You can still make public comment.

During any public comment portions, attendees may use the raise your hand feature and will be called upon and unmuted when it is your turn to speak.

If joining by phone, use star nine to raise your hand, star six to mute and unmute.

We also have Spanish interpretation services here tonight, available in person and via Zoom.

On point language solutions is in the back left corner if anyone needs assistance with interpretation services.

Victor and Nicholas will now provide information on how to receive interpretation services if you are in need of them.

Victor and Nicholas, provide this information in Spanish for the audience.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Council members, all staff, members of the public, Victor Hernandez, Spanish interpreter.

We want to start this.

Thank you.

Gracias, Victor.

Could I have the uh clerk take the roll call, please?

Yes.

We will um start with uh Councilmember Nagingast.

Here.

Councilmember Johan Johnson.

Here.

Council Member Brownstone.

Here.

Vice Mayor Penrose here.

And Mayor Reddick.

Here.

All are here on that.

Now we have Penning Commissioners.

We have Commissioner.

I'm sorry, Commissioner Reddick.

I'm here with a bad mic.

Oh.

Just the light doesn't work.

The mic's fine.

Yeah, there you go.

We have Vice Chair Hernandez.

I am present.

And we have Chair Gorn.

We have three Penny Commissioners and all five council members present this evening.

Great.

So this is a special study session of the City Council and Planning Commission to review the city of Half Moon Bay's growth management system, which is municipal code chapter 17.06, also known as Measure D and the allocation system that implements that system.

So I'm going to be a little bit rigorous on asking for Planning Commission and City Council questions and input.

So I'm going to start with a city council member and follow by a commissioner and then alternate.

So that's one thing.

But you're going to want to keep your input, you know, in questions like more general.

You want to distill it into issues relating to Measure D as opposed to getting down into the weeds in the form of recommendations on specific changes to the allocation system, you know, that sort of thing.

So questions on any of it, you know, are welcome, but you know, we're not here to redo measure D or the implementation system tonight, but to give uh you know general direction uh to staff and uh to allow the public to ask questions and become educated on all of measure D.

So I know that we had a very robust discussion on the safety element as well as the wildfire maps.

Went into a lot of detail.

I don't want a meeting like that tonight.

You know, I'd like us to be done, you know, by 10 o'clock or so.

So try to keep your your comments, um, your questions can be detailed.

Keep your comments as general as possible in the form of, you know, direction um to staff for for future meetings because we're going to be talking about, you know, Measure D in the allocation system probably a few times this year.

Um it's already, you know, too late to change things for the 2026 allocation program.

So, you know, we have time, it's going to come back.

So let's just keep that in mind, you know, when we're commenting and asking our questions.

That's all I would ask.

And with that, I would ask Leslie and Okoe to begin their staff report.

Good evening, honorable mayor, city council, and planning commissioners.

Thank you all for being here tonight.

I'm going to be taking us through an overview of Measure D, and I just want to preface this by saying we tried our best to incorporate as much as we can about Measure D, but this is a quite a nuanced item, and so there is a lot to it, and so we may not cover every single detail, but we'll certainly be here to answer any questions that may come up.

So tonight I will walk us through the background of Measure D a little bit on the history of it, and then we'll discuss the process of Measure D, City Council's role, planning commissioners' roles, and staff's role.

And then we will discuss some of the trends that we've been seeing with Measure D, and I'll provide some information on some updates that have been in discussion, or you or members of the public may have seen, and then information on the next steps.

So Measure D is the city's growth management system.

This was a voter-approved initiative back in 1999 for Measure D.

It requires all new residential units, with the exception of a couple exemptions.

You can see here at the bottom of the slide, and typically accommodates up to 1.5% of population growth.

It allows for 1% with an additional 0.5% in that downtown area.

So it measure D is split into two geographic areas of the downtown and the outside of downtown.

The purpose of Measure D was to control the rate, location, and density of residential development in the city.

So Measure D was first, or measure A first came into play in 1991.

This was a voter-approved measure at that time, and it allowed for 3% population growth.

Between the 80s and the 90s, there was a pretty significant increase in population in the city.

So Measure A came along to try to continue to buffer that.

So an additional measure was put on the ballot, which was Measure D, and Measure D reduced that population growth rate from one to 1.5%.

And this was to ensure that some of the infrastructure concerns could be addressed over that time, such as traffic on highway one that was starting to occur, and water availability within the city.

Measure D, however, was not actually implemented until 2009 after it was certified as part of the local coastal program by the Coastal Commission.

As I mentioned before, Measure D is broken into two geographic areas, the downtown and outside of downtown.

That's going to continue to come up throughout this study session.

It was established separately from Measure A and Measure D.

It was since it was established in 1998.

It was looked at based on the resolution.

It was established to identify specific redevelopment areas throughout the city.

And then with the introduction of Measure D, it was implemented as that downtown area as part of Measure D and has remained the downtown area.

With Measure D, it can be broken down into four main steps that are happening annually.

The first step is the annual unit authorization, and I'll be talking about each of these more in depth as we go on.

The second step is the initial application period, and then there's a scoring ratification that occurs and a transfer process that can happen.

The unit authorization occurs annually in December.

This is for the preceding Measure D preceding the upcoming Measure D year.

So most recently we had the unit authorization at the City Council meeting on December 16th, 2025, where we establish the number of allocations for this upcoming 2026 Measure D year.

The number of units that are authorized is a base one percent, and city council can decide to allow an additional 0.5% in that downtown area.

Additionally, during this process, typically the city council will also review the application, a fiscal analysis, and any other criteria that should be considered prior to that upcoming year.

The allocations that are authorized at this meeting can be broken down as this graphic shows.

So we have the total amount of allocations that's going to be one to one and a half percent, and then it's split in those two areas with the base in the downtown, but also a bonus half percent in the downtown.

Historically, City Council has approved that additional 0.5% annually.

The second part of the process is the initial application period.

This is where we currently are, where the application period is open to anyone from January 1st to January 31st.

However, if there's less applications for allocations received, then this application period can actually remain open through September 1st.

So typically what we're seeing is in the outside of downtown, we receive more applications than there are available, and therefore that application period will close after January 31st.

However, in the downtown area, we haven't been seeing that given that additional bonus percentage, partially, and therefore the downtown allocations at least over the last several years have remained open until that second deadline.

And so when we do, like I mentioned with the outside of downtown, have more applications for allocations than are available, then we actually have to go into a scoring process in order to identify how these allocations will be allocated.

So we'll discuss that a bit more in step three.

As a result of some recommendations from the planning commission back in March, we also tried to up the number of resources and just the usability of some of these resources to make it more and more friendly for our applicants to understand the process.

So we've implemented FAQs on the website.

Also, a handbook has been put together to help guide applicants through the scoring process and the different criteria within the scoring.

And then staff remains available for consultations, and anyone still looking to apply for this 2026 year is encouraged to set up a consultation with staff within the next we are typically seeing for properties outside of downtown.

The scoring ratification must occur by April 1st.

And so staff goes through and reviews the scoring that has been identified by the applicant within their scoring criteria table of their application.

Staff will verify the selected criteria and ensure the scoring adds up and then bring that forward to the planning commission with a recommendation of who will be receiving an allocation based on score.

The scoring criteria is codified in section 1706 120.

The original criteria, which is still being used, was based on the build it green program that was in place at the time.

But in 2020, there were some revisions made to what criteria was actually scored upon.

So while all the criteria remains the same and no amendments took place, the criteria, some criteria was essentially just removed from the scoring as it would be required of any applicant, and based on building code or state law.

There is no minimum score to qualify.

We get this question a lot, and it is just based on how many applications are received that year, what people are selecting for, and we have been seeing a general increase in the scores to meet the cutoff, but again, very dependent based on how many people are applying.

The scoring criteria is broken down into six categories within the application, as well as what's in the code.

It's infill sites, home size scale and clustering, walkability, design for safety and social gathering, design for diverse households.

This more relates to having items like a zero-step entrance, grab bars in the bathroom, and landscaping.

So how the process works is when applicants submit their application, they have to fill out a scoring criteria table that's as that's located within the application.

As I mentioned, staff will then review this and then will rank it and provide that recommendation to the planning commission.

An example of one of the items that staff will go through and score.

Well, staff is putting quite a bit of time in to review every single application thoroughly.

There are some items that you might see more variation in from project to project.

For example, one item is the walkability.

This criteria specifically consists of a score out of 12 points, and it's based on the location of the property.

So this is actually outside of the applicant's control, how they could score on this.

So what staff will do to ensure that everyone is being scored equally and ensuring this is a very objective process, is we create a buffer for every single application project location.

For example, here on the screen, this is a buffer for a half mile radius around City Hall.

And then staff will zoom in, look at the varying options there.

So that 12, those 12 points, some of them include the lot being within that half mile radius of the library, the post office, a school, a restaurant, and so you would see here, based on half moon base city hall's very central location, it's going to meet most of that criteria and be awarded those points.

This is based on the 2025 Measure D rankings.

So this would have been back in March.

This is what the Planning Commission awarded scoring based on.

So you see the top in the green are applicants that have scored high enough within the top, I believe it was 22 applicants or allocations being applied for, and those in blue were deferred to either wait for the transfer process or apply again in this upcoming year.

The final step in Measure D is typically the transfer process.

This is at the discretion of the city council, whether they choose to allow for transfers, and then how these transfers may be allocated.

While there is not no criteria within the code specifically relating to transfers, the city council did establish some key criteria to consider back in 2019 by resolution.

And these transfers are only available for remaining downtown base allocations.

So that additional 0.5% that the council may approve each year is not available as part of the transfer process.

Some trends that we've been seeing in Measure D over the year.

The key one has been an increase in ADU demand.

This specifically was seen following ADU ordinance updates in 2018 and 2020, along with the continuous changes in state law.

We've also continued since those years been seeing the outside of downtown having more demand for allocations than available.

Therefore, the scoring has come into play every year since 2020.

And then just this continuous discussion of potential revisions or improvements that can be made to Measure D is a common trend that we continue to see brought up and discussed.

This table was located in the staff report.

It aims to show how much demand there is for ADUs in this overall process.

So as you can see, specifically within the outside of downtown, ADUs might be making up anywhere from 50 to 75% of applications, averaging around 60.

And so that is a pretty significant demand that we've seen over the last five years for those ADUs.

This is another table of a question that has come up pretty frequently, and this table was included in the staff report or provided to as a memo.

I'm apologize, I can't remember, but it was distributed as part of the materials for the city council meeting back in December.

So here you can see this is just breaking down the number of allocations issued each year, the number of building permits issued from that year, and then how many of those allocations are either in process, meaning they're still going through entitlement or remain valid because they haven't reached the expiration date, and then how many have expired.

Some future updates that may come with Measure D or have been in the in discussion, include the cycle six housing element has committed the city to making some changes to Measure D.

These changes will include revising the allocation requirement for ADUs from a full allocation to a percentage of allocations such as a half allocation.

Additionally, it's committed the city to revising Measure D to look at rolling over certain allocations that have gone unused for the next year for ADUs in affordable housing.

Some other administrative improvements to be considered will be potentially some scoring updates to be discussed in the future, such as consistency with new fire regulations, improving the allocations calculation methodology for identifying the number of units scored each year.

There are a few quirks with that that staffs identified could use some revision just to improve the process.

This did come up previously in 2024, looking at putting this on as part of a ballot measure and using the town center map that's located within our LUP, and whether that would be more reflective of that downtown area.

The first two of these items on this slide should be able to be done through code amendments.

However, revising that downtown map and potentially some other changes that may come up down the line would require a ballot measure to make those changes.

Here is a bit more to show you the map that we were just mentioning.

So on the left, you'll see the current Measure D downtown area.

And on the right, you'll see a comparison of in orange, that's going to be that current downtown area, as well as the red.

And then the blue are areas that are located within our town center, but are not considered part of the downtown area currently with Measure D.

Next steps in the process.

So we're currently accepting applications.

The last day will actually be January 30th, as that's the last business day in January.

And then if scoring is required, as anticipated, the planning commission would be reviewing that scoring in March or very early April.

And then lastly, if there's remaining base allocations and still demand for some of those down outside of downtown allocations, we would be coming back to the city council to look at the possibility of transfers in September.

Thank you.

Great, thanks so much.

So let's move to clarifying questions.

And I'm gonna start with the council member and then move to planning commission.

And at this time I'll start with uh council member Nakengast.

Thank you.

You never get enough information about Measure D.

It's always that I've learned over the years it's uh it's not so simple as and it gets more complicated as we go on.

ADUs are a different animal today than they were even 20 years ago, or probably you know, even when this was voted on in 1999.

I have a question um and I had asked earlier about expired or unused measure D's.

And you know, I I see now we we can go to 2021.

If we had to go to prior years to that, is it possible?

I'm not saying to do that now, but if we had to, could staff find out from 2009 to 2021, or is that just not possible?

I'm not sure we could go all the way back to 2009.

Um it would be dependent on retention policies and what has been kept over the years uh as well as just the record in general gets a bit more difficult to review as we go further back, and certainly times change in 2020 a lot more became electronic.

So that's why we have a lot better numbers from 2020 on.

But I think we could go back a little further than 2021, though it would take a bit of staff time to really dig into that and try to get good numbers.

Okay, and then what criteria, just gonna add on to that.

How do we determine an allocation as expired?

Yeah, thank you for asking that.

The Measure D allocations are treated with a one-year expiration date.

However, once the applicant of that Measure D allocation has applied for additional permitting, such as uh a coastal development permit or other planning entitlement, uh we essentially consider that uh vested at that time as they're working towards actually developing and utilizing that measure D allocation.

Um so it can the exact timeline can be not exact, uh, given it depends how long applicants may be working through the process, but it is that one year expiration from that initial allocation to moving forward with next steps.

Okay, thank you.

Um Commissioner and uh Vice Chair Rick Hernandez.

Do we need to ask all of our questions at one time, or we're gonna keep going through?

Well, start, you know, and I'm sure once we take public comment, there may be more questions, but yeah, um, one of the um really overwhelming criteria from a scoring perspective is the idea of having um taking on a deed restriction to provide affordable units.

And I asked a question beforehand about this topic, and I saw the response.

So I'm just gonna sort of restate my question and make sure I understand what I think the response is.

So we award a pretty significant bonus if you say you're gonna do a deed restricted ADU or the main part of your property.

Basically, you shoot to the top of the scoring on every project that is elected to do that.

Um the stat staff response, it seems like we're not tracking that after the uh measure D has been awarded, the permit has been issued, the house has been built, and four years later, if somebody decides they're not gonna rent out the property, or they're not gonna have you know, they're not gonna conform with what they agreed to when they got the measure D, we don't have a system for tracking this.

That's it's kind of a concern.

Um, and so did I read that right that we're not tracking this?

You thank you.

You did read that right.

Um, however, what's what's not in our response is that uh as it stands today, there are not that many deed restrictions that have been completed.

So we have some some larger projects uh that have the similar uh deed restriction, but at this point we don't have a lot of deed restrictions that have been completed for these single-family residences.

Um as we approve more and more of these projects and require the deed restrictions, um, because you know that's the only way they can get their measure D allocations, then we will have to develop some kind of tracking mechanism for that.

Um we don't have that now, and it would probably take a significant amount of staff time to track it.

Okay.

Um also uh during the last uh review we had in March, there was a we had a tie for last place, and there were a couple of applicants who were petitioning to get approved during our planning commission meeting.

And um at the time uh we were using a um uh we were using a walkability score that didn't include at least one establishment that qualified as a grocery store.

Um, and you know, it's just it was a bodega, you know, it's it's a there's an oversight.

I I want to be clear when we do the final scoring system, regardless of what exists or doesn't exist or what we do or don't track, everybody's getting measured by the exact same businesses.

So we may have missed a bodega, we may have missed a chiropractor's office, which qualifies as a medical establishment, but everybody who goes through the application process is being held to the exact same standard.

Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct.

Um, and if I may, I am happy to also speak to that issue.

Some changes that we have uh incorporated to help make this more clear for applicants.

Um as the scoring criteria went last year in terms of grocery stores, everybody was treated uh the exact same, and that's the grocery store is the criteria you're referring to with that walkability, where we did only have three identified grocery stores that were qualifying uh as grocery stores based on our current definition.

To make that more obvious for applicants within that handbook this year, we provided definitions for every single one of those criteria as to what meets that definition and does not, so you'll find a definition for a grocery store.

Um and this may open up uh to some of these smaller markets.

Uh it may not, it is a pretty thorough definition.

Um, and also as part of that process, we do uh notify all applicants prior to coming forward uh to the planning commission with the scoring, notify them of their scores, whether they are being recommended for an allocation or not, uh and if they do have any questions or concerns, they are encouraged to come in, review the scoring with us, and they may bring up any concerns with staff at that time for additional review, and then they also have that opportunity at the planning commission uh as well, which we saw last year to bring up some of those questions as well.

But yes, everyone is scored under the same criteria.

Great.

Is in a given year between from what I see since 2020 in a given year between seven and twenty-one units may not receive, people will apply for a measure D and they won't get it, and typically they would qualify in the next year, but in we've had in 2022, 2023, and 2024, we've had between four and six applicants not receive a measure D over multiple years.

So it's a handful of people who've been affected by not being able to qualify for a measure D.

Okay, thanks.

Did you want an answer to that?

Clarification from I saw a nod of yes.

Yeah, I'm happy to speak to it further too.

Um yes, so during those years in the middle there, um, I'm happy to uh actually sorry, I don't have this, it might.

Yeah, so here is uh what uh Commissioner Hernandez was referring to.

This was in the response of the memo that went out to the planning commission, the public, and the city council today.

So you can see in 2022, 2023, and 2024, there were several applicants that were having to apply year after year and were not receiving uh allocations despite uh most of them making their best effort to continue to improve their score.

Uh and and part of this is some of that scoring criteria is location-based, and not all of it is within the applicant's control.

So we were seeing applicants that were making their best effort to maximize their scoring, but given their location, uh it wasn't in their favor, and as the competitiveness of this process continued to increase, they just were struggling to get there.

Fortunately, as you can see in 2025, we have been able to.

We don't have any more of these recurring applicants that was able to be cleared out uh with the transfer process that allowed for more applicants to receive those allocations and to consider alternative criteria if need be.

Um, not being able to be competitive, and whether there's anything that can be done, you know, to address that situation.

So any further questions this time?

Okay, I'll ask uh council member um Johnson if you have questions, clarifying questions for staff.

Um clarifying, I don't know if it's clarifying, but I was just wondering on the points allocation for the ADUs versus JDUs.

Are they gonna always be the same or are they JDUs are they still involved as an ADU?

I think that's to be looked at more in depth as we get deeper into the conversations of how these code amendments and uh the fractional uh allocation might be applied.

So we don't have a specific answer at this time, it would come as that discussion happens with that process.

And then the other question I had, I'm not sure, but are we going to be thinking about changing for the fencing material because of the fire map hazards?

Because the criteria that's listed isn't really matching what we're thinking about doing.

It's certainly something else that can come up as part of the discussion with these code amendments.

It is part of the uh criteria that's in our code right now, so it's not something that can be changed without those uh amendments uh, but um it's something that can be discussed down the line.

And then the on the mappings, when are we planning on looking at the maps?

Because I've heard a lot of constituents that are complaining about the maps not being drawn well or they're hard to dissect.

Yeah, regarding the maps, that does require uh a ballot measure initiative that can be brought forth by the city, given council direction, uh, or an applicant or sorry, a member of the public can also try to get an initiative on the ballot as well.

Um the next opportunity to put ballot measure initiative would be um this upcoming November, and that process would need to occur um closer to June uh through August, that those initiatives would need to be identified and we would have to go through that process of um bringing that ballot measure initiative forth again if directed by the council.

Would that be something that we would bring up if I would bring that up at the um which we're planning for this year priority settings?

Okay, thank you.

Um, Commissioner Ruddick.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Is this mic on?

You have to talk right into it.

Okay, thanks for that.

It's very useful report, very interesting.

Could you go for a moment again, please, to the your table that has the expired and unused numbers.

Um based on staff's knowledge of certificates that have expired.

Do we feel that a one year expiry date is a good one because it puts some certificates in the hands of people who are gonna actually do something with it or is it too short a period and it's robbing otherwise well meaning uh uh residents of of getting on with their projects?

I think it can be viewed from both perspectives, uh so that would be something to discuss.

Um I certainly think that um as these conversations for improving the the process come up that uh it would be worth uh potentially exploring um that expiration and and seeing if additional criteria could be implemented to clarify that um or assist applicants with that and look at that timeline.

Um but to answer your question, I think there's an argument for both sides.

Yeah, I'm not not surprised that you say that there's probably a mix.

Is the one year expiry date fixed in the original referendum?

It it's more so there is some inform there is some language regarding the expiration dates in the code.

Uh however over the years, this one-year expiration date has become more of a practice uh and something that's was set through precedence over time, as the code is not very clear as to how this should be applied.

Okay.

And what um give me a sense of what unused means.

So they they haven't yet expired, but uh unused is referring to sometimes we have applicants where they maybe initially got, say, three allocations and ended up only exercising two of the allocations.

Um so in that case, I I didn't feel like it was fit to refer to them as expired, though they are still expired, but um those were cases, some of those may be where the project did move forward, but the applicant may have not used all of the units that they had applied for or received.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

I want to follow up on the folks, the handful of people who continually were denied the allocation.

And that could have been either an A to you or not, right?

Both?

I believe in this case we were just seeing this happen mostly with single-family residences.

Okay.

And you said, you know, people over the years made it made continuing efforts to adjust their application.

And you said a lot of that, if I heard you correctly, had to do with uh walkability.

Yeah, not just the walkability, there are some other criteria as well that may be outside of the applicant's control.

Um there's a handful of yeah of criteria within their control and outside of their control.

So I was just trying to understand what are examples of being a you know, walkability is your distance from desirable locations.

So how does one prove their distance from a desirable location in their application?

I wasn't clear.

Yeah, I that's part of the um speed bump some of these applicants are faced with, and in what is making it hard for them to continue to improve their score.

Um one example is there was an applicant that began applying, I think they ended up having to apply four or five times.

They just received theirs in in this 2025 transfer process.

Um but initially the process wasn't as competitive, and so they had applied for more of what they were seeking.

When they were rejected, they found any identified criteria that they could increase their score upon.

So the walkability they weren't able to increase their score on, but uh some options like reducing the size of the home to increase there is an item that allows uh based on the square footage of the proposed dwellings, uh you score higher or lower, so they maybe reduce the size of the home to increase the scoring.

Umfortunately for them, as we looked back through the years, the line just kept moving and they just kept missing it.

And eventually they did hit a point where uh they really staff tried to assist them in the process, and there wasn't really any more uh room to increase their score further.

And so they were at a point over this last year or so where um they couldn't they were each year trying to find a way, and um there was really nothing more that could change for them at that point.

Um there's even some criteria in that case that changed, like uh one of the criteria is related to your distance to a transit stop.

Um trans actually revised one of their routes and that actually brought this property into uh one of the transit stop routes, and so that also helped their score.

So you can see there's some things that are changing and evolving that aren't in their control, and then there's some that are in their control, so it's it's a very uh nuanced problem.

Thank you.

This might be a situation where like home hardening, you know, to address the issues with the the fire maps might give people an opportunity to to move up in line because that'll be you know kind of a critical uh I think scoring item.

Um I just want to throw that out there.

Um I'll move on to uh Chair Gorn.

Hey there.

Um I did have a question about the expirations.

So I thought that measure D's expire after a year, but you're saying that they if they're if they are showing signs of building, they want a building permit that it's extended, is that right?

Am I getting that right?

Uh it is a little more objective than that.

We do require that they actually have two, so they have one year from that application the receiving their certificate to actually needing to formally submit an application through the city for permit.

Seek additional permits.

Yeah.

Given that the city does require coastal development permits for most of these projects, as well as then building permits and these.

Okay.

So I also note measure D's aren't transferable, right?

So but I did wonder we talked a little bit about this possibility of an administrative remedy where if someone was not going to use it's there's both unused and expired, but if they're not going to use it, can someone else apply for it if they do it within the year?

So like at a review at nine months, if you have I mean there were 25 of them over four years that didn't get used.

So can is that a possibility that administratively you could review them at nine months and decide and see that some of them aren't going to be used and open it up to have some of those measure D's get transferred to somebody who would use them.

This would be something that would have to be just discussed further.

Uh it was it's gonna require more review of the code.

Uh I think uh an applicant's at least entitled to their year to utilize that, but be around that point.

I'm I think that there's discussion from there to continue to look at um, could these is there an avenue to implement code amendments or if a ballot measure were to be required to open up something like that within the code.

Um as mentioned, there is the provision within the housing element that will pursue making code amendments that would allow to roll over some of these unused specifically to ADUs or affordable housing units.

So I just had one other thing that I wasn't really clear on that maybe is in there that I don't see, um, and that is so you have a list right of of the um applications outpacing measure D's, right?

That there's that there's a certain number of measure D's available and there's too many applications, but then some of those measure Ds get awarded during the transfer process.

So do we have a stat that shows that progression because I don't think that there's that many um application, not that many applications left over after the transfer process.

Is that somewhere and I'm missing it?

So uh this year was one of the first years since I think 2021 that the transfer process actually occurred because the transfer process can only occur uh if base downtown allocations remain available, um, and so over the last few years pri between 2021 and 2025, uh all of those base downtown allocations were being awarded and applied for by that September 1st deadline.

And so 2025 was the first very recent year where we actually had this transfer process, and so some of those applicants just received their measure D in September 2025, and that did clear that backlog pretty well of those applicants that weren't receiving allocations.

Thanks so much.

Um Commissioner Hernandez, uh, I'm gonna give everybody a second uh bite at the apple, but I'm gonna complete uh with uh council members who haven't had a chance to comment yet.

So I'll ask Vice Mayor Penrose if you'd like to ask questions.

Yeah, thank you.

Excellent report, and I really can understand what you're saying.

Just nice.

Um question is there in the criterion for scoring.

Is there a difference made between a new single family residence with an ADU and an existing single family writ residence that wants to add an ADU?

Yes, there is uh a bit of a difference, but the main thing there that it within the scoring that really breaks apart these applications is more so whether the project includes an ADU or not.

Um so ADUs are incentivized through the scoring criteria.

So a project including an ADU, whether with a new proposed single family or with an existing single family is gonna qualify for certain uh additional scoring just by uh having an ADU as part of the project.

Uh and then there's additional criteria with the with it being an ADU only application is what we refer to them as, meaning it's an ADU with an existing single family residence, where additional criteria are just awarded to the ADU on the basis that uh there is limited review with an ADU, and so some of these landscaping criteria is specifically where you might start seeing the difference given that the scope of landscaping with an ADU is quite minimized, and so there you might see uh a bit more difference between those new single families with ADUs and the existing single family with just an ADU being proposed.

So though there's only one criterion yet you're talking about for scoring, and that is landscaping?

There's several landscaping is all of uh category six essentially.

Um not every single one is just awarded to ADUs, but one example would be there is a criteria for including a shade tree in your project.

Uh and so a single family residents may need to demonstrate uh where they're going to plant a new shade shade tree, or at least they're committing themselves to having that as a condition of approval with an entitlement.

Uh whereas an existing uh single family residents that's just applying for an ADU.

If there's an existing shade tree on the site, uh that ADU is gonna be awarded uh points without having to plant another shade tree.

So that makes sense.

So there's a few criteria like that, but that's just one example.

Okay, great.

And then the next question I have is maybe very simplistic, but it's why does it take so damn long between January and April for somebody to get their own?

Yeah, so as mentioned, um so as mentioned uh staff do go through every single application very thoroughly uh to look at the scoring, and uh this is often one staff member that is taking on the process.

Last year we received 47 applications or allocations that were being applied for.

Um so that staff member has to go through and score each uh and check the scoring of each and every application to ensure everybody is being treated the same.

Uh and then another staff member takes an additional review period to then verify all of that scoring.

Um so it's a little shorter for that that staff member, but it still requires uh a great deal of time to go through all of these applications on top of staff's existing workload, as we have to keep those items moving.

Um and I would say uh review of an application might take a staff member anywhere from around an hour or more to ensure that it has been reviewed very thoroughly.

Um and then there's the process with ensuring all applicants have been notified as well.

So typically there's about another week in there where staff is dividing and conquering calling and emailing every single applicant to ensure that they've been notified of their status prior to going to the planning commission.

And then there's the preparation time for bringing forth that item to the planning commission, which is preparing staff reports, the report, putting together the scoring in a digestible manner that can be an exhibit.

Typically the public sees that staff's doing behind the scenes, and we know it can feel like a long process, but it really does uh require quite a bit of review time, and that's why it ends up taking as long as it does.

Yeah, I I think I I hear exactly what you're saying, and I understand what you're saying, but I also think that the public deserves to get things done as quickly and efficiently as possible, and if there's any way we can look at the process and shorten it, I think that would be very a good thing.

That's all.

Okay, I'm gonna um ask my questions last.

I know that uh Commissioner Hernandez had an additional question, and I'll open it up to anybody else who wants to ask more questions.

Okay, um I wholeheartedly agree with the vice mayor's assessment of not just the measure D process, but I think the once somebody's gotten their measure D, not just the time frame where they're told they can move forward, but you know, whatever we can do to streamline the process, I've heard tremendous feedback from many many people that it takes too long.

So, and I know we are better than we were when I built my house and went through a measure A back in the day, but um, it is uh one drum beat I hear is it's never fast enough, and I just will leave it at that.

Um just so I understand what I think I heard you say uh during the normal allocation process, we go through a measure D, uh decision is established in January, the final decision is ratified in April, and that's when an applicant gets is officially notified that they've gotten their measure D.

Unless there's some other process that happens in September.

Those people who are awarded a Measure D have a year to apply for a building permit.

And if they haven't quite gotten it together, they have another six months.

If they ask for approval and get it, and so after that 18 month period, unless again, if I'm doing it in April, um the expectation is that that would then expire.

And what happens with those expired measure Ds?

They just go away forever.

Correct.

Yeah, they're lost to the void.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

Uh Councilmember Nagencast.

Thank you.

But but that void is something perhaps we're looking about bringing them out of the void, right?

Isn't that part of the discussion?

I heard that tonight, about the possibility of less than a full allocation for an ADU, or um expired or unused allocations that could be rolled over.

And I don't know how many years back you go.

That's why I was kind of curious.

Do we throw 25 on the mark?

You know, out there all of a sudden or not.

But I heard they could be done through code amendments.

Are we confident that we can do code amendments for these, or are we still in that process thinking out whether it needs a to go back to a ballot measure?

Or are we okay saying we could probably do this as a uh through a code amendment?

In terms of what is in the uh housing element, that I think we're confident that can be done through code amendments.

Um if there were other things introduced that are not identified in the housing element currently as commitments the city has made, those are things that would have to be reviewed as to is this a code amendment or is this a ballot measure?

Okay, so then these roll over potential rollovers and or less than a full allocation for the ADUs, could be done through a council code amendment.

Correct with uh coastal commission certification and all that.

Yes.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Chair Gorn?

Just um I've never really gotten an answer to this one question.

Uh if the school builds a lot of housing on school property, do those require measure D?

I think we'll look closer into it from my understanding they would require measure D allocations.

Steve.

Thank you.

Um, would you mind showing the your slide that has the the current downtown map versus the LUP downtown?

I want to see if I'm correct about this, but my guess is that the anxiety about the the weird map that we have been using for Measure D as opposed to the LUP map is if we use the LUP map, downtown would be bigger, and outside of downtown would be smaller, and this would better match the demand that we get from both segments for Measure D certificates.

I think that is some of the thought there.

Um I think uh at least speaking on when this was brought forward previously, um, some of that discussion was surrounding the fact that uh I think as you mentioned, the town center is a bit more reflective of the downtown, um, and yeah, we would be increasing some of that area of where there might be some of these infill sites that would be um included then in that downtown area.

Um and I don't have the the figures off the top of my head, but um with the previous previous ballot measure initiative that was brought forth, uh we did do some analysis as to in years past how would using this map as opposed to the existing map impact the number of allocations that were applied for in downtown and outside of downtown, and from my recollection, it wasn't uh a major change, but it would have would have had some variation to it, um, and so that would be back in some of those materials from 2024.

But if this came up in the future, we could certainly bring those that research forward again.

Is there any other reason why we ought to be using the LUP map rather than the funky one from the redevelopment plans?

I don't I don't think there's any specific reason.

I mean, our land use plan does encourage development within our town center area in the same way that measure D is encouraging uh more development and infill in that downtown area.

So that's part of that thought process of utilizing that town center map.

Um, but should a map amendment uh or ballot measure be brought forth.

Um there's also nothing tying it to utilizing that that town center map.

Um, it's just considered reflective and aligns with the policies of our local coastal program.

Thank you.

I can follow on there.

So one of the problems with the current map is that it includes um lands that are currently being farmed.

I think some of them are open space reserve, maybe some of those east of downtown, and also the one that you see it's like up by the same plant.

So there's there's lands in there that are kind of inappropriate, you know, for our policy.

But the other thing too is, you know, we so we just authorized 34 uh measure D's for a project that's actually, you know, in the town center, but because it didn't conform to the current map, it competed with um, it will compete with applications, you know, outside of downtown.

So you're you're likely to get more, you know, multifamily development in the town center, and by redrawing the map, that puts them squarely in the the downtown bucket as opposed to the outside of downtown.

So they open up more for the outside of downtown area.

Am I wrong about that?

You're correct.

Um, and the the property that I think you're referring to is actually located in that blue area, just to give some context to the public.

Um it's it's actually right at the bottom of the blue area on the left bordering uh the downtown area.

Yeah.

Anybody else?

Okay, I just have a couple.

Um I think it's like on page five.

It says something like a measure deallocation is considered vested and remains valid once the applicant has applied for entitlement permitting, um, the applicant is actively working toward permitting and no follow-up permits expire.

So my recollection is that's something that staff sort of interprets as opposed to that language actually being in code and codified, saying that this is how we'll handle it.

We will vest them at this certain point, but that's something more that that's a practice that staff does as opposed to actually being in the code.

Am I right about that?

Correct.

Yeah, that practice goes pretty far back in but that is what that is what has been carried forward year after year.

So that might be something though that we review in terms of you know, clean up language that might codify it or um have language that's you know supportive of it, just so it's clear to the public, you know, when things v, when they don't, how they vest, etc.

So I just wanted to call attention to that because I did not see that uh in the code.

Um then.

So how often has the planning commission like reviewed the points and the criteria?

And it seems to me that maybe there's time now to do that makes sense, um, and maybe we should do it, you know, more frequently.

But um, I'm just wondering like how often have we actually sat down and and looked at the criteria compared to you know current events, like what's happening like right now?

What are the mandates that we have for you know building codes or um zoning codes, and you know, how do we reflect that just out of curiosity?

Yeah, the last time uh I think that there we looked at uh making some not changes but varying interpretations to improve that scoring or to take out some of that scoring criteria was 2020, and so we haven't actually had a thorough sit down and discussion about that since then.

Um I think it was uh Commissioner Hernandez who asked about um the deed restriction process.

So what is that process exactly?

Now I know how that happens, like you know, state agency buys land and we put deed restrictions, but what does someone have to do to deed restrict their property?

What do you expect them to do to do that?

Yeah, so I'll give a little more context also since we didn't touch on it much in the presentation just for the public's understanding if that's okay.

Um but the criteria that keeps being referred to is there is one scoring item on the application that is worth 35 points.

Uh that's the highest uh scoring criteria on the checklist.

Most of the criteria are around five points uh per item.

Um and so that 35 points uh is a pretty large incentive for an applicant to uh elect to deed restrict uh one or more of the units to below market rate uh low or lower income uh to lower low or lower income housing.

Uh and it it does require a legally binding agreement, uh and so that's where that deed restriction is coming into play.

Uh so what an applicant when an applicant is first of all looking to do this, uh we do try to ensure that they've been well educated on what this means, such as what you're asking right now.

Uh that process it with measure D requires a 55-year legally binding agreement to only rent or sell the property at whatever elected uh affordability level they choose, granted it's within that low or lower, and that those affordability levels are set at the state level or defined by the state.

And so then an applicant seeking that uh is then going to as part of their entitlement process and prior to building permit issuance, be required to uh enter into an agreement such as an affordable housing agreement that will be recorded uh as part of the record for that property, uh, that shall only be rented or sold based on whatever they've elected for.

Uh, and then that would then be reviewed, and as Leslie mentioned earlier, uh answering Commissioner Hernandez's question, uh, typically then we hope as these come up more and more that we can implement a process for continuing to ensure that this is being enforced and maintained.

Uh right now uh we don't have many that have gotten to that point, if any, where they've reached full construction, at least for like a single family, and so that would be something that needs to be implemented moving forward to ensure that they are upheld to this, but there is uh a legally binding agreement there that they are expected to adhere to, and that agreement um follows successors and interest, like if they sell it, it's it's part of the the deed, and they have to disclose it at the point of sale.

Yes, Mayor.

It would be it would be an agreement that's recorded against the property, and that would run with the land.

Thank you for that.

Good answers.

Um have you looked at all?

I know that just administering the program is complex, and you're doing a lot of hard work around it, and you're you're doing a lot to make sure that you're you're fair.

Um, have you looked at uh the time it takes between allocating a measure D and the completion of construction and the sign off by the building department?

Like how fast are these things getting built?

How many can we say have actually been built, say since 2020?

What's that process from the beginning to end?

What does that look like?

We wouldn't have a very good timeline to go off of.

Uh the this timeline's gonna vary a lot depending on applicants' turnaround time, the actual scope of the project.

Um, so there's there's a lot of uh factors in there that could uh draw out the process or make the process quicker.

Um, and so it is pretty difficult to provide a general timeline on that.

Um, in terms of how many have been built, um, we try to use that building permit issuance uh that I was showing earlier, and I can bring back up.

Um, that gives a good idea of uh their last permit, and then they need to continue to go through the process, and uh staff has been uh keeping a record to at the end of every year when we're coming forward, we're looking at how many building permits were finaled and how many were completed or finaled and how many were issued.

Uh and so we do have we would have an idea if we went through and gathered all of those numbers, but we haven't actually run the calculation on finaled uh just what we've provided you, which is building permit issuance.

Yeah, I know uh there was a person on my street who's still you know trying to get construction complete, and I know that um the electrical work with PG and E was was a big um bottleneck.

So I this is kind of separate from actually looking at the allocation system in Measure D, but at some point we might want to just review you know this other piece of the process, like how are we getting these things built?

Because I think you know, HCD at some point is gonna say, you know, how are you delivering on your promise, you know, to get this these things built.

So at some point, just review the process and are there tweaks that that need that we need.

Do we need to have a meeting with PG and E to try to you know get these things done faster?

So I'm just suggesting that we might take some time in the future to to review that whole thing.

You know, once they got their CDP and how fast are things moving, and what are the bottlenecks for people?

Thank you.

I'll I'll just add that um as part of the implementation plan update, we will be revising the code on ADUs to comply with the most recent standards, which will really um expedite the ADU approval process.

Great.

All right, those are all the questions I have.

So I think we can open it up to uh public comment at this time.

Uh we can start in the room, give everybody uh three minutes because there's not many people here, and then move on to the any online commenters.

So do we have any speaker slips?

Sorry?

Yeah.

Good evening.

Um, Greg Jameson.

Um everyone.

Uh one of the thoughts I had about the people that are making applications and are like maybe happen to come back a second or a third year.

I'm wondering if maybe if they paid their fee, they went through the process, they didn't get one.

Maybe the next year they could get some kind of points for reapplying, maybe I don't know, three points or something like that.

Maybe that'll get them over the hump to get in uh and get an application for the following year.

Just an idea.

Ideas are welcome.

Yeah.

I have no one online.

I don't see anyone raising their hand.

Is there no one else in this room who would like to speak?

I see one here.

Go ahead.

You can just state your name at the at the podium.

Come to the come to the podium though.

Nancy Fontana.

Thank you.

Okay.

I came here merely tonight to learn more about Measure D and that sort of thing.

But I and I know we're not supposed to ask questions, but the on the deed restriction thing, something that I know people that have they they live in their home and then they have a big yard, and then they're looking at the property as being able to stay in their home when they retire.

Then as they age, they want to stay on their property.

If they have a deed restricted unit, the ADU, and one of the, and and the owners then want to move into it.

I is that a problem for those property owners.

I think that's something that should be considered.

That's a good question.

A lot of people plan that in their future aging planning, I guess you call it.

And the other thing, I think the the shade trees, it's really nice, but I have a feeling the fire restrictions might axe that from your whole program.

So that's all.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nancy.

So that that's a that's a good question about you know a senior like moving into the ADU and renting out their primary house dwelling unit.

What what does the deed restriction do to that situation?

Yeah, I I'd be happy to answer that if I may.

Um so they do need to still qualify for the income uh criteria that it's elected for.

So um even so we do try to share that with applicants and let them know that uh if you are looking to maybe have a family member move into this, you should consider um whether or not now or in the future they're going to continue to meet those income criteria to continue to live uh within that, and and that income criteria can be found um posted by the state.

So and it's varying by county.

So um would another potential solution be I'm sorry.

Uh council would like to weigh in here.

I was just going to add that all of that would be spelled out in the affordable housing agreement that's recorded against the property.

So the owners of the property would be able to look at the document to understand what is allowed and what is not allowed.

Um, would an potential alternative be to um create some scoring around um ADUs as supporting multi-generational living?

You know, multi-generational living is kind of a buzzword right now.

Having families live together, you know, on the same property.

So if you feel you can't qualify under, you know, for low or very low, um, maybe you could under some sort of, you know, multi um multi-generational living arrangement.

I'm just, you know, reaching here, but maybe that's something that could be, you know, explored as an alternative to um the whole worry over the the deed restriction for a senior.

Um Councilmember Penrose, did you want to?

Yeah, I just I was gonna say maybe maybe a review of the criterion that we're using.

Um, might be appropriate.

Yeah, Mr.

Becker.

Okay, well, I thought there'd be all kind of people here tonight asking questions or demanding answers.

Okay.

So we'll see you at uh ten after nine.

That's about eight minutes actually.

Okay.

So feel free to ask some additional questions or start with uh comments and and recommendations if you have them.

So I'm going to follow my previous uh process and I'm gonna start with um Commissioner Hernandez for the measure deallocation system.

I think it would be really helpful for us to take a look at it mid-year, um, you know, far enough in advance where changes can be incorporated in, and uh they can be implemented by the January time frame.

If the application process starts by December, June or July should give us enough time to, you know, some things may be implementable within year and some things may not.

I'd be my suggestion.

Uh maybe we don't need to do it every year, but I think 2020 I think was the last time I saw it done.

Uh I will say that we do provide feedback every year on specific things, and I think uh city council has been reasonably responsive with with most of those things.

Um some of us have made unreasonable requests.

Um the fire, the zone zero stuff.

We really need to take a look at that.

And I um like the fences being made of wood that uh council member Johnson called out.

Um we are supporting types of plants that are uh they might be native, but they're also high risk from a fire perspective.

So we should consider um standards around is it native and fire resistant.

Um and we might even consider allowing certain types of plants that may not be native but are fire resistant, like olive are a great example of their super fire resistant, and it's good for us to have those types of things.

So that that clearly needs to be beefed up.

And I know we don't have the zone zero regs back yet, so um, but we can start working on some of those.

Um I I think the the mayor made the point of um you know providing additional points for structures that are fire resistant or function in that manner, even if we just get ahead of zero uh zone zero.

I think somebody who has an external fire suppression system that causes their property to act as a fire break, like the watering systems.

I think those are highly valuable, and I think we should strongly encourage them.

Um I think there are other regs with underground water storage that um could be problematic.

We're dealing with this in LA for a rebuild for a family, our family house down there.

So but I do think the fire suppression systems are helpful.

And if somebody's implementing some type of fire break, you know, um, you know, on their property, and what does that mean, what qualifies?

I just think these are things we need to be looking at, especially for larger developments.

If somebody wants to build, you know, 40 units of housing and they have the space to do it.

Uh, they're or they're building a hotel and they've got wetland, that wetland can function as a fire break.

So I think we need to look at those types of solutions sort of as part of the measure D process, right?

If you have a project and it's got things that suppress fire, I think we should think about putting lots of points.

You know, if we're gonna give points for ADUs, we should do things that mitigate against disaster.

And it's not just fire, we also have flooding issues that we have to deal with.

So those are things, you know, pragmatically.

If we can pick off some of those and start encouraging people to get ahead of uh the risks, I think that would be incredibly helpful.

I strongly encourage us to track any and all deed restrictions, and those should be available to the public.

If they're available during a planning commission meeting, which is an open meeting, they should be something that's available to the public so we know.

There's a history of not recording deed restrictions on projects that goes back on, you know, not specific to this, but other things where we think something's been recorded and it hasn't.

So a little bit of transparency, a little bit of visibility, you know, it's just hey, you got extra points to do this.

We want to make sure that it's it's trackable, it's measurable, and somebody's actually looking at it.

Um so those are uh those are things that I think are really important is and and the point, we should be tracking when did you apply for everybody's project?

When did you apply for the measure D?

When did it get awarded?

Did you get an exception?

That should be visible information, but we should also be tracking when was the building permit issued, and as part of the Measure D process, my recommendation is we get an update on that every year.

How long does it take to get something approved, who got exceptions, and how long did it take them to get their building permit?

And ideally, how long did it take them to get their occupancy permit?

That is something that the public is asking for, and I think if we measure it, we can say, hey, city staff's actually doing a great job in this.

We've improved tremendously over the last 20 years, right?

Or we're going in the wrong direction.

But right now, a few people make a lot of noise, and is it noise or is it real?

Right?

And so without tracking it, it's real.

So that those are the things I think we should be paying attention to.

Councilmember Nagengast.

Yes.

Well, I'm gonna uh double up with what Commissioner Hernandez uh mentioned.

I I I do agree, you know, six years.

Really, five, it just turns six, but uh to to review the uh the points and how we're awarding, especially when things change over the years, we've defensible space and the fire requirements.

Uh it'd be good just to remind us every year, even if there aren't any major changes, but there are changes that do occur, and then we are uh I think the community or the public would like to know that we we actually do look at these things and are making sure that uh they are applicable to what's going on today.

Um, whether we uh move forward with some of the we talked about something that may be uh a code amendment.

I don't know how quickly is that something that would be part of our priorities.

It was mentioned earlier if that would uh I think it was something else related to the measure D, I think it was the map specifically, but I don't know if any code amendments is that something that we would try to do this year, is that something we would want to have uh moving forward, and that was specifically those two items that were mentioned in our housing element, the um less than a full allocation for an ADU and possible the um rollovers, so that's good also you know, trying to track these items.

You know, the when something expires or unused, I I would hope, and I think I want us to be able to explain that to the public, how that happens.

Because I hear people are quick to talk about things they don't know what they're talking about.

And I want us to be able to provide no, this is exactly why we're doing what we're doing.

There can be a big load somewhere else that uh it's quite could be several more than one measure D, but there's something more going on than just they haven't submitted something forward, but at some point they may not either.

But I think we should be able to uh track that, and also if somebody's hanging on to something and haven't submitted, we should be able to tell them, you know, you have to do something.

You can't just sit there and especially now we're looking at possibly rolling these over.

I think it's important to know if we have some additional uh measure D's available.

So again, uh uh that's it right now.

Okay, um Commissioner Reddock.

Thank you.

I want to say kudos to Vice Mayor Penrose for shining a light on the scoring system and the laborious effort that unfortunately that is for staff.

Uh we would would you do me a favor and show that sample scoring slide that you showed earlier, please?

Because I want to propose something at least as a thought exercise for us.

The uh the slide that is a sample scoring.

Perfect.

So having sat through this in planning commission, I'm uh I'm acutely aware of how painful it is for the applicants, how painful it is for staff to try to tease out all the nuances of these scores that are that are so close together.

And and I think that what we it's it's uh it's diminishing returns.

It takes an effort on staff's part that is uh inappropriate to it, and it and it's uh these these scores end up being so close together, and they depend on such qualitative things in some cases that it's it's a fiction really that one that one project is a quarter of a point better than another.

I mean it I just don't think it's defensible.

So I think we should throw this out the window and use a system that would be more like give ask staff to take a week in February, identify the ones that are clearly at the top of the pile, you know, the deed restricted ones, identify a few that are that are just obviously losers because they're not even close, and do a lottery for the rest that are right in the the middle, the fat part of that bell curve.

You know, give people credit if they have been through the process a year or two before.

But let's let's not pretend, I mean it's uh it's just uh it's just diminishing returns to try to implement these things.

I think do a lottery.

If you lose the lottery, you get credit the next year for for being part of it, and it would free up an awful lot of staff resources and it would let people know in February rather than April that they've got the go-ahead with a certificate.

So I realize that's a little bit, you know, you'll think of objections to to why that doesn't allow us to incent the kind of projects that we want to see, but I but if you look at those scores, how you know they're so close together for what the the middle 60 or 70 percent of them?

Just do a just do a lottery.

So that's one idea.

Um a completely different topic, I think it's very logical to consider uh awarding a fractional uh uh requiring a fraction of a measured E certificate for an ADU or a JDU.

It's uh it's probably attractive to do something simple like, well, a half a point for an ADU, but I'd ask that we let's let's do a little bit more thinking about it and try to try to be smart and quantitative about what is the impact of an ADU relative to your typical single family residence.

Uh you think about water, think about the sewage, think about the infrastructure.

And maybe a half is as close as you can get to that, but but maybe it's a slightly different fraction, and that would be defensible.

Thank you for listening to to me on that.

Thank you.

Um Council Member Johnson.

Uh well, I just think the only thing is to add in would be the landscaping.

Uh the shade trees that uh Nancy brought up.

Sorry.

Shade trees and appropriate species integrated in the landscape.

Because I think we need to talk about that because of the defensible space.

And then the of course, landscaping.

We see you can see on the maps what we were looking at that changes how that landscaping is gonna look based on what they want now.

So I think that needs to be updated.

And I think the maps, I'm gonna bring it back again because I've heard so many people bringing up the maps are not clear, and we need to get that corrected.

So those are the only things to add.

Okay.

Chair Gordon.

Well, um, I guess I would um I would say that one of the reasons that staff spends so much time on this is because staff is working with everyone who wants a measure D so much.

Like they work personally with everyone to try to help them get to a point where they can get their um their project done.

And it's actually one of the reasons that all those scores are so close is because staff has been working with everyone and getting them to follow these criteria.

Definitely we we do need to re-look at those criteria and make sure that um that they're fair.

Um but I would say that that's actually really nice.

That's what staff does, and that um the people who are going through this process are not being treated poorly.

Uh in actually they're being treated really well by staff.

And so I would say also a lot has been made of the map and the map and how bad the map is, but I would also I thought that the transfers kind of address the map issue.

Like if you have things not included in in, you know, that there's a small number of applications downtown, and then you move them out and transfer them later on, like we did with this list, um, it takes care of a lot of the concerns that people have.

I mean, measure D was passed by the voters, and saying that it's poor in all in all these, you know, it's kind of the the meta message is that it's troubled and we need to fix it, and it's a big problem.

But I would actually say given you know how things have changed over the years, it's actually done pretty well, and that there haven't been a lot of people who are out of the loop or or not being helped or not getting application, not getting measure D's a lot of people do get the measure D's.

So um I do think that um the criteria is is a little problematic and it's hard because it's so subjective.

And um, and so I would uh definitely like to revisit that in particular uh the fire issues, because that's the new big issue.

Um but I I but in terms of like revising measure, you know, changing measure D in this in big ways, um I would say that would be up to voters.

So thanks.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Brownstown.

Well, I think it's great that we're having an opportunity to look at measure D, think about what the original intent was, and keeping that in mind.

And um I applaud the efforts, you know, to think about how you rew how we're talking about re-weighting some of the criteria.

Anything to prevent fire hazards is really laudable, and if we can incentivize those behaviors, um that's great.

It's a great opportunity.

Um I also feel that we want to we really want to be able, you know, think think put ourselves in the place of customers, people looking to build.

People buy lots here.

They might not realize what some of the limitations are to build.

Um do they know what walkability is?

Someone buys a lot, you know, blocks out of the.

Are they thinking about that when they buy the land?

Is the realtor knowledgeable about it?

Personals might help them out and the builders.

I mean, the more we want something that where everyone feels is well educated and letting um a potential buyer, a potential builder, contractor, you know, really understand this stuff.

Um because you know, a lot the reason people love to come to Half Moon Bay and live here is that we're not having sprawling construction and development.

Um, and that was part of one of the goals of you know, Measure D.

So we really want to make everybody understand what they're purchasing, what they're putting efforts into, and um, you know, not feel disappointed.

And you know, I don't even know.

I mean, we had at least one realtor here this evening.

And you know, we want to make sure, um, you know, utilize that community as well, get input from them, say, yeah, you know, what more do you really need to know if we have a client or someone who already lives out here and wants to buy another lot, um, to make it as uh user friendlier process.

And um, so yeah, I thought this was a great conversation today, and um thank you for the wonderful presentation.

I think we'd all would love copies of that.

If you could put them online, your presentation was very helpful and look forward to continuing the conversation.

So thank you.

Vice Mayor.

Yeah, um I agree with a lot of what's been said.

Um I want to go back to the issue about staff time spent on figuring out Measure D allocations.

It's too much time.

And that may be because the criteria need to be changed, it may be because the staff is trying to be too friendly and helpful to people.

That may be not their job, I don't know.

I love a friendly staff, and I am not being at all critical of the way our staff works.

I am thrilled that they work to make the customer feel comfortable and to help them as much as possible.

But is that really their job?

If it if we're trying to be efficient in government, then we don't want to have a system where it takes a year to be able to start building on something.

It's too long.

It's too long from a financial point of view for people.

They lose money during that year, they're not they're not able to able to invest in something that they want to invest in.

Um our staff is so overworked as it is.

Do we really want them spending all of their time doing this for the first three months of every year?

I don't know.

I don't know how much staff time.

I don't know this specifics, but I do know that what I consistently hear from people in the public is this city is impossible, you can't get anything done, it takes too damn long.

And I think that's true of a lot of governments, and there is some truth to it, and there will always be some truth to it, I think.

But I'd like to have us look at how much effort we're putting into this program, how much staff, what is it costing us in staff time to run this program, and really see whether or not we're getting our money's worth.

Is that where the public really wants to put their money?

I don't know.

But looking at looking at staff time and looking at the criterion lists, I mean, they're all part of the same review process that I need think needs to happen.

Um and then the other thing I wanted to say was I I definitely agree that ADUs should have a fraction of uh a Measure D allocation, whether it's a half or not, I I don't have a strong opinion on, I don't know enough about how you divide those things up.

But if somebody said, you know, half an allocation for an ADU and 25% of an allocation or none for a JDU, I'm happy with that.

I think that's all I've got.

Uh Robert, if you wanted to add something.

Thank you for re mentioning that, because that reminded me that I forgot to bring up something regarding uh providing direction.

Um council member Nagengast and I are part of an ad hoc committee looking at restructuring with a goal towards um always focusing on improving service delivery with available resources.

So um so yeah, I would um ask our planning department to you know start thinking about what kind of extra resources might we want to be able to provide, experiment, you know, if there's an extra person, extra contractor, how that would look, how we think what would be the goal in terms of um speeding up uh permit deliveries would help.

What help do you need so we can start taking that in consideration structurally over you know the next couple of years.

So I'm saying ask and say if we can get this, then we can deliver that.

Uh let us know.

That's what we're relying on you so we can make those budget adjustments and um make it work.

It's a great opportunity.

So council has already given direction on fractionalizing exterior ADUs, potentially exempting JDUs, and looking at carryover.

So I think you know we're all good with that.

That's already, you know, on your work plan, so to speak.

Um, and that's good.

Um, as for the map, I think the map is problematic for the reasons I talked about earlier, and it uh it's not consistent with the existing downtown map that staff is using, and we should have maps that are consistent for all of our different purposes.

So I would support putting the map on November ballot, just the map, not changing measure D, not saying do you want measure D or not, nothing like that, but putting the map, a simple, you know, map change on the ballot because um I'm concerned about the potential for future multifamily taking away from outside of the downtown area, and I think that's not you know fair.

So I I think we really need to look at the map.

I don't know if I have consensus on that, but I see your point about it, and that somehow you know things are working, but I think there's you know some problems with it that could be addressed.

And I don't like the idea that we have open space reserve lands, you know, lumped in, and um I think all of downtown should be you know in the same downtown map.

So I'm in favor of a map change.

Now I think Robert brought up an important point.

Um the idea of the amount of time that staff is taking, you know, in a process is kind of separate than you know the program that we have now.

We have like a year to do something better for the next round of allocations for 2027, and I think we need to do that.

Um we are looking at our departments to see you know how we might reorganize to do more effective delivery.

Remember, you know, the ADUs and our single family homes are still like you know, a huge chunk of any development that's happening in Haplin Bay, right?

So they're they're working it and they're trying to make a system that's complex fair.

And the fact that you're taking to April, I don't really see much of a problem with that, but it could always be better.

And I I think the real problem is going from allocation to occupancy permit.

You know, that yeah, the construction piece is bad.

But we're gonna be looking at how to do that faster and better.

But in the meantime, I think we want to you know um look at the uh the allocation system.

I like the idea of considering the lottery, however, you know, I do like the idea of incentivizing different kinds of development, you know, the the affordable piece, but also you know, the home hardening.

People are gonna need incentives to to change the way we build to protect existing development, and I think, you know, we want incentives around that, not just the fire department going around putting a red X on your door because you didn't do what was required, but that, you know, we're gonna help you build better and stronger and protect your neighbors and the the city at large.

So I'm not entirely in agreement with throwing out the the allocation system, but I think it would be useful to just look at how that might work, how uh you know, lottery might work.

Maybe we just have two buckets.

Maybe it's affordable and fire, you know, protective.

Um and then whatever doesn't fit in that, then you do a lottery on the 10 or 15, you know, that are left or something like that.

But um so I'd like you to look at those sorts of things.

And uh I would like us, I would like council working with uh community development director to look at uh sorry, computers turning on look at the language about vesting and expirations just to make sure it's clear in the code, what the process is so that it's transparent to people about how we assess that and when those you know those timelines are met or not.

So I would consider that so um that doesn't sum up everybody's consensus.

We heard concerns about you know changing the map, but I think everybody's on board with the fractionalizing, and um perhaps the best thing to do is just bring this for further discussion to the planning commission to um look at the criteria, look at the system, and have a bigger discussion about the map.

Uh where do people stand on the map?

I know that Patrick seemed to be in favor of it.

I I would agree.

I I like the idea of one map, and um because it's confusing we say downtown, but except if it's measure D.

Right.

I mean, I get it why at that time in the 1999, but a redevelop wasn't that a redevelopment map.

Well, it was plus we had a very short timeline to put something on the ballot.

We had to use the map that we had, and that was it.

Right.

So I yeah, I would agree on the map and the other uh less than a full allocation, ADU and the uh the rollover.

But I want to make it very clear how these expire or not.

Yeah.

Map, where do you stand?

It's the legislative acts, and we need to put on the ballot.

Yeah, I agree also for future developers coming in.

We want to make sure there's a real clear understanding of it, they just can't, yeah.

Yeah, one map, one map.

We'll have bumper stickers by next week.

Deborah, one map.

Rick.

I think it ties up a lot of things we've done with our LCLUP and the direction we've received from council over the last 10 years.

It just makes a clean focus on the priorities we've been given, and it removes ambiguity.

So, big fan of one map.

Steve.

Yeah, I think the things that we're talking about makes sense when it comes to a referendum in November.

There'll be some more clever messaging necessary to tell the voters why they ought to vote for it.

Yeah, we're not fixing the map, we're adapting it.

Um, David.

Still against the map?

Changing the map?

It's not that I'm against the map.

It's that it's uh that it's being presented as um the map is the problem when really measure D is working pretty well.

And the map isn't the issue.

So um it's fine to do whatever you want to do with the map and make things clearer, that's great.

Put it before the voters, that's great.

Um, make sure that it's perceived we're not actually changing the measure D programmar.

No, I understand that.

Right.

But I'm just saying, we're the things to focus on is to take make it so that the staff does not have to spend four months working with every homeowner yeah um in that intensive way and go back to them over and over again to try to get them to.

I mean, it is helpful, and it's helpful to the homeowners, and they everyone knows that you know you need to be educated about what these things are.

And so some outreach is really important, but but the staff the reason this is all here is because staff is a little overloaded every year and it's and it's made drama and so you know whatever we can do to fix that streamline that make it easier on staff that's great.

Okay.

So let's let's say we have consensus on changing the map and looking at a um November 2026 map change and you know the appropriate uh messaging around that um I think I did hear a thread of people wanting things to move faster right um part of that's gonna be probably additional staffing but I I think there's some direction here to at least consider from the perspective of the community development director and the city manager and looks like a coe is working heavily on measure D.

What do you think?

How do you think the process could be improved that would improve your quality of uh life and your job but still maintain transparency and fairness think about the you know the idea of the lottery um and and you know we have to start talking about the scoring system at some point soon mid year by mid year start that process but in the meantime think about just honest among yourselves like what would work better and how can we make that fair and transparent you know so there is some discomfort with people with the process so but you're the ones closest to the problem and so we want to hear from you about what you think would work better you know so let us know about that.

Patrick what about because I I've heard a lot of that we've talked about I mean I've heard other people telling us it's slow it takes forever and I might kind of beat you guys up but that's what we're hearing.

But everybody who is wanting to get you know a renovation or build a house everybody thinks it's too slow.

That's the perspective.

It's never gonna be fast enough.

And I and I did this up in trucky trying to get a a stairway in ADU or ADA compliant it took me nine months no that's insane.

Yeah it but so it takes time I get that so I'm just so here I am in another area and not having problems and you hear people here.

What about a customer feedback survey just to get some feedback from from because they are customers so that they could say or it can be kind of like a bitch line too you're bitching about everything but at least you can get some feedback on this took too long and this went really well because we get precisely the customers where their concerns are well I I think again I think a lot of that is just going to come back negative because when you have to spend money yeah you know the kind of money that we have to spend here because of the cost of living and the cost of materials that's going to be uniformly negative.

I think I hear what you're saying and you know maybe feedback survey when things are completed like tell us what about your experience as opposed to some just general polling.

Tell us about your experience and record that experience and compile all those experiences together to get a feel for it and have it not just be completely open-ended where people are gonna go I'm tearing my hair out you know say how was this how is that you know sort of break it down a little bit um and do do it that way but um I think that's a lot to ask like right now when we're short staffed but I agree that some sort of you know touch on the public you know is a good idea um so I think we've covered sort of the basic things that we talked about tonight.

Is there anything I'm missing here that we haven't said?

Um I just want to say, first of all, I think I'm amazed that staff was able to put all this together within a couple of weeks after the holidays.

And I want to say how you know grateful I am that you were able to do that and do it well.

Very responsive and you know, very smart.

And we have a great staff there.

Here, here.

But I also want to say, you know, we have some really good minds here at this table.

You know, we have a really good planning commission, very smart people, very engaged people, people with creative ideas, and that I think showed tonight.

And I'm very appreciative of that too.

Some of you are my neighbors and friends, and well, you're just really strong.

Thank you.

And the council for digging in and raising these issues previously and staying on it.

So uh thank you all.

Um staff feel like they have enough to to work on.

Um, but let us know what you need to do that too, right?

You know, don't just stew in a dark corner, you know, come and tell us, you know, what you need to do this.

All right.

So, if I may, you mentioned a few minutes ago that I think if I heard you write the concept of staff coming to planning commission this year with uh maybe some fresh approaches to the the measure D scoring system.

I I think I could safely say that the planning commission will welcome that and well, I'd I'd love it if you could, as you look at that, maybe think of two or three different approaches to that.

You know, maybe one with some in incremental changes, and maybe some another version with radical changes where we embrace the lottery idea.

Just to challenge our thinking on it.

Well, and and you know, it it's really is something to think about.

I mean, it would eliminate a lot of angst, I think, on the part of the uh community development department.

Also, you know, welcome creative ideas like that.

I think that's fantastic.

Anybody else?

I have one thing it's on the agenda, but I just before you adjourn.

Um Maggie sent out an email regarding the Brown Act and some changes that are going on, and um instead of picking them up at City Hall, I brought them this evening to you, so I'm gonna just before the end of the meeting I'll give them each to you.

So appreciate that.

Yeah.

Thanks for writing her to the meeting tonight.

All right.

Okay.

So we're adjourned.

Thanks.

All right.