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Okay, Mr. Villalobos will you please make the TV coverage announcement?
Roll call, called by Park · 1 under review
Show transcript
be joining us in just a couple of minutes.
Okay, could we please have the projection report Mr. Wilson?
Good morning chair and commissioners I'll begin with the agenda status report if that's okay Mr. Chair and then we'll move into the projection report on our standard agenda today we have two items the first item is The land use permit and conditions permit for the Chick-fil-A in the Eastern Goleta Valley community area. And then we have the Rose comprehensive plan amendment zoning map update or zoning map amendment.
Agenda Discussionitems moved / continued / pulled, click to expand
That's number two on the agenda, and staff and applicants are ready on both those items today for the standard agenda. I'll move to projection report Mr. Chair. Our next scheduled meeting was going to be April 1st, but we canceled that at a prior meeting. So we will not be meeting next week. Our next hearing after that will be on April 8th and that will be in Santa Maria. The item projected for that agenda date is the phase one of the oil and gas prohibition ordinance amendments.
Again, that'll be in Santa Maria on April 8th. Following the April 8th hearing, we will return to Santa Barbara on April 29th for two items A development plan in the Sunland area and then a Los Alamos Investments Housing Development Project. And that's on April 29th, and that will be here in Santa Barbara. And then May 6 we'll be here in Santa Barbara again for the continued item of the utility scale solar amendment project.
On May 13 there are no items projected at this time. Then moving further down the projection report into May May 27th, we have two items projected and that will be here in Santa Barbara. There's a tentative map and then the Stanford Farms Trust Appeal of the Terrell Parcel Map. And there is no items projected in June at this time. So that concludes the projection report Mr. Chair.
Okay well thank you and with respect to the May 13th hearing I'm gonna have to be out of the area and will not be available So I would like us to consider cancelling that hearing. Do we have any comments from commissioners? So could we have a motion to cancel? So moved. Second?
Second
All in favor? Aye Thank you Now
Public comment. This brings us to general public comment, this is for public comment to allow testimony or a comment on any items not on today's agenda so at this time do we have any persons wishing to make public comment either in person or online?
I see no one rise. I see no hands raised from our zoom attendees
Okay, so that will conclude general public comment for this hearing next planning commissioners informational reports any reports from individual commissioners on interest items of interest such as planning issues seminars meetings or literature Commissioner Park, I knew we could count on you.
Well good, I like to be reliable. We report on courses and things we've taken. And nowadays that's not just going to a seminar somewhere, a boondoggle type thing. It's what we might watch on our television sets as part of our video education. So I've been taking mandatory continual continuing legal education courses on planning to keep my bar license active It took two last week that I thought, I'll never need these but I've just got to kill two hours to finish it off. And one was on section 15183 and one was on VMTs and I guess they are more relevant than I thought.
But the VMT ones in a general sense had a fascinating idea. A speaker from the Western Riverside Council of Governments They have noticed, like all of us, that VMTs are confusing to figure out. Many projects get them just because they have traffic and it's hard to figure out how to mitigate VMTs. This is under CEQA within a project so this new program they have down there WRCOG is that if you are generating VMTs, you come to them. They act like a broker or a banker and they have projects that reduce VMTs so you help fund those projects and that's how you mitigate your VMTs That's kind of interesting. You might think, well okay if I've got VMTs to deal with and I help fund a bicycle path that's one way of reducing VMTs but one of their programs for reducing VMTs is affordable housing because they find that some affordable housing projects, because they concentrate housing and because they put them in urban areas and because it allows people that would otherwise commute hours and hours to get to work.
That it does reduce VMTs. And it struck me that here in Santa Barbara County, and I always complain about this is that we don't have any funding for moderate income housing. We do for low-income housing, but not for moderate. And it's a danger to all of us because at some point policemen, firemen, teachers, nurses etc., will not be able to live in Santa Barbara County and what will it be like to live here without them?
And we generate a lot of EMTs as they come from all directions And this is a potential source of funding for modern income housing coming out of EMT mitigation. And one of my long non-Brown Act horseback rides with Commissioner, I mean Supervisor Hartman yesterday we talked about this. She's quite excited and I'm looking at you Director Plowman because she wants you and I to put together a little talk on this and so let's chat a little bit after this.
So I think that's exciting. I hope it made sense to at least one or two people in the room
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Okay, thank you. Now we go to the minutes. We're going to consider approval for the minutes of March 11th with staff submitted changes to item 1. Have you all reviewed these corrections to item one? Yes Mr. Chair. Commissioner Cooney? I will move approval of the minutes as corrected We have a second?
Yes, second.
Commissioner Ford seconded. All in favor of approving the minutes over the March 11th hearing? Aye. Aye. Which brings us to the Director's Report. So Ms. Plowman proceed please.
Good morning Mr. Chair members of the Commission.
Good to see you back
Nice to see all of you. I will work with Commissioner Park on this idea, I think it's a very interesting idea. It's true that we have virtually no source of funds for supporting moderate income housing and we're always looking for ways to try and stimulate it in fact we have programs And our housing element that direct the department to investigate opportunities to promote and support moderate housing. So yeah, I'm happy to meet to discuss that. And I've already talked to my staff about researching it, the Riverside program.
I don't have much to report on board items because there haven't been any board actions since we last met. But what I can talk to you about is what's coming up at the board We have our three-year work program for the Long Range Planning Division at the board on the 7th of April. As part of the budget constraints that the county is facing, all departments were asked to make some adjustments to their budgets and tighten the belt a bit and one of the things that we have proposed to reduce our general fund reliance is to keep two vacant positions in the long range planning division Thank you.
The two lost positions and one last position. So they get to see the difference if they restore one of our positions. Currently, we have 15 full time employees in that division or hoping to have 14 and we may end up with 13. And what that does is simply slows the work that we have. Thank you. But we will initiate that discussion with them on the 13th of April when we have budget workshops. So the board's budget workshops run the week of the 13 and the Planning and Development Department is up on Monday, the 13. And so if you're interested in monitoring that, it would be probably late morning that the department would be presenting in the workshop.
I also wanted to let you know that as part of the budget workshops, the CEO has asked Chris Chirguin who is the head of our IT department to present along with myself and Chris Sneddon on the progress with Acela which is our online permitting system. Both of our departments have fully incorporated Acela into our systems in terms of online services. We also have the fire department that has Acela and environmental health has Acela, and of course the CEO's office has it for cannabis. So if you're interested in that, that's going to be on the 15th of April we'll be participating in that presentation.
A local preference program going to the board on the 21st of April. And we're going along with Community Services Department, their housing division because we're taking to the board a concept of creating local preference guidelines for Capital A affordable housing that would be included in the rules and regulations that our county HCD implements with these affordable projects.
That would basically set it up so that people who were living or working in Santa Barbara, like the South Coast but living in the North Coast would sort of have the highest priority. So we could try and get people to live and work in the same vicinity. And that is a long-term objective for a lot of reasons, but one of them is VMT as Mr. Park suggested earlier today.
And then for market rate it's trickier. We all would very much like to make sure that all the new housing gets built as part of our housing element on the South Coast goes to people that are working here right? So that we can house our community There are laws in place that prevent any kind of potential discrimination and so we have to be very careful how we navigate this. But the concept that we have developed is, and it doesn't have a lot of teeth but I think it's the best we can do requirement for a marketing plan that shows how these developers are going to be targeting the locals early in the process and all of the publications that they're going to be listing their developments in, the businesses they contact, the work they do with the chamber.
And so that is how we are trying to get at it and that's what's going to be going to the board on the 21st. And we hope that it does make a difference. Most of the developers will tell you that they prefer having locals because they're more stable, people who are working in the community and so we're suggesting to them also in our program that when all else is created equal, you know, in terms of two candidates Please should prioritize the local person so that we can
yeah, I might know what you're kind of emphasizing South Coast in terms of the market rate. Yeah a tremendous need in the North County Santa Maria Oregon Hills areas because we're looking at one big new development now We've had others in the past and if there could be some I would like to So anything that could be done for the North County would be deeply appreciated.
I appreciate those comments and I think that'll be an issue that the board will discuss whether they want to expand it beyond the South Coast, yeah. I know I'm not agendized for this so council's looking over at me. Commissioner Park do you have a question?
0:25 – 0:3341 turns
One of the things that I remember from the housing element, I thought was really a nice piece were the various programs. Is it 25 programs or something like that in the housing element? And one of them was employee housing for all employers on site, not just ag dwellings. And I think that is an important workaround on this local preference because if we require a larger employer as a condition of something they want to do to provide employee housing And they basically buy a piece of it that some developer is building. As for their employees, I think that gets around the local preference constitutional issues and is also a good way to fund. COMMISSIONER
MARY ANN BORGESON Yeah. Commissioner Park, that's an excellent point. We do have one project on the South Coast where a local company is going to be buying I think it's around 150 units, and then selling them at a subsidized price to their employees. And it's the way they can attract and retain critical staff.
And I do agree with Commissioner Reed that it's very much a North County issue because I deal with folks when I'm volunteering on seniors Discuss those housing issues, and it's exactly as he's described it. And also when we talk to employers up there about expansion in providing more jobs in the North County other than some ag jobs, they all say the same thing. I can't really get the workforce I need because there isn't a
housing. Yeah. Yeah, the problem is spreading. The other
thing I will, Commissioner. This is of deep importance to me but I'm wondering in your definition of locals does it just include human beings over 18 years old who have a job here? Or do young people who go to schools here and have programs that they can only get, for example, in a certain area—Santa Barbara, for example—do they qualify as a local?
Well it's an interesting question. I would have to look at it. It's tiered right so there are higher priority people like actually have a job and a profession and they're working in the community. And then you go down from there, you might be the next category I think is somebody who has a job offer here. They're going to be moving to the area that kind of thing so we haven't really focused on students.
Students have been an issue. kind of a problem actually from UCSB taking up a lot of the housing in the Goleta area. So our primary focus is really more on our local employees. Okay, yeah thanks and then so the on the 7th of May we are going to be going to the board with a briefing and this is gonna be An item that will come to the PC eventually, but it is making sure that we are identifying the right areas where we want to create new ministerial permits. And this has been a long-term goal of the Board of Supervisors to simplify our permitting process. Right now, we are an anomaly.
Most jurisdictions allow a lot of different types of development with truly ministerial permits like for a single family home So that you don't do noticing and appeals and all of those things. So we are going to be moving in that direction per the board direction, and that is a package that will come before the Planning Commission. But Mr. Tuttle and his team are going to bring forward the concepts that we're looking at on May 7th so we make sure that we're going in the right direction before we develop the complete package. So if you're interested in that I would pay attention to that.
What date is
that? The 7th of May. And
that's all I have.
That'll be very interesting to watch hopefully that will happen and not create a feeding frenzy for appellant lawyers. One last thing since we're here, we have a workshop tonight in Santa Maria regarding a new development. We want to make an announcement on that?
Sure! There is a scoping hearing for the Solomon Hills project. It's a scoping hearing for the environmental impact report and it's going to be in the hearing room at the Beto O'Reilly government center?
That is correct.
What
time?
530.
An item there's been a great deal of interest on so I know it's been published but if anybody's watching this who hadn't known thus far might be a good way to spend a bit of time this evening.
Thank you for reminding me that Appreciate it.
You're welcome. So
do we have Brown Act issues if we attend? If two of you attend, you won't have Brown Act issues but yeah
I'm attending.
Yeah.
We don't ask questions at this either though, do we?
Vincent are you going? Excuse me? Is it
tonight? Just one question that this scoping hearing are we allowed to ask questions or are we only there to observe?
Chair and commissioners, my recommendation would be to observe only. This item at some point is projected to come before this body so I'd recommend not engaging or asking any questions. Observe only if you decide to attend.
Thank
you. Is this something that is available by YouTube, Zoom? Yes. On the county planning site?
Yes. But let me double check, I don't think there is the TV but
it's
recorded and people can attend.
It won't be live in other words so don't try to see it tonight. It will come afterwards.
It won't be on CSB TV but people can participate by Zoom if they want to provide comment
or just observe. And that information is on our site? Okay, thank you because I mean that's why I'm figuring I'll be working and I'll be looking from Zoom. Thanks.
Okay so are you finished? I'm done. Wrapped up okay so Mr. Villalobos could you please read the first item into the record
Yes, thank you Mr. Chair the following item is on the following is a hearing on the request of Turnpike Lodge's property owner to consider following case numbers 22 CUP 7 as well as 26 LUP 53 and to determine that no additional environmental review is required for the project pursuant to section 15183 of the state guidelines the implementation of the California Environmental Quality Act.
So staff are we ready to proceed? Please do.
Excuse
me. Sure. Ex parte, sorry.
Yeah
exactly. Commissioner Cooney?
Shall I proceed with ex parte? Yes. I had four meetings I'd like to report one was on March 16th a zoom meeting and there were two people From the Brownstein firm, Sarah Bronstad and Beth Collins. I had a separate zoom meeting on the 23rd with Mario Gorman. And finally on the 6th of March. I had a conversation with Neighbor of the project, who is Kathy O'Leary.
0:34 – 0:426 turns
Well I'll go right now. I had last Thursday a site visit with Brian Robinson, Beth Collins and Sarah Bronstadt. Commissioner Ford?
Thank you. I also have met with Beth Collins, Brian Robinson, Sarah Bronstadt and two community members, Mario Gorman and Lisa Kenyon.
Commissioner Park?
I met with Commissioner Ford in Sarah Bronstadt and Beth Collins and Brian Robinson at the site a couple of weeks ago, I think it was Met at Starbucks with Mary O'Gorman this week. Had a conversation at sort of a social gathering with John Price and his son Jason Price. John basically owns the project next door, and Jason's office is above Starbucks. And if I've left anybody out, I apologize.
Okay, so now please proceed.
Good morning commissioners my name is Willow Brown I will be presenting the Chick-fil-A at Cayo Real project The property outlined in blue on this map is located at 4765 Calle Real in the Eastern Goleta Valley Community Plan Area, 2nd Supervisorial District. The property is a 1.42 acre lot zoned retail commercial. Access is provided off of Calle Real. Surrounding uses consist of Highway 101 to the south, Calle Real and commercial development including the Ramada Hotel to the north, residential development and vacant land to the east, and commercial development including the existing Starbucks drive-thru to the west.
The project is a request for a land use permit to allow for the demolition of the existing restaurant on-site and construction of a new 2,647 square foot quick service restaurant. The project also includes a conditional use permit to allow for a dual lane drive through with two covered canopy areas. The project is a commercial use on a commercially zoned lot which has been developed with the restaurant use for over 50 years.
Restaurants are permitted use in the retail commercial zone and the conditional use permit is solely required for the drive-thru use. This is a photo simulation of the project as viewed from Calle Real. This is the proposed site plan. The project site will be accessed from one driveway off Calle Real in the northeast corner of the project site. The project also includes access improvements including re-striping the eastbound approach along Calle Real to provide an exclusive eastbound right turn lane both for the project site and for the existing Starbucks drive through to the west.
Site access was reviewed and approved by the Fire Department and County Public Works Transportation. This slide shows elevations of the proposed restaurant. The proposed restaurant will have a maximum height of 22 feet, four and three quarters inches which is significantly under the 35 foot zone district height limit and is similar in height to the existing restaurant on site to be demolished As previously stated, the project is for a restaurant which is a permitted use in the retail commercial zone on a site that has been developed with the restaurant use for over 50 years.
The drive-through is an allowed use in the zone with approval of a conditional use permit. As outlined in the staff report, staff analyzed consistency with impacts to areas such as visual resources, traffic and circulation, air quality hazardous materials and noise and found that the project is consistent with all applicable comprehensive plan policies. The project also complies with all LUDC standards as it is consistent with the purpose of the Retail Commercial District, meets setbacks, exceeds parking requirements and complies with all standards related to drive-through facilities.
The project is exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15183. CEQA Guidelines Section 15183 is applicable to the project because the project is for commercial use on a commercially zoned site, which was anticipated by the Eastern Goleta Valley Community Plan EIR. All impacts anticipated from the project can be mitigated by Eastern Goleta Valley Community Plan policies and standard conditions.
Although the project is exempt from further environmental review, the 15183 exemption still allows for analysis of issue areas to determine if there is a possibility for more significant impact than anticipated by the EIR. The 15183 analysis discussed several issue areas including impacts to traffic and air quality. The current metric the county uses to evaluate a project's transportation impacts under CEQA is Vehicle Miles Traveled, or VMT. The county presumes that projects meeting the VMT screening criteria in the County's Environmental Thresholds and Guidelines Manual would have less than significant impacts to transportation and would not require further VMT analysis.
The project is considered a locally serving retail project and is below the threshold of 50,000 square feet as shown in this table and is therefore screened out of VMT analysis. However, the traffic study submitted for the project also analyzed traffic and circulation impacts based on level of service and queuing which I will now summarize. The traffic study was peer-reviewed and reviewed by Public Works Transportation and found to meet county requirements The Eastern Goleta Valley Community Plan contains policies regarding maintaining a minimum level of service for roadways and intersections in the community plan area, and considers a level-of-service standard C acceptable.
Impacts from the project to level of service were analyzed for the intersections and roadways in the vicinity of the project site. The analysis confirmed that the intersections and roadways will still operate at a minimum level of service standard C with implementation of the project, and the project will not have a significant impact to level-of-service. The project will not result in queuing onto the roadway and will not interfere with circulation on site. The project anticipates a maximum queue in the drive-thru of 31 vehicles. The queue can be accommodated entirely within the drive-through lanes, which have a maximum capacity of 32 vehicles as shown on this site plan.
With regards to air quality, short-term and long-term impacts from the project were reviewed. The main proponent of long-term air quality impacts is mobile emissions. An Air Quality Technical Memorandum was submitted for the project analyzing air quality impacts and impacts from mobile emissions were estimated based on the anticipated vehicle trips as outlined in the traffic study.
Under the most conservative approach, which did not take into account that some trips are pass-by trips and did not reduce trips from the previous restaurant use on site. The emissions were determined not to exceed county thresholds or result in a significant air quality impact. The Air Quality Memorandum was reviewed and approved by the Air Pollution Control District.
In addition to the air quality impacts reviewed under CEQA, the LUDC requires that projects proposing drive-thru facilities show that the project will not have a greater air quality impact than the same use without the drive-through. The air quality memo shows that the cars idling in the drive-through would give off less emissions than cars parking and restarting for walk-in service.
This table shows the anticipated emissions for the drive-thru compared to the same number of walk-in customers at the maximum anticipated queue of 31 vehicles. The project is consistent with the LUDC requirement as the drive-through facility will have a lesser air quality impact than if the restaurant only provided walk-in service In summary, the project is consistent with all applicable policies of the Comprehensive Plan including the Eastern Goleta Valley Community Plan. The project is consistent with all standards in the LUDC including standards related to drive-through facilities and the project will not result in a significant environmental impact Staff recommends that your commission make required findings for approval of the project, determine the project is exempt pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15183 and approve the project subject to the conditions of approval.
This concludes staff's presentation. Staff and the applicant are available for any questions. We also have Will Robertson from Public Works Transportation online to answer any questions related to transportation review.
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All right, questions from commissioners? Commissioner Ford.
COMMISSIONER MARY ANN BORGESON Thanks. I greatly appreciate all the reports from both sides, super comprehensive. Just wondering about the traffic report. Who actually enforces the jams that we have all seen or experienced, talked about or heard about? The ones right in the middle of
I'm sorry, Commissioner Ford. The traffic jams like cars lined up in the street? Yes. Will Robertson are you able to answer that question for us?
Mr. Chair, Commissioner Ford, Will Robertson, County Transportation staff. So just for clarity when you're asking who enforces the, did you say backups or congestion? Are you meeting from the existing land uses or
Just in general, I mean, I don't know about other existing land uses that have documented traffic jams like this particular one. So who enforces it?
So the reason I ask is because there's going to be a lot of discussion about the Starbucks to the west and the queuing that occurs with that Starbucks. Technically, the enforcement arm would be And I'm going to start with the highway patrol. Okay, and then it would be dependent on whether or not the vehicles are actually violating the vehicle code. So it is just because vehicles back out onto a roadway is not necessarily a violation of the vehicle codes so as a lot of people are aware enforcement of something like that in the city of Santa Barbara with the Chick-fil-A there was quite nerve wracking So I'm going to go back to my statement. The official enforcement arm would be the highway patrol, but depending on conditions of approval of the project it could be planning and development or transportation staff.
Thanks.
Is
that all? OK, Commissioner Martinez.
Yes, good morning. My question is in regards to your slide number 8. In regards to these calculations, does the traffic study or whoever does these things, do they just use an accepted general standard? We got a small project, so therefore we plug in the number for 110 trips or fewer trips a day. Is that the way it's worked? Or is there a look at the reality? And the reason I'm asking this question is because, I mean, we know, I mean, we just can't ignore the reality when you drive by Chick-fil-A. It's going to have way more cars than I hate to say it, Lynn Carl's Jr. or even McDonald's sometimes but I think their best comparison is in and out so that's why I'm asking this question is this just an accepted standard that says okay you're 50 you're so many square feet the lots this much this is a number that gets plugged in is that what happens or do we consider other factors?
Mr. Chair, Commissioner Martinez the VMT screening criteria is from our thresholds and guidelines manual this is considered locally serving retail so the threshold for VMT specifically is 50,000 square feet but the project was also analyzed based on level of service impacts for the surrounding roadways and intersections as well as a queuing analysis done to ensure that cars would not be backing into the roadway
Okay, that went right over my head. So when you when you so this hundred and ten is this what we're saying is 110 trips or fewer per day for the site?
Mr. Chair, Commissioner Martinez the sorry the small projects row is not applicable to this project that was just also in the table but this is only related to the locally serving retail category and yes for specifically for CEQA like vehicle miles traveled that type of transportation review we do screen it out based on the square footage
So in this instance, can you tell me how many during the traffic analysis? How many trips were anticipated or is forecasted for the site which obviously is going to be Monday through Saturday since they're not open Sundays. Do we arrive at a forecasted number for that?
Mr. Chair, Commissioner Martinez I believe the vehicle trips estimated was 971 trips per day and that reduced some trips based on pass-by trips so just people passing by and stopping out of convenience but did not reduce based on the existing IHOP.
Okay thank you. Commissioner Martinez if I could add something to staff's comments It's important to understand that this is a CEQA threshold that triggers a certain level of mitigation required but it doesn't mean that we, if the project is under that threshold and we don't study it like this had additional traffic analysis even though it came in under this threshold.
Okay. And because that's where I was looking in regards to, let me get to the slide here. An odor abatement plan on number 11 proposed in compliance with what is an odor abatement plan for a car?
Mr. Chair, Commissioner Martinez there's an Eastern Goleta Valley Community Plan policy requiring odor abatement plans for any project that could produce odor including fast food restaurants and so the applicant submitted I believe it was attachment F to the staff report but I would have to double check that an odor abatement plan so they have a contact for odor complaints and processes to look at the existing equipment that they're proposing. For like, it's like hoods when they're cooking the chicken and yeah it's just to comply with the policy and that was reviewed by their pollution control district and found to be adequate.
Okay, so and the reason I ask this because I imagine some people just from the general public may say well an odor abatement plan has to do with the cars. It doesn't have to do with the car it has to do with the product being processed or cooked there on site. That's correct. Okay thank you.
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Commissioner Park.
Thank you. I want to echo Commissioner Ford's comments that it is a good staff report. It is very complicated matter to put in writing and discuss, and I want to also refer to your section 15183 analysis, and I hope everybody read that. bottom of the page when you're looking online. And that's, what is it? 20 pages or something like that and it's even more complicated and sophisticated to get to so kudos to you for that. And also I want to thank you for the time you spent with me over the telephone going through these issues because that's very helpful for me and I think it's good for everybody. I point out to everyone we We noticed, Ms. Brown and I as we're discussing this that of course we have to be referring to the traffic study that the applicant submitted and to their air pollution study but they weren't even part of the public record.
I had no access to them neither anybody in the public and so after we got off the phone Ms. Brown put them in the public record and they're all there so everybody's had them you know from last week to look at I have a few questions that relate to traffic and things like that. The first thing is, let me ask you to explain to everyone the changes to the right-hand turn lane that will serve both Starbucks and Chick-fil-A because it seems important to me.
Is it possible to put slide 10 up on the screen? Will Robertson may have additional information on this as well, but currently there is not. If you notice the right-hand turn lane that turns into the Starbucks site and then further down onto the entrance for Chick-fil-A That doesn't currently exist. They're proposing to implement that so that cars turning right and not wanting to go to Starbucks or Chick-fil-A can just keep going straight and turn directly into the other lane, and there's now that bike lane in between the right hand turn lane and the through lane so that cars turning into Starbucks or Chick fil A would not have to turn Mr. Chair, Commissioner Park so the Chick-fil-A team actually was
really nice and listen to public works in the county as far as the operational issues that occasionally occur with the Starbucks project to the west. And what we came up with was since there is only one travel lane that goes through the intersection from the in and outside, we decided that we would just drop the number two lane, the lane closest to Starbucks And make that just a right into the project, the Starbucks project. What that does is it allows us to push the bike lane out away from the curb which gives better visibility for the cyclists It also allows us to eliminate the merge that currently happens right after the Starbucks driveway heading east.
And the merge was problematic because it's just another decision point for drivers to make as well as navigating the queue that may occur at the Starbucks, as well as conflicting with the original proposed second driveway that Chick-fil-A was going to have on their western edge of their property. So this allows us now to have one seamless lane. It allows us to create a right turn pocket dedicated exclusively for the Starbucks project. It allows a dedicated right turn pocket, dedicated solely to the Chick-fil-A building and it should help again with the visibility of the cyclists in the area providing a safer path of travel.
So all in all, transportation staff is really happy with the proposed changes. And this is the striping changes are fully supported.
Thank you Mr. Robertson I think that helps a lot. I'd now like to turn to our zoning standards and one that's particularly important. And I'd like to ask you to go to page 21 of your staff report Ms. Brown Preliminarily, Commissioner Ford and I had a really good site visit. We walked the site, looked at plans and Ms. Collins was very candid with us in pointing out that we would essentially need to make a finding that's embodied there in section 3542-130 of the LUDC that's in your staff report to the effect that the drive-thru has to, well no I got that wrong. The drive-through facility shall have no greater adverse impact upon air quality than the same use without the drive-through facility and that's why we thought that the Air Pollution Report was so important because it deals with it and it needed to be in the record.
But when I look at the findings, I don't see any finding that refers to this. The most I see that might refer to it is that the project meets the standards of review required for zoning but there's nothing more specific. I would think we should have a specific finding in there. Should we not? And even if you think we shouldn't, can we at least address whether it would hurt anything and there'd be anything wrong with it?
Yeah. That is fine. I think it's Commissioner Park. We're happy to add language specific that is written out. This is a development standard which doesn't necessarily equate to a direct fining but a CUP is so broad that we can easily work in this language, um, in terms of compatibility or one of those findings. I think it is appropriate to roll that in there.
Yeah. as a standard all throughout the life of the project, right?
Correct.
So if 12 years from now somebody comes and says hey you don't meet this development standard because for some reason we can demonstrate that there's more pollution than would otherwise occur then That could cause a re-examination of the CUP. Is that correct? Yeah, that could be an issue Commissioner. That's kind of a brutal section there. Okay now I think it's something we're going to have to talk about is do we have evidence that's convincing that this does not cause more pollution but I think that's what the applicant will get into. Let me turn to VMTs VMT analysis, CEQA analysis that relates to this same issue of possible pollution but it's a whole different subject right?
0:58 – 1:0411 turns
Mr. Chair, Commissioner Park yes the air quality does take into account mobile emissions but that is separate from The
This doesn't meet the screening threshold, and we don't need environmental analysis. It doesn't mean we ignore this issue. We ignore it as it's posed here. Well let's go to your slide I think was number eight? I think that's the one that had the screening thresholds. Yeah. Was it eight? Yeah there is. The one that says locally serving retail. And we know that locally serving retail under the OPR guidelines and in this law in general, that's just generally presumed to have local impacts and no need to analyze. But if it's regional, and it's presumably regional, if it is larger than 50,000 square feet, that's when you analyze it.
You and I discussed at length what does a 50,000 square feet measure. Does it measure the whole project? You know all the driveways and things that are needed here or is it just the building? And I think you were going to go back and talk with the rest of the department and find out what the position is so what is the department's position here? Does 50,00 square feet include the whole site which is 61,000 feet or is it just the building?
Mr. Chair, Commissioner Park it is just the building square footage.
Okay and Mr. Robertson are you still on the line? Maybe not. Yes?
Mr. Chair, Commissioner Park yes I am.
Yeah can you weigh in is that your understanding as well About the 50,000 square feet includes just the building and not the whole project. Or I don't know if that's a subject that you deal with.
So it's going to be up to P&D. It's their policies. But if we were talking about transportation impacts, we only look at the gross leaseable area of the project, not the overall site.
I'm going to add in something here. I spent quite a few hours researching this to find it, a definition and I looked everywhere and I couldn't find one. I mean, I looked at our own screening guidelines which basically follow the OPR ones. I would note that if you go to the OPR technical guide And in a way that we have access to that on, I looked this up on August 12th 2020. That's when we had our hearing to adopt the new VMT guidelines to replace the level of service guidelines and there's a lot of discussion of these thresholds and what they mean and why they're there and then the OPR guidelines. OPR is the office public research it's governor's office There's no clear answer, but in the OPR guidelines it refers to an example for this particular screening standard and it refers to a 50,000 foot store.
And so that makes you think well they're referring to a building and we know that there's probably not a 50 thousand square foot building that's part of a drive-thru restaurant in the world. But there are 50,000 square foot stores and things like a Costco or Home Depot and so forth. So you know if this is the policy of the or this is the understanding of P&D and how it's been practiced in the past, so be it.
Commissioners yes we agree with that and I think one other piece of evidence I'd like to throw in there I verified with Will Robertson yesterday that the ITE manual for trip generation that they use to count trips also is square footage, not the size of the site. So it's square footage of the building.
I frankly think with the lack of clarity here that the law has, it leaves sort of a hole in our understanding because it would mean that you'll never analyze a drive-through for VMTs. It seems anomalous. But we'll talk about that later. I have some suggestions, but here I think it's an important takeaway is even if we don't have VMT analysis here because it doesn't meet the screening threshold, we still have that development standard to address in the LUDC.
By the way, I know we've had other projects We've heard about the In-N-Out. We know that there was the initial approval of the Starbucks project and then didn't we do something to modify the Starbucks one a few years ago? I can't seem to find it, but I thought there was an expansion or a change in the drive through that we addressed It was part of approval of a new building use, like an office use instead of the little restaurant that used to be in that building and it came before us a few years ago.
That is ringing a bell. There was an amendment to the DVP to change one of the suites from an office to a cafe or something like that?
1:04 – 1:1120 turns
This development standard in the LUDC, did we have to make a determination under that for that Starbuck amendment a few years ago? Are
you talking about the drive-thru? Yeah. When the original Starbucks went in I would assume that hopefully the drive-through standard was part of that analysis. Do you know?
I can't find anything about it, and I'm curious because we were basically asked to make that finding. We even go back to 2016 there was some controversy over when an Orchid was a Starbucks. Is that anything anyone can give us information on when they address the same question? Or maybe it's never in the staff report nobody thinks about it they never talk about it. I don't know okay I'm done thanks
Well, I have a few now. First, I appreciate Commissioner Park's question about the findings because I had similar comment during the business that would be expected to find it reduced I could likewise not find it in the findings. So, I appreciate the clarification. First question, I want to look at your slide, the traffic and circulation slide. That must be 10.
OK, if we look at that slide. If we look at where the driveway is placed, the entry and exit driveway is placed for this. When you look at the right-hand turn lane turns right goes over to touch to be near the curb with that air 90 degree arrow is the first one. You have two 90 degree arrows at the beginning of that The right hand and then the second one is at the beginning of the driveway. What's the approximate distance between those two? Do we, do you have an idea, a measurement?
Cherry sorry, you're saying from that end of the right turn lane to
Yeah, you have this 290 degree arrows that go to the right in the right-hand lane. And the second one is just where the driveway is for the proposed Chickapha I just wonder how many cars would fit there, how long that is. Is that 100 feet?
Chair Reed, I believe it is approximately 150 feet but the applicant will verify.
Okay and then also I'm interested in the distance between that driveway and the beginning of the queue. Because that would also, to me, be a place where cars could back up in addition to the queue so they'd be waiting on site rather than in the road. So we go from 32 to maybe in the 50s. My reason for that is just to consider its impact on reducing the surge in traffic and the prospect that it would backup out into the street. OK? Secondly.
Has any analysis been made as to what the peak traffic timing is? What's, what's the business peak for Starbucks? When does a peak traffic occur at Starbucks just in the morning hours all day long or three times a day. I would expect just in the morning. Is that?
Chair Reed, I haven't looked at that specifically but I would expect that it would be in the morning.
Okay and what are the peak traffic times? I know they've introduced breakfast sandwiches but what are the peak traffic times for Chick-fil-A?
Chair Reed, it's the lunch hour, I believe 11 to 1.
So it would be probably temporarily separated from the peak time at Starbucks Yes. Okay, maybe we'll have evidence to support that. All right now with respect to the cars in the queue You know, we had this study in the estimates in terms of emissions and things. Did that study take into the account that this being Santa Barbara County, probably a significant number of those vehicles in that line are either going to be electric or plug-in hybrids running off their batteries? Was that taken into the estimate of air quality?
Chair Reed, I don't believe so. So the anticipated impact on air quality would likely be less even than what's shown in those estimates?
I'll have the applicant expand on that, but theoretically.
Just another thought. One other question right at this point. This traffic mitigation fee they're potentially getting charged for $863,000. They look at 41 peak hour trips at 21,000 Newly generated peak hour trips, newly generated compared to when IHOP was there or compared to the vacant lot it is now.
Chair Reed, the overall traffic did not take into account a reduction for IHOP. But for the fees, the existing IHOP when it was operational was taken into account and that was reduced when the trips were calculated.
OK so does applicant receive any benefit or consideration from donating $1 million to the county almost? They call it a mitigation fee so normally when you mitigate that's to, so that's an allowance for the impact they're expected to create.
Yeah the fees were just calculated in compliance with our adopted fee schedule. Okay I'm just trying
to determine is that actually a benefit to applicant or is it like a shakedown?
It's meant to be a benefit to roads in the area based on implementation of new projects
All right, those are I think the bulk of my questions for now. Thank you. So applicant, are you prepared? I'll give you 15 minutes. Does that seem adequate? OK.
1:11 – 1:271 turns
Yes, 15 minutes is perfect. Thank you Chair Reed. Chair Reed, Commissioners I'm Beth Collins from Brownstein really glad to be here today representing the applicant Chick-fil-A we have here thank you David We have here the applicant team led by Carlos Arias here in the front row from Chick-fil-A. And then we also have architect, landscape architect, planners, traffic and civil engineers, arborists all here for your excellent questions I've already gotten some previews of them.
So, next the project site. This is the project site right next to the 101 off-ramp at Turnpike and Cayo Real. Here's a historic picture which I thought was quite interesting this is when they were putting in the 101 off ramps you can see that very graded and a lot of grading done in the area there were three gas stations put in in 69 in 72 That's when the hotel went in with the restaurant across the street. It was a Howard Johnson's, they had great fried clams I hear and that restaurant at the bottom is now our project site.
The site history, IHOP was there for 30 years until they moved to a better smaller location over by Costco in Goleta, leaving the site empty. So that left the landlords looking for new tenants. You received a letter from Tom Patton who is the local owner manager. He's part of an ownership group that owns the hotel as well as this site and he was detailing the saga really of looking for an appropriate tenant for this site. And what you learned from that letter and I've learned from conversations with him Is there were some challenges getting new tenants. Why? Well, any restaurants going into this space wanted about half the space. This is a really large very antiquated Restaurant needed a lot of upgrades and It was going to be a heavy lift.
There were definitely no high-end dining restaurants coming knocking at their doors Plus they have this massive parking lot with no real landscaping So what where they were finding is that car washes We're very interested in utilizing this site, which makes sense. It's a bunch of paving but they did not their local owners and operators. They really had feeling that should be a restaurant and they wanted to improve this corridor since they are locals and so then came along Chick-fil-a and Chick-fil-a This is a really perfect site for this use it's got flat parking lot lots of parking No Esha or Inspirementally Sensitive Habitat, no native trees at all.
There are four huge on-site trees that will remain for screening. They're also a bunch of mature vegetation from the 101 off ramp so I'll just show you a picture here. This is a view from the 101. You can see barely peeking through the trees that orange, that's the IHOP. On the right is the hotel. So great screening from the 101, you will not be able to see this new building Other location advantages This is really close to the 101 it is an area that is adjacent to a bunch of transit oriented businesses We have hotels we have restaurants. We have gas stations We also have existing bus stops right on Calle Real and This is a great part about this location for Chick-fil-A and for the other businesses in the area.
Other advantages for this site, as Commissioner Park kind of presciently stated during the housing element process we have a lot of new housing going into this area and no new commercial So we have right across the street, the MTD project is proposed with hundreds of units. We have San Marcos. We have Tatum. We have San Marcos High School right below the site on the other side of the 101.
So there is a need for restaurant and commercial in this corridor. So traffic, obviously a huge issue. These are just some of the traffic experts that have weighed in on this project. We have two from the applicant here, Scott Shell from ATE as well as LLG. We have county experts. We have Caltrans who weighed in and that resulted in some significant offsite improvements. There are already questions and some discussion of this but I'll just unpack it. So this is the off-site striping improvements that are really going to improve this corridor.
I managed to get to the very end of this slideshow, and I'm not sure how I did that. Operator error Okay, let me Sorry guys Okay Wait for it oh my god sorry Okay traffic experts now improvements yes Okay, so this is the existing corridor on Cayo Real and you have the existing bike path really slammed up against the sidewalk. I actually ride on this bike path quite a lot and so you just heard staff talk about that fact that the arrows for merge are all the way down the block there's only one through lane exists right now in Cayo Real So there's a zoom in right in front of the Starbucks site. Remember, it's Starbucks and other businesses that are there when someone comes along and wants to turn right they are and they may stop on this to let allow someone walk across on the sidewalk.
They block the bike lane that is not good for bicyclists we have to veer out into traffic. So also there's A bus stop their same thing the bus stops right in front of the bus stop in front of the existing bike path Our improvements, we are sheltering the bikes putting them right next to the through lane. So when someone turns right into Starbucks they're no longer running into the bicycles and the bus gets to go in that slashed area so that people can get on the bus without the bicyclists being interfered with and through traffic can proceed. And then you look down here this is existing conditions And this is what's going to be. As someone slows down to go into the Chick-fil-A site, they can look and make sure they don't hit a bicyclist. The bicyclists get to proceed through and then they can turn right onto the site again waiting for someone on the sidewalk or whatever and not interfere with the cyclists or the through traffic on Chi Rail.
So there are some examples of this in our area on Turnpike and Hollister. We also have North Patterson and Cathedral Oaks where you have this protected bike lane from the right turn. So big improvements, you heard that from Will Robertson but we also have other advantages of the site. These are the onsite improvements it's going to really improve the site circulation and the visual corridor so one the long weird Shape of this site gives a chance for a ton of landscaping right along the corridor. So we are going to have that plus as well mentioned, we're closing one of the existing curb cuts so that's more landscaping for Chi real to enjoy more parking On the Chick-fil-A site.
So that's going to be a big benefit We're having a bunch 56 new native trees 24 to 48 inch boxed trees and Then let's talk about flow and parking As someone slows down it goes on to the site They're deciding are we parking or are we going in the drive-thru if they're parking? We are over parked We have 25 spaces required, but we're providing 52. Additionally, we're putting the drive-thru will be dual lane. None of the other drive-throughs in this area are dual lane and it's nestled pushed up against the 101 off ramp off of Calle Real behind the building so it's a perfect shape and design really to Create great flow on this site.
Now to the Q. Commissioner Martinez, you asked are there any site-specific analysis or Chick-fil-A specific analyses? And the answer is yes. In the traffic report nine different similar Chick-fil-As were studied to determine what is the max Q that we're going to see on this site Armageddon Max Q it was 31 So this is max condition and we have promised there was a questions about enforcement. We have promised in our project description if it hits that and it starts getting into the parking lot, we will have team members direct people to park remember were over parked and we will be telling people to park so we do not expect the queue to interfere with the parking lot. And you notice that we put the employee spaces at the place where it would be less likely to, so customers wouldn't interfere with the queue right?
The employees are over on the top left because they don't change as much of course as customers. So we have a 32 car queue. We're not going to back up into the parking lot but the max condition which is this is not the normal condition. The normal condition is this Actually, this is 85% of the time it's going to be to the green cars. And 50% of the time it's going to be just the blue cars pushed up against the 101 off ramp.
Another way that you can tell with kind of your own experience that this will work is we have two lane drive through 632 feet from that pink line all the way to the window where you pick up your food. To kind of give context, drive-throughs in the area, the two other restaurants one is 205 feet and one is 251 feet so we are more than twice and that's just even before you get to the parking lot and as Commissioner Reed was ahead of me we have 382 feet on the parking lot but again we're going to be directing people to park In addition there is another, it's actually more than 150 sorry I confirmed. It's 192 on Cayo Real but we are not relying at all on Cayo Real. We are not going to need it.
shape and because of this design. So VMT, a lot of discussion of VMT we need to prove that air quality is better? Well I'm going to be able to prove the air quality is actually better with this drive-thru and why it's really unusual but because we have existing customers and huge brand loyalty at Chick-fil-A. The average Chick-fil-A customer at State Street which is only 2.6 miles from our proposed is 13 point mile 13.9 miles the big data analysis it's the end of our traffic report it shows Most people are or the average trip length is thirteen point nine miles Because this is a fungible product they will drive to the closest location so it will reduce trip length and this was inadvertently confirmed actually. The last month we put up customer support cards in the existing State Street restaurant, we asked people to fill out, we didn't give them anything for filling it out.
We actually had 425 over 425 people Put in cards and this was not on purpose, but we discovered 78% of those people actually are customers at the State Street store that live in Isla Vista and Goleta. So they are going to be driving less so air quality will actually be improved by this restaurant finally visual We have the current condition where the IHOP is Pushed up against the restaurant. You can see all the old newspaper boxes across you know on the street Blocking the sidewalk, it's actually a big fence right now This is what we're going to have Huge amount of landscaping BAR was very complimentary about all the landscaping that's going to be provided 56 new native trees also, which is kind of interesting. The slope of the site helps so the sign.
Because so looking at this the 101 off ramps on the right, it's higher. Calle Real is on the bottom because height is measured from Calle Real our signs actually going to go down eight feet from the existing IHOP sign. It's gonna be nestled down much lower and you can see because of the existing vegetation there's huge amount of screening of the proposed building and frankly the sign.
This minimizes impacts from both view impacts potential from the 101 and Calle Real because it's the opposite you're looking up if that person is driving down Calle Real they look to their right, they're mostly going to see the landscaping. You can see their eye there that landscaping blocks that car that's in the parking lot so it's really going to improve the visual character of this corridor Here's some other. This is with the front trees great out so you can see the building here's what the trees.
Another view. Here are some customer, I'll just end with this one was right across in Fort Ranch he put in a comment can't wait or she can't wait Christina can't wait we have one in Goleta very excited to have the new restaurant one really excited about the fact that elderly disabled and young mothers can use this drive-thru and then another excited about having Chick-fil-a close to public transport So thank you we're here for questions.
We also have traffic experts here who can talk, we did actually survey Starbucks peak times to answer your question so our traffic expert is here and can kind of talk to that. We have an air quality expert here. We can unpack the 50 000 VMT screening. We can also unpack if you want more information about why I think this actually The evidence demonstrates that this improves air quality, so you can certainly make all your findings. So with that, thank you so much. CHRIS
1:27 – 1:3434 turns
JERRAM Thank you. Any questions from commissioners?
COMMISSIONER PATE I do. COMMISSIONER PATE
Commissioner Park? COMMISSIONER
PARK I fled. COMMISSIONER PATE There you go.
COMMISSIONER
PARK I ran away. Sorry. I'm back. COMMISSIONER PATE
I shouldn't take that personally, right?
COMMиссioner Park No, no, it's not you.
There you are.
I'm here sorry, I was...
You were hiding?
Yeah.
First you fled now you're hiding but no worries okay so I'm gonna throw you a softball.
Okay
thank you. the increased demand that would occur from build out of that MTD property. And you know, and that's aside from all the homes that are behind Via Real and really all the people that would love to have food on the north side of the freeway instead of crossing over to the south side. Do you also anticipate demand from all those employees that are working hard at the county campus with all its buildings?
We expect that the local and San Marcos, but you're right. The county I failed to mention all the county employees that are right there. You're right. I'm sure they would enjoy a restaurant nearby.
And there are some of us who think that some of that land will be converted to housing at some point. I hope so. Okay, when you spoke about the study of the maximum queuing and probably I think it was 31 was the number? Correct. Do we have actual evidence with the experience at In-N-Out do they exceed that 31 minutes? I know it's not chicken its burgers but it's
That's a great question. We, I didn't study the in and out queue beyond measuring the distance of it. And I can tell you we have more than twice the distance but instead kind of to Commissioner Martinez' point, we studied Chick-fil-A restaurants which were similar and we studied nine of them and we learned that none of those nine I'm
in the project or out on a street or up a tree, I don't know. It's still there so if you had, I'm just going to make up a number 50 queuing it in and out that might be relevant to what we could sometimes expect at Chick-fil-A is that correct?
Sure, I can tell you that we can handle the 50 on our site with our parking and we are probably going to make the in-and-out queue better because instead of standing in that big old line they're gonna probably come over to our site too.
And that brings me further to the potential for queuing on Calle Real. I know you don't want that, and you've got a design that you believe will accommodate it so it won't ever be necessary but if but if it was one you've got all that queuing in the right hand turn lane to get into the restaurant that doesn't really serve any other use other than turning into the restaurant. So, that's a potential increase. What about that slashed area?
If cars are backing all the way up to Turnpike can they use the slashed areas as well? I mean it's not just for parking buses is it?
I would recommend against that. That's more than twice the space of any of the existing drive-thrus, plus we have the 382, plus there's 192 just on Chi Rail. Plus we have a condition of approval you will put on us that we have to direct people once they hit just the 32 to park so people just have to park and walk in and get their food. So we do not foresee any inner action with Chi Rail and I think you heard the same from Will Robertson
That leads to my next question and it goes that crucial finding that By having a drive-through here, we're not increasing the air pollution over what would exist if we didn't have the drive through. And in support of that you argue that there are people in Goleta who now drive all the way to Santa Barbara and you know an extra what was it 2.6 miles coming back so I guess with double that right anyway and they wouldn't drive as far they go to the Goleta restaurant Do you have any information on whether those people that drive from Goleta to Santa Barbara to use the drive-thru there would still come to the Goleta house or Goleta restaurant if it wasn't a drive-through?
I know that Chick-fil-A has some restaurants in Southern California that aren't drive-thrus.
That's a brilliant point. I think it's actually the fact that it is fungible, drive-through to drive-through helps demonstrate if they're going to Santa Barbara to drive through they're gonna go to Goleta to drive through also correct?
Yeah and so what I'm wondering is if we didn't allow a drive-thru and just said have a Chick-fil-a or is that gonna make a big difference are there gonna be a lot of Goleta people who say no I'm not gonna come there unless I can do a drive thru I won't go and park
People see
me in my jammies and I can't do it. So, I'm going to drive in whatever they think.
Maybe, I will say and you asked him my experience. My son went to San Marcos that bell rang at lunch he and all his buddies would jump into the car and they would 11 minute drive to the State Street Chick-fil-A. I'm sorry, I was going to say I don't know why they're so obsessed. I apologize but they were obsessed with Chick-fil-A and they jam down there 11 minutes have their food jammed back to campus. I know those guys wouldn't have they would just go there to the Chick-fil-a here in the pile out of the car right probably
Do we have any evidence from the Chick-fil-A side as to how many people are coming to Chick-fil-A restaurants that have drive throughs that wouldn't go there if they didn't have a drive through? Do we have any
information
anywhere on this? Wouldn't
go to the State Street store if it had a drive thru. I don't think we have that evidence, no.
Okay. Well thanks, I have no other questions.
Okay
1:34 – 1:439 turns
Commissioner Ford
Thanks, I'd like to follow up on just what you were talking about with regard to the site its size Site size is is that would determine the decision to go to? A drive-thru because I too have seen that there are lots of Chick-fil-A's that are just restaurants and walk in. So can you give me any historical information about why the decision for a drive-through, almost with the understanding it is going to be controversial?
Well, oh, Carlos is ready. Let us have Carlos answer that. Great.
Good morning, commissioners. And first off, so for the record, my name is Carlos here representing Chick-fil-A. I do want to start off by saying a very big thank you for allowing us to be here today and also a big thank you for all of the staff that we've been working with diligently However many years and members of the SBAR, Board of Architectural Review Board. We're excited to be here I think to answer your question specifically this might be tackling two of those questions Every site is different based on all kinds of factors geographically demographics density The best and maybe most straightforward answer is it varies on-site but our experience has been while we don't have the data to predict very accurately what the ratios will be between drive-thru and dine in customers.
What we do know is that what works best on a self maintained site like this, is when we have a balanced site. When we have a balanced site that incorporates both dining customers and a drive through component It allows for the most optimal, safest circulation both onsite and offsite. We acknowledge that there are customers that want one of them, right? We're going to get drive-thru customers and we're also going to get non-drive-through customers. And so it is not conducive for us to have an isolated site without a drive-through.
The drive-through is a critical component to the business. There are projects that don't have them But those also usually have a sea of parking in between them, think a shopping center. But this is not that and so we want to make sure that we have the ability to service our customers, serve our customers well so their experience is great but also We want that site circulating in a manner that is safe for everybody. It's in our interest to make sure the site is circulating safely on-site, not only for our customers but for our neighbors and the overall community.
There's been a lot of questions on that and so Beth did a great job explaining some of those nuances and some of the benefits, not only onsite but in the public right-of-way. We're excited about this size of the parcel it's a great size it offers a lot of parking and the overall shape of it is really conducive for the drive through lane because it provides So hypothetically we do believe that we've accommodated for that both onsite and offsite.
Thanks. Maybe you can answer my other question, which is about a little bit related to Beth's anecdote about her son. How old is he, Beth? Now 20. Yep. You know what we've noticed across this whole city is the impact that electric bikes have had on parking and on traffic and on driving just in general. Thinking a lot about that time when the bell rings and hundreds of kids leave San Marcos High School to go to lunch.
And now, many hundreds have electric bikes. You just drive by the school and you see it's actually amazing to me because when I was a principal there was no one riding bikes. So what was the reason for just having 10 spaces on the property? when you know that electric bikes are all the rage and these kids will be coming?
So we do have the flexibility to add more if we need to, and if that becomes a problem. We have plenty of space for that on site. If I think really our benefit that we've been focusing on is in the public right-of-way again Beth did a great job outlining A few of the benefits that will happen when we go and re-stripe along El Camino, sorry, Calle Real. One of those is reducing the safety potential by properly or maybe better delineating that biking movement so that's a benefit we're excited about. It allows them to get onto our property safely but if needed we can certainly accommodate more rats
It would be really helpful to me if you would just show them a map as to what or how a bike biker would enter and park.
Can we bring up the site plan? I also note that Travis Collins is the operator of the State Street Store and he's also, I've had this very discussion with him about accommodating bikes on his state street store site. And so if you can see here a bike would come along on the green well this is maybe not the best maybe Go back to here. Okay, so the bike lane is there you can see it right? You can turn onto the site either before the cars turn on right where the pedestrians are in the middle right they can walk through there or they go like a car and Right, and then there's the bike parking on the right hand side on the bottom.
That's where the bike parking areas are but you can see that there is other space around there for electronic bike parking. But the truth is they could designate some other spaces onsite as Carlos was suggesting if they do have because I agree with you. I've even noticed my son graduated three years ago and it's changed even in these three years But that kind of highlights an issue which is called, it's just an operator need is flexible. Like they will need some flexibility when there are things change with your business and a lot of people you know do change things. When COVID came people changed the way pickups were right at different stores. You had the touchless pickup. A lot of operators need that flexibility and certainly Chick-fil-A among all wants to avoid impacts I represented them during the State Street store situation with the City of Santa Barbara.
They were actually trying to get revised revisions done to their site because they saw the popularity, it was just slow in the planning process and that's what led the city was getting so much pressure we ended up in that enforcement nuisance But that was corrected and part of that settlement was processing some changes, tweaks to the site plan. To kind of highlight your point.
Understood I lived in the area too and it's really clear that Chick-fil-A among all other businesses in the area is tremendously responsive so I appreciate you bringing that up
1:43 – 1:5121 turns
I have a question. I'll ask Carlos, you're the guy that ultimately deals with problem issues and early on in the process it was indicated that There could be a situation or we would react to a situation where there are too many cars in the queue and that those customers would be asked to park, use one of the parking spaces to relieve the entire parking lot.
And there was mentioned that these would be your employees, your staff members who otherwise were working inside helping customers have their food. So I'm curious about that. How did that work in the State Street operations so that customers didn't leave angrily as opposed to parking or otherwise leave their job?
Sure, so Commissioner the 10 stalls that I believe were shown on the screen for team member parking stalls. We generally try to have our team members driving to our site that work at the projects in the stores park in areas where there's just does not have high turnover right? In other words we're trying to isolate and keep That potential for high turnover separate from the drive-through or the busyness of the site. So that's really the idea.
That showed some of the normalized rates where it's really not, the busiest time does not go all the way back. It's not like that for a whole hour or for the whole lunch hour. It is really only about half that during non-peak hours right? And so our team members would be able to easily pull in and out of those stalls that are up near the drive through entrance. Works really great. It is pretty common for us to do that at other restaurants.
So, again we're just trying to isolate the potential conflict for busyness during our peak hours.
Well I understand that and it's a kind of a fail safe measure if things do turn out to be too crowded but part of you I'm sure would like it to be crowded so. Yeah
so sorry go ahead.
No,
I think the other thing that may be worth noting is just a lot of the efficiencies Chick-fil-A does have a high focus on innovation in general. True innovation changes for us that benefits how we do things operationally. Ensure there's a lot of initiatives that we do to make things circulate well and efficiently through the site. One of those, one of those big ones recently is the second lane. So two lanes that go all the way around the drive-thru lane from entering the drive-through lane to exiting after you pick up your food.
It allows for cars to bypass if needed. So I'm or place an order and then make the payment. So it just skips a couple of the steps, whether you're in the drive-through lane or whether you're choosing to come inside to the store or whether you're parking we can deliver the food out to you so we just have a lot of great options to be able to fit the need based on the customer behavior if we believe that we're going to have a big influx if you will youth, high schoolers if you will or people that are highly integrated with our app.
It only bodes better for us because we can also allocate one of the lanes specifically for that use so again it just makes that outside lane go a lot faster. You're not having to wait to place your order. You're not having to make the payment. You're just scanning. You showing up and then you're just taking the order through the drive-thru line so plenty of options When we look at these diagrams, we're operating on hypotheticals. And we want to be sensitive to the fact that we have a lot of traffic questions out there.
Again, I point to the benefit or the shape of the site. We've accommodated a potential hypothetical And another hypothetical, one for if we were to overflow, which we're not hoping or anticipating. We can accommodate that whether we take orders further upstream, whether we park them or have them circulate. And then we have the additional hypothetical runway, if you will, if we need that. And then on top of that, we have the improvements in the public right-of-way. So lots of benefits as part of the project that we're committed to doing.
I'm going to interrupt only because I'm reminded that attorneys learn early on that you never ask a question you don't know the answer to. And so, you went farther deeper than I expected and I appreciate the time but I think we're ready to move on with the
project. I apologize. We get very excited about it. Thank you.
Any more
questions?
No. I
do.
I have one or two.
Yeah, and I did for Mr. Arias. You go
first. I'm going to go first. Mine are probably quicker than yours. OK, it has to do with traffic. The peak times analysis did my what are your you know I said before I suppose my estimate is that the peak times are quite different to your traffic analysis support that your peak times versus Starbucks times are There are morning, your noon and end of day. That's supported by the data. Now people keep comparing this to In-N-Out.
Now my gut feeling is with In-n-Out, people get in that line. The dwell time in the line at In-and-out is much longer than the dwell time at Chick-fil-A. Is there any data having to do with that?
Yes, there's actually a lot of data on that and one of it relates to the app issue. You can't order by apps but on an in-and-out I don't know if any of you do Starbucks part of the reason the Starbucks queue isn't backing up as much as it had done historically but with Chick-fil-a they've an innovative app where you can order they'll be able to order from San Marcos So, they won't have to pay. They won't have to do any of those other steps. They just have a QR code and even one of the lanes could be dedicated to just pick up, scan the QR code, give them the food, they're gone.
e-bikes with the app.
E-bike same thing, park walk in grab your food gone and they're really on them on the site for a
minute. One last question I thought your VMT data particularly spheres of all the fans you have an Isla Vista was pretty compelling but my other question about when the GHG estimate was made for cars in line Were EVs actually considered or not considered?
No, it's a conservative estimate. It does not give credit for EMTs or I'm sorry EVs electric vehicles correct okay
well thank you
1:51 – 2:088 turns
Commissioner Park. A question for you, Mr. Arias on the design. You know one of the advantages being in the Planning Commission is we all have different backgrounds so when I brown act buddy with somebody like Ms. Ford, I learn about children's issues and one thing we've discussed is families navigating the site and I think of elderly people like me with mobility problems like I've had navigating And if we could go back to the, to the site plan that was up there before.
It appears anybody that parks in those 50 spaces except for the employees and customers they will then have to cross where the traffic goes into the queuing and possibly they'll be going through queueing if it's very long Would it be possible to relocate the parking essentially where your queuing road is now and put your road where the parking is since swapping it so people wouldn't have to cross the access road to get into the restaurant?
Yeah, just take the roadway that's internal and putting it where your parking space is. And you're having your parking spaces be internal because, you know, most drive-thrus I've been to, you know, I generally don't drive through. I'll stop and go in. I'm old and I like to visit. B.S. with the baristas, you know? You know, I don't have to cross a roadway. I just walk in.
And we're happy to have you as a guest in the drive-thru lane or as a park and dine in. Could we show the site plan one more time? I'm sorry, I just want to point to a couple things. Really, again, we want a well balanced site. And a couple things I would point to is we do have options for parking at the southwest corner with some sidewalk access, basically right between there's a trash enclosure and our building. And then there's additional stalls to the left of that that is essentially removed from the drive aisle, if you will. Our goal is to maximize the parking. Parking's important for us to maintain a well-balanced site and I think the other potential challenge with relocating any of the parking stalls or modifying any of the parking stalls along Calle Real is there's a landscaping, there's a significant landscaping setback if I'm not mistaken and so I think it's we basically maximized The distance between the sidewalk that you can see on the screen now it's almost like a passed out area, the gray.
That's all landscaping and it's for that reason we actually would love more parking and other potential for more ability to stack but we had to comply with the design standards
You know, maybe my question wasn't clear because I was referring to the existing space you've set aside for automobiles not the landscaping and simply swapping the roadway part for the spaces for the parking spaces. So I imagine it would be the same distance you already have they just be in different locations
So LLG just reminded me cars have limits on turn radiuses. And so if you were to make that, that would be a very sharp turn there and that throat which is pretty narrow to be able to then turn into in essence drive through all those spaces. It's too tight of a turn.
The one on the east?
Correct.
Thanks.
Okay, I've got a request that we take a break prior to public comment so i'd like to take a 10-minute break. Welcome back to the March 25th hearing of the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission. Now we will begin with public comment. We have three speakers in the room, you can have three minutes apiece. We will begin with Lisa Kenyon Can you please, speakers please state your name and residence.
2:08 – 2:1516 turns
Sure my name is Lisa Kenyon I live in the unincorporated area of Santa Barbara two blocks behind In-N-Out Burger everybody knows where that is on the type thank you for having us today on the top of my whiteboard that's attached to my refrigerator which I look at every morning are the following words do the good excuse me do the good you have the power to do today I hope I do good for my neighbors today in talking with you.
As I mentioned, I just live a couple blocks behind In-N-Out Burger. Carlos, just as a point of reference, the QR code survey you guys have is not Goleta. We're in the unincorporated part of the county. I ask that you add an extra set of lenses to your glasses or to your eyeballs. And I hope you will have taken the opportunity to read all the letters that are in the current comment A folder including the ones from Paul, the two Marys, Tom and mine.
There were also 23 additional letters along the same lines with the concern about traffic and the impact on the neighborhood in the SBAR folders that were not, for the right reasons, not brought over here. But I just want to make sure you understand there were a lot of people that have been concerned about the neighborhood going way back into 2022. A very beloved man used to sing a wonderful song. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
I'm not going to sing the song. I'll break your eardrums. But instead, I'm simply going to ask won't you be our neighbor? My fellow neighbors and I have been engaged in the process like I said since the first SBAR. And they're all along the same lines. I have to admit we were quite disappointed. In fact at the third SBAR meeting a voice came over the loudspeaker telling me that I was not allowed to talk about any traffic issues. I basically got a smack down. Not cool for public comment time But today we're here.
While each of the current letters and the past letters are unique, what the people I was mentioning, each one contains the primary concerns about the existing three drive-throughs and the proposed fourth one. I'll ditto the letter writers who eloquently described how in their minds the traffic report and the air quality report results warrant further review.
By the way, there has been no change to the Starbucks drive-thru. As I went by there this morning, there were six cars on the street. And to answer your question, Commissioner Park, the only change that was made after that appeal hearing from my perspective is they put a sign up. It's yellow with red lettering that says it's illegal to park here in the queue line for the drive-through.
Hasn't made a difference. Has not made a difference. All of us expressed the importance of not looking at this project in a silo or in a vacuum. It's not just about the old IHOP property. The neighborhood has been dealing with vehicle queuing at not one, not two but the three drive-thrus for years. It is difficult for me to comprehend how the planning department has concluded that this project will not be detrimental to the comfort convenience general welfare health and safety of the neighborhood A picture is worth a thousand words, so I ask you to take a look at some of these pictures.
I went a little cray-cray after the meeting where the manager of the Ramada said there's no problem with queuing it at Starbucks back in 21. I have over 100 photos this is just a selection.
Thank you. You're running up your time is up by about 30 seconds if you got one or sentence or two to wrap it up
I'd like to This is, that was El Sueño which is not included in here. I know it's outside the one mile but from all of our residents we're concerned about people trying to make that turn especially if they're from out of town.
Thank you did you shoot that video yourself? That one I did yes. Looks like you're holding the camera and driving at the same time.
I am. You know that's a
moving violation. While you're trying to demonstrate a safety
thing, you are committing
a moving violation.
You know what? You kind of surprised me that you're bringing that up because you guys are not looking at the whole thing and you have not believed us when it comes to what the problem is.
Well we've never addressed it before so that comment I don't
think is valid. Let's bring up SBAR.
Next we will have Kristen Miller Audience, you're supposed to be respectful. If you have any comments about other speakers, reserve them. Proceed, Ms. Miller.
Good morning Chair Reed and Commissioners. I'm Kristen Miller, President and CEO of the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce representing businesses from Goleta to Carpentaria and 75,000 jobs in the region. I am here today in support of the proposed Chick-fil-A project at Cayo Real and Turnpike. From the Chamber's perspective, this project reflects several things we consistently look for in a healthy local economy. It activates a long-vacant commercial site. It brings private investment into an established corridor. It creates jobs. It expands access to goods and services for local residents, workers, and families. And it has the potential to generate meaningful ongoing economic activity and taxable sales.
Just as importantly, this kind of project that helps reinforce the vitality of an existing commercial area. A successful business like Chick-fil-A on this currently underutilized site will support the surrounding district and contribute to a stronger overall business environment. There's very real demand for drive through locations on the South Coast and the environmental emissions studies support this use.
A county location here would better serve the county's economic vitality goals while keeping commercial activity close to where people already live and travel. Lastly, a timely approval of this project is key to improving the reputation of the county's business climate story. From an economic and business community standpoint, this is the type of investment we should welcome. For all these reasons, we respectfully urge your approval. Thank you.
All right, thank you. Next and final speaker Drew Wakefield.
Final in-person
speaker. In person, correct.
2:15 – 2:228 turns
Commissioners, thank you very much for allowing me to come and speak. My name is Drew Wakefield. I am third generation Peabody Laklena Santa Barbara High School. Once a Don always a Don. I currently live over by Hollister school. I'm in the area all the time and this is 100% what our community wants and desires. I also have Wakefield 805 Radio, AM 1290 FM 96.9 streaming live around the world at wakefield805.com You can smile because this is about community right? This is about opening up an opportunity for a great wonderful incredible business That's gonna serve delicious, affordable food for our community. San Marcos High School students, students will probably come over and so many people are gonna be able to walk to Chick-fil-A in the neighborhood.
A lot of seniors, there is bus coming to and from, it's gonna be easy cars. The electric bikes out here who knows maybe even people go back in the days and they might ride horses over to Chick-fil-A. The bottom line is simply this. This is a successful, very successful, extremely successful business that our community desires. If we do not want success let's go down State Street. Let's look at what State Street has given us. No success which means what? Less tax dollars. Chick-fil-A, Santa Barbara that I know very well because they are in the community they sponsor They give, they donate to the schools, to the universities. They hire young people, high school students. They hire City College University Westmont students, go Warriors! They hire young mothers.
They hire people not just to hire them just to deliver you food They bring your food, they deliver it to you and then what do they say when you say thank you? It's my pleasure. Why because it's their pleasure to work for Chick-fil-A where they're going to be taught, they're going to be mentored, they're gonna have opportunities to expand their growth to go just from an actual worker maybe into a supervisor role Maybe into a manager role and then hopefully someday like the owner of Chick-fil-A, Santa Barbara Travis Collins, a Biola University grad that's going to be able to move in to being an actual owner. What a great wonderful incredible company it is to have in our community that most of everybody in our community really wants Now, it always gets down to time energy resources which does what for our business?
It means money. For the county to have more money here's what I would recommend a couple quick things I am looking at the time we should just go ahead and pass this immediately today put shovels in the ground clean up that area and as soon as possible we should all go join each other and eat more chicken thank you very much
Thank you and no charge for the commercial for your radio
show.
Now Mr. Villalobos could we go to the online?
Again, for those of you online raise your hand if you'd like to speak right now I see one hand raised Mary O'Gorman.
Okay the proverbial can you hear me?
Yes
Hello? Okay, good. Wow so you have a letter for me several pages my intent today was just to raise a couple issues that I either hadn't focused on enough but I have to say i'm a little shaken up because once again I feel like I'm at a hearing for I don't know what like a fast food freeway or I mean we're talking about in neighborhood You guys are here for a conditional use permit to find that the project won't be detrimental to the comfort, convenience, welfare and safety of the neighborhood. Not whether Isla Vista kids can come over here at night they're already clogging when they go in and out. Anyways it's just this sort of is a microcosm of what our neighbors feel these days.
The project is not, shouldn't be exempt from VMT. The lot is about 60 to 65 thousand square feet. The lot as we heard at Infinitum today is directly related to the drive-through. There's drive through lanes. We're creating a new lane on a public street just for them so vehicle miles traveled would seem to be something you would want to know more about and then I think the biggest thing is really the inadequacy of the environmental review.
Previous to drive-throughs there, I look back at 1995 last night and the archives in and out burger had an MND done. Starbucks had an MND done and to quote from the Starbucks report that as a result of this project significant but medicable effects on the environment are anticipated In certain categories, air quality hazardous materials. And so understandably more extensive environmental review was done.
Planner sites part of the exemption based on Eastern Goleta Valley Community Plan and as someone who is integrally involved in that plan I can tell you that Having drive-throughs, and especially four of them was not what was contemplated. And so for all intents and purposes that plan sadly is in large part moot. 2015 Eastern Goleta Valley Plan anticipated I think it was several hundred housing units not 4 to 5 thousand as we have now.
There was one policy in that plan that I think is pertinent, and that is that it was changed from highway commercial to C2 precisely because of a desire to move away from freeway serving uses and to allow for quote community oriented commercial development and services. That's all we'd like to see. And we'd also like to not be gaslit as much as we have been for five years, whether it's by county staff or decisions. Please is there somebody that can help us? The cities of Goleta and Santa Barbara prohibit new drive-thrus. That's why everyone in Goleta wants one here. Do we need to annex to Goleta to get any kind of just responsiveness to our concerns? We're not making this up. We don't like coming here And and having to address issues that we've been talking about for years.
I'm on a board here. People who are very intelligent have asked me, what do you mean they're going to put another drive-thru in? How can they do that? So we don't have staff. We haven't had five years of conversations with county transportation planners that it sounds like the applicant has had. That's great. One visit out here to talk with neighbors would've been nice and again I do not see how you can make a finding is not detrimental to the comfort, convenience, welfare health and safety of the neighborhood. Okay? So thank you very much and whatever.
Thanks.
2:22 – 2:287 turns
Now for applicant any rebuttal five minutes
Mr. Chair, I did have another hand up.
Oh there's another hand up? Okay sorry okay final speaker this is the final.
Suzanne Sturs and I don't see anyone else with their hand up
Hi there thank you for the time. I'm a resident of North San Marcos Road I just, you know, would ask that you consider also the new development that's going in on the other side of the freeway. There is a bunch of additional units that are going to be built in the near future and so just the impact that all of that development will have on the existing infrastructure and to be adding an additional drive-through in the community increased impact to our daily life. There's already safety concerns with driving through that area, I don't have anything against Chick-fil-A.
I think it provides a good service. I just think in this situation, I don't think it would be the best for the residents of the area and I feel like You know, there's some condos in the area and it feels like it's just the easiest place to put it and maybe disproportionately affecting lower income residents. And so I ask that you consider the impact that this development will have on the residents of the area and just that there might be a better use of that space for the community. Thank you very much.
All right, thank you and I apologize. I wasn't intending to try to cut you or anyone else off so with that if we can go to applicant for rebuttal. You have five minutes.
Chair Reed, commissioners Okay, a couple of things. VMT screening. So the standard is that if you're 50,000 square feet of local serving uses like a local retail Costco, you get screened out so your parking lot is not counted as just the square footage of your building. We are 2,600 square... 2,600 square foot building. So far below that threshold but even if you included that little area of the driveway we're still below 50,00 That's not the standard as you heard from staff and everyone else. The standard we fall well below.
Cumulative impacts of all of the other residential projects were considered in the traffic report, so the traffic report considers all those housing element projects and the other projects in the queue. I really took to heart the comments of the neighbors. It's clear that they're really upset and I do believe after having studied this with the traffic reports and talking with not one but two traffic experts about this, and really considering this for years, this project will improve the Cayo Real corridor The safety, the circulation and the visual character of it. The striping is going to improve the bicycle safety and will clarify the traffic flow of the cars.
Additionally for the neighbors our traffic during the break our traffic expert went and measured the queue for in-and-out just for your information it is a total of 34 cars 32 cars is the length of our queue to that pink line, right? So 34 cars is what you saw in that photo plus the ones in the street. All right, so we For all the reasons that I explained we have more than sufficient room on our site plus frankly, we have better operation and We will not have impacts to the street. We're also going to really improve the visual character with all of the landscaping And the drive-thru is critical like I don't want to I don't want to get confused I heard some of the comments and I want to make sure everyone understands This site works because the drive-thru helps make it work.
What you heard from Carlos is, you would need a sea of parking for like a shopping center for this to work with it if it was just a standalone restaurant. The drive-through helps us manage the flow and avoid any impacts to Very sympathetic to the neighbors. I do think that they, that there may be some issues at other sites. I think that this project improves things on the strip and we've done what we can both for the Starbucks but then also for this other site and I do think it will reduce the queue when people see a completely operational site in one place right? They're not going to be in a standing line on the other side of the street so with that I'll leave to Carlos to close us out
2:28 – 2:3615 turns
Thank you, Beth. Just a couple notes to close out and maybe address the concern from the neighbors. I don't see her here anymore but Lisa Canyon and Mario Gorman acknowledge fully that you are a neighbor and you are a nearby resident. We consider ourselves to be a neighbor as well and we want to be good neighbor. We have unique operator model that is one that allows our operator basically expects our operators to be highly involved in the community. So they're involved in the community, they are a neighbor as well and nobody wants this site, this project to work well and to work safely more than us. We have a vested interest in making sure that it works well obviously from business standpoint but also from the community we don't want neighbors complaining, we don'y want the county getting emails and complaints from the neighbors.
That's the last thing we want to put on our operators, to run the store. We want them focusing on providing a great service to the community, providing good food, great hospitality and a safe site. We're going to work the hardest at making sure that this plan works I guess I just want to end with the fact that we believe that we are going above and beyond in being a good neighbor by helping improve the actual conditions that are in the road now. We're not just coming in here saying, well see what happens. We put a lot of thought into it. We understand some of the concerns and have been working diligently with the county. And so we truly believe in this project. We believe that we're going above and beyond by making physical improvements in the public right of way.
All right, thank you. So at this time we will close the public hearing. It's time for commissioners' comments, questions, deliberations. Can we start with
questions of staff? Excuse me? Can we start with questions of staff before we go into deliberations? OK, go ahead. I'm just curious because I'm trying to set our ordinance in context and I know that Carpinteria, Montecito, Goleta. Well I don't know about Goleta. Santa Barbara don't allow drive-thrus. Does the City of Goleta allow drive-throughs?
Mr. Chair, Commissioner Park, I'm not sure I would have to look into that.
Can I
ask Ms. Collins to answer that
question?
We just don't know off the top of our head, we can certainly try and look into it.
Chair, can we have leave to open it so she can speak to this?
Yes you are allowed in the City of Goleta to have a drive-thru with a conditional use permit like the county.
Thank you. Okay that was my question for staff.
All right We're ready for any deliberations.
I'll go.
Commissioner Martinez?
First, I heard the nervousness of the neighbors and want to compliment them on even taking the chance of even standing up here and saying what your thoughts are. And that's what this process is about. And I hope you never feel excluded from it. That's why I'm on here. to hear from those people and from everybody, but we have the applicants and we and everybody has their turn and we have the timing up here. But I just want to say that a lot of first I and I agree with Chairman Reed that you know the outbursts from from the gallery doesn't reflect upon our impressions upon what you're saying to us in looking at this.
I want to make sure that we have a clear picture of what's going on. The neighbor who came up with the picture of the way Starbucks is looking and that there does seem to be at least in the picture itself that was presented that despite their Q which I'm interpreting as the way that the park cars come in and go through and get their drive-thru drinks and so forth And there's already a backup on Starbucks. How am I going to know that? I can go around the only way I can know that is from experience and there's nothing that tells me that otherwise, and I'm saying that because I still go through that problem when I'm trying to figure out which exit is in and out on when I come to these meetings or if I am trying to figure it out. And, I count myself as one of those people who's going up and down the corridor 101 looking at my app to say okay well where is the next Chick-fil-A?
So, I do think that there's going to be a concern there about this traffic but that concern is kind of lightened by the fact As you as I'm looking at the satellite view of where this location is it's. It's not hitting the necessarily the at least from what I've seen and I can be corrected by may be corrected right here now that doesn't hit And I will say this to Chick-fil-A, that I think to me and I am an attorney so you can hold that against me too. I do believe in local council because she can stand up here and say I'm part of this community my kid went to school there it matters to me it does matter somebody from Los Angeles comes up and says well this is where it's from it doesn't matter to me I mean oh it does matter to me but in the negative And you've given your word up here that saying you're going to try and work with it.
I appreciate the fact that you can't think of every single hypothetical, I was thinking whenever he was talking about well for the kids are going to drive up in there. And the e-bikes and use the app to get their food like only imagine that you're going to have the uber drivers coming in picking up stuff. I mean if there's just so many variances But I see the effort here, and I see the design. I was actually impressed by the design of how it looked and ran through this.
And I can envision how it would actually—the traffic would come in even if you got backed up on the queue. I don't think that somebody's going to really listen to some 16-year-old or 17-year-old who said, sir, you're going to have to park right there with your family who is starving and go inside and get your food. You know, I reflect back to Disneyland when I worked there and telling people you got to do. You can't get into this restaurant right now. You can go to the next one and they were no it wasn't gonna work. I was a deer in a headlight So my end impression is this is that Chick-fil-a Well your reputation precedes you you are part of the community you try and be part of the community And you've given your word here with local council about trying to address these traffic problems and not ignoring them.
That's what's to me, but of course I come from drive-thru heaven over there in Santa Maria where we have chicken roe at Bed Arabia and I see what happens. And I see how popular Chick-fil-A is and the cause of situations but I do think the one variance that is not going to be able to be addressed on hand, is if you get off in Turnpike and there's already a backup at Starbucks. How do you know?
And that's the challenge I think that really needs to be thought of and addressed through this process because I know that it goes to the county from here. And I would, I'm just saying that I would vote for it to proceed on to the Board of Supervisors and hopefully you can address that concern when it comes to the Board of Supervisors. Thank
2:37 – 2:424 turns
Commissioner Park.
You know, there's a lot I like about this project. It is to me kind of an ideal match of parcel to user. I mean, I can't imagine a better parcel for you to use but I also can't imagine another use that parcel. I can even imagine a car wash there and that's important. There's certainly a demand for this I like the design. I'm not as concerned about the compatibility issue and it's a finding we have to make with CUPs because I think a lot of the traffic issues have been addressed through the design, but the important point to me is really not what do I like? Do I like color? Do you like chicken?
What is our job at the Planning Commission? It's to follow the law. The law is not always very clear, we can see on VMTs it's not really clear at all and I frankly reach a different conclusion than the applicant and staff on the screening thresholds but I'm not going to argue because I don't have any better evidence than you do. The board can deal with that issue.
But the law we have to look at here that's important is the development standards, 3542130. And that applies whether we do VMT analysis or not. They're separate issues and we have to find that the development standard is met. The drive-through facility shall have no greater adverse impact upon air quality than the same use without the drive-through facility.
When I read this packet There was not one scintilla of evidence. that was true. That's because the public record didn't even have your traffic study in it or the air pollution report, and I don't know whose concern that is or not. Everybody should have been concerned and everybody should have gotten in there. And I forced it in there, and there you are. You'll thank me for that but you won't thank me for what I say next which is I still don't think you've met the standard of evidence I have to Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
that's in argument. We do have maybe two sentences that address this in the air pollution report, and they refer to a trade magazine which has a study which has not been presented to us. It's not on the record so I don't know what anybody has by way of science even if it does exist We can all come up with anecdotes about why it might do this, why it might not.
Some of it is confusing. I have to take my foot off the brake and come to a stop. Is that a good thing, that it turns off and doesn't create emissions? Or is it a bad thing because your own report says it's a bad thing for cars to park and have their engines turn on and off. We just don't know. I can't make that finding. Good people here at staff, great people on the applicant team. What I want to do is continue this and give you some time to give us some real evidence that I can make this finding.
And if other commissioners would agree with me, I would move to continue this matter for the time that they could do that because I think eventually I'm going to vote for this project. I'm not going to vote for it today.
forward
said that with a tone. Let's see. I'm very conflicted here, as I think probably all of us are because it's clear that Chick-fil-A has done an amazing job of working hard to try to eliminate the street spillback. The site layout seems very creative and responsive, the queue design, et cetera. I do remain concerned about the air quality also, and I would support additional environmental review.
I also feel just conflicted because Chick-fil-A is extremely reputable, popular and as I said responsive. And so it would seem to me that they would be willing to be responsive to ensuring that this is a win-win and leaving no stone untouched or unturned over Give us greater confidence that this will not be an issue regarding environmental quality. Additionally, my own preference is that this restaurant would be a walk-in park-in only.
But that's my opinion. Just don't want to feel that we left any stone unturned. That's it.
2:42 – 2:486 turns
Commissioner Cooney.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This has gone a direction I didn't anticipate but it's been my practice consistently over the time I've sat on the commission to pay attention to the commissioner's choices from people they represent and my fellow Commissioner Park does not make motions to further consider things if he feels otherwise. I've seen him do that many times, so while I feel this project has a lot of potential It would be to our benefit to do as much as we can, as a commission here, to review that and make sure there isn't an obvious correction that we overlooked.
So rather than saying I vote for or against, I would say I would agree with commissioners who propose that we continue this for further study.
Now, I look at this project. I look at the site. I think the site's ideal for this project. I'm very impressed with what Chick-fil-A has done with the site to make maximum use of its advantages due to its layout, its configuration. I've been similarly impressed with their efforts to mitigate the traffic problems in the area And foundational to that is at Starbucks on the corner. I don't see how anyone can look at that map of that Starbucks location and not have foreseen that it would be a considerable problem.
I'm reassured though that the entrance for this site is relatively far removed from Starbucks. So, I don't think it would contribute to that. I am similarly impressed with efforts I have seen on behalf of Chick-fil-A in accommodating community needs, particularly with their efforts to improve traffic flow and situation at their State Street store. And I'm confident in the event they needed to make modifications to the plan at this location, they would continue to operate to that standard so My feeling is the only thing I would really be willing to support would be to approve this application today. I would not support continuing it. I think if we seek continuance again and again based on something we find, we will find that no project is perfect and we will be continuing them ad infinitum So again, my feeling is I am prepared to support approving this today.
I would not be in support of continuing so. Any further comment or is someone prepared to offer a motion?
Yes, I will. I want to give the applicant a chance to get approval, and I can't vote for it today because I don't think you met this standard. And so I want to give you time to be able to do it. I can pick a number out of the hat in 90 days, 60 days. I don�t know what the applicant wants. And
if I could just help staff and myself when you're asking for more environmental review are you wanting additional studies?
No. I got immense words here. When I think of environmental review, I think of formal environmental review under CEQA and I think it is staff's position and the applicant's position and I'm not going to argue it that our screening thresholds cause us to reach determination that there need not be environmental review in the way of a CEQA review like an MND or Environmental Impact Statement.
Okay, I am referring to the LUDC in the section that has a development standard. that a drive-thru facility shall have no greater adverse impact upon air quality than the same use without the drive-through facility. Ms. Collins remarked to me this is a finding, we can say it's a finding that we've met that development standard. I guess that's a more technical way of saying it but I'm not prepared to do that but I'm prepared to give them time so they can develop the evidence I would make a motion to continue this.
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The applicant is asking for about 60 days so we can look at the May 27th hearing if that works.
So, okay can I use that in my motion? 27? Yep. Okay the motion is to continue this matter to May 27 so that we can receive additional evidence from the applicant and others regarding whether this drive-thru facility will have no greater adverse impact upon air quality than the same use without the drive-through facility.
Gratitude for the clarification from all parties. And also just to underscore the responsiveness of Chick-fil-A, I really want this restaurant to go through but I want this to be a win-win. Second.
Let's do a roll call. I mean just do a roll
Roll-call vote Passed 3–2
Show transcript
Motion passes 3-2.
So chair reading commissioners on the next item I know it's getting close to lunch hour. I know there's desire to break for lunch. I'm hearing from staff that that item should be relatively straightforward and simple if the commission wanted to. I shouldn't say that, I've now jinxed it so we'll be here all day. If we wanted to just go through that and then end and then go to lunch afterwards, staff is willing to do that otherwise we can take a lunch break and come back.
Commissioner Cooney? That would be my preference as well to finish.
I would just, I would rather finish now. Yeah, I think it's a good idea. Staff need a few minutes to prepare or they're ready. Okay so Mr. Villalobos would you read the item into the record?
Certainly Hearing on the request to consider case number 23GPA6 as well as 23RZN6 and to adopt the mitigated negative declaration, case number 25NGD6 pursuant to state guidelines for implementation of the California Environmental Quality Act and adopt the mitigation monitoring program.
Good morning, Commissioners. I will now be presenting the Rose Comprehensive Plan Amendment and Zoning Map Amendment. The property outlined in blue on this map is located at 1251 Orchid Drive in the Eastern Goleta Valley Community Plan Area Second Supervisorial District. The property is a 2.33 acre lot zoned Agriculture 1 with a minimum parcel size of 10 acres. The property is currently developed with an orchid nursery. Access is provided off of Orchid Drive, a private residential cul-de-sac.
The property is surrounded by lot zoned single family residential and developed with residences to the north, east and south. And a lot zone for agriculture to the west. The project is a request for a comprehensive plan amendment and zoning map amendment to change the land use designation and zoning of the subject parcel from Agriculture 1 to Single Family Residential. No development is proposed at this time.
The project site has not always been zoned for agriculture. When the first permits were issued for the site in 1962, the site was zoned single-family residential. The ordinance at the time allowed for nurseries and greenhouses for propagation and cultivation of plants in the single family residential zone. The site was then developed with an orchid nursery.
In 1993 when the Goleta Community Plan was adopted, the site was rezoned to Agriculture 1 when the orchid operation was existing onsite. Amending the zoning and land use designation for the site from Agriculture 1 to Single-Family Residential is compatible with the neighborhood. This slide depicts the surrounding zones with residential zones shown in blue, agricultural zones shown in green and the subject lot shown in red. As previously stated, the subject property is surrounded by residential uses on three sides.
The agricultural lots to the west are all significantly larger than the subject lot and are accessed directly off Shoreline Drive a heavier trafficked public road. A more intense agricultural operation on the subject lot would not be compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. The request to rezone to residential uses is consistent with the comprehensive plan, including the Coastal Land Use Plan and the Eastern Goleta Valley Community Plan and Article 2.
There is no development proposed and future development will be subject to all applicable policies of the Comprehensive Plan and Article II. The request is consistent with the purpose and intent of the Single-Family Residential Zone District and a lot will comply with the minimum lot size for the zone. There are several policies in the comprehensive plan regarding the protection of agricultural land. However, the subject parcel is not considered viable for agriculture. The existing orchid operation is no longer profitable and a larger agriculture operation would not be compatible with the surrounding residential neighborhood. The property is surrounded by residences on three sides and accessed off a residential cul-de-sac. The proposed residential zoning will complete a logical residential neighborhood and allow for a clear urban rural boundary line.
A mitigated negative declaration was prepared for the project to study its anticipated environmental effects. No significant and unavoidable impacts were found to occur. Significant but mitigable impacts are found in the areas of greenhouse gas emissions, cultural resources, hazardous materials and public facilities. Mitigation measures to reduce these impacts to less than significant levels are included in the mitigation monitoring program as attachment D.
And significant impacts were found for the remaining resource areas. Staff recommends that your commission recommend that the Board of Supervisors make the required findings for approval of the project, recommend that the Board of Supervisors adopt the final MND and mitigation monitoring program for the project and adopt resolutions recommending that the Board of Supervisors amend the land use designation and zoning for the lot from Agriculture 1 to Single-Family Residential.
This concludes staff's presentation. Staff and the applicant are available for questions
I have a question myself. Were we supposed to do ex parte on this type of application? Yes, okay. Let's do it at this time. Ex parte site visits.
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No, I'm sorry. I didn't meet with anyone just drove by yesterday.
Yeah, I actually drove by last Thursday. I'm familiar with the site having gone by that area for many years my grandmother was an orchid person so I
don't quite get why there's two cases and two types of zoning, but they all come to 20,000 square foot lots. Anyway could you explain that for me?
Mr. Chair, Commissioner Park the general plan amendment case is for changing the land use designation which is in the comprehensive plan and the zoning map amendment the RZN case is to change the zone which is established by the ordinance so article 2 in this case.
So even though they have different designations the 20R1 and the Res 18 they're the same?
Yes, it would be the same minimum lot size.
Well it always makes sense in planning. Thanks no further questions.
With no other questions we can go to applicant.
Thank you, Chair Reed. Steve Fort with Seps Land Use Consulting and with me today is owner and applicant Loris Rose. I'll start out by thanking Miss Brown for helping us get to this point today and I want to thank David for helping me prepare for the hearing today had a little mix-up with my presentation and thanks to you folks for pushing through today during the hearing and getting us in before your lunch break I have the clicker.
The viability of what's going on there right now, which is disappearing. The size of the parcel, access to the parcel and HOA restrictions. The current lot size is non-conforming to the current AG 110 designation where 2.3 acres that requires a 10 acre minimum. The current ORCID operation is no longer or is diminishing in viability And it is really no longer competitive with bigger operations that are going on around the world.
It's not viable for long-term ag use, it does have prime soils as does that whole Orchid Drive neighborhood but it's actually mapped on the county's GIS and by the state. The request is consistent with county policies and the coastal We realize that's going to get scrutinized and looked at very closely. But in this case, it is a 2.3 acre parcel that's really its ag life has been reached at this point and that's why we are asking for this request. Going back to the point about we realize it can be a sensitive topic, we have been in touch with coastal commission staff in Ventura I know Ms. Brown's been in touch with them, shared information with them. We had a Zoom call with them to help bring them along so just FYI we have been in touch with the coastal staff in Ventura.
I'm gonna kind of skip over the maps. I think Miss Brown addressed those. I did just want to point out again that this is mapped as urban and built up lands by the county and using the state as a source for that data Just a little bit on the history, the operation was developed sometime between 57 and 65. This is from 1976, I believe. I have some information about when the lots were created.
Ms. Brown talked about the initial permitting and zoning. I think the point here is it's always been limited to a small aboveground operation, and residential development just continued to grow around it since it was developed between 1957 and 1965. Just to go over some of the constraints on future ag here. Again, orchid business changes impacted by larger growing operations and there's less viability for small-scale operations in private collections It's really become cost prohibitive at this site and it's not financially sustainable anymore The only access point is driving down that stub of orchid drive through the residential area The county does not usually put too much credence They can only do above ground horticultural activities and my experience talking with Ms.
Rose, it kind of sounds like she's been a good neighbor the neighborhood has grown up around them they've kind of tolerated her they've been friendly they have a good relationship but the CC&Rs do limit that it's got to be above it basically has to be the operation they're running right now to continue there and be consistent with the CCNRs They wouldn't allow any in-ground cultivating.
I'm going to keep going here, not too much on ag policy consistency. I think Ms. Brown hit that but we are consistent with the ag conversion thresholds and the point scoring system that the county uses to determine sort of an initial screening whether there might be an impact to ag resources We're consistent with the zone we're trying to get into, the 20R1 zone in terms of size and being an appropriate use for the property going forward. Again it's not considered prime farmland. It really isn't appropriate for long-term ag use.
A couple other things there's no environmental or coastal resources affected And it does create that logical boundary. It's adjacent to existing residential uses. Coastal Act consistency, which is some of the conversations we had with coastal staff. It does create a you know they limit conversions out of ag to situations where a stable boundary would be created which is certainly the case here. We're basically changing the zoning to join the neighborhood around it And the viability of the existing ag use is severely limited, won't be growing. And again we're creating that stable boundary sound neighborhood and somewhat of a limit to urban development there.
And again, the new residential development which is kind of the flip side about the Coastal Commission looks at this. It'll be located within and contiguous to existing residentially developed areas and a key thing too is it's not growth inducing there is water and sewer in the neighborhood right now Again, I'm probably starting to repeat myself but one key thing too is we're not setting a precedent here. I don't believe and I think you'll agree And I think staff agrees is that it's a 2.3 acre parcel that's outlived its ag life It's surrounded by the residential property We're consistent and compatible with the neighborhood and we feel strongly the highest and best use of this moving forward is a residential type of use We feel like we're consistent with the findings in article two that were in the general interest, or the interest of general community welfare.
Consistent with a comp plan, the coastal plan and the Coastal Act and we're consistent with good zoning and planning practices. And with that I would just say thanks and hope you follow the recommendations of staff to recommend us to the Board of Supervisors for approval. Thanks And we're here available for questions as necessary.
Any questions? Commissioner Park. Yes,
3:06 – 3:149 turns
when we get to deliberations I want to make a few comments that support your point that this does not create precedent and I'll explain why because I had some involvement with the orchid industry and I'm just curious Miss Rose was involved in the industry?
Yeah yeah She's the owner of Cal Orchid that is on site now with her husband who passed away while we were processing this.
So my name is Laura Rose. I've lived here since I was five. I lived, brought up in Hope Ranch and rode my horse all over Moore Mesa. Always had a respect for nature and although I pursued English literature as my major This love for plants overrode it, and I got a job at a small place up in the Riviera picking cymbidium flowers for King Cheryl when I was just like 22. And loved that aroma of the cymbidium flowers and my father. Anyway, I love plants, loved orchids most.
And so I found an ad in the newspaper for the orchid estate and I went to work for them. My mother had been shopping there, I enjoy the atmosphere and kind of controlled rural containment for these beautiful orchids. Met my husband there and in 1987 we purchased the nursery across the street Orchids By Row. Bob Rowe, who owned that parcel actually owned that whole street so when you and your family were shopping there Mr. Reed you may have gone down that little road to Orchids by Rowe Mr. Rowe, because he owned that whole street and all the parcels just kept selling those parcels and the houses kept building until they got to the end and he wanted to preserve that spot which is our nursery Cal Orchid for his son to be able to grow cymbidiums and maintain a modest income for himself So that's why that was there and it has that ubiquitous name of Orchid Drive Extension.
It is, it's a narrow street the neighbors love us I've been the president of that homeowners association before and served on the architectural committee and and I throw the parties every year for the summer social we get along very well to tighten it community Did you have any specific questions to ask me? Well, I welcome you to make appointments anytime. And if you want me to have a site selection or site review, I'm there six and a half days a week.
So happy to show you around all the nooks and crannies of the Orchid World.
Commissioner Park are you okay? Yeah, I was glad to get into
deliberations.
Okay well we'll be there in a minute. I'm not quite ready yet. No, but I was very glad. I thought they had an excellent bio of you in News Hawk a week or two ago. I hope the Rose Show turned – I mean the Orchid Show turned out well. Yeah my connection with the area when I was very young, my grandmother was very into cymbidiums and we used to go at Dos Pueblos when they closed. When they closed we switched to Santa Barbara Orchid Estate and actually one of the employees there, a little Japanese guy when I was probably seven eight years old taught me a lot about propagate separating and propagating cymbidiums. I still have a staghorn fern. I've been dividing in growing since I was a little kid over these many decades but nonetheless so we do have some commonality there.
I appreciate this story and I also appreciate your predicament in trying to practice any sort of ag when you're kind of surrounded by What is a really beautiful neighborhood up there. So that's my piece now if we are all ready, we could do we have public comment?
For those of you joining online raise your hand if you'd like to speak. No hands raised
no public comment so we will at this point close the public hearing are there and we're ready to move Any more questions of staff? No. Are we ready to proceed to deliberations? I will take, you know the hardest part about being chair is I have to wait until everybody else is done to say something but I'm going to depart from that tradition and I would like to recommend I'll just give you a heads up on that. Commissioner Park, I should have.
Commissioner Park, please proceed.
As I read the staff report, I had a warm and fuzzy feeling that I knew more about this than I remembered. Bob and John Rowe were great friends of mine. The young attorney who handled that transaction was me. I know the site very well. I want to Five years ago, if you talked about converting ag to residential, everybody would go up in arms. Of course now that we need more housing it has changed a little bit but from representing the Rose and I also represented the whole Santa Barbara International Orchid Show, I did the legal work to create it so I got to know all these growers, and a very big piece of the orchid industry then were people like the Rowe's who were essentially hobbyists themselves. And Bob Rowe loved to create new varieties and things.
They enjoyed it because they were hobbyists. A big part of their market were other hobbyists. They would also sell to the flower industry, which really wasn't cut flowers. But nowadays it is in its big time outfits from South America and other places and the kind of growers that were like you and Bob Rowe and John Rowe kind of disappeared And the reason I say it's not a precedent is because there were properties kind of this size with greenhouses that dotted Coogleta and dotted Carpinteria, they're all over. And they've all gone out of business and they've all converted to housing or something's happened. So there's nothing alarming here. I just think it's amazing you held out this long.
And so I just hope everybody realizes this. And I totally support your application. And I do want to come by and visit. I'll even bring lunch. All right.
3:14 – 3:169 turns
Commissioner Ford?
Thanks very much, I don't have much to say. I can't say that when I reviewed this I had a warm and fuzzy feeling but I actually felt, had bittersweet feelings because we've all seen what has happened to agriculture and to flower growing and particularly orchid growing I think slide number five tells the story. This is a smart change, and so I support it too and will be happy to second a motion should it come.
Any other? Commissioner Cooney?
I could talk longer. I'm interested by the history and the endurance and the presentation. So, I'll support a motion to approve this change.
Okay well getting back I will make that motion.
Sorry second I just wanted to say if Mr. Martinez wanted to speak but he doesn't so second the motion
OK, Mr. Gooney, could we, I mean, Mr. Villalobos, sorry, could we please take a roll call?
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 motion OK, Mr. Gooney, could we, I mean, Mr. Villalobos, sorry, could we please take a roll call?
Show transcript
Motion passes 5 to 0 Thank you
With that we will be adjourned until April 8th.