Planning Commission Regular Meeting

You didn't turn on your microphone.

Who have we got, Ida tonight or Sherry? Yeah it's Ida. Ida would you call the roll please?

On your agenda or on your in your staff report here for item number one It is talking about first to do your adoption and then yes receive the information In your packet you have Information Information directly from the code I go right to Attachment B, but I also handed you a put on in front of you this evening some copyright from The website because the language is a little bit different. The language is updated in the code And so that's what I gave you this evening. It's essentially the same it's a little bit more detailed in some sections specifically subsection a just a little more defined and But I do believe there isn't anything substantially different in there.

Looking through the staff report written by your director, the Director of Community Development. Again first you would be selecting your chair and vice-chair and then we go on here to talk about what the chair is responsible for and the vice-chair is responsible for and then additional details related These duties are in your handbook, which were previously provided to you. And of course, additional copies can be provided at any time. And then we have the local appointments list here on attachment A and.

We have terms expiring for our chair in May of twenty six and the other commissioners expire in 2028 in May. Would you like more explanation about the duties of the chair and vice chair? Or would you like to start your proceeding here for voting for your vice chair and chair. Chair

first. Does anyone require more explanation of the duties of the chair or vice chair?

I understand we do have some newer commissioners, however you have been provided with the handbooks. I could just go into this if you'd like. I'm looking specifically at you, Commissioner Stewart.

No, I was just reading along here and listening to you.

Okay. So if you'd like to start the voting process, there'll be a motion and a vote for chair and you'll take the vote and if there isn't a consensus then another motion can be made. You do not need to make a second. Once you're finished with chair, then you go on to vice-chair and again, a motion is made, take a vote. If consensus, great. If not, start over again. And we'll do it until you have consensus. Until we've

beaten it down. Right. At this time, I will open the floor to nominations.

And you can vote for yourself.

I nominate Judy Murphy for chair.

OK, would you call the vote please?

Ida, can you

take that? Chesley? Yes. Rice-Schmidt?

Yes

Stewart?

Yes So there's consensus.

We now have a new chair, an ongoing chair. At this time we will open the floor to nominations for a vice-chair.

I nominate Commissioner Chesley.

I second that. Are you

willing?

Yes.

Thank you. Your arm is still attached. I'm calling for the vote now, please, Ida Murphy? Yes.

Rai Schmidt?

Yes.

Stewart?

Yes

Okay good thank you We have the agenda are there any changes to the agenda

Changes,

thank you Then we will move on to the consent calendar. We have the minutes from the regular meeting of the Planning Commission on March 18th of 26 are there any changes to the minutes? The chair will entertain a motion to adopt

I Make a motion to adopt the minutes of the meeting is written.

I'll second that motion

I'd a roll call please Murphy yes Chesley

yes

right Schmidt.

Yes

steward

yes.

Okay the next item is to a discussion to propose topics to discuss at a future joint meeting with city council Guiding words for us before we start this

I'll just go through the staff report a little bit here and then we can talk about future discussion items for the joint meeting essentially what we're looking at here is The items that are listed here in the discussion Subsection are in bold or non-bold. The ones that are our bolded are included And we're discussed or not discussed previously, but we're looking at discussing With the Joint Commission. It's just ideas that I had put forward as a discussion piece for tonight The ones that are non bolded are the ones that we had talked about last year now Here's the amazing thing This is just a jumping off point. We'll have an opportunity at this meeting and at the next meeting to discuss these items, and if you're wanting to propose new items we can certainly put those on and talk about them as well.

And then we'll schedule these for the joint meeting. It's tentatively scheduled for the first meeting in June however it could fluctuate between either the first meeting or the second meeting in June but that is typically when we have our set-aside time

Okay, good.

So if you'd like, I can go through each of the items

or

we can ask questions about the items. It's kind of free flowing at this point in terms of how we can have that conversation. There's really no set way to have this conversation. If you want to ask me questions about specific items or you want to go into some detail on specific items, we can absolutely do that.

I would really like you to address the objective design standards

Yeah, so there's a couple of things with that. That one has actually come before this body not once, not twice but four times. So in each of the times that it's come forward we've actually had a very robust conversation about it and it's helped to frame the objective standards that we have at this point but I will have to admit It is a program within the housing element and the housing element identified that this was to be done in 20, basically at the end of 2024. I was hopeful that it would have been completed in 2025 we ended up getting sidetracked with it unfortunately so with a fresh start here in 2026 I'm looking forward to seeing and hopefully with this commission this body that item moving forward as a recommendation to City Council because As objective standards, design standards operate it would be by ordinance in terms of how we're looking at.

Would that include some cities have they have model or templates, actual like building designs for certain ADUs or certain units?

We actually have that for ADUs here. We have a we have a standard ADU format that we actually have on our website right now

Okay, so like what it looks like? Everything. Floor plan.

The examples. Exactly. Yeah.

And does it have an expedited plan check because we already know about it. Like we already know the design features and everything.

You know, the interesting thing about the way in which the objective design standards are operating and I think Darren if you want to jump in here or is it Lisa? If Lisa wants to jump up here as well in terms of the government code standards. A lot of the Senate bills and Assembly bills that are coming forward are expressly referencing objective design standards in terms of how a city can review and make sure that those standards or the design that's being proposed by The developer through one of those assembly bills or Senate bills are compliant with the objective design standards. We don't have that at this point, so it becomes very loosey goosey in terms of how we can really kind of impose our will on future development essentially.

Yeah, and what I'll just add is that there are some provisions of the government code that have been adopted over the last few years that attempt to take discretion out of the city's hands in terms of especially in terms of housing projects. There's the Starter Home Revitalization Act as a big one 864 and 1123, if I'm remembering the numbers correctly. But that's just a prime example of trying to take these approvals and turn them ministerial. And when we're getting ministerial processes imposed upon us, we're only allowed to apply objective design standards, objective zoning standards, objective—just generally objective standards.

So I guess that's what I'm wondering. So if we had like several designs in place already, like this is our objective design standards. It's a 500 square foot building and it has a front porch and it has two windows in the front. I mean get really specific but and codify it maybe have several different styles but that's our objective design standard. I don't think we have that do we?

That's I mean, but some cities do have that. And I think that would be really helpful to us because we could guide in absence of having objective design standards or any authority if we don't. That's a really good way to to guide our design. It's it's a

tool. Yeah. Yeah, it's absolutely a tool. Absolutely.

So

that's what

I recommend. If we have no other if we really don't have discretion

Yeah, and the discretion is really kind of at the wayside. So we cannot apply the subjective pieces. It is really just the objective pieces. And to the point what you were asking are there other cities that have a model by which we could apply? Absolutely! The Chair is the only one that I think was a part of this process from the very beginning and has seen the several renditions that have come forward. We've looked at a number of different cities regarding the objective design standards, and then whittled it down into something that felt like Ojai.

So I would say we're probably maybe 80% there. There's still more work that needs to be done, I think. I was looking at them the other day, and they're not quite there yet. There needs to be more discussion basically. But I do think it needs to happen sooner than later, because I'm only seeing more of these Senate bills and Assembly bills coming forward that are specifically referencing from a ministerial standpoint objective design standards. So I feel like if that's our play, that's potentially the play we need to start looking at moving forward. That's where we can hold some of the cards.

I think there's some communities that were affected by the Eaton fire that have those, that have plans that are different design plans for rebuilding.

Oh standard plans?

Yes, standard plans and so you can pick it in just one of five designs and one might be craftsman and one is Spanish style and it seems like that could work really

When an applicant comes in and has one of those plans and says, but I want to make these changes. How does that work?

Well now it becomes subjective right so you're either working within the and I'll let the attorneys chime in here but you're either working within the objective standards or you're not right that's

Yeah, that's kind of the point is you shouldn't have to evaluate whether or not something complies with the standards. It should be obvious from the nature of the standards. So if if you've got someone who's submitting an application, I've got an applicant who's. Got some part of their plans that are different from from the objective standards, that would mean that they're not meeting the standard

so It gets refused does it have to be the same

So as

the month

You know, okay. So here's what we probably could do is is the next meeting I can bring forward what we have at this point. So that it gives you at least something when it does go to council and does come forward to discussion, say hey, we are this close. We think this absolutely needs to be something we finish during this next work cycle essentially. Rather than because right now I'm kind of spitballing Without actually having it in front of us. Yeah, yeah This is meant to be the kind of the discussion like the 20,000 foot level You're wanting to get into the weeds. I can tell everybody kind of does it's a it's a fun

It's how I understand

it Yeah, you got to stay in the weeds on some of this stuff Absolutely, the objective design standards you absolutely do because that's the control that that the city continues to have

Okay All right, can we also ask you to discuss allowed use chart?

Yeah. So the allowed use chart was something that we brought forward here maybe two months ago I want to say, maybe three and there was a subcommittee that was created. I think it was of one There hasn't been much movement with it, but I do think that there's an opportunity as long as the council is agreeable to it to really kind of dive into it. But also make sure that it's going in a direction the council feels supportive of. So I think, like for instance if you and I were working on it and we started going down a rabbit hole on something. And we're like shoot is this something the city wants to see? Having that conversation with council in that joint session I think helps to kind of breed some confidence in terms of what we're doing right so there's some value there for sure.

So it sounds like y'all need to get to work

Yeah, yeah.

Okay

like

before June?

Before June well I think what it is is maybe like a kickoff in terms of some of the things that we're thinking about so that it's not like oh hey we've thought about this no this is this is what we're thinking are we moving the right direction okay

good We have in the past discussed parking fire hardening noise control And the council in the past, the commission in the past has regarded those as important items. But I don't think we can tackle all of them or at least we need to prioritize things because the joint meeting can only really handle what? A

couple? The fun thing is that the joint meetings are now Whereas there used to be only one, we've added that extra hour. So it gives a lot of breadth for the conversation across the board I think really kind of in all these items. We would come forward with ten items before and we had an hour to do them and we get through two right? It was just overwhelming here. I think these are all very manageable some of them we've already been working on and started to have the conversation on tackling.

Some of them are very far along and just need that extra nudge to get to the finish line, and some of them are way out there in left field but certainly something that the community is interested in hearing about. One in particular is undergrounding.

That one for fire and also just aesthetics. Big time.

We all like that a lot, but we have come up against a cost

issue. It's an interesting conversation. I think there are council members that have expressed interest in it in the past. It's the reason why it was on here from last year. But to be fair, it hadn't been on here in previous years so it has gained traction from the previous year.

I would put that high on my list.

I think we need to prioritize this list and be thinking about any other things that you might want to introduce.

Yes, thank you. I was going to say if there's others aside from what we have here, I mean this is the perfect opportunity.

Yeah, I was going to make the comment being new to the commission here and looking at some of the lists. I certainly see my personal favorite already but I'm not here just for me. But I do see my personal favorite which is undergrounding. Just to expose that. But I think it might be interesting to have an understanding of kind of two other vectors, if you will. One is that how far along are we on this issue? You mentioned 80% kind of on some of the issues or some of these sitting at zero and some at 80 and that might be kind of handy See that rating and then I also think there is a difficulty to execute Piece of the puzzle to to understand here some of this looks like relatively low-hanging stuff that there's been a lot of discussion about we need to get the ball over the line and do our part to make sure we have the discussion and engagement be thorough and then you know, some of it looks like You know a lot more work to it

Yeah, I mean if you want to just run the list. We've already talked about the objective design standards that's probably 80% there There was a lot of conversation on over the last couple years general design guidelines citywide There are several design guidelines that are already in place So it might actually be good to and so from that conversation we started recognizing that there are some of these design guidelines that appear to be overlapping and And so having the conversation on what that looks like and whether or not there needs to be revisions to it, or if the overlap is actually a positive from that standpoint.

Along with that, the general design guidelines. I'm interested in that one specifically because I think we could go pretty far with that including public improvements. So I think when you look around the city and the public this is kind of my probably my number one issue is the public improvements around town and how Ojai's very unique And some neighborhoods have stone curbs.

Some have attached sidewalks, there's some detached sidewalks. Every neighborhood seems to be a little bit different and I think that's okay for Ojai. And I've seen some new public improvements that have gone in that I don't think look like Ojai, it looks like anywhere USA. It could be some suburban community in Los Angeles and I think that those kind of design standards can make a difference on what our community feels like so I think on some of the recent work which might be ADA accessible or whatever they weren't thinking about the neighborhood or the historic nature of the neighborhood Just the unique design of that neighborhood. So I think having design guidelines by neighborhood Might be good and we did that with that tree management plan Yes, we have it's by neighborhoods and I could see it dovetailing into that because that's also public improvement You know, it's in you know in the public right away We say if you're gonna

Yeah, the Community Forest Management Plan actually has by neighborhood in terms of the types of trees.

And those are great neighborhood definitions and trying to have another design guideline with another neighborhood defined differently is problematic so I think if we can The definitions that we already have for neighborhoods, it'll be less controversial because that can be very controversial if you say oh, you're on the west side and somebody thinks they're in Midtown.

That doesn't work but since we already have neighborhoods I think that's a good place to start for any new improvements in design guidelines so anyway public improvements I would say needs design guidelines

Absolutely. And just to take it a step further, one of the reasons why this even came up is there was a project on the west end of Ojai that does not have design guidelines and this body tackled and wrestled with that design for that particular project. I'm not going to name the project but I think probably most of the commission is aware of it Then basically grounded itself into well, what are our design guidelines? What do we have that exists so taking it in that direction I think at one point we were actually looking at what could possibly be on the west end but to your point, I think Neighborhood wise also makes a lot of sense just tearing off of what we already have from the street tree standpoint too. I think they make a lot of sense

I think this is a really critical comment because doing a lap of thinking around the how we are going to do it before we consider what we're going to do, how we're going to do it is by neighborhood. How we're going to do is by giving the local neighborhoods some sort of representational space to talk about what they What they like because I I'm thinking of an improvement that doesn't belong in a neighborhood that I saw recently and I would I'm wondering if it's the one you're thinking of but But yeah, I think that giving some thinking to the how we're going to do It will actually help us to get down to what it is We are going to do and I love that neighborhood approach. Actually, I think that's really important

Makes a lot sense Parking 30 seconds on parking. Well, maybe more but I'll just do the lead in. There's been a lot of conversations in regards to parking ever since I started here before I was here there was a couple different studies. I've presented those to this body a couple different times. I could certainly do it again And every time that we have the conversation it seems to always lean into, we don't necessarily have a parking problem. A lot of times we have a walking problem and then it then leads into well if we do have a problem or there is an issue, is there another mechanism that could potentially control that?

The items that have come up are paying by permit and giving certain time limits to the spaces. And the spaces I'm talking about aren't all over the city, they're really within a node which is in the downtown area pretty much. Those conversations have always led down that. Now, the question is with this body and what you're looking at here and what I've just presented in 30 seconds, is there more to it that we could potentially be looking at into the future? Because really, the parking piece isn't driven by so much the community as it is the tourism that comes in here on the weekends, right?

That's the setting of the table conversation. It's a big piece. There have been two traffic studies that have been done in the downtown area and both of them showed that there wasn't necessarily a parking issue, but there was definitely ample parking. It was just within the outside areas and confines of the downtown district.

It would be lovely if we could find a parking area lot near downtown. Have we made any progress on that?

It's very hard for me not to talk right now just to tell you guys.

There is, it's an interesting conversation because there are lots that have popped up that are now for sale which had not been previously. One of those lots was before this body at one point. Actually both of the lots have been before this body through concept and other methods for review.

Lucas, just to understand your comment though. What did the facts say was the problem? What was the factual problem rather than maybe anecdotally how people feel about it?

So one of the things that did come out of it was on Ojai Avenue there's the perception that there is a traffic situation and there really is when you're here on the weekends everybody knows that But then that has, for whatever reason, translated to well now you have a parking situation. Because of the traffic clearly there's nobody can find a parking spot where everybody is going to the same spot. You're going as close as you can to the destination that you're trying to achieve. When the reality is that there are street parking spaces surrounding like, for instance, the downtown area that are available. But people immediately go to what is the closest spot that they know or the area that they want to go to and they want to park right in front.

I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over again because I've said this before, but it's not a parking problem. It's a people problem. It's really finding those and recognizing that those individuals are trying to find the spaces. The reality is that they tend to be the tourists that are coming in and not necessarily the ones that already live here. Because the ones that live here, they can easily make that walk. We're four square miles.

A huge metropolis. The other thing that's very interesting that came out of it is, I know where to park when I come up here on the weekends. I don't go to the downtown area. I go to Lower Libby and immediately can park there or I go City Hall right over here. There is always parking and those are the areas that are included within these parking studies. These are the areas that are the missing piece, the hidden gem that I take advantage of.

Is the empty lot across from City Hall city-owned?

Yes.

Are there plans for it?

No. Nope. No plans at this point.

OK. I hope that we never get to the point where we put in parking meters, particularly parking

It's come up as a discussion. I'm not saying that I'm pro or con to it But when it comes up we give the facts, you know on both ends and then you weigh the options at that point Go

ahead so my questions also about parking Does this include this discussion include parking standards for parking lots? You know size how many by use all that How many are required by, you know, the use?

I appreciate you just brought that up because I completely forgot that was one of the pieces that we had talked about last year which was recognizing that are the existing parking designs or the parking standards and then the number count. Are they outdated? And I think they are. is what I keep finding over and over again. You're going to see this with projects that come forward, especially affordable housing projects. What are the standards that they use? They don't use our standards. Certainly not our standards. Instead they're using the state's standards right so finding through the objective design standards Correct me if I'm wrong here, but can the objective design standards include parking

standards? That depends. My favorite lawyer answer right? It depends on the kind of project that you're dealing with and whether or not there are already requirements in the code for Maximum or minimum,

so I'm guessing if it's more restrictive. It's a no right less restrictive. It's a yes When we look at the objective design standards, we'll see whether or not it's something that can fit within that box. If not, I think it has an independent timeline from what you're

talking about. They're definitely related because you can be more lenient on your objective parking standards if you say have public parking. So if there's an alternative, you can say, OK, instead of a minimum number of parking spaces, we can do a maximum number on site because we have public parking elsewhere.

Right within a certain vicinity.

Yeah. So instead of being over parked, I don't think anybody does that anymore.

It is the number one challenge that comes up before this body or whenever I'm reviewing applications that come forward, is the parking. Because a lot of times you're looking at it and you're looking at almost a 1-to-1 relationship versus what is really more of a 1 to 2.5, almost 3 if you're looking at market rate. The people count is still there, and potentially the vehicle count is still there but it's being put into a box simply because of the affordability rate. So that's the goal of the state in terms of what we're looking at here right now.

But it would be more palatable if we had public parking?

Yeah for sure.

Anyway they're related.

Allowed uses, we talked about fire hardening, fire wise communities. Some of that has already gotten kicked off and some of that we actually already built into the building code standards and some of that is already something that we've adopted just recently or at least council adopted just recently through the building code updates for 2025. So I'm still leaving that on there just for a conversational piece if you feel it's not needed Take that off if you feel like it needs to be highlighted anymore. We can certainly expand on that as well Underground we talked about it sounds like there's a lot of interest in hearing what that what that looks like either near term midterm long-term and Then so I'm not gonna necessarily talk about that because I think there's there seems to be some some interest their noise slash sound right We have a noise ordinance Like all the rest, I'm sorry.

A noise element within our general plan had like a lot of our other elements they haven't been updated in awhile so there was a conversation piece on whether or not to one update that and then two whether or not our noise standards needed to be re-evaluated as an ordinance not necessarily as an element within our general plan. So kind of tackling both of those neither one of them really went anywhere from last year But it's something that has remained on this list

and it always comes up when we have Situations brought to us where sound is an element.

It's it's typically one of the just like parking It's one of the things we talked about.

Yeah

for sure

Do we have any other? new in Unusual items

some emerging items is what is what is

Well, I not that I personally want to go through the process But I think we should is just are all of our elements of the general plan should be up-to-date So I think we have some pretty old general plan elements and that's a big Herculean effort and I know it costs the city a lot of money you know because Oftentimes it's it requires consultants and but it just seems like we need to You know make sure that all of our land or general plan elements are

updated

The difference in the safety element with all of the new fire codes That were incorporated was really impressive on I think you're saying that happens all over the plan That we really need to get at

Right, so cats out of the bag. I've sent you the safety element as a red line is a clean version for you to review giving you lots of time to review it were not scheduled to discuss that item until mid May if I remember correctly. And expect that that's not going to be the only one through the general plan update. It's going to start with that one, the circulation element and the land use element. Now, the noise is not included as this was meant to be kind of just a refresher to some of the big ones.

Noise and some of the other ones we already have are going to be updated for consistency purposes but definitely not the overhaul that you're seeing with the safety element and with circulation and land use. You haven't seen the circulation or land use yet, but you will be seeing those soon.

Are you satisfied with the priority of the way these are listed?

Well I is the Planning Commission still involved with approving tree ordinances like a tree like if there's a certain number of trees does it come to the planning commission No,

because it's it's a part. It's not within the Zoning Ordinance. It's actually a Title 4 item versus a title 10.

So Planning Commission because we The Planning Commission used to do if there was a certain number of trees that were being affected Yes, the Planning Commission would be the decision maker?

Yes, and that's

gone away

Still in there.

It's still in there.

Yep, so if and that has actually happened once where there was a number of trees that were slated for removal and it didn't quite reach I think threshold is five And it was four and I was like I'm bringing it to the to the Commission Well, the arborist was not happy but I still did it anyway. I have that authority. It gives me that authority within the ordinance itself and this body reviewed and tackled the four that were slated for removal. All of them were Coast Libos.

Okay well I know like Mallory Way was one and I know the Cottages Among the Flowers was another one so I know the City Council had a workshop and I was kind of offended that the Planning Commission wasn't invited because that should have been a joint meeting Because we, you know, we are the ones who approve these things. So anyway that should be on the list

for

us as

a joint

meeting.

No offense it wasn't necessarily meant to be offensive towards the Planning Commission or any of the other commissions really what it was is we were looking for the expert panel and the arborists and the tree trimmers and the botanists that are out there Biologists that are out there to weigh in on some of these pieces and we asked general questions Obviously the council was involved in that Understood Well, to be fair not to get off topic but it still kind of fits within future items under consideration. There is going to be likely a second workshop that we're going to be doing because not all the questions and categories were covered. I think you just got an invitation.

Be careful what you ask for. It's an opportunity for sure. Well, and I think it's not necessarily going to have the same experts that we had from before because we are tackling some different questions and categories.