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disorder (CCD) is causing the United States government to spend almost $10 million on trying to increase the amount of pollinators in the United States. He indicated that there is a lot of controversy on what the causes of CCD are, but like most complex things, a lot of things contribute to the loss of honeybees. He added that there are strong data on the fallout in populations because for a long time, the number of beehives that exist in the United States for commercial uses has been monitored. He noted that California uses over a million bees to pollinate its almonds, and those farmers get $150 per hive to pollinate; hence, they monitor how many beehives they have because these are worth so much. He indicated that there are arguments being made that if there were an allowance for residential beekeeping, it could offset some of commercial beekeeping losses, because one of the problems contributing to CCD is monocrops. He gave an example that when an almond growth that goes for five miles stops producing nectar, the bees have nothing to live on. He added that there is a large amount of spraying in agricultural areas. He noted that there have been some studies that residential -kept bees can be healthier because they are not exposed to monocrops and insecticides. Mr. Browne stated that the trend of urban agriculture going local including beekeeping is a fast - growing trend in the United Stated, and many cities now allow residential beekeeping, such as New York, Denver, Milwaukee, Santa Monica, Fremont, Oakley, Oakland, and San Francisco. He indicated that the San Francisco Public Health Code addresses beekeeping and states that honeybees are not considered wild or potentially dangerous, and urban beekeeping is allowed without any specific permits, such that even apartments are allowed to have a bee hive. He added that in 2009, Michelle Obama had 70,000 beehives installed in the White House garden to help pollinate it. Mr. Browne stated that one thing to consider is that bees, like dogs, are not nuisances of themselves. He added that dogs can be nuisances it they bark, bite, or claw through some fence, in which case the city has to take action. He noted that there are ways to keep bees in residential areas without being a nuisance to the neighborhood, and should they go to the neighbors' homes, there are ways to address that. He indicated that beekeepers are trained in those ways, such as constraining their flypaths, offering them water alternatives so they do not go to the neighbors' pool, or modifying their hives so they do not move into the neighbors' yard. Mr. Brown stated that Pleasanton can also use beekeeping as a public relations instrument to support locally grown bees by allowing beekeeping in residential districts, which will be consistent with a lot of other cities that have recently made this change. THE PUBLIC HEARING WAS CLOSED. Mr. Weinstein reiterated Ms. Amos' earlier statement that staff is in the preliminary stages of its research effort and is looking to the Commission for comments and specific research topics that it would like staff to look into in more detail. He indicated that staff is just starting to review other ordinances that have been adopted in the region and across the State and is looking for specific issues that might need to be dealt with in any proposed regulation or PMC amendment. Commissioner Allen stated that Mr. Browne prompted her to ask what the licensing and permit requirements would be to qualify for a beekeeping license, what other people do in this respect, and how people are trained to manage issues that occur as a result. She referred to the benchmarking that staff has done and stated that glancing at the document has prompted her to ask more questions. She noted, for example, that San Francisco does not have a lot of data about what learnings have happened since it started beekeeping, what issues it has had and how they were managed, what complaints have been registered and how those have been dealt PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, October 8, 2014 Page 5 of 7