Often reflecting existing conditions.

The proposed full color future land use can be reviewed on the standard 2035.

Copies of the comprehensive plan may be reviewed as follows online at W.

Stanford CP.gov slash Stanford 2035 in the town club's office of the Gilman Center first floor, going on business others or in the land use floor, building this.

At the moment the name time and place, all of us interested will not spoken the post-public hearing.

The meeting places in hearing input we should check on this meeting.

Thank you.

And then we will move forward with hearing.

So again, if you are signed up to speak, please when you come up to speak, say your name clearly into the record.

And if you would like you can also communicate your address to the neighborhood in Stanford.

If you do have additional comment though, you're welcome to submit it in writing.

So this evening we will begin with a brief presentation of changes that have been made.

Okay.

Thank you.

My name is Elias Decker.

I am a planner at Sasaki.

We've been working with the city over the past year to draft the draft standard 2035 comprehensive plan for those of you who were in attendance in our last week's public hearing.

Tonight I'll just be sharing a few brief changes that we made over the last week in response to some of the feedback that we've gotten from a few different entities that Lindsay will go into a little bit more depth on shortly.

So we received feedback from the West Club, the Council of Government for this part of the state, generally in approval of the plan, but had a few specific comments on a few kind of items that they want to see changed.

So specifically, they were wondering about some of the software that the plan recommends that we use to craft a infrastructure strategy to make sure that any kind of planned growth in the city is aligned with its structure.

And so we think that specific change to the plan was to include some specific service providers.

We also, based on their comments, added an action to evaluate opportunities to use new resilience tools established by recent public acts 2533, such as resiliency improvements district.

So that's something that the city would take on to study to see if it was applicable to Stanford.

We've also adjusted some of the open space actions just to make them kind of more cohesive and kind of connected through citywide spaces.

And also based on comments from the Harvard Management Commission, we have updated some of the planning language to align with their updated coastal vision.

They'll be releasing shortly.

So in terms of some of the language that we've updated, strategy 10.1 now reads kind of to follow along with their updated coastal vision, ensuring that the harbor management area and protection of coastal and cultural resources continue to provide the harbor management commission and shelter shellfish commission with development proposals affecting the hardware management area for review common and recommendation in accordance with state and musical statutes.

And we've adjusted some of the language and the healthy kind of coastal resilience section based on their comments as well.

We also receive additional comments on the future land use from the downtown special services district, and so we've updated a future land use in the South End from the core category, the highest intensity land use to the mixed use three urban category based on their comments.

We've also addressed kind of a slight modification in the residential one intent text to allow for additional clarity to confirm that any uses that would be planned in those areas are as permitted right now by something regulation.

And that is the extent of some of the changes we've made over the past week.

Now I'll pass it to Lindsay to share some of the concepts that we've gotten from some of the entities that we've been sharing with them.

Thank you.

Okay, so uh in accordance with the general statutes of the state of Connecticut, uh this plan was referred to the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, and uh we have to read the comments into the record.

Uh so I'll be doing that.

Uh dear board members, thank you for notifying this office at the draft City of Stanford 2025-2035 comprehensive plan.

Uh the Connecticut Coastal Management Act requires our office to review the draft for consistency with the policies and standards of the Connecticut Coastal Management Act, specifically CGS Section 22A-104E and the criteria of CGS Section 22A-102B.

The draft plan is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and contains many noteworthy sections that we support.

For example, the sustainability today section from pages 20 to 23 highlights the city's effort to invest in its environment, including the publication of its climate action plans and ongoing work for the for the coastal flood resiliency plan.

This section also outlines the city's intention to prioritize nature-based stormwater management through green infrastructure and to develop and enact the coastal flood resiliency plan.

This section states that the community identified controlling flooding with green infrastructure as a top priority.

We also strongly support language on page 48 that identifies flood risk as a factor the city will consider along with existing infrastructure and transit service when determining where land can accommodate development.

This is important as the plan shows that Stanford is expected to experience population growth faster than pure cities and development to accommodate such roles to proceed in a manager manner that is safe for the community.

The section titled A Healthy City further highlights the efforts the city intends to make to improve climate resilience, including upgrading both physical infrastructure and community networks to better adapt Stanford to its most pressing climate risks, including flooding and sea level rise.

Controlling flooding with green infrastructure is identified as a top priority.

Further, this section outlines Stanford's plan to implement the uplift resiliency overlay to minimize water runoff and reduce flood impacts from upland development and a coastal resiliency overlay zone within the coastal area to ensure that new development and redevelopment are elevated at least three feet above base flood elevation.

We support the incorporation of these tools as they are great and innovative opportunity to protect people and property from flood hazards and add requirements such as stormwater management and salt-tolerant landscaping as identified on page 97 to further reduce risks and adapt to climate impacts and rising sea level.

However, section 22A-92 V2F of the CCMA requires that municipal land use authorities to manage coastal hazard areas so as to ensure that development proceeds in a manner such that has hazards to life and property are minimized.

Elevate structures three feet higher than the base flood elevation is one approach to managing flood hazard area, but limiting high density residential development in flood-prone areas is a coastal management strategy that avoids impacts by not placing people in harm's way in the first place.

Again, we recognize that the plan does mention flood risk as a factor of determining where land can accommodate development, but we strongly recommend that any recommendations pertaining to high density residential development, such as ST 13.11 to revise building codes for flexibility by updating them to encourage reversible building design to allow easier conversion between commercial and residential uses.

Also include a caveat that stresses that residential development slash conversion should be limited to sites that are located outside of the coastal flood hazard areas, or it can provide dry egress for evacuations and access to emergency personnel.

We also note that unlike the current pre current previously approved master plan, the draft comprehensive plan does not include specific goals for the promotion of water dependent uses at waterfront sites or the protection of tidal wetlands or other sensitive coastal resources.

The current master plan includes sections that highlights goals such as protecting, handsing and promoting water dependent uses, protecting water-dependent industry, requiring public access in conjunction with non-water dependent uses, protecting coastal lands by conserving and enhancing natural coastal resources in the Stanford coastal management area, including beaches, rocky shorefronts, estuaries, and then embayments, shelf its concentration areas, tidal wetlands, intertidal flasts, coastal hazard areas, and other, and maintaining tidal wetlands in their natural state and emphasizing the value of tidal wetlands in the east side and west branched areas.

Therefore, we strongly recommend that the existing relevant policies, including policy 5C, Policy W 2.2, Policy 7E, 7F, 7N, and 7.0, all from the 2015 master plan.

The incorporated into the draft comprehensive plan, especially in sections that outline specific roles for protecting marine and upland ecosystems with specific actions to ensure that the protection of water dependent uses, including public access and sensitive coastal resources, continue to remain top priority.

One more paragraph.

Finally, although the draft comprehensive plan contains several coastal management related topics and issues, we note that the draft plan does not specifically reference the Connecticut Coastal Management Act as this CCMA is the basis for effective implementation of municipal coastal management and hardware management programs.

We recommend that the comprehensive plan include general language highlighting goals of the CCMA, specifically relating to three basic tenants for coastal management, protection of sensitive coastal resources and coastal water quality, proper management of coastal flood hazard areas to ensure that hazards to life and property are minimized, and promotion and protection of water dependent uses, including public access at waterfront sites.

This could be as simple as including a call-out box similar to a box included on page 22 describing the coastal flood resiliency plan.

Thank you again for the opportunity to comment.