Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the Anaheim Planning Commission meeting of January 26, 2026. My name is Christopher Walker, chair of the Anaheim Planning Commission. As a reminder, planning commission meetings are broadcast on all our channels, including online Anaheim TV channel 3. The first order of business is to salute our flag. Commissioner Lieberman will lead us. Right hand over your heart, please. Ready? Begin.

Aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Next, I will ask the planning commission secretary to take a verbal roll call vote of all planning commissioners.

Chair Walker here. Vice Chair Tran Martin here. Commissioner Commissioner Lieberman here. Commissioner Perez here. Uh, Commissioner Commissioner Castro here. Commissioner [snorts] Abdul Raman here. Commissioner Kelly. Okay, we have a quorum.

Thank you very much. If you would all silence your electronic communication devices so they don't disrupt the proceeding, we would appreciate it. Uh, today we have one public hearing item on the agenda. I would ask members of the public who wish to speak on a public hearing item to please complete a yellow speaker card and give it to staff if you have not already done so. The cards can be found on the table at the entrance. Please note that public comments are limited to three minutes and we ask that you keep your remarks as brief as you can. We are influenced more by the content of your testimony than the length of your presentation. First, we provide an opportunity for any member of the public to speak on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission that are not on tonight's agenda. Is there anyone that wishes to speak at this time? Seeing no one, prior to beginning the public hearing, I will now ask planning commissioners for any disclosures they wish to make regarding the public hearing on item on today's agenda. I actually have one. I did drive by the property and look pretty minor. Um, please note that actions taken by the planning commission tonight will be final unless we an appeal is filed with the city clerk. The appeal deadline is Thursday, February 5th, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. Appeal appeal forms and information are available on the city clerk's web page. I will now begin the public hearing on item one and ask Grace to present.

Yes. Good evening, Chair Walker and planning commissioners. I'm Grace Cho, senior planner, and we'll be presenting item number one, case number DEV 20250037. This is involving a cup, conditional use permit amendment request by American Career College. The first slide shows the project location, which is the Anaheim Palms Corporate Center. It's outlined in yellow. It's a 41 acre industrial office complex located at the northwest corner of West La Palma Avenue and Gilbert Street. The site includes a mix of warehouse, office, medical, educational, and religious uses and has both an industrial zoning and land use designation. The applicant American Career College currently occupies the second floor of 2461 West La Palma Avenue, which is outlined in blue. The Career College is proposing to expand into a vacant 8200 square foot office space on the first floor of the building. American Career College operates under a conditional use permit number 4074, which was approved in 1998, and limits on-site enrollment of students to 175. The request before the commission is to amend the CUP to allow additional instructional space and to increase the total on-site capacity to 440 students. This slide depicts the proposed layout of the 8200 foot space on the first floor and it would accommodate three new classrooms which are highlighted in green. This includes two 75 seat classrooms and one 25 seat ultrasound classroom. Uh the two lab spaces are shown in light blue are also proposed and would include student seating and training stations with patient beds to support vocational nursing and ultrasound specialty programs. New restroom facilities and a storage area are included within this

space. The existing hours of operation would remain unchanged from 7:00 a.m. to 6 pm Monday through Friday and occasional Saturday use for lab classes and school related events such as uh major enrollment or graduations. With increased enrollment, the parking requirement for the use also increases. Staff reviewed the site's parking history and current proposal for compliance. The Anaheim Palms Corporate Center completed a comprehensive parking study in 2010 with an updated analysis in 2023 reflecting the tenant spaces and uses at that time. For purposes of this application, a similar update of tenants and uses is provided in a parking table summary. The buildings along La Palma Avenue share a total parking supply of 1,767 parking spaces and are accessed by three existing driveways. There are no changes being proposed to the parking or access. Based on the proposed instructional square footage of American Career College, it's required to provide 364 parking spaces. We'll jump to the next slide with the parking summary. Highlighted at the bottom in yellow is American Career Colleg's total instructional area of a little over 18,000 square ft and the corresponding parking requirement of 364 spaces. The rows above summarize all the La Palma addressed buildings, their tenant uses, and the associated parking requirements. Vacant or leasable spaces are also included. identified by a star to ensure parking demand is fully accounted for. In total, the required parking for all tenants is 1511 spaces and the industrial complex therefore has an adequate parking supply with a surplus of 256 spaces.

The item was duly noticed per code and staff did not receive any calls or correspondence from the public with regards to this item. The project qualifies for a class one existing facilities exemption under the California Environmental Quality Act because it does not expand the building or increase its intensity. The project is cons is consistent with the applicable zoning and land use policies and the requested CUP would allow amendment would allow American Career College to increase capacity and remain a compatible use with the surrounding context of businesses in the park. Staff recommends approval as conditioned and that concludes my prepared remarks. Um staff and the agent representing American Career College uh Philip Schwarz um is also available this evening as well. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Any questions? Very good. M I'm going to open the public hearing and Mr. Schwarz, do you have anything for us?

Thank you very much. We do appreciate it. I don't have anybody on the list. Does anybody have any questions? Very good. I'm going to close the public hearing and does anyone have discussions or a motion? I'll make a motion. I will second with a congratulations to your client for needing for expanding so largely.

No more discussion. Shall we vote? Six votes. The motion carries. Thank you very much.

Hopefully not that long. Very good. Um, commission updates.

We got a couple for you this evening. Um the next planning commission meeting on February 9th, we do have a request for a conditional use permit for a recovery center in an existing industrial building. Um the uh business is already there operating byite um appointment only based uh food bank service and then um they'll incorporate the recovery portion of that for the evenings with a request for CUP. Um on February 3rd at city council, the city council will be um uh considering the festival residential development uh where we'll be requesting a continuence of that item to either the March 4th or the March 24th meeting. All I got today.

Thank you, Scott. Any other comments? We're adjourned.