Board of Supervisors — 2024-04-30

All right, good morning. I'd like to call to order this April 30th 2024 special meeting of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. Madam Clerk can we get a roll call please?

Let the record reflect that Supervisor Williams is participating remotely today

and at this time i'd like to turn it over to Supervisor Williams who'd like to make a short announcement

I am just sick today so I am operating remotely per provision in the Brown Act to reduce spread of sicknesses.

Next item of business, our CEO's report.

There is no report

this morning. No report this morning. So Madam Clerk are there any announcements or changes to our agenda?

Chair Lavinino and members of the board, I do have a couple quick announcements this morning. We posted an addendum to the agenda on Friday April 26 adding closed session to today's agenda. The closed session agenda added to today's agenda is under conference with legal counsel existing litigation paragraph one of subdivision D of government code section five four nine five six point nine American Medical Response West v County of Santa Barbara at all Santa Barbara County Superior Court Court case number 23 CV 04250. This addendum has been posted and made available to the board and the public.

And in addition for the Board of Supervisors methods of public participation and to provide public comment on general public comment or an item on the board's agenda, please see page two of the agenda. Individuals that would like to provide verbal public comment may do so via Zoom by registering in advance via the link available on page 2. If you have any questions please contact the Clerk of the Board's Office at area code 805-568-2240 Again that number is 805-568-2240. And lastly I just wanted to make a quick announcement to any members of the public that are planning on presenting an either powerpoint presentation or pdf slides during today's hearing, to please indicate that on your slip to the clerk in the corner, Leah Graham. That would be very helpful and when we are calling your name if you are the second runner up if you can please indicate what presentation that is that you would like to be displayed.

That would also be very helpful and that concludes my announcements for today

Okay, thank you very much. So now it's time for members of the public to speak on items that are not on today's agenda so if you're speaking about rezones or housing now is not the time for you but if you're speaking about something that's not on today's agenda Madam Clerk any requests to speak on general public comment?

Chair Lavanino and members of the board it appears we have two requests to speak in general public comment today and we are going to Is that Santa Barbara with David Diaz Blue Wolf or I'm not seeing him on Zoom. And so yes we are going to Santa Barbara with David Diaz blue wolf to be followed by Marcus Lopez, David Diaz blue wolf in Santa Barbara.

Excuse me will let Marcus go first please and he's standing right here next to me thank you very much.

All righty, we will go begin with Marcus Lopez and then to be followed by David Diaz Blue Wolf who's our final speaker on general public comment.

Good morning Board of Supervisors, Santa Barbara County. My name is Marcus V. Lopez. Dear County Board of Supervisors, on April 25th 2024 I witnessed the destruction of Shalewa, the secret site of Chumash as trucks, skid loaders, Indian monitors and the China Island Restoration Organization workers Contributed to the continued genocide and ethnic cleansing of and against the Chumash people by the lack of transparency. As I approached this site and asked questions regarding the now fenced off area of Chalewa and the planned construction of a development project, I was met with silence and this reminded me of ethnic cleansing and genocide from the history of California to the present time.

I have contacted Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors Representative Josh Williams, the Park Planning Director Ryan Kotsky and the California Coastal Commission and informed them of our concern. To no avail they have not responded and have ignored my plea to protect the site of Shaloa. To meet with me and see what plans to protect the site were in place they have all declined to respond.

The site is a historically federally recognized site, a sacred site for Chumash peoples. This particular place has sacred and past agreements with the United Chumash Council, the Environmental Defense Council and others have been ignored since 1985 agreements and have been swept underneath the rug. The present project that is desecrating and destroying our ancestors have my concerns and call for actions are One, the total area is not being protected. Two, the fence that's been put up ignores the most sensitive area of the site. The soil that has been dumped has not been tested as part of contaminants. Engine monitors lack proper qualifications to be monitors.

California Coastal Commission permits and proper environmental impact reports have not been issued, a free prior informed consent by all Chumash bands of the Santa Barbara area have not been occurred. A formation of a Chumash ad hoc task force to review past present and future plans for development and the creation of a body of Chumasha peoples that oversee and protect the Shalewa to stop further acts of genocide.

I am demanding a cease and desist order in the present construction of Shalewa from the Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors. You, madams and gentlemen. Our review of the Indian monitors as to their qualifications knowledge of Shalewa and all parties related to these plans of desecration and destruction of Shalewa. Stop the continued disease of genocide and ethnic cleansing of our Chumash community, particularly on the site known as Chalewa. Hammonds Meadow. Sincerely Marcus V. Lopez Thank you ladies and gentlemen

Mr. Lopez just a quick question can you give us the exact location and exactly who's doing that work?

That is called Hammonds Meadow And it's in the coastline of Montecito, right by the Coral Casino. Down further in the coast area you can look it up and Google it is there. The other site what is known? David, the other site is known as what? Chihuahua and Hammonds Beach. No, what else?

Hammonds

Beach. Hammonds Beach area. Yes.

Yep. Thank you.

You're welcome. Any other questions?

Nothing, thank you very much.

We will now go to David Diaz Blue Wolf we will remain in Santa Barbara and he's our final speaker

Thank you very much Santa Barbara County. I'm trying to figure out, it sort of seems like your clerk of the board staff they're so nice and honest in receiving a letter from Alexandria, the executive assistant indicating that she had no knowledge of anything going on and meanwhile after she spoke all of a sudden there's All this activity going on and when I approached with Marcus the ceremonial place where my family's buried, it turns out the Indian monitors had no legal gear on, no helmets, no tools.

They're not even excavating around the dirt that's being brought because if it's Montecito dirt, it's probably from the floods. And how do we know there's no bodily remains of my ancestral peoples and your Thomas Fire victims? Perhaps homeless people who were never even identified or acknowledged during the floods. I mean something is way off base and I'm just surprised that this desecration game has been going on for as long as it has Because it is documented in your county records, it was entered into the National Parks Register and the first one with the State of California Heritage Commission. So we're trying to figure out what are we doing?

Do people on the Board of Supervisors actually have any power to tell the parks director, the new one who's just continuing this meeting. It almost feels like some of these people are representatives behind all the schemes in administrative offices upstairs. Apparently, did they go to Trump University or what? What's going on here? Nobody is listening to this contingency they're supposed to be advocating for and protecting. Thank you very much.

And that concludes general public comment for today.

Supervisor Hartman.

Director Plowman, do you know anything offhand or could you find out more and just report back to the board what's happening?

Mr. Chair and Supervisor Hartman there is a permit that has been issued to do restoration work at Hammonds Meadow I can look into a bit more and provide a report back.

Sure just make sure proper consultation has occurred and thank you

Okay, that closes out general public comment. That takes us to departmental item number one. Madam Clerk can you please read that into the record?

Chair Lavinino and members of the board, departmental item number one is from the Planning and Development Department. It is a hearing to consider recommendations regarding the County Planning Commission's recommendations to follow the procedures outlined below and above and approve case numbers 24 GPA 3, 24 GPA 4, 24 GPA 5, 24 RZN 1, 24 RZN 2, 24 ORD 7, 24 ORD 8, and 23 EIR 4.

to implement select programs of the 2023 through 2031 housing element update and approve rezone sites and select county-owned sites to accommodate the county's regional housing needs allocation, RHNA, plus the 15% buffer for the lower and moderate income levels.

Okay thank you at this point we're the board will go through our ex parte communications Because we're sitting in a quasi-judicial role here. Let's start with Supervisor Nelson since most of this is gonna be, where this is for, we're gonna go ahead and do North County ex parte only on North County projects at this point. Supervisor Nelson? Mr. Chair. Oh I'm sorry.

Mr. Chair thank you, I just wanted to clarify, this is actually a legislative procedure but because it involves individual properties our county procedures recommend ex parte.

Got it okay, Supervisor Nelson.

Yes, thank you Chair Lavinio. Obviously many conversations with community members at grocery stores and at church and anywhere you go about some of these projects over the last couple years but specifically to various sites. The Element Church site I've met with Michael Reed, Aaron Carberg, Pete Newman and the Element Church Board, Keyside 11. I met with Pat Cusack and Jacob Weintraub Keysight 10, I met with Pete Newman, the property owner there. The LDS property, I met with project planner Brian Schwartz and Jennifer Rice.

On the Chumash property, I've met with Sam Cohen. On the Boys & Girls Property, I've met with Berto Rodriguez, Tom Martinez, Dan Lillard, and the Board of Directors for the Boys & Girls Club. On the Constellation and Apollo projects, I met with Presh and Atul Patel, Gilda Cordova, Peter Simmons, various community members. And actually had a community meeting in the Vandenberg Village area about this project.

Keysight One, I met with attorney Olivia Marr and project applicant Brandon Marr Sorry, Brandon Mann Keysight 16. I've met with PCEC management on that including Phil Brown and see what else we have on here. Oh yeah, Keyside 26 Richard Ranch. I met with Michael Stolte, Davian Mavis, Pat Arnold, neighbor Susan Bryant, Lori Tamura, Jocelyn Brennan, City of Santa Maria officials, staff and elected officials.

Also talked to various community members throughout the community that are interested in that project as well as my ex parte. In reviewing my ex parte last night and reviewing the materials for this week, I realized that I have two campaign contributions that come in conflict with the Levine Act SB 1439. I received over $500 from the South Coast Chamber PAC and over $500 from the Home Builders Association PAC.

South Coast Chambers advocating for and partnering with some of the south county projects And HBAC Board Member Michael Stolte is a project applicant for KESET 26. I have instructed my campaign treasurer to fully refund both those campaign contributions immediately.

Supervisor Hartman?

Yes, so I submitted my ex parte by public records in writing but I also received a contribution from the Home Builders Association. So I'll have to figure out, I guess I have to return that. So thank you.

Supervisor Caps?

I will submit, it's a good idea to submit this in writing as well but the three expertise for this conversation would be meetings my team and I had with Michael Stotley regarding Keyside 26, Lori Tamora regarding Apollo Way and regarding that Latter Day Saints project, Brian Schwartz and Jennifer Rice. Thank you.

Okay, I've also met with Michael Stolte with Keysight 26 Richards Ranch on October 19th and February 22nd. Also had conversations and meetings on the Boys & Girls Club project with Berto Rodriguez and also conversations with Mr. Tom Martinez last week. Okay that takes care of Ex Parte. We will now go into our staff presentation. Oh, I'm sorry. This is probably going to happen throughout the day. Supervisor Williams?

It's all good. My ex-party communications including meeting with the applicants for the Latter Day Saints site on Wednesday April 24th, the Apollo Way on Thursday April 25th Richard's Ranch, multiple meetings Tuesday November 1st 2023 Thursday January 4th 2024 Friday February 9th 2024 Monday April 22nd 2024 and a phone call this morning. Key Site 1 applicants was yesterday, Monday April 29th 2024. And in the distant past I have met with the Key Site 3 which is only peripherally relevant and I do not believe I have any Living Act conflicts but I will disclose them if I become aware of them.

Okay and we will now move to our staff presentation

Good morning Mr. Chair, members of the board. Today we are having our first special hearing and Friday we have our second special hearing in our final step of a nearly three year effort to update the county's housing element. This is the sixth cycle For the housing element updates and they extend from 2023 to 2031. In this cycle, the county received a substantial allocation of 5664 units.

And that was divided by SB CAG between the North County and the South County. The South County received 4,142 and North County received 1,522. So the first step in this process was the preparation and adoption of the housing element that includes programs and policies, and that was done by the board in December of last year. These hearings are focused on the rezoning of land, and that's because when we did our sites inventory, when we initiated the housing element process, we did not have sufficient sites at the right zoning To meet our, it is on but it's not very loud. Thanks Chris. It's hard to hear? I'll speak more directly.

We didn't have sufficient sites to meet the RHNA allocation and so we were required to rezone properties to do so. And I just want to say before we start that the team has worked very, very hard and long on this process and they've done a great job. And I really appreciate all their hard work and I want to introduce them. I have Alex Tuttle, the Deputy Director of Long Range Planning to my left then Alan Bell, Supervising Planner, Hannah Thomas, Planner, Jesse Blossom-Steel or Steel Blossoms sorry, Steel Blossom who's our project manager, and then we have Ever Marrero.

So with that I would like to turn it over to staff for the presentation.

Thank you Lisa can you guys hear me okay? Okay so again I'm Jessie Steel Blossom and we'll get started talking about the housing element update rezone amendments. The county's housing element update The county's housing element update process consists of two steps. Step one is to adopt the 2023-2031 housing element update, and step two is to adopt rezones and county owned sites to accommodate the county share of regional housing needs or RENA plus a 15% buffer for the lower and moderate income levels.

As Director Plowman mentioned, on December 5th of 2023 the Board of Supervisors adopted the housing element update thus completing step one. The county submitted the adopted element to the California Department of Housing and Community Development or State HCD for final review. On January 22nd of this year state HCD notified the county that the housing element update was in substantial compliance with state housing element law The Board of Supervisors must now complete step two by selecting rezone sites and county-owned sites to accommodate the RENA plus the 15% buffer for the lower and moderate income levels.

Selecting these sites would also require the board to adopt comprehensive plan amendments to implement programs one and three of the housing element update. The Regional Housing Needs Allocation, or RHNA, specifies how many new homes and the affordability of those homes that the county must accommodate during the housing element planning period. The County's 2023 to 2031 RHNA totals 5,664 new units for the unincorporated county.

These units fall into four income levels, very low, low, moderate and above moderate. And they also fall within two sub regions that South Coast and the North County for purposes of the housing element update and our presentation lower income includes both the very low and low income levels. No net loss law is a state law that requires the county to identify and rezone additional sites within 180 days if at any time throughout the planning period, the county lacks sufficient sites to meet its RENA for any income level.

For example this could happen if housing developments build out with lower levels of affordable units than what was anticipated in the housing element. So to help avoid additional rezones, the county added a 15% buffer to its lower and moderate income RENA There is no buffer for the above moderate income level because the county has a surplus of land that is zoned to accommodate above moderate income housing.

Sorry, let's go back a little bit.

It's getting all over the place.

Sorry about that. All right, this slide that we have here shows the county's North County arena and current capacity by income level as reported in the housing element update. If you look at the red cell on the bottom row, you can see that the county has a shortage of 487 lower-income units. And I'd like to note that the Balancing Act tool has updated numbers that differ from this table based on changes to several of the pending projects.

In the South Coast, the county has a shortage of 1,664 lower-income units and 850 moderate income units as shown in the bottom row of this table. State law and program one of the housing element update require that the county accommodate its shortfall of lower and moderate income units. Program one also requires that the county accommodate the 15% buffer As mentioned previously, the county will accommodate the RENA plus the buffer through a combination of both rezones and housing development on county-owned sites.

The housing element identifies more potential rezone sites and county-owned sites that are necessary to accommodate the RENA plus the buffer. Therefore, the Board of Supervisors have some flexibility in selecting sites. I want to highlight a few of the things that the board should consider as it selects rezone sites, and we'll cover those over the next couple slides.

First, we have affordability assumptions. The housing element update provides different affordability assumptions for the South Coast and the North County. In the North County, the county assumed that housing projects on potential rezone sites would result in 65%, 70% or 75% lower income units depending on the zone density. And the table on this slide shows the breakdown.

As you can see, the percentage of lower-income units increases with the density while the percentage of moderate-income units remains the same and the percentage of above moderate-income units decreases. At the highest density, the county assumes North County Rezone sites will develop with 75% lower, 25% moderate and zero above-moderate income units. Housing costs are higher on the South Coast, so the county assumed that potential rezone sites in the South Coast would result in fewer lower income units.

With three exceptions, the housing element update applies a 50-25-25 methodology to all South Coast rezone sites, meaning it assumes that sites will develop with 50% lower, 25% moderate and 25% above moderate income units. The three exceptions affect Georgia, Glen Annie and San Marcos growers. State HCD set a maximum of 300 lower income units for both Georgie and Glen Annie, given their large size and several other factors.

San Marcos growers submitted a builder's remedy application before the housing element update was adopted so the county is using the number of units from their application. As a result of these affordability assumptions more rezone sites will be needed to accommodate the South Coast arena compared to the North County. State law requires that the county apply a minimum residential density of at least 20 units per acre to all rezone sites that are used to accommodate the county's lower income arena.

The county will also apply a maximum density to these sites to set an upper limit for housing projects. The county will add three new zoning designations to its zoning ordinances that set both a minimum and maximum density, and they include Design Residential or DR-20-25, DR-30-40, As an example, DR 2030 sets a minimum density of 20 units per acre and a maximum density of 30 units per acre.

It's important to note that increasing the minimum density would increase the certainty that sites will develop with a certain number of units, and decreasing the minimum would mean that the county will need to select more rezone sites to meet the RENA. Increasing the maximum density could impact the analysis of the program EIR which we'll talk more about later.

On January 9th, 2024 the Board of Supervisors held a public hearing to discuss criteria and priorities for selecting rezone sites. The board recommended the criteria that is listed on this slide here which are arranged in no particular order and they include the following Projects that include low, moderate and upper moderate income housing including projects that provide more than the bare minimum of affordable units. And in this case upper moderate would include projects that are for households earning 120% to 200% of the area median income.

The board also expressed a preference for projects where the developers partner with the housing nonprofit or the county housing authority to help achieve the county's affordability targets, or to donate a portion of their land to a nonprofit to develop the deed-restricted units. The board also expressed an interest in projects that partner with employers or otherwise offer units to the local workforce through master leases, write a first offer, or other innovative ideas.

Projects that conform to the respective community plan. Projects that provide for on-site public recreation amenities or community spaces, including the potential for ball fields. Projects that forego builder's remedy and seek a rezone instead. Projects that are located along travel corridors where jobs are located and provide some type of mixed use development.

Project that include a mix of both for sale and rental units Projects that provide affordable units that are deed restricted for an extended period of time. And lastly, pending projects that require a rezone in order to facilitate the development of lower and moderate income housing on site. State law and program one of the housing element require that the county permit development on qualifying for sale and rental multi-family housing projects on rezone sites as a use by right if they are zoned at a density of at least 20 units per acre, and they provide at least 20 percent of the units for lower income households.

As defined in state law use by right means that the housing project is not subject to discretionary review or environmental review under CEQA Projects that include a subdivision or other discretionary requests do not qualify for use by right. The county must amend its zoning ordinances to include use-by-right provisions, and as such attachments 6 and 9 of the board letter include amendments to the County Land Use and Development Code and Coastal Zoning Ordinance respectively.

After the county released its draft housing element update last year, it received 15 applications for Builders Remedy projects which are summarized in attachment 15 of the board letter. These applications include four potential rezone sites, two pending projects and nine other sites that were not included in the housing element update. The four potential rezone sites that are invoking Builders Remedy are San Marcos Growers, GRG, Montessori and Keysight 26.

If the county identifies and rezone sufficient other sites to accommodate its lower income arena, then the county would not need to rezone these builder's remedy sites. However if the sites were to be rezoned, the county would be able to apply more objective standards such as standards that help with site design like open space and landscaping, and they would be able to apply more standards than they would otherwise be able to under builder's remedy.

Additionally, rezoning these sites is necessary if the county wants to count the units toward it's arena The two pending projects with Builders Remedy applications, which are Baylord and Tatum, are located on sites that are inconsistent with current zoning. But nonetheless, Builders Remedy requires that the county approve them even without a rezone. Therefore, the county may but is not required to rezone these sites since they are included in the site's inventory as pending projects and they were analyzed in the program EIR.

Similar to rezone sites, it may be beneficial to rezone these pending project sites so that the county can apply more objective standards. Furthermore, Baylor and Tatum have stated that they would withdraw their builder's remedy applications and change their projects to include more affordable units if the county rezones them. There are nine sites without builders excuse me with builder's remedy applications that were not included in the site's inventory and were not analyzed in the program EIR As a result, the county cannot rely on these sites to implement Program 1 and accommodate its arena.

However, the county may count units on these sites toward its arena as they develop in the future. On March 27th and April 1st, the County Planning Commission held public hearings and made recommendations to the Board of Supervisors regarding potential rezone sites and county-owned sites. The next few slides will show the sites that they selected. In the North County, the Planning Commission recommended rezoning eight sites including Apollo, Blue Sky Center, Chumash LLC, Key Sites 10 and 11, Mariposa Real, Boys & Girls Club, and Hummel Cottages.

These sites would meet the North County arena and provide a surplus of 275 lower-income units, 416 moderate income units, and 906 above-moderate income units. For the South Coast, the Planning Commission recommended rezoning 16 out of the 18 sites which are listed on this slide here and the next. They include Van Wingerden 1 and 2, Hope Church, St. Vincent's East and West, San Marcos Growers, Tatum, and Montessori.

And they also selected St. Athanasius, Scott, Equil, Caird 1, 2, and 3, Friendship Manor, and Glen Annie. Lastly, the County Planning Commission also recommended that the board select all nine county-owned sites for future housing development which are listed on this slide here. With all the potential rezone sites and county-owned sites in the South Coast that were selected by the Planning Commission, the county would meet its South Coast RHNA and have a surplus of 228 lower, 254 moderate, and over 2,600 above moderate income units.

Rezoning sites to accommodate the county's arena plus the buffer requires amending text and maps of various parts of the county's comprehensive plan, including the land use element, the circulation element, coastal land use plan, community plans and zoning ordinances. Final changes will depend on which sites are selected for rezoning. Programs one and three of the housing element update also require that the county add additional standards to the zoning ordinances for certain types of projects.

We'll briefly review these rezone-related amendments, but Section 3 of the board letter describes them in more detail. Because the county is amending the zoning designation of rezone sites to include both a minimum and maximum density, the county must also amend the underlying land use designation so that both designations are consistent with one another. Changing the land use designation requires amendments to the text and maps of the land use element, which are included as attachment three exhibits A and D of the board letter.

All rezone sites must be located within the urban area in order to accommodate high density residential development. Three potential rezone sites are currently located in the rural area, and rezoning them would require an amendment to the Land Use Elements Rural Region Maps in order to expand existing or create new urban areas. These sites include Glen Annie and Van Wingerden 1 and 2.

Though these sites are located within the rural area, they adjoin existing residential neighborhoods or urban areas, thus making them logical extensions of the urban area. For example, Glen Annie adjoins the city of Goleta and Van Wingerden 1 adjoins the City of Carpentaria. Van Wingerden 2 also adjoins an existing county designated urban area. The amendments to the rural region maps to effectuate the urban-rural boundary changes can be found in attachments 3 & 7 of the board letter.

Staff is also proposing a new parks and recreation policy in the land use element that would apply to future housing development. This policy would require the incorporation of connections for public use with or between existing bikeways, pedestrian routes and other trail infrastructure where applicable. This policy will promote healthy communities by increasing walkability, multimodal transportation, neighborhood connectivity to and between commercial services and public recreational opportunities.

This policy would also complement other parks and recreation policies in the land use element and mitigation measures identified in the program EIR to reduce vehicle miles traveled, or VMT. This policy can be found in Attachment 4 of the board letter. Two potential rezone sites in the North County are key sites that are described in the ORCA Community Plan, and those sites are Key Sites 10 and 11 If the board selects these sites for rezoning, certain policies will need to be updated to reflect new zoning and land use designations.

Figure Key Site 11-1 which includes zoning and land use information will also need to be updated. Attachment 3 Exhibit B includes the Orca Community Plan amendments as recommended by the Planning Commission. The county is also proposing an amendment to the circulation element The circulation element identifies capacities called levels of service or LOS that are considered acceptable normal operations for different roadways and intersections.

However, in some areas these LOS standards could represent a significant constraint to housing projects and the county's obligation to meet its arena and remove barriers to housing development. Staff anticipates that some housing projects enabled by the rezones could result in some roadway and intersections operating below current LOS standards, and improvements that would be necessary to fully offset a project's impacts to roadway or intersections may be infeasible due to physical limitations or they may render projects infeasible.

To help alleviate this constraint, staff is proposing to amend the circulation element to add an exemption from LOS standards for qualifying projects on housing sites that are relied upon to meet the county's RHNA. This exemption clarifies that projects must still implement roadway and intersection improvements to address effects on LOS as determined acceptable by County Public Works.

and they are only exempted from fully offsetting impacts if doing so would render the project infeasible or require a reduction in density. Staff believes this is consistent with various state housing laws, including the Housing Accountability Act which limits a jurisdiction's ability to deny housing projects or reduce their density especially if it's an affordable housing project unless there is a specific public health or safety impact This is an interim measure while staff works on a comprehensive update to the county circulation element, which will include an analysis of roadway and intersection standards and appropriate levels of service countywide.

The LOS exemption in the circulation element amendment can be found in attachment four of the board letter. As mentioned earlier, Program 1 of the housing element directs the county to amend the zoning ordinances to reflect use-by-right provisions for qualifying projects on rezone sites. Accordingly staff included these amendments in Attachments 6 and Attachment 9 to the board letter.

Within these amendments staff also included replacement housing provisions to implement Program 3 In short, these provisions require that existing or previously demolished housing units be replaced on non-vacant sites in the site's inventory. And now I'm going to hand it over to Hannah Thomas to talk about the program EIR.

Thank you, Jesse. Mr Chair the board. The housing element years er is programmatic. A program ER does not provide site specific or project specific analysis. Instead the program ER provided examples of potential rezone sites that may result in environmental impacts if selected for The program ER analyzes a maximum build-out scenario. Specifically, the ER analyzes the maximum potential build-out capacity scenario of all potential housing sites identified in the Housing Element Update.

Sites selected for rezone under the Housing Element Update must include a minimum and a maximum density. The program ER analyzes the worst case assumption that all rezones would develop at that maximum density. The ER also assumes that eligible housing projects would use the state density bonus law to increase the number of units beyond those allowed by the proposed maximum density.

County identified more sites than necessary to meet the arena, plus the 15% buffer to provide the board with flexibility in site selection. Therefore impacts will be less than projected and the program are following site selection under Program one of housing element update which directs section and adoption of potential rezone and county on sites as we're here today.

Nevertheless some sites may be subject to future environmental review. Next slide please. The program here analyzes 16 environmental resource areas. Of these, 11 were determined to have significant and unavoidable impacts as shown in the above table. The program ER identifies 26 feasible mitigation measures to reduce the severity of impacts to the greatest extent feasible. Nevertheless, impacts remain significant unavoidable for these 11 resource areas.

Next slide. The program ER analyzes five alternatives under the no project alternative. Alternative one, the county would implement the housing on an update and would not achieve the state mandated 2023 2031 Rena. This alternative is not feasible as it is inconsistent with state housing law and general plan laws that mandate The Sustainable Community Strategy Alternative 2 assesses the impacts of relocating housing capacity to rezone sites that are within the South Coast and the Santa Maria Valley, in particular sites that are within the county's identified high quality transit corridor. And moving housing sites that cause significant impacts on vehicle miles traveled.

The three reduced project alternatives reduce projects A, B, and C would implement all of the same components All the same components of the proposed project, but analyze fewer sites for rezoning while meeting the county's reenactment. Is everyone able to hear me? Yep, OK. The program ER analyzed the alternatives and selected the environmentally superior alternative, Reduce Project A given it has reduced the relative severity of significant unavoidable impacts to the greatest extent of the four feasible identified alternatives. Nonetheless, impacts remain significant unavoidable under Reduce Project A as well as for the other three feasible alternatives.

Therefore, as described in Attachment 1 of the board letter, the project is preferable to the alternative. Similarly, the adopted project will more closely resemble the impacts of a reduced-project alternative following the Board's selection of rezoned sites with the lower buildout potential than evaluated in the program ER. Finally, as described in the previous two slides project and four feasible alternatives would result in significant and unavoidable environmental impacts. CEQA requires the board approve a statement of overriding considerations also known as an SOC for the approval of a project that has a significant and avoidable environmental impact. The SOC must document the projects legal social and economic and environmental benefits and show how they outweigh the significant unavoidable environmental impacts.

legal benefits include accommodating the county's 2023-2031 RHNA as well as programs one and two of the housing element, and implementing the other 23 programs as required by state housing law. These actions will help ensure that 2023-2031 Housing Element Update remains in substantial compliance with state housing law and as a result avoids any significant legal and financial penalties.

Social and Economic Benefits. The project's goals, policies and programs including the ReZone Program 1 will boost housing production throughout the unincorporated county. The requirement for significantly more housing in the south coast targets the portion of the unincorporated county with the greatest housing needs. Environmental impact, I'm sorry environmental benefits a large number of workers commute long distances to jobs on the south coast. This increases fuel consumption and consequently generates greenhouse gas emissions reduces air quality and contributes to climate change. To address this the regional housing needs allocation plan requires 74 percent of the county's arena to be developed in the south coast as Miss Steelblossom described therefore new housing opportunities on the south coast will reduce worker commuter trips The board of Supervisors is responsible for the legal, social and economic and environmental benefits of the project outweigh the significant unavoidable environmental impacts on the 11 resource areas.

And the adverse environmental impact environmental effects may be considered acceptable by the board. I will hand the presentation back to Miss Jesse still blossom to discuss comprehensive playing

And I'll talk briefly about comprehensive plan consistency. Staff reviewed the housing element update, rezone amendments for consistency with applicable policies of the comprehensive plan including the coastal land use plan and applicable community plans. Attachment 17 of the board letter presents the policy consistency analysis. This analysis includes a table that lists all of the applicable policies by topic area such as aesthetics, biological resources and transportation.

And the table includes a description of how the rezone amendments comply with each policy. Staff concluded that the housing element update rezone amendments are generally consistent with a comprehensive plan, and the amendments are also consistent with the airport land use compatibility plan as determined by SBCAG in their letter dated April 18th 2024. All right so before we begin reviewing North County potential rezone sites I wanted to pause here and see if the board had any questions on the material we've covered so far.

Supervisor Hartman?

I had a couple of questions about the changed level of service LOS standard, the exemption. The first is was that studied in the EIR? It came rather late and I just would like to understand how we know what the environmental impact of that change will be.

Mr Chair, Supervisor Hartman I'm gonna ask that people turn their phones off, please. Thank you. This was not actually analyzed in the EIR and that is because currently we analyze impacts associated with vehicle miles traveled. Historically we had used LOS as the standard for CEQA but that changed via state law a few years ago and so we have transitioned The program EIR analyzes the vehicle miles traveled associated with the projects.

The county did retain this LOS standard in our circulation element and our comprehensive, I'm sorry community plans. So you're correct as it wasn't analyzed in the EIR, but when we started reviewing the circulation element and that standard and assessing what was required by state law, we believed that this exception was needed in a temporary form until we update the circulation element and can get a better sense of level of service that we can accommodate and still meet our housing mandate.

So if I'm here understanding correctly, you think this is a temporary measure till we get our circulation element updated?

That's correct.

Okay and then I've been looking, we met with SB CAG to ask them about transportation management strategies. And they pointed us to the city of Santa Monica and the city of Denver that have TMD or TDM ordinances. Do we have that? Would that be it requires developers to then come up with strategies to encourage greater use of alternative transportation mobility?