progress. Good morning everyone and I'd like to call the Monday May 19th meeting of the Board of Supervisors Transportation and Planning Committee to order. I'd like to start by asking the clerk to call the roll to establish our quorum. Supervisor Miley, Supervisor How President. Very good. Thank you much. And with that, I'll also remind everyone that we welcome the public to participate and provide comment. You're able to do that in person or online. And if you're in person, please fill out a speaker card and I the clerk to advise on how to participate remotely. For remote participation, follow the teleconferencing guidelines posted at www.acgov.org. If you'd like to speak on an item during the meeting, you can use the raise your hand function and the chair will announce you at the appropriate time. Thank you very much. Our first item is an informational item, Morrison, Canyon, Road, Vacation. I know that the road is not going on vacation, but we might vacate the road. And I note we have our Public Works Director, Daniel Will Desenbet, online. And I'll basically thank you for being here. Just ask, this is an update item. Where are we on this? Do we have any update from our agency partners, the City Freemont, SFPUC, East Bay Regional Parks, things like that, or timeline for proceeding. I note that this has been an item before us for quite some time now. So Mr. Will Desenbet, thank you for joining us remotely. The floor is yours, sir. Good morning, yes. This item, like you said, has been presented to you before. Morrison Canyon is a very small piece of Morrison Canyon is primarily within a private property that serves one property no more than that individual's property, which basically surrounds the entire roadway that we try to vacate. The adjacent property owner requested the vacation couple of years ago, it was supported by additional about 21 petitioners, that endorseive vacation, and that item then then pursuant to the streets and highway code. We sent notification to public utility providers, government entities and public organizations. We have received from utility providers, there was no objection other than requesting that easement reservation be placed on the property, which is a fairly standard practice. SFP you see initially has indicated their concern about loss of access to their property behind the the private property that this prop this roadway is located at. the mitigation plan will also be that the county is planning on establishing access easement within the vacated portion of these properties. So the SAPUC will have access on a needed basis. City of Fremont has provided a conditional approval basically requiring that the owner meet some specific criteria and they have indicated they'll be meeting with the owner to make sure that their criteria is being met. The current status is that for soon to strengthen highway, you have to get some concurrence with the general plan circulation element. So the item has been provided to planning department to represent this item to the commission, the planning commission, and we are told that this item will be presented on June 16th at the planning commission to make sure that it is in compliance or at least aligns with the county's general plan. So the next steps are that once the planning commission confirms the vacation meets the public finding as well as aligns the County General Plan that matter then will be presented to your board requesting the road be vacated. So as of now that's where we are and we are proceeding accordingly. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Very good question for planning. Do we anticipate any indication that this would not be consistent with the general plan as Mr. Rule doesn't but lay down? No, I don't think so. I know there's some information that we are still waiting for them. There's some back and forth between staff, planning staff and public work staff. But the June 16th date, I believe, was a tentative date. That agenda is still being developed and set by the chair. So if it doesn't go on that one though, I'm sure it'll be on a subsequent agenda. Okay, the chair meeting of the chair of the Planning Commission. Yes. Okay, very good. Thank you. Daniel, do we happen to know what the criteria that the City of Fremont is asking about? Asking for. They have half the road. We have to know What's their criteria? I think it's the same thing. They're basically they're saying that they wanted to make sure that their easements are provided to the appropriate utilities. Access is provided to SAPUC so that there are no oppositions. By the way, we also have received green light from East Bay Regional Park. We've received a letter from the Jule of Manager indicating there are in concurrence with the vacation. So really what's remaining is that administrative procedures that we have to go through in order to get there to meet the state's streets and highway report. Very good. Once it goes to planning commission, can it go straight to the board? Will it go at a board meeting or a planning meeting? And if so, will it go to just one of those meetings or do we need to go to both? I think we'll just go to one of those meetings. I would recommend that we take it to your planning board meeting. Excellent. Very good. Thank you. Any questions from my colleague on this? Any public comment? Now would be the time to go to public comment on item one. I have no speakers for item one. Very good. We'll close public comment and then move to item. Thank you both staff planning and public works appreciate that item two is an update on the definition of floor area ratio. And I know we have a brief staff report. Yes, thank you very much to the clerk for running the PowerPoint. Good morning. Albert Lopez, Planning Director. You'd asked for a quick definition of how we determine floor error ratio and how it's applied and used in the department. The slide that you have in front of you is essentially the technical definition. This is a very standard way of measuring the intensity of development on a parcel. Floor error ratio basically is the ratio between the size of the parcel and the amount of square footage that's allowed on it. In the graphic it just shows you for example if you have a floor area ratio of one that means that you can cover their entire lot or at least have square footage that represents the entire lot and that could look a couple of different ways. For example if you could do 100% of a lot cover or you could cover half of it with this two story building or you could cover a quarter of it with a four story building. So that that's how it's essentially defined. Next slide. The way that it's used in the on a sort of day-to-day practical basis is that it is a regulatory tool that lives within our general plans and our specific plans and that really does determine how much floor area that you can build on a parcel. There's a couple examples there. You have a 10,000 square foot building, oh, sorry, a 10,000 square foot site with a 2.0 FAR allowed per the zoning or a specific plan. Then you can do a 20,000 square foot building, essentially doubling the size of the parcel for square footage. And then if you have a much smaller FAR in the second example, same 10,000 square foot parcel with a .5 FAR, then you're essentially allowed half of that in square footage for the building. So that would give you 5,000 square feet on those two different examples. So the higher the FAR, the more intense development that you'll get, and it's generally used for commercial development, not so much for residential development. Residential development generally is measured by density, units per acre density, whereas commercial and to some degree industrial is regulated or measured more by FAR, floor air ratio. And so I, you know, I wanted to provide a very basic understanding, a description of that term and be happy to answer any questions that you have. So in this example, if the you would take the square footage of entire site, and if it was a 1.0, that means that the entire site, say in this example, a 10,000 square foot site would allow for 10,000 square foot of building, and to end the entire square of the parcel size would be allowable if you wanted some open space you would make it two stories and it would still be 5,000 on top of 5,000 would still be 10,000 FAR and you would have some open space but you essentially take the entire dimensions of the parcel would be a 1.0 if it was entirely covered. Yes, that is true. However, that's the theoretical maximum square footage, but you have setbacks. For example, you're going to have parking, things like that. That usually end up determining. It's very, it's almost, I would say unusual to see a building or a site where it's covered, you know, end-to-end with a building. Usually it's going to go to story and allow for the setbacks and parking, landscaping and such, but that is a theoretical maximum. Okay. So then I think part of the desire to talk about this is to define what constitutes the coverage of this FAR. So for example we've talked about a pool maybe does not count in the FAR calculation, we're working through that. We've been gone through litigation on whether a solar panel counts as FAR when you have a solar panel mounted into the ground and above it is a panel, but the panel isn't on the ground, the post that mounts it into the ground is. We've talked about, does a gravestone at a cemetery count as a FAR or a mausoleum or columbarium or whatever we call that? Does that count as FAR? I we also have Defined that if you have a horse arena Maybe that's covered with a roof But doesn't have side walls on it, but rather posts on each corner Maybe with a pole in the middle and the horse running around it that that does not count as FAR So I guess what I'm getting at is what constitutes the actual structure or building or whatever that we're measuring as it accounts for the coverage of the land. How do we define that? Sure. There is a definition in our code for a floor area, which is really how we define floor area, not so much the ratio between the floor area and the parcel, but what constitutes a building. And we've had a number of conversations about that over the years. And I think that some of the changes that we did in Measure D in 2022 did allow more floor area for things like cover durinas and outbuildings that may not necessarily be for habitable purposes. We did just, we're while we still need to do the second reading, but for example, swimming pools would no longer count as floor area. So that's, they're no longer after the second reading would be considered buildings. And for the most part, if it's something that sheds water, if it's something that is for human habitation, for the storage part, if it's something that sheds water, if it's something that is for human habitation for the storage of equipment, and those are buildings, and we really have two buckets, we have residential uses, and then we have non-residential uses that's mostly plays out in measure de territory. Most buildings have to be something, one or the other, and generally speaking. But any kind of flat area, landscaping, patios, uncovered decks and porches, things like that are not floor area. And there is a definition in our code that takes out those kinds of areas as well as, and we use it to calculate parking requirement. Usually things like maintenance areas or sort of unusable areas are not usually counted for floor area for the purposes of parking requirements. And then we have other definitions about floor area, I believe, and I think the, in Castro Valley for the purposes of calculating the floor area about new home on a vacant parcel, some of the things have been taken out like again like uncovered porches and patios and maybe a couple other things as well that just can't recall right now. But essentially what we're trying to do is to find what actually constitutes floor area for the purposes of making sure that somebody doesn't exceed floor area ratio for a particular parcel in a residential setting. And it's a little bit different out in the East County because things are just much bigger and more spaced. And those instances really have measured the determining floor area. And again, we try to put two things in either a residential bucket or a non-residential bucket So it's the same kind of term, but they use completely differently depending on where you're at So in East County where we have measure D is there a different definition of covered patio versus an uncovered patio is there I mean What what I heard you say and I think I understand better if you can live in it then that's a structure and that's a flora area ratio if it's something you can't live in then that is not a deck if it's made of unpurmable concrete, maybe is different than a deck made of permeable, whether it's wood or permeable pavers or a permeable substance, substrate so that water can flow through it and be absorbed. I guess I'm trying to understand where we can have floor area ratio needs to be counted versus doesn't need to be counted. For example, patios, decks, walkways, things like that. Yeah, those if they're uncovered then we would not count those, generally speaking. But I covered arena for a horse is covered then we would not count it. No, we would count that as floor area. We count covered horse arenas as floor area ratio, even though there's no walls. We count as floor area. Floor area. Yeah. A floor area. Yeah. This area that's, you know, the floor area underneath the structure. That was one of the reasons why we did the 22 measure de-emendment was to allow more floor area, particularly for agricultural buildings like Covered arenas. So we solved that by not counting it by not uncounting it as floor area, we solved it by allowing more floor area. That's right. So right now the current definition is if it's covered, even though you can't live in it, you can't live in a horse arena, you can't live in a covered patio. If it's covered, it counts as floor area. Floor area, yes. And again, the two buckets of the ratio. In the calculation of the ratio. Okay. Yeah. And do we, is that a definition that we control by our ordinance or was that actually elucidated in the measure D that voters voted on? Well, it's a, you know, it's been a longstanding conversation about what constitutes development, but essentially if it's, it's a building, development, and that's how measured these sort of defines the floor area. If it's a building, then it's likely to have floor area as part of it. Let's say it's an outbuilding, a barn or something like that, you know, 5,000 square foot barn. It may not be habitable. It may not even have services like plumbing or electrical, but if it's got a roof on it and it's used for, for example, in this case, farming implements, then it would be a non-residential floor area that would calculate towards that. And then similarly, if there were like a house, of course, that would be residential floor area. Specifically speaking about a covered whether it's or gazebo or a walkway or a patio detached patio from detached from a home or a commercial building but made with a permeable floor and no side walls how can we can we is it within our discretion to define that as outside of floor area? Can our body take action to do that? Well I think that, I don't quite understand the question. I mean if you have a permeable floor, then with no roof, then that would not be floor area. A permeable floor with a roof. Yes, but if it had no roof then it wouldn't even count as floor area at all. Can we define a floor area with a roof but no side walls and a permeable substrate? Can we make the decision to calculate that as not counting in floor area? Our definition, our working definition, and measure D territory essentially that if it does require a building permit and has a roof and we've accounted for floor area. And I think that is somewhat baked into a measure D. But we have over the years sort of talked about different definitions or potentially changing definitions. And I think that was something that that's actually what led to the 2022 ballot amendment was because we did not have a really good way to do that technically. So we went from point O one to point O two FAR specifically for ag buildings. I see. Well, a building with walls is different than a walkway without walls. So maybe we'll take it offline, but I'm getting at, if you can't live in it and if it doesn't have walls, then I'm not sure it should be counted as floor area. But this was very helpful. I appreciate the comments that got to the top. Sure. And I wasn't, I didn't live through all of the evolution as painful as it was for my colleague. I didn't live through it myself. So Sandy, were you going to add something? No. It was covered as it relates to the 2022 ballot measure. Thanks. Do we have any public comment on questions, comments from my colleague? Anything? I really just appreciate all the questions and the staff responses. And yeah, I don't know if we're going to go to that road again, but if we do, then I'll just hold my breath. Very good. Any public comment on this item? I have no speakers for item two. Thank you very much. We'll close item two then and move to item three. This is the application process for applying for an accessory dwelling unit, an ADU. And I note that this process requires multi-agency work. So I believe we have staff report from community development and also public works. Albert, are you going to take this up? Yes, yes, I'll give the planning perspective as you know state law essentially has made 80 use or accessory drill and units for the most part a ministerial process, which means that we essentially if they meet the standards, then they only need to get a building permit. And we sign off on that within about one or two days, once they submit the building permit application. We're very, I would say, pro-ADU in the department overall. And there is a lot of interest in ADUs from the public, both in the Ag lands as well as in the built urban environment. They do help us with our read-in numbers for housing element purposes, and we do expect there to be hundreds of ADUs built in this planning period during this housing element cycle at a variety of income levels. And so again, the state law is very law is very permissive on the size and the location and amount of parking that's required. And some of this is no parking is required. There is no, this is quite different than let's say 10 years ago when you had to get, you know, your neighbors to sign off on it and maybe even get a planning permit for something like an ADU. But now it's essentially, you know, we don't really deny any ADU, I would say, unless it's some sort of extreme case when somebody's just doing something that's, you know, pretty far away from what state law permits. But again, it is something that is, for the most part, once they will contact the planning department, ask them general questions about size and location, parking and things like that. And once we provide that information, they usually go right to a building permit. And then we have to sign off on that, of course, that doesn't take very long at all. And that's really the planning process. I mean, again, it's very simple compared to how it used to be. And we're very pro-ADU. As you know, the county has invested a lot of other resources into ADU, not just through CDA, but also public works in terms of allowing, having some pre-approved plans and such, which I don't want to still PWA stunder or anything like that, and let them describe that. That's a good start. Thank you. Just to clarify, planning will take a planning permit, but the actual verification that the construction is done according to code that materials used are the required specifications that the electrical and plumbing all meet code. That's a building function. Correct. And that's in the public works department. Yes. And just to clarify, there is no planning permit required. I would say in 99% of the cases. Okay. Mr. Will Desmond, but welcome back. Thank you. Anything to add? Yes, so as Albert said, the main issue with the ADU is really through the approval process of initially going through the entitlement and all those things. Those have been optimized by state law and planning has been doing excellent job facilitating that. Once it gets to building, basically they have to follow the building called standard requirements. And we shared with all applicants, checklists and detailed checklists and how to go about doing it. And they can go through the portal process of sharing one of the pages that we have posted and share with the applicants. You can, you know, they can basically follow the same protocol like any permit. Where the facilitation comes in is that planning, like Albert says, takes about a day or two to approve it. And we go through the process of as long as they provide complete sets of building plans, including plumbing, electrical, mechanical, all those things are done. They get permits in a very fast-tracked manner from building. There are some pre-approved plans that if they choose to use pre-approved plans, then the only thing that they have to do is really show how that pre-approved plan matches with their site condition. And that will also reduce the amount of time it takes to review and approve the plan. So it is really working very well in terms of approval process. It's very seamless and efficient. Very good. So while there's no planning permit required, planning sign-off is required, and generally takes a day or two and the rest of the time. So I think I've heard that state law now currently, I don't know exactly when it changed, but recently, says that if we don't get back with approval to a client within a certain number of days then they have a quote unquote by right ability to build can we understand that better either from a planning perspective or a building perspective. State law seems to be changing all the time in favor of more aid to use but you are correct I can't remember the exact number in terms of number of days but I think it's between 30 and 60. It's a pretty short time period and you know we have come across an instance where we haven't provided that information in that amount of time there might be. Again there's always some sort of outlier someone trying to do something that will, you know, wild that might take us longer. But for the most part, it's a pretty standard process at this point. I note that in the past, we've also needed in the unincorporated area approval from environmental health because these ADUs always included septic tanks. Did state law change any of the approval processes or timelines related to the septic tank part of an ADU? Like is that also part of the 60 day or 30 day approval process or that may be an unfair question for you? Yeah, I can't speak to the environmental health of the regs. I imagine it probably could apply, but more of a legal question, I guess, because it's a state ordinance or a state law. Good morning. I want to echo staff's memory regarding 30 or 60. I don't have that in front of me right now, but the Department of Environmental Health is bound by the same timeline under state law. Okay, great. Then the last question I guess I have is when does that timeline begin? Does it begin with filling out the application? Does it begin with asking planning to start the one to two-day process for sign-off? Does it begin with the building department. Where does the where does that day begin? That date begin for the clock. Do we know? It begins upon the middle of the application to the local agency. Okay, and if they submit it incomplete, does that count against them or make them start over? Here, the planning departments instead of the agency that receives the application, they have a certain amount of time, whether that's 30 or 60 days, to respond to the applicant, let them know how their application is incomplete and how they can remedy that. Excellent. And as you mentioned, we haven't had anybody run a foul of that timeline where they all of a sudden can just build by right because of missing that 60 days or 30 days. I haven't been aware of any time that we've let the clock lapse and then someone's deemed approved. Thank you. Very good. Questions, comments from my colleague, Mr. President Milano? Yes, thank you. So do we have an inventory of the number of ADUs that have been and permitted since the law changed? Well, depending on which law, but yes, we do track them, the Billing Department and planning. We share that information. Mostly it gets reported annually in the housing element update. Yeah, I'm trying to recall you off the love of my head. What was the number? It's I want to say it was like 130. Yeah, and it's gone up quite a bit like since maybe 2015, it's really gone up exponentially. In the report, I think it was the housing element or whatever, did you indicate where these ADUs are? Like, Cashew Valley, East County, Sellerinzo, et cetera,ate. Yeah, we do have a map that was provided was part of our housing element But for our update we generally just do a tally But if you wanted to see a map, we can certainly do that. Well, I think that'd be very informative too So we can get ideas. Yeah, they're all over how it's kind of spread in the unincorporated area. And with the report, once again, I'm trying to recall, does it show which ADUs are detached and which are attached as well? We can provide that information. Because I'd be very interesting to see how many detached attach, 80 years we have, and how many are attached. Because I guess it's a different scheme if it's attached to a dwelling already. Yeah, the rules are slightly different, but again, they're very giving in terms of allowing people to do it. And we'd have to collect that information likely through the building permit. Because they actually say if it's detached or attached. Well, I don't know if the chair is coming back to us at some point. But if you could bring that information, if there's an update, let's just think of being formative for us to kind of track how this is working out. Because I do know the state's doing this to try to address the need for housing. But I think it's important for us to kind of get an idea. As I always say, have there been any unintended consequences of the actions, or if it's all been glamorous and good? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's probably more the latter, but I'm sure there's probably something packed out there. But yeah, we could provide a map and then also whether, you know, they're attached or detached. I see director will doesn't bet on still anything to add. Yeah, we we as the thing I shared earlier with you was for detaq. We also have checklist for both processes, detachment, none, and we track everything in our perma portal and was planning. I think this data will be readily available if you need them. However, our last planning to maybe, you know, integrate them into the housing element, kind of language that you're looking for. So otherwise the information is already available. Thank you. Very good. I do think that we're going to continue to see more and more ADUs as land becomes sparse as housing becomes more expensive. You're going to find those that have larger backyards, doing this, things like that. Garage conversions. Those also can be counted as ADUs. Correct. Interesting. We're also seeing new development incorporated used from the get-go in terms of like a new townhome or even a new detached single family having an ADU built into it as part of the initial entitlements that's also very interesting. It could be that an ADU would count towards affordable housing ratios. Yes. Otherwise known as granny units. Yeah we're able to distribute ADUs and count them at different affordability levels. Okay, very good. Thank you. Do we have any public comment on this item? I have no speakers for item three. Very good, we'll close the public comment. I am three and move to item four, an informational item on the applicant's rights to appeal I think questions around this item get to When an applicant has the ability to appeal whether it's a decision that they would like to appeal or whether it's, I note that applicants have sometimes taken a long time to get approval and when it comes past, say, the applicant period and they're required to pay fees again, they appeal that re application of a fee. So how do appeals work in general? So for just about every decision that comes out of the planning department, whether be through a staff level decision or board of zoning adjustments or planning commission. All those decisions are appealable. They're supposed to be timely. For example, a decision has 10 days. An agreed party has 10 days to appeal a decision to the higher body. As you know, we've seen a number of appeals at the board level for major planning permits, like a conditional use permit or even a site development review. And those, again, the applicant has given 10 days to appeal the decision to a higher body. It's $250 to do that. That fee was set many, many years ago and has been raised in quite a number of years. As you know, the board has the final decision on any appeal unless it's followed by litigation. And we've seen instances of both in the plan department. I mean, you're aware of some of those bigger projects that have been appealed and litigated. In terms of the fees, if you have a planning application in the department and it does take a number of years for whatever reason to develop and get to a board hearing, we normally wouldn't necessarily, we might charge more fees if it requires more staff time, but we wouldn't make you start all over from the beginning or anything like that. We would essentially, you know, the way that our deposits work is that you submitted deposit and then once that's exhausted, then we bill you for the additional time that it takes to process an application. There are applications that can take a number of years. I have one on my desk right now that I'm working on that. It's taken four years, used permit to go from essentially inception to a hearing and it's sort of, and it's because of SIKWA and environmental conditions that had to be explored with technical reports and more analysis and the applicant sort of took a break and so that is probably more an exception than the rule. But in those cases, yeah, the applicant still has to pay for the staff time that's devoted to an application. It's not that they're built consistently for four years, but if I have to stop and read an EIR for hours or something, then they get billed for that. And that can be sort of intermittent over that time, but there, I don't know that there's a, I guess they could appeal that if they wanted to, but I don't think I've seen it since this is where that's happened. And in terms of that staff billing, if there's some questions about it, there's no formal appeal, but the applicant can request the detail and we review that with the applicant. And so at that point, that's when there's some discussion about some of those, the costs incurred for the application processing. So it sounds like an application fee is more like a deposit toward time and can be very fluid. Correct. For some applications, not all applications are at cost. Some of them have a set fee. Okay. So if it's a set fee and takes longer than a year and they have to pay a second year or a second renewal of a set fee, then they're going to just get billed a separate fee. And that's generally because they took longer to get their stuff into us or, you know, how many times do we have a set fee application should be something that Last year, right, the fee. Generally last year, I think, right? If you pay a fee. The and it depends, oh, we can't have a list of fees, but the, when it's an application with the fee, however, the application's process, whether, whether there's a delay due to the applicant or some other information that's needed, they pay that set fee. When it's at cost, it's based on staff time. And so however long it takes to process that application, and staff time is committed to it, that's what they are built. How do we know which one it is? Is the applicant made aware? Is there a designation of an at cost fee versus a all-in fee. There is. When they fill in the application, they're informed of whether it's a deposit or whether it's an actual fee. Okay. And like you said, if they have questions about the detail behind that, maybe they want you to read faster than four hours, I don't know. But that's at our discretion at that point. We can give them the backup. Yes, yes, we have provided that backup. It is somewhat of a, for example, if you have a staff person that's really quick, then it might be less. That's a human factor that doesn't necessarily get captured in the fee always. If they they have an appeal then would they go through the planning department or the building department because I know that Planning signs off on it, but it's maybe not a planning permit it's a I mean if it's a planning permit for example conditional use permit then And they go to the they go to the bza and they get denied for example and they want to appeal that then that's they submit that appeal to the planning department and then we calendar it for the next available or an upcoming board of supervisors meeting. Same thing with the planning commission if they were to deny something or approve something and a neighbor want to appeal then it's also run through the planning department. There is they can always appeal directly to the board, the clerk of the board on an appeal, but generally it does come to the plan department. Have it ever been that we have just a typical application that's a set fee and we're going through the process, but it takes longer than a year, and we charge them another set fee because they have to renew that or reinstate that fee and. Now the set fees are set. So for example, if they have one example is cannabis, there was about five years ago I believe. I think it was maybe 2000 or so. And we created a set fee for use permits specifically for cannabis. So it's $5,000. And if it takes a year, then and and way more staff hours, then we just eat that. That's that's one example of a set fee. Other ones that are non-cannabis, those are the ones that, for example, after they pay the initial deposit, they could incur more costs if it takes more staff time than we just build them for the hours that we took on the application. Very good. Thank you. I see, Mr. Will Desenbet back on any thoughts or comments before we go to my colleagues questions and comments. Sure. So I think some of the questions you're raising probably kind of go into building permit building permits have a life cycle of primarily one year and if they could not meet that one year they have to renew for a reduced amount of fee. The fees are established by the board during a budget process on all of our fee schedules. The one challenge that we usually get into is if an applicant's building permit lasts more than two and a half years, three years, then you get into these court changes, you know, trial or code changes, the code changes every three years by the state and we adapted it through there. So if somebody has to extend beyond the current, the application period code, then we almost treat the application as a new application because we have to review it under the new building code. So, but very rare, by the way, maybe in the last 10 years, I would say we might have had one or two. So it's not a very big recurring issue. However, a lot of people would like to get extensions of the building permits from, you know, the year will expire, usually financing or trying to get some kind of issue resolved, and we work with them, but the fees are strictly established by the board through the valuation of the actual improvements. And as you know that all of us are on a cost recovery, not we don't make money out of this. This is strictly a cost recovery strategy. So they pay what we consider to be a fair cost recovery basis fees. So however, the only time that you see some dramatic issue, I think in the last 10 years, I might have seen one is where somebody's building permit has lasted, has gone beyond the tri and it'll hold a period where we have to require them to resubmit the application under the new code, which will basically treat the application as a new application. Very good, thank you. So, Revising Myley, questions, comments? Oh, yes, I have both. I'm glad you kind of put this on the agenda, Mr. President, Mr. Chair. So in one skin, I'm not trying to cause any trouble. I'm just going to talk a little bit here. So the great thing about the President Board of Supervisors is all the supervisors have been on city councils. to where's Howard was on Dublin, can was on Alameda, where Kessas on Hayward, both Bass and I were on Oakland. Now, I would surmise in bet that most, if not all, of those cities, planning handles, building permits. And since I've been here, that's been a function of public works. We've kind of talked about it in the past, but it might be interesting to have a management audit to determine should we be reorganizing and putting building under planning. You know, the county made that switch before I was here. I don't know what the rationale was or anything like that. But Mr. President, Mr. Chair, if you wanna go down that road, that might be an interesting inquiry for us to kind of take up in this committee, either initially just with the staff or have a management audit. So that's one thing. Secondly, I know we are very concerned, and I know the Mr. President, Mr. Chair, is very concerned as I am with the permit process in the length of time. And it takes to get through the permanent process for our clients, our clientele out there. And we've had issues with environmental health. Once again, this committee could take up the responsibility to determine whether or not environmental health should be within the health care agency and whether or not the board of supervisors should be directly responsible for hiring the director of environmental health and put that function once again under our jurisdiction directly as opposed to a report to the health care services agency. Now the board made that change too before I was here and before all of us, but it might be an interesting inquiry once again either have the departments come in and present or have a management audit if it's a management audit I'm sure it's going to take us more time and money but I do think Mr. President Mr. Chair we need to be doing management audits and performance audits in the county we often have fiscal audits to look at whether or not we are spending our money well and appropriate. And we, I think we've done an excellent job there, but I'm constantly concerned about management and performance. And there are two separate types of audits, management and performance. And I really think the board has an obligation to kind of take a look at our departments and agencies and determine whether under contemporary thinking these are the best practices at this point in time or whether we need to be doing some restructuring. Now as it relates to, and this relates to the appeals because you brought it up, I think, you know, if we need to do some more fee studies, then maybe we shouldn't and I'm saying that because if the fee has been raised for certain appeals, then maybe we potentially need to take to a fee study and take a look at whether or not we should be raising the fees. We don't want to do it to produce a chilling effect on appeals, but there might be certain categories of appeals where we do need to raise other fee. Now, as relates to cannabis, I would oppose raising the fees because the reason we didn't, we kind of controlled the fees with cannabis was because the cannabis industry is not an industry that's recognized by the United States government. And so until the cannabis industry can be a legitimate industry and they can receive all the the benefits that any business in this country receives tax write-offs to sat in the other from the federal government We need to because you know cannabis isn't legal in all states Some states are municipal cannabis is legal some states is legal, but it's not legal at all 50 states. So until the government, I'm talking about the federal government recognizes cannabis as a legitimate business like alcohol, tobacco, retail, I mean, legitimate business and it can receive all the benefits of a legitimate business in this country. Then I think we need to kind of be more lenient when it comes to the cannabis industry and their ability to operate. And you know, a lot of the operation is still unlawful in the black market just because we've produced a situation that if penalized cannabis. Not us now, I mean county, it's a government, but collectively it's a government in California. So and then the other thing with the appeals process, when certain things are repealed to the board of supervisors, we do have the ability if we think it's justified. We can remind, remain that back to the Planning Commission or to the Board of Zoning Adjusters because new evidence has come to our attention. It may be the Planning Commission or the BGA might have made a different decision as they had the similar evidence or understanding of the evidence. He had that option as well. And that's something that's in our lawful regulatory appeal process. Is that correct? Yeah, that's minute. Yes, that is correct. And all appeals that come to the border, Denovo here. You can look at fresh information if you want or you can remand it back. Right. And I just think that's an important feature that we need to keep in mind, because we have remanded things back to the Planning Commission or the BDA. It's been very limited, but we have that ability to do. And then once again, if the board makes decision, our decision is final, subject to a court challenge being litigated. Okay. So this is all very fascinating topics, Mr. President, Mr. Chair. So I like to call him Mr. President, Mr. Chair. So I like to call Mr. President, Mr. Chair, even though I miss, I hear he often says I'm a senior, but he's Mr. President, Mr. Chair. So thank you. Thank you for the comments and especially when we preface them with, I don't mean to cause trouble. But as our esteemed wise elder, a question I have, and you mentioned that all these changes were made before we came on board, do you think this is something that ought to be brought before transportation planning or unincorporated services? Or we be holding a joint? Committee meeting since I believe you're fond of joining me. Yeah, you know, I think you could do as a joint meeting Or we can just do it here because I think the jurisdiction The unincorporated services committee is more pliable and flexible and it gives the community an opportunity to participate because our meetings take place in the community at the San Lorenzo Laperay. So it just gives, and that's the urban unincorporated area typically. It gives them an opportunity to be more engaged, but this committee, me, it's in planning, seems to be more focused on, you know, the nuts and bolts. And it's not as convenient for folks from that corporate area, whether it's East County or the urban on the corporate area, to make it to our meetings because it's during the day in the morning, et cetera. There have been a few occasions since I've been here, very few, where we've taken translation planning out to the community and done like an evening meeting or something, but it's rare. So, you know, I think we can either consider joint or we could just take it on ourselves and then refer to on a corporate services so that the community would have a chance to weigh in if they so choose. And I know you're looking at East County Mac as well. So very good. Well, I'll take it back with staff with my staff to as we look at the agenda in the near future for Schedule in some of that discussion. Thank you Any other comments from staff? Seeing none any public comment on this item I Have no speakers very good removes the item five public comment on items not on today's agenda We have any speakers we have no speakers for public comment think we set a record 35 minutes. We are adjourned