Ready? All right.
good afternoon everyone. Welcome to today's hearing,
monday, july 27th. Welcome.
I hope you all had a great weekend.
we're going to go ahead and get started with roll call, please.
>> clerk: good afternoon. Commissioner biehle.
>> m. Biehle: here. >> clerk: commissioner lind.
commissioner sandoval. >> r. Sandoval: here.
>> clerk: commissioner muralles.
>> c. Muralles: . >> g. Stepanicich: if anyone
has any questions or comments or would like those minutes to the
meeting be approved. I guess I can --
>> I'll move to approve. >> g. Stepanicich: I'll second
that motion. Commissioner bielhe moves.
I seconded the motion. Sorry.
thank you. All right.
we're going to go ahead, are there any communications?
oh, I'm sorry. Yes.
we need to vote. Thank you.
no. All those in favor say aye and
commissioner commissioner [indiscernible] is sustained.
are there any communications from the commissioners that we'd
like to share at this moment? I just want to remind everybody
has on their packets a flyer for the training that will be
happening on september 30th. If you can go ahead and make
sure you can sign up in the next couple of weeks for the
logistics of that training, please.
thank you. Then we're going to go ahead
into item two which is the director's report, go ahead,
manny, thank you. >> good afternoon,
commissioners. And thank you so much.
kate stafford has joined us. She will be our planning
commission and cda legal council.
>> hi. My name is kate stanford, I've
been with the county since 2019 and have been working with the
variety of departments and working with some divisions of
cda back in january and with brandon's promotion, I'm taking
over most of his work at this time.
I'm looking forward to working with you all and meeting your
>> next planning commission will
be august 24th, 2026. At that time, the new planning
director will be here and there will be no meeting on
august 10th. It's too soon.
we want to give her some time and room and familiarize with
what's going on. At that.
on. >> withwill have our new
planning director in place. Her name is julia crog and we'll
do a proper introduction when she is here and the other item
will be the set of code amendments to respond to
essentially notifying our adu ordinance, so we need to adopt
an adu ordinance. Our sb9 ordinance.
ab20 ordinance. As well as our sb35 in order to
be a very narrow scope of updates to respond to hcd.
and there will be no workshop. It will be.
>> g. Stepanicich: I would like to open up.
>> r. Lind: I'd like to can questions.
to prepare for those changes, could you recirculate that very.
>> we will also circulate the draft amendments well ahead of
time for many of us it's hard to distinguish the nuances of the
different distinguishes. >> g. Stepanicich: we'll also
have manny here to give us a presentation on that?
>> we'll have two agenda items before you -- one of them is a
workshop which is item four related to off side objective
design standards. We have members of the bpws.
we have bob brown as well as consultants and present.
the planning is not to make any positions or.
>> as you know, we're in the process of updating the public
works infrastructure that are entitled 24.
both are objective, but also to update them since many of these
were adopted back in the 1980s and 90s.
and since this is a large undertaking, we have started
first with developing new street standards we would very much
like to share these with you, get your feedback and we can
relay that feedback to the board of.
>> in terms of today's agenda item, we will talk briefly about
the process we've been through, then we will have a technical
review of the street standards and we will update you from the
may 11th workshop. We'll talk about the exemptions
to the standards. Focus on the minimum safety
standards that have been refined since may 11th and the
documentation for those. Title 24 that will also go
through. In terms of the process, we
started back in the plan is to bring these and we hope for
adoption before the board in september.
I'm going to turn this over to my colleague, and we have one of
her associates amalia laten cody online that will answer
questions. >> before angela speaks, I wand
to recognize robin from dpw is here as well as cpa director,
sara jones. >> all right.
so, yeah, we are going to go through with the six street
types that we're proposing as part of title 24 updates
starting with residential road. So this is the street section
you saw previously at that may 11th meeting.
and I want to show you the updates we've made since then.
one of the primary updates was actually based from -- based on
feedback from staff working on ada compliance and some concerns
brought up in our stakeholder conversation about the 7'
parking lanes that we previously showed feeling a little tight.
so we've updated the residential road from 7 foot parking lanes
to 8 feet. That extra foot gives us a
little bit more room within the curb to curb radon and it also
happies address ada and also addressing some concerns about
the seven foot p and here's an example image of
residential road just to represent the street type.
okay. This is main street.
this is, again, the previous section we showed in may.
as we discussed last time. This is a slow wouldn't justify
that amount of space. I do also want to point out a
code zones allow for a 0 to 10' setback.
so in practice, that means there might be situations where the
sidewalk directly abuts the front of the building.
when that happens, any frontage related activity like indoor
seating, displays, pet circulation would need to occur
within the sidewalk area. We would still want to maintain
a generous sidewalk space given that the setback is loud in some
cases. >> may I ask a question?
>> g. Stepanicich: yes, go ahead, commissioner.
>> just is there a way to compensate that and make that
happen as long as it's subjective?
>> I think no matter what, we'd still like to have a 10' clear.
>> rather than a ministerial review if there were such a
request received. >> it would only be -- the idea
is to move away from any kind of discretionary review process and
make it as objective as possible.
I think what I understood commissioner peggy kerr is
saying if there was a decision to happen, can we write a policy
saying. >> it wouldn't be done as a
request for variance or waiver. I just wanted to clarify that.
>> thank you. >> let's move on to.
I did want to point out here. Also the planter zone has been
increased from 4.5' to 5' and that's, again, to get that 13'
minimum width to minimum standard parking spaces.
okay. And here's another example image
of a main street. >> could I ask a question
generally about these images. So the images you're showing,
they are actually the same as the standard being proposed?
>> not all of them are 1 to 1. >> I see.
how close are they? I mean so we can understand the
street feel. >> right.
the character. >> and character of this
particular standard. >> exactly.
so maybe exact dimensions aren't 1:1 but generally the street
layout with the street tree next to sidewalk, you know.
>> what about the travel lane and the sidewalk standard?
>> are you talking about for ada compliance?
>> no, for just a normal case. >> yeah, I mean, I think these
are pretty standard. It should be very close from the
example image. >> g. Stepanicich: commissioner
lind, can you speak to your mic. >> r. Lind: I'm sorry.
this is two travel lanes? >> I don't want to say
definitively yes. >> g. Stepanicich: I think
we're going to go ahead and let you -- I don't think we're going
to let you continue with your presentation and we'll save the
questions for the end of the presentation, okay.
thank you. >> okay.
>> thank you. >> this is collector street
type. This is what we had shown
previously. 8' parking lanes to 11' travel
lanes, 6' planter zone, and an 8' walkway.
so one of the key up dates we've made here based on kind of key
feedback we've received from the marin county bicycle coalition
is the desire to require bicycle facilities at sidewalk level.
so that is a bikeway that is vertically separated from the
radon and you can see that here integrated as a 12' class one
shared use path, so that would be two directional lanes,
favored to one side and that would include users that are
both walking and biking. So that is a key update here for
collector. And then the other big change or
relatively big change. So we would include a note here
is that if the collector is on a designated truck route, 11'
would be required. The thinking here is that the
10' lanes could help support lower operating speeds while
still allowing wider lanes and locations where tra
okay. So moving to arterials, again,
cross section as we showed at our last meeting.
just some minor changes here. One is we've reduced the
affective median width from 11' to 8' here.
this allows us to provide a 1.5' buffer on either side of the
he'd ymedian to better accommodate fire access.
the better trade is there's a narrow median which would
require a street tree selection, probably something with less
horizontal root systems and ones that would thrive well and be
healthy. Also importantly similar to
collector street type, and the expectation bike way consistent
with here is that example image again
as an arterial and then industrial commercial.
there have been no changes made to industrial commercial since
we last met. It maintains at 12' travel
lanes, 8' parking lanes, 6' okay.
and now for the last street type, we want to look at an
alley. This is the standard we showed
last time and the feedback was that it felt, yeah, it felt a
little bit too wide at the 30' total and we've been working
alongside standards in the form base code to actually um, date
this to a 20' total width. Now we are including that 5'
kind of set backspace where there could be driveway lamps
and landscaping as a requirement in the form base code which
would require a minimum 5' setback.
so the effective with the alley would remain the same at 30',
but the paved width is going to be established in tit
and here's an example of how that would look.
>> can we just talk about context real quick before we
move on to the exceptions. >> yes, please, go ahead.
>> yes, good morning, commissioners.
sara jones, community development director.
really appreciate getting your thoughts and guidance around
what these standards ought to be.
I just wanted to kind of bring it back to the kinds of
development that we see here in marin in unincorporated marin
county. Of course, as you know, this
would be standards for really the more urbanized portions of
the county and looking at the more rural areas is the next
phase. Some of these street typologies
that we that we've presented here today are ones that while
we need to codify what the standards would be, in the event
that we see proposals that would merit, you know, these types of
streets, as planned right now, we are not expecting that we're
going to see a lot of say the main street treatment or the
industrial corridor treatment, I just thought it would be maybe a
little bit useful to kind of connect these to the types of
projects that we're seeing now. So the residential street types
which are ones that would be serving the development on the
larger sites that we have mapped out on the housing element or
that we have proposals on. Those are the ones that we
expect to see most frequently here and now we're going to move
on to talking about how they might, how we would go
>> okay. So also in terms of providing
some context, the new street standards that we just
presenting I think are largely intended to apply to new streets
in new developments, but we have a large network of existing
streets throughout the county very few of which have developed
these standards that we've presented.
most don't have sidewalks. Most don't have bike facilities
that are defined. So how do we deal with infill
developments that have street frontage on currently sub
standards streets. So we propose to offer an
exemption in situations where there's an existing sub the
additional -- the addition of off street parking so we allow a
narrower radon lift and it's only available where's accessing
six or fewer parcels as is the current definition for
residential road. And here is an example of a
limite we also proposed an exception
for what we've termed connector streets.
these are streets that would connect an existing arterial or
collector street but which would have no development along this
frontage. An example might be an extension
of the parkway as a secondary access to a future development.
again, that frontage along the property would not have
development at this point shows the mat
and lastly we've added an exception to allow an offstreet
class one bike path that would be parallel to the street right
of way to allow it to substitute for the type of design that we
showed previously. There are a few additional code
as the title 24 that I wanted to highlight that don't necessarily
apply to the street standards we've discussed.
in the roads chapter, there are a number -- one would be to
require that bulb outs be added to intersections so that the
sidewalk crossing distance is narrowed and also to require
that that there would be a pedestrian in the center.
we were supposed to change the maximum block link so it would
match what's in the form base code for the properties in the
city centered and corridors. We would propose to the turn
around standards and they would make the determination as to
whether or not the street name proposed is in conflict orient
cal to an existing street name, so, again, there would be no
confusion created. And that would be incentive to
penalize the on street parking and not be penalized for that
and in the sidewalk chapter, chapter 4, we would delete some
of this subjective language and we would reference the state and
federal accessibility standards there.
and lastly, we discussed may 11th, the intention to
develop minimum safety standards as part of this process.
as you're aware, we are getting a number of requests from
developers for bonus law and that law includes provisions
that would allow jurisdictions to deny those waivers if they
would create the health and safety impacts.
so we have had tool and requiring that there be a buffer
between the sidewalk and the traveling that would be
landscaping. Minimum and then also minimum
radon with a traveling width and those relate more to the fire
codes. And these minimum safety
standards are in some cases less than are ideal and desired
standards we would put in the code, but, again, they would be
the minimum standards below which developers could not wave
below those limits. And the intention is to have the
board as part of their adoption ordinance make findings to this
effect and also incorporate in that adoption ordinance the
justification memo, are the tool design that's produced which you
had in your packet. And this is it other than our
intention is to go to the board in august and then it's
september for adoption. And with that, we would be happy
to answer your questions. >> g. Stepanicich: thank you.
questions from our commi commissioners.
>> m. Curran: thank you for that.
overall this is good stuff. I just have a couple questions I
want to make sure I understand. Where there's no parking on the
street, so you talked about that situation where there were six
or fewer units, it is the assumption that there's adequate
parking on the various homesites or building sites because people
have guests. People have parties.
people have deliveries, people have all kinds of stuff.
what happens with all of that traffic?
>> g. Stepanicich: I'm sorry. Go ahead.
commissioner cur ran, can you turn off your microphone please?
>> I would mention that the current code allows developers
to utilize that standard so through their own discretion,
they can put a limited residential road as long as it's
for six or fewer lots. Added it as an exception instead
of an allowance. And, again, the intention is
that you may have a parking port that serves very few homes and
those are intended to be narrower.
typically kids play in them. They're not intended for through
traffic and so you don't have the same traffic volumes.
so the idea is that in those situation that is are single
family, you know, there would be typically parking on the
driveway apron or in the garage, so I don't know, manny, if you
have any additional thoughts along those lines, but that was
the intent in terms of sort of moving that over from the
current regulations where it's an allowance to in this case an
exception. >> the projects that we see
where you have developments, we typically see is two parking
spaces again, as bob said, the hope is to min nays this
application as making it an exception while also keeping it
on file. >> m. Curran: I'm trying to
think about the practical implications.
I'm a narrow street myself so I don't have that general bias
against something like that, but it is -- and I guess perhaps the
developer has an incentive to have the spaces be livable and
have that not be a problem. Anyway, it strikes me as it
might be. There may be days when it's a
problem. And I had a question, another
parking question. When you said the that's in
certain circumstances, the provision of street parking can
be counted toward the number of required spaces for a
development, I presume that does not entitle them in any way to
privatize those spaces. They can't be, you know, space
number one, two, three for tenant number one, two, three,
they're really public spaces? >> they would still be the
public right of way. So the developer doesn't own the
land and can't control it in that way.
>> even though, so they're providing that but they don't
have any other rights to it? >> no.
they can count the spaces towards their total parking
requirement but they can't designate them.
>> m. Curran: okay. I think I had one more thing but
I'll stop now. >> g. Stepanicich: thank you,
commissioner curran, can you turn off your microphone.
>> g. Stepanicich: thank you. I question on the shared use
pathways. I think the idea of creating
class one bikeways is a great idea and sometimes I think we
need to do more of. But my only concern here is the
shared use and residential on collector streets and also on
arterial streets, to what extent do we have conflicts between the
pedestrians and cyclists and therefore what should be the
size of that shareded use pathway.
and my question is number one does 12', is that a standard now
that's being used for this type of facility.
and in a 12' pathway, would there be sufficient space for
pedestrians to move to the side to allow the cyclists to safely
maneuver through pedestrians and the walkway?
>> that's a great question. On our materials, pedestrian
activity is likely lower than that of a main street
residential. 12' is pretty generous.
it would allow for bidirectional travel.
10' again is what we're listing as our minimum safety standards,
so 12 is a nice generous amount of room.
also, we are including in the code language that if an
arterial or collector has a posted speed of 30 miles per
hour or less, that it can also be added into the ra
>> g. Stepanicich: great. Thank you.
>> c. Muralles: commissioner biehle was next.
>> m. Biehle: thank you. I keep getting kicked off.
okay. It sounds a little bit wonky,
but the main street with 8' parking lanes on both sides,
that leaves, you know, 20' of width, but and so which is
minimum for fire access, right. But main street is also
considered one of our mixed use sites which could go up.
which we need -- there's a -- hang on a second.
I wrote this down. Right.
the developer stakeholder told us in may that these buildings
might be three plus stories which would require an arial
fire access which is 26' wide, so
. >> so in the title 24 mark-up,
underneath kind of our dimensional standards for each
roadway's classification, we have notes or sort of exceptions
to the foundational rule, so there's a note 5 I believe
that's included that says, you know, where that happens that it
would -- >> it may be required.
>> right. >> but then that's a
discretionary standard. >> like if it's a fire code, it
would prevail, it wouldn't be an option.
>> okay. >> m. Biehle: okay.
so then, wait, I've got another question.
the 8' for parking is was noted as like a safety floor for main
streets for sure, but then in residential, it's only 7'.
so how are we justifying that? Because I think the developer in
may not the developer, but the presenter in may said that the
7' parking is a sideswipe hazard and maybe that's just for main
street streets, but there was a disconnect there between
residential streets and main streets that I'm curious about.
>> so the standard for residential street has been
increased to 8' parking lanes. So our minimum safety standard
for residential streets is 7', but the foundational standard is
8' which is the same as main street
I guess my next question is of the -- sorry, am I taking too
much time? How many of the submittals that
we've had to date would thi >> I'd say all of them.
we've held firm that sidewalks are public health and safety and
we've compelled in every single case that they provide parking
sidewalks on each side of the street.
where it has been an issue is the street width.
there's a conflict between the pw code and the fire code.
the fire code is the minimum public health and safety.
so if you apply the public code, the fire code which is 10', it
requires a narrower path of travel where dpw.
so most that would have come in have been terms of the fire
code. To comply in most cases.
there's maybe one or two that we've reached back and forth.
>> okay. And then I think to further
respond to commissioner biehle, what we're seeing with the
applications that have come in is that locations that we had
basically envisioned would be multi-family buildings are
coming in as small lot single family.
and so they basically look more like your standard single-family
subdivision and so they do have more internal streets involved.
so I think we're seeing that these standards are, um,, more
necessary than we might have envisioned at the time of the
>> m. Biehle: okay. So would we be -- I mean, have
they been deemed complete. -- would we employ applying
these standards if the supervisors ultimately adopt
them? Are we applying them to these
standards or do they get in before the --
>> oh, we can't apply new standards to applications that
are already on file. So they would be applied to
applications that come in going forward after the standards are
adopted. >>.
>> m. Biehle: okay. I think that's all I have.
>> c. Muralles: thank you, commissioner biehle.
commissioner lind. >> r. Lind: I have a little
list of questions. So, first of all, the bowl belts
that you discussed at the intersection, so they would be
basically in the sidewalk, the portion of the right of way that
the sidewalk with continuation of the sidewalk.
would it be the 13'? >> they would be connected to
the sidewalk but they would be within the space allocated to
the parking lane. >> r. Lind: so it would be
within the travel lane? >> within the parking lane.
>> r. Lind: within the portion of it.
>> right. Within the parking portion
within the curb to curb. >> r. Lind: within the 8'.
okay. I just wanted to clarify that.
>> yep. >> r. Lind: and then I have a
question about the pedestrian and bike shared configuration.
how would e-bikes be regulated in the shared use situation with
the category 3 e-bikes be allowed on those walkways?
>> that's not something we talked about but they would
likely be allowed with some rules and regulations and
enforcement would be needed on speeds.
>> r. Lind: I'm an e-bike rider and I have a class 3 and they
can get up to 30 miles an hour if it's flat.
and, you know,, I think that if we're -- if we don't have a
dedicated path, that can be difficult for pedestrians.
it's already an issue on the path that goes from the valley
to but I've been on that road in instances where people can
barely get out of the way particularly when people have
dogs on leashes and other constraints.
that's just something to think about.
it's not part of our regulations, but it would be an
administrative ruling probably. >> right.
and maybe that's something we can follow up separately with
traffic about and kind of finish the discussion as well.
>> r. Lind: yeah. It's a difficult enforcement
problem, for sure, but at any rate, it's potentially
dangerous. Then we haven't discussed the
alleys at all. I -- I'm encouraged by the
changes you've made in most of the standards, but I'm not
satisfied with the alley standards.
I don't see any need for two-way traffic in an alley since our
last meeting. I visited a number of alleys,
I've majored them. One of them involved a project
that myself was involved in up in washington state 20 years
ago. I went to see how it has
involved and how it was used and it doesn't -- it's more like a
16' to 20' width. There's always the 24' back out
requirement, but you're allowed to use your across the street
property owner's driveway to accomplish that.
so I have some questions about that.
I'm afraid that particularly the configuration that you showed us
in the illustration, it looks pretty much like a residential
road, it just doesn't have the parking.
and my experience is when those people drive too quickly on
them. And then a related question that
applies to all of these areas of accommodations, are you road
widths, counted towards density? Are we doing this on gross
density or net? So do the roads come out and in
particular the alleys. Do the alleys come out for
density calculations? >> they -- the alleys in the
street areas dedicated streets, alleys and so forth do not count
towards density. >> r. Lind: they don't count
towards density, so on that situation, I don't think we're
going to get anyone doing alleys particularly.
if the right of way is as wide as you're showing it, we won't
get any alleys because it won't be cost effective.
they have to be allowed to have a density transferred off of
them if you really want them and I don't think you need to see
traffic on them. I see no reason for two-way
traffic. They're usually quite short
blocks. These are people who are going
to their homes and that's the way they function traditionally.
16' total pavement standard for alleys.
with the stipulation that you can't park on them.
and some of the ones I visited actually did have red curbs
which is unfortunate graphically but probably the most effective
way instead of signage. Anyway, it's a tradeoff that I
think is important. I'd rather see red curbs than
additional impervious service. >> you're absolutely right that
probably the driving factor in the design and based on the
current regulations is you need at at least 24' to back out and
turn. The proposal we have is 30', so
that additional 6', you know, provides the opportunity for
little driveway aprons into the parking, also for landscaping
between the driveways which a lot of developers choose to put
in just to break up that row of garage doors down the alley.
I think what we see is a lot of townhouse development do use
alleys and like to because, again, it provides vehicular
access but it separates it from the main pedestrian access to
the unit which is are on the streets.
again, the difference we're talking about here is six feet
from the required minimum 24' for backup.
>> r. Lind: yeah. I appreciate they're really
valuable in terms of design and I was pleased to see the ones I
was involved with years ago actually looked really nice and
are green, very green, you know. And we didn't have developer
planting, just homeowner planting.
but at any rate, it's very effective but I don't think
you're going to get alleys if you do the density transfer.
the alleys were allowed to count for density if you write that
into the code. If you want alleys, I would
strongly suggest that. I still don't like the width of
them and no they're at least 24' backup space.
>> can I put this in context? We have two proposals, one of
which got approved is now under review, they actually include a
20' dry valve for alleys and we're basing this code based on
that project. And those are not single family
homes. Those are typically townhouses
or they have pedestrian entrances from main street and
then they're isolating the vehicular access from the shared
driveway. The reason you want the width is
because if you keep it narrow, you can almost make it
impossible to turn around and come out.
otherwise you will be forcing people to back out for the
length of four or five homes towards main street.
the intention is just to avoid that because we experienced it
with one project that we recently approved.
>> r. Lind: I could see the difference if you're thinking of
this as a townhouse kind of standard, I was thinking of it
more of a single family standard with plotted lots and I could
see that difference and you would have more driveways.
>> oh, I agree with you. I don't think we will see alleys
in a single family home subdivision.
a proposal is because it is inefficient use of land and it's
very costly. >> r. Lind: right.
>> I do see form based alleys and projects that follow the
form base or multi-family housing setups and I think you
do need the width. Just playing devil's advocate.
>> one more point of information.
>> r. Lind: okay. I just had another question, but
go ahead. >> your land development
division mentions it requires a minimum of 20' in the travm
lane, that establishes a minimum width of 20'.
>> r. Lind: okay. But doing a design that creates
a kind of two lane, it really elevates the road more toward a
regular residential road and I think people will speed on them.
I mean, I really -- I think that will happen.
I want to go on to the adu question.
so I'm not clear on all of the parking requirements for adu's
but I can tell you from my personal experience on the road
where I live which has six houses on it and 50% rental and
one third have short term rentals and one has an adu and
so there are cars all over the street and people are storing
stuff in their garages and so I think it's good intentions.
I mean, I'm always in favor of not having more parking, but the
reality is that people use these properties the way they're
accustomed to used them and they will park on the street unless
there's a lot of enforcement. And people who have adus and/or
maybe illegal adus, they're not providing on site parking for
their tenants and they're using their personal garages for
storage and their tenants are parking maybe one car in the
driveway and a car on the street.
so that's just the practical reality that we have and I know
when you review the adu plans, they have to account for the
uncovered parking space some place and it's probably usually
in the driveway apron. But in terms of practicality,
it's going to be on the street. So with this restricted
residential option which I actually like, it's a creative
approach, what would the enforcement br and how would --
what would you do about those cars that are going to end up
out there? >> adus are very complicated
proposals. They're hard to be controlled
through the state laws and the county cannot in many cases we
cannot require parking spaces for adus.
for example, if an applicant converts their spots to an aqu,
the state law clearly states the county or any jurisdiction
cannot require eye placement. It would be but almost in every
circumstance, they come under state law.
they're placing parking spaces for the surface or parking
structure to create adus. I'm afraid the control of and
that's very limited but even in those instance, under the law,
you can have your adu legalized. >> r. Lind: right.
so I'm aware. It is going to happen.
we're not going to say you can't do adus along residential
streets. Just in terms of reality,
there's going to have to be a parking enforcement program if
you expect to not see cars out there on those restricted
residential streets and if it's an option for people, they will
probably apply for I so at any rate, and there's also
the matter of the short-term rentals.
like I said, on my street their property.
>> let's be sure. The county strictly short term
rental and adu unless prior to the ordinance was adopted.
what you probably conceived as the main house has become a
short term rental and the owner has moved to an adu.
>> r. Lind: one of them is like that and the other is there's no
adu that I know of. One short term rental and one
it's just a short term rental. At any rate, my point being that
parking is going to be very hard to deal with in real time and I
think we need to be aware of that when we create options for
something like this restricted residential street that even
though it's a really good. >> excuse me, commissioner lind,
I think that's a very fair and accurate that parking is a
growing challenge as state laws go towards not, you know, sort
of limiting the ability to require on site parking, people
do still have cars. We do not have a transit system
that really supports the ability to get around, there's still
going to be a need for parking. It is very challenging to manage
for that and I think that being sort of understanding how this
might change our operational requirements as a county is an
important part of this that we will be sure to highlight with
the board. We also have that condition that
mr. Brown referenced around the waivers under density bonus and
really kind of have limitations on what it is that we can
require and what it is that we can allow, so where sidewalks
are something where there is a, you know, strong and clear
safety effect of not having sidewalks for people to walk on,
with parking, it's more nuanced because you really only reach
that point where there's a safety impact if you have people
blocking emergency vehicle access and that is a line that
we can hold but it's difficult to keep in place in reality so
this is something that we will I am sure be working with and
struggling with. What we -- what is, you know,
something that we are hoping to move away from in marin county
is the conditions that we have on a lot of the streets and the
unincorporated area which is that there aren't safe places to
walk. So the streets have been
developed in favor of having the parking but not having the
sidewalks. And, you know, we're hoping to
preserve that ability for people to get around on foot safely and
also are just going to have that ongoing discussion and that --
those are the kinds of things that we are looking at very
closely as we review development applications is, you know, what
is the condition being created here.
but I really -- I went on for a while, but I really appreciate
your raising these points and I think we are going to need to be
doing further thought and working within the county on
what is really implementable. >> r. Lind: yeah.
it's not going to be easy. I do have one more question
which is just a technical kind of question.
>> c. Muralles: go ahead. >> r. Lind: you talked about
the block length. So is there a curb cut
separation standard? So --
>> there is a maximum block length between the
intersections, that's in the code.
>> r. Lind: so but between driveway entrances, there's no
standard -- >> there's no standard for
that. >> the form code does have
maximum driveway width, but I don't believe it's separation.
>> r. Lind: okay. That's interesting.
something to think about for the future.
>> c. Muralles: thank you, commissioner lind.
I think commissioner sandoval had a question as well.
>> r. Sandoval: I do chair. My question is on this concept
of maintaining a right of way, is that something new that we're
-- is that like a new addition that isn't already in the
development standards and is that indefinite or is there some
sort of time limit on the right of way that the county would be
giving itself? >> I'm not entirely sure of the
question. If it relates to currently sub
standard streets when that improves that frontage.
your question was in those cases --
>> r. Sandoval: is there like an indefinite right of way.
>> -- as part of that development entitlement, so the
county would have that right of way indefinitely.
>> r. Sandoval: got it. I'll say I support class one I
think it's safe alternatives involving bikes in the roadways,
so I support that. Thanks.
>> c. Muralles: thank you. I would like to go ahead and
open up for comments or if there are any comments relate today
this manner. Go ahead, manny.
>> I actually found -- I have the form-base code in front of
me and it does say a minimum of 30' between drive
please turn on your mic, commissioner lind.
>> r. Lind: I did want to comment on this dedication of
right of way issue. So in that instance, manny, is
the land that would be included in the dedication subject to
density? .
>> it would be dedicated for purposes of roadway.
>> r. Lind: so it's a net calculation.
I think that is problematic we're allowing people to
retrograde a role extending older standards but we're taking
the right of way, but we're not giving credit for density for
the right of way. So.
>> c. Muralles: kate, do you have an opinion on that?
sorry, the question is your concern about dedicating the
right of way and the sub -- like the road not meeting current
standards? >> r. Lind: right.
so we're basically asking the developer to dedicate the road
standard right of way although we will approve a development at
a lesser road standard. So there will be a hunk of land
that will be in a county right of way status not available for
development or amenities for the project and there's no density
compensation for not having the use of that land.
so it would -- so the rationale that was given in the
presentation was at some point in the future, then the county
would already have that abortion of the right of way if it were
to ever go back and redesign the entire street, but I think quite
frankly being practical, that's a rather unlikely situation,
because there's going to be all sorts of existing development
within that theoretical right of way and I just don't -- I have
it seems to add to the cost of development to phrase it in the
way we are required to look at housing these days.
it seems to me that that wou >> did you want to speak?
>> I would just mention that, again, under the state density
bonus law, applicants have a great deal of leeway in terms of
increasing beyond your density calculation limitation.
again, if a developer wants more density to make up for what
they've lost in counting the right of way, they certainly
have options under state law. >> r. Lind: that is of course
true, but the density starts at a baseline and if the baseline
is higher, they get even more density.
so I don't think that argument eliminates the issue of it being
an additional -- it could be a regulatory barrier or it could
be cost. I think we've seen that it's
difficult to predict how developers are going to approach
density. We have not been seeing
development above the base dense it's.
in fact, they have been using waivers to reduce the density
relative to what is in the zoning on the property.
>> r. Lind: that's really interesting.
so the market isn't at those higher densities at the present
time. >> in some cases, not for what
the type of development that we're seeing in the
unincorporated area. >> m. Biehle: you're allowing
the development to proceed at a reduced standard, but with the
caveat that the right of way is being dedicated so it's a
tradeoff I assume. So I don't see the legal risk
there. >> and not only the tradeoff but
it's also a deferred maintenance for the county frankly.
we are not making the applicants make the improvements.
instead they're providing the right of way.
you can look at it from that perspective and argue that
actually saves the applicant's money.
>> r. Lind: so then who maintains that area?
>> c. Muralles: can someone say that into the microphone.
>> the developer's required to maintain the right of way.
>> c. Muralles: before we move on -- let me finish.
can you state your name and who you are.
>> land development division manager and also the principal
engineer. And there is a benefit to the
developer that they save money by not paying for those
improvements at this time. To the developer u
>> c. Muralles: thank you. So this is a time for other
comments if anybody else has some other comments, feel free
to come to the podium. We're good?
so I'm going to go ahead and close public comment for this
item and we can go ahead and continue with the conversations.
commissioner curran. >> m. Curran: thank you.
I think the requirement to dedicate the right of way to
have that more optimal standard is absolutely an important thing
to do. It's in my experience which is
I've spent most of my career in local government, that right of
way, you have one shot at it a roadway system.
also, it's not like it can't be landscaped.
it can be utilized in a variety of way, not with a building, not
with that kind of improvement, but it absolutely can be made
beautiful. It can have a bench on it.
it can be made useful. And I mean if anything people
over do it and kind of forget that they don't have all the
entitlements to it that they might wish.
but I for one think that that's a really important thing.
I was glad to see that in there and I was going to inquire about
it. Earlier when I was reading this.
that's just my two cents. I just have a separate question
that may or may not be jermaine to this conversation, but do we
currently allow e-bikes, and even those little scooters that
young people terrify the rest of us with?
on bike paths? >> can I ask stuart to speak to
this? My understanding is it falls
under a different set of regulations.
>> c. Muralles: turn it on again please, thank you.
>> we'll have to check with the traffic division to see if there
are any requirements as far as e-bikes.
I'm not sure what the policies are in place that the county's
currently adopted. We'll have to get back to you
with a response. Thank you.
>> thank you. >> c. Muralles: commissioner
stepanicich I was wondering if you can put backslide 28.
I would like to read and process them a little bit better.
also, robert I believe it's your name.
robert, right. You mentioned something about
reports from safety agencies. Have you received those are
either going to the board of supervisors in the next.
>> I'm sorry I mentioned. >> c. Muralles: you mentioned
something about other safety agency reports coming along the
way. Are they just going to the board
of supervisors or have they been submitted or is that something
we're expecting to view or get in the future?
>> I think you're referring to the fact that the document and
justify the minimum safety standards.
tool design has prepared a justification memo that will be
appended to the county's adoption around, so it will be
part of the public record because it provides the
justification for their findings that will be in the ordinance.
>> right. So there's nothing else coming
in regards to safety. And if you have slide 28, 29,
thank you very much. And commissioner stepanicich, if
you can keep those rides up for a minute.
I think it's 29 and 30, it talks about the conceptions.
go back. Hmm.
there. The one after that.
can you keep this one up for a minute.
thank you. >> g. Stepanicich: to follow up
with the e-bikes and I think it's great to have the class
pass but I do think from an administrative point of view,
there's an issue with respect to e-bikes and e-bikes with
throttles and there's been a big issue with younger kids using
these but I think it's also true with respect to mixing
pedestrians and bicycles together, how we deal with those
that can go very past and that's something again not to deal with
as these part of regulations, I think it's an important issue
for the county to deal with. >> and we looked it up on the
fly and the requirements in marin county are the class one
and class two e-bikes can be used on multiuse pathways.
but the speed is 10 miles an hour.
class two are the ones with the throttle and then class three
e-bikes cannot be ridden on bike paths.
so these -- so, you know, the new bike facilities that are
created would be subject to the same rules as bike facilities
existing in marin and those, you know, if warranted, of course
those might be subject to change.
>> c. Muralles: thank you. Can you
thank you, I just needed to see those again.
so my understanding is that there's no action from our
commissioner on this subject. But, not on this one?
>> this is a workshop. >> there's no action.
okay. So are there any questions or
feedback that the commission would like to provide for that
need to be answered by the staff or the department of public
works? >> I just have one comment.
>> c. Muralles: mm-hmm, go ahead.
>> m. Biehle: this isn't jermaine to this particular
hearing but one of the things that I was looking at reviewing
the documents for today. I wanted to know what the list
of comments was from our may meeting so I could see, you
know, were they responded to, what were they?
I don't want to raise the same things but, you know, our
minutes are so sparse, you know. The planning staff made a
presentation commissioners ask questions you know, public spoke
or didn't speak I know it's a pain in the minutes to do more
substantially. But where we have stuff like
this where it's coming back again and we're trying to see if
staff is responding to your questions or if the applicant is
responding to our questions, it might be helpful to maintain a
list that we put into the minutes I don't know how we do
that or if that's like a time and money kind of a situation,
but that frame of reference would be really helpful for
meetings that are continued or that come back to workshops that
come back to us etc. >> comment noted.
will do going forward typically we would have issues raised memo
employ this is just a timing issue.
>> c. Muralles: commissioner lind.
>> r. Lind: I was curious when you call these standards.
what is that process? How is that different from the
regular standard. >> can you repeat the question.
>> r. Lind: so the list of exceptions, so how does one get
an exception? Is it part of the application.
do they say I want an exception to this standard.
I want to do this other standard instead of the normal standard?
>> these are actually titled as exemptions.
so they're exemptions from the previous code.
there is a pro vision in title 24, chapter 15 that is an
exception process and so there is the ability for public works
to grant exceptions upon application and their findings
and that process. >> r. Lind: that would be like
a variance and that's a public works director or staff.
I'm sorry, I asked the wrong question, but I'm happy to have
the answer that you gave because that's also so the exemptions.
>> are just available. >> yeah.
>> r. Lind: so why have the two standards?
>> just calling out that essentially we have a set of
standards that are typical and required but they're in a few
cases exceptions to those. You know, if these circumstances
applied then the general standards don't.
>> r. Lind: I see. So is the -- so I think it would
be useful if the drafting of the code could explicitly say that
because as other which one is subject to future waiver?
>> c. Muralles: thank you. Commissioner lind.
is there other feedback on this item?
we're good. No comment.
okay. Um, yeah.
no comments. I think if we're going to close
this item by others that want to be shared by the commissioners.
thank you, sara. We'll formally close this item,
item 4. >> to be clear, though, were
there any take-aways that you would like us to report to the
board? >> let me start because I
haven't said anything. I think it's really important to
take into account the e-bikes that we're describing earlier
that is a safety issue for both pedestrians and riders.
the children grow and there's more parking needed, this will
forever be an issue in our county.
I think it's also important to note that the partnership with
the other agencies like the transportation agency and
community agency in regards I was speaking to the
transportation a few months ago, and they barely have any
knowledge about the projects that come to our hearings or to
our table that have to do with transportation.
so it would be really great to partnership with them.
I think that's great. And commissioner biehle.
no? Thank you.
all right. So and you're sticking around
for item five as well. So it's been brought to my
attention that the title on item five of the agenda, it's wrong.
it should be which is title 22. If you can go ahead and get us
started on that. And we also have a presentation
for that, so thank you. >> that really emerged from our
title 24 street standards right now.
just at a high level and then going to some of the specific
edits to title 22, there's just really a couple few hand fulls.
next steps, these are go to the board in august and september.
so very quickly. Again, the form-based code, this
diagram shows over in the left applies to projects with five or
more new developing developers can elect to redesignate the
properties to the form-based district so it applies and gives
them a ministerial pathway and then it also applies to the new
state law also the form-based code which is really intended as
a stand alone code document, it does not include the rest of the
municipal code. The form-based code specifically
calls out title 24 chapter 1 the form-based code is intended to
be a stand alone code. It did not site other sections
of title 24. At the time it was adopted, the
feeling that many of these title 24 standards had subjective
language and hadn't been updated in many years.
so, again, the intent was to adopt the form-based code
quickly, as quickly as possible and then come back later and
look at the rest of title 24 and eventually make it applicable
through the form-based code. So there's and it's our
intention to update those regulations going forward in
different phases of our work. In terms of the actual proposed
amendments to title 24 in the form-based code.
again, one is up dataing the definitions of alley and
driveway which we discussed previously so they align with
title 24. Another is to modify the
requirements for the housing compliance review so that that
application process and review process would apply to anything
under the development code so that it's internally consistent.
so any of the projects that require ministerial processing
would also require a housing compliance review.
in terms of specific edits to the form-based code, one would
move the rules of construction, those are rules of the code
construction from the applicability section in chapter
one down to chapter ten, but really no subs substantiative
change there. The big change is deleting the
public frontage standards. They're added to title 24 and
the form-based code will simply reference those.
the driveway widths that are sited in the form-based code may
not entirely be in compliance with changes to the fire code,
so there will be a reference added to the fire code within
those sections. And also as we mentioned earlier
in terms of the new alley standards, there would be a
reduced rear setback for building faces that are adjacent
to the alley. Parking dimensional standards
are not included in the form-based code, so, again,
right now they don't exist to be applied to projects.
so the intent is to have the form-based code reference those
sections of title 24 that established, you know, parking
length widths, and backup distances and all those
dimensional requirements. And then the last change is to
the adjustment section in cha
chapter 9 and there it's simply increasing and relocating the
list of the site conditions that would qualify for an adjustment.
so, again, it's really pretty much nonsubstantive it's
formatting change. And probably another big change
is the addition of a stacked flats building type.
previously because currently family building type.
so this would be a multi-family building type that does not
include ground floor commercial. And, again, going to the board
of supervisors in both august and september for their
consideration of the title 24 and title 22 changes.
and with that I'm happy to answer any questions and cecilia
kim is available online. >> c. Muralles: thank you.
any questions from the staff to start us off.
do I have a few questions. So I wanted to ask actually why
on the definitions list on the back you are like removing some
and there's no and I'm specifically interested on the
open to ysment spaces, like those things seem to be general
and that they should be included, so I -- you can
further explain that, that would be great.
>> I was just passing this one along to ms. Kim if she's online
if you can bring her in. >> sure.
I can respond to that. So the definitions chapter in
the odds are for terms that are used specifically in the odds.
any other terms or anything that's silent and not in the
definitions and the odds are to be drawn from the code itself
and that said, there were several terms that we found that
are not used in the odds but were included in the definitions
and that's where most of the
>> thank you. Also, I noticed and as you
mentioned in your presentation, bob, the site condition.
that is a definition that I don't see in the definitions, so
I'm not sure where is that defined in the document?
>> again, cecilia, if you're listening.
>> yes. I can take that one.
site condition is a term in the definition section.
the site condition is further explained on page 248, section
9, 9.030 where it pretty much just lists the existing site
conditions. But what I'm understanding from
your comment is that you would like to see the terms site
condition actually defined and we can definitely add that into
the definitions chapter. >> c. Muralles: I think that
would be a good idea to >> c. Muralles: I also had a
question -- yes, please, go ahead.
>> when you say site conditions, are you referencing existing
site conditions or at what point site condition?
>> yeah. So basically how it's defined in
the use of this context. I think it was crossed off in
some sections if you give me a minute I can find them as to
rather than for the explanation, it just says site condition.
>> we currently have a definition of existing site
condition in the development code.
there's a definition of existing site condition and that
definition is problematic because existing site condition
is specific term in ceqa and it has created a problem in the
past and applying that condition.
the site development the site condition that was created
illegally or is it existing because someone did something
unlawfully that would get a review.
I think we need to thread do ha. On page 4.
page 6, the recommended change there is to go from natural and
rural to walkable context. So omitting basically natural or
rural and just having walkable context which to me seemed to be
two very different environments and I wanted to see if you have
. >> we noticed that the diagram
which shows a natural urban transit uses the terms natural
to urban whereas so we found that it may cause confusion to
say which is why we removed the natural or rural and words and
left it walkable but the natural rural terms still come to play
when we are describing the transact diagram and how marin
county context applies to some of those transacts in that.
>> c. Muralles: thank you. Are there any comments or
questions from commissioners? Commissioner lind.
>> r. Lind: I just have one point of clarification.
so this set of amendments are for the -- are different from
the set of amendments for -- to the form-based code that we'll
be looking at for the coastal area.
>> right. This is for the interior code.
>> r. Lind: right. This is for everything else.
I just want to make sure my memory's correct.
we talked about some changes in the coastal zone, but that's
not. >> thank you, commissioner lind.
anyone else? Okay.
>> c. Muralles: we need to make a -- we need to take action in
this item. I believe that the accommodation
is that the board of supervisors adopt a --
>> eye procedural issue. Can you open it for public.
>> c. Muralles: thank you. I'd like to open for public
comment or any other comment in regards to this item.
okay. There's no comment so we'll go
ahead and close public comment. Thank you, manny.
we do need to take action in this.
so the recommendation I'm sorry. We need a motion first.
anyone would like to move for a motion?
>>. >> c. Muralles: commissioner
biehle would like to second that motion and if we can have roll
call, thank you. >> clerk: commissioner biehle.
>> m. Biehle: yes. >> clerk: commissioner lind.
>> r. Lind: yes. >> clerk: commissioner
sandoval. >> r. Sandoval: yes.
>> c. Muralles: we are all good?
okay. Perfect.
I think that's it for our meeting today.
thank you very much for your time and everything that you do
for our co