Facility Standards Manual Public Review Committee Meeting - November 8, 2024
Facility Standards Manual Public Review Committee Meeting - November 8, 2024
Note: The agenda and transcript list the meeting date as November 7, 2024, but the official meeting date provided is November 8, 2024. This summary uses the provided date.
The Facility Standards Manual (FSM) Public Review Committee met to discuss amendments to FSM Chapter 8, particularly sections 8.106 and related items. The committee approved the previous meeting minutes, received updates on the annual report and two DOAMs (Development Ordinance Amendments), and engaged in extensive deliberation on grading plan requirements, existing conditions plans, and informational exhibits.
Consent Calendar
- Approved the October 17, 2024, meeting minutes via motion and unanimous voice vote.
- The annual report was placed on the consent agenda for the Board Business Meeting later that day and was expected to be approved.
Discussion Items
- DOAM Updates: Two DOAMs (inundation zone amendments and zoning implementation amendments) were presented to the Planning Commission on October 22, 2024, and recommended for approval unanimously. They are now scheduled for a December 11, 2024, public hearing before the Board of Supervisors.
- FSM Chapter 8 Amendments – Grading Plan and Existing Conditions Plan:
- The committee discussed whether existing environmental features (e.g., steep slopes, Resource Protection Areas, floodplains) must be shown on all grading plan sheets. Staff argued that showing them on all grading sheets ensures consistency and avoids review conflicts, while some committee members and applicants expressed concern about plan clutter and constructability.
- A compromise was reached: the language will be revised to allow additional grading plan sheets that do not depict all environmental features when needed for clarity, subject to approval by the director or designee. The specific text was agreed upon as: "Modified grading plan sheets that do not depict all of the following may be provided when needed to improve clarity, subject to approval by the director."
- The committee also agreed to simplify the existing conditions plan requirement by removing the phrase "may be combined with phase one ENS and demolition" and instead stating that existing conditions can be shown on a plan (not necessarily a titled "Existing Conditions Plan").
- Other minor edits to lists of required features on grading, erosion control, and tree conservation plans were accepted.
- Informational Exhibit: Staff requested retention of the informational exhibit requirement for three rare application types (easement plats, plot plans, and certain zoning permits) because it facilitates locational clearance. The committee did not object but asked to revisit the language at the next meeting to ensure it does not impose new standards on already-built projects.
- Plot Plans (FSM 8.114): Updates were made to reference the new Zoning Ordinance (Section 61000 to 1004) and to correct yard/setback references. The committee agreed to defer floodplain-related edits to a future floodplain amendment package.
Key Outcomes
- The committee directed staff to incorporate the agreed-upon language changes for grading plan sheets (including the director-approval flexibility) into the draft FSM amendments.
- Staff will prepare clean versions of the revised sections for review at the next meeting (November 21, 2024).
- No formal vote was taken on the entire Chapter 8 amendment package; further discussion will continue at the November 21 and December 5, 2024, meetings.
- The committee acknowledged the need to update the Erosion and Sediment Control Handbook references due to upcoming changes, but deferred detailed review.
- Upcoming topics include sidewalks, shared use paths, invasive species management, ADU written agreements, and ESC/stormwater amendments.
Meeting Transcript
I'd like to call to order the November 7th, 2024 facility standards menu in public and new committee meeting. No members of department uh no members are participating remotely. Committee members disclose that they are members of one or more affected groups. We're kept on file in the minutes of the facility standards manual public. Laura distributed our minutes from the October 17th. Boldly absent from open the floor for any suggested edits to the minutes or a motion to approve. Chair Purchase your pleasure. Second, all in favor, please say aye. Check the box. Yes. Okay. And uh Laura, you have an annual report update on the update on the update. Yes, actually, this is gonna happen while we're in the room. Um at four o'clock, the board business meeting. Um, the annual report is scheduled on the consent agenda. So Betsy is gonna be in that meeting step out of this meeting and go over there for to represent us and be in the boardroom. But it is on consent, so we expect our annual report to be approved. We had our two DOLAMs, if you could kind of update the sure. Yes, um, the two DOAMs, this is the inundation zone amendments and the um zoning implementation, zoning orders implementation amendments, which is the first three tech memos. Those went to the October 22nd Planning Commission public hearing, provided presentations for both of those. Kevin was at the table with uh staff, and so I'll let him comment in a minute about his thoughts, but the planning commission did recommend approval of those both of those DOMs unanimously to the board, and so we are now preparing for the December 11th for public hearing for the two DOMs. That should be the that next step in the process. I don't know if we can serve there's there's one question that was put towards the staff. I think it was the mandation zones. Yeah, whether there was much deliberation or debate among the committee about that mapping requirement. Um I didn't recall there being a lot of heated debate, it was just kind of required to do this, and uh it was as a matter of we had some discussion about whether it would be ultimately shown on the county's GIS systems or not, and they were they were fine with that, you know, generally, but uh didn't dig much deeper than that. I think the question was they were worried about disclosure. Right. How would people know that there was an inundation zone on their property? And should we be doing more as in um putting it in the homeowners documents, you know, disclosure closing, and um I think that's what we say the GIS. It was if it gets on the GIS mapping, it's a good idea. People would know because and there's a note on the black, and you know, Kevin said we did what was required. Jason also was there and was able to chime in and help us out about how we did discuss um being consistent with the state requirements. Right. That was pretty much it. Thank you. Thank Dr. Aiden? So you're all the way up to 8106 on a China compliment. I think it is a compliment, but there was a lot of pictures. So I don't know, that is we're questioning myself. Sorry, let me get to 8106. We will come back. We know there are some outstanding issues. Um, our goal was just sort of to kind of work forward a little bit. I'm going to pull up on screen um sort of a summary of some outstanding items. The the first one is uh this issue of showing existing conditions on grading plans. This was one of the issues that we revisited following the last meeting. And um so we basically staff said they weren't aware of issues with the grading plan and the overlay having a conflict. We presented this um to uh Kevin and Pete at our coordination meeting, and Pete was kind enough to provide an example of a plan that he had where they were just it did get a little cluttered, it was hard to read the plan, and so I passed that on to staff um so they can look at it basically paraphrasing, but Pete could probably explain this better than me.
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