City Council — 2020-10-27

Thank you. I

call the regular meeting of the Ojai City Council to order, and will the clerk please call the roll?

few months ago Toys R Us filed bankruptcy and Toys R Us has come and gone and Serendipity stays. So I just think that you know there is something to be said about that and the quality of what they've brought. And I mean I can say that I have good friends who are taking their children there. I think it's probably a four or five generation old toy store which is pretty neat for Kinala High. So congratulations Joe and the family and everybody else You know, 40 more years. You know we hope you're there forever.

Okay well thank you all for doing that James and I guess was Luis the cameraman? Yeah Luis was cameraman and editor so give him credit in the crawl. We don't have any crawls but

we'll

work on that for the next go-round yeah okay let's see we are to the consent calendar approval Second. Okay, I got a motion to approve. No, nobody wants to pull anything? Nope. Good for you. Okay, great. Okay. It's moved and seconded any discussion hearing none. Okay the consent calendar is approved that takes us James, would you?

Yes.

It's a public

hearing. Yeah so this is a public hearing and it's a public hearing it was continued from the last council meeting on fences hedges and walls we brought Um, we had. Proposed ordinance that would regulate fence walls, hedges and screening. At the last meeting, but it was continued to this meeting for some modifications to be made. allows or it sets fence walls screening and hedges standards, but this version of it what's changed from the last meeting is it separated hedges from fences walls and screening.

Previously they have been treated similarly and in this ordinance they are now at tonight's meeting they will be kind of separated out So fences, walls and screens under this ordinance could be four feet high in the front yard up to the property line. This ordinance also creates a process to be able to expand that to up to six feet high if needed for animals but then that would be subject to the review of the community development manager This ordinance, like the one from a couple weeks ago creates a zone clearance process at a reduced $50 fee that would allow a person to come apply to get a fence wall or screen permitted.

And when that was reviewed As I mentioned before, the extension for animals could be permitted. Another change that this ordinance makes from two weeks ago is that it limits or it allows hedges, treats hedges separately from fences walls and screens and it allows hedges at the front property line and limits them Based on if they are a visibility issue or a hazard or a nuisance but does not otherwise limit hedges.

And also encroaching on the right-of-way. Yeah, right and I included that in hazard but yes if it encroaches on the right of way

So James, I'm sorry. Could you repeat that? Was it safety nuisances? Visibility

hazards, safety hazards, nuisance and encroachment on the public right of way would be reasons that a hedge would be potentially, you know, that there'd be potential enforcement from the city.

But it doesn't point to that, James. The hedging standard is designed under this proposed ordinance to be tested by the Community Development Director or Community Development Manager and Public Works Director as applicable on a case-by-case basis rather than establishing the current absolute three foot height maximum in the corner for hedges. This allows a hedge to exist unless it is a safety hazard, nuisance So it's intended to create some more flexibility for hedges independent of fences, walls and screening.

Right? And so it separates hedges most of the other requirements that we discussed last meeting with the last version are still in there. It still prohibits in link fencing unless approved by a minor CUP. It still creates the zone clearance process with the reduced $50 fee. But what it does differently from the ordinance two weeks ago is it separates hedges as we just discussed and allows for that additional 2 feet front fence for animals. So,

that's basically Can I add something, James? It also stipulates and Matthew correct me if I'm wrong. The discretion of the community development director can also be modulated by resolution of council in case of hedges.

Is there someplace in town where we do need to have barbed wire and razor wire? Well, we have

some over there on Bryant.

Yeah, and there's some on the street right here above the corporation yard. But I mean-

There are significant barbed wire around Soule Park Golf Course. Yeah. There's all kinds of places. And most of it is from the dark ages, right? But there was cattle and horses and you know all that kind of stuff but there is a significant amount although it's not...I don't think it's put in modernly very often but there is a lot in the city more than we would probably expect but most was put in the 50s and 60s.

Okay, how

about razor wire that sort of smacks of prisons. Yeah,

I don't see a lot of razor wire i mean if it's real razor wire there's also you know it's funny I was in I was in a Tascadero couple months ago, and there was up on a wall. There's like 40 different kinds of barbed wire. I had no idea back in the day. Cowboys had a different way to twill the stuff every time. But razor wire is a little different. That's usually a high security type of situation versus-

I've been to a barbed wire museum Ryan.

Jameson better

than

the first one. Really caught on. Open range didn't exist anymore, Randy.

I just had a couple questions for clarification so the standard now on front yard fencing and walls is 48 inches am i correct? It's proposed under this ordinance. And if someone wants to exceed 48 inches they can file for a minor variance Is that what I'm hearing? Essentially, we don't call it that but that's essentially what it is. Okay and then it's the same variance as someone would have if they had a wood fence or a block wall on the side or the backyard property lines and if they wanted to exceed six feet they'd have to come in and file for additional clearance to go to seven feet or eight feet, am I correct?

Yes. And so we're doing the same thing in front yards for organic living materials has to be is the term here versus organic? Well

that up to six feet is not organic materials that's um the ones we're talking about under that animal exception is fences walls and screens not the hedges Or hedges, there is no numeric height limit.

Hedges are treated separately, no limit. So is a hedge screen by definition? No. Is it not in someone's property intentionally? So are they using it as a hedge, as a screening device or are they planting a hedge to plant a hedge in their front yard for what?

Yeah. Oh sorry.

I need to understand this better, because I'm lost on if we have codes for fences and wall heights and things of that nature already. Why would we not want to have the same thing for the front yard? Again, if we moved it up to 48 inches, why would we not take it to whatever the allowable heights that we allow in our existing codes? Why aren't we doing that?

Well, I can tell you that from my point of view if I could answer that as soon as and I worked on this the feedback we get from the community is they want hedges treated differently. That seems to be pretty clear and they grow and they change. And I think the idea of having some standards with other than a set height limit makes sense for something that changes every year and grows plus we've heard a lot of feedback in the community about The positive impacts of a plant compared to something constructed in terms of climate change and all those issues. So Suza, I'll let you take that but that's the feedback I'm getting from the

community. No, I agree with that also, I believe we defined hedges as living material because there are all kinds of artificial hedges and those won't fly. No

it has to be

growing. It has to contribute to the health of the community. You know, it should

be. So you still haven't really answered the questions about heights? Yeah I want a 15 foot 20 foot hedge. Yeah that's the same question. Help me to understand that

yeah

Bill especially in the past um you've made real clear comments regarding. I've been very clear

but i'm i'm compromising with respect to the feedback i'm getting from And I think that they wanna treat something that's a hedge differently than something constructed. And so the idea is to put a performance standard on, also subject to additional council resolution in terms of hedges but nevertheless not having a set height limit for a hedge that doesn't encroach on the right-of-way, doesn't reflect become a safety hazard Uh you know not a not a hell a danger to health and safety in other words.

Yeah that's

all right

I'm just

yeah

i i just disagree with it but that's just me.

Mayor uh yeah uh Ryan um one uh Randy, I don't know if it answers. I don't know if it helps your question but there are some common law standards for the height of trees hedges and other screening that's called a spike fence and over 10 feet you get into potential liability even though it's not in the code there's a common law part of that that does exist but you know that's still not till you get to ten feet my question is why With the visibility intersections.

That has been the main problem where hedges have occurred that didn't change right you guys didn't actually change anything for hedges in those intersections, is there any idea of, is there any. The idea that there's stop signs, different situations. I mean we run into this every time. The main hedges that were objected to being cut down when the council tried to do this and declared an emergency a number of years back were not only screening hedges and everything else. They were corner hedges, they were other hedges. There's again, this one size fits all approach to all the different neighborhoods in Ojai has never worked. We haven't gotten that much public input on this I know you guys have but we haven't seen it at least at the council meetings and there's nothing in here that accounts for the intersection visibility if there's a stop sign.

There's nothing in here that accounts for those other situations. It just says if it interferes with it, I thought that was something that was being discussed. Well,

I believe it still has The traffic visibility area, it says negatively impacts the intersection visibility area required for public safety standards compliance. As said in section 10.2-803

That's in the list. Right, that's what I'm saying Bill is that there's no exception to that if they're stopped if there's a four-way stop at that intersection if those hedges are there though that those intersections are where the enforcement issue occurred more than they occurred in the setback areas when this council declared an emergency on it previously because it was after notice of enforcement after passing the rule when public became really upset

Let me, let me. I was there at the time but Ryan and one one thing i'd like to just clarify on that is the council directed looking please at the dangerous are they are the you know the situations that intersects for visibility not necessarily dangerous but just visibility issues What happened was that staff went out, none of the staff that's here now. But the accurate way of stating this is staff went out and started telling everybody no matter what whether it was a visibility or problem or not that they had to cut edges down. That's what provoked the large

reaction But right, but I mean even in this it doesn't give an exception if you're in the 25 foot setbacks areas and you're over three feet even with a hedge. There's any negative impact. This reads as a scintilla of negative impact meaning any negative impact found by the director could be exclusionary for that area. And I'm just saying, like we whittled this down. I appreciate that the makers of this motion and why we're reviewing it because I agree with that but I'm not seeing the hedges treated differently in the context of a significant area where most of the problems occurred in the past.

Well,

that's why the language

is in there saying director discretion are as if we don't like what ends up being with deck director Discretion, City Council resolution can direct specifics in terms of the interpretation.

Let me ask this then maybe I'm interpreting it wrong Bill and in all fairness I appreciate that answer so let me Matt if you don't mind me directing this at you.

Sure.

Matt on on in in that section under hedges number five right? So we're on 10 2.805 E subsection 5 negatively impacts the intersection visibility pursuant to 2.803, is that subject to some discretion on the director? Because I read that as being if there's any negative impact or if it quote unquote negatively impacts the intersection visibility that the director has no discretion at that

point. I do think that is having director discretion because negatively impacts doesn't mean has any impact. It means a negative impact rises to a level as to create something in the same character as the other four items on the list. Harm to the public, injurious to public health or safety.

So when I said a scintilla of negativity that would be incorrect it would be a what would be and I know this is a little bit legal but I mean what would be the burden of negativity for the director to look at and try and assess?

I think the burden would be does it create Is it likely to create a safety hazard? Right, yeah. For most drivers in most situations and in the course of that while not expressed the community development manager evaluating would I expect take into account um the characteristics of each intersection are there stop signs is it for the few that we have signalized if not signalized does it have curb extensions or not does it have what's its character Would I expect to be taken into account? The proposal from the subcommittee as embodied in this ordinance is to, as noted, delete the absolute height limit for hedges and replace it with this standard allowing assessment of whether it creates a negative impact on health traffic safety and health and safety.

And if it does then require enforcement subject to appeal up the chain.

I would say this than that. I mean, I agree with the policy on favor of that but reading it in the actual language, I'm not seeing that being conveyed. It says any of the following situation and number five is negatively impacts the intersection visibility area required. It doesn't say negatively impacts the public safety. It doesn't say negative under this site. It says negatively impacts the visibility And I don't read any discretionary ability in the director of that. And maybe I'm interpreting that wrong, but maybe there's some clarity in a couple words that would make that

clear. Yeah, I think maybe a couple words emphasizing that what you just said Matthew is indeed clearly incorporated in E5 would make sense.

So I would suggest adding two things one would be at the beginning of the sentence for this sub clause significantly negatively impacts the intersection visibility area required for public safety standards compliance in the judgment of the director. Yeah, that works for me. That we're testing it not as any scintilla negativity but rather is it a substantial harm?

Aren't there some Public Works standards for sight distance? Yes. And what we're talking about is that if it interferes with sight distance And creates a safety issue, which is what site distance is to protect. Then you apply the criteria and hedges can't interfere with that just because they're living, growing whatever the definition is.

Right? But no, but Johnny my question is really like if there's a four way stop or there's other mitigating factors or If it's 37 inches in those 25 foot triangle, then the way this reads to me is that as soon as it hits 36 plus inches anywhere in that triangle, it's not allowed. That's not the intent. Okay, and I'm just asking and I

agree. It's not saying that you can't have a hedge there it just has to be below a certain level so that the site distance is not right?

Well yeah no what it's actually saying is that the director has the discretion if we modified the language ≫ Mr. Chair, I have a question for Mr. Summers. If the director feels it negatively impacts If it was the minimum height of 36 inches, it might be okay if it had other mitigating factors because then it didn't significantly impact the public safety portion of the visibility standard.

Yeah, because the reality is I've looked at a lot of these intersections and most of the ones that would fall under this fall in what I call the downtown square which is signal street Summer Street lock Kenyatta Street and Ojai Avenue right. And a lot of those properties are All chopped up and different. In fact, a bunch of our council members live in this area. And in that area, that's where there was a lot of enforcement issues and stuff before so I'm very familiar with that. I happen to have moved in there since then but I didn't before but I was very aware of it. I know that in that area there's this question and I know there's public Discussion and outcry saying, hey how can we handle both of these? I agree there's situations where one size fits all doesn't work.

I don't wanna see the hedges that heck, I'll be honest, I put on Facebook after this law passed the first time and there were people who literally took weed whackers to the bottom of their hedges and left them in the street. And it upset a lot of people cuz that wasn't really what the city wanted or what the intent was. Remember the hedge picture book? Okay, right. And I don' know some of them are, Is the

language that Matt proposed as an amendment satisfy you?

Yes,

absolutely.

For purposes of discussion I'm going to make a move to approve.

And I want to go to Randy who had his hand up.

Well, I'm trying to be polite here in these discussions but it seems like all we want to do is step on each other and I just don't... Okay well you were polite so now you have the floor. But I'm just trying to say that's why I asked originally are we all on the screen? So that we can all behave. We are now. So again guys you still haven't It seems again, once again we're creating something that has a tremendous amount of ambiguity. That has a ton of gray that is gonna have a lot of well you say one thing Mr. Grant or Mr. Vega and now I'm gonna go appeal it. Now we're gonna have another hearing why are we doing this? Why are we creating such You know, I'm just lost on it you guys. I'm completely lost on it. Health

safety and welfare is the goal Bill. To answer your question Randy and I apologize for being too quick on the draw there. Remember what we're trying to do is to fix years of suspended and ambiguous enforcement of an existing code At the time I first took office, you remember it was a short-term rental thing that had been suspended enforcement for six years. It was, I think it's corrosive to the community to have long term suspended enforcement so we're trying to do is to modify this code in a way that we can feel comfortable going forward and and I just feel like this is a way of taking a step in that direction. We're trying to end this long term suspension enforcement with something That makes at least some degree of sense. And we have a council resolution option in there for clearing up problems that maybe come from instead of having an absolute height limit, having standards that are applied to the situation.

So this is an attempt to try to move forward by having standards apply to the situation and lift this long term enforcement system.

I think this is a subject of a public hearing, correct Matt?

Yes.

I think we should open the hearing now and see what the public has to say before we try to solve every or answer every question. Okay, the public hearing is now open. Gail do we have anybody that has called in or submitted a card?

No.

None? None. We have one, I thought. Yeah, we received One written comment from Bill Miley. And that comment was? Positive. Okay, well then we don't have any more comments besides Bill. Thanks Bill for sending in your comment. We appreciate that. That's Bill Miley. Okay we will close the hearing if there are no further people in the queue okay. Hearing is now closed. Now we need a motion of some sort so we can start moving this to a conclusion

Well, after the motion are we going to have a little more discussion?

Normally you have your discussion after the motion. In Ojai you guys all convinced me that you weren't going to do that so we have it both ways.

Mr. Mayor you only have a couple more weeks to have to worry about that. I

will

offer the motion as to introduce this for first introduction I mean yeah for first reading As amended by Mr. Summers.

I'll second.

Okay and that was in regard to Ryan's concern that there be more. Yeah,

I'll just say subject to my amendment because i'm not sure Mr. Summers is allowed to amend the

anti-sexuality

law. We all know what you meant Bill. I'm just described.

Okay we have a motion and a second now we will have discussion Randy?

So again I just want to be clear on this you guys Um, we have regulations regarding fences and walls. And what you're saying is now I can go into my property and I can plant anything that I want, let it grow as tall as I want Unless it comes under Ryan's 10 foot rule, which is not anywhere in this ordinance. But is that what I'm hearing? So-

I'm

saying is it is the unintended consequences of what you're doing, is allowing anyone to put these hedges anywhere on their property with no guidelines other than unless someone from the city comes and says We don't think that that's appropriate or that's not right. Or I guess to me, the bottom line is safety. So-

Safety visibility and encroaching on the public right

away. And if the city official goes in and makes this statement to an individual community member, but that person now can come back to council and appeal our Our internal decision, am I correct? Okay, Randy. Susan,

okay, I'm gonna have to- So much nice guys stop, okay? Randy, do you have an amendment you'd like to propose so we can move the discussion to the subject? I agree with you. I have a concern that people would say hey, I can't put a fence up my front yard but I could put up a 15 foot hedge all around my property and become Montecito. Is that one of the issues? That's my biggest issue.

Does anybody have

a proposal to address that? So my amendment would be if we have a six foot requirement for all other types of fences and hedges, that we institute that in the front yard also. And then if someone needs to increase it or have something larger let them come in demonstrate through a minor variance that they need it And let's move on. But I think an unlimited height is not good for this community.

Is there a second to that? I'll second it, okay. Susie you have a comment.

If someone does that, it would most likely be to mitigate the noise like on Grand Avenue of traffic. I just don't see people doing things like that and well, it could be beautiful. People have a right to me for privacy because of the character, there's so much traffic on some of the streets. That's what it would be for to mitigate the noise of traffic. I don't see a problem allowing something- Other

comments on the proposed

amendment?

Ryan. You know, I don't disagree with you Randy i i don't like the idea of we're going. We all, you know, we're all worried about this thing happening and Ojai, but it's, I've never seen it happen a lot.

Yeah,

and the hard part here is we are trying and we, the first time this was ever discussed when I was on the council. The hard part was you know there's there's Golden West. There's Persimmon Hill, there's the downtown square I call it. The neighborhoods are so different. We're trying this one size fits all. This is why HOAs exist. This is why you move into a neighborhood and there are specific rules for that neighborhood.

The houses in the downtown area used to be like my place is an old barn, I can spin the camera around it looks like an old barn. It's got more space in the front than in the back all of these places are so unique and weird. One thing I'll say is that if you want to do something to try and make some of these properties work What we're really indicating in this is hedges are much preferred and we're much more flexible on that. Hedges have some visibility generally through them anyway, even though they're not generally opaque in a pure sense during the day. There's a lot of benefits. They do encroach but you gotta get people out to trim them. I'm with you. I don't think they need to be over six feet high ever but I also think the code clearly indicates that that's not allowed.

Now if we need to put a maximum height in Because you feel that's a real problem, I would support that. But this is the hard part is it's...I can think of three houses in Del Oro where it's a problem and two houses in my block that's different and two houses in Persimmon Hill that are different. It's really difficult. What I will say is I like hedges And as far as aesthetically in a community, and especially an environmentally sound community like ours. A lot more than I like walls, and a lot more than I like fences.

And if we add a little bit of flexibility there I think we're actually incentivizing people to maybe go that direction which i think is positive plus the upkeep is more expensive long term, but I'm okay with a height limit, but I do like the idea that this promotes hedges in kind of an indirect way. And I believe we're all on a consensus that we'd like to see more hedges than walls and fences.

All I'm saying in response to this is, and this is where I started my discussion completely from day one on this. Is being able to back out of your driveway and not run someone over that's on a sidewalk because you have a 6 foot or 10 foot or 12 foot or 20 foot hedge blocking your line of sight And that has been dropped from consideration. Yes, it has because of the fact that now we're saying hedges are different And therefore, we're gonna allow them to be whatever we want them to be. So I am sorry, I'm not gonna support this one iota because of

the fact- Didn't you make an amendment? Right. Seconded it. You're not going to support that or I'm not sure where you are Randy just a second says I'll get to

you. If they're gonna accept my amendment of six foot maximum in the front yard, I would appreciate that but I don't have a sense I'm going to get that, so.

Okay well now the amendment of the second order would be to discuss what the height would be There's a difference between six foot is still gonna block people back and out of the driveway. So I agree, okay? So the site thing still is in play regardless if it's a fence or a hedge. Now the question is how high is high and are you going to put it into this thing? We have some hedges down on Grand Avenue that look to me like they're starting to push 12 feet.