I ask everybody to either silence or turn off your cell phones and mobile devices.
This is not an airplane, but it still could get a little bit embarrassing here.
Let's start tonight's meeting with a Pledge of Allegiance, please.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you.
Again, thank you for being here and welcome to tonight's special meeting of the Fortuna City Council this Tuesday, October 26, 2010.
Could we have a roll call? Linda, please.
Councilman Burdee?
Yes.
Councilman Glazer?
Here.
Councilman Zanzi?
Here.
Mayor Pro Tem Stroh?
Here.
Mayor Whitchurch?
Here. Thank you, Linda.
At tonight's meeting, we have one business item, but before we get into that one item,
we need to open it up for oral comments of the public, from the public,
where members of the public may be heard on any item of interest that is not on tonight's meeting agenda.
When speakers addressing the Council are asked to limit their comments to three minutes per speaker,
and please be advised that by law the City Council is not able to deliberate or take action on issues presented during oral comments if it's not on tonight's agenda.
So anything that is not on tonight's agenda, now is the time to come up and make comment on anything you please.
Mr. Mayor, I make a motion to close public comment period.
Second.
I move and second to close the public comment period.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed?
Okay.
That's carried.
And like I said, there's one item on tonight's agenda.
It is a public hearing to consider certification of the Program Environmental Impact Report for the Fortuna General Plan Update,
and accompanying findings under the California Environmental Quality Act,
and consider adoption of the Fortuna General Plan Update through adoption of Resolutions 2010-45 and 2010-46.
And just to let everybody know, kind of the order how things are going to happen this evening, is we will be receiving a staff report,
and then those of us on the Council may have some questions or direction or anything we might want to say in relation to the staff report,
and then we will open the public hearing.
And during the public hearing, and we will ask those who speak to limit their testimony to three minutes.
Once we've taken testimony for the public hearing, we will close the public hearing.
Council may have a couple of questions just for clarification, but then we will recess,
and we will allow staff and legal counsel to consider what has been brought forward during the public comment period,
during the public hearing, and also perhaps some comments or questions that Council members may have.
We want staff and legal counsel time to kind of digest and to prepare responses where responses are appropriate.
And then we will reconvene, and we will receive an oral report from the staff concerning the comments and questions received during the public hearing.
And after that, we will take up deliberation and consider the two resolutions that are in front of us tonight.
So, Dwayne, would you like to get us started with the staff report?
I have a very brief introduction of your staff who have been, of course, working on this project for five years,
and we're delighted to be here this evening for this event.
Liz Shorry, our Deputy Director of Community Development, and of course, Stephen Avis, our Associate Planner.
And then representing our primary consultant, Plan West, is Robert Hilden this evening,
and of course, our consulting CEQA attorney, Larry Weiner, who you met in a previous meeting, and of course, your city attorney and myself.
So that's our introduction to you. I'm going to turn it over to Stephen to start the presentation.
Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council.
In previous meetings, we've talked a lot about the importance of general plans, the legal requirements for general plans,
what's included in general plans, their role in terms of shaping a community,
projecting population growth and the development that we want to see happen as a result of that.
We won't go over all those details now unless you would like a refinement on those,
but suffice to say that it has been a long road that we have been traveling together to get to this point.
This general plan, among other things, highlights five areas within the city where we expect development to occur in the next 20, 25, 30 years,
where we would like it to occur, and makes provisions for allowing us to help shape that and define how that's going to be done and for the betterment of the city.
It also projects four areas that are suitable for annexation of the city in the future to meet needs of the city and to benefit property owners in those areas as well.
Those are the main thrusts of the plan itself.
Of course, as we move forward on this, I'd like to thank the Council, the Planning Commission, the Community Advisory Group, and all of the people who showed up at the workshops early on in this process.
Ironically, our first community workshop was on November 10th in 2005, which is just about five years ago.
There was a lot of community interest in those workshops, as you know, and that kicked off a long chain of events that is culminating this evening's proceedings.
Along the way, we've generated a lot of paperwork, much of which we've identified here on the front table.
A lot of documents were prepared, a lot of reports written, many things considered.
We have charts and diagrams in the back room that we're not bringing out this evening, people's notations, handwritten notes, green dots,
all sorts of things that we were using to begin to figure out what it was that the community was looking for and how to develop that into a plan for the future.
What you have tonight before you are two resolutions. On page 13 of your staff report, you will find a pretty lengthy resolution, 2010-45.
This will be your first resolution that you will be looking at, which will be towards the certification of the EIR,
and our CEQA attorney, Larry Weiner, will go over that with you in more detail a little bit later in the staff presentation.
Following that one on page 79 is a resolution 2010-46, which will be the adoption of the general plan.
And with those are a number of policies by reference.
What I'd like to do now is to go over the changes to the policy language that appears in the document that you've now had in binder form for some time
and walk you through some of those. So I'm beginning on page 101 of your staff report as attachment A.
These are recommendations which were generated by the Planning Commission during 12 meetings that they held when they reviewed the document.
These were introduced to you at the joint public session on the 11th of this month.
We've made a change to one of those on page 104, item P at the bottom.
And staff is recommending a replacement of the language on that, and we provided a copy on your dais to you for the language change.
Staff is recommending that the language addressing loading zones that are near noise sensitive receptors,
such as daycare centers, senior centers, senior retirement homes, residential areas and so forth, be modified to remove specific language requiring noise walls
and restricting limitations of delivery and pickup by hour and day of the week.
The new language that we're recommending for the loading dock section of it is as follows.
Proposed new loading docks adjacent to noise sensitive land uses shall include noise attenuating features where required to ensure that associated noise does not exceed 60 dBA LDN
at the exteriors of any existing or proposed residential use.
This is the language that was proposed by the Planning Commission and staff agrees that it's appropriate in this location and is asking that you consider that to replace comment P in the staff report.
The other items remain as they are in that.
On page 107, attachment B, attachment B contains some language changes that was generated recently as a result of the preparation of the environmental impact report.
The change language results from comments that we've received from resource agencies and has added some new language in about four policies and then is actually removing a couple of policies dealing with transportation.
And those are being moved into the EIR document.
On page 107, I'm sorry, 109, there are two items.
The first one was language change requested by the City Council itself and that dealt with historic agricultural retention.
It was felt by both the Planning Commission and the City Council that the language was too specific to one parcel and that it could be reworded to be more broad and so that recommended policy is listed there as NCR 7.12, historic agricultural retention.
If requested by property owners, the city shall cooperate with the owners of established orchards or farms at least 50 years of age to explore options for retaining the historic nature of the land to the establishment of historic park and or cultural resource center as a private nonprofit entity by means of a conservation easement or as a donation of historic parkland to the city.
And then the third item is a request by staff to modify the glossary of terms by adding a new definition defining public and quasi-public facilities as follows.
The institutional, academic, governmental and community service uses such as parks, schools, libraries, governmental facilities, cemeteries, fire stations, airports, hospitals, sewage treatment plants, refuse transfer stations and recycling centers.
Public and quasi-public uses are conditionally permitted.
And that gives greater clarity as to what is intended by that definition and that was intended to respond to concerns that had been expressed at several meetings by Eel River Disposal among others.
Also included in the staff report then is the final EIR which you have received separately as a comb-bound document and I apologize for the irregular reading that the first version of that had.
And then finally is the mitigation monitoring and reporting program which is included in the packet as well and those explains the subsequent steps the city will take to ensure that the mitigations that are listed in the environmental impact report are adhered to and followed.
Because of the way in which the city structured its policy document and environmental impact report our mitigation monitoring program is fairly limited.
There were not a lot of mitigation measures needed for the city's general plan so that makes that process a little bit easier on the development community as well.
The preparation of a general plan includes several components.
The main thing obviously is the policy document that you've been, that you've had in your hands and more recently the actually larger body of work which is the environmental impact report which evaluates the effects that our desired growth in the city would have on the environment and what steps should be taken to minimize or eliminate negative environmental impacts.
That's part of the requirements that we deal with with CEQA.
And that portion of the staff will be provided by our CEQA attorney Larry Wiener and then by Robert Hillman who is primary author of the environmental impact report and helps staff then to respond to comments from the comment letters that we received as a result of circulating the document.
So at that point I will turn it over to Mr. Wiener.
Thank you.
About two weeks ago when I was here we spoke a little bit about CEQA and so I will try not to retrace those steps again and repeat that discussion.
So but I would like to just briefly note that the documents that are in front of you really embody two things.
They embody both local desires and a response to state and in some cases federal mandates.
And as a result of that I think as we all acknowledge there is probably some language in each of these documents that we have in there not as a result of local desires but really as a response to the need to comply with both state and federal law.
That said I believe that there is a benefit to swallowing hard and incorporating this mandated language into these documents because believe it or not at the end of the day by incorporating that language into these documents I believe you will be streamlining development in the future.
By addressing these issues now and in a comprehensive way it will allow development to move forward without having to address these issues on a case by case basis and sparing in some cases the developer either the time to well both the time and the expense of addressing these issues as any individual development moves forward.
In my experience in fact there are some larger developers who wouldn't choose to develop in a community where the path has not been paved with a document such as this and I think you as I recall had some experience with that when you had someone looking at the former mill property.
Rather though than spend a lot of time dwelling in generalities here and now let me if I may turn the matter over to Mr. Hillman who is going to review what specifically is provided for in the E.I.R. and I will of course be happy to answer any questions regarding the matters if you would like to ask any later on.
Thanks Larry.
Good evening.
Tonight I will be presenting a short about 10 minute presentation on the findings of the program environmental impact report.
I'll start with a short discussion of the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA including going over the history of the current process and the type of E.I.R. that was prepared.
Next I'll cover the draft program E.I.R. that was prepared for the general plan including its contents and findings and finally I'll go over the list of commenters the contents and the findings of the final program environmental impact report.
Starting with a history of the current process in 2007 a general plan background report was prepared basically to serve as a baseline of environmental information for both the general plan and the E.I.R.
In 2007 there was also a citizens advisory group meetings and community workshops where input on general plan formulation was taken.
In 2008 a general plan update policy document was prepared and also the first or the 2008 draft program E.I.R. was circulated.
After the E.I.R. was circulated city council directed staff to revise the 2008 policy document and revise and recirculate the 2008 draft program E.I.R. based on city legal councils review of agency and public comments received on the 2008 E.I.R.
and associated recommendations for revisions.
Also the planning commission's request to have a greater role in general plan formulation and finally the addition of the Ronavel airport annexation area to the plan.
In 2009 the planning commission held 12 general plan update public workshops a revised general plan update policy document was prepared and preparation of a revised draft program E.I.R. was initiated.
Then finally in 2010 the draft program E.I.R. was circulated the final program E.I.R. was prepared a joint planning commission city council and separate planning commission hearing was held on the general plan and now we're at the current city council hearing to certify the E.I.R. and adopt the general plan.
With respect to that type of E.I.R. that was prepared there are several types of E.I.R.s but the two most common are project E.I.R.s or just E.I.R. and program E.I.R.s or P.E.I.R.s.
Project E.I.R.s and E.I.R. prepared for construction project or similar detailed type of project it is prepared at a detailed site specific or equivalent level of analysis and no subsequent CEQA review is assumed.
For a program E.I.R. which is an E.I.R. prepared for a plan or program it is prepared at a lesser level of detail and a programmatic level of analysis with subsequent project by project CEQA review assumed as development projects are proposed under the proposed plan or program.
The primary benefit of a program E.I.R. is as Larry indicated before it allows streamlining or tiering of subsequent project level CEQA review.
So for example if a subdivision is proposed under the proposed plan or proposed general plan normally you would prepare an initial study and determine whether an E.I.R. was required.
Under this tiering process of a program E.I.R. you would still prepare an initial study but you wouldn't necessarily have to prepare an E.I.R.
You could conclude that the project is consistent with the general plan and consistent with the range of environmental impacts that were covered under the program E.I.R.
So for many projects this would save a year worth of time and also the cost and effort of preparing an E.I.R.
The Fortuna general plan update D.P.E.I.R. is a program E.I.R. and this is consistent with CEQA guidelines section 15146 which states that the degree of an E.I.R. specificity should correspond to the degree of specificity involved in the underlying activity.
Moving on to the contents of the draft program E.I.R. there was an executive summary a introductory chapter a chapter describing the proposed plan and then nine impact chapters evaluating the environmental effects of implementation of the proposed plan.
Including chapters on land use transportation and circulation natural and cultural resources including biological resources cultural resources water quality farmland conversion etc.
A chapter on parks recreation open space and visual resources chapters on public facilities and services and public health and safety a chapter evaluating or describing and evaluating a range of reasonable alternatives to the proposed plan.
And then chapters on cumulative impacts and other CEQA topics such as growth inducing impacts.
The D.P.E.I.R. also includes a set of appendices including the original notice of preparation comments on the prior D.E.I.R. trip generation by traffic analysis zone Native American heritage commission sacred lands file check air pollution emission calculations a hazmat record search.
The Fortuna general plan background report and the mill district area plan.
With respect to the findings of the D.P.E.I.R. a total of one hundred and seven numbered impacts were evaluated covering each and every question in the CEQA environmental checklist.
Of these eighty four impacts were concluded to be beneficial impact no impact or a less than significant impact six impacts were concluded to be significant before mitigation but less than significant after mitigation and 17 impacts were concluded to be significant unavoidable adverse impacts in other words impacts where no feasible mitigation is available to mitigate it completely to a level of less than significance.
These impacts the significant unavoidable is included impact three point one dash two conflicting with Humboldt County general plan and zoning and this focused on the future annexation areas where city general plan land use designations and zoning would replace county zoning.
And in multiple instances there would actually be an up zoning or up designation from the existing county land use designations and zoning impact three point one C is contributing to cumulative conflicts with the county general plan and zoning which is basically just the same inconsistency again but assuming that the projects in the general plans inconsistencies are added to other inconsistencies.
That may be occurring in the county for instance recent Rio del annexations once again they replaced their general plan land use designations and zoning with county zoning.
So there were obviously some conflicts so so forth and so on impact three point two dash one growth inducement the general plan would basically designate land for urban use.
So that would be a growth inducing impact impact three point two C once again contributing the cumulative growth inducement the plan is basically getting dinged twice for a number of these for both resulting in a project or plan specific impact and also a cumulative impact for the same impact impact four point one dash one traffic level service impacts at Bryant and May.
Main Street south bound approach impact five point two C contributing to cumulative loss of sensitive species habitat impact five three one converting prime farmland to urban use impact five three to converting timberland to urban use both of these both the farmland conversion and the timber conversion have to do with
redesignating certain existing prime agricultural or farmland and existing timberland for urban use.
Impact five three three conflicting with existing agricultural zoning five three C cumulative impact farmland and timberland conversion impact eight one one conflicting with North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District PM 10 attainment plan in that development permitted under the plan would generate PM 10 or small particulate emissions.
At a time when the air district is trying to reduce PM 10 emissions and that's basically occurs with every new development impact eight point one dash to the emission of construction and operational emissions above air quality management district significance thresholds impact eight one three the emission of a substantial amount of.
PM 10 in a air basin that is non attainment for that particular pollutant impact eight one four conflicting with the state greenhouse gas emission reduction goals and once again that's similar to PM 10 where the state has adopted targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions but this plan would permit.
New development that would generate additional greenhouse gas emissions impact eight one C contribute contributing to significant cumulative air quality impacts and then impacts eight two three and eight to see generating traffic noise impacts on existing sensitive receptors.
With respect to these impacts it is important to note that the proposed plan would result in so many significant unavoidable as adverse impacts because of the large development potential under the proposed plan basically under the plan the.
The plan would permit a net increase of roughly fifty eight hundred residential units over thirteen thousand new city residents and one point three seven million square feet of new commercial office and industrial uses so basically doubling the size of the city's residential units and resident population and quadrupling the size or the amount of commercial office in the city.
And industrial use so just that that mere mass or increase in residential in development under the plan results in so many significant unavoidable adverse impacts.
And it's because of that and not because of a lack of proposed environmental protections that so many significant unavoidables would occur.
With respect to the findings of the D.P.I.R. concerning alternatives three alternatives were considered in the including a no project alternative which is basically implementing the city's existing nineteen ninety three general plan a reduced density alternative which included twenty percent less commercial industrial development and ten percent less residential development and a resource management alternative which designated certain certain outline.
Forested and farmland areas as either natural resources or agriculture rather than some type of urban use.
The E.I.R. concluded that the alternatives from least to most impacting were the reduced density alternative the resource management alternative the proposed general plan and finally the no project or nineteen ninety three general plan.
The ninety three general plan was identified as the most impacting primarily because it lacks many of the environmental protections proposed in the current general plan document.
Finally the E.I.R. concluded that because the reduced density alternative was the least impacting alternative it was the environmentally superior alternative.
And it should be noted that while the E.I.R. identified the reduced density alternative as the environmentally superior alternative neither the reduced density alternative nor the resource management alternative would achieve all of the general plan objectives.
And both of those plans or alternatives would also conflict with what was apparent during many of the public workshops and previous hearings which was that city residents do not want their their properties down zoned or down designated.
And both of those alternatives would do that because of these reasons city staff is going to be recommending approval of the proposed general plan instead of either the reduced density or resource management alternative.
Despite that the E.I.R. identifies the reduced density alternative as the environmentally superior alternative.
Moving on to the contents of the final E.I.R. or final program E.I.R. a 45 day public review period on the D.P.E.I.R. was provided from July 21st to September 8th 2010.
In addition a city sponsored public comment meeting on the D.P.E.I.R. was held on August 30th 2010.
The city received 12 comment letters during the review process including letters from FEMA the Native Heritage American Heritage Commission Bear River Band of Rona Rol Rancheria.
Two letters from California Department of Transportation Humboldt County Department of Public Works Craig Berry California Department of Fish and Game the Harlan law firm representing E.L. River disposal Dean Glaser friends of Rona Ville Park Redwood Forest and the California Regional Water Quality Control Board.
During the public comment meeting the city also received comments from seven individuals at the meeting including Sylvia Jutila Sue Long Craig Berry Amber Jamison representing epic Dennis went Wally Wright and Mary Ash.
The contents of the final E.I.R. are broken into four chapters chapter one includes an introduction that describes the content of the program final E.I.R. and also adopts adopts the draft program E.I.R. by reference.
Comments received on the D.P.E.I.R. and responses D.P.E.I.R. corrections and additions in response to some of the comments received and a mitigation monitoring program that has been incorporated into the final P.E.I.R. by reference.
Finally with respect to the findings of the final P.E.I.R. substantive comments were received from regulatory agencies focusing on water course buffers flooding cultural resources and traffic.
These are not all the comments but were the focus of the comments in addition substantive comments from organizations and individuals focused on water course buffers nonconforming land uses and the potential for water tanks in Rona Ville Park.
In addition several commenters expressed concern with the perceived restrictiveness of the proposed general plan policies and programs however I need to point out that these are not substantive comments on the D.P.E.I.R. under CEQA and are more appropriately addressed as part of the city council's deliberations on general plan adoption.
The comments received required 19 corrections and additions to the D.P.E.I.R. including the addition of one new mitigation measure and revision to the language of several proposed general plan policies and programs and these are in your staff report I can also go over them if you wish.
None of these changes represented new significant impacts or substantial new information and because of this and also because of the scope content and level of analysis contained in the D.P.E.I.R. the D.P.E.I.R. is considered by staff to be adequate under CEQA and no recirculation of the D.P.E.I.R. is required.
Thank you.
Thank you Robert.
Thanks Debbie for the lights.
That gives you an overview of the environmental document that is comprised in those three large volumes that you see on the table plus the document that you provided this week.
And it is those collection of items then which leads you to the resolutions that are begin on page 13 and I'd like to ask Larry Wiener to review the language of the two resolutions that you will be considering this evening.
So as you have no doubt noticed the CEQA findings resolution is likely the most hefty resolution you will see as a city council member it is by any measure unusually long for a resolution but I will try and be brief at least in comparison to the resolution and explaining the different aspects of it.
The first three pages of the resolution are probably very familiar it looks a lot like any other resolution it recites to some extent the history of how we got to where we are today and certifies that the E.I.R. itself has been prepared in compliance with CEQA.
Subsequent to that you get to the exhibits of the resolution where you get some of the meat of the findings.
What are the findings?
Well there are a couple of findings that the city council is required to make as part of the general plan approval process that let me rephrase there are a couple of findings that the city council is required to make that CEQA requires the city council to make as part of the general plan adoption process as part of the process for adopting any project that is subject to CEQA.
The first of those sets of findings is a finding with regard to each significant impact that is identified in the E.I.R.
As you know part of the job of the E.I.R. the environmental impact report is to identify what significant environmental impacts might be created by the adoption of this project in our case the adoption of the general plan.
With regard to each of those impacts the city council is asked to determine whether or not with regard to each impact the council will adopt a mitigation measure or measures to reduce or substantially lessen the impacts to a level of insignificance or whether mitigation measures might be within the purview of another agency so there might be mitigation measures available but they're not within the jurisdiction of the city council and so therefore they wouldn't be adopted by the city council.
Or third whether there might be mitigation but that mitigation really isn't feasible for legal technical or social reasons.
So as Mr. Hillman indicated the E.I.R. identified 107 potential impacts concluded that 23 of those impacts were potentially significant.
And as you read through the exhibit A to the resolution you will see that with regard to each of those impacts each of those 23 impacts the resolution analyzes whether or not there is mitigation adopted which would reduce or substantially lessen the impact whether or not mitigation might be within the jurisdiction of another agency and whether or not mitigation might be infeasible and therefore not adopted even if it might be available.
That's exhibit A. Then you will turn to exhibit B. And as you also know from having read the E.I.R. an E.I.R. doesn't simply analyze impacts but also presents the city council with information about alternatives to the proposed project that might reduce those impacts.
And with regard to each alternative that's identified and Mr. Hillman was talking about them just a minute ago the city council must take a look at that impact and decide excuse me take a look at that alternative and decide whether or not it wishes to adopt that alternative.
And in this case the E.I.R. analyzed three alternatives one adopting no project at all or in continuing forward with the 1993 general plan to a reduced density alternative and three a resource management alternative.
Did I say this was exhibit B this is actually toward the end of exhibit A where the proposed resolution actually rejects each of those alternatives for three basic reasons.
One each of those would be less effective in stimulating growth and development.
Two each of those would not adequately accommodate diverse residential development to accommodate future growth in the community.
And thirdly at least with regard to the resource management and reduced density alternative would require some down zoning which the resolution finds would be an unacceptable infringement on property rights in the community.
So because the resolution does not determine that the city council should adopt an alternative that would have no environmental impact at least as no environmental impact under CEQA the city council is required to adopt what is referred to as a statement of overriding considerations.
And what that is is it's a fancy name for a policy statement that the city council is making which is that we understand that this project this proposed general plan may have some significant impact on the environment.
But we believe that despite that impact this plan has sufficient value that it should move forward.
And what and so exhibit B if you take a look at exhibit B actually discusses what some of those benefits are that the city council would be finding justify moving forward with this plan despite the impact.
And just to pick out a couple I won't I won't read all of them of course but some of the reasons for moving forward with the plan despite the impact it would encourage a range of housing types.
It would encourage the development of a new of a new tourist based economic engine on Riverwalk Drive.
It would provide employment opportunities during construction and additional job opportunities in areas designated for commercial use.
It would facilitate the redevelopment of underutilized property and it would encourage appropriate development by providing public services and infrastructure required to serve this development while also in some cases protecting the natural environment and human health and safety.
So those are some of the reasons that are outlined in exhibit B for moving forward with the project despite its environmental impacts.
And then finally in the resolution is exhibit C which is what's known as the mitigation monitoring program.
And this is a requirement of CEQA.
It is a program to ensure that the mitigation measures that are adopted as part of this resolution are not forgotten in the future.
So this outlines a program of how staff will continue to monitor whether or not the mitigation measures are being implemented and that set forth in exhibit C.
And that perhaps not as briefly as I would have liked but that concludes the discussion of the CEQA findings resolution.
You have a second resolution which is the resolution actually adopting the general plan should you choose to do so.
That fortunately is a much briefer resolution and that resolution recommend or that resolution if you choose to adopt it would adopt the general plan with the revisions identified by Mr.
Avis that arose out of the public process and the Planning Commission process and were reviewed earlier this evening.
And if there are any questions I'd be happy to answer them.
Do you have any questions?
You want to start Doug?
Okay Dean.
Question?
I have a couple of questions.
All right.
Mr. Hillman in your introductory remarks talking about the benefits of a programmatic EIR and the tiering aspects of that type of environmental document.
You gave an example of a subdivision coming to Fortuna that we would still do the initial study but may or may not do any further environmental documentation.
Where is that triggered that there would be no further environmental document other than an initial study?
Well the initial study is the trigger document.
The initial study you make determinations for those same 107 impacts that are covered in the EIR.
And it's the initial study is basically a checklist where you check one of four columns.
A no impact, a less than significant impact, a less than significant impact with mitigation and a potentially significant impact where you don't know whether there's many.
You don't know really what the impact is and what available mitigations may be applied.
And it's that last column that if you check any of the 107 questions in the CEQA checklist that pushes you to an EIR.
Now if because the general plan policy document has been prepared to be a self mitigating document as much as possible.
In other words a lot of mitigation measures that you would normally see applicable to a development project in an EIR instead appear as policies and programs in the policy document.
Because it is a self mitigating document future development would need to be consistent with those policies and programs which basically can also be thought of as mitigation measures.
So you would be much much more likely to trigger an EIR in the initial study if those policies, programs slash mitigation measures weren't in place.
So if I may add to that then I think to hopefully help address your question.
Once this document has been adopted, if the document is adopted this evening, an initial study can be performed looking at a future project.
And if there's a determination that that project is consistent with the general plan and doesn't raise any new impacts that weren't contemplated by the general plan and by the CIR,
it is possible that then you can avoid further environmental review for the later development project.
And that's what we were talking about in terms of streamlining that the work that's done here we can use to allow future development to move forward hopefully with lesser environmental review.
Now if it's not consistent with the general plan or if it raises issues that weren't contemplated by the general plan then there may be some additional environmental review required.
But even then at least those issues that were covered by the general plan don't have to be addressed again.
Thank you. All right.
On the 17 unavoidable impacts, I know that the statement of overriding consideration is an appendix to the resolution.
We don't have to make a separate resolution for a statement of overriding considerations.
You don't need a separate resolution.
Technically what we were able to do, the way we set up the resolution is that there is a section of the resolution which actually incorporates that exhibit by reference.
So technically we have moved it into the resolution by referencing it.
Thank you, Ken.
No questions.
Okay. Does staff have anything more to add before we open it up?
No, we are complete with our present oral presentation. Of course, this is your opportunity to open your public hearing and we can go from there.
Very good.
Let's go ahead and do just that then.
We will open this public hearing now for members of the public to come forward and provide testimony.
And orally, you can also, if you have anything written, certainly submit that at this time.
Please, I'll repeat your oral comments. We'd like you to limit those to three minutes per speaker.
Thank you.
Excuse me.
I am Arden Henry, a member of the Planning Commission.
Due to marginalization of that commission, I am speaking to you as a resident of Fortuna.
I will address two things, mitigation measures in the PEIR and the process for approving the general plan.
First, I will discuss the mitigation measures related to wildland fires described on pages 41 through 44 of the executive summary for the draft PEIR,
which are on pages 36 to 7 and 75, 76 of tonight's staff report.
To find justification for these mitigations, I conducted a page-by-page comparison of the old and new draft PEIR's sections on risk assessment for wildland fires.
I determined there is no difference in those sections.
I also found the previous version states no mitigation required.
There is nothing in the new draft version of the PEIR that justifies the four pages of mitigation measures.
Many of the proposed mitigations are the same as what exists in Southern California, where I lived for 16 years.
Wildfires which have occurred there resulted in evacuation notices being posted on my door three times, the destruction of hundreds of homes, and the loss of life.
This is certainly a different situation from Fortuna, where the PEIR states, and I quote,
there has not been a major wildland fire in the last 100 years.
I have had experience with wildfire on my property in Fortuna, where my house could not be built if the proposed regulations are approved.
When that fire occurred, there were air drops on the burning grass.
No structures or other things were affected.
My experience in Fortuna's 100-year history without a major wildland fire indicates we do not need these mitigation measures.
They should be deleted from the PEIR in order to meet the criteria for general plan documents stated by Councilman Burdee.
We are writing a general plan for Fortuna.
If the proposed mitigation measures are enacted, there will be severe limitations on development in the foothills.
The City will effectively be taking private property without compensation.
Council members who have expressed their support for free enterprise and concern about excessive regulation should support removing these mitigations from the PEIR.
I recommend the Council replace the mitigation measures with a statement of orderizing considerations.
This is a statement that any significant adverse project impacts are acceptable if expected benefits outweigh unavoidable adverse impacts.
Certainly, the benefit of Fortuna residents not having restrictions on their property that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars outweigh the risk of a fire that has not occurred in 100 years.
In its rush to approve the general plan before the election, the City has created a flawed process.
I will now discuss several process problems and how to fix them.
First, I want to make you aware that just because something is legal does not mean it is the right thing to do.
It may be legal to tell the Planning Commission to read the 661 pages of the PEIR and then tell them the Planning Commission is not required nor requested to make findings regarding the PEIR.
However, this creates an obvious conflict for Commission members.
As Commissioner Wells has pointed out, if no effort is made to convince Commission members of the need for the requirements in the PEIR, it will be difficult for them to do their job.
Another point I want to make is how undemocratic the process has become in the past month.
The fact that some members of the Planning Commission have not been able to state their concerns with respect to chapters five and eight of the policy document violates the principle that everyone has a right to be heard.
If Council members are as patriotic as they have stated and believe in our country's values, they should make it possible for these Commissioners to state their opinion.
I will present a way to do this.
The final process issue that I want to discuss is what should be considered justification for policy statements in the general plan documents.
This issue can best be understood by a specific example.
When all seven Planning Commissioners stated they do not agree with HS 5.3, which states, and I quote,
the City shall prohibit development on all slopes greater than 25 percent, they were told the lawyers have read and approved the document and the statement will not be changed.
There was no discussion of what the lawyers' approval meant.
Staff has stated there is a risk to the City of lawsuits which challenge policies in the general plan.
Consequently, it is reasonable to conclude that what the lawyers' approval means is that the City is legally empowered to have the policies that are in the general plan.
That is not the same thing as saying the policies are what they should be.
Let me be specific.
No lawyer is qualified to say whether it is possible to build on a slope greater than 25 percent.
That question should be answered by a licensed engineer.
What a lawyer is qualified to say is state law allows the City to put in place restrictions on building on slopes.
The statements in Attachment A to July 28, 2009 staff report to the Planning Commission, which purports to be the legal justification for HS 5.3, certainly supports that point of view.
The statements do not say building should be prohibited on slopes greater than 25 percent.
If the City Council and the Planning Commission are to do their jobs, the staff has to provide sound justification for statements in the general plan documents or other documents we will be reviewing.
A statement that lawyers have read and approved a document is not sufficient justification.
Finally, I want to provide my recommendations for correcting the flawed process.
The City Council should direct the staff to prepare for and hold meetings with the Planning Commission that will define how changes can be made to any approved documents.
The City Council should direct the staff to hold meetings with the Planning Commission that will discuss Sections 5 and 8 of the policy document.
The City Council should direct the staff to provide technical answers to technical questions about policy statements in the general plan documents.
The City Council should direct staff that these things be done in a timely manner prior to working on the zoning code or other things related to the general plan.
All of these recommendations result from the Planning Commission being told that staff takes its direction from the City Council.
Thank you for listening to me.
Thank you, Arden.
My name is Darcy Gray. I'm a real property agent with the Land Use Division of the County of Humboldt Department of Public Works.
Thank you for including the County of Humboldt Department of Public Works in the planning process for your general plan.
City staff has done a great job of putting together the general plan and has considered many of the department's suggestions.
However, it appears that the department has not clearly communicated our concerns to the City staff on two policies in the plan.
We believe with minor adjustments as shown on the paper I handed out to you earlier to see, the plan will be equitable for both the City and the County.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Did staff receive that document?
Okay. Thank you.
Paul Glennie, 2988 Rebecca Lane.
Honorable Mayor, Council Members, staff, special guests.
I'm here because I watched the meeting between the Planning Commission and staff on October 14th.
What I saw and what is an obvious and complete disconnect in communication in regards to the general plan.
That being said, Mr. Mayor, you should be commended for your leadership in this matter.
In my opinion, your actions taken on the general plan were warranted, but the work on the general plan is obviously not done.
So I ask that the Council correct any and all discrepancies and complete the general plan in its entirety so that it can move on to the next phase.
I also ask that any and all breakdowns in communication be corrected so that everyone can do the work for the people fairly and successfully.
Thank you.
Thank you, Paul.
About the policy document and the EIR, right?
Make sure the mic's on, Sue, if you would, please.
Yeah.
There you go.
Are we just talking about the EIR or both?
Both. Both resolutions here tonight.
Thank you.
Sue Long.
So we still have a lot of issues that the Planning Commission brought up that haven't been changed.
So we'll just go by my pages, I guess.
So on page one six, we still talk about the mill district and what we want there, and we don't include any industrial.
And I'm still concerned that we need industrial somewhere besides areas that are going to be annexed.
I'm still concerned on page 117 with the square footage that's allowed in each type of development, commercial, mill district, Fortuna Boulevard, et cetera.
I did some research on what types of businesses take up how much square footage, and we can only get one or two businesses in these square footages in these sections.
That concerns me.
I submitted comments to Stephen and I didn't get answers.
I don't know if you guys got copies of that or not.
So I'm asking a lot of the same things that I've asked him.
I'm still trying to figure out where industrial south of Main Street in the city is.
That's page 118.
I was it was interesting to read all the new stuff that has been inserted on starting on page 126 about Renerville and the historical value and blah, blah, blah.
Is anybody driven by Renerville besides me?
It's falling down.
I'm not sure what we're talking about or what we're supposed to do there.
Page 127, we talked about changing the 40 percent open space in the middle district.
Oh, you know what? I think that's been changed.
Stephen, I think you got that one, didn't you?
Sorry.
There's a table on page four, three that we discussed three years ago that was supposed to be deleted because it doesn't meet city standards.
It's still there.
I brought it up before.
We just keep glossing over it and keeping it in there.
Form based codes are mentioned about five or six times in here.
If you want the page numbers, I'll tell you we didn't.
I don't know that we ever adopted form based codes.
I never heard you guys do that, but as throughout the document.
Page 411, there's some new blueprint talking about parking lots and having buffers if you have 10 parking spaces.
That seems excessive and costly and another way to stop businesses from coming to town.
And then there's a lot in five, six where we talk about the 50 feet setbacks for creeks, wetlands, all that.
And I'll just say that one time and not refer to every single page.
We still have the question of what happens to the existing homes if they burn down with these new setbacks.
We've asked and asked and no one wants to answer that question.
I shouldn't say no one wants to, no one has.
There was much discussion at the Planning Commission, page 528 on the archaeology requirements.
If you're doing a project of over five acres, we wondered where the five acre number came from and if that could be changed.
Page 717, there's some new blue that requires all proposed development projects provide dedicated solid waste recycling, green waste bins.
Does that just during the project construction or is that the homeowners in the new development?
Are you requiring them all to have that or is that just during construction?
719, the city shall require new construction be oriented and designed to take advantage of solar heating.
Does that mean the city is going to start designing people's houses now or how is that going to work?
A much discussion in the Planning Commission, page 8, 7 about open burning.
And my one that I'm very concerned about is increased energy efficiency and proposed buildings by 20 percent beyond Title 24 requirements.
Title 24 is very stringent and my concern not only is that we are increasing it 20 percent beyond.
I don't know why we would do that.
But at what point does someone who's going to get a building permit know that they take all of their stuff to City Hall based on Title 24 and current building codes.
They turn their plans in and at what point are they told this doesn't meet for to this criteria and do they have to go back to the drawing board?
We're still concerned about the commercial office and mixed use projects,
initiating volunteer share writing and providing employees with transit incentives to minimize driving to work.
That should be up to each individual business. We should not mandate that.
On the noise, 811 HS 10 shall not exceed blah, blah, blah, blah.
Does high school fall under that or are they over?
Are they too loud when we have football games and all that?
We're still the steep slopes as Arden brought up. That's still a contentious point.
And that's both of those.
And I think all the rest of these pages marked are form based codes.
So those are my comments so far, and I agree with Arden's letter and I'm glad you let him finish it.
He had some really good things to say, and I hope you guys consider those in your deliberations.
Thanks. Thank you, Sue.
Make sure everybody has their opportunity before we close it, close the public hearing.
Mr. Mayor, make a motion to close the public hearing.
A second.
Okay, there's been a motion and a second to close the public hearing.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Opposed.
Okay, the public hearing is now closed before we send staff and legal counsel off to prepare responses to what's been brought forth during oral testimony.
Do we have any direction or anything specific that we'd like highlighted in staff's response?
With all the suggestions and stuff that have been talked about this evening that you guys are going to go back and think about, are any of these things at the point
that we couldn't correct as we go on the next few weeks without causing the environmental report to be thrown out the window?
In other words, are these impacts that they're talking about like a little industrial word added to the Mill District and some of these other areas
on the hillside slopes and all of that, because this EIR is written from what I'm understanding is very vague in the aspect that we're going to encompass the whole city.
And everybody was looking at things at pretty large numbers in some of these areas.
So are any of these impacts, if we change any of this stuff that we're talking about tonight, is that going to affect the main general, the main EIR?
I'll assume that question is being directed at me.
I think listening to the comments and of course I would want to consult with Mr. Hillman who is the author of the EIR.
But I think that some of them could be addressed without impacting the EIR.
Others, I'm not sure.
I think we'd have to really determine what changes would be made in order to address the concerns.
You could make changes that wouldn't have an environmental impact.
Some changes might have an environmental impact.
And we can try and address those when we come back, whether there's a, which ones would fall into which category.
Okay. Because that makes a big difference.
Because right now we're trying to make a picture of what Fortuna is going to look like.
And we've got an environmental report that's about ten times bigger than the one we wrote years ago.
There's a lot more in it.
But we also have a land usage plan that doesn't necessarily follow our zoning.
And we've been told that our land usage doesn't have to match our zoning.
In the past, our land usage map matched our zoning pretty close.
So it made it really simple for a developer to come to town, get the land usage map, say, okay, I fit in this category.
Then you go look at the zoning to find out finer stuff.
But if we approve everything we got tonight, we're going to have a land usage plan.
And then we're told we're going to come back and write a zoning.
So how much is that land usage plan going to dictate what we can zone?
I.e. the mill district, if we want a little, that land usage doesn't mention the word industrial, a light industrial or anything.
So if during the zoning hearings, everybody decides that out of that 75 acres, we'd like at least a portion of it to be industrial.
Is the land usage that we approved going to trump it and say, well, you already approved the land usage.
You can't zone that that way.
Those are the kind of concerns I have if we haven't got all this stuff nailed down the way we want it.
Because I was on the Planning Commission for six years and it was really nice to have a land usage plan telling people, nope, it wasn't in our plan.
You can't do it.
You know, it's a it's a it's a concern if we're going to pass this thing.
I understand the concern of a general plan is not immutable.
So I think there are two potential responses to your questions and we can come back and be more specific.
But in general, before we take a recess, you can always change your general plan.
You can amend the general plan, any one element of the general plan up to four times in any year.
And that doesn't just mean one amendment.
It means four occasions.
So you could have 17 amendments on one occasion to the general plan.
So but on four different occasions during the year, you can amend any particular element of the general plan.
So if you did decide after going through the zoning hearings that you wanted to incorporate industrial use into your land use diagram, yes, you could amend the general plan to accommodate that.
You may decide that the type of light industrial use that you're thinking about in the zoning code does fall within the land use designation because it's ancillary to a commercial use.
So maybe you can incorporate some types of industrial use without amending the land use diagram.
But I guess to answer what I'm hearing as the bottom line concern, it's not immutable.
You can make changes.
You can make adjustments.
It is a living document.
I understand that.
But we're here tonight five years later because we had a developer come in that wanted to change his own.
And we could have just changed the zone.
But it's taken us five years to get to this point.
And we could have just had an update and did a policy change to one little section of town, one project.
But instead, it forced us to do this full process.
So that's why I want to make sure we write this, that we don't end up when it's done, everybody wanting to do this.
And it's going to force us to do it.
I hope you understand it.
I do understand the concern.
I'm not as familiar with that particular experience, that particular development experience.
Thank you, Doug.
Good points.
Anybody else before we head off to direct staff to take a recess?
Time wise, you know, if you don't know until you get in there and start talking about some of these things.
Fifteen minutes.
Why don't we start with 15.
And if indeed we feel we need a few more, I will come out and ask and inform you that we will have a few more.
We're trying to be as brief as we can.
And we appreciate the tolerance you'll have of us staff working on this.
This is a very important thing, obviously.
And even though there's relatively relative to the number of people in our community, there's relatively few people here tonight.
I'm sure there are many listening.
But, you know, we want to make sure that we're clear on just what it is that we do this evening and that we're also clear on the types of
flexibilities that are available to us, hopefully without having to go through this entire process all over again.
Because what some of the people in the public have brought forward are very valid points.
And, you know, we'd like to hear some of those responses.
So with that, let's take a 15 minute recess and we will come back.
If staff needs a little bit more time, I will let you know.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I texted a couple things.
You know, please silence your cell phones if you would.
And we will reconvene the meeting at this moment.
And, Dwayne, go ahead and lead off the discussion as far as the staff report.
My job is to turn it over to Larry.
Well, I think that we will have a couple of us speaking in response to some of the comments that were raised.
I was designated to start and I would like to start by responding to Councilmember Strell because we did go back and take a look at some of the comments and try to parse through them individually to see if there were comments that might, we might,
comments that if we made changes to the document might require delay and further environmental review.
We really only heard one comment that gave us concern in that regard.
And that was a change to the policy requiring the 50-foot buffer, 50-foot setback from streams.
That policy is integral to the analysis of biological impacts in the EIR and the analysis of water quality impacts.
So that if we go, if we want to make significant changes to that policy, we would need to give Mr. Hillman an opportunity to really revisit what those changes, what impacts those changes might have.
However, with regard to the other comments that were made during the comment period, we think that there were some comments, we don't think that it would require delay in order to address those comments.
And in fact, we have a couple of suggestions for the Council if the Council wishes to address some of those comments this evening.
And I'll actually start with the first one of those.
And that dealt with comments made by Planning Commissioner Henry regarding the 25-foot slope setback.
I think Ms. Long also made a comment regarding that currently in the general plan, there is a prohibition on development of slopes greater than 25%.
I think that the comments that were made this evening were correct, that certainly it is possible to develop on slopes greater than 25%.
It is possible to engineer that type of development.
Also, I think that everyone would acknowledge that development on slopes greater than 25% does create different challenges than development on flat land, on an otherwise flat parcel or mostly flat parcel.
And so staff would suggest that in order to respond to some of the comments that have been made and some of the concerns that have been expressed that perhaps a more appropriate policy if the Council wishes to consider it,
and one that wouldn't require any recirculation of the EIR, would be rather than have a flat prohibition to have a policy in the general plan that says the city shall develop standards for development on slopes greater than 25%.
And then it would be as part of the implementation of the general plan over the next period of time to go back to the Planning Commission and determine with the Planning Commission and ultimately with the City Council what the appropriate standards are for development on those types of slopes.
So that would be the first suggested change to the policies in response to the comments tonight.
And that would be a change to that particular policy that would provide that instead of a prohibition on development on slopes more than 25%, that the city shall develop standards for development on slopes greater than 25%.
Do we need to make reference to the chapter and the policy?
If someone, I don't have the document open so that if someone has the policy number, we can do that, but I believe that that's already in the record so I don't, I feel comfortable without making that reference, but if the Council would feel more comfortable we can look that up.
As long as we're comfortable and the reference is very clear because that is one suggested change that personally I like.
That's policy HS-5.3.
There you are. So that would be the change to policy HS-5.3.
And I believe that there is, Mr. Avis I think has a suggestion for potential change to another element in response to some of the comments that were made this evening.
Thank you. There was a comment regarding the lack of light of industrial uses in the middle district.
And part of that stemmed from the Council's decision early on in the process to remove the industrial use from the middle district.
It's possible that the Council could reconsider its decision on how it wants to proceed.
But the definition of the middle district as it's outlined in the general plan is designed to be a broad sweeping statement that defines sort of what the intent of the middle district is.
It is not intended to be an industrial site and so industrial uses were not particularly spelled out.
But it does deal with horizontal and vertical mixed use, a variety of venues and things that can be used, compatible uses.
So for example, we did not consider when we get to the zoning code, we can identify particular uses that are appropriate.
So for example, we thought about a commercial area on there that perhaps you had a candy store and in the back of the candy store you had making candy.
And the candy was being shipped out to all over the world because it was the greatest candy ever.
So that's a lot of industrial use that's compatible with a commercial venture that is going on in an area that might be suitable for the middle district development.
And we would not see that as being incompatible.
The fact that it doesn't list industrial in the definition does not preclude that kind of use.
And when the zoning code is developed, we can certainly include appropriate uses that are conditionally permitted.
So that you can determine at that time whether or not the proposal is consistent with the goals and objectives of the general plan or not.
And if so, then what would be the specific details that would allow that?
And Liz has a couple of comments next.
Yeah, I'm addressing the comment from the public regarding the county public works department and their letter dated October 22nd, 2010, which I believe you have a copy was provided to you on the dais.
And there was a comment from a representative who it looked like no longer here.
Yeah, we were and we understand and appreciate their comments.
And we did address some of the comments in their earlier letter with regard to the couple that are in this October 22nd letter.
We don't feel that they're warranted mainly because we this is a process.
What they're asking for is that the city consider impacts to county roads and drainage facilities where they border, you know, city, city limits when the city has development projects.
And this is something that's already incorporated into our process.
So we don't feel it's warranted to, you know, create a new policy just for this.
For example, we do when we have development projects, we do send referrals to the county on building permits and especially on larger projects like subdivisions.
And we do get their comments in writing and we work with the county to address those on development projects.
We do have two active ones on Newburgh Road right now where we're, you know, there's a lot of cooperation with the county and we're addressing their issues in the project requirements.
So we don't feel that it's warranted to incorporate these specifically into the general plan policies.
Is that TC 1.13?
Yes. And PFS-516.
The first one is on regarding roads and the second is on drainage facilities.
So it's something that I think we've had a lot of cooperation with the county and in addressing their concerns on development projects.
And it goes both ways. They send us referrals too.
Are you accepting the other recommended changes?
Yeah, those have already been incorporated into the document you have tonight.
And Mr. Hillman has a couple of comments to make.
Yes, I've been tasked with two different comments.
The first is from Mr. Henry with respect to wildland fire mitigation.
He had indicated that there were multiple pages of fire mitigation despite the fact that the 2008 EIR did not have that mitigation.
And despite the fact that it's indicated somewhere and I'm not quite sure where that there has not been a large fire in the city of Fortuna or whatever.
I'm sorry, I don't. I'm not sure whether Mr. Henry was referring to the policy document or the EIR.
I do know though. Would you like to clarify Mr. Henry which one he's referring to?
Because the EIR chapter or section 8.6 is wildfire.
And in the section there's three relevant policies identified from the policy document as each EIR chapter does.
It identifies the relevant policies and then it does include a one page mitigation measure.
The mitigation measure requires what amounts to required city adoption of a fire safe ordinance or fire safe regulations more or less modeled on the county's fire safe requirements.
And the reason that that mitigation measure is identified is because impact 8.6-1 on page 8.6-6 of the EIR concludes that plan implementation could result in a significant wildland fire hazard impact.
Why does the impact make this conclusion?
If I can refer you to a figure in the EIR, figure 8-9 on page 8.6-3.
It's entitled fire hazard severity within state responsibility area.
It's a Cal fire generated database that we've exerted to cover the proposed planning area.
Including the city's existing incorporated boundaries and the larger planning area that includes the city sphere of influence and the annexation areas.
As you can see in the figure, Cal fire identifies roughly 95% of the area outside of the incorporated city boundaries, in other words the urban core of the city, but within the planning area as either a moderate or a high fire risk.
Moderate high fire severity.
So we concluded that based on this determination from Cal fire, there is a substantial wildland fire hazard in the slopes surrounding the city.
And that implementation of the proposed general plan would allow new commercial and other uses, residential uses in particular, to be developed in those areas and hence create a wildland fire hazard impact.
So that's why that mitigation measure is there.
I can't answer as to why the 2008 EIR may not have included that mitigation, but I can say that Plan West as the city's CEQA consultant as well as the city's legal counsel and specific commenting agencies on the 2008 draft EIR.
Did identify the need for mitigation.
So that's why that mitigation is in place.
Can I ask you a question on that?
Sure.
So, 8.6 wildland fire mitigation 8.6-1 increased exposure to wildland fires and the mitigation measures to add a new ordinance requirement in the city, the Fortuna City Code as follows.
The responsibility areas of the city shall comply with emergency access, so on and so forth, and then it talks about standards and then it gives a whole litany or a whole list of these particular standards.
And for those of us who are still confused by this alphabet soup of acronyms and so forth, this one, the SRA, this state responsibility area, that is not inclusive of all parcels in Fortuna.
Is that correct?
That's exactly correct if you'll look at figure 8-9, the gray area is the area outside of SRA.
And where is figure 8-9?
I'm sorry.
It's on page 8.6-3.
8.6-3.
So I'm a little bit...
On the environmental...
In the environmental...
In the EIR, draft EIR.
It's in the draft EIR, so it's in one of these documents.
And that's okay, Stephen, I just wanted to be clear, this isn't a blanket for all parcels in Fortuna, it's the ones that follow under the state responsibility areas.
That's right.
And the state responsibility area portion of the planning area is basically, although I don't want to say 100%.
Do we have any control over what is in the state responsibility area?
Do we as the city of Fortuna?
We will or you will or would once you annex those areas.
How do I say it?
Do we control what areas are designated as state responsibility areas?
I think you do.
Who controls that?
Well, I think CAL FIRE controls that, but based on this map, it looks like the whole incorporated city is outside of SRA.
So I would imagine that once an area is annexed to the city, the CAL FIRE would remove the SRA designation for that area and it becomes a city responsibility.
So once the SRA is removed, then these requirements would not apply then.
Is that right?
Once the areas are next to the city, mitigation measure 8.6-1A would start applying.
8.6-1A.
Okay.
Add a new ordinance.
New subdivision.
I don't think I'm asking the questions correctly, and so I'm not doing well in that area.
Let's see.
New subdivisions proposed within the state responsibility areas of the city.
The current, maybe it should say current SRA areas of the city, because once those areas are annexed, they won't be SRA anymore.
It becomes the city's responsibility.
Okay.
To make, maybe, let me throw two cents in here.
A state responsibility area is generally a wildland area, because CDF doesn't respond to structure fires within the city limits unless they're called.
State responsibility areas are areas outside the current city limits that are generally uninhabited, grasslands, timberlands.
That are within CAL fires responsibility to respond.
To respond.
To wildland fires.
Okay. So once we annex any of those lands outside the city, and we have a couple, then they become jurisdiction of our volunteer fire department.
That's correct.
No, not necessarily so.
Right. Not necessarily so.
Since the city does not provide fire services, it is a negotiable issue on annexation of who's going to provide fire protection in the annexed areas that are currently provided by the state.
An issue that we haven't dealt with yet.
And the fire, the volunteer fire district, the Fortuna Fire, are concerned that, you know, that's something that's going to have to be dealt with.
And I want to let you know that's at least at a staff level has been broached, certainly hasn't been resolved.
So from our perspective, this is an appropriate mitigation at this time.
And I understand if the mitigation is necessary, I mean, I understand and I get that.
But I'm just wondering in the future when, say, some of these places that are now under the state responsibility area,
if there is growth that basically encroaches onto these areas and now they're urban areas and they're really no longer considered areas of risk as far as wildland fires,
you know, at what point in time, you know, would some of these onerous requirements go away?
Well, I would imagine at such point in time as the city makes an amendment to the general plan.
So, you know, I can't venture to guess, you know, when the unincorporated portion of the planning area is going to be filled up with development.
This is a 20 year plan.
So let me just ask something real simple then.
Are there areas in the inside the city limits of Fortuna right now that are in these that are considered state responsibility areas?
I don't believe so.
I believe the figure that I'm looking at is showing the incorporated boundary of the city is gray.
OK. And so that's not in. That's correct. OK.
So really the mitigation measure has come forth because we're looking at future areas of annexation. That's right.
OK. And so it only applies to wildland fire areas, not urban areas.
And it only applies to large subdivisions with the thought being that this mitigation may be too.
Oppressing on a resident on a one by one residential development.
If a person comes in and has a piece of property and wants to.
But I just want to maybe simplify and shorten the discussion a little bit.
If there are no parcels within our existing city boundaries right now that really are going to follow under these owners requirements, they're probably going to be taken up again when we look at annexing different areas and then specific elements of those sites.
But right now, as you see it and as our environmental attorney sees it, it sounds like this is a necessary mitigation because we're looking at that's right.
And in the future, it when an annexation comes up and some type of environmental doc, a CEQA document is prepared for that annexation, hopefully just an initial study MND.
But who knows for sure? Wildland fires is no longer an issue because the city has a protective policy that mitigates wildland fire impact.
And it gives one of the things that Mr. Henry brought up that did raise concern for me is that, you know, a suggestion that if he had to follow these requirements, he wouldn't have been able to build his home.
But it sounds to me like where his home rests wouldn't have been included in this particular.
It's only applicable to subdivisions.
This this mitigation measure is subdivision subdivision or no, I just Mr. Henry's if Mr. Henry's inside the city limits and there's no place inside the city limits that is underneath.
That is that is an SRA, then we would have been good to go.
That's correct. Okay.
Thank you. Thank you.
I'm sorry. Sometimes sometimes I know we really want to get in the details because you know your stuff.
But okay, thank you.
With respect to the other issue, I believe Miss Long was concerned about the proposed noise compatibility standards and how they may be applied to existing schools.
As we know, schools are a good size noise source and I need to make clear that the proposed noise compatibility standards only apply to new uses are not retroactive to existing uses.
So any existing school would not be subject to the noise compatibility standards.
And I take this back to Mr. Wiener for a couple more comments.
So I believe can we go back to that statement he just made?
Absolutely. Schools would not be required to meet noise compatibility standards.
Existing schools. If you do have a new school, it would be a new school proposed.
It would be subject to the noise compatibility standards.
That's a little hard to take because schools are state business and states generally don't do what the city asks.
The city has the option to comment on any state project as part of the CEQA process.
So that would be a comment you would make, which is you're concerned about the noise impact to the existing adjacent noise sensitive use, whether it's a residential use, a hospital, what have you.
Okay. And I believe the example was simply coming from the example that was made during the comment period, which was what would this apply to an existing school.
But you are right that with regard to zoning standards, as far as classroom facilities go, while the zoning would apply, a school board could, by a two-thirds vote, override the zoning with regard to classroom facilities, academic facilities, not with regard to non-classroom facilities.
That may be more detailed than we need this evening.
With regard to other comments that were made this evening, there were a number of comments made that seemed to address policy issues for the council rather than issues that staff could answer questions, rather than comments that were questions that staff could answer.
There was one other question, however, that was raised that I did want to address.
I believe it also came from Ms. Long, according to my notes, and that would be what happens to an existing home that might burn down and might not conform to the standards that are being proposed for the general plan.
The general plan doesn't address how the city wishes to treat non-conforming uses that are destroyed by act of God, but that would be something that you could take up in your zoning ordinance, and you could choose to say those structures must conform with the zoning,
or those structures could be non-conforming structures that are destroyed, could be exempt from the zoning if they are reconstructed in the exact same manner that they were built before the destruction.
That's not something that's dealt with at the general plan level.
It's something that can be dealt with, probably is currently dealt with in your zoning ordinance and can certainly be changed at any time in your zoning ordinance.
As a last matter, I think Mr. Avis dealt a little bit with the issue of industrial zoning, or excuse me, I made that mistake too, the industrial land use designation for the mill district.
And I believe he explained that as staff interprets it, as staff interprets the land use diagram, that certain types of light industrial uses would be permitted within the mill district, and that could be addressed at the time that the Planning Commission and later the City Council takes up the zoning ordinance.
In addition, staff would place before the council for consideration this evening a potential amendment to the land use diagram, which could be accomplished this evening, which would provide that the land use diagram would be amended for the mill district to provide that in addition to the uses that are currently permitted, that compatible light industrial uses would also be permitted.
I understand that at one time there was a discussion about this, maybe it was two years ago, and there was direction not to include that, but if the council, based on the testimony that it's heard since that time, wishes to change that direction, we could make that amendment this evening.
So that's another area where we could make that amendment without changing the environmental impact report.
Let's kind of get a little consensus here on that. You know, would it, as far as the wording on that, adding the words compatible light industrial uses for the mill district, is that something that's appealing to?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes, when I think of a mixed use development, I see light industrial as one of the components of a mixed use development.
I like the word compatible. I do like the phraseology of compatible being in there as well.
And that probably helps the future planning commission and future councils as far as developing the specific zoning ordinance to understand what our intent is.
One thing our policies have not done is made a distinction between heavy industrial and light industrial, and the Palco site used to be a heavy industrial site, and I'm not advocating that it return to heavy industrial, but I think we need to allow light industrial uses in the mixed use development.
Okay, and I agree with that. I would like to insert the word compatible though, if that's okay.
So, if we do get to the point where we make a motion this evening, can staff actually assist us because there's two items now that need to be added to the motion, I would believe.
Yes.
Okay, very good. Anything else from staff?
I think we have covered it all.
Okay. Then it is on our court for deliberation. I'm just going to make a couple of comments.
I know that it's been a long process, and we've agonized. We've gone through some very contentious meetings that have created some angst and gnashing of teeth and all of this.
I do think that everyone who has spoken, everybody who's been involved in the process, has shown up with good intentions and wanting to do a good job.
Having said that, if we, this is my opinion, I'm one councilman up here talking, having said that, if we continue to wait for community consensus, we will never get the job done.
We were ultimately elected to make decisions, and we're here to make one tonight.
We're really here to, you know, I know there's some things as far as smoothing things over and some things that need to be addressed in the future, things that when the Planning Commission and the council have another, either an amendment or a major update,
there are some things that can probably be done better along the way, and I'm hoping that some of these things can be documented so that 10 years down the road, another council, another Planning Commission does not have to go through the same type of angst that we have experienced over the last month or so.
We're really here to consider two issues tonight.
We're really not here to debate how we got here or all that kind of stuff.
I believe we're here to consider two resolutions.
The first being, do we believe we can make the appropriate findings and certify the environmental document?
That's number one, and if we do believe that by a vote of at least a majority of that, then the next step is, do we believe that this policy document is ready to adopt?
And I think in our deliberation, I'm hoping that we can address the resolutions that we have before us.
I'm sorry for the long-winded speech.
I actually asked somebody not to give a long-winded speech, and then here I just gave one.
So we can start in our deliberations. I don't know who wants to start.
Ken, do you go ahead.
You seem to be the one who has an eye for a lot of detail.
Well, I don't want to go through all the individual findings word by word.
We talked a little bit about ag land earlier, and that was the only place that I really had a little review because it didn't match up with the specific language in the policy document.
But I was given enough explanation that the use of the terms prime farmland, prime ag land, all goes back to the meaning of providing some protection for prime ag soils.
And that terminology is used in this findings document later on.
I'm comfortable with making the findings that the environmental document is certifiable with the statement of overriding considerations.
Mel, do you have any?
No, I'm comfortable.
Dean?
I'm ready to make a motion.
Okay. Well, we'll wait for everyone to say their piece here. Doug?
On the environmental document, I believe it's probably exactly what we need.
It seems to be prepared with a large enough scope to cover what we want to do in the next 20 years without any major problems, hopefully.
It's just hard to live in a small town like this and have to do some of these things because we see what the environment around us and how it's been acting over the years and some of these things that we don't think we need.
But I guess we got to do it.
And so, go ahead.
I'll add my two cents worth and when we first started this we we attempted to have an identity for our city.
And we definitely are a unique city.
We look at things differently.
We look at things differently environmentally.
We are environmentally friendly, but to have a state organization, a federal organization shove wordage down our throats against our will, it sort of grinds us the wrong way.
And that's, I think, been the problem for us to have to put up with that.
Be proactive, to be protecting ourselves.
Yes, there's wordage that has to be put into this PIR so that we eliminate as many potential contests in court to make it as correct as possible.
It's not a perfect document, but it's as good as we can possibly get by human factor.
And I'm very, very proud of what the finished product is.
I also appreciate what efforts gone into it from all the people that have represented the city, the planning commission, and the staff, and us having to put through this.
Sometimes grumbling and going, oh my god, another 300 pages to have to look through.
But we're here tonight to be able to get to the culmination of this.
So I'd be honored to make a motion to adopt resolution 2010-45 and read it by title only.
I'll second the motion.
There's been a motion and a second to adopt resolution 2010-45.
And it reads, a resolution of the city council of the city of Fortuna certifying the final program environmental impact report for the 2030 general plan update, adopting findings, adopting a statement of overriding considerations, and adopting a mitigation monitoring and reporting program pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act.
Are there any further deliberations?
So roll call vote.
Councilman Burde?
Yes.
Councilman Glazer?
Yes ma'am.
Councilman Zanzi?
Yes.
Mayor Pro Temstrell?
Yes.
Mayor Whitchurch?
Yes.
And now on to the policy document itself.
And by the way, I think there was some excellent dialogue and some productive, some productive work even done tonight.
So thank you.
Well if you're looking for a motion, I'll move to adopt resolution 2010-46 with two.
I would suggest that the motion be to adopt, as you indicated, adopt resolution 2010-46 to approve the general plan with two changes. One to policy HS-5.3 as previously noted in the record. And then secondly to revise the land use diagram to permit compatible light industrial uses in the mill district area.
Mill district.
So moved Mr. Mayor.
Second the motion.
If I wasn't the mayor you'd have taken the words right out of my mouth.
Okay.
There's a motion to adopt resolution 2010-46.
It is a resolution, excuse me, let me get to the right one. It is a resolution of the Council of the City of Fortuna adopting the 2030 Fortuna general plan update with the two changes as noted.
Any further deliberation?
And that too is a roll call vote.
Councilman Verdy?
Yes.
Councilman Glazer?
Yes ma'am.
Councilman Zanzi?
Yes.
Mayor Pro Temstrell?
Before I vote I'd like to say that this is just a general plan and we are going to work very hard to get it the way we like it as we go on because plans can be updated.
My definition of success from years ago when I took classes was the progressive realization of worthwhile personal goals.
So it has to be a progressive progress, a process that we're going to go through.
So with that I'm going to vote yes.
Mayor Whitchurch?
Yes.
And that motion is carried.
I want to personally congratulate and thank, I can't express my appreciation enough of everybody who's been involved in this process.
And there are a lot of good things to come to this.
I want to challenge the future Planning Commission and challenge the future City Council that when you get into zoning and other city ordinances in dealing with this general plan, don't hesitate.
You find weaknesses, point them out because this thing can be refined and I think it's probably going to be in the next 18 months.
This has been an arduous process though.
Congratulations and this is a big deal for the City of Fortuna.
Thank you.
With that, no other business.
We are adjourned.
Thank you.