commended here. The potential for this project to be filled by our local workforce that currently commute here from far away is to me compelling. Now this is a builder's remedy project, but I think if we were to look south to Santa Monica or even just a little bit to the side of us in Santa Barbara, I would say that given the circumstances in terms of the heights, the densities that are envisioned here, the location, it could have been a lot worse when it comes to a builder's remedy project. There's also an irony here and that is that this is the first project that's up for approval in the city since we approved our housing element And it's a project that doesn't appear in our housing element.
That's just weird. The shame in all of this is that we're having to sprawl out into the Goleta foothills in order to accomplish it, and it's the shame that we have to build away from jobs, away from shopping, and away from services in order to accomplish it. With all due respect to Mr. Lloyd, while VMT you want to take umbrage with the calculations and how many units and all of The size of the project isn't going to bring it any closer to a market, closer to a child care center, closer to a job or closer to a bus line that will rapidly get people to a job. SB 743 hasn't been mentioned tonight but we've been talking around it. That's the legislation that we've been referencing when we talk about VMT and why we're not able to use level of service anymore as a CEQA consideration.
And there is an irony here that a law designed to prevent sprawling development away from urban centers is helping to pave the way for developing our Goleta foothills. The Goleta foothills are important to us, people often talk about the butterfly in our city logo but that green and white that's behind us mimics the trees and the visual resources that are the Goleta Foothills. And it's a real shame that the same consideration that was given by our larger Santa Barbara County community to come together and save places like the San Marcos foothills did not come together in quite the same way to protect our Goleta foothills.
However, in the final analysis our community needs housing. It needs affordable housing and the impact of the affordable housing to me whether it's my own kind of deductions or Craig Minus' back-of-the-napkin math I can make the findings of overriding considerations for the class one impacts associated with VMT because I can make the finding that the affordable housing provides a value that would be really hard for us to get somewhere else in a category of housing that just doesn't really get built in our city anymore. The housing I just referenced that's getting built at a lot of these county sites, a lot of that is denser connected walls development and that won't necessarily Something that attracts everybody. It'll be some great starter housing for some folks, but you do need a diversity of housing choices.
I think having some single family here is part of that solution and I can make the findings. Thank you.
2:48 – 3:006 turns
Mayor
Pro Tem.
Thank you, first I want to thank our commissioners with the DRB and the Planning Commission for their thoughtful review of this project. To the members of the public who submitted comments all along the way including our neighbors who live in the neighborhood and I also want to thank the applicant for their presentation and information that was shared today Also, to the staff and consultants who prepared 500 pages of material and worked very hard to bring this before us today.
We're approaching this project from an unusual perspective that involves a legal case that was litigated had a legal ruling that went against us, and also from the circumstance of this being a builder's remedy project. And sort of because of that our discretion is very limited here and so that's where we're coming from. And that said, to Council Member Kariako's point, we know that other communities who are facing Builders Remedies Project, eight-story behemoths, various There's no question, I noted the comment about agriculture land that waivers and concession of our local policies that we have worked so hard on, spent hours deliberating and discussing is hard for our residents to swallow.
It's a difficult situation, I think for many neighbors to understand. At the same time, I do want to address there was a public comment sort of suggesting that all along the way that the city has been unreasonable. And I didn't think that was a fair comment either. Although I'm new to this council, you know, this property has been zoned ag from before we became a city, has remained zoned as agriculture And that has stayed consistent. Issues regarding water policy, which are subject to the rules and regulations of the Goleta Water District are not within the city's control.
So I also just wanna note That I just think this is an unusual set of circumstances. And I don't believe we may have had some differences of opinion on legal matters, but I personally don't believe that the city has been unreasonable in their positions. That said, I want to highlight as difficult of a position that we find ourselves in that there are good aspects of this project.
This includes single-family housing that is consistent with the neighborhood zoning. It includes deed restricted for sale housing Including I should note, I think what is unusual four units for extremely low incomes and one unit for low income. This will be potentially be life changing for those who get those units. It does include the bike path upgrade. I know Council Member Kasdan in the past has expressed concern about gaps in our bike infrastructure So, the current proposal will fill a gap in that bike infrastructure.
And we have various mitigations in the EIR both for the project itself and including during the construction period. That's an important protection. As a city, we could continue to litigate this matter but it would likely be a losing and expensive proposition. So for where we stand today I believe the most prudent course of action would be to recommend approval And I do want to note, I would support Councilmember Luz Reyes-Martin's comments about the sort of ongoing questions regarding traffic around the high school. It's certainly one of the things I hear about the most.
Not just traffic, but e-bikes and sort of everything about circulation around the high school. So for whatever method that is whether that's in committee or otherwise I do think that is going to remain an important discussion not just for this project but as it relates to other rezones that we have in the city Certainly as it relates to the pending project with Glen Annie and more so.
I would support sort of separately from from the current discussion. I would support that I do want to note too as well in terms of the mitigations that are required under the CIR does include a the VMT reduction plan and I'll just note that I hope that the you know, that the applicant city staff, you know You know We can only do what's legally required in this circumstance but give a good faith effort to that dialogue and process for efforts to reduce that VMT impact.
And those are my thoughts for now, thank you.
Council Member Reyes-Martin?
Thank you, well said. I'll try not to be too duplicative in my comments but i do want to underscore my appreciation to staff it has been a very long road Miss Brasi and your team and the applicant as well. It has been a long road for the applicant as well so I really appreciate everyone's work as well as was mentioned the commissions and all the public comment that's been received not just tonight but Frankly for years as this project has been in different iterations. As was mentioned, part of what is certainly in the staff report and we didn't talk too much about in comments there was litigation that the city engaged with over disagreements related to the The application and I hope that the public, you know if you haven't been as tuned in to this project can always go look at the staff report to read more about that.
And you know the city it was important for me and our council for us to go through that process and to defend our position on that. And ultimately we were unsuccessful and that's kind of what leads us here today. We did engage in a settlement and had a settlement agreement And I truly believe in turning the page and moving forward now that we are here. And this provides us an opportunity to do that. I do think that sometimes tension can lead to a better outcome, and I think there are definitely some aspects of this project We'll never know, but potentially are better than what we might have otherwise had. And that's a benefit to the community and it's a credit to all sides that got us to this where we are today.
A big part of that as was mentioned I think are these deed restricted affordable units that I agree will be life changing for families I also greatly appreciate the thoughtfulness around fire resilience. That is a huge issue, an increasingly important issue and in many ways I think this becomes a model for what we will look to. Some of it you'll have to with new building codes but a model of the expectation of the thoughtfulness that we will expect from future project applicants when it comes to fire resiliency because we know that it doesn't just impact that individual development or home, but the broader community and neighborhoods.
It is hard to provide exceptions to the 100-foot buffer that I know we've long, long, long wanted to really hold the line on. But I do acknowledge that they've met the criteria for exception there so I can I can get behind that given all of the other benefits. And as was mentioned, we'll continue to monitor things like traffic congestion. I appreciate you mentioning the part about filling the gap with the bike infrastructure. That's been a goal of the councils and I do think it is important to continue to look at when we talk about housing providing housing At different income levels, of course. But also different types and in different parts of the community.
Of course there's an emphasis on focusing on transit corridors and places that are more dense. And where you know there is a need or where we can also look at other parts of the city. And take into consideration all the things that we've talked about today fire resiliency, the type of housing making sure there's affordable options. So that's where we are today you know I know that it was it has been a long and bumpy road but you know we're here now and and I do think that I am prepared to support the project and move forward thank you.
Thank You Councilmember Castaneda.
3:00 – 3:094 turns
So first, the thing that stands out with this is our original determination as a city. That idea that the Cathedral Oaks was the urban growth boundary and that we were trying to sort of hold the line on that. But where we are now is where there's 1,000 units proposed at Glen Annie It's hard to make a big fuss about 56 units next door as the tip of the spear or whatever you want to call it.
We'll have to continue to think about ways that we can ensure some sort of equivalent of urban growth boundary, or some sort of wildfire buffer, or something like that. This project itself is not the source of breaching our determination or our efforts. It's no disrespect, but incidental to that given the Shelby, excuse me, the Glen Annie next door. Just an observation at least for me as far as traffic goes From just my personal experience, because I have a son at the high school.
It seems that the traffic, the congestion is greater coming from the east side than from the west side. That I don't see as many either bicyclists or vehicles coming from that direction, from the Winchester direction as they are coming the other way though. The traffic is dense heading to Glen Annie. And that's just, I still think it's something that we're going to have to obviously analyze and you know more than just my observation.
I think you know well two things one is just as far as the mix of housing one of the speakers said you know we should be proposing Just these very dense housing in Old Town. I think more in Old Town, absolutely not in District 4. I'm kidding but you know it's a challenging thing for all of us because when people think what is the American dream they don't think of a two-bedroom condo they think of single family housing and even if From a planning perspective of some kind, what would make sense ideally might be that we have tall buildings that are denser.
It isn't necessarily what the public, a lot of the public is demanding, what the public really wants and so Yes, we could preserve more space but that isn't necessarily what we see of the public. So it's going to be something we're going to have to work out over time. But we know there is a demand, people want to have single family housing and this project does provide it and it'll be very nice single family housing.
It'll be lovely and we did as well as we could. I think the affordability, the affordable housing there is a gift for the city and for those certainly who get it. And the buffers are they ideal? Perhaps not but it's not as grave as it could have been so I think all in all It's fine. So, thank you.
Well since I always go last, I won't go on and on and on but I have to say that my colleagues have said it all. They really have said so much about this project that all I can do is maybe highlight a couple things and mainly It was bumpy, it was definitely a bumpy start and it wasn't pleasant. And we took it very serious and litigation was tough on us, it was tough on you but the outcome I think we got something that I think we got something good and we worked together.
And I like the idea of having a diversity of different housing, I think that's definitely needed. I especially like, and I'm pretty sure I saw the map correctly that all the affordables weren't all grouped together. That typically happens and I've always thought that shouldn't happen, it should be spread out so I really liked that a lot and the size of the houses they're bigger than my house. You know what? I've been here 40 years so um that the affordable's I mean that's great I think we still have some work to do with the traffic, maybe not so much now but traffic is coming. It's coming our way and things are going to have to change. I definitely think working with the schools All the schools, we used to do something like that at the high school for many years and I think it's time to start that back up because we've got growth coming our way and the e-bikes.
And you know when you first get your license, you can only drive yourself. You can't have another person in the car so when you watch them go to lunch they're all going to lunch but one person in the car. I think that's for a year. Is it still happening that way? It was a year, so it could be when my kids were growing up in high school. So I will be supporting this.
It was hard because I really cared a lot about the buffer too and we'd worked hard to get the hundred foot but you know, we're almost there. I think it's a good project for that particular area and we'll just... We're lucky it all worked out the way it did because it could have been like, I think you said that Council Member Karayoko, it could have been a lot worse.
As we're looking and seeing from our neighbors. So at this point, I'm gonna close the public hearing and entertain a motion. Who would like to make that motion?
I'd be happy to do it. And Council Member Kiriakou, just one clarification note. The recommendation, the references to Planning Commission should read City Council just to note on those so
not to throw a curveball but otherwise... I'll throw in as amended then too. Actually, no. I was going to read it from my report which actually says City Council. I've got it right, right here. So I don't need to say as amended because it's right in the report. So I'm gonna move that we adopt B, C and D and I'll read them. I'll move that we adopt City Council Resolution number 26 next in line entitled a resolution of the city council one adopting environmental findings pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act two certifying the Shelby residential project final environmental impact report Parentheses SCH number 201-208-1019 in parentheses.
Three, adopting the mitigation monitoring and reporting program. Four, adopting a statement of overriding considerations and five approving the project. C, adopt City Council resolution number 26 next in line entitled A Resolution Of The City Council Of The City Of Goleta California Approving the vesting tentative map to create 56 residential lots and three open space lots for the Shelby Residential Project located at 7400 Cathedral Oaks Road, APN 077-530-019, case number 05-154-VTM. And D, adopt City Council Resolution Number 26 next in line entitled A resolution of the City Council of the city of Goleta, California approving the development plan for 56 residential lots and three open space lots and associated improvements for the Shelby Residential Project located at 7400 Cathedral Oaks Road APN 077-530-019 case number 05-154-DP-DRB.
Do I have a second?
3:09 – 3:143 turns
I'll second. Okay, roll call vote.
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0
Show transcript
It's unanimous. Thank you thank you staff Okay, I think we need a break.
You. Thank you for joining us. Yeah. Mm. I'm So, ♪ StSq3 3.30 (-0.99") .
3:19 – 3:2817 turns
Yeah. Okay, I'd like to bring this meeting back to order.
That's gonna take us to item B3 approval of measure A five-year program of projects for fiscal years 2026 through 2031. Thank you.
I'll kick this off. Good evening, City Council and Madam Mayor. Tonight Public Works will be presenting on the Measure A Five-Year Program of Projects for Fiscal Year 2026 to 2031 and tonight Autumn Glazer will be presenting on this subject.
Thank you and I'm gonna open the public hearing. Okay. Autumn.
Good evening mayor and council members Tonight we're gonna go over our Measure A, measure program of projects. Just a little overview, Measure A was adopted in 2008 as a local one-half percent sales tax over 30 years. It has generated approximately over $1 billion estimated over those 30 years and it is administered by Santa Barbara County Associations of Government Locally, we estimate $210 million over the next five years. And that's between fiscal years 26, 27 and 30 and 31. And that is to the local agencies in Santa Barbara County $59 million is towards Highway 101 and the named projects. One of those named projects is our Project Connect. Revenues reflect the repayment of a $75 million TIFIA loan for the Highway 101 construction as well.
More specifically, Goleta, our estimates are approximately $11 million over five years. And we do have an alternate transportation percentage requirement of 10% of that funding and our current estimate is about 60%. So we're well over our requirements. The Measure A POP, Program of Projects is required annually. It identifies all projects during a five-year period and the projects are listed by different categories.
Projects and revenues are similar to last year and we'll go into more specifics on the projects but they do include you know projects like San Jose Creek Bike Path, pavement rehabilitation and maintenance programs This is very tiny writing, so I don't expect you to be able to see it. But it does just show a pie chart of the different variety of categories including things like maintenance and improvement or construction of roadways and bridges, urban forestry street tree program, roadway drainage facilities.
I think the important piece here is the variety of projects that Measure A funds And that's very important. And my last slide is just a list of current projects that have been funded by Measure A. This is not an exhaustive list, this is just what is active so Project Connect Not only has received Measure A through the program of projects, which is our local allocation. It has also received that named project allocation and San Jose Creek multi-purpose path again not only just the measure a it has also received grants as such as Safe Routes to School and other programs that are administered through the Measure A program.
Traffic signal upgrades, the 2025 residential and arterial pavement projects, and then projects that are currently in design or bidding, Cathedral Oaks Crib Wall, full trash capture, and our 26th pavement arterial and residential resurfacing. And again, that's not exhaustive. That's just a highlight of projects that have been funded or are funded in part. And with that, that concludes our presentation and we're happy to take questions. Questions?
Council Member Caston?
Yeah, curious about the status of the 101 Overpass Project. It's a named project and maybe you could describe That's what the plans are going forward.
Council Member Kasdan, thank you for the question. We're currently scheduled to do a study for that and a preliminary project review next fiscal year. That's what we have in our work program.
That's this coming summer? That's correct. Okay, thank you.
Council Member Carioca.
Thank you Madam Mayor. I want to just thank Ms. Glazer for leading a town hall meeting Yesterday on the San Jose Creek multipurpose path project there was a lot of community concern about the status of the work and not just the loss of trees but old, large significant trees. Thank her for that and just wanted to ask you know what's the current ETA for that project being delivered and available to people to start traversing.
Councilmember Chiarocco, thank you for that and thanks for being there last night as well. The project is right now on schedule to be completed in early it's probably spring 2027 which will allow people to traverse at that point
And there'll be lots of trees replanted as part of that?
And there are lots of trees. There's over 300 trees in the mitigation requirements that will be planted.
Thank
you
What size are those trees? Are they little baby trees?
3:28 – 3:3311 turns
Mayor Pierotti, we are working with our biologists and our arborists. One thing about the trees that we're planting, they all must be native and so you can't just go down to your nursery and pick up a tree. So actually they have to collect seedlings and get everything locally and grow it And we do have some great nurseries that do that work for us and they just let us know that we do have some bigger, not just the tiny five gallon maybe 15 gallon.
But one thing to note is that it's actually better to plant smaller trees. They actually have a higher rate of success than the larger trees. And we'll make sure we're working on shrubbery that's fast growing and things that can help to put back the greenery that everyone is used to.
Any other questions? I have a question under alternative transportation summary, there's a percentage in here, I think I talk about it probably every year About it's for safe routes to school and. Pedestrian is a percentage of the investment plan and it's always been set at 10%, but we've always done more than that, correct? We used to have a chart that showed how much percentage went towards projects that were either pedestrian-friendly or safe routes to school.
I'm not seeing that in
here. The percentage is in yellow I believe that one might actually not be showing. It is very small, I apologize for that. There is not a set Safe Routes to School percentage requirement but there is an alternate transportation which encompasses the safe routes to school so the alternate transportation is a 10% goal and our goal is above 60%. And I would just highlight that San Jose Creek is a big multi-purpose facility, a big portion of that. And so that's how we're getting to that 60%, which is also a safe route as a school project.
Am I wrong that there's two categories? One is a certain amount for pedestrian safety, and the other one is for safe routes to school. So we were able to when we were negotiating on how to make it more attractive to the community when it was being renewed, that was something that was really important to get the streets up to speed with crosswalks or flashing beacons So that's not being shown on this particular slide.
And I just can't see it because it's so little. Oh wait, maybe it
is. Yeah, I think that's the yellow category and unfortunately that one the percentage didn't show up on just the safe routes to school itself. Okay. The other one you mentioned... The percentages are there, but I apologize. The yellow is not showing its percentage, but we can follow up with
that. I've always asked, not for a while lately, what I've asked for the percentage to be higher and the feedback I always get when I ask is like, but we do are doing things that are more than 10%. So that's why it stayed at 10%, but I just was curious to where we're at with that now.
So the alternate transfer to airside, ATP is the 10% goal and our goal, we're actually achieving 60%. So that is a goal set by Measure A and we have to use 10% of the funding on alternative transportation.
Where's the list of what that entails? You're looking at transportation like busing, MTD I know we contributed to that. It is
in the spreadsheet, the actual should be in the document. There is a list and it's the categories alternative transportation and it's the bottom part of the spreadsheet but I will also add that we did take out the bond revenues on this funding so a good portion of the money has been shown on there for San Jose Creek because that's our bond repayment and so it did change what some of them funding went to in the categories
Okay, because we're talking at SBCAG about renewing and that was something that was really important for the voters when was it 2008? That there were line items. So it's good to know what measure A is doing so that we can promote that when we start Thank
you.
3:33 – 3:5117 turns
Any other questions? Okay, do we have any public speakers?
I have no speaker slips. For those of you on the Zoom webinar please use your raised hand icon and I will call on you if you wish to speak to this item. I am seeing none.
Okay, any more questions here? So I think I'll close the public testimony and go into council deliberation. Anybody want to say anything or just make a motion?
I would move approval that we adopt resolution number 26 next in line entitled a Resolution of the City Council of the City of Goleta, California Adopting the Measure A Five-Year Local Program of Projects for Fiscal Year 2026 through 2027 and through fiscal year 2030 to 2031.
And I am closing the public hearing, but do I have a motion? A second. I'll
second.
Okay and we need a roll call vote. That was quick.
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 motion? A second. I'll second. Okay and we need a roll call
Show transcript
Eyes have it Thank you both for your presentation and all the work you're doing.
The next item is Item B4, Approval of Addendum 1 to the Initial Study Mitigated Negative Declaration for the San Jose Creek Fish Passage Project.
And Madam Mayor, staff is recommending that this item be continued to a date certain and that date is April 7th so we are recommending that and asking for the Council to make a motion if you agree.
Okay, so moved.
Second.
Roll call vote.
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 moved. Second. Roll call
Show transcript
Ayes have it. Okay there we go. So we have one more item
that is Item C1 Galeta Sphere of Influence
Thank you. Are you going to start us off?
Yes. Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. It's my pleasure this evening to introduce the item regarding Goleta's sphere of influence. I'm Anne Wells, advanced planning manager, and I'm accompanied by Cam Adraw, assistant planner, and Peter Imhoff, the planning and environmental review director. Let's start with a definition. What is a sphere of influence? It is the city's probable future physical boundary. It's the area in which future annexations may be considered, so we have our city boundary and that would be the process To make the boundary larger, that's the annexation. But the sphere of influence in establishing that is the first step in annexing land.
And currently Goleta Sphere is coterminous or the same as the city boundary and the Santa Barbara Local Area Formation Commission or the LAFCO is the acronym people use Establish that boundary and essentially we don't have a sphere of influence because. We don't have any land beyond the city boundary that's included within our sphere of influence so tonight we're seeking Your feedback and any direction on potential changes to what's the LAFCO approved sphere of influence and authorization to submit a related application to LAFCO, and also to return with the general plan amendment initiation for a change to a map in the general plan.
So if we can go to slide two, we'll start with the general plan figure 2-4. So this is the adopted map which is the potential City of Goleta service areas map and that's found in the land use element of the general plan and the map is important because the potential service areas are the equivalent of a sphere of influence since we don't have an established sphere of influence that's beyond the city limits it's called a service area And again, it's all subject to the LAFCO approval process. When we prepared this map that's on the screen there are four areas included and the first one is the Glen Honey Golf Course and Cam will show you with a cursor where that is but I think we're all kind of familiar with the Glen Honey Golf Course. And then the North Fairview area same as the large area on the upper right of the screen And then the portion of the South Patterson area that's dark green on the map and the former Ocean Meadows Golf Course.
The colors in those service areas that you see, well first of all it's all unincorporated lands of the county that are in our current service area and the colors are showing if they were to be included in our sphere what our pre-zoning would be So typically we took the county zoning and adjusted it to fit our categories in our land use designations, and that's what the pre-zoning would be shown on the screen here.
And then we adopted our general plan in 2006, of course. And so this map was from that time and in 2009 we did submit the sphere of influence application to the LAFCO and we requested that sphere to be consistent with the service area that's mapped in our general plan. The application was denied and that was when the LAFCO set our sphere co-terminus with our city boundary So just a little, a little background.
When we met in September of 2024 there was some action taken and when we met with you at the public meeting, and we're first working on possible sphere changes from two ways. And we discussed it in 2024, and so first we did join the LAFCO and the other jurisdictions in the county in a memorandum of understanding, an MOU that was... Wait, MOU or MOA? MOA, Memorandum of Agreement, that was intended to develop a more comprehensive sphere process And that process was kicked off last month and it will unfold over the next couple of years.
We're also working on a shorter timeline sphere of influence application process, starting with addressing the service areas that are shown on this map. And to that end we did meet with county staff and representatives from the County Board of Supervisors and Goleta City Council members to discuss possible changes To the sphere and of, of much discussion where the county housing reason sites.
And with a focus on the Glen Annie County housing element reasons inside and the, and the South Patterson areas that were also rezone. And what I think was really important to flag is that we received at the meeting that the county's executive team indicated verbal support based on the discussions at the meeting. And that's really important during the LAFCO review of any sphere of influence application that we submit, they will be looking for that support.
So let's talk about what we did since we met in September of 2024 and our review of that service area map that's adopted in our general plan. First, we started with looking at recent land use changes in the unincorporated areas and pending development projects in the unincorporated areas adjacent to the city boundary. And based on that county verbal support For including those two areas in our service area or future sphere of influence, we made some changes to figure 2-4 and those changes are up on the screen.
We're proposing to remove, so you won't see two of the areas that you saw on the adopted map. And that is the Ocean Metals Golf Course area and we're proposing to remove that area because most of that property that was originally had residential development on it has since been purchased and donated to the UC Regents as open space. So it lost its development potential.
And the second area was that North Fairview area we're proposing to remove because it's generally built out and because there was former resident opposition to the concept of being included in our sphere of influence application in 2009. So instead of those two areas, we recommend retaining the two existing areas but with revisions. And those two areas are Glen Annie golf course area and the South Patterson area. I'm going to talk about those two areas.
We have a slide that's just for the Glen Annie golf course area with some parcel information on it. So the Glen Eni golf course includes six parcels and that totals about 160 acres. And about three of the parcels, or not about three of the parcels were rezoned from agriculture to high-density residential. And of course there the use is a golf course but the zoning is what really matters in this application to the LAFCO.
And it's potentially about 1,000 new units could be constructed and that's based on some concept drawings that we had access to. The remaining three parcels one two and six on the screen were not rezoned as part of the county rezoning effort they retain their agriculture designation and if you saw an air footer under it generally the uses on those those three parcels are golf course or Creek So what we recommend is keeping the area in figure 2-4, but changing the prezoning from agriculture to high density residential to align with the county zoning. And that's why you see the brown color which is high density residential for areas 3, 4 or parcels 3, So that's what we're proposing there. And then the second area, the South Patterson area, you can see that on the screen.
That area currently includes the interadopted general plan and it includes two parcels and that is only the Georgie parcel and that's The parcel seven that Cam's got the cursor on, and then the St. Athanasius Church parcel which is eight. So you can see that this area is proposed to be much larger than it is in our general plan now. And so what we're proposing is adding seven parcels to the existing two, and those are called the Scott, Echol, Cairds one, two, and three, and then Caird West and Caird East.
And the reason we're suggesting adding these seven parcels is because most of these sites are proposed for future high-density residential about maybe 3,100 new units possibly. To give you a little bit more context about that breakdown that the rezone parcels I said they were mostly rezoned they not all of them were rezoned and i'm going to explain why so that the county's rezoned parcels include were six of the parcels, and that's St. Athanasius Church, Scott, Echol, Cairds 1, 2, and 3. And they were rezoned from agriculture to high-density residential. That rezone applied to all six of those parcels except for about a third of the Caird 3 parcel. where it was located in the coastal zone. And Cam's got the cursor over the portion of parcel 13 that's in the coastal zone, that's that kind of black and gray line that cuts east-west across that parcel, that shaded green, and of course the green is for an agriculture prezoning.
So what we recommend for the rezone parcels is including them into figure 2-4. And that reason why is because the zoning allows for this significant new development to mostly residential uses on our border where site ingress and egress is largely provided through the city, and then for the prezoning We recommend, of course, all high density pre zoning consistent with county zoning and ag for the portion of care three in the coastal zone that would also align with the county zoning for the Georgie parcel.
It retains its agriculture zoning with the county, so it was not rezoned. But it is the subject of a builder's remedy development application and that means even though it zoned agriculture, that property owner is proceeding with development and that's a little over 1,000 new units the last we checked on the application process. So we recommend retaining Georgie in Figure 2-4 but with prezoning to high density residential. Though it's not consistent with the zoning, it will be consistent with what the use will be.
So again, you see all brown and then a little bit of green. But you'll see in the middle, sides 14 and 15, these two little straggler parcels. We call them island parcels. The county doesn't call them that. That's what we're calling them just for ease of explanation. And those are referred to as Caird West and Caired East. And these small parcels, they have no pending development applications. They're also zoned agriculture and we recommend including them because they are of course completely surrounded by housing development projects so you can't get in or out unless you're going through these housing development projects. So for pre-zoning you can see on the screen green.
We think pre-zoning to agriculture is, to align with county zoning is wise. I think they're flower grower owners and if you have questions about that I think Cam has some information so we think that makes sense. And so if we can go back to the draft figure 2-4 for the big picture There we go. In summary, we recommend changing the draft general plan figure 2-4 the service area map to include the Glen Annie and South Patterson areas as we described with the pre zoning that we've described and we think that doing so would position the city to plan for future city boundary changes through an annexation, and it would potentially better connect our growth plan with this growth plan between the city and the unincorporated county areas.
And that kind of wraps up as a brief presentation. The staff recommendation had three parts. So the first part was to review and give us feedback on the revisions to general plan figure 2-4, and I think I went through enough detail is also expressed on the screen of what that kind of means, to give us direction. And then B is to authorize us to submit that sphere of influence application to the LAFCO And then to return, we'll need to change Figure 2-4 if we move forward and then so we would be returning to you with a general plan amendment initiation.
And that concludes our presentation and we are available for questions. Great, thank you. Council Member Kasdan?
3:51 – 4:0622 turns
Yeah, so a couple of things. So first... As far as the sphere of influence, simply changing the sphere of influence to include these parcels. What does it get us apart from the opportunity to pursue annexation?
Okay. So what we're actually proposing here is to change the service area map in the general plan, and that sets us up to be able to submit a sphere of influence application because we need to know what it is that we would be putting in the sphere of influence and the job of the general plan is to identify The only thing we can adopt, since we can't adopt a sphere of influence, that's LAFCO's job. We can adopt the service area map and so I think you asked about what that gets us?
It's the first, so adopting a sphere of influence through LAFCO sets us up for an annexation.
Right, I understood that. Does it get us anything else?
Yes, it actually gives us a say in some limited say in development projects that are in the county. It gives us like yeah a little bit of a seat at the table with the pre-zoning so that's why LAFCO is really careful about spheres of influence and they Really have to make a lot of findings that's related to approving a sphere of influence So I don't think that I don't want to you know misrepresent all that might give us but it it does give us a voice.
I Don't understand because this is inconsistent with previous information, I was given so These areas have been rezoned by the county what sort of role do we play as a result of the pursuit of the sphere of influence, as opposed to let's say right now. How much more of a voice or how much more what do we get as a result of this?
From a zoning perspective or what goes
on once it's been zoned? Once it's already been zoned as these properties that you've identified have Where does it leave us as far as the process that goes forward?
I think there's some importance on the timing. So if we already had a sphere and we had a voice, that would be different. If we were proposing to annex before they rezone the land, that would be a whole different scenario but because they've already rezoned it and applications are in and there's builder's remedy applications and the timing that we might get a sphere established, and then an annexation.
If you wanna provide input on the applications themselves or control them if they were part of the city, that might be a challenge. But anything after at that moment of an annexation it becomes part of the city, and we would then have all the oversight of whatever is remaining to be decided upon.
Right, so a couple of things. So in other words the set of projects that you've identified or set of parcels rather that you've identified are already rezoned. So essentially as far as us having some sort of greater input or authority or seat at the table, you know, the cows have left the barn. Essentially that opportunity Parcels where there hasn't had that sort of process go on are where we would have, where the sphere of influence would have an impact.
So one conclusion is we really only want to pursue this if we believe that we want to annex it in the end. that the sphere of influence itself or the mapping and the pursuit of it is really only valuable as a way station, as I gather it. And so we have to, you know, intend that our goal is going to be annexation and, you know, I'm not against that or anything like that especially in a parcel like GlenAndy where they have-where we're gonna bear the costs roads and everything else, they have nowhere else to go but through Goleta.
We might as well add them but it's important to recognize that I think that our goal is annexation and this is a process to get us to that point and then people can debate or consider The financial implications, does the property tax cover it? Is it worth it? But if we believe we're going to be heavily burdened in a sense by the development, we might want to own it regardless.
Mayor and Council Member Kasun, I'll just jump in and say that's generally correct. So the sphere of influence is a preliminary step toward annexation and to your original question the sphere of influence designation by itself doesn't get us much until the moment of annexation the lands under consideration remain within the unincorporated county, i.e., within the unincorporated county's land use jurisdiction not within our land use jurisdiction. So aside from kind of a loose consultation there is no direct we don't have direct land use authority over lands within this sphere.
Okay so you know what the one the first conclusion I draw is we have to doing this is a reflection of our intention The second is, I wanted to clarify as far as the figure goes where you had suggested. in dropping the area north of Fairview and whether that has to be removed from the figure, even if we're not pursuing it right now for the The sphere of influence process. I keep forgetting the actual name. What is it?
What are we doing?
Service area.
Thank
you. Yeah, so Councilmember Kasdan normally the service area and the sphere of influence would coincide exactly however we're not aware of any reason why We couldn't submit a sphere of influence application to LAFCO for a subset of the service area, a lesser included area. So in other words if the council were to direct us to continue to include that North Fairview area but separately direct us to proceed with a sphere of influence application that included a subset. For example, just the areas that are have been rezoned or affected by the county's housing element and the Georgie parcel we could do that
because you know originally when we had this discussion, that parcel, that area was included as one of the things to be discussed and I gather it wasn't discussed and so It doesn't seem appropriate to just abandon it, to me.
And Mayor and Council Member Cousins, just to clarify that you know we had one meeting with the county and we started that meeting by presenting the same figure we presented with you namely that the Figure 2-4 as adopted in the general plan per the council's direction back in September 2024 And so that was the starting point for that discussion, but the focus naturally shifted to the areas that were affected by the county's housing element. That's I think the real driver here that is the game changer if you will, that makes those areas ripe for consideration for inclusion in the city sphere.
Well I think, you know so in it you mentioned there was opposition in 2009 from the Holiday Hills area and in 2009 the irony of course is that the situation was reversed. The city was viewed as the entity that was eager to rezone areas, I'm thinking especially of Glen Annie. They denied us the opportunity to incorporate Glen Annie because they thought Goleta would rezone it as housing and the county was the agent that was going to protect and preserve it.
Fast forward to now The county is the one who is likely in the next round of RHNA, is going to be looking for other areas that they can rezone. And so I guess where I'm thinking right now is we do a survey of the population there and find out Have their attitudes changed? Where do they stand now? Is it the same as 2009 and they would prefer to be not part of Goleta or do they see the county as less protective of their interests and would prefer to be in Goleta. So my preference would be that we both retain the map, I'm okay going forward with the inclusion, service area or excuse me, the proposal for the sphere of influence that you guys have discussed and to pursue that. But to put the other one sort of on the back burner and see if there's public interest in it what the public would like.
If they don't have an interest in it, you know, if there is hostility Consider, running out of gas. If there's continued hostility to it, it's dead. But if there were interest in it then it gives us a position to talk to the county about because we'd have public and expression or some sort of reflection of public interest for being part of Goleta or something like that.
So that would be my suggestion And I guess the other thing also is, I would be interested in finding out. interested in some kind of buffer or urban growth boundary or something like that for the region. And to the extent that he were pursuing that in those areas that are in the foothills, that might negate the need for us to consider the Holiday Hills and other areas that are in the foothills But if that goes nowhere, at least we want to be able to pursue it in the future.
Mayor and Council Member Kasdan, Ms. Wells referred to that process so yes LAFCO got a Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Grant or SALC grant to study the urban-rural interface and is going through a process working with local governments including City of Goleta to evaluate agricultural lands on the urban boundary And one outcome of that process might be thinking about ways to protect agricultural buffers. So we don't know the outcome of that process yet, but that would be part and parcel of the LAFCO review of a sphere of influence application.
That's a parallel process that's happening. With respect to the idea of a survey of residents I just would remark That that is, that would be materially different from and additional work for us to take on beyond simply filing a sphere of influence application for discrete areas. So that would be something that we would need full council direction to pursue if that's the council's intent.
Well, the timing of that is separate. You know, that has a separate timetable and I would personally at least, I'd be okay waiting to see what happened with the LAFCO-led analysis of the urban boundary if that satisfied the same outcome So it doesn't have to, you know I gather the LAFCO sphere of influence has its separate timetable because of grants and so forth that makes it much more urgent. The other one isn't.
Thank you.
I'm just going to ask this question about It does say in the report that the North Fairview area is located to the northeast of the city and unincorporated county. This area includes an existing development neighborhood with limited redevelopment potential. One note, there was a significant North Fairview area resident opposition to the city's 2009 SOI, Spear of Influence.
I remember that and that was ultimately denied by LAFCO. So are you saying that's the reason for taking them out mainly?
Yeah, that was our rationale. And the county didn't... At the meeting, the county didn't focus at all on the North Fairview area is my understanding. I wasn't at the meeting but like Mr. Imhoff said we did start with this map and that was not something
And you would be looking at an area that wasn't already fairly developed. There would be space for more housing? I'm confused. Madam
4:06 – 4:169 turns
Mayor, we're here to do whatever the council wants us to
do. No, I'm just questioning why that came up. Why that was a note that it looks to me like it's just not a good idea to have North Fairview area taken into consideration because
it just that's certainly the direction we would like tonight. But yeah, I will remind and Mr. Amhoff made the same point and so did Councilmember Kasdan in September 2024 the council did direct us To retain everything in figure 2.4. So when we went and met, and of course Councilmember Smith and Councilmember Kariakou can speak to this as well. When we went and met with the county we were very clear about that. We said the council gave us clear direction here's the map from our general plan and we were directed on a 3-2 vote to keep all of these as part of a discussion for future sphere changes.
But naturally as Mr. Imhoff said, we had one hour to meet and we had an agenda and we only got through the first item on the agenda which was the focus was on Glen Annie and the focus was on the parcels that were shown. So we're here today and I guess the main focus of our recommendation is to take that first step as indicated to at least submit an application for those two parcels but anything else is still on the table depending on any Furthering direction from council, reaffirm the direction you gave us previously or you could change your direction tonight.
No I'm just trying to understand why it was looked at as not favorable and makes sense to me as well. I'm not saying that we should add it back in I'm just trying to understand How that decision came about.
Mayor, I can just address what Ms. Wells and Mr. Nesbitt said are correct so the focus in this brief meeting we had with the county was really just around The areas that were affected directly by their housing element process and that are changing from their prior agricultural zoning now to residential. So, that's just kind of where there is common ground and agreement at least by the It doesn't preclude the city from at a later time Increasing our sphere to address another area and furthermore as I previously stated There's nothing that we're aware of that prevents the city from keeping The North Fairview area on the book so to speak within our service area map That is to say that we can apply for a sphere of influence. That is a subset a lesser included Subset area of our service area, that's mapped
Thank you I'd like to hear from Councilmember Cariocco and Mayor Pro Tem because you two are the ones that went to this meeting. So first, Councilmember Cariocco?
Thank you, Madam Mayor. A few things. It wasn't stated but I think it was referenced, the SELC planning grant, the Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation Program. So that was a grant that I worked with Supervisor Hartman and some contacts that she had made and identified, that really saw an opportunity to do some good planning at LAFCO about how do we get LAFCO to effectively balance the need to protect agriculture while acknowledging the other need out there for housing where it's appropriate. Because we, you know, the way I like to describe it is we had a situation very recently where you had people from the Board of Supervisors going build baby build on ag land on Tuesday and then on Thursday they'd come to LAFCO and say nope, we need to save agriculture.
And those things were just kind of incongruent. And so, you know, Supervisor Hartman really took a leadership position on this and helped identify this funding opportunity. And Santa Barbara LAFCO did vote to apply for the grant, it was a very competitive process and Santa Barbara LAFCO was successful so there's going to be a multi multi-year planning effort to try and see if LAFCO can try and find a way to effectively balance those two kind of dueling needs within our county. And that'll help inform the next cycle of RHNA, hopefully. There was a reference made earlier to perhaps the need to keep the foothills area in our future service area You know, because of the next cycle of housing and I would just say I don't necessarily see a nexus between Salk and that particular future service area as we have it on the map now.
Because it's not an agricultural focused area. It's a lot of ranchettes and large single family homes. up there, wildlife care networks up there and a lot of just kind of existing homes that were built over time. And so I don't I think that choosing to keep that in our future service area with an eye towards eventual annexation would really just be swapping one level of governance for another. There's different reasons why the city might want to do that but I will point out we had a discussion an hour ago about lamenting the moving of the urban boundary line past Cathedral Oaks.
We would potentially be moving it way, way, way up Fairview and is that something that we want to do? I'm not so sure that we do. I'm personally more comfortable with keeping things the way they are as staff recommended. That was the recommendation that I was really pushing for in September of 2024 when we had this initial conversation I didn't see the need to apply for and, you know, start down the road of annexation of the open space out at Devereux. And I didn't see the need to start kind of going way up into the foothills. You know, those future service areas were identified as future parts of the city in the 2006 community plan.
But that was 2006, the iPhone wasn't even invented then and a lot of things have changed and we've learned a lot. It really is a shame as was pointed out by staff that the city and by Council Member Kasdan The city wasn't trusted at that time to be able to look after these lands and to start the process of bringing them into our city. A lot of things would have been different during this planning cycle if we had a sphere of influence that were over these properties, Glen Annie and the South Patterson Ag Block in particular. It would have been a very different kind of conversation. We would have had a real seat at the table there.
I don't want anyone watching this to be under the impression that taking this step today to start us down the road of pre-zoning and start us down the road of applying for a sphere of influence is going to be the difference between Glen Annie getting built or not, or Georgie getting built or not. And so I hope no one comes away with that misimpression because there's just, that's just not true.
But what I will say is if you wanna change you have to start sometime and if you wanna change you have to start somewhere and I think it's time for us to start down the road of positioning Goleta for the future with these areas that we have long thought as a community planning effort thought should be in the city And so I think this is a good place to start.
I don't object to there being some kind of a side effort to try and take a survey, you know if that wants to get added as a work plan item that staff can debate and the council can debate where it wants on the work plan. You know I'm certainly fine with that. I just don't think that would be the most efficient or effective use of our time You know, I would say let's start with these two parcels.
They have the most future development potential and make a really good starting point for partnering with the county collaboratively, collaborating with the special districts that participate in LAFCO and positioning us for a future perhaps 15-20 years down the road where these areas could come into the city and we could start to actually have transportation and housing and all the different services more lined up So that what happens there makes sense. When you look at that area, for example like the ward area, you basically have sidewalks that just
stop.
You have areas where oh, you have a little bit of a bike path and then it's not really a bike path, it's really just kind of a place where you can kind of pull over to the side of the road semi-safely and then you get sidewalked for a little bit and then its gone and on one side of the street you've really got nothing. You know, you don't want planning to just kind of be a bunch of things that just happened over time. And so if we want to get there, you have to start somewhere and I think this is the place to start and I think this is the time to start.
4:16 – 4:213 turns
Yes, and I just also have a separate question. But yeah, I do think it was notable that at least for those who were present at the meeting that there was no opposition as it related to the Glen Annie and South Patterson sites. I'll just, in terms of the momentum there and that's a very helpful and critical component. You know, the question you know I think they're sort of there's a question about, you know, I realize this is largely a land use discussion but also just think about sort of the logic of like how are these residents going to be interacting with their community.
You know, where should their taxpayer dollars go? Who are they voting for? To have a voice. I think very clearly in these areas they will be interacting with and needing support and infrastructure from the City of Goleta. I wasn't part of the general plan discussions or the cityhood discussions in terms of the boundary debates other than being generally well, I was present in the community but not in the city boundaries.
But other than sort of general awareness and also general awareness of previous attempts at cityhood I'm flexible, though. If there's nothing that prohibits us from maintaining sort of our local map That still includes the Northeast parcel, but we submit for now on these two highlighted. I can support that.
Council Member Reyes-Martin?
Thank you. Yeah, I think the... conversation around removing the areas has maybe muddied our conversation a little bit or distracted us a little bit from what I feel was the original intent, or motivation was really around Glen Annie and the South Patterson because they're undeveloped. There's a lot of proposed development and it's possible that through what would be a big community conversation that we would entertain or pursue annexation.
I do want to say, though, that I think going through this process and taking this first step, I think in no way at least in my mind pre-commits us to pursuing annexation. If that were the case, the city would have already done that with some of these places that have been on this map before. The way I see it is it sets up the potential option in the future. And there's a lot of work and effort that goes into any kind of annexation, it's well beyond the decision of any five people or any five people that are on a council at any given time.
So I definitely want to move forward with the Glen Annie and South Patterson With respect to Ocean Meadows and this North Fairview area, I have no intent in seeking pursuing annexation on those two areas any time in the near future. I don't think that it's a productive effort for city staff to do anything with respect to those two areas right now. established communities, I think if there was a desire from those communities to be considered for annexation we would know about it.
But then to this question of does that mean we should remove them from this map? If it's been there, I don't know that I feel strongly that it should be removed if it doesn't change much? That's where I think that's more of the question I would want from staff. Does it make a difference with us pursuing the other two properties to remove those, like does it change any of that or?
4:21 – 4:2914 turns
So Mayor and Councilmember Reyes-Martin typically again the sphere of influence would align exactly with our service areas and it's possible that having a service area that goes beyond the sphere application would be confusing or it might raise questions we haven't discussed that questioner that issue with my cratered lafco so we don't know how that would be received i think it would be cleaner and simpler if the service area aligned directly with our proposed fear boundary however again were not aware of any legal reason or guidance from OPR that would prevent us from having a service area that goes beyond the sphere that we're requesting.
Okay, those are my thoughts right now. Okay and we also haven't heard from the public yet so we're kind of making up our minds here and not really hearing from the public.
And Mayor if I might note, I didn't during the presentation. We did receive one public comment and that was a letter expressing concern about outreach to the property owners that didn't happen as part of this staff report packet that you considered tonight and that they were requesting to defer the discussion any action on an application until we could do direct outreach and engage with the properties.
So I just wanted to make sure to convey that comment to you. It was not from a resident, it was from a law firm that represents some of the property owners in the two areas on the screen. So I just wanted to flag that. And of course, that kind of outreach occurs in depth when we get to annexation and general plan amendments or hearings and we do noticing as part of that so I think there's more to follow on any direction you provide tonight.
Just a couple quick points. One, an argument could be made that another time we could look at changing the future service area map beyond this sphere of influence potential discussion would be at the time when the original one was created which was during the general plan process. We're going to eventually need to do another general plan. That's years down the road, but we're eventually going to need to do another one. That might be an appropriate time than relook at whether or not Fairview should come off or stay on and the other ones should, you know, Devereux should come on or stay off.
I don't think there is anything though that stops us from implementing some of those future service areas and incorporating them into a sphere of influence application. I don't think it commits us one way or the other. The other thing I'll say is that, you know, I'm familiar with the law firm involved here. They represent Georgie. They represent a couple of other properties.
Yeah. And the only thing I'll say is having personally spoken with the attorneys and have personally spoken with some of the different landowners, some folks might have been surprised to know this item was on the agenda tonight but they're not surprised that the city is contemplating a sphere of influence. developer representatives for Georgie were here in September of 2024 and they expressed neutrality, not favor or opposition to the city looking at a Saphir. So I think behind the shock of the letter I don't know that there's actually that much surprise.
And there will be plenty of time for them to have input on The application itself, the staff process for developing the application. The council has to approve the application right? So there would be a public check-in point there wouldn't it right?
Well we're asking for authorization tonight to move forward with the application.
To move forward with the application okay so then they would have an opportunity to speak at LAFCO.
And when we bring back general plan amendment. I
still want to hear is there anybody in the public that wants to speak
Thank you.
So we have two pools or bundles, buckets. And you know in some ways the redeveloped sites, you know the pro is it affects us as we've noted they're going to come through our streets, even if we didn't pursue any sort of annexation we're still going to bear a lot of the burden for that development Uh, especially Glen Annie. They have nowhere to go but through Goleta and so we it's our roads that are affected and so forth the that's the pro and I, and I support the idea if it's going to, you know, we're burdened by something, if it affects us, we want the responsibility. If we are, we're gonna, you know that it's, it's our burden, we might as well accept it. The con is that as I understand property tax usually doesn't cover the full amount of the costs for maintaining some sort of development.
Although, I gather, as I understand we get the full property tax. We don't have to split the property tax through RNA. Right.
Madam Mayor, Councilmember Kasdan you know any future discussions on annexation of course would be negotiations with the county the owners LAFCO etc But our current RNA had no language indicating that future annexations would be subject to the same terms of that RNA.
Can I just jump in? At the end of the day, LAFCO won't approve any annexation that does not involve a revenue and tax sharing agreement between the involved parties. It won't happen. It legally cannot happen. The city and county would have to agree on how all those things would work and that's like five steps down the road from where we are today, and I would really not want to pollute this discussion too much with that conversation.
Well, I'm just referencing the fact that there are pros and cons to it, and one of the pros is not giving us a lot of control over the destiny of that property. It's just reflecting the fact that we're going to have the burden of it, the people coming driving and so forth The sidewalks.
I think at the end of the day what we're talking about is setting up a process where eventually people that are Galetans and everything but name only, future residents will actually be Galetans and contribute more of a share towards the services that they're already receiving in a future state.
4:29 – 4:3621 turns
Yeah, so but the other bucket is that North Fairview. And I'm not interested in imposing you know, so this is not my sort of sense that if people aren't interested, I don't believe we would want to incorporate it. But what's different there is that It is not redeveloped already. It is not rezoned already. We asked, we wanted, we talked about having a seat at the table if there is proposals and the fact that they have that low density housing doesn't mean there's no capacity to rezone it to higher density.
That in a future effort and who knows what the future rezone would look like or that is what the state would accept from the county and us But we know they're going to be searching hither and yon, the county, to find sites. And it'll be When the time comes, I want us to be able to have some influence if possible to look after the folks who are there. And so again, if they're not interested that's fine but want to see what we can do to pursue our goals, our ambitions or that is our visions for the area.
I'm happy to make
a motion if we're done with
discussion but we may not be done. Mayor Pro Tem Smith had her question.
Yeah I also just wanted to comment in terms of the comment letter that came in. In the meeting with the county It was discussed that this process, our understanding in terms of the vision from council, you know, that the intent is not to disrupt the planning processes that are currently underway. So I anticipate that's probably the primary concern of the commenter here, so again this is sort of just with the eye towards the future but the intention is not to interfere with the current pending projects. This is going to take time So I just wanted to make that note. And to Council Member Kasdan's point, the city of Goleta is gonna be under right the same pressures to also identify sites in the next cycle so we will share that challenge.
Okay, so I'm going to close the public testimony and close the public hearing. And go into more deliberations or a motion?
I'm happy to make a motion. I'll move staff recommendations A, B and C. Provide feedback on draft revisions to general plan figure 2.4, potential City of Goleta service areas. One, remove Ocean Meadows and North Fairview areas. Two, keep Glen Annie golf course in expanded South Patterson areas. B, authorize staff to submit a sphere of influence application.
Based on the draft revisions to general plan figure 2-4, sorry I think I said 2.4 earlier, 2- 4 to LAFCO and direct staff to return with a request to initiate related general plan amendments.
Question? Does that imply...
I need a second before question. Is there a second?
I'll second.
Okay go ahead.
Yeah does that imply as far It doesn't adjust or affect the service area?
Nothing in my motion as I understand it changes our future well, actually yeah it does. Okay. Yeah it does for purposes of submitting the application
Well can we retain the service area map as opposed to the proposal, as Director Imhoff described and then submit nevertheless proposal for the sphere of influence that reflects the Glen Annie and expanded South Patterson.
Madam Mayor, there's a motion and a second on the floor for Councilmember Kasdan to propose that change it would have to either be an amendment to the current motion or a second or another motion. As a friendly amendment?
I need to hear input from staff before I'd be willing to entertain it. Can we get staff input during a discussion of a motion? Okay, can you opine on whether or not we can accomplish what Council Member Kasten is requesting with the motion as currently stated or would that require a friendly
amendment? Mayor and Council Member Cariocco, I think you could. So what you would be doing is you'd be amending bullet point A1 with respect to Ocean Meadows and North Fairview areas and we just need clear direction from council if you want to retain a particular area which area do you want to retain From the staff perspective it doesn't make sense to keep Ocean Meadows for the reasons that Ms. Wells stated, it's now open space and part of the university so the question would really just center around the North Fairview area is that something you want to retain in our service area or does it not make sense at this point?
I mean I'm not really interested in it but if it's the difference between us being successful tonight or not I'd be willing to consider it so I guess for now I would respectfully reject the Friendly Amendment. Let's see where we land after the motion and second are voted on, and I'm happy to make an alternative motion if this one fails.
I'm
worried I'm gonna lose my second.
Mr. Rosen, can you help us out on this one?
Yes Mayor, so there is a pending motion and second on the floor for staff's recommendation, so at this time that's what the Council is considering.
4:36 – 4:4111 turns
I'm basically moving A, B and C as written. As stated. Do I need to reread it
in its entirety? Council Member Carioca, I think that's fine. I would ask Council Member Reyes-Martin just in light of that conversation with that unamended motion that your second still holds.
Yes.
Are we clear now? Yeah. Do we need to make the motion again? No, but we've got the pending motion. So we have a motion and a second. Roll call vote.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–1 motion and a second. Roll call
Show transcript
Okay. Thank you. We need
to go on to council comments, standing
committees. Any reports?
I just have a brief comment. I'm the council's representative for meetings with Southern California Edison, which since I started on, just hadn't been meeting and just wanted to note that those meetings are just now starting up again so... I think with some of the aftermath of the LA fires and their staff's attention, understandably was directed in other places.
So hopefully more to come there but just wanted to share that update.
We had a really robust Energy Green Issues Standing Committee meeting. Some of the agenda topics included an update on how our solar and EV chargers are performing. They're performing really well, that's the gist of that. We got an update on climate adaptation and a sea level rise planning grant that staff is pursuing. We had a presentation on the local government climate alliance proposal as just a way for cities to get together, to advocate for climate related policies and briefly discuss potential future topics but it was really great meeting. Thank you to staff for always doing a great job with those meetings.
We had a homelessness committee meeting and we mainly discussed the grants. We selected three, and they'll come back to the full council for approval. Also I just wanted to let you know that I participated in the APCD They had an air purifier giveaway last Saturday, and they had electric cars. And they had a food truck. I was there for a couple hours so it was well attended.
I just got a report over 400 air purifiers. I don't know. So I just wanted to report on that. Also, I was at MTD today and our microtransit, the wave is due to expire. It started last April but They've decided to keep it going another year, along with Carpinteria's getting one. It was a pilot program for us and then it was gonna move to Carpinteria. Well, Carpinteria will get it as well. They'll get two vans and we're been doing pretty well with one van so that's good because I know that there are people that use it. And then last Friday, City Manager Robert Nisbet and I went to a mayor's leadership, what are they calling it now? Leadership workshop.
And it was in Bealton. Bealton hosted it. We moved it around and it was very well attended. And we had a report on federal stuff and state and Do you think of anything, it was informative but mainly what I got from it were just sharing with other mayors and city managers what's going on in their city. And concerns or Pat yourself on the back and what you're doing well.
Yeah, no it was very interesting and actually the most interesting thing for me was if he stayed later which I did I know you had to run because they ran out of time. They did have a tour of this new Waldorf Elementary School which is essentially built in these kind of yurts and so we went over and saw the classrooms and talked to the two women who have created this elementary school and they said that the rules are that there is no screen time for either the kids or the parents at home when they're around the kids until the kids are seven, which I thought was a great idea.
4:41 – 4:421 turns
Okay thank you that's all I have anybody else? No okay meeting adjourned