City Council — 2021-08-24

For the short term.

Thank you, John. And so welcome to the August 24th 2021 meeting of the Ojai City Council. We have a joint meeting with the Planning Commission and we have one public comment on this. Meg Goodwin please.

Good evening commissioners council members. I just wanted to put in an in person appeal about our request during the general plan update to have our one block of North Montgomery Street rezoned from commercial to village mixed use is just 11 properties on that block and we're surrounded by VMU so make it much easier for all of us to live and work So that's that, because I couldn't zoom in a couple of times. So thank you for considering that and also I just want to put my two cents about the bike thing that it would be nice if we could continue the bike path across that front area of Vons where the Christmas tree is, you know, that grassy area seems like the bike path could go there and then have a stop sign at the driveway by Vons and then continue the two way bike path separated from the traffic so that it's illegal two-way bike paths.

Thank you for everything you guys are doing good luck

Thank you Meg. So we'll begin our joint session, any public comments on Zoom Gail? No public comments. Okay thank you and just a reminder this is our first joint session in two years so thank you everybody for being here it's pretty exciting. We are very happy to get back to normal Sort of normal, and we're going to be discussing five different topics from the Planning Commission. And so thank you planning commission for being here and we will slowly in the next couple months meet with all the commissions in joint sessions. So it's wonderful opportunity for all of us to work together and actually see each other face-to-face pretty exciting. So I'm gonna hand it over to James is going to talk about the general plan update

Thank you. I just wanted to do a quick couple of quick comments about the general plan update because I know that that was identified as a topic by the Planning Commission, I think it's a topic that is one of the large projects that we'll be working on over the next 18 months or so. So, Have provided everybody should have this handout in front of them, and we just kind of wanted to. I know a couple of questions were you know which element should the planning commotion commission focus on in tandem with the general plan update and then There was the general plan update and the affordable housing topics so we wanted to kind of start by stating where we're at. And so, one thing you'll note in this flowchart is there is some red line, and the red line reflects the timelines kind of the revised timelines.

Obviously COVID has not been super cooperative and it hasn't been a great opportunity for us to have these large public workshops we typically would have. So the timeline has been somewhat impacted by that but you'll note by this that the first phase of the general plan update was the listening and learning portion, that box that says review existing policies and reports identify issues and opportunities. And that was, we had a strength weakness and opportunity workshop. That process began in winter of 2020.

We completed that process and moved forward with the visioning, developing the long-term vision and the guiding principles for the plan. The planning commission had reviewed that general plan vision and guiding principles document and refined that A couple months back and that actually made its way to the City Council and was adopted last council meeting. So you'll see the original dates for those with spring of 2021, that is now spring summer of 2021 but it was adopted in August and so we'll be moving forward now to the plan alternatives phase where we will create and refine land use and transportation alternatives That was originally scheduled for summer. We're going to be starting that in September, so it's a little bit of a postponement but all things considered considering multiple public workshops we had scheduled and had to kind of reschedule and then move to Zoom I think that it's been postponed a bit but it's not out of line with what we would expect due to COVID The plan alternatives, just to lay it out.

We are planning to bring specific areas forward where we've heard a lot of conversation about so that the Planning Commission and then the City Council can really dig into those areas. And one of them was just mentioned by the public comment. It's the Montgomery Street area which there's a lot of comments coming from all the different workshops about the future vision of what Montgomery Street can and will be.

And then the other areas, the Bryant Street industrial Bryant Street Bryant Circle industrial area. So that is the portion that we are going to be working on through fall of 2021 and then in the meantime at the same time, the housing element that the Planning Commission just reviewed is going to be coming to the City Council on I believe it's September 14th.

Okay, so September 14th the housing element will come to the city council. So those are gonna be the two kind of overlapping parts of the general plan we work on over the next three months. So we just wanted to lay that out to kind of set the stage for the general plan update discussion. But with that, of course, we're happy to take questions but with that, we'll turn it over to the mayor and the chair of the planning commission, Chair Quillacy to lead the discussion on the topics.

Chair Quilsey?

Yes, I'm here. I'm in Texas at the moment on a trip for family business that could not be rescheduled and I regret not being with you but Vice-Chair Nolan will handle whatever duties would otherwise be required of me because she's there with you. My only other regret is that John Trent joined the Planning Commission a number of months ago, perhaps a year ago by now I'm not sure.

And we have never seen each other live. We've been Zooming all this time. So I look forward to the next meeting in which we can actually say hello and look each other in the eye. But Vice Chair Nolan will take the lead from here for the Planning Commission ma'am.

Thank you, Chair Quilici. Can you hear me OK? All right, good. Just fine. So I just found out that I was going to chair a couple of minutes ago but I think I'm OK and everybody can help me out as needed hopefully.

You'll be

great. So basically these are the items that we had discussed at Planning Commission The tree ordinance, Title 10 update, the water efficient landscape guidelines. And then generally we just kind of went over the general plan. James Fagey just went over that with us and then affordable housing. And I would say our general discussion especially with the tree ordinance and maybe even the water efficient landscape guidelines and affordable housing Typically we have projects that may have one of those elements in them and there potentially is an issue. But the other thing too, and I'm specifically referring to the tree ordinances, we have noticed in our packet not every meeting but on a regular basis there are a lot of tree removals going on And a lot of it has to probably be due with environmental issues, but they're all permitted.

But we've noticed it as a red flag. It's something where we keep bringing up and going, oh my gosh, we're losing a lot of our trees. And from our perspective generally speaking, we look at the trees as a resource for the community For carbon sequestration, slowing down water part of the hydrological cycle. Shade lowering the evapotranspiration rate, beauty et cetera.

So that's kind of where that came from and then with the Water Efficient Landscape Guidelines we did look at that I want to say it might have been about four years ago with one of our past community development directors The planning commission did provide input, which actually was incorporated into some of the city guidelines. But I believe Commissioner Trent, I know you have brought this up and we've generally discussed the concern about fire in water and how that relates to landscape.

So our general discussion was does it warrant us to go through kind of vetted again And provide input and recommendations, which of course all of this would go back to City Council. And provided you directed us to follow through with that. Title 10 we've been working on but I think that would be more of an update. Chair Quillency if you wanted to pipe in on any of that please do so.

And then of course, affordable housing because yes we've been working on that and that's part of our general plan update. And we understand the affordable housing or the housing element had time constraints when it had to be submitted. But one of the biggest things that I think we discussed was, I shouldn't say I think but I know we discussed, was what's the vision coming from city council as far as housing goes? Yes there is one thing that we are required to have a housing element and we have the rain in numbers and you know we know those numbers have been adjusted and they're a lot less than they used to be But, you know, we continue to hear from the general public and just on the street about the housing shortage. And we kind of wanted to see if there was some direction from City Council as far as like what's the overall vision?

Is it just to meet the random numbers, get it done because we have to get it done or are we really trying to provide... I know we don't have to build but we have to indicate that we have properties You know, available in our housing element that potentially could be developed. I'm going to open it up to my fellow planning commissioners and if you would like to add to anything that I've just said, if I've missed something or if you want to contribute and then maybe we can then open the dialogue up? Does that work for everyone? Okay.

Do I see any I would like to mention the title 10

Clean up, if you will. It's a lot more than clean up but Lucas and I as sort of a precursor ad hoc committee to the planning commission have been going through title 10 line by line first cleaning up inconsistencies and other errata of that sort. And we're getting down now to where there are real policy questions That we need to bring back to the Planning Commission for recommendations to you.

With the pandemic and other things that cause short staffing in City Hall, we've seen some delays in that But we both hope to be able to bring back more substantive policy questions, both to the commission and then subsequently to the city council. So looking forward to getting back into that routine. All the rest of what Kathy Nolan said is spot on. We're really looking for guidance from City Council.

Tell us what you think it's important for us to work on And if we give you a list of things that we think are appropriate for us to work on, then we're looking for you to give us your priorities amongst those various issues and tasks. So that's where we are and that's what we're hoping at least in part to get out of this meeting tonight.

Thank you, Chair Crosley. So at this point I think we'll hand it back to Council and let us know how we can interact as needed.

Maybe a good idea just go there's five topics identified so just open up a topic and get council feedback.

So I would generally say that we just talked about the general plan, so we probably skipped that one. So basically, we have the tree ordinance, the Title 10 update, the Water Efficient Landscape Guidelines, and then the affordable housing. And in a way, the tree ordinance and the water efficient landscape guidelines might have some overlap or could almost be done jointly potentially.

Does council have a preference where to start or we can just start at the top of the list? Randy.

So when I looked at this list originally, I thought it was planning commission's priorities. Well obviously I'm wrong. You didn't list the priority you just listed five things that you'd like some input on by council am I correct? So I'll drop the assumption of tree ordinance is number one in the planning commission and you're looking for guidance as to what should be number one.

And personally, the general plan update and anything that has to do with the general plan for the next six months if not a year it should be the number one priority for this planning commission. And the reason that I say that, there's a lot of information to digest. But more importantly, there's a lot of information to disseminate. The public needs to know what we're doing, why we're doing it, how it might impact them, where it will impact them.

And we need to be able to bring the public in more. In some of the sessions that I've been in and I've watched, there's not a lot of public input. We need more. So to get more, we need the planning commission to have it agendized at every meeting, have some form of discussion, some form of action you might wanna take but more importantly, some way to communicate to the community what we're doing. I would start there and if you have time to do anything else God bless you, go with God's speed. But this is probably the most important aspect of community is who we are, what we are, where we're going and how we're gonna get there.

And I think it's real important that we recognize and the planning commission recognized, that you're the voice in the ears as the council is. The 10 people that sit on Council Planning Commission were the venue where all of this is gonna be vetted. We just need to recognize that and realize the importance of it.

A question for James when is the next public meeting? Is it scheduled already?

Like the next public workshop for the general plan. So we were working on that, so we had shifted back to scheduling an in-person meeting and we were feeling pretty confident but that has now been canceled so we are working on scheduling a virtual meeting I think we had said late September or early October But in the meantime, the housing elements coming to the city council September 14th. So that's the very next step in the general plan or an element update at the city council but then there'll be a public workshop about a month after that.

Great well I agree with you Randy getting more people involved and in the know and knowing what's happening. And for my... The Zoom meetings were pretty well attended for Zoom meetings we had 100 people at one which was great Still, we need 100

out of 7500. That's the concern. That's

actually, you know according to the consultant that was a really he was really impressed with number considering you know the percentage of our population that showed up considering that it was on zoom too.

I'm not you know i i'm grateful for who participated but when i'm getting paid six hundred and fifty thousand dollars i'm going to tell you it was the greatest meeting that i've ever been a part of but aside from that i you know something else that might work too mayor having the planning commission like we did the first time that we were here at Libby Bowl And maybe we need to figure out how to stop zooming and start interacting and start having more of your commission meetings here when you can, and moving forward as you can. We'll get more participation from there if they know that we're meeting here for them to be a part of it.

When we are in a closed room or a closed environment, especially right now it's difficult. But this is that first council meeting was incredible.

Excuse me you can still zoom in if you don't want to. Oh sure yeah but you know if our first our next general plan public workshop is late September early October it's still good weather It gets dark earlier, but it's-

I don't want to hog all the time as I normally try not to do sometimes. But this is one of the arguments with the ATP believe it or not, is there wasn't enough public meetings and the reality is we probably conducted 25 and 28 of them Most people didn't know or didn't want to come down and participate. And that's the downside to that when it comes to your, you know, that's one small aspect of how we're going to redefine some streets in Ojai but to redefine how we plan and how we live and how we grow, how we develop, how we come together this is incredibly important so we need more participation more

Are you suggesting we have planning commission meetings at Libby Bowl?

Absolutely, Steve. Yeah, that's what I heard.

And at least that public workshop maybe late September or early October at the very least. That would be great. We might pack the bowl.

A full setting of the bowl.

Yes.

You'll love it, Steve. It's great.

Oh, I'd be happy to do that, sure.

Thank you. Commissioner Lattice? And I really felt that that was lacking because that really is something that we could have taken the housing element further to really address specifically with this community needs versus what the state is looking for. So if, if we can work in more workshop types of forums where People feel like they have an opportunity to say something and talk about what the issues are, sort of where they see us going for the future because we are looking at the next 20 years for the general plan.

And in particular I think we really need the time for community input and vetting and discussion of policy as well as the, so that we can look at the existing policies but in addition to maybe taking those and crafting those a little bit. We can look at adopting creating new policies to deal with our future challenges. So I say you're here.

May I have a turn? Yeah. I think the public is most of all interested in what is stopping us from implementing certain things, like today we received another letter from Gloria Valadolid about gray water. We've discussed it for years and my understanding is that she wrote that California allows gray water from my washing machine to my landscape without a permit. The County of Ventura allows the same And she says, Oh, I should do the same. I should immediately move to retrofit city facilities to use gray water and just the public understand what is legal and what is not legal and how they can go about implementing because this is completely related to watering trees on our landscape and acknowledges that we're in a drought. So I think the public would like a report on that.

That's just one of many things. Also, what's stopping us from taking an inventory of empty buildings and, what's the word? Retrofitting, redesigning them to become housing. What is stopping us from doing things that at least in the eyes of the public Seem logical when we're in a crisis mode with housing, for example. And as far as if the planning commission is looking for direction for vision for housing I would, I'm completely in support of the climate housing policy recommendations that I think everyone received today there's nine It's laid out nine policy recommendations. And I don't know if the rest of the council is in favor, but that would give the planning commission some direction perhaps some of you could speak how you feel about those nine recommendations.

I would totally support all nine of them. This was an email that went out earlier today? Yeah,

you know, I briefly got to look at it. I was working and then I had to leave before this meeting so I didn't thoroughly vet it personally but maybe it's something that we bring back. I'm not sure if everyone had a chance to go through and digest it I mean, generally, I would say yes. But I think that would be a smart way for everyone to have a chance to look at it and then we come back and go through it.

But it does relate to housing and it was directed as some possible climate solutions that tie in with housing. May I make one more comment there? Betsy or Kathy, whoever's in charge. I can't see you, sir. Go

ahead.

I can go ahead. Um, I would say the other critical thing to convey for us to be aware of and to convey to the public is that you cannot isolate one part of the general plan. All every single problem is intimately connected. And the more you see that, I think the greater our ability will be to move forward to resolve these problems It's all connected, transportation, housing, water, fire.

We have to look at everything as a whole. I mean, I know that's been said but I can't... I want to underscore that. So important. And if there are things like with the tree or if we're losing our trees, It's just as important as the general plan. Some things need immediate action, the general plan is super important but if there's something that needs an immediate attention we have to zero in on that. I forget what you said Commissioner Nolan It's a red flag when we have multiple trees dying and we need to find out what's going on. That's critical on every level.

So I don't know what you need from us in order to zero in on the tree ordinance. Do you need two of us to work with two planning commissioners, for example?

It's actually already in our work agenda.

We

have a tree resolution come back for review.

That's

where we're actually years behind doing that and months behind the council directing that that come back to us.

Oh,

perfect. That's already in the workforce.

Oh, could we get a copy

of

the work

agenda? We already directed that to come back to us and we all weighed in with comments. That's been months since that direction was provided by councilors waiting for it to come back to us really.

So there is a community forest management plan and the tree ordinance which

I've never seen the work agenda, so it would be really nice to see what we're supposed to look

at. I was just stating for the record that the community forestry management plan had a recurring review period which we did not meet. We're years behind and some of us have put in comments about that and we're hoping that it gets back to us but that is a work progress that's supposed to come back to us very soon.

Along those lines, something else that came up at Planning Commission, I believe it was a couple of meetings back. And it has to do with what does City Council want us to do and what is the work plan or the big vision? But in the past, We had a list of things that Planning Commission generated. In other words, like this list that we have here and of course it would go to Council and we'd have to wait for direction from Council if they wanted us to look at it but we also had essentially the work plan And I think that's kind of part of this I'm calling it a procedure, but it's something that staff would provide and get it back into our packet. And likewise, it might want to go be in the city council so you kind of knew if there was anything coming from our end possibly.

It's a communication tool.

We do have one more public comment that came in a little late so it's a little out of order, but that's okay. Bill Miley please?

Hi, for the record my name is Bill Miley. When Councilwoman Souza mentioned greywater at Jardine, my thoughts this is not new but if you read the LA Times today I think it was today we're in the extreme red zone in California which is you can't get any worse so I know Oxnard has been doing recycling of their wastewater for some time I think we need to really seriously get involved in that because we don't have any new water.

And I know there's the issue of steelhead and Ventura River, and there has to be a certain amount of outflow but we better look at that. I suggest the Planning Commission push it and the City Council It seems to me that it would be great to take advantage of what happens in the press like today, and have the city council say something or the city manager say something to all the people in Ojai that we're working on the drought issues and water.

And hook it into what they saw today because it's really that. We have lots of people's attention right now so I think We should do that. Also, I would suggest you consider having entertainment at these meetings to get people to come.

We're not entertaining enough? Come on!

Actually that's already been discussed already so...

I thought we were the entertainment.

Thank you Bill.

You're

the

entertainer! We get criticized for being entertaining sometimes in the wrong way

So just to comment, so basically I would say like the tree ordinance and the Water Efficient Landscape ordinance or landscape guidelines. Those two really tie into gray water. And I will say that, I know the city of Ojai does have a link to the graywater laws which I believe we're still following the ones with the county but yeah so that is on the city web website but it is something we could look at more with the landscape guidelines you know potentially and I do agree I mean as I said at the beginning you know it's all tied into water and fire or should I say no water, or lack of water, limited water.

So there's that but I guess we'll turn it back over to council for more feedback.

Just a couple comments that have already been touched on by Vice Chair Nolan and Council Person Francina. And that is that I think it's important to draw distinction between the general plan principles and specific policies implementing those principles or programs. So for me, like when we were talking and you touched on it and Suzy did as well, we're talking about the forestry management plan where we're talking about sustainable landscape, we're talking about stormwater capture, we' re talking about sustainable ecology.

and the different ways that contribute to sustainable ecology. And so I would hope that we could have a general plan that articulates these principles at a fairly high level, that then we can have some guidances to being consistency. I'll give another example for example, giving what we're learning more and more about the nature of the aquifer below the city only amplifies the importance of trying to do stream flow restoration stormwater capture And in terms of re-engineering our hardscape, that relates to the water levels. It relates to the ability to protect ourselves with fire hardening landscaping.

In terms of the sustainable issues with our urban forest in terms of water management, carbon fixing and fenestration as well The, the overall more you know with it oh it's interesting. We now have research showing that your mental health is enhanced by having a sustainable urban forest I mean these are things that are becoming more and more, you know tied together in a very objective sort of metric way. So for example when we're talking about a tree ordinance, we should be looking at the healthy ecology of our urban forest not just trying to have more counts and trees planted. I think there's a distinction that's a particular distinction i want to make so I would hope that we could find ways of articulating a sustainable ecology in the general plan that gives us guidances to consistent policies implemented

Well, this is great.

That's my point of view.

That's your point of view and well taken and I do agree. And I will say back to our planning commission discussions before this meeting about wanting some guidance about the overall vision but when we have talked about the general plan, some of the questions we have brought up is how has climate and ecology in the environment going to be addressed in our general plan? Is there gonna be a separate element, is it gonna be interlaced and everything is connected similar to what you said Council Member Wyrick.

Personally I would hope that it is but we would love to hear that and I know that no matter what we do with any of these tasks that we may take on It would be good for us to know if that is behind it and the City Council is behind that, and that's a direction you're giving.

And I can only express myself and I'll cede the floor just a minute but to me multi-modal transportation stormwater capture sinking recharge how we manage our urban forest those are all connected in terms of sustainable ecology. And so it's hard for me to see how you put out climate change, say, in a separate silo when it's really part of a sustainable ecology that is interwoven through everything. But that's just my point of view.

Well I agree with you 100%. We just need to hear from City Council what direction you want us to go in. And I know generally as the Planning Commission we've We've tossed that around and we're hoping that's the direction. But at the same time, we work for you so that's part of the reason we're here tonight.

I'd like to see climate change woven into every single aspect of the general plan. You know, we're in code red. The planet is on life support and I would imagine that most of us have looked at the UN report And even if we pivoted today and made great choices, we'd still have 30 more years where the plants can get hotter and things are gonna get worse. The science is all there so everything we do has to take that into account in terms of mitigation, adaptation, resiliency.

It's a different world now

Thank you.

So Mayor, all of it is the sum of the whole. It's all important. My understanding of the general plan is that it's our vision and that the nuts and bolts are what we do in our commissions and what we do in our committees. Am I correct on that assumption? Would anyone disagree with that? So the general plan is a pretty broad range of view of our community.

Well, the general plan actually is more than that it is vision but its policy and the policies layout all the things the city actually wants to take action on. And the zoning and other parts of the municipal code actually are the implementing, but the policy drives everything that the city should be

doing. I understand that, but these are broad strokes of policy. They're not finite as much as maybe some would like them to be, but they're not finite They're pretty broad, and they're broad for a reason so that a community can be inclusive and not dictated to by individuals. That's what I'm trying to say. Anything and everything that we do has to bear the weight of the community, not just a part of the community or a small part of the community. And I think that's important in any discussion that we have on general plans that you just can't build a general plan in a silo to fit the need of one specific group. that the general plan is for the community. That's why I'm saying, Kathy we're not disagreeing what I'm trying to say is it's not a fine line.

It's a little thicker pencil and I think we need to understand that and then we come back and have the policy debate, the code debate in all of the things that make the plan work or function. But

the policy should appear in the general plan. That is part of the general plan and it is driven by the community discussion and input, but it needs to be understandable. It needs to be pretty clear about the actions that are necessary. So it's not written like a zoning ordinance but it should be pretty directive In my opinion. Successful, other communities that have very successful general plans where they're used daily have taken that approach. So I don't think it should be too general because then in terms of what is really meant is not clear.

Well, I don't disagree like you said maybe we need to change the term general and make it finite, the finite plan This is the way it shall be because we have declared it as such. And what I'm trying to say is, it needs to be inclusive. It needs to represent the whole and how we achieve that, we achieve that through the other side of it. And that's through your zoning and that's through your planning, through your building, through your writing of your ordinances. So it's interesting, we could write a whole new general plan And then take that plan and have to take it back to building, and have to take back the planning. And redefine all of the elements that we're discussing here.

And I'm just trying to say when we do that, that's when we actually get finite. That's when we actually can take Susan's Greywater. And we can take a landscape ordinance and actually harden it making it more defined Yes, so I think there's a little bit of difference here. That's all not much but that's what I'm saying. I don't want to

argue with you. I'd like to get a word in if I could one of the things that Vice Chair Nolan has tried to bring out in asking for guidance from the City Council and it would be good to get that task list back in front of us I think one thing that she is saying, that we have all said at one time or another on the commission. We are a resource for the city council to do the things that you see necessary.

We are not the only resource. Let's take a look at the gray water, for example. Planning Commission would, I think be properly positioned to say, you need to keep that gray water on your property if you can. How you get that done is a matter of building standards and you should be able to call on your Building Appeals Board to look at those aspects, Title 24 of the California Administrative Code and see what needs to be done with Title 9 in the Municipal Code if anything to implement that same philosophy. So while we are ready and willing to take on any tasks that you have for us, you have other resources as well. And in some cases like many of those nine suggestions in the email today I would contend that they might be better dealt with by your building appeals board while we worry about zoning and land use Thank

you.

I'd like to say something about housing, I really love for the Planning Commission to focus on housing for very low and extremely low income households. And well of course we need to meet the numbers. Yeah, you know, the word affordable is You know, that's a tough word and it's not really used that much anymore. So what do we mean when you know how much does the person make and how much is the rent, and you know, it should be about third of that, and how are we going to, are we gonna make that happen because we need that we need equity.

And I'm not as I hear that every day. That's the question.

Yeah, and I think the challenge is you know especially with the housing element you know we're identifying properties in going through a vetting process that would potentially be sites for quote-unquote affordable housing but as far as the Planning Commission I don't know, creating a program or something. I think that may be out of our boundaries, something that we would actually do. But I know that we consider that and it's in our discussion and we're aware of it.

I may be wrong in saying that but I think I might be on the right direction there.

It's within the council's discretion as it should be to say There are places in the city that should be available for affordable housing. But as we all know, the Reina process doesn't require anyone to build anything specifically it doesn't require the city to fund the building of anything which in these tough financial times is a good thing I think but I think we should go as far as we can to make it possible for affordable housing to be built in Ojai, that's fine. We still need to keep in mind that affordable is a legally defined term and when you say affordable, you have to include to whom and where because the numbers are all different in every case.

So let's take some aspirational goals but keep in mind Achieving aspirational goals like so many things requires other people's money. The city doesn't have a lot of that. If people who are in a position to develop housing wish to do it, we should make that possible for them. I don't know that it's within the city's powers to require affordable housing be built anywhere in particular, by anyone in particular. So let's keep in mind the limitation of our power in achieving aspirational goals.

Thank

you. I notice Council Member Blatts had his hand up.

I agree with you. It is an interesting question and I have to admit, I've been on this council for a while now I'm a clue what our housing policy actually is. We say we want affordable housing we say we want to do anything I've heard the word crisis emergency has to happen, but then we get presented with a plan and we say no too many people not enough water too much traffic. So I don't know. You know, we, we, I don't think we can figure it out i don't think we have a clear indication I don' blame the Planning Commission for struggling to figure out what the heck it is we want. I personally am not afraid of the city's population getting back I ate 500 more people is not going to have an impact on water and traffic, but I think it's so significant that I think it would change the character of town because we had 8000 people in the town for many deck for at least a decade that I lived here.

And it wasn't a significant change in the way things were. But I don't know if my colleagues agree with that. The public seems to be a little fickle on this as well. This came up in our tiny home discussion a couple weeks ago. And of course we were trying to add a new idea and bring in tiny homes but the idea that they suffice to really make any dent in a real meaningful way and the housing crisis is, is a farce I don't believe it's significant. We're only adding at least under the current proposal 10 a year at most. The idea of apartments which are the tried and true tested easiest way to do the most affordable housing in the most efficient space. The problem is we usually don't want it, we usually don't want to go multi story we don't like it for whatever reason that may be each individual time whether it's again traffic fire or whatever reason we come up with.

That is the only way with the cost of land in the city of Ojai to even start to consider something that would fall under any part of affordable or low income, or very low income. And now we're talking about having people roll in stuff on their backyards it's not going to be very cheap anyway into something that's almost uninhabitably small doesn't make a lot of sense and it's not going to be somewhere where adding families and We can see the canary in the coal mine with this housing issue being the massive downturn in population, the student population and our public schools.