Topics included:
- The notes cover planning/ City Council meetings emphasizing administrative housekeeping, signage/penalties, and leadership changes (Connelly elected chair, Harry vice chair) alongside substantive development reviews.
- Planning items include the Railroad Subdivision being advanced/approved 5-0 (lot sizes ~1,600–1,700 sq ft, garage placement, appeal window) and public comments on Nevada County developments and potential AB 1600 annexations.
- Demolition and preservation dominate: discussion of a pre-1942 building on South Sosa and a 606 Gold Flat Road site, weighing demolition vs. site-plan-driven renovation; a key policy states no demolition until all permits (including site plan) are obtained, with a 3-2 vote to not consider demolition without a site plan and calls for legal clarification.
- Options for the old house include gutting/office use, preserving exterior with modifications, or minimal demolition; ongoing questions about applying demolition rules to industrial sites and dating additions.
- Procedural/legal questions focus on whether demolition decisions can occur without a site plan, involvement of engineers/attorneys, and voting procedures; transparency concerns lead to debates about minutes, attendance, and whether video/audio should be the official record.
- Broad critique of the planning process: perceived applicant bias, incomplete applications, and environmental review quality; proposals to tighten processes, improve handling of public input, and require independent CEQA subconsultants; disputes over ARC’s mitigated negative declaration for a large project (80-unit West Broad Street).
- The Planning Commission’s role is debated—neutral arbiter versus public-interest advocate; tensions over whether ARC should be staff-driven or commissioners’ independent critique to secure better studies and mitigations.

Full Transcript of the Video:

He did it just before you got here, Marie.

That's good, no, I like it.

Thanks.

Okay, approval of minutes.

June 12, 2001.

Should read July 12th.

I thought so.

Sorry, I apologize.

Oh, let's see what you're doing.

July 12, 2001.

Okay.

I think that's something on July 12th also.

Alrighty.

I have on page one, under continued items, the sign review for Grand Marist Inn.

That should be noted that I abstained from this item.

So it carried 3-0.

Okay.

Page 3, the first line.

Commissioner Weaver stated he wanted on the next agenda an item stating that due to changes, the commission of reorganization of the planning commission is needed.

I requested that that be the first item on the agenda after the approval of minutes.

And I wanted to have that happen.

You want me to move this up here?
Yes.

And along with that, these other items, since these are sort of in-house things, it would be nice to be at the end.

That's what I thought as well, yeah.

Page 5.

That first large paragraph, the last sentence, Mr.
Weaver stated he is against the variance to build a new garage, but was happy to see the deck returning back to original.

What I did is I pointed out that when approval was given six years ago to demolish the old existing garage, the owner at that time was advised that if somebody wanted to come along and build a new garage, they would have to conform to all these setbacks and so forth.

The previous owner was advised of that very strongly.

I happened to be on the commission at that time.

And then the last page, Commissioner Weaver stated he would like all unpermitted signs removed on the Sierra Spa building.

I believe that was Commissioner Oberholtzer's item.

I was concerned with the signs on the consignments.

Unlimited, whatever that, over at the parking lot building.

No, it's not on the consignments.

That should say the consignment store.

The little shop that used to be straight cuts next to the parsonage, that one.

The book store.

Whatever it is now.

You mean the new antique store.

There's so many signs on it, I can't tell whether it is.

The book store is actually next to the parsonage.

He's referring to the.

.

.

That's the one he means.

But he brought all three of those up.

And the shop on the corner of York and commercial that used to be.

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L'Allu?
No.

Is that what it is now?
It's a Charlotte's place.

It used to be Charlotte's.

Now it's with all those banners and things that are out there.

Well, they were other than the other building on lower commercial.

But as much.

.

.

Spirit House.

It's actually a visual hazard when you're driving up that street.

The flag things?
Yeah, flapping all over the place.

So that's all I had.

And I have a couple of things.

Page four.

One, two, three, four, five paragraphs down.

Motion by Weaver, recommend the City Council consider a civil penalty ordinance.

I think part of the motion was to pass that recommendation on to the City Council.

I wouldn't expect that they would hear about it any other way.

And as I understand, there was a big discussion of this the other night.

And I don't think anybody let the City Council know of our recommendation.

I think it would have been a good night to begin discussion of a civil penalty ordinance.

They had these minutes in their packet.

Come on.

You're going to ask them to weed through five.

.

.

They didn't know that there was.

.

.

I think I explained it or something was explaining it.

I don't know.

I understand it.

Nobody passed our recommendation on.

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.

Well, I'm sure they had these minutes.

But they were having a discussion of this whole after-the-fact demolition ordinance.

And if we need to write an official letter every time we want to recommend something to the City Council, or if we need to be there to make the recommendation, Paul, I think you just need to let us know.

And I'd be happy to show up and give our recommendation.

But our recommendation was not raised that night.

And I know I talked to two City Council members who had no idea that we had made that recommendation.

Couldn't recommendations go as a separate piece of the minutes to them?
I mean, it goes in the minutes still.

But in addition to that, if we do make any.

.

.

Because, I mean, it is a practical matter for them.

We don't expect them necessarily to read through it all and pick out what's pertinent to that meeting.

No, it could.

It just seems such a small town.

I mean, you know, they were going to discuss it at the following meeting.

It seems like staff could have, you know, passed on that recommendation.

We can.

.

.

We will pass on the recommendation.

As you saw last time, the City Attorney was, you know, mentioned that a certain system has to be set up.

So we can put that on the City Council agenda and everybody can be prepared to discuss it.

Okay.

On that vein, all we were doing with that whole proposed ordinance was giving our recommendations to the City Council.

We were reviewing what was prepared.

And that was one of our recommendations, was that they.

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.

Yeah, all your recommendations were in their packet.

Well, I think.

.

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This was above and beyond what they got in the little ordinance.

I think we ought to send them a letter.

And maybe that should be our policy whenever we have a special recommendation, which doesn't happen that often.

We ought to just put it in a letter.

That was just the first reading the other night, so maybe we should advise them so that they can.

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Get it there in time.

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take into consideration for the next meeting.

Okay.

We recommend that they take our recommendation and be recommended.

Just so that they'll be able to see it.

Okay.

And then on page five.

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Actually, Lori, I forwarded this memo, which is the one that really should be attached, not the one that is attached.

And in my opening remarks, I suggested that it was proposed that a strict and stiff civil penalty be applied.

And so, you know, it came to them as correspondence.

They should have been aware of it.

And they made reference to that letter the other night at the meeting.

Yeah, I just.

.

.

I mean, you know.

.

.

The two Councilmembers, I talked.

.

.

It's not the same having the official stamp of approval, but it was.

.

.

I don't think it got passed on to them very effectively as a recommendation since at least two of the Councilmembers didn't.

.

.

Hadn't even heard the term before, so.

.

.

Probably didn't read their package.

Probably didn't read their package as carefully as they could have, but I think when we go so far as to make an official recommendation, which again, isn't that often.

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That they ought to hear about it from staff or in a letter from ourselves or.

.

.

So are we going to write a letter in regards to this one?
And directing Paul to do that?
Or one of us could write it.

I'd be happy to write it.

Okay.

Well, the City Attorney was here and he.

.

.

Yeah, he was.

You know, he.

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You can write the letter, but I'll just tell the City Attorney that this is on so he can also talk about it.

Okay.

Since the City Attorney is sitting in the audience, can we just.

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.

There he is.

Like mentioned to him now, then you don't have to write a letter.

You can just say, "Mr.
City Attorney, would you please follow up on that recommendation?"
I will.

Okay.

I think we have to still write a letter.

Okay.

Go ahead, boy.

It was her last time, so.

.

.

And then on page five, underneath the three little asterisks near the bottom of the page, also stated she would like the landscape ordinance and the architecture review thing, agendas.

This is the second time I asked for it and I just, as a reminder, it again did not appear on this agenda.

And the reason I've been putting these things in the minutes is so there's a record of the fact that I asked for it, so.

.

.

That will be on the August 9th and you'll have in your packet the current regulations.

So August 9th for that one?
We do have copies of the regulations.

I'll give a special thank you.

And then the only other thing was this attachment.

Was this the wrong attachment?
Yeah.

Good.

Because, you know, I know when you wrote this memo I wasn't here and this isn't what really happened, so.

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I would hate history to reflect that I did anything unilaterally because that isn't what happened.

Okay.

Now, that is my correction and I'll give this to the family.

This is the correct memo that I want to catch.

And you probably never saw that one, so you had no idea what it was.

It's a different one.

The other one, just take that off.

You want me to add this to these?
You're going to replace this.

You take this one off.

I had, well, one real minor and then a few others.

One is my.

.

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Tammy, my last name is ACK instead of AK.

I don't have a name played here yet, so.

.

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You wouldn't know that.

Another.

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On page four, one, two, three, four, five, six down, Commissioner Prusak stated he would like.

.

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The commission to view other alternative penalties, that wasn't in reference, was not in reference to demolition.

That was in reference to people who get a building permit and go against the permit that I'd like us to look for, not just look at demolition, but start looking at other violations of building permits and what recourse is there for that.

I was saying that in the minutes my reference to alternative penalties was not in reference to demolition permits, but in reference to other violations of building permits done by people of permits to build.

And then on page five, about two-thirds of the way down, Commissioner Prusak stated he would deny the proposal, even if the fire issues were worked out.

What I had actually said before that was that it seems that we've already spent staff time and money in the letter from the fire chief is clear, and if it's going to cost us more money to have him come back, I see there's no reason to continue the item.

And that's it.

Move for approval of the minutes with corrections.

I'll say.

Okay.

All those in favor?
Aye.

Opposed?
All right.

Now, May 10th.

Do you want that one at the back of the bus, Holly?
At the back with the -- it's all part of the training and discussion.

I wasn't sure about that.

Okay.

Okay, then we're going to reorganization of the Commission.

Discussion and possible action for reorganization -- excuse me.

On July 12th, Commissioner Weaver requested this item because there is new membership on the Commission.

Okay.

Yeah, I think it's pretty self-explanatory, I think, because of the new makeup of the Commission.

I would like to make a motion that we have a nomination for new officers.

Okay.

I'd like to -- we don't need a motion to do that, do we?
I don't think so.

I don't know.

Well, I'd like to know what the justification for this is.

Well, I'll -- we did reorganize when I came on the Commission.

We did reorganize when kindly came on the Commission.

We reorganized when kindly came on the Commission.

Well, do you want to be a motion?
I'll second it.

I'll second the motion forward so that we can discuss why.

This might be a good idea.

I -- we've changed chairs many times for many reasons.

I was the chair for a few months, and, you know, then we changed kind of midstream, and Dennis was the chair for a while, and then, you know, I think one year we had three different chairs, so I do think with the change of the makeup of the Commission, it's a good idea to assess, you know, where we want to go with who the chair is.

I think it's a logical time, and we don't have any bylaws that state we should do anything differently, so I think it's a good idea.

Okay.

Any further discussion?
All right.

Should we vote?
There was a motion.

Oh, to vote.

For a reorganization.

I thought you didn't make it a motion.

No, I seconded it.

Oh, okay.

So we're just going to vote on whether or not we should vote.

Okay.

We're making -- okay.

Whether we should vote -- whether we should have a reorganization.

Okay.

All right.

All those in favor?
Aye.

Opposed?
No.

Okay.

I'd like to nominate Connelly.

He's got years and years and years of experience, and I don't want to do it, so -- That's a good reason.

So -- and even though I've got some experience, I would -- I like not being the chair, so -- Mm-hmm.

And I think Connelly would do a great job.

Mm-hmm.

Does the nomination need a second?
No.

I think you just make nominations.

Okay.

Do we want to vote?
Unless there's any other nominations.

I'm not going to nominate anybody.

No?
Okay.

All those in favor?
Aye.

Opposed?
No.

Okay.

Now, what about vice chair, guys?
Oh, I guess we should do that, too.

Oh, first of all.

Want to move over?
Move over first.

I get to sit next to Lori.

Ready?
And draw all numbers.

No, that's fine.

No, no, no.

Just kidding.

I'm going to sit next to Lori.

I've always been on the other side.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

I'm going to entertain a motion -- or entertain a nomination for our vice chairman.

Harry.

I'm going to nominate Harry.

Well, I think as long as we're having our little reorganization, you ought to do it from the top.

So I'm not going to accept that.

I didn't accept that.

Okay.

Thanks.

Well, I'd be happy to take it.

I've been vice chair lots of times.

It doesn't tell too much.

No, not usually.

I'll second that.

Okay.

Any discussion?
All in favor?
Aye.

Opposed?
No.

Aye.

Okay.

Okay.

Now I ask that the two items that show on the agenda -- one of the approval of the minutes for the May 10th meeting and the item review of the 80-unit Broad Street project be relegated to the end of the agenda so that we can get the public items out of the way so that the people don't have to stay here if they don't want to.

So that moves us on to continued items, architectural review, 596 railroad avenue, Stephen and Joan Desena, applicant.

Do we have representatives here?
I heard you were at railroad.

That's all.

Is it 588 railroad?
596 railroad -- Right.

Follow.

Did you bring it?
I don't know.

It's helpful so the audience can hear you.

This is a proposal to continue the development of the railroad subdivision.

These are undersized lots.

This particular lot is 6,943 square feet.

The home would be 1,619 square feet as proposed with a 400-square-foot garage.

The lot coverage is 31 percent.

That's pretty much my report and anything you want to add?
Please do.

Did you say 16?
It was 1169.

Let's see what happened there.

1169.

The second floor was 450 square feet.

That's totally unfinished.

That's going to be unfinished.

Eventually it will be about 1,600 foot up.

That's what's mandated for that area.

So the floor area won't be built out in the beginning, but at some point you will do that.

This is for Steve DeSenna and I developed this property years ago.

Excuse me, sir.

Can you introduce yourself and your name and address for the railroad?
I'm Bud Newman.

And address?
Pardon me?
Address.

882 Gold Flat, Nevada City.

Okay.

This is for Steve DeSenna.

It's for his mother.

And she currently lives over in Cypress Hills and he wants to get her beside him.

Right so he can look after her.

Anyway, it's designed now for the -- we're just going to finish the first floor.

And then when time passes, we'll finish off the second floor and it will be the 1,600 foot that's allowed for that area.

Other than that, it's just a little framed house with an attached garage.

I still have those.

The only issue I have is that -- Can I see this?
I actually didn't.

It's the one that I didn't get.

Some of the houses are looking absolutely exactly alike over there, which is something our design guidelines guide us not to do.

So I don't know, the only one that I can think of that's possible given the -- Is there any way to put the garage door on the side rather than in the front?
Well, yeah, you could for about $6,000 or $8,000.

But that would use up probably another 10 or 15% a lot.

And we were trying to get away from that.

I don't remember.

Why would it cost that much more?
Well, you're going to have to grade it.

You have to take it down.

See, you're driving straight in as opposed to coming around and there's about a 6% slope and you probably have to take it down another 4 feet.

3 feet anyway.

I just want to say, anybody else have to?
I think we ought to approve it and let him go home.

Yeah, my feeling is that I agree with you, Lori, on the one hand in isolation.

But my feeling -- and this is not a slight on the development there -- but my feeling is that the development is not consistent already with the general plan, the design guidelines, the way a lot of the houses were constructed there, architecturally speaking.

Where?
In that subdivision, in the railroad.

The other houses that everyone of them meets -- Back, size and everything.

I'm talking about design guidelines, though, architectural design.

It's not a slight on you.

It's just my interpretation of the general plan, the design guidelines.

And so that being the case, trying to create a house that's more authentic in that area, because it's surrounded by other homes there, it's not like it's on the end.

It's a corner lot that has houses on two sides, in a sense.

I don't really see the purpose of that.

The house, Brighty Jason, it doesn't have the gingerbread, but it's a traditional looking house.

The last we did down the street is a traditional looking house, and it has some gingerbread.

Well, I think that the houses are pretty traditional looking and generally look nice.

I think where we've fallen down -- and I don't even know if we even thought about it as we were going along -- I think we approved each individual one.

I don't think we were thinking about making them look different.

That's where I think we fell down.

Once again, I'd like us to start working a little bit more on making garages less visible and new.

That's all.

But I'm willing to just go ahead with it.

I mean, it faces Woods Court rather than railroads, so it's not as visible as if it faced railroads.

I move for approval as presented.

I'm not.

Discussion under discussion since I didn't have a chance to discuss it.

As far as the garage facing the street, when you get into something like a cul-de-sac that we have here, I don't think it's just owners.

And this sort of completes the project.

Yeah, there's only -- excuse me, sir.

Excuse me, there's two more lots, but they would be pretty expensive to build on, so they're nothing to be put on them for a long time.

And to as well as you, Victor, I think it's just sort of the final piece of a bad idea.

They look nice and it's well-maintained.

Oh, it looks, the area is -- And it's a real neighborhood, too.

I mean, there were kids out there playing when I was looking around.

Well, we did one really good thing with that subdivision.

Glenda will remember the ones on railroad, we required that they be under 1700 square feet.

1600.

That's what it would be when it's finally finished.

Right.

So maybe this is one of those parcels, too.

But we were concerned about the big house syndrome.

So I think we stepped out on that one and did a pretty good job.

So we have a motion and a second.

All in favor?
Aye.

Opposed?
Five-zero.

Okay.

That it?
Thank you.

There's a 15-day appeal period for anybody that's -- I got back to work.

Okay.

Next item, hearing for the public, comments on items not on the agenda are welcome at this time.

However, action or discussion by the commission may not occur at this time.

Comments are limited to three minutes, please.

Does anybody have anything to address the commission about?
My name is Abby Gilgivens and I live at 11650 Banner Mountain Trail.

And I've put up this zoning district map there with some bright pink flags at points of activity that I'm aware of and I expect there are probably others that I'm not aware of.

But I just find it helpful as we're going through some of these projects to have an idea of how much is actually kind of happening around town and how much we appreciate the planning commission's hard work and dealing with so many issues all at the same time.

I did want to make a couple of brief comments.

The Deer Creek Park 2 project.

Which is over here.

It comes off of Red Dog Road.

It's about 580 acres with a proposed 193 houses.

It's in the county.

The county is now in the process of bidding out the EIR.

We really need citizen input for that and they're going to do night meetings for it.

So keep watching your Nevada County website at the -- >> Abigail, you should be addressing the commission.

You should be -- please, not the audience.

>> I'm sorry.

>> Thank you.

Pardon.

Secondly is the 20 city lots up on American Hill.

I just was up there a few days ago and it seemed to me there was an awful lot of grading and I've just begun to kind of go through that file and I didn't see any notification of variances having been passed for steep slope grading.

I could be wrong in that case.

But I just wondered now that that's under construction and Chief Kelly Drive is under construction whether we're kind of keeping an eye on that process up there.

And then very recently I know there's quite a lot of pressure to annex parts of the county into the city and I'm sure part of the reason is that really need for funds in the city by annexing property which can then be developed at a much denser rate than it would have been in the county.

Obviously increasing our AB 1600 funds and all other kinds of support for the city.

But we can get into a vicious cycle if we annex so quickly that we really can't meet all that infrastructure needs.

And the project in specifics that I'm aware of is about 100 acres just off Gracie.

I think it's called St.

Francis Wood.

Would someone correct me if I'm wrong?
That's correct.

And I understand that several ladies from out of the area believe on it and there's beginning to be a conversation at the city level and I'm very interested and would just like to know when the ARC meetings are going to be.

I do understand they've already begun to discuss street names and so forth.

So I would have thought an ARC might have come by now but maybe I missed it.

Thank you.

Anybody else wish to address the commissions?
Staff approvals and determinations.

Certain staff decisions have a discretionary nature and subject to appeal.

Other decisions are narrowly administrative and not subject to appeal.

At this time audience members may comment on the following items.

For appeal requests please contact the city planner.

We have a minor architectural approval of 416 Zion Street which was a re-roof.

Just a re-roof?
That's all this week.

Very quiet.

I used soft hammers.

Any comments on it?
Okay, new items.

Three removals.

648 Zion Street, minor group, applicant Randall Fazell.

Is it Fazell?
Mr.
Fazell here.

Anybody representing?
I'd like to put this one off anyway because I couldn't quite figure out where all the trees were.

Probably if I'd had more time I could have but this map doesn't have a north arrow or any kind of arrow It also doesn't show where the street is.

I think I finally figured it out but it was hard.

Well we will continue this item since there's no.

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So Laura you asking that the.

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.

Tell me where is the street?
Back of the back of the building.

So Zion is out here.

Parking lot curls back down to the other house.

So that's reward on the right hand side?
I had it backwards.

Is it far back corner?
No, on the side though.

I just thought I'd be able to figure it out real quickly when I went out there and I didn't.

There actually be the back of the house next door.

Back of the house next door.

I wanted another map anyway because I was unable to count the existing trees to see what that situation was.

So we will continue that item and request a more detailed map be prepared.

Demolition of pre-1942 building 606 Gold Flat Road.

John L.

and Miles Brokaw.

Can the gentlemen please state your name and address?
Actually for the record it's John R.

Brokaw not John L.

Thank you.

And I've chosen Michael Taylor to help me in representing this project.

And you're located?
The project is on South Sosa.

Your residence?
13901 Highland Drive off Rattlesnake.

688 South Auburn.

Thank you.

Paul?
This is an application to demolish an existing building that is pre-1942.

As I mentioned in the staff report that long time local resident Joe Day recalls the house from his youth back in the 1920s and 30s.

And since the packet went out he provided a letter to the city which I'll pass down.

Looks like we've got plenty of copies for anybody in the audience as well.

And that's simply to establish a date when the building was built.

There is a letter by civil engineer David Long that states that the add-ons are poorly constructed with no foundation footings.

And that is the structural report basically for this building.

As I mentioned in the staff report that's a typical situation for any of our older houses in Nevada City.

The question of whether the building is unusable is not addressed in the application material.

And that's a very important question when determining whether to permit a demolition to occur.

As I mentioned during the Tom Stacer hearing at the city council level, Councilman Cottrell made the point that that house had been used up to the point that the application had been made for demolition.

So he felt that that showed its usability.

Now is Bill Falcone here?
Did the city engineer show up?
Well he is probably an emergency.

He might have an emergency at home.

So we were hoping he would be here too.

But anyway, that's the report that I have at this time.

How long has it been vacant?
There are renters in it.

There are renters in it.

And the lot is what size?
Three quarters of an acre.

0.

75 or 0.

77.

What can you tell us about the project?
This project was purchased by Mr.
Brokaw in 1991.

And he purchased the property when it was in the county and not in the city limits at that time.

And he purchased the property for the sole purpose of moving his established business in Grass Valley to Nevada City.

He was present at all the meetings for the annexation of that property into the city limits and was clear with the process that his intent was still to build or move his business from Grass Valley to that property.

And gave his support in the annexation of that property with an understanding during the annexation process.

As far as the building is concerned, I did a title search in every -- both -- I checked with the planning department.

I did a title search.

I went to records.

And there is no record of the date this house was built at all.

So I went and did a metro scan of all the residences that were built on Gold Flat Road.

And I included that in my package.

And there was one house in the turn of the century that's obviously a turn of the century house.

All the rest of the residences on Gold Flat Road were built between the year 1940 and 1948 in that era.

So we are out of the belief that that house was built sometime between 1940 and 1948.

I was not positive in the exact date of the building of the house.

So I checked the box and said -- because it could be a pre-1942 because I'm not absolutely positive.

As far as the house being built in 1920s, you can look at the design of the house and it clearly is built later than the '20s.

And you have the depression.

So I'm left to believe that it was built in the '40s.

With my background and experience, this is what it seemed to be built, the era was built in.

I did supply you guys with some photographs in my packet.

And I did have -- it blown these photos up so that you guys can -- here.

I was a subcontractor on the house on Broad Street on the renovation of that project, on the exterior part of the renovation of that with Bob Green.

And I thought I have a pretty good idea of what it would cost to renovate that building or to restore that building from that experience on that project.

And I also wrote a letter attached that I believe it would cost $175 to $225 a square foot to renovate this house to bring it to a residential current code.

I believe that it is in a commercial district to bring that house -- it would be, I think, nearly impossible to bring that house to a commercial code of public access.

Paul, was this industrial zone prior to the annexation?
Do you recall?
I know that was before you were in the area.

The borough is looking very astonished back there.

I don't know what the zoning was prior to the annexation.

It's rural residential.

It was clearly a commercial -- it was M in the county, it was M-whatever, and now it's L.

It was M-1.

In a sense, it was M -- I would probably agree with that, that of course was under the county zoning, it was M-1 at that time.

Yes.

And next, then, as L.

As L, as light industrial.

What should I know as your business?
Import auto service.

I'm sorry, I used to take my car to you all the time.

I know.

Actually, I do have something else to add.

I definitely would be asking for a mask of approval of the demolition of this building, but with the understanding that we would not demo this building until our entire project has been improved.

I've talked with Jack, we are more than willing to bond the project at the value of the house if for some reason we wanted to demo it prior to getting all of our acceptances in the county.

For example, if I were to get a grading permit prior to getting the -- we'd want to demo the -- I mean, there may be a reason to tear the house down sooner than getting all of the permits in place.

I'm trying to say.

It looks like Paul.

I'll just mention that the issue of what Mike was just talking about is discussed in a letter that was included in your packet where the city staff said that if perchance you got approval for demolition, that we would recommend as a condition that a bond be -- let me see if I can find the -- in addition, it says I have discussed your request to city staff accordingly if the planning commission does grant a demolition permit, your proposed condition of approval could legally be included as part of that motion.

That is what Mike is suggesting that he not demolish it until he gets site plan approval.

In addition, staff would also strongly recommend that a bond for the value of the existing residents be posted as soon as possible.

This is to provide additional assurance and under no circumstances would the building be demolished until such time as all necessary permits were acquired.

And one of the issues I think that needs to be discussed by the commission is is this house 1940s or is it 1920s because that makes all the difference as far as our ordinance is concerned.

We have here the letter that I sent out is an eyewitness account who remembers the house, Joe Day, and as from what I understand there are others who remember the house.

From the city staff point of view, there's no question that this is a pre-1942 house.

Well, I think we need to get into that too.

But I think this issue of approving a demolition, even if it's sort of approval as long as you don't tear it down before we get site plan approval, I think that's really a slippery slope to start going down or up or whatever because in the past we have just stayed away from that.

It's one of our -- I know you're not going to do anything you shouldn't do, but it has in the past been one of our greatest sticks that we just won't allow the demolition permit or approval until we see the site plan and agree to what is going to replace it.

So I would hate to even get into that, but even before we get into that, I think we can discuss if we decide it's pre-1942, I think we can discuss generally whether or not we think this ought to be demolished so that you'll have a feeling for where we might be going.

It won't be any kind of a guarantee if we don't vote on it.

But I think we should stick with past precedent for many, many, many, many years.

We just said we don't approve the demolition permit until we have the site plan and the architecture review on whatever is replacing it approved.

So I don't think we should change that.

But could I be willing to talk about whether or not we think it's a good idea to demolish it?
May I interject?
I don't know.

Are we doing it back and forth?
I think we're having our discussion right now.

Well, I think that, you know, I can certainly understand where the applicant is coming from.

He needs to know whether anything that he proposes is going to be acceptable in place of this existing building.

And I can certainly understand why he needs to know that before he goes and expends a lot of money having a building, a project designed, only to come back here and find out that he's stuck with his, you know, house of some questionable origin.

To me, the fact that it was, you know, however it got zoned L1 strikes me as that's the appropriate use of that property at this point.

And I don't think this old house is going to satisfy his requirements for the type of business that he's talking about.

Well, I guess, I mean, I'll just cut to the chase.

I do think it's pre-1942 based on the account here.

We have an ordinance that speaks to that.

It's pretty black and white.

I wonder if there's a way, it's a pretty big site, that, you know, the add-ons could be taken off and the structure could be used and incorporated into whatever buildings you need at your office.

And I mean, it could be gutted.

And as long as the exterior looks the same of the original part of the structure, I think, you know, my gut level feeling is you could really do something there.

I brought a site behind me that shows the footprint of the house.

Just because it's zoned industrial doesn't mean our demolition ordinance doesn't cross.

Could Tammy have a presentation on that?
So, Laurie, are you suggesting, though, that he could, after taking off those clear additions, that he could then add to the structure in the back?
If you kept the existing structure, you could gut it and make it part of your office.

Right.

If you need more square footage, you could add to it.

How come a partial demolition isn't a slippery slope?
I mean, the house is sitting on granite rocks on the piers.

There's no perimeter foundation.

The floor is several different levels.

How do you know when the additions were done?
Well, I'd be happy to keep all the additions.

I think some of them are clearly done way after when the original structure was done.

But if you want to entertain keeping those two to be a purist on the demolition ordinance, that'd be okay with me.

I don't think it's necessary.

Victor?
Well, it's hard to -- from the exterior, it's hard to see sort of what the integrity is of the original structure, obviously.

And I walked around it.

There were no adults home, and the kids didn't want to let me inside, so I was going to go inside.

But they did give me permission to poke around back and crawling underneath a little bit.

And I don't have -- I don't have an iota of the building experience that you have.

And I saw you working out on that house in the hot 100-degree weather there.

And -- because I was living across the street at the time.

But at the same time, we were renovating our house up on American Hill, and there's striking similarities when you get underneath.

And, again, without the experience and construction, I can see a lot of resemblances to the work that was done -- our house dates back to 1870s, but some additions put on 1920s, 1930s, and work.

And I see a lot of similarities there in the kind of wood that was used and how it was hewn, et cetera.

And I know that the later you get, that really starts to change because the machinery changed.

So I have a sense that it's older than the 1940s as well.

There are some other houses there already.

Obviously, there's some residences on that section of Gold Flat.

And I agree with Lori.

It'd be nice if you could, in a reasonable way, keep that central part of the house almost as what you see from Gold Flat and building behind it and hiding, in a sense, from view the add-ons that you do.

So, I mean, in a sense, what it looks at has the illusion of still being a home.

It's a home office.

I don't have a sense of the cost, of course, of what that would be.

But as far as the foundation's concerned, that's exactly what our foundation was.

No different.

And, yeah, we had to put in a foundation under it to bring it up to code.

It can be done.

And with a house that's sitting so high up, it's not necessarily as expensive to do as if it was a house you had to really jack up.

There wasn't a uniform building code until 1960.

So just to give you a basic background, most of the homes prior to 1960 didn't have any building codes, per se, to be built by.

If you look at that home, that home is actually built from another home.

They used wood from another residence to actually build that home.

So they tore down a building somewhere else and then put that one up with the materials that you're looking at underneath that house.

So I do believe that that home was built later in the 1920s.

And whether it was before the Depression or after the Depression, I couldn't tell you.

It might even be a Depression house in the sense that they were using an old house.

But they could.

The other thing, the property is zoned, L.

I.

And the very first thing that talks about in the L.

I.

zoning is an auto repair.

There would be no way to incorporate an auto repair station with a residence.

Jack only needs 200 square feet of office space, not 1200 square feet of office space, at a cost of $200,000 or $300,000.

So the cost factor, which goes back into your guys' ordinances, I think becomes a factor as well in this.

It doesn't justify spending that much money to create an office space.

And I really don't think that house actually, you could even make it public accessible in the sense of where the bathroom is located and the kitchen is located.

It would be a major project to make that the bathrooms and the office for his adjoining business.

I do have a bit of expertise.

This little craftsman bungalow is typical of what was built in the early 1920s.

I have no doubt that that's when it was built.

And then you have an eyewitness account to add on top of that.

So I don't think there's any question on the prior to 1942 question.

Hopefully, our city engineer is supposed to be here tonight to give us his input.

We do not have a report from him.

I think it's very essential that we do have a report from him as far as the feasibility of whether or not the structure is sound for continuing use.

And I wouldn't want to make any decisions until we did have the input and report from the city engineer.

As far as the use, whether it is feasible to try and make an office out of this residence, that's not really our task.

Our task is preserving the building, whether or not it's suitable for an office or a repair shop.

That's another item.

And I certainly would lean far away from issuing or granting any permits for demolition prior to approval of site plan for development applications.

As Laurie said, that's a long rocky road to go down.

I would never want to entertain that.

I would like to see this item continued until we get input from the city engineer.

If there's any further information regarding the authenticity of the construction date.

Because that is, as Paul said, it's a very big factor in the decision we have to make, according to our ordinance.

I would just like to say a couple of things that-- I'm sorry.

No, it's all right.

I skipped over.

No worries.

It's not a problem.

For me, personally, the zoning is light industrial.

And I think that that's what that land is meant to be used for.

We have a responsibility to determine whether it's of special historical interest or value motherlode type construction.

Now you say it's craftsman.

The definition of motherlode construction or style type of architecture is-- we're not quite sure what that really is.

So I would be more inclined to go with that you're allowed to use the land for what it's zoned for and what you build and you bring to us.

You create something that works in that particular area that works for you and enhances the area.

Because this home in its current structure and all that is-- there's no value there as far as that I can see.

But go ahead with what you were continuing it or something?
Well, I'll move that we continue it until the city engineer can give his input.

Second that motion.

Thank you for your discussion.

Yeah, I was going to save these comments for a little later because I think they pertain to the item that we're going to finish up with tonight.

But you know, if you didn't expect light industrial there, why in the world was its own light industrial?
And why did you bring it into the city if you didn't want to do that?
That's number one.

I think that along with this, this is my objection which I have stated along the way with regard to this new proposed ordinance.

It's whatever it is, '89-'01 or whatever that extended the historical district arbitrarily on pre-'42 buildings.

It's a disaster and pretty soon we're going to hang up a closed sign here on the best city and make that's what we should do right now.

And then we wouldn't have to come down here every two weeks and have to disappoint people.

Well, I think we can still have light industrial on site and save the building and as a matter of fact have an award-winning project.

Possibly, but maybe not for this man.

And since it's his property and he wants to do something with it, you know, I'm having a real difficult time with this thought process that says that this thing has got to be saved just because it may or may not be built before 1942 and Joe Day may or may not have grown up across the street.

That hardly makes it significant in my mind.

So anyway, we have a motion and a second, I guess.

Lori, on your motion, how would you fit in the discussion on issuing a permit for demolition prior to approval of a site plan or development application?
I guess I wasn't, I just wasn't going to address that issue right now if we feel like we need to city attorney, engineers.

I don't know.

I don't know that we need the city engineers input actually.

Really, I think, I think we ought to just not consider this application at all because we don't have the site.

Could you speak at your microphone a little more, please?
Sorry.

I mean, I was as a courtesy to you because you seem to want to continue it.

That's why I made that motion.

But I really think we just shouldn't consider the application until we have a site plan at the same time.

And I think Mr.
Brokaw probably gets the feeling that there's a majority here that probably don't want to have the house demolished.

So I would think if you come back with a site plan, it might be a good idea to have at least one of the alternatives be a site plan that incorporates the core part of the old house into the office or whatever.

I mean, that's what I'd really like.

Did you second it?
Do we have a second on my motion?
I second.

So I mean, I'd be happy to make that motion instead if you'd like to withdraw your second.

Sure.

I withdraw.

I'd like to just clarify something, Mr.
Chair.

I took the site plan off of Laurie's desk and put it back there.

That's not a site plan.

That was the site plan for the new building.

For the existing -- oh, it wasn't?
Yes.

Okay.

And the rules of the game, the demolition request does not require public hearing.

A site plan approval does require public hearing, so no site plans can be reviewed even on a preliminary basis without due notice.

And so the applicant is clear on that.

So I just want to be clear on what the rules are, and that's why I did remove it from her.

Well, right.

That doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about right now, though.

Well, if you require that this demolition -- Have to get its application in.

-- have a site plan, that means that more applications will have to be made and the public hearing would have to be noticed.

Right.

So I'll move that we not consider this demolition request without a site plan application.

I'll second that motion.

And for discussion.

All in favor?
Aye.

Opposed?
No.

Three and two.

Thank you.

15 days of appeal.

15 days of appeal?
Well, we didn't do anything.

What's to appeal?
We didn't approve or deny anything.

Did we?
And I don't think the application should have even been accepted at City Hall, to tell you the truth.

I think there is a point here, and tying the two together, I really would like a legal opinion on it.

It seems to me that is two entirely separate issues.

And tying the one to the other, I would question whether or not that really is -- You mean tying demolition to other development?
Yeah.

I mean, I think suppose I wanted a vacant lot.

That's pretty typical wherever you go.

That's a method that the communities have to ensure that things just don't get torn down.

Suppose I'm the owner of a public hazard.

Which many of these places are.

Public nuisance, really.

Somebody is living in this one.

Well, that doesn't mean that it may not be.

Well, we actually -- Anyway, we can't -- We actually authorized a demolition of a house over on Sacramento Street because it was a public safety issue.

The one next door to the pally hill where Dennis Cutts designed that new house.

That demolition was allowed because it was a public hazard.

And that was the only reason it was allowed.

Well, if the city attorney tells us we can't do this, which we've done many, many times in the past, if somehow things have changed, then I would just say, you know, for the record, we should deny the demolition permit, and they could come back with another method.

It would have the same effect, though.

It's extremely costly to put a project together.

We know that.

We know all that.

It's just, you know, just -- So to clarify things, I assume then to clarify your motion was to deny this application?
No, it was not to consider it unless the -- If the city attorney wants to tell me that we can't do that, even though it's been done many times in the past, let us know, and we'll -- I'll change -- you know, we can change the motion.

But we voted on it.

We don't have the opinion at this point, so we could apply it.

Okay.

We'll let it stand as is until further notice.

I've had a real difficult time keeping the house insured.

I've been canceled by three different policies, and I've got riders on my own personal homeowners because they know what the building's like to insure, and that's the condition it's in.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Now we'll move back to two items at the top of the list.

May 10, 2001, minutes.

Approval and/or of the use of minutes.

I would like to just kind of review what we went through.

When -- after we had our hearing on May 10th on the 80-unit project, because there was a two-week -- there was not a subsequent commission meeting the following two weeks.

The minutes never were approved prior to the actual public hearing by the city council on this project.

So I requested that the draft minutes that we prepared -- that were prepared not be used as an official record of the May 10th meeting because there were inconsistencies and some vagarities and so forth.

I asked that the actual audio tape that was made during the hearing be used as the official minutes of that hearing.

We have subsequently been advised that -- by the city clerk, that within her opinion, that written minutes are required.

I believe maybe that was the city attorney's recommendation or advice.

Actually, legally, it's not required.

We just felt that the reading minutes got us too hard to go back to do a four-hour tape.

We really wanted to have some record, so we -- for the video tape legally was required.

So I'll let it open the comments.

You mean corrections, additions, that sort of thing?
Well, whether or not we want to -- Well, my understanding is that we've been requested to approve some form of written minutes, and I've been told that while these things obviously don't cover the entire -- whatever it was -- five and a half hours, six and a half hours that we were here verbatim, they come pretty close to demonstrating the sense of what happened.

And so I think if we sort through them, make our corrections or additions as we think appropriate, then we can move for approval of these as written minutes.

The tape is always available in these meetings.

If somebody wants to contest something that's in the minutes that they feel was not represented accurately, they can go back and avail themselves of the tapes.

It's my understanding.

So, you know, I mean, we're just trying to, I guess, create a written document here.

Okay.

Victor wasn't -- Yeah, I wasn't -- oh, I was in attendance at the meeting.

I wasn't sitting on the commission, but I was here for that meeting.

So you know, in the position to approve or disapprove?
Well, we can't -- I think legally we're allowed to approve the minutes, even if we weren't there.

I think we just can't make the motion to do it.

Well, I would -- I mean, if there's some corrections or if there was discussion on corrections or some of my fat, I'd be more than willing to participate because I was here.

I would abstain in voting on them.

That's just what I would do.

Bruce?
I think -- I agree with Harry.

If Kathy wants paper minutes, then we should probably do that.

But I don't know.

Well, are you -- Connolly, are you prepared to weed through this and fix them?
No.

Or would you -- I can't make myself weed through these things.

Oh, so what you're suggesting is that for this meeting, for this meeting in question, that we use the tape as the actual minutes.

And that -- and legally we can do that.

I'm fine with that.

Yeah.

I'd like to stick with that.

What will become of this document?
That part of it will -- you know, we'll just have a notation that refer to the tapes.

And then if anybody ever needs -- Well, Dan, if this is going to be around in any form, I want to -- you know, I want to get my corrections.

Some of them are my usual nitpicky little things, and some of them are more significant.

It's been a while since I went through this, but I got them all noted.

So with that, I would like to -- I move that we use the tape as the minutes of this meeting -- of this portion of the meeting.

Could -- how would you feel about amending that and just saying that on these minutes, one way to sort of make these minutes more accurate is to write at the top that it says that these are sort of partial minutes and for a more thorough account?
Well, no, I think the problem is there's some inaccuracies.

It's not just that it's partial.

Actually, I'm not sure I can make the motion, can I, Jim?
I think I can just vote on it.

Because you weren't.

No, even though you're here, as I understand it, you can vote -- No, because you weren't.

I think I can't make the motion, though.

I'm not sure you can even vote since you weren't here to -- It says she was here.

Well, I was here, but -- Well, you were -- No, I've always been told -- I thought you told me that even if we were absent, even if I was not here to make the motion, and wasn't here, I can vote on the minutes.

I just can't make the motion.

It seems kind of weird, but that doesn't make sense, does it?
Sure.

So I thought you were here with me just being that motion.

Yeah, I was sitting in the audience, and there were certainly other things I was up here, the beginning of the meeting.

So then I believed you were up here.

So you were present then?
So actually, I was present, so it's a moot point.

It was a sign and something.

That's good.

That's true.

I wonder where we are.

You were asking if you could make the motion.

So I guess I can, because I really was at the meeting.

Okay, so you wanted to amend it to do what?
Well, I guess I didn't understand.

My understanding now is that you want -- and it was Harry's questions, too, in a sense -- you want to just discard this, and this document wouldn't exist.

The included portion of it.

There'd be no written record of that.

And all that would be is a piece of paper that says who was present, who was absent, and then refer to the videotape or the audiotape.

And if anybody ever really needed the information for, you know, God knows what, there would have to be a transcription, I guess.

Hopefully that would never happen, but I don't feel equipped to correct the inaccuracies.

But -- So your motion again is -- My motion is to -- for the 80-unit portion of the minutes -- Let's clarify this.

Can you or can you not make the motion?
She was present.

I think she could make the motion.

All right.

For the purpose of discussion, I'll second the motion.

Okay.

Did you get the motion?
All right.

Since we did have business other than 80 units, are we intending to approve that portion of these minutes?
That's what the motion says.

The written portion.

The written portion.

Well, in that case -- let's see.

You got things you want to change?
You have -- I have one item, I guess, and it's on page one.

And it's right below Lori's proposal regarding the 35-unit proposal.

And in that same meeting, we also -- I made that we -- the proposal that the makeup of the ARC should be agendized for a discussion.

I remember that.

And I think that, you know, obviously I'm at least as concerned about getting that discussed as Lori is about her 35 units.

No, I'm more concerned because I've been at that one for seven months.

Okay.

So with that, I will move for approval of the written minutes down -- It's already a motion.

Well, I'm not -- I want to divide this then.

Well, that's your motion.

It's fine.

I already had that in the motion, though.

But I don't want to -- I don't think that I'm going to vote for the rest of the motion.

Let's see what you're saying.

So he'd like to separate out the 80-unit piece of this, for now at least.

He wants to vote on that separately.

I'm fine with amending that motion.

We're going to make two motions, basically, is all that means.

The first motion is -- I don't know.

I think we ought to just leave it alone.

Vote on the first motion.

It's on the table.

What is the motion?
The motion is to accept all of the minutes, with the exception of the 80-unit portion with your change, and that the 80-unit portion -- there will be a reference in the minutes relative to the 80-unit item that, you know, you're supposed to refer to the audio and videotapes.

That was seconded by Victor.

Any other discussion on that?
All in favor?
Aye.

Opposed?
No.

Just a point of order, because we were talking about you were able to make the motion because you were here at the meeting, but you weren't at the meeting.

Maybe you needed to second that motion.

Point of order, point of order.

I don't know.

I just wanted to make sure that it was illegal.

You need to make a point of order before you make the vote.

Luckily, we don't use Robert's Rules of Orders.

I was just wondering, because you made a second on the minutes that you did not attend, maybe that needs to be done over again.

I will second that.

I will be the seconder.

Okay.

He wants to vote again?
Is that also me?
Victor can't vote?
I think it just means he can't make the second.

Is that correct?
I thought he was present.

No, he wasn't.

He was present.

He was not.

He was not a commissioner.

No, Jim Rose was on the commission.

I think if I was your president, the meeting.

.

.

He was present.

.

.

.

voted on the motion?
He was very present.

I spoke at the meeting, and okay.

Well, then maybe everything's okay.

Okay.

Got it?
He wasn't on the commission.

So it was moved by Oberholt, seconded by Weaver, and approved 3-2.

Okay.

That will do with that.

Okay, the next item.

The review of the 80-unit West Broad Street project planning process.

Now the commission invited the city manager and the city attorney to join us in this discussion.

Would you like to come up to the now?
Or you just want to sit there and watch?
We want you guys up here.

Yeah, yeah.

Welcome.

Welcome.

Good evening.

As we discussed several weeks ago, I guess it was the first commission meeting after the city council hearings on the 80-unit project.

Back then, when they brought it up, the commission received a lot of criticism the way the entire project was handled by the commission.

And the decisions that the commission made.

So we thought it would be advisable to have a general discussion of what happened, why it happened, and how could it happen in a better manner in the future.

Well, since that's a viewpoint that's not shared by all of us, perhaps since you're concerned, where do you think we went wrong?
Where do I think we went wrong?
Yeah.

You seem to indicate that you thought that the commission had done a terrible job with this.

Well, I have a few ideas that might be helpful to improving our process in the future.

But I would also like to, before we get into it, how are we going to organize this?
Is the public going to speak at some point?
I think there are a lot of people that came to those hearings who in the past haven't been to many planning commission hearings and kind of had quite an awakening as to what city politics and city planning are all about.

And it may be that people out here would have some good input also.

But I definitely have a few points that I'd like to bring up.

Well, I want to bring up your points and take it from there.

All right.

The sort of the categories that I'd like to discuss are, first of all, it seems like a lot of what happened, there was a perception that there was sort of a sloppiness in the process, that applications were incomplete and ARC meetings were held without an official application and lots of little things.

And my feeling was that that occurred not because of any fault of the city's process, but because at the very beginning of the project when the developers came to the city, there was on the part of, I don't know who, perhaps, I don't know, there seemed to be a bias for the project that started these problems.

And I think that's something that we should talk about.

I think it's, I'm a city planner and, you know, I know when I work for a public agency, I try really hard to just be in the middle, not for or against a project.

And so that's maybe something we can talk about, how we can avoid that perception of a bias when an applicant comes into the office.

The other thing was the environmental review.

And I think our environmental review process in general is somewhat weak, and, you know, unfortunately that really showed up on this project because it was such a large project.

And then I think the last thing that I'd like to discuss is just how the Planning Commission just dealt with it in general at the table and in their discussions and relationship with the public, that the three nights that it was, how many nights, how many nights, was it two nights?
What's that?
Or was it one night at the Planning Commission?
It was just one night.

It was just the one night.

Just how that night went, you know, just everybody's demeanor and how things were handled that night.

I think there's a lot of people out there that didn't feel good about that, and so I think maybe that's something we could tighten up in an area that we ought to talk about a little bit.

So those are the three areas I'd like to generally discuss.

Can I -- can we ask some questions along the way?
With regard to the environmental review, you know, what more would you have asked for?
We had reports that covered.

Well, I'll tell you what I would have asked for.

And I did ask for it because as a member of the public, I went to the first ARC meeting, which there is no record of, I don't think.

Maybe there's a half a tape or something.

But I went to the first ARC meeting, and I think you were there, and then you left, and Ruth was there, and Jim was there.

And I sat there and talked for half an hour about all the additional mitigation measures that should be added, all the additional studies that should be done, all the questions that were unanswered.

And this coming from somebody who writes environmental impact reports every day.

And there was just no -- nothing that I said went anywhere.

And again, I think that maybe was because there was this bias for the project, you know, let's get this thing through quickly.

And I also think it's partly just our Nevada City process.

I believe that when an applicant comes to the city, and we do our initial environmental study, that if it's a project of any substance at all, we should be asking the developer to deposit funds so that the city planner can hire subconsultants to help write that document.

That's the way every other city and county does it.

You don't let the developer go out and hire his own traffic consultant, his own archaeologist, his own biologist, and provide you the reports, because there's -- even if there are great reports, there's a perception of bias.

And secondly, then the city planner doesn't really have anything that he can use to answer all the questions that he's required to answer on that huge checklist, and so questions go unanswered.

Those are very basic things that every other city does, and there's really no reason why we shouldn't do that.

In this case, you know, probably it's a big enough project, you know, that an EIR should have been prepared.

The community sort of dropped that request as things went along, because I believe they just wanted to see the project go away.

But the reality of the situation is that an EIR probably should have been prepared on a project of this scale.

There were all kinds of -- oh, just questions still left in the initial environmental study that really weren't answered.

And any time you have those questions -- >> Specifically.

Specifically.

What questions?
>> Well, specifically, there were a number of impacts that were noted in the initial environmental study that were still significant and unmitigated.

And whenever that happens, you just -- you get bumped into EIR status.

There were issues that weren't even discussed.

Cumulative impacts were not discussed in many, many, many areas.

And so that leaves the question, are there cumulative impacts?
We didn't know.

But if there's a question, that either bumps you into further study or a full EIR.

And, you know, I think that there were, you know, enough inadequacies and enough questions that probably an EIR should have been prepared.

And I think any time we get a big project -- I don't think that will happen ever again in the city.

I think we've learned our lesson.

I hope we have.

Big projects with significant traffic impacts equal EIR.

I hope that that's what we learned out of this.

>> I can just jump in on that because I do agree with you, Lori.

Particularly in answer to Harry, I think specifically the city infrastructure proved itself to -- we did not -- this project would have had a significant impact on the city's impact.

On the city's ability to serve -- to continue to serve the level of service it's serving today.

>> Well, then -- >> ARC, we didn't know that.

>> We did not know that at ARC.

>> We didn't get any of that stuff.

>> But that's -- beside that -- I mean, I'm just saying, beside that, looking back -- >> However, we did have questions.

We didn't know.

At ARC level, we didn't know.

And I brought those issues up.

And Mr.
Cogley, with all due respect, you never to the very end recommend it.

>> I remember being in your kitchen and thinking that was the right way to go.

But remember we talked -- I told you then that I thought an EIR was what we should have done.

That was in April.

>> And I do think it's the planner's responsibility to be the guardian of CEQA.

And I never heard that from you in public.

So -- I don't want to get into a personal -- that was a problem.

>> It was a problem because the city and the city manager could talk about this, address this.

We were not aware until we got deeper and deeper into this project just what the situation was with our sewer system and water system.

We learned a lot.

I think the initial study said it is unknown, but we can accommodate projects.

That's what the original -- >> Well, you don't -- environmental document with we don't know.

So the Tranmer engineering study -- What you're saying is that you don't feel that that was adequate or that that was correct or accurate?
>> Well, I think that after what the city engineer and the public works director discussed on May 10th, the city's development of the project was not a problem.

And it was clear that this project needed more analysis.

>> Well, okay.

This is getting down to the point that I think I have.

When you say that this reflects badly on the commission, I think that the problem lies somewhere else.

>> I just mentioned the input that we got from the city staff and the city engineer and the public works director.

After they made their very thorough presentations, discussing all of the problems that the city infrastructure would have so far, et cetera, you, the commissioner, asked one by one directly -- what I asked them specifically was had they mitigated to the level that was spelled out in the negative declaration that was issued?
And they said no, but everything else I saw says to me that they had.

Now what happened was that additional mitigations got applied as they went along.

>> This was after everything was -- >> I know what you're saying.

>> After everything was there, you asked the city engineer and the public works director, does this -- essentially does this mitigate -- >> No, that is my question.

That's why I asked it twice to try and be clear on that.

There was a negative declaration that was issued by ARC.

Mitigated negative declaration.

And that spelled out what the mitigations were to be.

And that was issued.

So somewhere along the line, somebody had to approve that.

>> Or deny it.

>> Or deny it.

And that didn't happen.

>> Or deny the project.

You can deny a project without all the environmental review.

You just can't approve a project without adequate environmental review.

So we could have denied it.

>> All right.

>> You know, just stop dancing around the subject.

>> I'm not dancing around it.

>> What happened was the city engineer and the public works director after the presentations were asked directly, essentially, does this mitigated negative declaration solve all the problems that you have?
And the answer was flat no.

>> No.

I don't agree with you, Conley.

>> What I believe, my question was, is had they agreed to do what was required of them to mitigate the impacts in the mitigated negative declaration?
And what they answered was, is this solving all of Nevada City's problems?
And there's a big difference between those two.

And where the problem lies is that they weren't quick enough to figure out what the problems were on a project of this size.

>> So even if that was the problem, from sitting over there, what I found shocking was that -- because I didn't know the subtleties of that, Harry.

I didn't understand that, you know, that at the ARC meeting, things were laid out, those things were mitigated, and now new things came up.

But from the public, when I'm sitting there and I'm hearing that -- I'm hearing our city staff who are the train paid people to give us this advice, tell us, no, as the public, I assume the commission's going to vote, continue this item, deny it for now, whatever, but not approve it.

That's what I found shocking.

>> Well, it didn't get approved, in fact.

>> Oh, the negative declaration got approved?
Everything got approved except the site plan.

>> Yeah.

It was -- and that's -- the public -- that was the shock of the public.

And I came and addressed City Council at the next meeting and said it was a surreal experience.

And the main surreal part of it was that as a public person, we were hearing from city staff that there's many reasons why this project should not be approved the way it's written.

And yet it -- three out of the four commissioners were approving everything except for one of them.

>> Well, you know, I mean, in the material I got, they agreed to fix the sewer system.

You can't expect them to go out and try and condemn the property that's going to be required to do to put the sewer in.

And the city's got to participate in that.

And I noticed that that was some reluctance to do that.

They agreed to put the extra water line in to provide the additional water on the assumption that, you know, like when you have PG&E extended, that as other projects come along, they would get -- you know, they would get reimbursed for that advance.

And, you know, which was going to be in addition to the water improvements that they talked about with regard to the size of the tank, et cetera.

You know, it just seemed to me like the target was moving for them all the time.

And they didn't really -- you know, it didn't seem like there was anything that they could do that was going to be enough at the end.

You talk about traffic mitigation.

What in the world do you do with a traffic mitigation that you're not going to stand for, which, you know, is to change our intersection down here at Broad and Pine?
And that's exactly my point.

When you have, you know, an impact with something that you cannot mitigate, whether it's just because you can't find a mitigation measure or because the mitigation is unacceptable, which light at the corner.

It could be.

Then you have to make -- you know, you have to make a decision.

You either approve the project with overriding considerations.

And if you're doing that, you need to have done a full EIR.

You can't have an unmitigated impact.

A mitigated negative deck means you've mitigated everything and you just can't do that.

Now, I don't expect the planning commission to understand these little nuances.

I do expect staff to help us with that.

So, I mean, that's exactly my point.

There were many things surfacing like that that we were not able to mitigate.

And certainly by the end of that meeting, there were lots of questions.

But I think it would have been appropriate for staff to step in and say, hey, wait a minute.

We simply aren't ready to go on this.

We simply can't do it.

I think it would have been appropriate.

And this will happen again possibly in the future.

And that's my point, is that -- There were two things that would have been appropriate when you have that many questions.

You either go with your gut-level feeling that it's -- this can't be fixed.

You know, we've done some studies and it's looking too hard to fix.

And I'm not doing this planning commission to fix, so I'm going to vote against it.

So you can deny it or staff should jump in and say, we need some more work on this.

All right.

I want to put one more little thing in here.

There's -- you know, obviously we have different viewpoints of what the function of a planning commissioner is.

But in my view, we're sort of in the middle.

We're between the applicant and we're between the public.

And then we have our rules that we're supposed to play by.

In Nevada City, we're getting to be more like a town hall where you think you turn out the whole town and everybody's against something that that, you know, that should count.

But in fact, our purpose here is not only to protect those people with regard to whether the sewer line gets fixed or there's adequate water and all the rest of that, but we're also here to protect the applicant from an abuse of power by the neighbors that say, we don't like it, we don't care what you do, you know, as far as we're concerned, you can't fix this.

Well, I think you're wrong.

Our responsibility is to our public and the residents of Nevada City.

No, I don't believe that.

I believe that we are supposed to be in the middle, the fair arbiters of the ordinances.

You said that yourself, to be in the middle.

If you're the city planner and you're accepting an application, I think your job is not to say, hey, Joe, I really like this project, I'm going to shoot it through, or this is a horrible project.

I didn't like that characterization, Lori.

I'm not talking about you, Paul.

It sure is.

Or the opposite would be, you know, this is a horrible project, I'm going to do everything I can to get in its way.

I think as a city planner, your job is to be in the middle.

Well, right.

In general, I wasn't talking about us.

Our job is to make the hard votes, which means you're not in the middle.

You vote either yes or no.

Well, but what you should be voting on is does this fit the ordinances?
Does this fit the rules?
Not whether it's popular or not.

Okay, well, then that takes us into this whole subject of how the planning commission conducted itself.

And I know it was a long meeting.

I was here, too.

I stayed until the bitter end sitting out there, and, you know, we were tired.

I think it was really good, and I think we should always do this.

If there's a crowd, you vote that night.

I think that's really important.

Well, the one thing -- And I think that that was good, and I don't think there was anything wrong with that.

All right.

Because people want you to make a decision when they've stayed all night.

I agree.

And I think -- That was good.

And I want to amplify that.

I think that the correct thing would have been not to discuss it, because there were items that we really did not have any information on.

In fact, between the staff and the applicant, it's my understanding that they, on Monday, after the agenda packets went out, they were still revising things.

Now, how are we supposed to know what kind of agreement they thought they'd all come to before it came to a meeting?
Mm-hmm.

And so -- but being in this -- in my mode as a fair arbiter, here we have an applicant that I have to assume was coming to the city in good faith, and had made it known that he had a very significant deadline in order to arrange financing in this grant of a million dollars, which is significant money.

And, you know, it seemed to me that we had some obligation to go ahead and try and sort through that that night.

And so we're sort of on the same page there, that we needed to try and get to the end of this thing so that the applicant could meet his deadline.

And I think that we owe it to the applicants to deal with them expeditiously.

Well, those kinds of financial deadlines, every developer that ever comes before us, you know, almost always, they have some sort of a deadline that they like to let us know about.

Well, this thing didn't come out of the blue.

That can't be our problem.

This project had been kicking around for a couple of years.

Well, I don't think it had been kicking around.

When I was still in office on the city council, they came to me.

That's almost three years ago.

You know, as long as, just quickly, as long as we're on this issue of the developer coming to us, I should note that in the last week I've received a call from the developer, you know, wanting to just ask, well, asking me, you know, what I think could be approved on the project.

And consistent with the Brown Act, I think I should divulge that and let you know that what I said to him was, "I don't think I should be talking to you outside of a public forum.

"
So I don't know if anybody else has had those kind of calls, maybe now's the time to divulge it.

Yeah, I haven't.

I actually wrote a letter to the city attorney just letting him know that I had received that call.

It was a message of my machine, and I left the message back to the developer saying, "I don't think it's appropriate to be discussing this with you.

"
And if he used the words he wanted to pitch, pitch a project to me before bringing it to the community.

On this, I'm going on the staff.

I think we did get tremendous input from the staff regarding the infrastructure of the city and how it could or could not service this project.

And that appeared to be reason enough to deny it or continue it until some of these other problems were solved, real physical, apparent problems of trying to service this.

But those recommendations were just tossed aside.

And they were tossed aside with the appearance by the public or to the public that they were tossed aside in order to expedite the project for whatever reason.

The problems that we really faced in trying to process was the fact that they kept getting more revisions, more revisions, more revisions until finally we're coming into our last hearing.

And we're sitting here, and we're halfway through the discussion, and all of a sudden we realize somebody's given us a new site plan to look at and it supposedly solves all the problems that we've been studying for the last several weeks.

Now this to me is just not a way to operate.

And as far as I'm concerned, as long as I'm the chairman of this commission, I will not accept plans or submittals at the table other than for clarification purposes.

And I think that's a good question.

I think that's a good question.

And I think that's a good question.

We've put in a reasonable time to make these studies and come to our conclusions, and we can't operate in that other way.

And we were just throwing our backs to the wall with these documents.

And as I said at the hearing, I felt sorry for Harry because Harry was complaining.

He had all this stuff in front of him.

We didn't know what was going on.

So I intend to follow that policy.

I support you 100% on that kindly.

I think that this points out exactly the problem that we have and that this stuff should not come to us, whether it's a teardown of a garage or 80-unit apartment until the whole package is ready.

And along with that, and I'm going to make my pitch with regard to the ARC, I don't believe that Planning Commission members should be sitting on that.

That should be the staff.

They should work those things out and had all of that figured out, and then they decide whether or not they issue the mitigated negative deck or request an EIR or whatever.

Well, you know, on the ARC issue, there were two commissioners at that.

And in fact, there were three meetings.

They had three opportunities to present the fact that these things were.

.

.

Right, and I think it's a good idea to have, and I think it was a good idea then to have Planning Commissioners there.

And of course, it's always been the case that any staff member who wants to can sit in on the ARC.

In this case, it was just the two commissioners and Paul.

But I don't think it's wrong to have the ARC members there because they're.

.

.

or the Planning Commissioners there not have them there because they're not technicians or whatever, and staff ought to be doing it themselves.

Because this is a perfect example.

We had a situation where a very weak initial environmental study was prepared.

It left all kinds of questions open.

I had a half an hour of questions that I put to the ARC that had not been answered in this initial environmental study.

The Planning Commissioners sort of act as a balance because staff had written the initial study.

You folks, whoever was on the ARC, had not.

And so you can sit there, not being the authors and not being married to the document, Planning Commissioners can sit there and say, "Wow, you're right.

There's still some questions here.

Let's work on this a little bit more.

"
And I think.

.

.

so I think it provides a good balance because you have staff who's written the initial environmental study.

It could be a combination of staff members who contributed to the initial study.

By the time you get there, you're sort of married to the document.

But the Planning Commissioners aren't married to it.

The other thing is it has nothing to do with this particular project, but I've sat on many, many, many, many ARC's over the years.

And there are many times when it's the Planning Commissioners who got the document better, who whatever had the political will or whatever, to sit there and say, "I want this, this, this, and this mitigation measure added.

"
I've seen that happen many, many times, and it would not have happened if there was not a Planning Commissioner or two there.

And I don't know why that is.

It may just be sort of the independence of this body that we're kind of able to do that.

But I've seen the Planning Commissioners there do a really good job.

And many, most of the time, the only people there are Paul and the Planning Commissioners.

So I hate to see us fired for doing a good job.

You know, for all these years, we've been, you know, showing up at ARC meetings and doing our job.

And, you know, I think we should be recognized for that and continue.

Well, we'll have a discussion on the makeup of the ARC.

We've been talking about, and I'd like to have an agenda as the next meeting as possible.

We'll have a full, full-blown discussion on the makeup.

And on all that processing that I was talking about, we understand that the staff has been doing some rethinking and reorganization so that we are, we've been promised or assured that the projects that come through, by the time they get to our table, they will be pretty much analyzed by staff, and all the input from staff will be in our packets so we don't have loose ends like, well, the fire department hasn't looked at it, blah, blah, blah.

The silver lining to this is that we have really done a major reorganization of the Planning Office.

In fact, I would invite the Planning Commissioners come up, and I can show you how things look now, and I think that would help raise your comfort level, that some of the things that happened on the AHDC application couldn't happen now.

There was a certain amount of catching up.

There was a lot of activity, as all of you will remember at that time, with the Hotel Museum, Post Avenue GPA, and other sphere projects and so forth, and the move to City Hall.

And AHDC wound its way through the system.

I don't think that it had any bias on staff part.

I think it's being directed towards me, and so I think I should address it since it's been put on the table.

There was a preliminary application meeting by the entire staff.

There was an ARC in which the entire staff was informed of, and all of the conditions that staff could come up with were included in that ARC.

Now, that first ARC shouldn't have happened.

I absolutely agree that that was something that was premature.

In April, there was a lot of new mitigation that staff wanted to put into it, and the ARC meeting in April did involve myself and Vern Taylor and David Ray.

Bill Falcone was out of town, and we tried to get him on a hookup, but we couldn't get him on.

I worked with Vern to make sure that all of the mitigations that we had talked about would be inside that document.

There was never any disagreement on staff level as to what should be in that document, what shouldn't be.

What I was facing as City Planner was a project that met all the zoning requirements.

Well, it needed variance.

Well, yeah, it needed variance to steep slope, and we know about that, but it met the zoning.

From the very beginning, I required studies like we've never seen in a better city, noise studies, traffic studies, cultural studies, six of them or something, biology studies, wetland studies.

We've never done that for any of our CEQA documentation here to that extent.

Those documents were reviewed and sent back over and over, reviewed by the rest of staff, and sent to Dan Landon for the traffic and sent to the people that we do trust to work with it.

So there was as much information as we could generate was generated.

The intent was in the right place, the intent was in the right place.

The attempt fell short of getting together the kind of environmental documentation and where when it got to the commission, it was really everything you needed to have in front of you.

So there was that sense of chaos.

Anyway, that's pretty much what it was like for my side of things.

I understood that this thing was going to be a very difficult project from the moment he's, I heard it was 80 units.

I've lived in Nevada City for 30 years.

The first time I spoke to the city council was in 1983 to suggest that they should have a general plan.

I've been very involved and I knew what 80 units meant here.

I was involved in Champion Trails in that situation too.

So all I can say is the staff does work together and we've always worked together.

I don't think there's been any kind of disagreement among us.

I don't think he saw any, if he did, I don't know where he saw it.

There was a suspicion that there must be something going on here, but nothing was going on.

Well, I don't want to go on and on about it.

Sorry, I don't have the initial environmental study here.

I think if you read it, there was a weakness to the language.

There were many open questions.

There were many unmitigated impacts remaining.

Some of the sections, the way they were written, had a clear ring of bias towards the project.

Though I know all kinds of staff members contribute to all of our initial environmental studies, it is the city planner's responsibility to determine if it's in advance of going to ARC, if it's an adequate project under CEQA.

I think we do need to air to the conservative.

You don't leave unanswered questions and you don't leave unmitigated impacts, and you don't leave cumulative impacts out of the discussion.

If that sort of thing is happening because you don't have enough time or whatever, you just need to say it.

There's a way around that, and that is to have the applicant fund some of these things.

That doesn't mean, again, having the applicant prepare them themselves.

You just don't have the control unless you're hiring the people and giving them the parameters of the study.

I think that's something that we should consider in the future.

I have a problem.

We very much would like to hear what our invited guests have to say, but Tammy needs a break.

Just a couple of minute breaks.

Are we going to let anybody in the audience speak so they'll know if they want to stay or not?
I'd like to hear from the City Attorney and City Manager, who's also part of this commission, by the way, and then hear some comments from the public.

I would like Tammy to take a good hit, please.