Planning Commission

Mr. Villalobos, would you please make the TV coverage announcement?

Yes, good morning Mr. Chair and to the rest of the Commission. Planning Commission hearings are televised live on County Santa Barbara Television CSB TV channel 20 at 9 a.m. in the South Coast Lompoc, St. Innes Valley, San Maria and Orca areas. Rebroadcasted Planning Commission hearings are on Fridays at 5 p.m.. On CSB TV Channel 20. Today's hearing will also be streamed live on the county's website as well as the county's YouTube channel and will be available for download in a day or two. Should I move onto roll call?

Please.

be joining us shortly.

Great, could we please move on to the agenda status report?

Good morning chair and commissioners in regards to the status of our agenda there will not be a director's report today as Director Plowman is out of the area And then if we look at our standard agenda, there are two items on our standard agenda. The HAGFAR's rezone and then also the 2025 Comprehensive Plan Annual Progress Report. And staff and applicants are here and ready to present on those items.

OK, thank you. Could we move on to the projection report?

Chair and Commissioners, we look at the upcoming hearings. Our next hearing will be next week on March 11th and that will be in Santa Maria. There are two items on that one there is one item which is a government code consistency and then the ordinance amendments related to utility scale solar projects and again that is in Santa Maria next week. And then when we looked down later in the month on March 25th We have two items on that hearing. We have the Chick-fil-A project in the Eastern Goleta Valley area, and then we also have the comprehensive plan amendment and zone map amendment on the same area in the Eastern Goleta Valley.

That will be here in Santa Barbara on March 25th. As of right now, there are no items projected for April 1st and we don't anticipate there will be any. So I'll be making a recommendation to cancel the April 1st hearing. Then on April 8th, we have one item projected which is the oil and gas ordinance amendments that will be in Santa Maria on April 8. And then later in April, we have April 29th. As of right now, we only have one item projected for that which is a development plan and CDP in the Solomon area.

That takes no other items are projected on May 6 and May 13. Actually there's no other items projected in May so it takes us just to end of April. And then if the commission would take up the April 1st Make a motion if you want to cancel it or not.

Does anyone like to make a motion to cancel the April 1st hearing?

Move to cancel the April 1st hearing of the Planning Commission. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Public comment. Is there anything else, Mr. Wilson? OK, public comment. Now is the time for general public comment for items not on today's agenda. Is there any member of the public in person prepared to make a public comment or? MR.

WILSON WILSON. Mr. Chair, I've received no speaker slips and seen no one rise. I also have no attendees online.

OK, so we can proceed. Planning Commissioner's Informational Reports. Commissioner

Park? I'd like to report on a couple of things but try and hit each one quickly. I attended the Econ Alliance Ag Forum along with you Chair Read and Commissioner Martinez was also there. We didn't sit at the same table, so don't anybody feel upset that we violated the Brown Act. And who talks about shop but things like that anyways? Anyway it was probably my favorite one of those that I've attended The panels were so good.

And I thought some of it had to do with, related to what we've worked on in the past. The report from our Ag Commissioner Mr. Chang was excellent. He pointed out that from direct sales, direct revenues, ag produces $2 billion. You add in services, it's close to $3 billion in this county. Look indirect, it is $5 billion. Some of the panelists noted how uneasy they were about things like the rec master plan and the ag enterprise element ordinance.

Not that they really opposed it, it just makes them uncomfortable about one more thing they have to pay attention to so that made me think well you know we've got the goose that lays the golden egg and we just need to be careful about their concerns, and I get that. But then the opposite thing which is a little heartwarming is we had a couple of panelists that brought it up to the other agriculturalists and said how they're taking advantage of it already and how pleased they are that it exists as an opportunity. So that was all good.

It sort of related to me to a panel that I was on a week or two earlier for the, I think it's Community Islands California Alliance of Family Farms and we spoke about is there a right kind of ag tourism. There was, I learned that other jurisdictions are trying to do something like we've already done. The City of Redlands has an Ag Ordinance they did for Orange Farmers, an Ag Enterprise type ordinance.

And I was told by other panelists it's interesting compare that to ours It shows that there are things for us to compare to. We're not on an island. I had a great question at the end, it was from a young staff person who said how do I talk to farmers? and relate. I think there's a planning culture and there is an ag culture, so it's not just ethnic cultures. It's something that I would actually like to get more training in. I appreciate the ethics training we have but this is something that's important Lastly, in going over my 25 hours of coursework that I'm jamming into one month.

I am taking all land use things because I don't practice some litigation anymore. A couple of takeaways. One is that so many people are concerned about all the new exemptions relating to CEQA and how we won't have CEQA available I also learned that some jurisdictions are, well really everyone in the municipal level is kind of chafing under the requirements on housing that the state has been producing every year. But some jurisdictions like the City of Oakland they're doing their own and finding if they do their own programs they can make them more flexible fit the usual planning concerns that municipalities have and still motivate housing.

And I know my particular concern is moderate income housing because it just isn't produced any other way, and I think that's something our county should look at is actually going beyond some of the state incentive programs designing some of our own for those particular sectors that we don't seem to be getting production on otherwise. So I told you I'd be long and rambling but that's what I'll do. Thank you.

Well, thank you. It wasn't actually that long but I also attended the Ag Econ Ag Conference and it's a great conference every year helps really bring to the fore the great contributions of agriculture to the county and really through its panels and the discussion from the County Ag Director brings in the scope and variety of products it provides, the employment it provides, and the general importance. And I just think one item of interest is you know derived from the panels of growers and other individuals that really give great insight into the issues faced by agriculture, as well as the potential effects both positive and negative that we as regulators in the county can have on them. So I said deeply important insights finally Just an interesting item.

We know a great many of our agricultural products in the county are exported. The five main export countries are Canada and Mexico, interesting, but also Japan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. So I found those to be quite interesting. So with that, I will conclude my report. Any others? No. OK, thank you. We need to move ahead to consider the minutes of our February 11 hearing.

Do commissioners have any additions, deletions or corrections?

I do not. would move approval.

Okay, all in favor of approving the minutes of February 11th say aye. Aye. With that we can proceed to our standard agenda so item one could Mr. Villalobos could you read it into the record?

Yes, thank you Mr. Chair. The following is a hearing on the request of John Hagforth's owner to consider case number 25RZN3 and to consider California Environmental Quality Act guideline section 15183 and recommend that the Board of Supervisors determine that the project is statutorily exempt from CEQA and that no further environmental review is required.

Staff, you ready to proceed?

MR.

KRINGLE Yes. MR. KINGTON Please do. MR.

KRINGLE Good morning commissioners. My name is Soren Kringle and I will be presenting the Hagfors Rezone Project case number 25RZN-3. The project site is a 1.4 acre vacant lot located at the southeast end of San Ynez along Highway 246 with the Chumash gas station located directly to the west and the San Ynez airport located nearby to the south The proposed project is a request to rezone the subject parcel from retail commercial, which is C2, to the general commercial C3 zone district. This request only requires a rezone and not a general plan amendment because of the parcel's land use designation as established by the San Andres Community Plan is already general commercial As you can see there.

No development is proposed as part of the project, but the applicant has expressed to county staff their interest in developing a personal storage facility which is not an allowed use in the retail commercial zone district. I want to be clear though any future development will require additional land use entitlements if they come forward In addition for allowing for personal storage facility, the proposed rezone would allow for 15 new uses not currently allowed by the C2 zone district and would downgrade the permit requirements for certain other uses.

These uses include agricultural processing storage for contractor equipment vehicle services and they're all listed on this table here are and are included as part of the staff report While new uses on the subject parcel will be allowed by the proposed rezone, the development standards between the C2 and C3 zone districts are virtually identical. This table from the LUDC shows that setbacks, height limit, density and more are all the same for both zones. And also just as a note since docketing this staff report Substantial ordinance amendment has gone into effect, modifying some of the commercial zones development standards.

But staff has reviewed these changes and confirmed that all these modified development standards will still remain consistent between the two zone districts. Staff analyzed the proposed rezone for consistency with the required findings for rezones and based off that analysis, staff determined that the request can be supported. The subject parcel is located near the edge of town and is surrounded by Highway 246, agricultural land, and existing commercial uses. Given that context, staff felt it was reasonable to allow for a broader range of commercial uses on the property.

There are also no sensitive land uses in the immediate area and the proposed rezone would not introduce uses that would conflict with the surrounding properties. As shown in this graphic, there are already several C3 zone parcels in the surrounding area including one located diagonally across from the subject parcel. Additionally, the San Ynez Valley Community Plan anticipated commercial uses on this property and throughout much of the surrounding area. So because this request is simply to change from one commercial zone to another, the proposed project remains consistent with the overall intent of the community plan.

And finally as mentioned earlier, the development standards between the C2 and C3 zones are very similar. The proposed project was reviewed for compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15183, Projects Consistent with a Community Plan or Zoning and was found to be consistent with the build-out anticipated by the San Ynez Valley Community Plan and its EIR.

And as mentioned before, no development is currently proposed and the project will not result in any new significant impacts not anticipated by the San Ynez Valley Community Plan. And it will not increase the density that was established by the San Ynez Valley Community Plan. So if the commission concurs with staff's findings, we'd recommend that you recommend to the Board of Supervisors to make the required findings for approval of the project case number 25RZN-00003 as specified in attachment A. Recommended that the Board of Supervisors find that the proposed project has been adequately reviewed for compliance with CEQA pursuant to state CEQA guidelines section 15183 and adopt the resolution in attachment B of the staff report Recommending that the Board of Supervisors adopt an ordinance amending the Santa Barbara County zoning map to change the zoning from retail commercial to general commercial.

This concludes staff's presentation. I know the agent for the project is unfortunately sick, but he is online and I think you'll be saying a few words.

Mr. Jones? Good morning Mr. Chair and Planning Commissioners, can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Thank you I just wanted to briefly thank Mr. Kringle for his report and to state that I'm here to answer any questions that you might have. I don't have anything to add to the presentation. Thank you.

Questions from commissioners? Commissioner Cooney?

Commissioner Park,

question.

We didn't report on ex parte contacts or site visits. I probably would have been the most likely to get that because it's in my district and I did not have any ex parte contacts. I did have a site visit. I just drove through the Chumash gas station and looked at the parcel. And that does lead to a question I do have. The parcel has a big ravine behind it, so I don't think there will be access through there.

There's a little bit of a drop at the highway. And I'm just wondering, and this is a question for probably you Mr. Jones or Mr. Kringle, what would the access be into the parcel were there to be this storage facility?

Mr. Chair, Commissioner Park, the access would be from 246 so we would have an encroachment permit with Caltrans to access the parcel. We did do a very conceptual site plan and I believe that entrance was shown to be towards the western end of the parcel. The drainage is kind of in the southeast corner takes a lot of the back part of the parcel

And let me ask you to confirm sort of an educated guess I have. I would think that if we had a retail facility on that property, it would have the same kind of access from the highway And retail being what it is that you want customers, not like the old Yellow Pages ads. And that there would be a lot more traffic in and out of the highway onto this parcel if it was ever developed under its current zoning as retail, as opposed to what you're suggesting or the general uses that people have for commercial there, like the cabinet factory that's out behind it.

That'd be a fair observation?

Mr. Chair, Commissioner Park, yes that's exactly the mindset that the property owner had in requesting the change.

Oh and by the way I should say I'm not reporting as ex-party contact because of course staff is not ex-party but I do appreciate Mr. Kringle your efforts to get a hold me and go over this. Staff has been doing that for quite some time now and either you all think that I need extra help or I don't know what Honestly, in five to 10 minutes and going over things with staff I can avoid an hour or two of rereading different things. So I really appreciate it. It was very helpful this time. Thank you.

Commissioner Ford? Oh no? I have a couple. OK Mr. Kringle first noticing of surrounding properties are they all been I'm going to turn it back over to you. I'm sorry, I keep doing the opposite. This action we're taking today it's simply a zoning change in no way authorizes any future development if any future development is planned it will be subject to comprehensive review as any other

Chair Reed, and just one clarification. This is a recommendation for approval of the zoning change to the Board of Supervisors will be the final decision maker on that. And then you're also correct that any future development proposed on the parcel will require an additional land use entitlement. Now, that's not to say that land use entitlement would come back before the commission. It could be more ministerial permitting path. That just depends on what use is proposed.

OK, thank you. One last question. I notice on the table of proposed new uses on your slide four one of them is cannabis distribution. Is that retail or is that a wholesale warehousing type? What does that actually mean?

CHAIRMAN CLARE DUDA & DR. JANET L. YELLEN It points back to the specific use section. Travis, do you have anything?

TRAVIS RODGERS That is not a retail use. That is more of an actual distribution operation. Cannabis retail is I think called cannabis

retail.

It would not permit a cannabis retail store there.

COMMISSIONER JANET L. YELLEN OK. Commissioner Ford. COMMISSIONER MARY ANN BORGES

Thank you. I'd like to know, you call out that as we've talked about no development but you also called out that this doesn't put into place any site disturbance. So what is there a difference between development and site disturbance?

Commissioner Ford through the chair, I don't think there is a difference. I think yeah just to reiterate like there is no proposed development. Yeah exactly no grading is proposed as part of this approval. It's strictly limited to the zone change.

Thanks for the clarification

So at this time we look for public comment.

Mr. Chair, before we move on to public comment I just for the record wanted I know that you had asked if any of the commissioners had any additional questions. I just would like to request that you also just clarify whether or not the other commissioners had any ex parte to report. Thank you. And for public comment, I have received no physical speaker slips. I don't see anyone rising and then we have no attendees online.

All right so do we offer staff have any additional comment to make? So we are prepared to move on to deliberation all right

Commissioner Park. Mr. Kringle, could you go back to the map slide? I'd like to point out a few things. One, as you just heard, the site that's in green is in an area that's marked general commercial, because that's what the community plan says. So anybody that was participating in the community plan looks at the community plan relies on the community plan would think this is an appropriate thing to do. This is not going to be shocking anyone in the public.

Okay? And you can also see that most of the, of that map is taken up with general commercial. It's right in the center and that's most of downtown Santa Anaz. Okay so most of downtown Santa Anaz which does have retail it's not in retail zoning it's in general commercial. So this is totally appropriate to fit in with the rest of Santa Anaz And as I pointed out earlier in my question, this site really feeds off the highway.

And I just think it's better for the community to have one of the general commercial uses as opposed to being limited to retail because if retail is going to lead to more traffic coming in and off that highway. That's kind of the last developed thing on your right as you're heading out You know, to come to Santa Barbara and traffic tends to speed up and all that. And I wouldn't like to see retail there people coming in and out. I could see some problems. So I think this is the right thing to do. It's been intended by the community.

We're bringing it up to those standards and I fully support it.

Commissioner Ford. COMMISSIONER MARY

ANN BORGESON Thanks, I too support it and as sort of simple as this seems being a new member of this commission it was really helpful for me to talk to Mr. Kringle too to get the actual understanding of the process, of the history and the specifics of what this kind of zoning change would mean so I, as I said, support it.

Commissioner Cooney? Yes, thank you Mr. Chair. I would just comment that this is a good example of the difference between two types of zoning amendments and they're laid out very clearly in the staff report but emphasized by staff today and it certainly seems appropriate to maintain that distinction and offer Applicants two pathways to change the existing zoning. So I'm prepared to support Commissioner Park if he makes a motion to approve.

And I as well think staff made a very comprehensive and complete presentation illustrating the fact that this change is in compliance with all relative ordinances and community plans, etc. And I would be prepared to support it in accordance with Commissioner Park. So do we have a motion?

We do and I didn't hear anything today that indicated there's any addition or modification of what the recommended actions are in the staff report. This is slide nine, I think it is. So I will move that we adopt the recommendations of staff that are set forth in slide nine of the presentation and in the staff report. I don't feel the need to read those they're already there

Commissioner Ford.

Second.

Motion passes 4 to 0

Great can we take a 10-minute recess? I'll see if Mr. Martinez is

done.

Okay And Mr. I wish you the best of health and hope you get better soon.

Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

of the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission. Mr. Villalobos, would you please read the next item into the record?

Yes. Thank You, Mr. Chair. The following is a hearing on the request of the Planning and Development Department that the County Planning Commission receive and file the 2025 Comprehensive Plan Annual Progress Report.

Staff are you ready to proceed? Please do.

Thank you good morning Mr. Chair members of the Commission Alex Tuttle with Long-Range Planning and I want to just introduce who we have here with us this morning a couple new faces so to my left is Kathy King she joined our team just a few months ago she's our new supervising planner replacing Alan Bell who has sort of retired for the second time now so Man helping to manage many of our housing element implementation efforts and then further down the row here We have Ally Castaneda a new planner with our team about us eight months in and Then Danielle Moore who will and Danielle and Allie will be presenting on annual progress report this morning

Thank you Alex for the intro. Good morning Chair Reed and Commissioners, my name is Danielle Moore and I'm joined here today with Ali and today we'll be presenting to you the 2025 Comprehensive Plan Annual Progress Report The Annual Progress Report, which is referred to as the APR, is a state-mandated report that is focused on reporting on the county's progress on implementing the Comprehensive Plan alongside the county's progress towards its regional housing needs allocation, which is known as its RENA.

State law requires the county to report the annual progress report to the Board of Supervisors, to the Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation and the California Department of Housing and Community Development. by April 1st of each year. The county also submits the annual progress report to the City of Santa Barbara in accordance with policies in the Mission Canyon Community Plan and the staff report package today you have, the staff report package you have received today is quite large we recognize that The focus of this hearing today is on a high-level overview of the staff report package. We will not be going into every single detail contained on it, rather our time will be focused on the projects that Long Range Planning is currently working on alongside a status report on the housing element implementation and our progress towards ARENA.

County staff has made progress in 2025 on preparing a few comprehensive plan amendments, including continuing work on the state mandated circulation, open space and safety elements alongside the new environmental justice element. Planning and development has also completed several zoning ordinance amendments this year, including the cannabis odor senior mobile home park overlay and emergency shelters zoning ordinance amendments.

The 2025 APR reports on the status of the county's housing element implementation progress. The board adopted the 2023 to 2031 Housing Element Update in December of 2023, which contains 25 programs and 99 actions that help address the housing needs of the unincorporated county. To date, the county has completed 58 of these actions and 38 actions are currently in progress.

As a note, we have recategorized actions with an annual work effort to be marked as completed in the reporting tables each calendar year. Additionally some actions also may have an outstanding coastal commission certification so they are split into two rows in the reporting tables in the APR and that is why our totals in this table on the slide add up to over 99. They are 211.

Table 1 in the staff report provides more details on the status of each of the housing element programs. And in the next slide, I'll be walking you through four examples of housing element work that occurred in 2025. So this slide spotlights four housing element implementation works actions that occurred in 2025. The first example is from program 4.2 which is on inclusionary housing units and is led by the Community Services Department.

In 2025, 12 affordable units were delivered under the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance. Six for rental units and six for ownership units. All these units are deed restricted, and they contribute to the county's affordable housing supply. The second example is from Program 10.1 which is on accessory dwelling units. The housing element set a goal of 180 use being permitted each year in the cycle.

And in 2025, we, the county has permitted 226 issued building permits for ADUs which far exceeds initial expectations of 100 being issued each year. The third example is from Program 10.4, which is on pre-approved ADU plans. In 2025, Planning and Development hired a consultant to develop four standardized pre-approved ADU design plans, which are intended to reduce design costs and speed up permitting from homeowners.

And Planning and Development anticipates this being released later this month. The fourth and final example is from Program 14.1, which is on water and wastewater support for housing sites. In 2025 the county supported annexation of three rezoned sites into wastewater district boundaries for the parcel of San Marcos 1, San Marcos 2, and Tatum. This work helps reduce, helps remove infrastructure constraints, enables housing development on sites that already have zoning capacity.

Now we're going to shift gears to talk about the Regional Housing Needs Allocation, which is known as RHNA. The Santa Barbara County Associated Governments, known as SPCAG, divided the county's RHNA into two subregions for this cycle, which are the South Coast and the North County. The unincorporated portions of the county were allocated in total 5,664 units for this cycle's RENA. The county must accommodate 74%, or 4,142 units in the South Coast total and 26% or 1,522 units total in the North County. Furthermore, the county's RENA is divided into four income categories which are very low low, moderate and above-moderate income categories. As we will later describe, RENA progress is only determined by the number of issued billing permits.

And in the next few slides we'll be walking you through eligible RENA unit types our methodology for determining the affordability of the units and our progress towards ARENA. Unit types that are eligible to be counted towards ARENA include single family dwellings, multifamily dwellings, accessory dwelling units known as ADUs, agricultural employee dwellings and replacement units. Staff works all year on reviewing thousands of applications which especially for the APR include our issued building permits in addition to entitlements and final building permits which we also do report in the APR.

Information on those two totals is also available in the reporting tables in the package you have received today. During the APR preparation process, units are classified as one of two categories. The first category is deed restricted which falls under an inclusionary housing ordinance or state density bonus law and two is non-deed restricted. Determine the affordability of non-deed restricted units which are market rate units staff falls affordability methodology that is shown on this slide.

Staff first compiles countywide data on for sale prices and rental prices per community, zip code, and with the number of bedrooms. Next staff uses state HCD's affordability calculator which is released annually to determine the affordability of the market rate units. Finally, the unit affordability for the units falls into one of the four categories, very low, low, moderate or above moderate.

Planning and development will continue to improve the accuracy of collecting data sources for determining the affordability for new market rate units. So the APR also summarizes the county's progress in meeting its RHNA for the housing cycle, and 2025 marked the third year in this housing cycle. As previously mentioned, the only permits that are counted towards a RHNA are issued building permits.

And in 2025, the county issued 452 building permits for new units in the South Coast. These building permits included 103 ADUs, 41 single-family dwellings, 11 manufactured homes, and three multifamily developments totaling 297 units. The multifamily projects we included are Hollister Lofts, San Marcos Ranch Affordable Income Buildings, and the St. George Development in Isla Vista.

This table here on the slide shows a number of billing permits that the county issued for new housing units organized by income category within unincorporated South Coast in 2025. In 2025, the county issued 111 very low units, 195 units for the low-income category, zero moderate and 146 above moderate units which totals up to the previously shown 452 units.

As you can see on the slide, there is an upward trend over the last three years in the number of units produced. And this year alone of 2025 saw more issued building permits than the previous two years combined. And the last row of the table shows the county's progress towards the South Coast arena as a percentage. This graph visualizes the number of building permits that the county issued for new housing units in the South Coast. The blue columns indicate the total issued building permits to date, and the orange columns show the South Coast RENA allocation. And in 2025, the South Coast produced 452 of the total 827 units.

However, as you can see the county so far is falling short on producing units for every income category displayed. However this is only the third year of the planning period so the county still has time to continue making progress to meet its RENA goal. With the various efforts the county has recently taken, including rezones and ordinance amendments to streamline the permitting process, we do anticipate seeing an uptick in housing production through the next few years into the end of the cycle.

So as long as the county continues permitting an insufficient number of permits relative to its RENA, it remains subject to SB 423, which we will discuss in a later slide. I now be handing off the rest of the presentation to Ali

Thank you. So moving on to the North County, staff issued building permits for 160 new housing units in 2025. These building permits consisted of 123 ADUs, 32 single family dwellings and five manufactured homes. This table shows the number of building permits that the county issued for new housing units within the unincorporated North County in 2025. The highlighted row shows that, of the 160 new units approved, 101 were in the low-income category, 2 units were in moderate, and 57 units were identified as above moderate affordability.

And finally, the last row of the table shows the county's progress towards its RHNA. As you can see, the county has met its RHNA for low-income housing units in this cycle. This graph shows that the North County is on track with above-moderate income unit production, but is falling short on its very low and moderate income RHNA progress. However, as I mentioned in the previous slide, the county has already exceeded its low-income RHNA in the North County.

Now I will discuss the implications of not meeting the county's RHNA. As a refresher, Senate Bill 423, previously SB 35, establishes a mandatory streamlined approval process for qualifying developments. SB 423 only applies to jurisdictions that have not met their pro rata share of RENA or have not submitted APRs. HCD releases SB 423 determinations annually, which take into account permit data from the previous year's APR.

Because the county's slow progress of meeting low and very low income RHNA, the county is subject to 50% affordability, which means developers must meet the 50% affordability requirements to qualify for SB 423 streamlining. The county did not receive any SB 423 applications for 2025. The preparation of this APR is an administrative activity that does not authorize new development or otherwise result in physical changes to the environment, therefore the preparation and submittal of this report is not a project and is not subject to CEQA.

To conclude, staff recommends that your commission take the following actions. To receive and file the 2025 Comprehensive Plan Annual Progress Report, authorize staff to provide annual progress report to the Board of Supervisors, the Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, State HCD, and the City of Santa Barbara. And lastly, determine that the preparation and submittal of this report is an activity that is not subject to CEQA.

This concludes staff presentation, and we are available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Nice job. This is your first, right? Good for you. That was very clear. I realize this is a very stressful board to appear in front of. Now we're ready for questions from commissioners. Commissioner

Park? I've got to illustrate why he thinks it's stressful, John. And you'll find it's not from harsh questions. It's just questions that you'll find confusing and irrelevant. But that's just life, isn't it? Now to very basically simplify our housing element process, which I'm sure Mr. Tuttle still has nightmares about every night as do I. The biggest action was in Goleta. And the most controversial were the four rezones that we looked at that were in the nature of 1,000 units or more and kind of played a musical chairs and had three that we rezoned.

And my understanding from that process was that if we didn't show progress in building these out it would sort of reopen it before 2031 And I see that San Marcos Gardens, for example, you're already counting it. And that's going to get billed. Some of the others, I think the progress is slow and it may reopen the ability of a fourth one to come back in which is of concern to people whether some like that idea that the fourth one comes in, some might not like it.

But I never understood when was the trigger date. When do these things have to be built by? Is this what you were just reporting on, and is the consequence SB 423 or is there something else? That sounds like a Mr. Tuttle question doesn't it?

Thank you Commissioner Park through the chair. Yeah, to be fair to the rest of staff. I think I probably have the most background on this one so I'll field it. Yes. I think what you're referring to is the no net loss which is a little different than our progress towards meeting ARENA and I'm sure Danielle could probably expand on what I say but... So our progress towards meeting ARENA all that county is ultimately responsible for is showing that we have capacity We are not developers. We can't force someone to develop their land. Our role is in ensuring that there is capacity to meet ARENA if development were to move forward.

That is separate from meeting ARENA and our progress towards meeting ARENA. So the implications, as was discussed by staff in terms of kind of slow progress towards meeting ARENA or maybe insufficient progress towards meeting ARENA is that the county remains subject to the streamlining provisions of SB 423 which is a project that meets certain criteria can be processed ministerially and it's not subject to your typical review. So that's ultimately the implication of if we're kind of not moving fast enough or projects aren't going as quickly as we anticipated, or maybe some projects don't advance at all and they choose not to develop.

Separate from that is the issue of capacity. Do we have sufficient capacity to meet ARENA if everyone were to try to build out their projects? And that's the no net loss issue and where we could potentially find ourselves having to rezone additional properties if we run out of capacity. And so what happens is each time a project gets approved, we have to look at the landscape and determine that by approving this project where are we as a county and looking at our remaining capacity, do we still have sufficient capacity in order to meet ARENA? Because typically what we've seen this last year and we've done this assessment I don't know probably 10 times or so is projects aren't building out at the levels of affordability that we had anticipated or projected.

We knew going in that we had fairly generous or rosy pictures. We were assuming 50% lower income affordability and a certain percentage of moderate, which isn't bearing out with some of these projects. So each time we approve a project, we have to look at how many affordability or affordable units are we getting relative to what we had assumed for that site?

And when it's less, we have to look at do we still have remaining capacity elsewhere with our other sites theoretically to still meet our RENA based on our sites inventory. And through that process if we ever get to a point where we're approving a project and we look at the remaining undeveloped sites and determine that we don't have sufficient capacity To date, we have not triggered no net loss.

If you recall when we did the rezone process, we purposefully established a buffer. We had a 15% buffer and then we actually ended up rezoning a little beyond that 15%. So we gave ourselves a little buffer knowing that we'd be in this situation. And we set for ourselves a trigger of 5%. So if we get anywhere within 5% of our remaining capacity, then we are to initiate further rezones. And yeah so far both North County and South Coast we haven't hit that 5% mark.

And we still have sufficient capacity to avoid a no net loss situation. That could change, so it's something we monitor and we track with each approval of the housing project. We have to do that assessment to kind of see where we're at and make sure we retain some buffer to ensure sufficient capacity moving forward. So that was very long winded answer but hopefully that's the information

you were hoping for. But a good answer leads to more good questions. And I note some irony in this, is that I recall at the time that the proposals that I was most skeptical of with respect to affordability were for county-owned property because we had certain assumptions there that were pretty darn high And I wondered how we were ever going to get there, but we'll see.

Whereas the developers came in in this sort of beauty contest for the Board of Supervisors and for us, and they were pretty explicit on what they were willing to do. And presumably they'll do that. But I'm still confused a little bit because The developer comes forward with a program, what they're actually going to build and you pull permits. Okay now that helps you determine whether you've got capacity still okay but what about the developer that just isn't proceeding? It's just going slow how can you deal with Judging capacity at that point.

I mean, what if we go eight years and we're at the next housing element time? And we've got projects that never materialized. They got rezoned but never materialized and then we've got other projects that would like to take advantage of that. When does that happen during this cycle?

Trying to dig deep back into your brain, if you recall when we were going through the housing element update and the rezone process. We identified what our sites inventory is and how we determine capacity. And capacity was determined based on a combination of things. It was vacant sites and sort of the development potential of vacant sites. So how many units under zoning could those vacant sites provide?