City Council — January 26, 2026

Thank you. We have no proclamations this evening or presentations, so we will go directly to public comment. I don't see any slips. We're zipping through tonight's meeting pretty quick. I'm going to close it to public comment and move on to city manager's report, please

Yes, thank you mayor council have a few things to announce One is over here on the table, we have QR codes for individuals who are looking to sign up for our newsletter, sign up for flash vote or to sign up for the PBID, Business Improvement District seminar that's going to happen. Our webinar is going to happen tomorrow afternoon trying to make it as easy as possible to get the maximum amount of resident participation in the various issues.

So that Business Improvement District meeting will be tomorrow online at 1 p.m., should last about an hour. Also have a reminder, I mentioned this a few times but not recently. We have our quarterly cleanup with the waste management will happen on Saturday February 21st being in at 8am over here in lot 5 that's the one adjacent here to City Hall and the fire department we coordinated the traffic Better the last time and I did not receive a single complaint, so we're going to do it again.

And seems to be working overall better there. So again Saturday the 21st of February at 8am to noon And just by way of reminder for individuals, it is the third Saturday of the second month of every calendar quarter. That's how you can remember it. If that's not too confusing or if it is too confusing call me or send me an email and I'll clarify for you. Also a reminder that the grant funding window for the City of Solvang closes on Friday at the end of the day.

We've had our two mandatory meetings, so if you were not one of the seven agencies represented in those two meetings then you're out of luck this year. The Aquatics Foundation is having a polar bear plunge and I've gotten commitments from each of the council members that they're going to be there, but I don't know how many are actually going to be in the pool.

But I will be jumping in at 8am 10 a.m that morning, we all have our goal setting session so hopefully my teeth will stop chattering by then and we can have a productive meeting. The last thing I want to do is highlight a couple of things on the upcoming agenda. So at the next meeting on the 9th of February,

There's some language in here that says we agree to share and then it itemizes three things. Operations, programming and maintenance which implies cost which is fine but it also goes on to say that the district is absorbing the costs or has committed to the operations which I take to mean costs I just want to be clear before we say yes to the letter of intent that it is intended for us to negotiate these things and not absorb an obligation right out of the gate before we understand what those operating costs would be.

That is certainly the intent, and Lisa Palmer from Aquatic Foundation is here to help answer your question.

Good evening Mayor Brown, council members. Through the chair if I could you're correct the short answer is yes so the LOI the letter of intent is really a good faith commitment on all parties behalf to negotiate a formal joint use agreement. So it doesn't obligate you it's not legally binding. It's really a good faith first step to move toward the joint use agreement which would be binding

I'm glad you're here. Is the district, do they have a position that binds them to the operational costs?

I can't speak for the district. I can tell you what I've been told and what I think would be part of what would be negotiated. The district's position is that they can absorb the operating costs of the complex for roughly the same amount as what they're paying now for the operations and maintenance of a 60-year old inefficient school. So, that's the working premise So where the costs may be for the city again to be negotiated it could be related to programming. It could be related to future capital improvements those are not to be committed in this document but to be worked out on how what that process would be in the joint use agreement itself is that.

I want to make sure all three parties are entering that with a similar understanding. One last thing that gave me pause, there is a comment with regard to rental fees collected would offset potentially and it says specifically by Buellton or Solvang for the facility could be used to offset costs. So just want to be clear also that there is in the framework an expectation that we could generate revenue through the programming? Correct,

yes absolutely whether it's through your own recreation programs whether it's through facility rentals for meats, special events. That would all be negotiated as part of the joint use agreement and there'd be a joint use committee kind of a governing body that would oversee the use of the facility in that agreement.

Okay I'm good.

Does that work?

Yes thank you very much.

Okay, thank you. Because there was public comment I'm going to open it up to any other public comments for this item. Seeing none we'll close that for public comment and if you have any other discussion?

No, I'll make a motion to approve Item 6H on consent.

I'll second

Motion passes 5 to 0. Public hearings, so we'll go directly to item 8A. Would you read that into the record please Madam Clerk?

Land Use and Zoning Discussion for Mission Santa Ynez TEP discussion.

And Rafael Casillo Community Development Director is joining us remotely take away Rafael.

Thank you. Thank you, Randy and good evening council members. I apologize for not being able to make it there in person this evening. So before you, we do have an item that was given by the council direction based on a public comment received on November 11th, 2025 meeting. City Council directed staff to provide a report regarding changes made to the land use and zoning for Mission San Yanez. And so the public commenter who represented...

The public commenter who made the comments neither is not a representative of neither Mission San Yanez or the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. So that being said, I have a quick presentation to provide. Give me a minute. So again this is just reporting out basically what's going on so In the original, as part of the draft EIR and the initial land uses it was proposed that Mission San Yanez would have a general plan designation and zoning designation open space in public. So you can see the majority of the property was originally intended to be open space And a portion of the property would be zoned public. So that portion is simply just the rectory and offices. So this has been, this was historically what the zoning in general plan land use was.

However city staff did review it prior to going to public hearing and wanted to make a change to that in order to create flexibility as well as ensure that the Mission Siena Ynez was a conforming use versus a non-conforming use so open space In both the general plan and zoning designations is just that open space, no building, no construction etc. And we have a both a working church and parish as well as a state historical park so there's a lot of things and activities going on there at the property.

So ultimately in city staff reviewed sort of based on aerial as well as input from A land use attorney from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles who owns the property and city staff worked with the archdioceses to go ahead and craft not only the new general plan designation zoning, which is a expanded public institutional zone as well as a reduction of the open space area. But also you know worked very diligently with the archdioceses to craft the allowed uses in both the public institutional zone to ensure that the church would be able to operate in the manner to which it operates today. So that means a lot of parish activities that are directly connected to the church and the mission of the, of the functioning Catholic Church that's there on the site would continue on as an allowed use versus non permitted or non-conforming use.

So it makes, you know, expansion and or life just a little bit easier from a land use perspective for the Mission San Ynez. So again this was approved by the City Council in 2024 both the general plan in July and the zoning in late December. And again fully supported by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles so at this point in juncture city staff is recommending no change to any of the land uses That have been designated as part of the general plan and zoning ordinance.

Now, one of the main concerns that really drove this item was actually temporary use permits. So currently the church does host events that are not church related. A great example is the Rotary's 4th of July over the recent few years there has been an artisans fair on the site And so just to sort of give a history lesson, the city actually had what was called a special event permit section and this has been part of the Solvang Municipal Codes Incorporation. And this regulated one time events on private property.

The city in 1999 actually amended this code section and issued various amounts of special event permits throughout the city including Mission San Yanez from about 2000 through 2017. City staff amended the special events section, basically now sort of reflecting what you see in your code today as special events on public property and removed for just a very short time period the ability to regulate one-off events on private property.

In 2024, city staff revised the zoning ordinance to include the temporary use permit. And so what this does is it allows for a process for limited duration events such as festivals, amplified music that what is considered accessory to primary use. So in zoning we're really looking at what's called the primary use whether if you're a restaurant obviously your primary use is just that you're serving food. If you're wine tasting room your primary is wine tasting And then the residential zones, your primary use is residence. So again, the intention was to have sort of flexibility and issuing out these permits and introducing this common sense regulation as well as bringing back the ability to regulate these one-off events on private property.

So, initially the previous code required CPS for any form of amplified music on within the building. And this was due to complaints from neighbors and so that was solidified there was actually a code amendment about this in the late arts. Essentially between 2020 to 2024 various city staff, you know either let business owners know what was going on that a CUP was acquired and sometimes they didn't let business owners know so we have a bit of a toss up but now we have this TUP process in place. And again, this allows for ancillary amplified music for up to one year date specified by application. Of course with the businesses you have changing things and events so city staff would be able to amend those TUPs at no charge and our current fee is set at $200 and it takes approximately 1-10 days to process just really depending on the event If it's a one-off event like it's Artisan Fair, we then route that to our various partner agencies at both the Santa Barbara County Fire Department and the Sheriff just to A.

let them know that there's an event going on so that they know if they're just in case if there's emergency you know there could be a significant amount of more people than what's normally on a site Most of our businesses are fully complied and city staff knows exactly when these events take place. And so we let code enforcement know, especially if there's loud music. We have actually had a couple complaints and we've let our businesses know with issued TUPs and they're very quick to ratchet it down the noise because they understand that it is essentially a temporary use permit that's issued out and they want to abide by the rules.

And then sort of another facet to this, which isn't directly related are business certificates. So typically as a part of the temporary use permit you know we tie in sort of business certificates to ensure that those who are operating any businesses and in as a part of these events they get their proper business certificates and so business certs cost $125 for the initial application and 65 for renewals And these are valid from January 1st, December 31st of each year. So city staff has received complaints regarding the cost of business certificates specifically for first vendors that sell at artisan markets and other fairs for one or two offs. And so we are currently examining the cost structure of that.

And then to ensure sort of fairness accommodating the needs of the community and we are looking at the next budget cycle to potentially adjust those but again Community development doesn't administer this. We refer these typically out to administrative services. So couple all these things together, we feel that the TUP has been a very valuable source and we actually are not recommending any changes to our existing TUP ordinance as well.

But again, we're bringing this item back out to discussion for the council in any direction or decision. And that concludes staff's presentation.

Thank you. Any questions? We have some feedback.

Rafael, is that better now? Okay I'm going to ask him a question though. Rafael just quick question can you just remind us before we made these changes in 2024 the mission property was zoned ag institutional is that right?

Yes, that is correct. So again the ag zone actually created a non-conforming so many of the church functions are technically non-conforming and so really moving forward we didn't want a non conforming use on the site and so this was one of a few sites in town where went from non-conforming to conforming uses. This is just one example of that.

Could you just explain the implication of non-conforming?

So a non-conforming use has a lot of implications. The first one being in an event of emergency, or if something heaven forbid were to happen at the property such as a fire, a non conforming use could not be rebuilt in that exact location so there's a lot of implications to non conforming uses. So that's actually one of the bigger ones looking forward to ensure that there was some sort of conformity moving forward especially at the general plan and zoning level.

So I'll think of a terrible example. If an earthquake knocked down the mission, they wouldn't easily be able to rebuild without becoming earthquake code compliant.

It's not even about earthquake code compliance. It's actually whether it's an allowed use or not. So non-conforming use means it's not even an allowed use and will likely not be able to be reconstructed. And that was under the old zoning and old land use. So under the ag zone and open space zone Under the new open space zone, really open space is meant just for that. Open space with very answery uses.

Under the new zoning ordinance and general plan as adopted that has changed and these are now allowed uses they're permitted uses so it changes the sort of arithmetic if there was a disaster to happen on these sites. So in event of an earthquake under the existing general plan and existing land use that you have today these structures would be able to rebuild

Can you clarify what is considered conforming? If memory serves me right, Alisal Guest Ranch was also zoned ag or at least partially ag but now they're just zoned guest ranch.

Correct so again the Alisal Ranch went under the same issue. The Alisar Ranch it does have a conditional use permit So it does have a little bit more flexibility, but it was the exact sort of same scenario. That some of the items that were done in the ranch and under its previous zoning and general plan land use could not be done today. That's all now been rectified and fixed.

Okay.

Raphael can you clarify your conversation you had with the attorney for the Irish Diocese late last week?

Yes, so the turn to land use attorney Brian seamless from the archdiocese Los Angeles contacted city staff on Friday late in the afternoon and wanted to inquire why we're going over the zoning ordinance again. and ensured him that we were recommending to not change it. And they were fully supportive of no changes at this time. And again, the point of that being is both the allowed uses and the permitted uses and the zoning has been fully vetted from a land use perspective by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

So are you... Raphael did we talk to any of the administrative local mission folks? Or did we just talk to the Archdiocese who's based either in San Francisco or LA?

So initially on the first go-around during the general plan update, some of the administrators did approach city staff and that's where the land use attorneys for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles got involved.

Okay, I'm concerned that their feedback has not been solicited or heard yet because I did hear some major concerns when I had that impromptu meeting this past week. The concerns were, I think, something we should consider. Examples are There's potential challenges if we decide that, or if we simply conclude that their land zone is quasi-public or public. And public implies, right? People can...

and I think the church would want open access to their facility I think we have to be How we classify it might encourage abuse of their facilities. Just because by proximity, it looks a lot like our public free parking and They do have a mission. Their mission is to provide access to their church and even when they have open land, I think the open land is meant to be for meditative or spiritual use primarily.

They do have, I think, a tourist I was wondering why can't we classify the It could be its own designation.

We most certainly can, so I'll tackle your parking question and concern actually. Parking is an answer it's a private parking lot so if the church wishes to sign it as such and they probably already have they most certainly have it doesn't make it up just because it's public institutional zone doesn't necessarily mean that it's A great example will be our elementary schools and some of the other uses that we have under that umbrella in meeting halls. Those are private parking lots, and they're not open to the public unless they're specifically allowed to, unless they want to. So that's really up to the church to make a decision that really has no bearing on the underlying land use and zoning designation. I

don't think we want to be in the position Impose gating the church parking lot or impose that they have to manage it in some way?

We're not imposing anything. That's really up to them to figure out for themselves

I think by making it public you're implying that it's the same as every other parking lot in Solvang

Again, there are multiple uses on the site. It's not necessarily tied to a land use issue in terms of the pure general plan designation and zoning. Again it's a private parking lot if they choose to go ahead and gate it that that's up to them.

If I can help here to the, the name public institution in the zoning does not translate their private property into like open to the public property. I mean same with City Hall and all our city lots that are public institution. That zoning is separate from the decision of whether that particular piece of property is going to be open to the public generally versus just used for city purposes or in this case for them, the mission and their, their purposes so Raphael's trying to you know express that. Whether the parking lot is used for public parking or just for the mission parking, that is a completely separate decision. That's only in the hands of the mission and we're not dictating that by the zoning and public institution zoning doesn't have any bearing on whether the parking lot is open to the public or not.

Most public, they're not lawyers and they probably don't look at our zoning but if they associate it as public you know they're more than likely to take advantage.

Let me chime in just a minute. I'll let you know, I am a parishioner at Mission Santa Ynez and I have talked to the pastor about what was going on and we seem to be in agreement with what's the no action type of procedure And moving forward. So just if I can represent the or speak on their behalf, it seems like they would be fine with the what's what we have in front of us that being said though if there's no other comments I'm going to public comment anybody has anything

Well, yeah I just wanted to add just to give everybody a little bit of context. My understanding is that this came from an event organizer that is not affiliated with the Mission Santa Ynez but uses the Santa Ynez grounds for events And I believe she thought that the zoning designation gave the city too much oversight on events, and she felt that the changing of the zoning would ease up on the ability to make events. I don't know if it was a complaint about noise restrictions or the banners or anything that might be temporary there.

So I don't think it had much to do about how would the public in general loses a mission as much as how the city regulates events that happen in the mission, so I don' know if any designation would have any changes on what the city on how the city regulates events that happen there.

I think that the church should have more jurisdiction than the city of what happens on their land.

Well, if the church is not coming to us, I mean this is coming from a third party that has so I would say if it's a problem the church would be here asking us to talk about it.

Is there any public comment either here tonight or on Zoom? I don't have any slips. Any volunteers?

Hi Mayor Brown, Council Members.

Please share your name

and for the record. My name is Charlene Goetz. I am the event promoter of the Vintage Market that Holds maybe one or two events for the last four or five years at the mission, and I have a wonderful relationship with the staff there. Eva Cazares is my go-to, and we actually did meet impromptu meeting. We invited Elizabeth to come. And listen to what concerns that the mission has there.

With regards to parking, that was a huge part because I can tell you just in my experience with like the...I think I held my event during Danish Days and we had no parking because everybody was parking there for Danish Days so we were like In big trouble, we had nowhere to put our customers. So that was one. I know she's upset about the trolley being pushed around constantly as a tour thing taking up parking and making it a tourist attraction so...

I think to ensure the success and safety of each event I have there, I personally cover all the costs including liability insurance, the hired security, the parking attendance, Port-a-Potty Sinks, they don't put a burden on the city at all. I invest thousands of dollars in marketing. Yes, I have invested a lot of time but I have a partnership with the mission it's privately owned it should be treated consistently with other privately owned institutional and agricultural properties.

I'd like to clarify for the record that while City staff collaborated with the Archdiocese of LA To define allowable uses for a quasi-public facility, Mission San Diego staff were never ever directly notified that any land use or zoning changes had been changed on their behalf. So in notifying the archdiocese is it's like considered sufficient, not sufficient communication. It would be similar to the city changing zoning for the privately owned Alice Hall Guest Ranch like you said Elizabeth and notifying Sacramento to let them know.

but not informing the people who actually operate the isle of Saul day to day. The mission has long served as a cornerstone for Solvang and should not be singled out for hosting a few community events like the Vintage Market or the 4th of July. And I know that I've talked about this, I'm not sure if you were there Claudia, but the promoter of the Solvang's 4th of July celebration stated, I am in favor of restoring the original land use designation from Mission San Yanez so the city no longer has jurisdiction over events held on Mission property This would make it much easier for us and for other community partners to coordinate directly with the mission, to make them successful. So I respectfully ask the council to vote in favor of restoring the original land use and zoning designation.

Thank you.

Okay, I will close it to public comment and bring it back to the dais. I understand that there's for the T temporary use permit. There was a previous permit that was required also in the other, maybe it's just semantics instead of calling special event is now called a TV for this zoning. Yes, that is correct. You have multiple fee schedules for not-for-profit and The previous way if I understand it, it's really semantics. There was still paperwork and applications for special events.

Yes, sorry to interrupt. Previous to that the special event permit covered one-time events on private property and again these are permits city staff reviewed in our Laserfiche file specifically for the mission property there are a good about 10 one-off events ranging from 2000 to 2017 now after that date There was nothing and I can't comment on why previous city staff did not enforce their own regulations at that time.

And we do have various fee structures under the temporary use permits and the TEP if you're a nonprofit, while we still issue out a TEP there's no fee. Activities related to the church and their primary mission. As a fellow Catholic, I completely understand the parish's mission and the many, many facets of ministry of life from Knights of Columbus to other teen events and Bible studies. And this church there is very functioning in terms of having different pastors coming in and out and doing training. So there's a multifaceted stuff going on at the parish And all the events that are para-sponsored do not fall under the TUP.

The existing land use and zoning that has been approved and adopted by the council gives this church the maximum flexibility to operate as they see fit based on what's existing today.

Thank you for some flexibility, Rafael. My goal is to give them maximum governance. How much do they have to rely on or work within the city's boundaries to determine what happens on their property?

So, this is a quintessential zoning question. I mean the church is like every single property owner, whether it's a church or residence where there's underlying zoning regulations whether it's setbacks heights etc. So if the church were to, and they've had gone through various entitlements. The last entitlement that the church completed was in 1989 for the parish hall and that was a multi-year experience with the city and eventually got approved and constructed. So there are some levels of entitlement that the parish would have to do very similar to other property owners.

Zoning doesn't treat any differently a church than it does a private property owner But again, based on the current uses as designed there is as minimal of an entitlement process as possible. So case in point if the church wanted to build a new guest lodging facility for their incoming pastors and preachers that they train Based on the existing uses today, on the definitions they most certainly can do that running through just the simplified development permit process because it's an allowed use.

Conversely under the old zoning it may not have been possible under the ag zone nor if it will remain open space. That's the big fundamental difference between the two.

And if they wanted to build or expand their parking lot?

Same thing it's a parking lot, it's ancillary. It's an allowed use if they want to expand it. There's, it's just a street building permit there's no entitlement process whatsoever under the old code. That was a fundamental question of...

I'm not

suggesting we go back to the old code.

I'm suggesting we create a new zone just for them, just like we did for Mobile

Park and

for Guest Ranch.

City staff is disagreeing with that?

Yeah, I mean I think what would be the downside if we did that? Just to designate you know with parity of respect that their own entity, that we did a mission zone

So it's a general plan amendment plus a zone change. So that's a significant amount of staff time to create a new zone, to environmentally analyze the zone and then go through the processes of amending our general plan and zoning ordinance.

I think it would be useful to know exactly what problem we are trying to solve because yes, we can designate the mission as private property and there are several designations that could fall under private property. If what is it that they would like to do that they cannot do under the current designation. I think that's what we're trying to solve.

I think even Claudia, we need to be careful because even as public and maybe this is a deeper dive but as a public zone you know they are that opens them to different sign ordinance obligations for example so it becomes a multi-dimensional

Okay, but I thought... Implication. Okay again if it's a signage thing then I would like to hear we want to change it because then we would be allowed this kind of signage

right? I just wonder if they understand the all the implications of becoming public classification.

So again they already are public and institutional my suggestion would be that you direct city staff to meet with the administration and have go over what they can and can't do, and give a clear zoning in general plan land use sort of mini class on how these questions are asked. Because again this has been vetted by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and granted they're not the onsite administrators...

Honestly I would feel better if that were the case and we check that box because it sounds like we haven't. Right. I mean it sounds-I don't want to discount what you-the conversation you had Dave but I would like to formalize it.

I think probably if we need more information, let's table this for a future meeting and move on. Fair enough. And get that information that you need and bring it back at another time. Any thoughts on that?

I'd be happy to support anything they need.

Happy to help with that. Yeah, we want to be part of the solution not part of the problem so if that would be the case I'd entertain a motion to table it for future meeting with the idea that there'll be some additional information gathering

If I may, Mayor? This item was for information only so you could just give direction to staff to reach out to the local parish and discuss with them and bring it back. There's no motion needed to table the item.

Okay. Do we have staff that can do that? Would that be under your department? Yes Okay and Mr. City Manager, Mr. Murphy?

Yeah we can, we'll coordinate and have that discussion it may be simple misunderstanding like you said the communication apparently hasn't been the best with the local parish I would think if the land-use attorney with the Archdiocese didn't have concerns Probably not, but it's still a good opportunity for us to coordinate with them and make sure and alleviate any of those concerns.

That sounds great. If you need the contact information for either the pastor or the executive director there I'm happy to share that with

you

Okay, thank you. Thanks Raphael. Thank you we will table this for a new different meeting. Okay let's go to item 8B would you read that into the record please?

Introduction of ordinance amending updating the list of designated filers under the city's conflict of interest code.

Thank you, staff report please

Good evening Mayor, members of the Council. Thank you. Chelsea O'Sullivan City Attorney. This item is coming forward because on even years the city council is to review the conflict of interest code and determine if there are any new positions to be added to designated filers and make any other changes. Staff identified three changes for This round of review of the Conflict of Interest Code, including adding two new positions to the list of designated filers. That's the Assistant to the City Manager and the Assistant, excuse me, Administrative Services Manager positions. And then also consistent with other updates that you'll see in the near future are retitling the Designated Filer Planning slash Community Development Director to just be Community Development Director.