City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening. We're going to call this regularly scheduled meeting of the Atascadero City Council to order. Um I know council there he is. I know he's here. Okay. We are be going to begin this evening with the pledge of allegiance led this evening by mayor promises to the

All right. Thank you. Uh we'll proceed to roll call, please. Council member Funk here. Council member Newsome here. Council member Peak here. Mayor Pro Tim Derez here. Mayor Borbo here. All present.

All right. Thank you. Well, if you're attending here in person and we have several people in the audience this evening or you're listening on one of our many options, thank you for joining us and we appreciate you uh taking part in our city council meeting. We will begin this evening with our consent calendar. And the consent calendar consists of items that are considered routine by and non-controversial by city staff and will be acted on by a single motion uh unless a member of the city council wishes to pull an item for separate consideration. Uh and so I will ask my colleagues, are there any members of the council who have questions or would like to pull an item? I'd like to make a brief comment on D3.

Okay, go ahead. Okay, just on D3, that's our annual housing element progress report. And I just want to call this out because it is incredible that our city is now ahead of state requirements um in producing housing in in doing permits for housing uh for low and moderate income persons. And that reflects a a huge team effort to make that easier for folks to produce um and to bring it online for our community so that uh people with modest incomes, young people building families, seniors uh can have a chance to live here. So great work team. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from council? Okay, seeing none, I'd like to open it up to the public. Any member of the public wishing to comment on the consent calendar, please approach. Okay, seeing none, we'll return it back to council for a motion.

Move approval of the consent calendar. I'll second. Okay, we have a motion by council member Funk, a second by Mayor Promandereas. Roll call, please. Council member Funk, yes. Council member Newsome, yes. Council member Peak, yes. Mayor Proendereas, yes. Mayor Bau, yes. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. We will proceed now to updates from the city manager, Mr. Lewis.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Uh, I'm going to start with something very, very important. It is government finance professionals week and we're celebrating our finance team, Miss Rangel and her team. Thank you for everything. As you know, she and her team chart an excellent financial course for us. We just received the budgeting award and the audit award. And so, we're very uh proud of our team. These professionals ensure transparency, manage budgets, maintain compliance, and provide critical fiscal insight that supports your council decisions and long-term fiscal stability. the efforts keep the city fiscally strong and sustain high quality public services and they're just fun people to be around. So, thank you, Miss Rangal, and your team uh for working so hard for our city and we salute you this week. Thank you. Uh yeah, that's appreciate them. All right, on to fun monster skate contest. So, Saturday at a town park, this is something that we've uh been putting on for years. It's a huge competition. Uh this is hosted throughout the county with one skate competition per month from Atascadero to Templeton. Ours is March 28th. Uh Losos in Napomo with the last one in St. Louis Abyispo. Always a neat competition, a great time. Uh for more information, you can contact the community center at 470360. Uh photos with the Easter Bunny. Love that the Easter Bunny is coming to our police department. So the bunny's pretty fond of our APD and will be hopping over from 12 to 2 on March 29th. So, join us for a little fun at the uh police department and get photos with the Easter Bunny uh with your little ones. 2026 Party for the Planet. This is our 15th annual Earth Day celebration, the Party for the Planet, on April 18th from 10:00 a.m. to 100 p.m. I think we have a slide for that. Um and this is a fun day for children of all ages with interactive adventures, hands-on activities, exhibits by sustainability conscious businesses, as well as providing educational demonstrations on water conservation, pollinator gardening, and more. So, general zoo admission is required, but this is a

great uh day to celebrate Earth and how to take care of Earth on April 18th. Next, we want to promote the waste drop off, shredding, and compost uh giveaway. So, this is always a very big week. Uh and this is from April 18th through 25th. So, all the taskar residents uh who are pairs of trash are invited to a free waste drop off, paper shredding, and one free yard of compost for this week only. So, this is really great. April 18th to 25th, you can go to 36 3360 La Cruz Way off of Ramada Drive. This is over by the 10 city area. Bring your picture ID and a copy of your bill to participate. But a great way to get rid of some stuff and shred uh your bills in a cost-effective way. So mark your calendar for that. Uh next, we have our citywide yard sale. So it's the 8th annual yard sale, April 18th and 19th from 10:00 a.m. to 300 p.m. So this is a great way to find a unique gift. We'll have over a hundred yard sales throughout the community. We're promoting this and so you can sign up online to sell your items and be listed on the map. Deadline to register is April 16th. So that's our 8th annual citywide yard sale. And uh most hope to sell more than buy, right? But this is a good opportunity for that. Uh and finally, the Central Coast Cider Festival is coming up. We had the beer festival last weekend. It was terrific. Uh this is April 25th from 4 to 8. I'm sorry. Uh, my script says 12 to 4 here, so I'm not sure which it is. Um, huh. 12 to 4. All right. April 25th for a day of cider tasting, live music, and more. Great selection of food and vendors as well. So, 12 to 4 on April 25th. So, if any questions, you can go to uh visited.com and for city related business atascadero.org. Thank you, mayor and members of council.

All right. Thank you. Any member of the council have any questions for the city manager? Okay. Okay. Oh, you do. Okay. I just want to do add in behalf of all of us since Miss Rangal was not here last week when we presented a major award for the quality of our budget uh to recognize m Miss Rangal and who's our city treasurer as well as minister of services and all of us are are proud of you. I know I speak for the whole council.

Okay. Thank you. Um okay the next on our agenda is community forum and community forum is for people wishing to speak on items not on the agenda. Uh speaker can have three minutes. Uh the Brown Act prohibits us from going into a discussion of items uh that are not on the agenda. So we may not we are not able to get into detail on something someone brings up. We we although we may ask uh staff a quick question or ask staff to get back with a speaker. So, with that, I'll open it up to the public. And any member wishing to speak on an item not on the agenda, please approach. And if you also would like to speak, please don't wait. Go ahead and get in line. Oh, go ahead. Good evening, council and staff. Jeff Osland, resident business owner in our beautiful city of Atascadero. Uh, I have a couple things as usual. Um first would be um about four years ago it was promised by the previous uh city manager that we were going to clean up the redundancy and such and make permitting for businesses easier when there's a transfer and sale. Um I know we're trying to work on that but our city's quite busy with everything but I think we need to bring that back up again. Uh some of the redundancy is in my opinion a little ridiculous. Um, and I will leave it at that and anybody can comment to me at any point in time. Um, I have spoken to our director, uh, Mr. Dunore. He's, uh, been terrific through this so far. I will give him the kudos on that. He's had to get involved and I do appreciate, uh, what he's done. Uh, next, uh, this is for everybody and probably Director Dar. um the downtown parking and signage. We're now about 6 months into a beautiful opening of the downtown. We

still have a couple signs fixed. Uh one would be, I believe, on uh West Mall, the one that says that you can actually make the turn on the red light at the left. the other one by the police station that says no U-turn because I am absolutely getting sick with and tired of people just making a fast U-turn up there on El Camino in an area that's meant for a driveway to come across not make a U-turn and they make a quick turn then they back up and they darn near hit people. So, if we could get that addressed I would really appreciate it. Thank you.

Okay, thank you for those comments. I'm sure they've been noted by uh public works. Next speaker, please.

Uh my name is Luther Johnson. Um I want to touch on short-term rentals. Um it has been brought to my attention here recently and the idea of requiring someone to live in the residence before being able to rent rent it out as an Airbnb I feel is kind of an unreasonable request. Um that is interfering with the personal property rights. uh just way too much to have the perspective of not in my neighborhood um is just not a is improper. Um city codes of conduct can be utilized to keep order in the community um without taking away people's rights to utilize their property that they purchase and pay taxes on. Another issue that has been uh brought up is uh zoning changes in the city. Um, if any of the changes affect anyone's property in a possible negative manner, the city needs to notify with a letter and not just count on people to read about it in the paper because not everybody gets the paper. And uh there again, you can be affecting people's personal property rights and they need to have a say on how the city's possible actions could affect their property. Uh really the bottom line with this is that the city governance works for the people, not the other way around. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you for your comments. Would anybody else like to speak at community forum? Yes, please approach.

Good evening, council. My name is Reese Jansen. I live um on the other side of the middle school and a few weeks ago my wife and I went on a walk in the morning and happened to cross by the printer when it was having an open house and we were blown away by uh the project. Um I've lived here my whole life and you know I've heard about the the goals of restoring it and I thought it was just to make an old building look better but actually they have an amazing plan for it to be a community center. This is no news to you guys, I can tell. But um while speaking to the people who work there, um they did say that they were trying to get more funding on the federal level and mentioned um they were hopeful that the city would assist with uh a recent application. I don't know all the details, but I w I'm not with them. I'm not affiliated with them, but I was so motivated and moved by what I saw that I told them I'd come to city council and just advocate for uh the city to help the printer with whatever they need. um it would provide community classrooms, event space, um the arts, all good things. Again, this isn't news that I'm breaking, but um just wanted to let you know and and felt that it was important to stress that I'm just a regular person who really really wants this. So, thank you for your time.

Thank you. And we're I think we're all inspired by the work that the PR penerary foundation is doing and the progress that they've made in the last several years. Um, okay. Anybody else wishing to speak at community forum? Okay. Thank you. And, um, Mr. Dunmore, if you could get with Mr. Johnson at some point and explain the the rules for notification of property owners because we we do that's certainly been an issue from time to time. We do want to make sure that affected property owners are notified when we're considering potential changes to their property. Although in in many cases, we're making their property more valuable. Um so um or I think in most cases because we certainly are reluctant to ever um downzone something. So okay. All right. Let's proceed on to the next item which is item G1. And item G1 will be presented by our HR manager Rachel Hunter.

All right. Good evening. So All right. As a refresher, AB2561 became effective last January and the intent is to address the issues of vacancy in the public sector. So, every agency is required to report on vacancies um as well as recruitment and retention, that sort of thing. So, it also requires um agencies to go over our hiring policies and make sure we don't have anything that is um obstructing the public from applying or from employees to promote. So, during this hearing, organizations are given the opportunity to speak. We do have um four units here at the city of Atascadero. We have SEIU, which is our local bargaining unit for our miscellaneous employees. At Tascadero Police Association, Tascadero Professional Firefighters Association and then the unrepresented professional management and confidential unit. All of these units were given the opportunity to speak tonight and um nobody took me up on it but um they were given the opportunity. We all know vacancies can have a negative impact um on the organization as a whole and the services we provide. um they can lead to employee burnout, increased turnover, heavy workloads, and just inability to complete tasks. AB2561 has a requirement that we report the absences or vacancies and that we also do additional reporting if that vacancy rate is over 20%. Um, we are extremely fortunate here at city of Atascaderoa to have a council that genuinely supports our employees and promotes retention and long-term employees and doing what's best for our citizens, but also keeping in mind that

our most of our employees are also citizens here. So, as of December 31st, 2025, we had a vacancy rate of 3.4% which is the equivalent of five vacancies out of our 147 positions. Since that moment, um, all three of the SEIU positions have been filled. So, currently, our only vacancies are in the, uh, police association. During the evaluation of hiring policies, no obstacles were found or updates needed. When a vacancy becomes available, um, I will meet with the hiring managers of that department and go over if we want to do an internal recruitment, external recruitment, how long we're going to recruit for, what the qualifications are, and we also ensure that the job description and salary is um, up to date and makes the most sense for the organization. Um there's a little promo shout out for our uh Easter Bunny coming to PD this year. Um but retention is a top priority here at the city. Um we support fun in employee culture here as you can see. And then we also celebrate wins. There's our awesome finance team right there, right front and center. Um that was last council meeting. So, um, those are all current employees, but I also wanted to point out in 2025, we we only had three retirements last year, but they averaged 26 and a half years of service. So, between the three um, employees, it was over 70 years of service. Um, and we also promoted 13 current employees. Some of those were part-time to full-time. Um so five of them were backfill for those retirement.

Um so that that was a really good feeling to be able to promote 13 from within. The culture here to Tuscadero is what really makes us unique. Um we ask for and encourage buyin from all of our staff. A fun statistic um seven out of eight of our police command staff so that's sergeants and above graduated from a local St. from Losispo County High School and twothirds of our fire management captains and above also graduated from local high schools and the last three of our public works employees are Atasier High School graduates as well. So they already have a lot of buyin to our community. We encourage staff to balance their lives outside of work and come together to celebrate their accomplishments outside of the important work they do here as public service. We should all be proud of our contributions um because all employees really give back to the culture we create here as you can see from that slide. That's all I have for you.

Okay. Well, thank you. Great report. I mean the numbers the numbers I think tell the story of of this being this organization being a great place to work. uh that the very low turnover I think would be an envy of most cities even right here in our county. And uh I want to thank all of you um yourself, the city manager, all of the department heads, the supervisors and all of the employees for really coming together and making this, you know, a great place to work where people I think look forward to coming to work every day and being with their co-workers. And uh these none of numbers say it all. So, I'll see if any of my colleagues have any questions. Okay. Uh, let me just let's just see if any member of the public would like to speak on this item and then we'll come back for further comments. I'm going to speak real quick, Jeff Osland, on this. This is a awesome thing that we don't have a lot of turnover. It's because our city um trust our staff, trust our council, um our management, and therefore in passing um you know, the painful tax revenue uh bill obviously helps uh a lot now with recruitment and turnover. We don't have it like we used to. And it's nice that um fiscally we're responsible. I always say that and we can prove that. why other municipalities or jurisdictions are starting to have cuts and layoffs or not. So again, double congratulations. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Mayor Pro or any any other member of the public wishing to speak. Okay. Seeing none, I'm bring it back to council for comments. Thank you, mayor. No, I just wanted to say Rachel, you'd mentioned that the three retirees uh last year the average of 26 years of tenure. I think currently we have a lot of employees that have at least 15 up in 20 and 25. I know we've got a lot of people. So, that says a lot about about the environment here and uh and what the the management does to keep to keep everybody um here and uh what what makes a task a great place to to work and live. So, thank you guys for being able to make that happen. So, great job. Thank you.

Any other comments? Because this is not Okay, so we do not need a motion on this. This is a receive and file report. Um, and so thank you, uh, Rachel. We really appreciate the work that you're done on and did on this report. This is a good news story. So, thank you. We'll go ahead and move on to the next item. And the next item is uh, H2, no, G2. Yeah, G2 is the uh, Home Depot master plan of development uh, amendment uh, mostly regarding Chick-fil-A, but other issues as well. And I believe I'm going to turn that over to Mr. Dr. Phil Dunore, our community development director.

Good evening, Mayor Council. Thank you so much. Normally, we wouldn't be at city council with such a project, but this does involve a specific plan amendment for the entire Home Depot center. And this specific plan amendment will essentially finish out the rest of the vacant parcels. Now, fortunately, we do have some great tenants that are being proposed with this as well. And it does also include a conditional use permit. Normally, the planning commission would take final action on that. They did review it at a recent hearing. They did recommend approval, but the council's perview on this is not only the specific plan amendment, but also the use permit. So, we've carried the whole thing forward. We're also very fortunate tonight, uh, we've got our planner here, uh, Eric Gomez, who's going to present you the details on this project, and he brought this to planning commission. I thought he would bring it to city council as well. So, introducing Eric.

Thank you, Phil. All righty, council members. Um the project that we have in front of us today is the Home Depot Center amendments. Use 25 is 69. Um and it's located at 9040 Alcomino Rail. Um so just a really quick look at the project site. Um we're talking about the Home Depot center uh which includes um the east and west sides of Alam Rayal where it terminates as it approaches Pharaoh Currill um on the north side of town. Um it's about 27 acres of commercial development originally permitted uh back in 1999 I believe. Um and so the center um has gone through several modifications, several different orderations over the years. Um several amendments uh resulting in the mix of uses that you have there today. uh largely anchored by that Spring Hill Suites uh Home Depot and Staples and also having a lot of other uh minor tenants um in the retail uses that surround them. Um what we have in front of us today is uh essentially a proposal to complete the development of that center. There are three existing vacant pads uh which over the years have um been envisioned as different uses. Um and so this is the most recent iteration. Um and to do the project they'd like to do it requires uh essentially three separate entitlements. Um the first one being a zone tax amendment. Um part of this project involves a car wash. Uh on that far right yellow um block there. It's pad three I believe on the site plan in front of you. Um, car washes are not currently allowed in uh PD9, which is what this entire center is zoned. It's planned development number nine. Um, and so that zone change would allow um for uh car washes to be a conditional use in PD9. And that opens up the following step of this, which is a conditional use permit, which is being applied for

concurrently. Uh that conditional use permit includes uh that car wash. It includes a drive-through restaurant. um currently planned to be a Chick-fil-A. Um and it includes a uh smaller retail shell. Um these are all part of the MA would be incorporated into the master plan of development for that site. Um so kind of a threein-one bundle deal if you will. Um then you have a lot line adjustment as your final action there. Um that lot line adjustment uh will just essentially move some lines around on the uh west side of the property to accommodate uh some of the new buildings being proposed. Um as with all any project or many of our projects here in Tasadero, there are some nuances. Uh in this case, there are exceptions being requested with a conditional use permit. Um in particular, they're asking for um some uh exceptions to our parking standards, uh driveway standards. um and sign standards. So, we'll go over those in just a second here. So, uh in the next couple slides, I'm going to be showing you some of the design of the uh the architecture on the property. Um so, um here on this slide, this is the west side of the uh development. So, you can see kind of on that bottom left side of your screen, I put some stars on the buildings that we're looking at. Um so, that's the the west side of the property. you're going to have the Chick-fil-A uh there uh kind of at the intersection of where uh this development begins. Um and then just south of the Spring Hill Suites Hotel is where you're going to have the retail shell. Um you can see that uh kind of the boundaries of the site are being landscaped. Um and most of the site is pretty typical uh semicontemporary architecture being used um across all buildings. Chick-fil-A is sticking a little closer um to their uh branded design and and less so cohesive uh with

uh the overall design of the center, but um we have conditioned for Chick-fil-A to bring in some of the um stone bullhead style design uh components that we're seeing in other buildings at that center um into their building um to help it be a little bit more cohesive while still meeting their needs as as a national brand. And here's the east side. Uh this is the car wash. You see again um just contemporary uh architecture for these type of larger commercial uh developments. Um tile or tile style roofs um small towers and then uh you can sort of see here the incorporation the stone base and stone for the enclosures there. Again landscaping all over the perimeter. So, we'll talk really quickly about their signage. Um, I've posted the signage that they're uh uh proposing on your screens right now. Um, I really want to focus in though on that car wash signage because that's where that sign exception is being requested. Um, specifically for that car wash use. Um, car wash buildings are, you know, purpose designed. So, they're designed around the tunnel. They're long narrow buildings. And in this case, you have also uh the shade structures that are being proposed um in front of it to cover the vacuum area for the car wash. And so with some of the obstructions um from those shade structures and some of the obstructions from the existing landscaping, which is nice and pretty and mature on site, we want their side signs to be uh visible from the public rideway. And the car wash is one of those uses that is just a little bit tucked away. And so they are requesting about a 30 square foot uh uh or 30 extra square ft on top of their uh normal 60 square ft max limitation um for their signs. So on total the the signs for the car wash will be 90 square ft. Um but they're well proportioned with the with the um building and so we think this is

something that can be approved with the project. All of the other uh buildings are standard wall signs. A new monument sign will be installed um for Chick-fil-A. Uh again, similar to the building architecture, we're going to request that they bring some uh stone elements to just match the center a little better. Um and there'll be a new Chick-fil-A sign on that big monument um by the highway. We'll talk a little bit about the um parking reduction and and driveway modification. Now, um so first and foremost, um the parking reduction is largely targeted towards their uh west side where the Springh Hill Hotels Hotel is right now. Um it's important to note first and foremost that there are existing easements um for this commercial center requiring all parking across the center to be shared. Um that's essentially how it works out for most of our uh larger commercial centers is the parking iss um through easements or through lease agreements. Um, but we always try to make sure we understand what the parking inventory is on a site and how much is required. Um, in this case with the two new uses that are being uh added being the retail shell and the Chick-fil-A building, um, they are required to have 262 parking space on that uh, east side of the center. Um, they are proposing right now 236 parking spaces. Um, we, you know, have observed that site uh, for a while now. The site is well parked. All the facilities are shared. um they are requesting that uh parking reduction um based on the different style of uses and their peak hours and and we believe that's an acceptable request um that we're recommending approval of. Um the second um exception they're uh requesting here or third I should say besides their sign their parking reduction is the driveway modification. So typically um you know in in the perfect scenario uh all our shared sites or shared developments

would have a 145 ft spacing between driveways. Um that's largely to reduce the potential conflicts that might occur when you know you have a a very busy uh development uh that requires a lot of turning movements. And so you want to make sure that there are, you know, uh, adequate spacing between driveways to remove conflicts between vehicles when they're turning in and out. Um, and also make sure that you're, uh, retaining that sight clearance, um, for any, uh, drivers, um, which turns out to also affect pedestrian safety. It keeps pedestrians safe when you don't have so many vehicles looking out for 10 million things um, as they maneuver a site. In this case, um, they're requesting reduction to 109 ft. Um, again, we've reviewed this with our public uh works team. Um, it's really triggered by the the need to incorporate um a new parking design on the site. Uh, so a new parking configuration and and and make use of those longer cues for the restaurant um that are being shown in the site plan here. Again, we're not concerned. We're not there's not any significant operational issues that uh that come up because of the reduced distance in the driveway modification. So we are recommend recommending approval of the driveway modification as well. Uh really quick discussion on traffic and circulation here. Um so some of the comments that uh that we've been receiving um but also just one of the bigger discussions from the moment the application came in was how we would manage the traffic. Um especially seeing again observing what's going been going on in our community with some of our other uh more popular restaurants. Um in this case uh the applicant did submit a traffic study for the property. um that traffic study uh uh you know focused on

the car wash and the um uh well it focused on the the entire project but uh had specific call outs for the car wash and the drive-thru use um and so the the drive-through restaurant use being the biggest trigger uh vehicle traffic onto the site. Um they did look at other Chick-fil-As uh in our state and and here regionally and use those numbers to make sure that they were uh having sufficient cues uh queuing capacity for the vehicles that would be going to the site. In this case, um that uh Chick-fil-A restaurant is equipped with 33 a 33 vehicle queue um just for it just for that purpose. And that's only the stuff or the area that is specifically within those Q lanes. If you look at this map, you can see how those uh uh non-shaded in vehicles even expand beyond into the new parking lot area. So, a lot of capacity there to hold um vehicles. um the car wash, which was a little bit less of a concern, but that has a 13 vehicle queue uh for for those uh users. Um and it also includes the parking uh for the vacuum areas. Um, like I said, we've been observing other restaurants such as Sonic, such as In-N-Out that, you know, get really, really busy and popular, and we've had a lot of good conversations, I'll say, with the applicant and especially um folks um who uh have been helping move along Chick-fil-A uh from their corporate team um and and their uh permitting team. and um given us good confidence that they're well aware of how uh busy these uh openings can be and and you know have a whole little protocol internally um uh to make sure that all traffic uh operates smoothly during um heavy periods like a new Chick-fil-A opening. Um, we did include a condition of approval in there uh for traffic control um that you uh can read

through in your attachments to the staff report and to the resolution. Um, and we've worked through that specific language with Chick-fil-A um making sure that they're able to coordinate with us during high traffic uh events. We also have gotten a couple of comments which you might have seen come through via email. Oh, not what I want to do. via email regarding noise um on the site. The applicant um did submit an acoustic report for uh the car wash. Um that is the the big noise generator here uh for the for the project. And so essentially what that acoustic report said um was really the concern would be if this car wash was operating at night. Um that's when your uh average uh sound for this area drops. And so that's where if you had your car wash operating at night, obviously it'd be a major disturbance. So part of the conditions of pro of approval is um limiting those operating hours to make sure they know uh they're only allowed from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. which is consistent with our noise ordinance. Um and also we added a condition of approval in there um ensuring that the equipment the noise generating equipment uh is limited to I believe 70 feet uh or sorry 70 dB at 30 ft um from the car wash or from the noise source um which again is matching our our noise standards and and in a sense limiting them um to or requiring them to use um uh silencer packages or some kind of that those uh best practices in the design of their facility. um to keep noise or operational noise as low as possible. Um as I mentioned we have been talking with the applicant um uh about all the conditions of approval. sharing uh drafts of them as we go along. um from

or since planning commission and there were some minor changes um you know with particular in particular with Chick-fil-A being a a a national chain um uh there are always you know there's always a need for exact precise language on conditions approval even when it's not Chick-fil-A but in this case they just wanted to make some point of clarification to some of most of our borrower plate language um and uh uh as they've worked through some of the questions about traffic circul population and road improvements with us. Um we've also made some changes uh to make sure we're all on the same page about expectations as they proceed with building permits. Um those specific conditions are listed on your screen. They're also uh shown in strike through and underline in red in your conditions of approval so you guys uh have easy access to them there. With that said, um you have your recommendation here on the screen in front of you, um which is to introduce for first reading by title only uh draft ordinance approving a zoning code tax amendment uh based on findings and adopting draft resolution B uh approving a lot line adjustment ATL250042 and a conditional use permit with the parking reduction driveway design modification and sign exception to amend the home depot center master plan development and allow a car wash and drive-thru restaurant and a commercial shell at the Home Depot Center at the addresses uh on your screen there and APN's on your screen there subject to the findings and condition of approval.

All right, I'll open up for discussion and questions. Okay. Uh thank you Eric and for your first uh presentation, city council. Great job. Very good report. Thorough, comprehensive, and I think succinct as well. So, um, all right, I will open it up starting on my left to council questions starting with Council Member Peak. Yeah, thanks Eric. I appreciate it. Um, how many cars are Do you guys count when we're busy at In-N-Out? How many cars are winding around the parking lot in there? We do not have a parking count for In-N-Out.

So, a Q count, I should say, for In-N-Out currently. And when we built In-N-Out, we basically thought it would be like six cars at a time. So, um, and if you've been to In-N-Out in Selenus, it wraps all the way onto the freeway, on-ramps, off-ramp sometimes. So, a lot of times when you build these, you don't know what how popular they're going to be. So, I know that when through like the different development, uh, the planning of this, there was cars added to the queue or allowing it for wrapping around the parking lot. Before you go on though, I was going to almost ask that same question, but so you're saying we don't I mean because I wanted what's the comparison to In-N-Out Burger um in terms of how many cars can you get in the queue at In-N-Out Burger before you're you know 10 feet from Senate SOMO? Do we you not know that?

So we don't have those current numbers in In-N-Out. What I will tell you is that In-N-Out has continuously enlarged and modified their drive-thru area almost every year for the last seven or eight years now as it's continued to get more and more popular and they've kind of been able to figure it out on their own without significant impacts to the rightway. But it's certainly a lot more than what we had originally planned for now. So, I think we've learned a lesson here uh by pre-planning a very significant number of vehicles, not only on their specific site, but wrapping around the entire interior of the shopping center and then all the way back out to Elcom real. We feel like we've overdone it in this particular situation and have a lot of capacity. The traffic analysis, which compares other Chick-fil-As throughout the region and state, seems to agree with that as well. Yeah, it does seem like it's a lot more than food, you know, in and out when you think about cars in and out, but it'd be nice to know for sure.

Well, yeah, definitely. Number one is, you know, if this goes through, then there's going to be a couple months of pandemonium. Um, we saw that with Sonic for about two days. It was like a flash in the pan for whatever reason. um traffic control. The provision in written for the contractor to have traffic control on El Camino Riale would be definitely pertinent. I would also um I I would assume and I don't know if it's correct. It's probably just my observation. I live behind In-N-Out so when it's busy there Sano it sucks but so when it wraps around inside it seems like there's more cars in line getting to go than there are parked to go to the restaurant sometimes. Um, is there maybe this is a question for the the consultant from Chick-fil-A, maybe it's not the right time for it, but is there statistics in terms of who's using parking to eat inside the restaurant with a restaurant with what was it like 70 occupancy, something like that, versus drive-thru? Are Chick-fil-A statistically more of a drive-through restaurant than a sit down and eat a sandwich restaurant? What kind of um thought goes into that? you know, are we anticipating more drive-throughs and less sitting down? Um, and then my other questions are as to the car wash. If you'd like me to wait, mayor.

Go, go ahead.

Okay. And then in terms of the Sunday and Quickie car wash, our case study on the south end of town, which is a crazy busy tiny car wash compared to this, um, they are open till 5 in the winter and they're open till 7 in the summer. I think I go there all the time and it seems like I can never find a spot or they're about closing when I can go there. Um, was there when we approved the quickie car wash over there before it was Sunday car wash, was there is there a case study from the city that we said you can't be open later than 700 p.m. And if so, why not have a similar thing here? Um, I don't know. When it's cold out, no one's washing their cars anyway. And so in the winter it's dark as well, but this seems to be well lit up. So just wondering about the history of the quickie approval um on that end of town and why their hours of operation are five or seven depending on the season. And then um I think that's pretty much my questions as of now besides uh on on attachment two number 14 for uh page 67 to my other council people up here talking about site lighting. Uh I'm less concerned with signs. I mean signs are signs. I'm not sure why there has to be a big sign facing the hotel. If you're trying to see it from El Camino, you're probably more concerned with a front sign. But the sign lighting, the site lighting shall comply to the city's exterior lighting standards. Like you to clarify what that means with a recess of 2 in. I went by the site this afternoon and took pictures and kind of just looked around. The ones behind the car wash, the pole lights that are along the fence. Are those not to current commercial code? And uh those are all my questions for now.

Thank you, Council Member Peak. Let me just answer the first question about Quickie Car Wash. Quicky Quickie Car Wash was actually approved as a mixeduse project, believe it or not. It was a small commercial pad that's part of a big residential project. So, it did have conditions that spoke about reduced hours that are different. I don't have that set of conditions in front of me tonight. I don't know exactly what they say. So, it's hard for me to tell you for sure whether those hours were the choice of the business or whether they were restricted by the actual permit for that mixeduse project. We can look at that, but what I will tell you is you do have the option here to set the hours differently than what's being proposed. However, there are limitations put in place by the noise study done for this project that make recommendations for those hours which are basically looking at our own city noise ordinance on our noise standards that we have trying to reflect those so that we don't have an impact after hours but of course they could be reduced even further. Um, the other question there, I think I would default to uh the representatives we have here for Chick-fil-A to talk about how they've designed their restaurant, whether it's more for eating in or the drive-thru experience. U, but I do know they do have some interior space, probably similar to In-N-Out, but I couldn't tell you exactly what their capacity is inside. And then the other question you had, I think I'll have Eric answer that one about the

Yes. So, um, the lighting question about the existing fixtures, as I mentioned in in the presentation, the original master plan development and large part their on-site development um, occurred in the early 2000s for the site. Their entitlement was approved in 1999. So, shortly after they would have applied for building permit that would included all the lighting for the site um, and their in their on-site improvements. that time our uh lighting standards were not as um clean as they are now with a larger focus on preventing light spillover uh and requiring essentially dark sky compliance. And so part of the question was what we require now. And so lighting fixtures today um are required to have a essentially called a visor or have a a full shield on them. And so if you think of um uh the light bulb being the light source, it means that the component of the fixture that is covering that light source is stretching 2 in below the edge of the bulb. Um and so it's fully covering that light source. So the light is either pointed directly downward at the ground or in the case of more decorative lighting directed directly at the building. Um, and so with light poles, there's also, um, height standards right now, uh, limiting a maximum height. Um, and in this case, uh, most of those poles probably do not meet that height standard.

So, just a quick follow up to that and I'm done. Mayor, so to that point, if there's going to be a 20 foot building of car wash in the back and there might be a wall-mounted security light for a trash enclosure back there, could we could that mitigate the need for those 30 foot light poles at the edge of the property line? Because we won't need that's essentially there for security, right? So, if there's a smaller light 6 ft off the ground, 8 ft off the ground on the car wash building for security reasons, you wouldn't need those large flood lights 30 ft in the air. Correct.

Correct. Yes. And um that's something that the council could choose to uh discuss as a condition of approval in terms of um what treatment there is to any of the existing light poles or uh addition of any new exterior lights.

Thank you. And I would note that and this may be what council member Peep was referring to. received a letter a letter from a couple neighbors below complaining about the pre these existing lights and so even though they're existing and previously approved as part of the original product project it it certainly is an opportune time to readress that I think and um you know even though they're pre-existing to say hey those are as you say to a different standard a different time you have the kind of thing where we require them to point downward but pointing downward in this case might be right towards the houses that are below the railroad tracks. Um, and so yeah, I would like to us to to consider doing that. I'm glad you brought that up. Thank you. Uh, Mayor Portanderas,

thank you. Uh, you mentioned that when the entire development was approved under, excuse me, PD9 that it uh did not allow car washes. And I'm wondering what the reasoning was behind that, if you know. We don't know. I'd be making assumptions if I did, but I think originally this this commercial development was really centered around the Home Depot and retail stores. And it wasn't intended to be an automotive oriented land use. So, it was really just, hey, here's a hotel, here's a large Home Depot. And um that was that was really it.

Okay. Just trying to maximize commercial or Yeah. trying to incentivize and maximize the retail developments. But unfortunately, what has happened over the years, we found that the non-compete that's in place for Home Depot has really prevented these spaces from building out as we originally intended. So therefore, that's why this becomes a good solution. These particular land uses don't impact the non-compete that's currently in place with Home Depot.

Okay. Well, with with the potential for noise, I hope it hope it's not going to be a problem. I think I actually think it's probably a good location for a car wash. But on the noise issue, the the Quickie car wash, that's the one by Miners. Is that is that correct? H have has there been any I was on the planning commission when that came through. So I remember there there was a lot of discussion on the potential for noise and keeping the decibel level down. Has there been any complaints from that operation of that um car wash from any of the neighbors? Not that we're aware of.

Okay. Excellent. I like to hear that. And then the last question is on the on Chick-fil-A and the queueing and um the ordering, you know, like uh In-N-Out, they have someone standing out there with their Is that how Chick-fil-A normally does it? Maybe they can answer. Maybe you know that. But is that how Chick-fil-A normally does their ordering with somebody standing out there like like uh In-N-Out? The applicant team is nodding. Yes.

Yeah. Oh, you guys are okay. I don't know who to look at. So, okay. I just want to make sure we're not trying to impose something that's not something that is um typical with with this organization that could potentially be a problem and not complied with over time. So, if this is something that they're used to uh operating, then I think that's fantastic because it seems to work really well at at In-N-Out. Um it really surprises me how well it works. First time I went through there, I couldn't believe it. Um I've never been to a Chick-fil-A, so now I'm looking forward to going just to check out how the queuing works. So, that's all the questions I have. Yeah, my my question was how do they serve the food to the second lane away from the building? But I think that was answered for me earlier this morning. Um so yeah, and as uh somebody has told me, Chick-fil-A is the uh in and out of chicken and and so similar volumes. U so anyway, uh I have a couple questions, but I will wait until uh after Council Member Funk and Council Member Nome have a chance.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, I too am interested in the in the uh car wash aspect of this. Uh, the um, first let me check on the signage. Uh, you you showed us signage for the car wash and then also for the commercial buildings. If those commercial buildings need to h that commercial building needs to have a separate sign for each of maybe three businesses that might be in there, do they have enough? Did can that be accommodated without any additional change? You had a nice picture of that. Yes.

Went back a little too far there. Okay, I'll take your yes and and we'll uh come back at it. Um u looking at the car wash again if we can get to it. the picture that shows um the car wash and um on site and the and there that'll do. Okay. So, with that picture, am I correct in understanding that that there's actually a second the administrative part of the building is behind the part of the building that we see so that you have a tunnel for the that the cars go through and then there's the you know offices where you pay and all that you know get goodies etc.

That would be correct. Okay. So, there's an additional section of building that helps buffer sound from the the uh the car wash function. Correct. Yeah. There's a smaller portion or shorter portion of the building behind that tower that you can't see maybe in this one. Um here we go. Ah, okay. Yes. Thank you. So, that's kind of equipment storage. And I believe there's a small office in there. Okay. And uh where are the dryers in this? Are they inside the building? because that tends to be the big noise issue in car washes.

I don't believe our floor plans get into that level of detail, those level of kind of mechanical equipment usually comes up at the building permit stage. Typically for car washes, they are with housed within the tunnel. Um, and so those silencer packages that I spoke to usually have some kind of um I think they call them noise baffles, which is a a soundproof surrounding attached to them.

Okay. And you gave us some dimensions as to the distances for the uh between the car wash and the residential neighborhood that is is across the railroad tracks from here and down a fair bit. Um which affects both the lighting and and sound. U probably helps them on the sound probably, you know, makes the lighting harder. Um, how does that 160 feet compare to the distance with the uh other car wash that council member Peak just mentioned? Um, that is is uh positioned near a residential development. it and not not all that neighborhood has been developed yet, but um are they uh is this uh closer or further away from houses than than that development was planned to be?

Currently, residential development is a little bit further away than this particular measurement, but that's not how it's going to remain. That whole area is developing with residential at some point which will be even closer than this one is today. But with the current construction standards and with the noise mitigation for how these are built based on the noise analysis is supposed to be okay. Okay.

Thank you. Um and uh I would second the question. Is there any are there any really huge cost or security implications to requiring the um um property owner to shield the existing lights to current standards um for the benefit of the neighborhood?

Uh it's probably a limited expense. We've already talked a little bit about um some repairs to or or modifications to those light fixtures. I when we saw that email come in, I went ahead and let the uh ownership know, hey, um this might come up in city council today, so please be ready to discuss um that. I will add um that the center isn't entirely owned at this point by um by one person or one group. Um, the hotel owns their property, Staples own their property, Home Depot owns their property, and these are all shared amenities uh that they use for access throughout the site. Um, so while there is likely some level of conditioning uh that can occur to retrofit some of the lights, the extent to which the owner can do all of it if it doesn't fall on their property is likely limited. Um, but we um we will also I think it's probably good to let the applicant weigh in on this one as well.

Okay. Yeah, that I would be interested in hearing from the applicant. Also, the extent to which the car wash building itself will be a light shield between the parking lot and the neighborhood given the angles um involved. If somebody has looked at that, uh that would be helpful uh for us to know. Okay. and then um okay that'll take care of my questions for now. Thank you. Always oh sorry we can come I recall that we can come I have a different spot where my questions on the traffic flow

okay

I had and that is over here um the uh and this is probably for Mr. Dar. Um, one of the the uh things we uh in typically on a on a a project of this kind, we're looking at the pot the study is of the potential for traffic backing up onto the freeway of people who are trying to exit at that point to you to patronize the businesses involved. Um, my question is a little different. It's about the fact that that um after people get their yummies and come back onto the framework, particularly the northbound 101, that's a very that interchange has a very tight curve and a very short ramp for acceleration. So that even electric vehicles have a hard time getting fully up to traffic speed by the time they merge in. And so this produces um or it contributes to an effect that they call the atascadero curve and you see traffic backing up. To what extent will adding the traffic associated with these hightra volumes um add to that challenge um and do you see that as a safety concern?

Well, thank you council member Funk. That's a really good question. Um the uh applicant they had submitted a traffic impact study and they did traffic counts um not only exist existing but you know additional traffic that's going to be generated by this project and the difference um for traffic entering US 101 northbound they looked at the peak hours in the morning and afternoon. So, uh, this would be the peak hour traffic between 7 and 9:00 a.m. and then the PM would be between 4 and 6:00 p.m. Um, but the morning, uh, is a little less than PM. And that's not usually kind of the tra like it's afternoon that we're really concerned about with the the backup in the northbound 101, but in the morning they they add the project adds 29 vehicles per hour. So that would be one vehicle every two minutes basically. And then in the PM the the traffic impact study indicated there'd be an additional 48 cars or vehicles in the afternoon um when the 101 would be more backed up and that equates to one vehicle every 75 seconds or just over a minute. So, um I don't really see that being a big impact on the US 101 northbound and um they did the applicant team did I believe also submit this plan to CALR and they didn't have any comments and or anything else. So, I I don't see it being a real big issue for traffic or contributing to any of that. And um I don't I do know CALR modified that and lengthened that on-ramp um maybe five years ago or so. They did some improvements to make it a little longer and um and so I don't I

don't see that being a big problem for the mainline traffic on 101. Okay. Thank you. And then uh when the applicant talks to us, I'd be interested in hearing um thinking about the traffic flow on the site itself for Chick-fil-A. um how they manage getting people to go all the way to the back of the site and queue up rather than getting frustrated and cutting through in the a couple of other lanes um and having queuing all the way through the entire parking lot. Okay, Council Member Nome,

thank you. Um I wanted to speak to the traffic on northbound 101 at the ECR stomp sign. How do we anticipate the additional volume affecting our ongoing stacking that happens on a regular basis at that exit? This would be on the offramp on northbound offramp. Yeah. At El Camino.

So again, they they analyzed and I'll um compliment the applicant team because they really work closely with the city engineering staff to address our concerns at and do the analysis at the intersections we requested. This is one of them. And um really the um at that intersection, I don't really have the delta on those, but um there's plenty that intersection is still going to operate at an acceptable level. All the all the intersections right now operate at a level level of service A, which is the best. and um won't have this right off hand, but um I think all those will also continue to to operate at a level of service as well. And the queueing distance isn't even none of the queuing distance uh from traffic generated by this project is going to even come close to being impacted. So, there's plenty of storage on the offramps and uh the approaches to all the intersections.

Having spent quite a bit of time on that side of town as well as uh visit a Chick-fil-A every time I go to the city. Um I have the experience of it stacking even worse than In and Out. Um and I have sat in those lines. Um, but what I'm more concerned about is the volume of traffic for our residents trying to utilize Home Depot, Starbucks, and everything else in there. And just exiting the 101 northbound at that stop sign. It's not uncommon for someone to blow that stop sign and also stand there for um, you know, a much longer amount of time as everybody tries to figure out how to navigate that intersection. And then the volume of cars um I anticipate everything that we see going on on San and Selmo um a little bit more because I think Chick-fil-A is um got its own calling of its own. One of the things that this council has done is put a moratorum on drive-thru at the San Andelmo and the In-N-Out was a huge impact on that because we knew that that corridor at San and Selmo could not take another drive-thru of that magnitude in the Kmart parking center. There's also a moratorium on the Del Rio with the Taco Bell being the last drive-thru that goes in. So, what tends to happen is is each drive-thru impacts the ability to navigate those intersections drastically. So, I want to make sure that we have items in place that's not affecting the neighborhood and allowing us to go about our regular visits to Home Depot because the spill out for the Chick-fil-A has the potential to run down a residential corridor which is Ramona and Ramona has um you know blind curves. It's got a lot of uh residential property with animals as well as young children and the speeds in that corridor. I'd hate to see the the traffic funnel into there. So, I'd

be interested to see the studies that were done um outside of the um pad for development. And I I did just look at review the counts that they had in there and the addition of traffic in the morning and afternoon for the off-ramp is about one car per minute. That would be additional added from the project leaving the the freeway. Okay. Um so we do not anticipate having to do any type of realignment of ECR right there at that intersection?

No. The only thing um that we've asked the applicant to do is uh reconfigure the approach, the northbound approach to um San Ramon, the the four-way stop there by the Starbucks because uh the majority of the additional traffic that's going to be coming is going to be going through the intersection. Right now, the configuration there's two lanes currently. There's a shared right and through. Can you show it on the screen? Is it in their slides?

I believe so. There's a shared uh through uh through and right and then there's a dedicated left turn only. I'm not sure if this is showing it's on the other side or to the bottom of this page. So I I think if you explain it from the bottom though, you're saying right now there's a the right lane is a right turn and and through and through and the left lane is a left only

left only. And what's going to happen is um there's going to be most of the traffic generated by this project is going to go through the intersection. So, one of the things we've worked with the applicant on is uh realigning that to have it a shared through left and a dedicated right because a lot of the traffic right now is say taking a right to go to the Home Depot or Starbucks or whatever is that way and very little traffic is going through and um so it balances that out better and it'll balance the queuing at the intersection much better and so going through the intersection we've worked with the applicant to define that through lane through because that existing median that you see here um on the other side of the intersection will need to be modified to allow an appropriate um shift through that intersection and define that through lane for traffic say going up up and over the um train tracks and then also defining that left turn pocket better and getting a little more queuing in there. So, um, the I I believe it's going to work very well and it'll be a good uh design to accommodate the additional traffic. Okay. Um, the other thing I wanted to talk about was the Spring Hill Suites roundabout. One of the articles said there was going to be a no left turn on one of the drive-thru driveways. Are we going to add another no- left turn on the roundabout so we're not draining into our traffic's going down and turning around in the residential area?

Yeah. So, um leaving the roundabout driveway. So, they'll that'll be an acceptable to take a left turn out will be fine. It's the uh the driveway to the south that's kind of at a skew there. That's really meant to funnel traffic into the site and and um keep the so it doesn't back up onto the intersection of San Ramon in El Camino. So that one will prohibit lefthand turns, but the roundabout won't allow a lefthand turn. Uh the roundabout uh lefthand turns will be acceptable.

Okay. How do we see the additional traffic in this corridor with just the um all three paths being developed affecting that neighborhood and going across the bridge into the residential area?

Yeah, we don't uh the traffic report um really didn't show any additional traffic uh being routed to the north into that neighborhood. So that traffic was, you know, it's kind of funny actually because I looked at some of the traffic before and after the numbers uh earlier today going southbound and there's going to be less traffic going through it because I'm guessing people in the PM are going to be turning into Chick-fil-A to get dinner or something. But um there'll be more traffic uh turning into that into that center in the PM than in morning than going through. So it's interesting, but no traffic impacts for the neighborhood.

And is there an existing sign that says dead end or not a through street? Is that a I I believe there is one right now. Is it after you cross the bridge or before the cross the bridge? I believe it's um shortly just north of the San Ramon, the four-way stop. I think it's right there. So, in this picture, it would be um just right across the street from the Starbucks in the northbound direction. Okay. So, we may we may relocate that just beyond the roundabout intersection and um show that that's a closed residential area. Yes. Or private. Um signage, you mentioned signage. Is any of the lighting going to be LED?

Um, no. I don't believe so. I would have to double check with the applicant, but I don't believe they call out that level of detail on the sign because that requires a special use permit. Is that correct? for LED signs.

I think we can wait till the applicant speaks. Maybe the applicant answer that question when we invite them up.

We've had it been asked previously on different developments. So, I want to make sure we address that. We're not putting in really large, tall monument LED signs. We will review that um for the building plans. But yeah, they have a they have a sign master sign plan that was approved with the um with the development as a whole. So the only exception that they're asking for when I reviewed the plans was that sizing of the signs. Everything else in terms of the details they provided um complies with that master sign or or sign plan for the Home Depot center. and the car wash logo on that building is not lighted.

They will likely be internally illuminated. Okay. Um I know with the neighborhood's concern about lighting, I just wanted to make sure it clarified and understood what was lighted. Um you'd mentioned that there was a noise study done prior to um the applicant submitting the application. Is that correct?

Yes. Okay. On prior noise studies, um an example being human being, there was concern from the residents that they were really close to the proximity of something that would have loudspeakers and large um volume in their area. Is it possible to put a contingency or a followup with a neighbor on six months because it's a conditional use with a noise study? I think we have an existing one in a ECR corridor. That is possible. Yes. Okay, I think that's all my questions. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Um I have some questions regarding um phasing. Um you know, this consists uh there's approvals and this project consists of three pads, three structures, that being the you know, the Chick-fil-A, the car wash, and the commercial one. uh from a you know services to our constituents and a revenue generating standpoint, we're obviously most interested and excited about the Chick-fil-A. The car wash, frankly, is a eh, you know, um as long as it doesn't bother the neighbors, but it's certainly not something that I'm, you know, excited about. Um is I want to make sure that we don't end up with a car wash and for any reason whatsoever, uh you know, the Chick-fil-A is delayed or not built. Is there any phasing in this project? approval

there is not as proposed the council does have uh the ability to condition the project in such a way but I I think that's a good discussion to have with the applicant team as they come in and then as well you know so there's no obviously time specific timetable for pad 3 the commercial show no other than what they expect or what they have suggested yeah okay and as I understand it from previous dis you know discussions with the city manager We did anticipate that the Chick-fil-A would be underway as soon as possible from a construction permit standpoint. Yes.

Okay, good. Okay. Um, in terms of uh the traffic, I mean, I, you know, having had to abort a trip or two to uh In-N-Out Burger on a Friday evening because I would, you know, would be the last car who wasn't sticking out into the roadway or etc. Um, I find that, you know, when the fuller the drive-through lane is, at least in the past before In-N-Out changed their configurations, the harder it was to park. And so, you know, the concern being is, are people going to use, if the drive-throughs are full, will they use the parking? And I think, you know, if people are driving all over the place trying to get into the driveth through line, they actually make the parking lot almost gridlocked and harder to get into. Um, so but I do feel that, you know, this is more capacity than in-n-out. It's much farther off the freeway than in-n-out. So I feel reasonably comfortable uh even though some of those numbers sound kind of low that Mr. Debar just quoted, but I do I am concerned um and Council Member Nent alluded to this on an ongoing basis, but I'm particularly concerned at the opening about people in the neighborhood across the bridge literally not being able to go home. uh or customers not being able to get to Home Depot because they're stuck in a 30 minute uh you know gridlock of people wanting to try out Chick-fil-A. So, I'm not, you know, a traffic engineer. I don't want to micromanage or make sausage up here, but I do want to make sure that you know you guys and that the applicant understands that we wish them all the success in the world, but in those opening days, whether it's a soft opening that you don't, you know, advertise it quite so much or what have you. But we've got to make sure that in the opening couple weeks that our neighborhood folks get can go home without uh having to uh you know, wait or preferably not having to route themselves through the Home Depot parking lot to get around this. that

sort of thing. Um, so I, you know, I hope that's really seriously addressed. Um, and then on the, uh, the noise study, you know, these, this lighting that we talked about was, you know, approved 20 years ago. The neighbors, existing neighbors have a concern about those existing lights and I think we can fix that. But I've always struck a house. Some things times things just don't turn out like you think. you know, you guys are smart, come up with great conditions, and then sometimes it just doesn't pan out. And I'm concerned about a noise study. I think of being in the military about artillery sounds can go, you know, we can hear artillery from Camp Roberts on certain days. You know, acoustics are a very odd thing. Uh, and I think, you know, from my understanding, I'm less concerned about the noise to the neighbors below for some of the reasons you described, but noise can travel a long ways. I'd probably be more concerned about the people across the Home Depot parking lot. And I'm wondering if there's any, you know, buffering of the vacuums in terms of headed that way noise-wise andor uh like council member N I think alluded to is, you know, 6 months down the road, we we'd be if we're getting a lot of neighboring complaints that there would be the ability to go, okay, going to have to do a little retrofit here or something, whether it be, you know, more more bushes, more this, more that, I don't know, but I am concerned that, you know, sometimes studies done by the most competent people just don't pan out the way you think they do. So, is that something that could be addressed?

Mayor, you're asking for a per performance standard. Certainly, those can go into conditional use permit. We can have a a six-month or one-year or both followup. Um, we can also respond if we have neighborhood concerns. Does something need to change? Certainly we think we believe as staff we've thought of all those stop gaps uh in this particular design. I mean for example the the tunnel the dryer faces away from the residential that faces towards commercial development but certainly you can have a condition here that has a six-month or one-year review. You can do that for any use permit to adjust conditions, adjust conditions on lighting, adjust conditions on noise, all of those things. And the benefit we have with this particular site compared to In-N-Out is this is part of a regional shopping center and there's a lot of parking even though they're asking for a slight reduction. The amount of shared parking is enormous. And if you look at that empty parking lot that's across from the Starbucks right now and people had to if they wanted to walk in and they couldn't get in the parking lot because it's the first opening week or two,

right? A lot of options which is different than the In-N-Out and so you don't have the option over there. you know, it's an isolated site. This isn't and it helps in a lot of things. The Staples parking lot is pretty much available most of the time and could be used during opening as long as there was some, you know, crosswalk guard or something.

Mayor, I also wanted to add um condition 20 and I think this is important. Chick-fil-A's can be quite busy and I think I've seen some in shopping centers that probably have more employees managing traffic outside in bright vests than they have working inside. And I and I think that's and I want our applicant to talk about that. But that's why we have condition 20, not just a queuing plan showing volume, but we want a staffing narrative that shows what staffing measures they'll implement at busy times. Whether there'll be staff people directing people over to the Staples side, queuing them up there and then moving them over. That's very important, especially when it opens. And that's why we also have the coordination plan that will work with them on us if this is approved. But perhaps the applicant when they have a chance can speak more to uh Chick-fil-A's ability to manage traffic, but they they're very good at it.

Right. Yeah, I mean certainly they have experience in this. You know, they know how to run a busy facility and and I think we can appreciate that they will work with staff and be professional about it. Um, and I'm not going to try to, like I say, make the sausage up here. Just want to make sure, you know, staff understands that council's concern on it. Um, I'm going to open it up to the applicant. We normally give the applicant up to 10 minutes, but please don't repeat repeat the things that staff already said. We heard that. uh if you could, you know, perhaps address any questions you feel staff didn't completely answer. Um but uh we welcome you. Thank you, Mayor Babau, members of the council. It's a pleasure to be here. My pleasure to be here this evening. Um for the record, my name is Connor Best with Wester Associates, and I promise you I won't repeat what Eric so aptly already told you. Um, but I'm Connor Best with Wester Associates representing Atascadero 101 Associates, the property owner. We've owned and managed this center for nearly 30 years, and we're proud to be here with the final phase of its development. This project completes the buildout of a uniquely constrained Highway 101 interchange site. The plan includes three final components, a drive-through restaurant, complimentary retail pad building, and a car wash. uses that work together to round out the center and support its long-term success. I'd like to thank the planning commission for their thoughtful comments and recommendation of approval. Since that hearing, we've continued to work closely with staff to further coordinate off-site striping and circulation improvements, analyze crosswalk operations, plan for grand opening conditions associated with Chick-fil-A, and clarify language within the conditions of approval. Through that process, we've addressed the key concerns raised and are now in full agreement with all conditions of approval as presented. More broadly, this project provides convenient

services for local residents, travelers along along Highway 101, and nearby businesses while making efficient use of an already developed commercial site. We appreciate the continued collaboration from staff and planning commission, and we believe this project before you reflects that collective effort. I respectfully request your approval this evening and I'm happy to answer your questions of which please remind me if I forget one here. So, uh, Council Member Peak, uh, you mentioned the In-N-Out capacity, uh, and speaking back here, that is only a single lane operation. It's doesn't have the queue capacity that we have here. And with staff's recommendations, I think we've provided a a significant queue here. Um, I don't know about the operations of the Quickie Car Wash, but we heard the staff's answers there. Uh, and the site lighting. Uh, as you heard from Eric, uh, we are happy to shield the the poles that we control on our property. Happy to do it. We will do it. Um, but there are some light poles along that northern boundary that are on other parcels owned by other parties and we will do our our best good faith efforts to coordinate with them and and have them shield those as well. the the thought process of eliminating those and just relying on wallpack lights does concern us from an assurance and liability standpoint being that there's a significant drop off to the north to the US 101 or the the Union Pacific Railroad tracks there. So we like having those light stansions along that perimeter fence along that that drop off just for the errant vehicle who might travel too far north. So, uh, that would be our concern with eliminating those light poles completely. Uh, but we're happy to shield them. Uh, council member Daritz, uh, the PD9 car wash not allowed. Uh, I think staff covered it, but to add our color, we also don't understand why automotive uses aren't allowed in the PD overlay. In 2007, we

did have on this Chick-fil-A site a uh Chevron approved uh and unfortunately they were able to terminate that lease. So, we've had these uses approved before, but we're not really sure how the PD9 and I think Phil adequately summed it up, but I think we all kind of it's in the it's in the ether now. So, um the uh noise concerns, you know, um and the uh to jump ahead a little bit for the car wash, uh we hear you. We tried to um orient that building to limit that amount of noise and we're happy to um you know have six month or 12-month check-in after certificate of occupancy. We're happy to do that. Not a problem. Um, and then for the phasing question, uh, we're happy to phase the the car wash application of building permits after, you know, we receive building permits for Chick-fil-A. It is our intention for Chick-fil-A and Pad 2 to to go in sequence of these numbering. So, Chick-fil-A and Pad 2, the retail pad building just south of the Springill Suites would be our intent to build those simultaneously uh, up front and then once we secure an operator for the car wash, that that would follow. So, uh, we're happy to, you know, uh, agree not to bring that forward first. Um, the car wash signage, um, you know, I believe the, um, the question of it being lit, we do expect it to be lit. Um, uh, we, all of the lighting will adhere to, you know, municipal code, whether it's LED or fluorescent tubes or I don't think I'm trying to think of our monument signs that we have in our pylon signs. I think those are fluorescent tubes. I don't think we have uh, LED signs, but I'm not I can't speak for Staples and Home Depot

and any improvements they might have done to their signage since we built the project. um the buffering of the noise and the dryers. Without an operator, we don't have the exact location of where those blowers or dryers might be, but we're happy to listen to any sort of suggestions during tenant improvement plan drawings or or some sort of conditions there. Um uh there is not any huge cost implications to shielding the existing lights. We're happy to work on those as as far as we can. um the traffic flow backing up to the freeway. I think uh public works director Dybar answered that questionly. Thank you very much. And I have to tell you that his team anticipated your comments and your concerns very very well. And we had three or four, you know, hours longs meetings figuring it out and a little arm wrestling, but we're very happy with it. And we've been here for 30 years. It's your town. It's our project. We want it to operate at the highest and best level that it can. And we hope to be here for many many years to come and make sure that it's not a nuisance that people aren't using this uh highway interchange. Our existing customers at Home Depot and and Starbucks, we we do think that that's a great improvement for that right-hand turn and then that that through and left. Uh that allows the existing customers to travel east and everyone else travel north. So I think those are great improvements that we made there. Um the let me know if I'm missing any here. Um

that's okay. We we can come up with some questions for you. I think members of the council have a question for Yeah. It was the um what does Chick-fil-A determine? Are they I guess how am I supposed to say? Um is it more skewed towards drive-thru versus dine in? Um, what is it typically a restaurant like Chick-fil-A? Absolutely. I would love to answer that question, but there's somebody much more qualified to do it. His name is Carlos Aras from Chick. Let me go ahead. Come on up. Thank you.

Good evening, council. And uh, first off, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. I can't come up here and not thank you as we're so excited for the opportunity to be a part of the city. We've been wanting to be here for a while. So, thank you. We're excited. And thank you for uh the property owner team as well. Uh council on your question, it um it really varies depending on location and surrounding area this one. So generally speaking, it's usually a little skewed more uh than half of the business is drive-thru probably because there's higher turnover in the drive-through lane. Right? So, if you're in dining in, um, it's going to be, uh, typically a slower turnover. Car, uh, guests dining in linger a little bit longer. They're there to have a meal. We serve our guests out in the dining room as well. This particular one has a playground, so cars are just going to our families that want to choose to dine in with us um are just going to linger and we welcome them to do that. That's um that's why it's there and we offer that. We do expect this one to be higher than or more than half just considering freeway proximity to be in the drive-through lane. But um I since I'm up here, I would like to maybe add some context to a lot of the questions that have come up. I'll start by maybe highlighting the site. This one is particularly exciting to us because relatively speaking, this is this is a large site. Um in in California this is relatively large and so we have a lot more parking um a lot of parking as mentioned if would you mind going back to the site plan? Thank you. Um, so a couple of key differences, some site characteristics that I would point to that I think would hopefully provide a piece of mind is the drive-thru lane has been situated

to basically route all the way to uh as far away from the curb cuts from the driveways as possible. That's a big key component for us. We like to have two curb cuts, one at the roundabout, one south of that that's skewed, slanted over because it provides flexibility for our customers to come in and come out. In other words, if one seems to start to back up, the natural counter movement, the the uh intuitive, excuse me, the intuitive movement for our customers to take the other path of least resistance and that's what we normally see happen. I think the other um consideration is all of our drive all of our uh new stores that have opened within the last two or three years have the two lanes that go all the way around. So from start to finish to the end right where the pickup window is. And that's been a complete uh a completely just it's been a game changer for us from an innovation standpoint because it makes us a lot more efficient through the drive-through lane. What it does is it allows us to cut down a few critical steps. We have an app and so it allows customers to place the order even before they get onto the site. And so when they get on site, we we sense it or you say, "I'm here at the site now." And if you choose to get in the drive-through lane, you you basically don't have to wait, stop, think about what you're going to order on the menu, and then you have to take payment. Instead, you're really bypassing that and then able to cheat forward. Um, and you're able to get in and out of the drive-through lane a lot quicker. Some of our stores depending on um the amount of use that we get from the app will actually allocate they'll dedicate one of the lanes to be for that use only. And that that has been just it drastically increases our efficiency

throughout the site. Um it really helps us become a good neighbor really. The last thing we want, it's in our interest to make sure this site is circulating properly to make sure it's safe. It's good for our customers. It's also good for our neighbors. We don't want to be hearing from our neighbors complaining that we are negatively impacting them. We don't want community members reaching out to you because there's stacking problems. And so, again, this particular site is great for those couple reasons. plenty of parking, plenty of stacking. We as a part of the traffic report also went above and beyond for establishing a great plan um with the city to circulate if in case we do overflow es uh during grand opening. It's pretty normal for us to um be busier than normal

and so it's um hopefully provides I assume you know you staff will have your full cooperation during opening opening couple weeks. Absolutely. You don't need to go into detail about that. So um any does council members have any other question for anybody on the applicant team?

Member Bunk. Yeah, I had asked uh looking at the diagram that we see here. Um the flow that Eric had shown is for cars to go all the way to the back of the site in front of the other building um and queue up um if that gets um busy. How do you keep cars from queuing in three lanes at once? So queuing all the way through all of the parking.

Yeah, it's a great question. Um that I would point I would point um everyone in this room to see the stars. There's two orange stars in the right next to the blue arrows. And we would deploy signage and or team members. It's in the legend down below as well. And we would be forcing everyone to just keep going, keep going around the gray areas on the on the screen. Um just just for a point of reference, those are those are hypothetical cars, right? We have the blue or maybe purple. Um that would be the normal busy hour. You can see the two red ones are what we can actually fit in the drive-through lanes a little bit more. What we don't show is in front of the orange cars, we can actually accommodate even more. We can push cars forward. If car number orange car number one orders 60 sandwiches, and I hope they do, the second car behind them only orders a soda, we're going to start delivering meals to car number two, three, four, and then they can go around. So, that's one of the key benefits of having the drive-thru lane go two lanes all the way around as well. The gray cars is probably what um we all care about for grand opening busyness. You see one lane here. We could probably go two before it even gets to where the blue arrow starts or ends. I guess the last the last gray car we could probably double stack. That's that's about 60 cars and we're not even close to the public rideway. So again, credit to the staff for helping us work through that to come up with a plan. Um that condition as pointed out is probably where the city hangs your hat to say, "Hey, the city can actually step in and make them change things around if needed." So um we're excited about it.

Great. Thank you.

Again, I think I mean we all foresee a lot of different potential problems here and I you know we're not traffic engineers. I'm going to leave it for me. I think we should leave it with you guys and our staff to work on those opening time plans because I mean I see you know yeah now if if you're not letting people come down those lanes are you going to let them park there all all those kinds of problems that you can foresee we expect you guys and our staff to come up with workable solutions for that even to the point of you know if you open up a business in bad two and now I nobody can come to it because the gray cars are in the way you know you guys will think through all that stuff so we don't need to, you know, solve that all tonight. Um, Council Member Newsome, you had a question.

Are you guys going to be using a speaker ordering at this location or is it just mostly just the people just like in and out? Um, we have we have speakers. It will what normally happens during peak hours is they do not get utilized because we employ our team members to start taking orders even further upstream from that. Yeah. Similar to what you would see at In-N-Out. Yes. in and out, stopped using their speakers, and deployed the extra staff on each side to be able to manage the volume. Sure. Um I'd be concerned that our entire high school um senior class is going to try to show up. I don't know if you knew we did a um

public we did some public engagement and we um encouraged our seniors to do um general plan development in the class that won asked for more chicken. the uh eat more chicken billboards appear to be working.

Yes, the high school class of a couple years ago will be very happy. So, okay. Um seeing no other questions from council, I want to thank you unless there's anything else critical you wanted to convey because we do want to open this up to public comment. We did receive some letters of concern and I'm sure this might be of interest to some members of the public. We would like to open it up now to any member of the public wishing to speak and I'm sure we did read we did read the emails we received. Hi there. My name is Ranata Rugles and the backyard you see in one of those photos is mine, 160 ft away from the car wash. It's actually his bedroom. Um, so my husband and I were both born and raised here in Atascadero, and we worked really hard to purchase our home on North Pharaoh Carrill, which is located directly below the proposed car wash. I'm speaking to express our concerns regarding the noise impacts of the proposed car wash and drive-through restaurant. Our neighborhood is already significantly affected by noise from the Home Depot Center, including truck deliveries at all hours of the day and night and the constant idling of delivery vehicles. Recently, our entire household, including our six-week old baby and two-year-old, was awakened at 4:30 a.m. by a street sweeper. In addition, the area has become a dumping site for roosters, resulting in regular crowing beginning at daybreak and continuing throughout the morning. While we understand the proposed car wash must comply with current noise ordinances and operate between 7 a.m. and 9:00 p.m., the addition of another noise generating business raises serious concerns about the cumulative impact on nearby residents. We're also concerned about existing lighting conditions. There are currently four light poles along the access road parallel to the train tracks

that are not shielded and spill directly into our bedrooms and backyard as well as onto neighboring homes. As a result, we've been forced to install blackout shades in our children's bedrooms and are unable to fully enjoy our outdoor space, including our hot tub. We have raised this issue with city planning and were informed that although the lights do not meet current standards, they're considered pre-existing and are not required to be updated. Given that this hearing involves an amendment to the existing conditional use permit, we respectfully request that the city council require the applicant to bring the existing lighting into compliance with current standards as part of this approval. Addressing this issue now would meaningfully improve the quality of life for surrounding residents. We support thoughtful and responsible development and wish the applicant success. However, it is essential that the construction and operation of these businesses include reasonable measures to minimize noise and ensure that all lighting is properly shielded to protecting neighboring homes. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you and thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

Jeff Hosen. Um, I think staff and council um asked a lot and got a great response on the majority of the questions. I still think lighting is a concern even when it is uh shielded. We see a problem in a new shopping center um off Del Rio right now with the residents that live a little ways away with uh lighting that supposedly complies with what our standards. So, I think we really need to look at that. So, we're not shining lights into people's yards when it's done. There's got to be a way to do more directional um shielding to prevent that. I think that's great. I actually think the car wash will um block a lot of the sound that happens. Um as of now, Home Depot, we had us we when we allowed Home Depot to put a rental center in, there was conditions that they could not put the rental stuff on the side back by the residents. um as they continue to expand their rental, they're taking parking away, but it's in the front. So, it is impacting a couple of people, but it's not as bad as it was before uh those conditions were put in. As for Chick-fil-A, um as we know, there's no traffic on Sunday because they respectfully still close on Sunday. I found that out 20 years ago going through airports. Um I think it's a great addition to the city. I will tell you that in their queuing and what they do if any council member is concerned, take a drive to Santa Maria. They've taken two lanes of parking in that shopping center for their drive-thru, which makes it efficient. I don't use drive-thru. I always go in, but it's amazing how their staff's out there, the delineators are out there, how they direct traffic. It is absolutely phenomenal. And I'll even bring up uh the black eye one which they

had to redo Santa Barbara a couple years ago and uh we hit that one every once in a while and I can tell you uh how they made those changes on state street is remarkable because it was backing up beyond belief before. So I think you have an applicant that understands what they're doing and um you know I'm definitely for pushing them through. Um, the concerns of course are the traffic flow into Home Depot and San Raone. That's how I go home a lot or come in to Home Depot. And again, um, the lighting. Thank you.

Okay, next speaker, please. And anybody else wishing to speak, please uh, line up. Um my name is Heather Bentine and I live in the Farah Corral um Dansza area down there and my biggest concern is just about the traffic. Um on that Staples side there's like two driveways there and when you are coming up that bridge um you're pretty much blocked from seeing anything that's coming over. And on multiple occasions, I've almost been hit coming as trucks are coming out of that um Staple Center um because they just can't see you. And then even some of the landscaping blocks some of the traffic there. So that as you're going towards your house over the bridge, they don't see you and they kind of pull out and you almost hit them. So there's a concern there. Um and then we live in the little culde-sac right there on Deansza. And Heather, I know you asked about the traffic and there are multiple cars on any given day that come over the bridge there because I think they think you can get onto the on-ramp over that way and they end up turning around in our culde-sac. I would say it's at least three or four cars a day that are coming over and turning around in the culde-sac. And so if people don't realize that they can't um get onto the freeway that way and there's not clear signage saying that this is a dead end, I think people will we'll see a lot more traffic in that residence area of just people trying to turn around. Um so that's a concern. Um, and then also I'm not sure what the plan is for just like how uh um the washers will work and like the runoff of the water, but down in that Deansza area, the drainage was not thought out when they built those homes and there's really not a lot of drainage at all. So, we get a lot of runoff and we personally

have had to put in a $20,000 sump pump just to take care of any extra water that kind of comes off. So, I'm not sure what the plan is for the runoff water there. Um, I'm sure they do recycle quite a bit of water, but any additional water that's going to come over that bridge and impact any erosion or any extra water could be an issue for us that live down there. I know it's already an issue and so that is a big concern for me. Um, and then in addition to the lighting and the sound noise because you're up on a hill there and we're all down below, so the sound actually does travel a lot farther than people think. You know, I don't know the sound that was done, the sound studies, but they do have to take into consideration that the sound travels farther because we're on a hill. That hotel there when people are sitting out and on the patio just having drinks, we can hear them all night long from our backyard. And so, um, 9:00 is a really long time for, uh, a car wash to be running if we want to be sitting out and enjoying our own backyards that we've paid a lot of money to be able to do that. So, thank you.

Okay. Thank you for your comments. Great timing. You had four seconds left. Next speaker, please.

Hello. My name is Karen Null and I am the mother of Ranata Ranata Ruggles. I always call her the wrong name. Um, and I babysit at this location 160 feet from the proposed car wash. And I love the conversation. You picked up our issues with lighting and noise. Um, uh, again, the car wash hours. It would be great to reduce those a bit. Just as the also the neighbor said, 9:00 is kind of late to enjoy your backyard. Um, noise. Also, I'd love the idea of a six-month check to see how the car wash is doing. Is it me meeting conditions? That would be wonderful. Um, and then lighting, of course. We'd love to see a condition that the poles that they are responsible for or are on their property. We believe there's four light standards along that road. Possibly two of them are on this site. And if this developer is actually responsible for those, if those could be shielded at least and then maybe make a good effort to shield the other two with the Home Depot owners or whoever owns those those lots, it would be wonderful. So, I appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Uh, anybody else wishing to speak, please brooach.

Hi. Um, my name is Steven Rabbon. I live at the house on Denza Court with Heather Benine and I just had um a thought that we do need signage down there if um the car washes or anything goes in that it needs to be clearly visible that it's one way in, one way out, especially in the morning times. I know that we have a 55 and older elderly facility down there and that's when they do the most of their exercise is at that time. So, we get a lot of walkers, a lot of joggers right in that area. And just having um clear signs in that area, one way in, one way out. This this is not a through road. Um that that would be hugely helpful if this goes through. So, um another thing I was thinking of is um the trash. I don't know what's going on with that. I know we have the street sweepers over there, but with the extra three businesses, a Chick-fil-A as well, um if there's any plan on that. So, um, just wanted to bring that up and thank you for your time.

Thank you. Okay, any other speakers? Okay, seeing none, I'm going to close public comment on this item and bring it back to council for discussion and then action. Um, I did want to ask staff a few follow-on questions based on some of the public comments and some things I thought of. Um, one of the things that concerns me is, you know, with the Home Depot, when the Home Depot first opened or within a couple years, there were a lot of noise complaints by the neighbors about early deliveries. And there is a condition, I believe, they're not supposed to have delivery trucks before it's 6 or 7:00. I think it's 7. Can you comment on that? I mean, is that correct? Is it 7?

I have to follow up on the exact time, but there were a series of complaints that came from Santa Cruz Road. They came from the backyards that faced into the parking lot in front of Home Depot. And most of the complaints were about shopping carts going in and out and they were also about the trucks queuing around the backside and we did limit the hours um of the morning deliveries and evening deliveries. I believe it was seven.

And my concern is that what happens is, you know, time changes. You get a new Home Depot manager or whatever and the next thing you know you're back to having trucks, you know, backing up. Beep beep beep. I mean, it wouldn't be so bad if they didn't have those, but they're required. Um, and and you know, so it's good for a while and then the next thing you know, you're back. And then to hear that, you know, you've got sweepers coming in at 4:30. It's like we need to do a better job of of well, first of all, the neighbors instead of just sucking it up, please complain, you know, complain to us and we will go to the Home Depot or the property owner in this case, whoever's calling out that sweeper at 4:30 or 5 or whatever and say, "You can't do that. You know, you agreed not to do it." And the same thing with the delivery vehicles. I mean, I'm as a frequent frequent Home Depot customer, I want them to be fully stocked, but they agreed to certain things. we expected them to follow it. Um, and so and I think uh for the neighbor's sake, you heard the developers are willing to do the light things certainly on the property they owned and they hopefully and staff will coordinate with the the other property owners on some of those things. I also think that the the deadend sign I thought it was very near the bridge. Um, but wherever it is, it needs to be extremely abundantly clear. um perhaps larger. If there's any bushes obstructing views, that needs to be looked at. I assume looking at the shopping center owner, uh because those things are, you know, are potential liability problems for for you guys anyway. You want to make sure that those are not a problem. And I can see that, you know, coming out of those out of Staples, especially if you're coming out of where the trucks do, there's not a lot of sight distance from people coming up over the bridge. Um so those kind of things we would expect to be fixed. Um, I did have two or a follow-up question, two follow-up questions for staff. One

is on the on San Ramon as you come over the overpass right now. I I don't I do this almost every day, so I should know, but I don't believe there's any lane delineation. There's essentially if you're going to go straight to Home Depot, if you're going to turn left to Spring Hill uh suites for a Rotary meeting, or if you're going to turn right like some folks would do to get on the northbound, there's no, even though there's three places you can go, there's really only one lane, per se. Correct. Yes. I'm looking at uh Google Street View right now on my computer, and there's no there's just one lane there, but

there's probably enough. Um, it looks like it's pretty close to maybe allowing, you know, a shared through left and then a a right only, right? Because I think of the people who are wanting to get onto the northbound freeway and maybe they're stuck behind people that are going to either Chick-fil-A or Home Depot or going to their homes on Feral Carrill that if there's enough space, some delineation might be. Sure, we can take a look at that. Okay. Okay. And and uh there are two currently two not a three not a through street signs going northbound. There's one uh just past the uh four-way or four-way stop intersection. There's one right at the bridge. Okay.

Going northbound. So, we'll look at that and uh maybe change those up or freshen them up.

Right. I mean, I realize, you know, folks there's signage. I love signage telling people, you know, giving people information, but sometimes people just don't see signage and you're always going to get some people are going to to, you know, ignore or not see the sign and go on their merry way. So sign won't solve everything. Last question. When council member N New Nome had asked about lights and LED lights. Uh, I want to make sure that everybody understands we don't certainly that the public understand we don't allow the blinking loud obnoxious lights that you see in Vegas or you occasionally see a small one in a storefront in a tasket. Those are actually not allowed. Correct.

Correct. Our sign regulations now do not allow motion, do not allow flashing. They do allow internally illuminated signs. Correct. Right. But I mean it won't be and externally won't be flashing. Will be moving. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Okay. Uh I I think uh for myself, I see, you know, several conditions can be uh included in here. That sounds like the uh applicant is probably willing to consider, but I want to start on the left and go see what you guys how you feel about the project and then any conditions you would like to change or add.

I think the lighting uh reevaluating the lighting that affects neighboring properties. I think hours of operation as just a business owner and person who frequents car washes because because I like to keep my cars clean. I don't I don't think staffing a car wash after 700 p.m. would even be something they're going to want to do. I don't see around here car washes being utilized. I used to have one of my businesses behind a self-service car wash for four years and nobody unless it was a hot summer day. You would hardly ever have anybody there a couple hours past dark, especially in a colder months. I don't think it's a hindrance to a business going in there of that size to say um 700 p.m. Um I also think that they're probably going to limit it even further in the winter months to five just because of the econom the economics of it. light and uh manning manning the booth as it were. So I think hours of operation for the car wash itself, lighting uh yeah re-evaluating the noise maybe maybe in three to nine months. Um you know if it's if we're going to do it, might as well do it sooner. You you'll know in 3 months and it if it's a total nuisance to the neighborhood in a month, you're going to wait five more months to find out if anything's going to happen. So, I think maybe um three to six months might be a good one. And I think um I've seen the signs that because we do go to the Rotary Club every Wednesday there at Spring Hill Suites and I do go to the Staples all the time and I'm at Starbucks more than I probably should be. Uh I think just putting sinus is like dead end. I mean like is that not politically correct to put dead end or something huge like not huge but very apparent what's going on there? because I have seen people from the hotel that charge their Tesla and then they bang a left and go across the bridge and you know I've seen that time and time again where I've see people leave the hotel take a left and I'm just thinking where

where are you going you know um so I think just having signs that are more uh dummy proof um traveler proof maybe even people foreign language proof you know dead end or just like symbolism you know um I think that's important just better signage. Um, so I think lighting, hours of operation, evaluating the noise in in a in a shorter time frame would satisfy me. Uh, I do like the fact that um it was clarified that car wash was the third uh just because, you know, you can have you can ease into it with the with the Chick-fil-A and see how things are going and uh it's not all at once, especially construction. construction is going to be its own animal with laying closures here and there and equipment and getting the things built. So, I do like the graduation of the one, two, three. Those are my uh recommendations.

Thank you. I will say that Chick-fil-A is not the easing in part, but I completely completely agree that phasing is is a good thing here. Okay, Mayor Prom Derez,

excuse me. Thank you. Um, I think the lighting on Well, first of all, I like I like the project. I I'm excited about seeing this happen. It'll um it'll be nice to see this this area of town developed and hopefully that will even spark more commerce in that area. So, I think this is going to be good for the city. Um on the lighting issue, I think it is important that light standards um that are in a commercial on a commercial lot not wash onto um residential lots. Having the adjacency, you know, it makes it challenging, I'm sure, but but it is something that is doable whether they're lower, deeper shrouds, however it needs to be done. But I think that that's important not to have especially when they're 24-hour lights um that you're not, you know, that you don't have to put blackout shades in your on your bedroom windows because the lights are constantly on. So, I think that's important something to to consider. Um operational hours, I would agree with Council Member Peak. 9:00 p.m. seems a little late. Uh especially since it is adjacent to uh residential areas. uh if it was somewhere else where the houses weren't right next door, you know, 900 pm might be fine, but I I don't know that I've ever taken my car to a car wash at 9:00 anyway or 8:30. So, I think uh 7:00 is probably a reasonable time for operational hours. The the noise, you know, u re-evaluating that 3 to six months um I think is a good idea. The orientation is I was thinking about this on the orientation of it. You know, it is good that it's relatively well, it is parallel to the residences behind it. Uh the one direction faces towards probably where the biggest noise source is going to be towards uh Spring Hill Suites. Um so they'll be affected by it to some degree. Um and it's probably far enough away. Well, it might be far enough away that the sound won't reverberate off of that to the uh to the residences because

I know sound I know a little bit about sound and how it works and how you could be surprised how you could be standing in one area and it doesn't seem very loud. You move over and if there's a building behind it, it vi it uh vibrates off of that and it all of a sudden it sounds louder at the other end. It is a tunnel effect. it's going to bounce off of uh Staples and I just hope that it's not bouncing off and making it louder at at the residential area. So, I think it's important to definitely revisit that in a reasonable amount of time to see if there's anything we can do if there is a noise issue with that. And then lastly, um I didn't realize that people were making that mistake of driving across the bridge thinking it was a quicker way to the freeway. So, maybe signage needs to be more clear that um that's not the way to go. So, not not a through street, dead end, however you want to word it. Um, if there requires more than one sign, then let's do it. Let's keep people out of the neighborhood because people will turn around in in private driveways. Private driveways and um we don't want to create that issue with the additional traffic that hopefully Chick-fil-A will be um inviting. So, let's um I'll play nice in the sandbox and try to keep people out of there. And other than that, I'm looking forward to it. But I think the lighting is important. Lighting, operational hours, and um and in the noise I think is the most important thing. So that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Funk.

I'm uh pleased that we're going this direction. Um I want to see us condition the project on uh that both the existing lighting um and the new lighting uh be shielded. The existing lighting to the extent it's under the owner's control. um and the new lighting be shield or modified to uh existing city ordinances and with careful attention to um the neighborhood specific elements there that may not be fully addressed in the city ordinance. But um there's got to be some way to keep people from falling off the uh edge into the railroad tracks without blasting lights into people's bedrooms windows back behind. So you guys can figure that out. Okay. Um I also like to see uh Chick-fil-A open first um as a condition um in particular so that you don't have car wash traffic deal to deal with while at the same time that you're dealing with um the grand opening and getting used to getting all the bugs worked out on that. Um I'd like to see six and 12 three and 12 months for checking the um sound on that. uh 12 months because we need to go through a full season with the way people use a car wash and the way people enjoy their properties varies by the season. And so there may be things we pick up at 12 months that we might not have picked up uh right away. So, I can do a three-month if you want, but but I also want to see the 12-month um much as we did the same kind of conditioning as was done for the human being um which happily passed um those markers without any problems. um consistent with its sound study. Um I do want to see that uh signage prot signage potentially no freeway access as

a sign because that's what people are thinking. I can get onto the highway and if you say no you can't. Now that also helps. Um, could you, speaking of traffic, could you pull up how the traffic's gonna something site plan that will show how the traffic flows out of the car wash and where on the lot it it flows because they come out of the car wash. We don't have that. Okay. They come out of the car wash at the very back of that property. Um, okay. Yes. So, what I want to see um want to make sure that there's no exit to um El Camino from the very back of that property right next to the bridge, but the people have to come out further so that the traffic coming over the bridge from those residential areas can be seen. That is that consistent with the plan. Okay, great. Then I'm then I'm good with that. Um, and I'm comfortable with uh shutting the hours off of operation off at 700 p.m. Uh, I think we could do that for simplicity sake. Um, you know, year round basis that it uh has to end at 7:00 p.m. And uh, it would not surprise me at all if the operators want to end it, you know, earlier in the wintertime. U, but I don't think we have to go there in the permanent conditions of the of the uh, property.

Okay. Thank you, Council Member Nome.

Thank you. I think staff understands our direction, so I won't talk about my ideas for signage and no left turns or no right turns. So, I'll let you guys figure that out. Um, I'm in favor of doing the phasing of the project 1, two, and three. Um, I do agree that there should be a noise study. I'll leave it up to staff's discretion on that. Set hours. I think that we should be matching hours to that of existing car washes that are already have residential development around it. I know I think staff wasn't completely sure about the hours, but I'd like to see it closed a little earlier and match what our existing car washes are doing. Um I'm not concerned with the stacking in the parking lot. I'm mostly concerned about the stop sign at the northbound 101 on ECR. I know that the applicants are going to handle their their opening. Their staff is amazing at, you know, handling their load. What I'm more concerned about is is the impact to our city as well as the access for Home Depot um and using residential corridors like San Raone to um bypass having to do that stop sign. So, if people are choosing not to do ECR to that direction, they're going to go San Ramon. Um, so the more that we can have our traffic stay with the current um, traffic outline would be great. Um, other than that, I'm looking forward to to Chick-fil-A. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, I had just one quick kind of question that an audience member Ray or a public member raised just to reassure them. Car washes nowadays have to basically recapture all their water. No water is going to be flowing off site from a car wash. Correct. and certainly not down across the railroad tracks.

That's absolutely correct. And not only the car wash, but any new development has to retain 100% of its storm water on site. So, it has to all go into the ground on the property, which is a little bit different even than when this original center was built. But all these new developments have to do that. So, um, one would assume that off-site flow is going to be enhanced over what's there today.

Got it. Okay. Thank you. Just want to clarify that for the public. Um I agree with with the conditions that my colleagues have mentioned. My question to you as staff is um is this is that what we've been saying is it clear enough? Do we need to take a break and have you define language in terms of change conditions? Uh so we can come back and do that or is it clear enough? And although I did want to say on the noise issue, I agree with council member Peak that, you know, you're going to know pretty quick whether you know how this is playing out in people's backyards so that we don't need to wait six months. And I also can understand council member Funk's comments that about going through a year whole year cycle. But I I do not like imposing studies on applicants or business owners for the hell of it. If if you know, we're three months into this and the neighbors have no complaints. We don't need a noise study. The proof is going to be in the pudding of, you know, if they've got a problem, I'll I'll go sit in their backyard and listen with them. You know, we don't need to do a formal noise study or require one unless there are a lot of complaints. So, for me, that's important in the conditioning is to say, um, you know, we'll evaluate this after three months. Um, I mean, and if a study is warranted, then we'll do it. But I don't want to say we'll do a study just for the hell of doing a study. So is

understood. And mayor, if I may, if I may just repeat to you what we heard from you tonight and what we would modify in our conditions of approval. I'm also going to look to our city clerk to see if she wants us to actually read out those conditions of approval. But first, if I may, um, just go through the items that we heard collectively from council. Uh the first one was on lighting uh to retrofit existing lighting with shields on the site, especially the pole lights at the rear of the site and to ensure that all new lighting installed on the site is properly shielded and in compliance with our night sky ordinance with our existing lighting standards. Second item we heard was limiting the hours of operation at the car wash to 700 p.m. Uh the other item we heard that we want to look into is a noise evaluation for the site, especially the car wash, at a six-month and a 12-month interval. And that not being a noise consultant, but a staff analysis. Have we heard complaints? Do we have concerns? And that's not something we bring back to council, but it would be staff level.

Yeah, I think he's changed that to three and 12, but yes, three and 12. Yeah. Okay. Three and 12. And um the other item we heard was uh about the signage on the road. And right now we do have two signs, one at the four-way intersection, one of the bridge that do say not a through road, but it sounds like we want to enhance that with a skull and crossbones. Uh or we could say no freeway access. I I we can leave that to public works. Yes. I think this that what they think is most

Nick and Nick's team are the sign experts for roadway signs. If you let me do it, it's going to get crazy, but we'll definitely be advised on that. And then the last thing we heard was about project phasing uh to ensure that the two retail pads come first uh to accommodate the Chick-fil-A and the other retail pad and the car wash is a phase two or three. And yeah, he said hours of operation. And just to be clear, uh I assume it's already in the conditions, but like Home Depot, uh we don't want the Chick-fil-A truck coming up at 4 in the morning and delivering chicken, right? Deliveries. Correct. Yes. Okay. Something's in there conditionwise.

Our city clerk does want us to I think I do too. I would I would prefer if we could take a fivem minute break and put these into let us write these really quick. We can read them back to you. And I think the uh developers should be aware of what we've written into the conditions as well. That sounds we'll take we'll take a break. Uh it's 8:08. We'll come you need 7 minutes or 12. 12. Okay. So we will come back at 8:20 and you will read us back the precise language of the changed conditions or added conditions. Thank you. And and if you have the time, share them with the applicant before we reconvene.

Well, we are waiting for staff to finalize the wording. Otherwise we are past our start time and we would have already started

Okay, we're ready to come back into session or come back from a break, I should say. Staff has uh completed their wording of the additional conditions or changed conditions that council asked for. So, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Dunmore to read those conditions. I'd like the applicant team to listen very carefully to ensure that you understand and agree to or or not sorry agree but if you have any concerns to express those concerns. So Mr. Dunmore.

Thank you mayor. I'd like to just go through several of the conditions that we have suggested modifying based on city council comments. And those begin with uh in your packet condition number one and that's in the exhibit uh the draft resolution exhibit A uh which concludes the conditions of approval for the Home Depot and the Chick-fil-A. And condition number one would be modified to add the language uh construction phasing shall occur so that certificates of occupancy shall be issued in the following order. drive-through restaurant, retail shell, and car wash. Okay, I'm read as you read those, I'm just going to look to my colleagues to make sure none of them waves, you know, jumps up and down and also to the applicants so we could address each condition as we go. So, so far I'm I'm not seeing any consternation. So go ahead.

Okay. Next condition would um would be condition number getting to it. Condition number 14 adding a line. In condition of 14 it says existing lighting abuing the railroad rightway shall be retrofitted for compliance with city lighting standards. Now, I will say that condition 14 already talks about the shielding required for new lighting. So, that's already covered, right? Existing lighting, and this only pertains to the lighting that they own on the on the property in question.

Correct. And then a modification to condition number 16. And I'll read that condition in its entirety because that condition says operating hours for the car wash shall be limited to 7:00 a.m. to 700 p.m. Following 6 months of occupancy and again at 12 months of occupancy, subject to the receipt of any noise complaints regarding the car wash. Staff will evaluate that the site operates in compliance with the city's noise ordinance and may may recommend additional measures to reduce operational noise as needed. Three. Yeah, we said three and 12 months. Did you say three and 12?

I didn't. I said six. So, we'll change that to three and 12. Three and 12. So, got it. Great. So, changed. And then the final one was on signage. Let's just find that real quick. And that is under condition number 19. Uh section H is being added where the city engineer will evaluate the site for the addition of appropriate roadway signs to prevent traffic from entering the residential neighborhood on North Pharaoh Carell.

Good. And Deansza, I mean that's all considered in one residential area, but I believe one of the streets is Dansza as well. I think left is one and right ends into Pharaoh Core, right? But Dion, I think's to the left, is it not? It Okay, so we can just say and uh residential neighborhood to the north. Yes. Yeah, that's better. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Okay. Is there one more or is that it? Believe that's it. Okay. Uh applicant, you had a comment

really quickly. Sorry, council. Um, we also just pulled up those conditions uh on the screen for you to uh look at as well so we can follow along a little easier there. Okay, thank you. Go ahead. Hi, just uh question for you. Could we change certificate of occupancy to building permit because things could happen during construction where true the retail shell might be ready before Chick-fil-A is because they're doing a full buildout. So to occupy that to do tenant improvements for our multi multi-tenant pad if that is possible but I your discretion to my untrained ear that makes sense uh Mr. Dunore do you

so that would read construction phasing shall occur so that construction permits shall be issued in the following order. Yeah. Do you see any issue with changing it to that? You could. The only thing is if if if they didn't follow through with that construction permit and it lapsed and then they went on to the next construction permit, it's it's um a little open-ended, right? It's a little open-ended as opposed we want to say not just to get the permit, but you do the building. Yeah. But I realize one might

then again there should be I think his concern is can can there be an overlap? I I hear his concern because what if you're almost done building, you know, the first phase and you wanted to start the next, this would be very prohibitive. So I I'm thinking this as we talk. Um I understand that concern. So perhaps um it should be that construction phasing shall occur so that um buildings are built in the following order. And I I just think that we need to be a little more vague about it with the understanding of what our direction might be.

And if if I understand the intent, it's that you don't want the car wash to occupy without a Chick-fil-A, right? So we can further restrict the certificate of occupancy or car wash to be predicated upon a certificate of occupancy for Chick-fil-A. Yeah. So you could say I mean the that would work for me about whether the retail shell opens at you know gets built or opens at the same time as Chick-fil-A. That's not going to drive the traffic. Um and you know and nobody gets too fussed about that.

Okay. I think he's doing the appropriate wording on the screen here. We can just follow. of you really going to say of the drive-through restaurant. I mean, yeah, it could just be that. Yeah, we can change it. Okay. Is that meets your need and it meets ours? I think it's still waiting to catch up with me on the screen. I've already erased items one and two. Oh, there it goes. Yeah, that's fine with us. Okay. Is that council understand and Okay, good. Okay. throw a period on the end of that sentence and I think we'll be good.

Okay. All right. That's that's it. Okay. Last call. I think we're ready for a motion. I would move approval of staff's recommendation with the amendments as just displayed on the screen. Okay. I'll second. I think Council Member Nome got the second first. So, we have a motion by council member Funk. Second by council member Nuome. Roll call. Well, no discussion, I assume. Roll call, please. Council member Funk. Yes. Council member Newsome. Yes. Council member Peak. Yes. Mayor Proanderas. Yes. Mayor Robo. Yes. Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you. Thank you for investing in Atascadero. We appreciate it. Okay. With that, we are ready to move on to management report uh H1, zoning code update, continuation of our discussion on mixeduse zones and standards. And uh we're going to go back to Mr. Phil Dunmore, our community development director for this.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, council. And we're back again at you for a discussion about zoning. Um and we want to be able to bring you little tidbits as we go through this process. Um, and I hope that it it helps us in the long run get there. So, tonight we're not going to be asking you to take an action. Again, we're going to give you um some of the material for the zoning to get your feedback. And again, it's preliminary feedback. We're still developing these standards. Tonight, we don't have the benefit of having our consultant. Um, we're going to be giving you a presentation and talking about these updates. Um, we did miss out on the zoning district three last time. So, tonight's main focus is to get through mixeduse zone three, but we're also going to tell you a little bit about what we heard. And we're also going to get into land uses a little bit. Last time we spoke, you did ask us about, you know, how what's the zoning going to be like in these mixeduse areas, which are predominantly commercial zones today, by the way, and what are they what's uh what are they going to be comprised of. So just a reminder, here we are today with that mixeduse 3 and the land use discussion. We have one more kind of elaborate discussion coming up on April 14th and that's going to be talking about all the land uses citywide. Uh we expect that to be a healthy discussion and then that's it. These are all the sort of nuts and bolts of zoning and then when we come back to again later it's going to be for the whole comprehensive thing. But then we just hope that these preliminary discussions really help aid and educate all of us about this whole process. Um tonight, Kelly is going to provide the presentation to you of the details um on all the mixed use zones and especially on the three and then of course as we know from last time we do have a couple of conflicts of interest. So, we'll have to bifurcate this out a little bit um and uh ask one or two of you to leave

and then go through some details. You want to take it from here, Kelly? Thank you.

Good evening. Um so, just a a quick overview. Um in our general plan, we do have two general plan types that allow for um mixed use and we've um distributed those into some different zoning districts. mixed use one through four. This is our entire new zoning map that we've provided. You can see their mixed use are kind of the pink purple zones and you can see how they kind of fit into the big picture with a lot of those areas located along Moral Road and El Camino Riale. This is the map that just highlights the mixeduse designations. Um, some of them are a little hard to see, but you can see where those zones are distributed throughout the city. This just is to provide a little bit of background information. So, our mixeduse zones overlay a few different existing zoning types. So, when we talk about what uses might be appropriate or what uses exist today, there's not one zoning district that correlates perfect with that. Um, our new mixeduse zones overlap onto our existing commercial retail zone, our existing commercial neighborhood zones, commercial tourist, commercial professional, commercial park, public, single family residential, and residential suburban. So, we've got quite a few quite a few zoning districts where the mixeduse um will lay in the future. Just an overview of our previous discussion um for mixeduse zone one, which was our zone that flanks El Camino Riale with our um smaller lots and some with topography. Um we heard that we'd like to allow for 100% residential with that level of flexibility. Um our zoning uh mixed use, our use table has that with an administrative use permit and some specific findings to ensure that those are not commercially viable sites. Um, again, a wide range of uses in each

zone so that we're not limiting anything too far and we can let the market drive certain locations. Um, in that discussion, the San Justinto center was particularly uh pulled out of mixeduse one and put into the mixeduse zoning district that allows for only vertical mixed use as that is um kind of a commercial center on a key corner within the city. for mixeduse zone 2, which is up in the Ramona Road area. We heard that we'd like to provide allowances for some existing uses such as um the kennel, which is Woods Humane Society, and some the religious assembly uses that are currently up there. Um we also heard maybe requiring a greater setback with our development standards, especially for the upper floors to transition to adjacent single family neighborhoods. So, we will be writing those into our development standards for that zoning district. um for mixed use four um which is our vertical mixeduse zone which is in key locations over some existing shopping centers um the uh food for less center um the new marketplace center and locations such as that. Um we also heard we wanted to allow for a variety of uses so they were weren't stifling any uh future economic growth in those areas. um but that we did also want to ensure compatibility with residential uses in terms of um uses that generate noise or odors or things of that nature. So as an overview why um we would look at certain uses in certain zones. I know that we provided a draft mixeduse table for you this evening um to look at. We are looking for compatibility between residential and commercial uses. So, I think what we see on the image is definitely what we don't want, but there's a lot of things in between that we do want. Um, uses that are generally not compatible in a mixeduse zone might be towing services, um, highintensity manufacturing uses, warehousing, contract construction services, um, veterinarian uses because they tend to have kenneling of animals

overnight. Um, and some of those are 24-hour facilities. um use some uses might be compatible and those might have use permits associated with them either at a staff level um or at a planning commission level and some of those um might just be applied to certain zones in the mixeduse designations. So those might include kennels, sales lots, certain forms of assembly uses, especially um outdoor recreation areas. Um drive-throughs might be limited in mixeduse zones, although we do have moral road that we're looking at. Um, and so we might want to have some additional allowances um, broken out by zoning district. Um, retail stores with large outdoor components might not be appropriate um, but might be in certain locations. Um, same with tattoo and piercing services and minor vehicle service and repair. So, we're going to dive into mixeduse 3 at this point in time. So mixed juice 3 is where we have a recusal or should we ask? Let me actually we should go through we we should go through any council questions or comments on one and four first. Correct. Yeah. So, um, do council members have comments, questions or or comments regarding MU1 and M U4?

Go ahead, Council Member Nome. I just have tables that are listed in the presentation. So, do you want to come back to the tables? Um, no. I I have questions on the table as well. And I I think as long as in in your particular case, what is it? MU3. So, uh, so yeah, if your comments pertain to one, two, or four, go ahead. Okay. One or four right now? One or four. Correct.

Okay. So, on page 125, we start using the mixeduse districts allowed land uses and entitlement requirements. I had some questions. Um, like on here it doesn't list anything for MU1 or 4 for animal care services veterinarian, but we have a handful on ACR. How does that fit in? I believe we looked at some of the veterinarian uh services last time. Um and the um particular one by the intersection of El Camino and Santa Rosa is not within the mixeduse overlays or mixeduse designation.

What about the one that's on Del um just past Del Rio? They're on the west side of the freeway though that and the fed use either.

I mean they're on the west side of El Camino so they're not Do we have a map of the um mixed use zones one and four? I didn't see them in the Oh, maybe I think that's the hard part is is trying to logistically figure out what we see in our mind as being in a mixeduse zone and then looking at the map going, "Wait a minute, it's not." Okay, so that answers my question on that. And then drive-through sales and services, it says administrative use permit. Um, and in a special regulation says drive-thru sales and services limited to retail, pharmacy, financial services, and banks in mixed use zones. But isn't ECR between Sanelmo and Del Rio one and four? I guess my question is is we have where do we address not having drive-throughs allowed in that corridor from Sano to Del Rio? Nothing in there says that there is a moratorum on that or how do we read that limitation? So, that is more based on our council resolution because the zoning districts are not going to line up perfectly with the locations that we want to um limit and revisit traffic analysis for drive-through restaurants. So, there those are going to span multiple zoning districts as we move forward. Some will be commercial. It might bleed into some mixed use. And so, that's still going to be regulated through um council policy.

So, council policy is not as a whole reflected on here. council policy is on top of these allowable uses. Correct. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. In that case though, it also states that drive-through sales and services are limited to pharmacy and banks in the mixeduse areas. Correct. Correct. Except for a portion of Mororrow Road is what we're proposing opens up further, but we'll hold that. Okay.

Shortly. Um and then contract construction services outdoor. There's nothing nothing listed for an AUP or a CUP, but don't we have construction services outdoor on ECR as well? Is that not considered in lumber company? Is that not in a mixeduse area either for miners or are you thinking um the outdoor um fencing fence factory? Fence factory I don't believe is in our proposed mixed use zones. That would be in our innovation flex.

Innovation flex. Thank you. And I think the contract construction is is under industrial is it not? Is that what we put it in earlier where it's also allowed? Yes. Okay. That's hard to look at these. That's all my questions. Thank

you. I actually was going to jump in here because I looked at this chart and I was surprised how very few differences there are between the the one two three and four. But specifically, I wanted to ask since we're talking about one and four um is adultoriented business shows it as an allowable use in one. Uh, I thought when the city kind of bought out Diamond Adult World and put it where it is now, that was like a special zone for it or something. And I don't have super heartburn about it or anything, but it it to see it there just as an allowed use, not a conditionally allowed use or anything, just kind of surprised me. Is there a specific thought process behind that?

Um, the short answer is yes, there's a specific thought process in that uh the city was involved in significant litigation for years. um involving the property across from the Carlton and getting that moved to where it is now. Um putting conditional use permit requirements on what is otherwise known as First Amendment protected activity can run into some concerns if that conditional use permit process is used to prevent that type of um conduct going on. So that's why there's an allowable use there. Um, one of the things that we did uh during the meeting is try to get the copy of the settlement agreement um with Diamond Adult World to see what was in there. And it does talk about where the the permissible uses of the business can be. It says it can continue to operate so long as it's in a legally permittable permissible zone,

right? Understand that. I mean, obviously, cities have to allow this somewhere. They have to totally understand that and accept that. just uh by it being allowed. This would essentially say it's allowed anywhere in the MU1 zone and and so you not that you would have a proliferation of them, but it kind of implies that you could. There are also additional um operational requirements that are currently in the zoning code with radius requirements. Um so they can't be within a thousand feet of a school, park, um a number of other type of um properties. So, there are um other restrictions that are currently in the zoning code that that would uh address that.

Got it. Thank you. And then um on page 126, there's data and computer services centers not allowed in any of the zones one through four. What's the if might ask that that sounds like something we would desire potentially? Are those bigger than I'm thinking and therefore not appropriate to these places or why is they not considered? That's not a smallcale operation. These are very large like server farms.

Got it. Okay, understand. And then emergency shelters specifically mentioning low barrier navigation centers as as allowed in all of the zones as an allowable use. Again, I thought when echo was put into place, there was like a PD overlay or some sort of special zone, if you will, created for that purpose. This would imply that that would be allowed throughout these mixeduse zones. as a matter of right. Echo falls under under slightly different definition. Um this definition is very specific and regulated by state law and is required to be allowed everywhere residential or or everywhere commercial is allowed.

Okay, good answer. Thank you very much. Um and I think that's all my questions. So I'll I'll continue on from my right with Council Member Funk. Uh following up on on the mayor's questions with regard to the adultoriented business, um would it also be an option for um staff to discuss with the uh owner of the existing business if they would prefer to remain in because that's adjacent that property is adjacent to commercial zoning. if it would be um more suitable for them to simply remain in the commercial zoning um so that we uh would not have to then u require um adultoriented business as an allowed use in mixeduse zoning but allow it for it in the zoning that where it currently exists.

I well the short answer is yes. Um there could be those conversations. The settlement agreement does specifically state which zones um adultoriented businesses um specifically diamond adult world can be in. Um so as long as it was not perceived as either an infringement on the operation or the ability to operate um I don't know that that would necessarily be a problem to do. Um so that's something we could certainly look at. I would certainly be uh um more comfortable with having that option explored uh without having to simply make this an allowed use in the uh MU1 zoning uh given that MU1 zoning is pretty expansive. So it's if it can be done without disrupting legal uh settlements, it's worth exploring in my view. Okay. Um the uh and council member Newsome got took care of my question on the drive-throughs. Uh oh, what is the um for the moral road that's in MU3 that we're not talking about right now. Okay, I'll come back to that. Um with regard to fitness facilities um is one of the things that we've seen um that there is there difference between you know your typical yoga or Pilates studio which is the b vast bulk of that of small fitness facilities which are great tenants and great neighborhood serving businesses. Um, and then we've also seen the impact on nearby neighbors of a business, a fitness center then opening that that is a more oriented door to big weights and 24-hour operations. So that you have neighbors suddenly finding themselves

listening to thudding weights at, you know, 3 in the morning and blasting rock music all night. Um, do we have ways uh does sta can staff suggest the ways that um we that that might be managed without necessarily having to require everybody that wants to open a yoga studio from having to get some kind of permit. We can develop very particular performance standards as part of our special use section in the code that addresses um certain things like noise and hours of operation that would not prohibit something that is more quiet. Yeah. Okay. I mean that's fine. I mean there there's a time and place for pumping the weights and uh um but maybe not necessarily right underneath grandma's uh bedroom. Okay. Um, let me see. I one there. Okay. If I if I have an additional question that pertains to Oh, the uh tattoo and piercing services which are um AUP uses in in one and four. Is there any reason that that couldn't be just allowed? I mean, the you know this day and age, the people that are getting to tattoos are our adult children. So

that is at the discretion of council. Um I know you haven't seen our commercial land use tables yet. There are some commercial designations where it is allowed outright, but you could also modify them in mixed use zones.

Yeah, I think it becomes a neighborhood serving business at this in this day and age. Um and is there any reason to treat medical services, extended care differently from assisted living facilities? Again, that is at the discretion of council as well. Those facilities do tend to be more institutional and commercial in nature. Um, rather than a facility where there's just care provided, these are full medical facilities that have different building code and fire code requirements. And they do tend to have a somewhat greater impact potentially depending on their size.

Okay. But they do include that that am I correct in understanding that that category does also include like board and care homes which um is something that that seems like you might find it in a mixeduse zone. I can find the definition real quick for you.

Okay. And while you're looking on that one, let me ask one other question maybe that Phil can answer. Um, if I'm I want to make sure I'm understanding recycling facility, small collection correctly that that could include like a vending machine for cans or something or some kind of drop off for for your your batteries or that if somebody develops that. That doesn't have to be a commercial scale distribution or or collection center, but those are the things you see at the front of or inside of a grocery store, for example.

Okay. Yeah, those bins in front of us. Okay, got it. Thank you for clarifying that. Anything back? Let me circle back on the extended care medical then. Yeah, it um the definition does include board and care homes, but it is specific that it is for medical treatment only. So, if there's any facilities that do not offer medical treatment, that is considered assisted living. Okay. Thank you. Hey, mayor Tim Daryus.

Thank you. Um question I have u I wasn't here two weeks ago obviously. I did watch the um the council meeting this afternoon. Thank you all for all the great questions. Um it did help me to get somewhat caught up. A question I have is on um the lodging for bed and breakfast. Are any of these zones um M1 through 4, do they allow for single family residences in any of these? Like it's just a standalone single single family residential house?

Not necessarily. These are designed to have sort of that multifamily type development in them. Um, some of these zones have single family houses in them that can remain. And in fact, our non-conforming standards, the way they're written on those are pretty flexible. So, those can stay. Um, but they're not designed to develop a new single family residential neighborhood. So if there was a single family residential residence in one of these zones that's nonconforming that is just a family living in the house just a regular house they would not be able to because they're non-conforming they would not be able to change well I guess under this

no there is there is some allowance to expand under our existing code they can do some expansion they can do some reconstruction so it's quite flexible under our non-conforming standard it's not like a non-conforming commercial land use non-conforming residential has a little bit more flexibility so they they can stay. But that's how it is today. All these zones that we're talking about today are commercial districts along major arterial roads such as Mor Road and El Camino. And so those existing single family homes that are there are in commercial zones. They're not in a residential zone. I understand that. So I'm just wondering this doesn't change their conforming status.

No, I understand that. So the so these it this bed and breakfast option that's in these in this new zone that we're or four zones that we're we're introducing here. Uh it doesn't sound like any new construction would be able to accommodate um a bed and breakfast. Oh no. It could if someone wanted to build a bed and breakfast for example that looks like a great big house but it's truly a bed and breakfast they can do that. For example they wanted you know or if they had an existing colony house they wanted to convert it into a bed and breakfast they can do that. That's a commercial land use. Okay. So, bed and breakfast isn't Okay. Yeah. It's not That's not a home. Okay. That's how that's short-term rental. So, yeah.

Is bed and breakfast also an allow an outright allowable use in in another zone. It it's not just going to be in M1 through 4. No, it's in many many different zoning districts. That's even allowed in a residential zoning district with a use permit. Okay. So, um, and then my I had the other question was the same thing on the extended care versus the assisted living. So, I wasn't sure what the difference was from one to the other and why one was a CUP and the other was outright allowed. But, I think

and there's they're designed differently. They have different building and fire code standards based on them and one's designed more like an apartment building and the other one is designed more like a hospital. And I um I think we looked up some of those definitions a bit ago. Um, I'm going to go kind of go back up a little bit here to the adultoriented businesses that we've talked about already. Um, what other zones are they outright allowed to be in? And I guess further up to my question is

why does it have to be included in this if they if there's an outright allowable? I think in a proposed list it's commercial and commercial service and industrial and that's that's the proposed list.

So so they are in there isn't an allowable use in other zones currently. Because because I my what I'm getting at is if there if they have if there if there are zones where they're outright allowed to have that sort of business, why do we need to include it in one of these four?

You don't you don't have to. I think our city attorney did advise us that we have to be careful about not limiting them too much, but I think we don't have to allow them in a mixeduse zone if they're allowed in other locations in the city. I think it would be kind of awkward to have this in a commercial space downstairs and residences above. That's I just think that this is not the appropriate any of these zones for a business like that.

And the reason that was done is to accommodate one current business that's on El Camino Riale just south of the Von Shopping Center that is part of the proposed mixeduse zone one. Um that's why that's there. We we will get in trouble if we disallow that existing one because of the lawsuit history on that one. We could we could shift the line over and leave them out of the mixeduse district one. It's only one property. So if you did that boundary, that's a suggestion you could make. What zone is what zone is it currently right now?

It's right now is in a commercial retail zone. So, so if that commercial retail zone changed to M MU1, then they would essentially be just a non-conforming use and they can stay as long as they want. There's legal implications to doing that. I think we'd be safer by just moving the MU1 boundary south one property and leaving them out of the MU1 boundary and leaving them in the commercial retail boundary. That way you don't potentially infect the rest of the MU1 zone. All right. No, I understand. That seems to be an easy solution to the Yeah. discussion.

And then uh the last one also on the recycling, what other zones do we have for recycling centers to be in um outright? And and I guess the way you described it as being sort of not really a big deal because of the type of recycling you're talking about. Well, there's a couple different things. There's a recycling center, which you don't want with mixed use, and then there's a recycling kiosk where you're in a little you might you might have a mom and pop store and out front they have a something the size of a garbage can. So, I hope

so. The small ones that I just mentioned are allowed in all these zones. The large one only allowed in the mixeduse zone or actually only an industrial zone. So, that's an industrial land use. That's a big outdoor storage site. So, how do you regulate the amount of stuff that they would be collecting? I mean, it's I mean, I guess you could say how much you can fit in your space, but Oh, in the small one. Yeah, we have development standards on the size of what it can be. Okay. Yeah. All right. I think that's all I have for right now. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Peak.

Uh clarifying question, then I have seven zoning districts that I'll briefly comment on. So adultoriented business is basically in a diamond adult world business that doesn't what do you is there anything other than that type of business that fits in that category? There are specific definitions in the municipal code as to what constitutes an adultoriented business. I can't tell you exactly what they are but diamond adult world is obviously one of those. Um there may be some other types of businesses that would call a cigar lounge. Um, no. It it's you're talking about adultoriented. You're talking about specific anatomical features being featured as part of the product line.

Okay. So, a cigar lounge, not not that. Just I'm just clarifying that we have a we have a district for basically one store.

Just being clear. Just being clear to to be clear on that though. If somebody wanted to open a strip club in a tascadero, is there a place that's allowed and or does that's what I'm getting at where that's allowed? Is there a location? No, I'm saying is that something we would be forced would have to allow because

if we if we incorporate this into MU1 without being lib about it, then all of MU1 would we have to conditionally say, okay, there can be another diamond adult world now because now it's allowed in MU1. Now we can we're not we don't have as much of a pull to say no there can't be a strip club. No, there can't be a I mean no one's going to have a movie theater anymore. But there's like things like that where I'm just wondering if this is basically a zoning district for one business in town. We're going to take him out of MU1, leave him in commercial retail. Okay. That won't affect other businesses is what I'm trying to get at. There's not other businesses that fall into that classification.

No, adult-oriented businesses. I'll just um there are specific definitions in there. There's adult live entertainment, adult modeling studio, motion picture theor theaters. Um there specific definitions of each of those.

Okay. So, we have one business. Okay. So, moving on. Uh assembly religious facility contigual use permit. Um I'm generally a fa in favor of a church can be wherever it wants to be no matter what church it is. So I I kind of think it should just be allowed and I think it's more economical to have it in a small commercial building versus a large church facility sometimes for some congregations. So maybe that just something I'm I thought about the other day when I was reading this. Um and then the building materials and hardware sales with outdoor sales or storage area less than 10,000 square feet. Um, I'm assuming that's something like a Sherwood Williams paint store or a something like that that can fit under 10,000 square feet. They would still need a loading dock. I don't foresee a building materials hardware sales with outdoor sales less than 10,000 square feet and we don't have one now in those areas either. Um, so just kind of curious if that's kind of what's in what that would be. you would still need a loading dock uh 18-wheeler uh for any a store like that. Uh number three is commercial kitchen. Um I'm I'm assuming supporting uh cottage industry businesses or if you had a uh a muffin company and you baked your muffins there three days a week. Um something like that. Uh I don't see a difference between that and contract construction services indoor. If you're a manufacturer of some cool wine barrel furniture and you're just have a little showroom in the front and hammer them together in the back. Um that that one's kind of interesting to me. I understand the outdoor one because um and I know probably there's a delineation between trying to have things innovation flex versus indoor construction services. Um but I see like makers uh in a cool little um mixeduse thing relatively downtown could be a benefit. But I'm not gonna

and I wanted to clarify that that is considered our artisan manufacturing use when you are making something and have a retail component. So contract construction services would be electricians or contract and then shipping them plumbers that meet there in the morning and gather their supplies and

okay I won't die on that hill. Um skip skip the fitness facility. Mortuary services is an odd one to be allowed mixed use with but no crematory. Um, I think that's just an interesting one. Uh, and uh, and then sales lot. So, this kind of goes to I think the vein that, um, councilwoman Newsome was going for. We do have a sales lot in a mixeduse zone. It's the trailer uh, the trailer dealer um, down by um, Mr. Osin's old business. Uh, the trailer that used to be a used car deal. I bought a couple used trucks there for my business and now it sells dump trailers and cargo trailers. that is a sales lot and uh from my understanding that's not MU3. So what happens if that business I mean that's the only sales lot in in any of these uh mu mu mus muse.

Yes that that is a that is kind of a vehicle sales lot or well it is auto there's bin numbers being distributed from that lot. So, but that's not a car lot would have to be an acre, right? Or more. Yes. So, the vehicle sales or boat sales has to be at least an acre. So, trailer sales are I hope I'm not whistleblowing on this business, but everybody drives by them every day. Well, they're pre-existing. They've been there for a long time, but it used to be a car dealership and now it sells trailers. So, I think it that's transferred over. Okay. Now, is that is that going to be a problem if they want to somehow expand their operation to the lot next door? Are they not going to be able to do that or

I don't think that's how we how we manage this list and and it's yeah it's pretty small property right now. I don't think that's going to be a significant hurdle for them. I think if they wanted to expand they'd probably want to move out of that location because it's not it's just not that conducive to but they moved out of there. Someone might find it interesting to sell used cars there again. Sure. You know they could they could. So sales lot does that not incorporate anything else that we currently sell on MU any of the mixed uses? We don't have um for example trip 7 site is considered a sales lot.

What about selling you know lawnmowers and golf carts and and whatnot at um Glenn's? That's that's a kind of a retail and rental business. So what's a sales lot, Phil? What is a sales lot? Yeah, a sales lot is um for example, yeah, outdoor items for sale. It could be any items that are for sale. Um might be landscape products. Okay. Anything that's outdoor. I'm okay with being confused, but I'm noting that I'm confused. Okay. It is defined legally on page 141 if you there is a legal definition for it.

Yeah. So, there is right here. I'm looking at it right now. permanent establishment for the outdoor sales of items new or used. Um not including sales lots that are vehicle sales. So it doesn't that's it could be anything. Okay. Golf carts have been numbers. Golf carts. Widgets. Oh, and back to the uh mortuary. We fitted we've hit fit those in the mixed use because they're just a quiet land use. They don't have any disturbing tenants.

But as Mayor Promander has pointed out with the um adultoriented business, you wouldn't probably wouldn't want to live above a mortuary. It would be quiet. I guess

maybe not. But we do we do have an existing one in the mixeduse one zone. Okay, so just to follow up just on one more thing is the commercial kitchen one. The the thought that escaped me was mixed use generally now they can have a cafe in a mixed use. You can have a something cooking a burger on a grill if you know there can be cooking smells. So a commercial kitchen wouldn't necessarily be a deviation from that. Not at all. Look at look at uh um downtown what we have going on. I mean, restaurants are great

uh uses to have with a mixeduse project. Um and keep in mind, too, a lot of these sites might not develop as a vertical mixeduse. Some might develop with some residential nearby behind a commercial use alongside it. Some of these sites may remain commercial 100% forever. that this zone zoning the intent here is to allow flexibility. The intent when we went through this list is to accommodate as much of the good existing things that we have in the community by adding another layer of allowed uses for residential and kind of combining that um without being restrictive. So think thinking in a more general term all we've done and reason we created this slide here was pull out the the uses that are probably the most you know um contrasting with residential but the rest I think they can be conditioned into a project and be quite compatible especially given their offsetting hours of use.

Okay. Um, that concludes our council questions regarding MU1 and MU4. Since we only have one member of the public and we're going to bifurcate this for council members, I'm going to allow public comment on, you know, MU1, MU4, and then then two and three. All right. I have questions on this. Um, with us going from commercial zones into uh mixed use, does that have an effect on ABC hours in residential? Because I know in the entertainment zone, you can do what you want now, but outside, I believe if you have housing, you would have to shut down your alcohol sales in a restaurant or other after 1000 p.m. Um, that one. The next one would be um yeah, that's a big one on commercial zone. And then when you were bringing up drive-thru, I kind of got confused. Um the drive-thru, are you talking just in the El Camino at Mororrow Road or were you talking all of Mororrow Road? and that's a concern if we are um lastly to um gymnasiums or workout facilities that play good rock and roll. Um if um Councilwoman Funk would like to go to make a death with me, I'm more than happy to take her to the fair.

Okay. Thank you. Um to be clear, uh the only reference to drive-through here is uh as as an AUP in all four areas, correct? And it's only with the comment that it's only for uh pharmacy and banking. Correct. And there was a proposed caveat that um drive-through restaurants would be allowed on Mora Road um potentially only between Atascadero Avenue and El Camino Rial, but that's at the council's discretion as well. Okay. And that would be under MU three. They were not even discussed at all.

Uh anyway. Okay. Um we're bringing it back to council. Have you know we've made some comments some of which you guys can you're going to whatever we comment on you're going to flesh it out and bring it back uh at a subsequent meeting. This is just you know kind of giving generic guidance. Um is there anything else? Do you have some clear direction from us? Do you need clarification that we agree on or have consensus on something? And does any member of the council want to add anything?

Can we get So I have um some performance standards for gyms related to noise and hours. Um we're going to move the mixeduse one boundary for our adult oriented business. And then I think maybe um council member Funk mentioned that tattoo and piercing should just be allowed and I didn't know if we had cons.

Well, I would ask this question. I mean, I have a, you know, strong personal distaste for tattoos, but a lot of people like them, want them, and if they want to get them, I want them to get them in a Tascadero. But, um, there's was a history of this. In fact, it was only a few years ago that Paso even allowed began to allow tattoo parlors. Was there, um, was there a time when when there was particular concern on the part of planning staff about these establishments? What was the r and what was your rationale for saying a? I mean, I'm an old man, but you know, I guess, you know, I'm willing to go with the times. Um, despite my personal thoughts. Um, but I wanted before we do that, I want to know what your thought process was for limiting it to an AUP. basically just transitioning away from what used to be listed as a uh a restricted land use and I think we're wanting to be much more flexible and so I don't think staff has a necessarily a concern about them being an allowed use. I think we wanted to softly transition forward because this land use has changed dramatically in the last 30 years and and the social acceptance of it. And so I think it's purely at council's discretion whether you want to have it a conditional use and allowed use or not allowed in certain zones. But by today's standards, I think most downtowns, most cities are allowing them in a lot more locations.

And and this strictly, you know, this just applies to MU 1 through 4, not not downtown or per se or That's absolutely correct. This is talking only about MU1 through 4 tonight. When we come back with the larger land use list, we're going to be talking about other zones where we do propose uh a tattoo art studio to be an allowed land use. Um such as the commercial service zone and a couple other zones, not downtown yet. Okay. Uh does anybody you know other than council member Front because you already others of you have a comment on this? Okay, understand. But I mean on this specifically, yeah,

the only comment I had is that, you know, the market will dictate how many tattoo parlors can exist in the in the city. Um I've my neighbor at one of my businesses in the Kennedy, there's Cherry Blossom Tattoos in the Kennedy shopping center and it's kind of nice having that business because when everybody else is closed, at least they have patrons, so it's a little bit more security for them. I don't know. We don't have any problem with Cherry Blossom being our neighbor and they're one of two or three in the whole city. So, um, and we have a white moth or whatever it's called now by the police station. I don't know. That's in mixed use one.

Right. Right. Um, yeah. Well, I just wanted to say I don't I don't have any problem with tattoo problem. I don't understand the aversion to it. I don't have any ink. I don't but I don't care. I don't care where I don't I don't really understand what the issue is why they why it's such a specific. Okay. So, everybody, Council Newsome, every I think I'm the only one on here with ink. Anyways, um a lot to be said on this council dynamics. Um that is not a Can I even comment if I mean? No, I'm just kidding. I don't have any changes to this.

Okay. All right. So, but I mean are you okay with making changing the AUP to an A on MU at least one and four? Okay. All right. So I think we're good on on did you have any other questions of us before we move on from one or do you guys have any further comments on one and four? I I do. Um on the adultoriented business. Okay. You said you were moving the zone so there's not a conflict with the current business. So they're not going to be in MU1. But are we removing the allowed use in MU1 for that?

Yes, we would be. Okay. because you didn't mention that when you when you were going through your list of things. I just want to make sure that that allowed use in MU1 is not going to be there. It's going to be dashes all the way across. So, all right. Thank you. Correct.

And uh I wanted to respond to Council Member Peak's comment about um removing the CUP usage for churches um in this um I think that I mean I want to make sure that we allow for churches and I you know was working on that last time. Um, I do think that there's value in having cups where, you know, churches were navigating the way church uses um engage with residential neighbors. So, I would um know that we've I've heard um residential complaints with regard to outdoor services and amplified outdoor services and various things at different churches. And it's just I think that the cup is um not an unworkable uh thing to do to to get a good neighborly uh fit.

Okay. I I kind of concur with that comment. Uh does that make sense to you? Yeah. Okay. Um okay, staff, any other questions of us before we move on? Move beyond one and four. Nope. Okay. So with that we will go to two and two is where uh council member Peak will is going to recuse himself. I am recused. Okay. Okay. And you do have the opportunity to speak as a member of the public if you desire. Okay. So let's move on to the discussion of MU2.

And up on your screen are just key kind of uses that we pulled out but you can obviously talk about anything on the table. Just a sec to look at that again. Um I do not have any questions on MU2 itself. May I pretend there is no questions? Put the map up to remind us where MU2 is. like it's in here somewhere, but yeah, you can show it's in here somewhere. Just give us a minute.

Oh, Mu2 is the uh what used to be public up there. Um, correct. It's the Ramona Road area. Okay, thank you. That's why, right? Okay. No, I I think how where we came out on that is is fine. We allowed for the existing um church and animal care usages. Um and um it's kind of its own little distinct animal, but I think it works.

Okay. So, I see nothing regarding MU2. Um and your staff, you no specific questions for us on this item. Okay. So with that we are ready to begin discussing MU3 and I believe we have another recusal. I have a recusal. Do I have to return after this? Well, we have the other item on the agenda. So that's up to you. But we do have the other the hazard plan and we will uh take a very short break to allow you to time to return and you and council member Peak are welcome to come and speak on MU3 if you so desire. Um okay let's uh see the staff discussion for MU3 please.

Thank you. So just as an overview mixed use 3 is kind of divided into two areas in the city. Um there is the area kind of at San and Selmo area. So the um San Paulo road area where there's existing hotels and a couple commercial uses. And then there's the area on Sanomao West that has trip 7 auction and a couple underutilized um and vacant parcels at the moment. Again, just to show you what the existing zoning looks like, there's some commercial tourist zoning that is at the currently at the S. Paulo Road site and then commercial retail that's at the 7 site and does incorporate the existing uh residences that are there today. Um so this is just an overview of what's there today. a couple vacant parcels, some commercial uses, and residential.

Is is the trip 7 partial just the the commercial uh sort of reddish color? That is what they're using. I believe they are also using a portion of the adjacent residential parcel today. The first residential that must have a house on it for you to consider it existing residential. Correct. Yeah. I think some of those houses are in a state of disrepair, but they're they're there still. Okay. Got it. And and just to um go ahead, go ahead and finish.

Okay. Just so just to orient um ourselves, this is the San Paulo area site um where a pain management specialist is and then there's some hotel uses surrounding and this is uh the trip 7 site. So you can kind of see their boundary there. Um and they do, I believe, use this residential parcel on occasion. The second portion of the city where mixed use three zoning is proposed is the Mororrow road corridor. This is the existing zoning today. It's probably one of our most chopped up uh zoned areas. We have some commercial neighborhood, commercial professional, commercial retail, um public and commercial tourist zoning on mixed use currently on Mora Road currently

library.

And then these are our existing use patterns. So you can see there are some commercial uses, there's some public uses where the school district owns a particular piece of property, quite a few vacant properties, and then quite a few that are already developed with residential properties and multifamily properties mixed in. So just to orient ourselves a little, this is just kind of a a overview of Mororrow Road and the types of properties that we see. some vacant properties. There's an existing um residence that may or may not be used as a residence next to a commercial development. Um this is one of the newer developments there which is Moresco Plaza. And this is some existing multifamily development. Looks like maybe 70s maybe 80s. So the vision for the mixeduse three area is kind of a horizontal mixeduse model um which might have commercial fronting the primary street and then residential units in back. Um the unique thing about the Mororrow Road corridor versus um the other areas is that some of Mororrow Road parcels do back up onto residential streets as well. So it kind of creates a transition to those single family neighborhoods surrounding Mororrow Road. We already have some projects that we believe fit with the vision for Mororrow Road. Um, while this is purely commercial, there could definitely be residential component behind here in a future development or some of the second floor areas could be residential as well. This is another development that was done quite some time ago um as a mixeduse horizontal mixeduse development. Um, I believe the Selen and Tribal offices were in this building. Um, and then if you go to the rear of the site, there are some residential town homes. So, this is kind of an example of that horizontal 50/50 split type development pattern. Um, access for the residential is off of Amapoa and then access for the commercial is off

Mororrow Road. Before you leave that picture, the commercial on Mororrow Road, is that second floor commercial or residential? The second floor was planned as mostly offices, but you can see on the site plan where it says unit one, that one was intended to be a residential unit. Okay. Thank you.

This is another example of some buildings that um activate the street frontage um like we see with Moresco Plaza and have some commercial uses on the ground floor, residential above. And this is a similar type building that has kind of more of an office feel to it. This is a project on Broad Street in San Los a Bispo that has some smaller scale commercial uses up front and then a a residential focused project behind. So some of our proposed standards for the mixeduse 3 zoning district again density at 36 units per acre which is standard amongst most of our multifamily and mixeduse areas. Um the height 35 ft which is how it exists today and again we do have that allowance for an additional 10 feet for architectural features to allow roof lines and differences in form. Um for the setbacks what's currently proposed is a maximum setback of 15 ft. So that would push buildings towards the Mororrow Road or primary street frontage um to kind of activate the street which would mean parking in the middle of the site or towards the rear depending on their layout um with some parking potentially off to in a side kind of configuration. And then along any residential street um it would be a 12-oot minimum um to allow um buildings to come a little closer to the street and match adjacent residential zoning districts. Um again on that double loaded secondary front street would have that 12- foot setback um as well to accommodate um matching the existing zoning districts around it. Side and rear setbacks are similar to commercial zoning districts where there's none technically required. Um currently along Mororrow Road there is um a plan development number three overlay that does acknowledge that they are transition to a residential area. Um, and so they do have a 10-ft setback

if you are adjacent to residential uses. And again, our floor to ceiling, ground floor height would be 14 ft, which would accommodate a variety of commercial uses, but not be that ginormous space like we would have in our more intense commercial areas. I think we already kind of talked about uses um and and we can talk about uses more when we get to the use table. Um but in general again this is a variety of uses that could be located here. We could also build in some commercial requirements. So we could say that along the primary street frontage whatever building is there we want 100% of that building to have ground flooror commercial space so that they don't take up space with um a residential lobby or um elevator shafts or things like that. Um, we could also say that commercial needs to be a minimum of 35 ft deep in order to be a viable commercial space. So, a lot of times, um, our tenant spaces need to have a certain depth or width in order to be rentable and viable. And 35 ft seems to be an appropriate depth for those. Um, we could also adopt standards that have a minimum commercial building frontage. So instead of just having one building that meets the minimum setback and then a sea of parking, we could say, you know, we want a majority of the street frontage to have buildings against it. Similar to Moresco Plaza for use considerations in the zoning district, we know we want to incentivize um offices here and kind of creating sort of a a medical and office center for the city. Um currently our parking standards um disincentivize um medical offices a little bit. They sometimes do have a higher parking need, but sometimes they don't. And right now our parking standards are kind of blanket across all of those medical uses. Um and

so you can see it's one space per 200 square feet of floor area for medical offices versus other offices that are at one per 500. And so, um, this standard generally leads to a need for larger parking areas and we might consider adjusting that standard if we're trying to incentivize, um, medical offices and and movement towards that for Mororrow Road. This is an example of a recent project that was approved um in entitlement and is coming in for construction documents soon. So this is um the parcel between Moresco Plaza and the Brickyard. It's a vacant parcel currently. And so um they did do uh full commercial along Mororrow Road. And you can see that the depth of their tenant spaces range from 36 ft to 50 ft. So um the standard of 35 ft seems to be easily accommodated for these types of developments. Um we also see a majority of their street frontage um with buildings. um they were able to do this because they are shared access with Moresco Plaza and they have an egress onto the residential street behind them. Um so we wouldn't necessarily want to say you always have to do this. We do want to allow for driveways. Um but this is a development that takes up most of their primary street frontage with building and activates the Mororrow Road corridor. And then as promised, we're back to uses. So this is the same table as we saw for the other ones with some key uses pulled out. Um, but you do have the full use list attached to your staff report this evening. And so with that, we're going to open it up to discussion. We did have a couple key questions as we did for our other zones before and then we can also dive into um some of the nuances of use.

Okay. So, do you want us to go through these things or just first we'll ask questions? I think um and I we'll we'll allow you know we are going to allow public input on this. Um so first of all any questions uh for staff prompt areas. I have one quick question on the you had shown the graphic or list the information of a 14oot ceiling for buildings for the commercial ground floor. Is that a minimum? I mean if somebody wanted to make it a 16 foot or 18 foot ceiling they can do that. Correct. It would be a minimum

but it's a minimum. Okay. So they can go taller if they want to. Okay. That's all I needed to know. Yeah. Um on the uh um setbacks, um how does that um how does the how do the CALR rideaways um along Mororrow Road affect the the uh effective setback?

Yeah. So the setback would be from the edge of the right ofway line which at this point for the builtout portion of Mororrow Road is the back of sidewalk. Okay. I see some dissent there from somebody who has property there. Um and uh is there any reason that we can't um do allow for um restaurant drive-thru um in in this area. No reason.

Okay. And with regard to the um you know 14 feet versus um 12 ft for if we're focusing on medical uses and office type uses. Is there a compelling justification for requiring a 14 foot minimum versus a 12-oot minimum? I think most office uses can be accommodated in 12 feet. I think 14 feet gives us um not only sort of a more architectural presence to look more um uh commercial on the ground floor and has a wider variety of uses like restaurants and kitchens and things that need a lot of duct work. Um but just for offices they can be accommodated in 12 feet.

Okay. And with regard to the 35 ft minimum depth that you were discussing as a potential option for commercial spaces, um it were you at that chamber of commerce uh um event there in that Moresco or building or near um near or near there um the other day because there was a small business um with a a young female entrepreneur that has cute uh um cute to stuff to wear at your kinsera and other things. And I was wondering about that depth that business as an example is an approximate depth that that was I I'm guessing it wasn't 35 feet deep.

Um we can definitely measure and see what that is and tailor some standards to make sure that we have the right number. Okay. because that seemed to be a a workable business in a acute small business um that could operate in a space that wasn't as large as what we were envisioning is requiring as a minimum. it, you know, having attended that mixer myself, yeah, that business was definitely probably 15 to 20 feet, but the building itself was probably 35 because there was another uh unrelated well related by blood, but unrelated business on the other side of the wall. So, the building itself may have been 35

and that would be allowed. So, if you had 35 ft depth, it would allow for those bigger uses, but you could come in and divide them up if you had smaller tenants.

Got it. Um, did I don't want to too far in a comment, but I would agree with with the gist of council member Funk's question that if if we're specifically identifying this as an area for potential offices and and medical offices, then I I don't see the the rationale for requiring 14 ft. If somebody envisions a restaurant, you know, they can certainly do 14 or as Mayor Promander said, even taller. But we shouldn't require something that's high a higher ground floor minimum than the very types of businesses we're asking to locate there. So if we're ask you know if we're trying to set the stage for this corridor to be you know medical offices and and uh other things like that then we shouldn't require more than what's necessary to allow those particular kinds of businesses. Could you go back a few slides? I'll tell you when. Um, keep going there. Well, no, that was the um and it relates to this discussion about minimum 70% frontage, using up a minimum of 70% of the street frontage with buildings, allowing the other 30% to be potentially driveway ingress, Um, why? And I think are we really going for we don't want a parking lot out front. um you want presence, but I mean if somebody wants to push the building back and have let's say like in this case have the plaza out front or something like that, what's the rationale behind requiring 70% coverage on the front other than not putting the parking out in front?

It is purely design. It is purely about creating a streetscape there that's conducive to um a pedestrian environment, a residential environment, a mixeduse environment. It's also about looking at what we have on Highway 41 right now. It's a very wide width out there. Uh the rideway is huge. You've got a huge parking and landscape setback already. Um you already have a street tree requirement. And so it's it's a community design issue. It's about having a space that feels comfortable and all of those things help um it helps even reduce traffic speed. It helps with uh an efficient use of the land and it it helps it become more attractive. That's it. We don't have to do that. And these are suggestions and our consultant has made some of these suggestions and we thought they were wise given what's been done in other areas and how they've come out and how we visualize these projects.

Yeah. But certainly there's flexibility that could be added. And that's completely up to us.

Yeah, I in my own mind think flexibility other than I wouldn't want to see the parking out front because in that, you know, is more of a it does the opposite of what you just described to have the parking out front, but there might be other uses other than physical building that would still be inviting, what have you. In regards to parking, you brought up parking uh and and maybe our requirements for parking for medical offices are too high or something. There is public park, you know, available, free public parking along the roadway here, right? I mean, that CALR striped in what the public initially found a confusing way, but I think has gotten the hang of um on street parking.

That would kind of indicate we could could be more lenient with the parking requirements. Yeah, we believe the addition of sort of that much on street parking and and how Mororrow Road operates um we we haven't seen a huge parking concern, right? Except at the LA yoga studio. Consider, you know, adjusting those parking lots, parking requirements based on the availability of of the the public parking out front. Okay. Can you back up another couple slides? I just want to see if there was something else. Go back.

Yeah. Um, okay. Now, I think that's it. Um, I think I'd like Go ahead. There we go. On the ceiling discussion that we were having. Uh, it sounds like my colleagues here were okay with lowering the ceiling. I want to recommend that we stay with the 14 foot framing of it anyway because it can if if your business is such that you don't need a 14 foot tall ceiling, you can soft it. You can do a suspended ceiling. There's all kinds of things you can do to bring it down to change the environment. I mean, sometimes, yeah, restaurants feel more comfortable with a much taller ceiling. So, it just I think it adds the flexibility. So you don't 14 foot would be your limit if that's what it's built at, but you can bring it down to 10 feet and and change the the environment of it. So I would recommend that we do stay with the 14, I wouldn't even mind going taller, but if 14 is is fine for something like this, but there's there's other construction options to make it so that way even if somebody's using it with a 10-ft suspended ceiling and then they leave, somebody else can come back in and raise it, make, you know, bring it up as high as they want. even exposed structure possibly with duct work. That's that's an architectural thing. But anyhow, I think 14 foot is is is fine.

Well, you you might I mean you probably answer this question better than I though and it is what additional cost are we imposing on somebody to make it 14 versus 12. I understand the flexibility somebody could come back later. Suspended T bar ceilings are very common and it's actually a good way to to get to route your duct work and uh and any other infrastructure that I'm just looking at the addition. What is the additional cost to require that to go? I think it's part of doing business. Well, I mean, for me, I can accept that if it's not a great cost. If it's a great cost, then I'm going, no, why are we imposing that? No, I don't think it's a great cost at all. Yeah. I think it's just it's a standard thing in commercial in commercial architecture.

Yeah. It doesn't add a huge amount of cost and it's standard. I'm I'm okay with with keeping it at at 14 ft. Um it's, you know, again, it's I want to have a rationale if we're going to impose a cost on people in developing a property. Exactly. And this is not final. So I I would like staff to ask that question, you know, ask some builders that question. If you come back for this for final approval, you we know, well, that's, you know, that's a 3% additional cost or that's a 25% additional cost. Two different answers.

Let me explain a little bit further. I mean, you're going to have this open shell where you can see the the the framework above you. And then you're going to have your duct work and then whatever other infrastructure, you're going to cover it up one way or another. So, chances are in a commercial building, it's going to be a suspended ceiling. You can do a suspended hard lid. It doesn't have to be the acoustic ceilings that that you you're used to seeing, but either way, there's going to be a suspended ceiling. you either hang it down two feet or four feet or whatever it is that you want. So I don't think it's it's not really increasing the cost of how you cost of building a 14t first floor wall versus a 12 foot. Yeah, it's two extra. I'm totally open to what you're talking about. I just want to know what is the cost differential when you bring this back. We don't have to give a definitive answer this evening.

We heard you. Thank you. And we've already actually asked a lot of questions the development community about this ceiling height. And a lot of these mixeduse buildings are already doing that proactively. La Plaza 16T 6 in ceiling height all the way across in all their tenant spaces to attract those commercial tenants. We didn't require it. They built it.

Yeah. I just like either confirm that or we hear it from them and I'd say I you know I just want to know when we oppose a cost I want to know how realistic that is and what that cost is. Is it 2% or is it 10%? Is it 25% additional cost? You know, that's all I want to know. And like I said, we don't have to do that tonight. Would like you to be able to address that. Okay. I'm going to I'm going to open this up to public comment. And I understand council members Peak and and Newsome are not going to come in on this item, but if they are, now would be the time to come upstairs. Go ahead. So, as a property owner on Mororrow Road, I'm already impacted by setbacks from CALR. I went out and measured today. Currently, because CALR gave me two more feet of a driveway when they redid Mororrow Road, I now have 14 feet um total from my setback to the Calrans Rideway. from the rideway to the bike path is another 14 feet and then you can talk the road. So I have an issue there with the setback because different areas of moral road have different uh uh open ditches that could not be filled in or what have you. um because it was cost prohibited for any type of uh frontage improvement or CALR would have done it in my area. Uh I was fortunate enough to get another easement so I could put a drive-thru in if I wanted to. Um and uh I think at the Kerbarel area of Mororrow Road, we should still be able to put a drive-thru in. Um there's plenty of room there. I don't have residential there as of yet. I'm concerned about um losing the right to serve alcohol till midnight by mixed use. I think it's

great for the property value. Um I've looked into things. I basically have a half a acre. Um if I went HUD housing, I could actually do uh 48 units right now, I believe, with no parking. Um not something I would consider necessarily, but it's always in the back of my mind. Um, don't know if I would tear the place down and start over or not, but I now have a very viable restaurant opening on April 1st in there. Um, it's been operated as a restaurant for years. Before that, it was a fruit stand or it was Supervisor Arnold's daycare center and it was a house before that. And yes, I passed it uh since 1981 and it was built in 1947. So, I think we do pretty good with mixed use there. My parking is on the right. I currently have uh 21 or 22 spots of parking and it also has uh workforce housing in there. So requiring me to put my parking in the rear is not necessarily the best thing depending on what type of food establishment you have. So those are my concerns there and I hope that we look at it a little differently uh going down in that area. Thank you. Thank you. Um question for staff on on this area in general. You know, we have the very large right of way for Calrans for 41. And if I understand things correctly, you know, their rightway extends obviously onto the the sidewalk out up to and includes the sidewalk, the Calrans rightway.

Yes. And so are we then, you know, because you have essentially the sidewalk, you've got like the bike lane, and then you've got the parking, and then you have the actual traveled roadway in the middle. So when we talk about front setbacks in this area, what what distance we were talking and we were talking from the from the edge of the CALR rideway. You're talking about from the property line, which is the edge of the CALR rideway. Okay. Yes. So, um, got it. And so, and and what what's the front setback we're talking here? 10 minimum of 15. And it's really it's about street trees.

So, can you go to the picture of the Nuresco Plaza that you have there? Because I don't didn't think they were at like is it where's that? We did measure at some point in time and and it was larger than we thought it was. So, I believe they were at between 15 and 20. Yeah, because that's we'd have to go reme-measure, but visibly I don't know. Yeah, it looks more like 10 to me, but maybe it's 15. Um, because I thought Yeah, it was it was more than we thought.

And if you cruise through these pictures to some of the examples you have from, you know, that are just AI or or if they're for other communities or something. Um, you showed a couple of sample pictures there like that. You're saying that's like 15? Yes. Because I I I don't I mean if it feels like 15's a lot to for the property owner to give up. You you think it's pretty typical? I mean it seems like there's are there a lot of non

So I So I also want to clarify. So 15 is their sort of maximum setback. So they have to build up to 15 feet. They can build forward if they if the street tree we have a street tree standards and some of those have less setback. So they can build more forward depending on what street tree pattern they choose. And then 15 ft is the farthest back we want. Okay. No, I thought we were talking 15 feet minimum setback. What's the minimum? Just enough to fit a street. The minimum would be what our street trees required and we have multiple options so that they can design their site accordingly. Right? because you could have the the you know a cutout for the street tree here and there, but in between the building could be even clearer.

Correct. If you do larger trees, they're spaced farther apart. Your building could come forward. Okay. So, this we're not talking 15 minimum or even 10 minimum. We're talking enough to allow trees. Correct. Okay. I'm comfortable with that. So, it could be part of the building could be zero and then you could have it could jet in and then you'd have a space for a big tree and so on. Okay. Okay. I I'm more comfortable with that. In regards to the parking, again, I think in general, we don't want a huge parking lot out in front. I don't mean to say there should be zero parking on the front, but you know, we don't want it the entire frontage to be a parking lot and then have the building set 40t back is what I'm

We can look at um refining those standards with that intent. Okay. Okay. All right. Council member Funk. Yeah,

I would be with the the mayor on the idea of of um allowing some parking up front but not the entire frontage to be parking. Uh keep the uh front setbacks uh to a minimum um to just to accommodate the street trees is um I mean if they want to maximum I'm not too fussed about but minimum is is a concern. uh we want to give developers flexibility to use these sites in ways that work with the sites and they're all a little different and I also I'm not sure why we would necessarily need to have 12 foot minimum setbacks on side facing um um on on the second side of a of a double of a corner lot. Um that's Was that then though again a minimum or a maximum setback or a minimum set?

That was a minimum on a corner on a side street and you know since we've got things that are going to be um so that is the double loaded. So that would be like where a site backs up onto Amapoa or Tearita. Well, yeah. Or curve. But yeah, but you're you're talking about double loaded secondary front. Oh, so that's the the street. That's not the corner lot. That's the back side.

That's not the corner. So on a corner lot, it would still be sort of that that front that is sort of the primary. So if you had residential units towards the back and they happen to be on the corner, they would be set back 12 feet like all the other residential units. And then the commercial building on the corner would be the same as what you would do on the primary front. Double loaded is if it goes back to another street like the property deep enough it fronts Amapoa and it fronts sure moral road or like that one property that fronts Atascado Avenue,

right? And and I'm conscious also I'm I'm okay with that then uh if that's what the all the other mo the multifamily properties on there also have that same setback. um that that would seem consistent. I am concerned about um the fact that we are creating the opportunity for a lot more development that is going to face onto and run on and off of Amapoa. Um which is not a city maintained street. Um, I don't want to block the development, but I do want us to consider if there's some way to um build in some kind of requirement that um, you know, you got to parti that the that that uh there needs to be some participation in the collective enterprise of maintaining the street for new developments that are part of this. so that we don't get something that's just unworkable.

Well, especially since Amapoa is effectively one lane where the big redwood tree sticks out in the middle. Yeah, they they would have to do frontage improvements and I'm not sure. Amipoa might be less than 40 feet or it might be 40 feet and it's just not built out. So, there is opportunity to improve the street. Um, I think there's some potential legal challenges with requiring that a district be created and and not everybody's participating. I don't know how that would work. We'd have to work through that. Um, I will also say that mixed use is allowed in these zoning districts today. Um, and so we're not really increasing development potential of these properties. We're just sort of creating development standards about where each use can be.

Okay. I would like staff to uh explore that because um we are incentivizing and create by making it easier to do these kinds of developments and build out. Um we're creating a situation where you're going to have employees that want to park on Mapo, you're going to have residents who are coming going on that street and we got to deal with the reality that it's not a citymained street. And um and what makes that just totally unworkable for people is is you can't it's really hard to get the neighbors together to pitch in to do a street like they did on Tecarita and some other places u because the ownership is too uh dispersed or you have non-resident ownership of these kinds of properties. So, I want to make sure that, you know, as you have um this kind of new development that we're incentivizing that we be attentive to the ways in which we can create a workable situation to maintain the street.

Okay. I think is staff good with where we're at on guidance wise for you to move forward and come back in April or wherever. Okay. I'm sorry. You're right. ready to go back to. Yes, I think we've answered a lot of these. Um, if you if anything's jumps out at you that you want to address on any of the questions, but I think we've talked around and through a lot of them already. I think we did address everything. Is that maybe the first one actually?

Yeah. The first one I wanted to ask on some ground floor residential. Okay. Is that on the street side or does it have to be behind? So this so this zoning district it would it would be behind I mean you can do whatever you want to do that the thought would be it would be behind there would not necessarily be like a 5050 because that gets confusing as to which part of the parking lot is commercial residential. Um it would more be those minimum depth standards and sort of minimum frontage standards for commercial buildings. Um and then the rest of the site could have a ground floor residential component. Okay. specific in the MU3 that the residential

uh unit would not be on the street would would not be on the the front side. Yeah, that that's the those are the proposed standards would have residential on the primary street frontage. Okay, that's the 36 units per acre sounds like a lot where sounds like a lot. That's that's what we um approved with the place type. Um, I will also say that that that density somewhat gets towards um a density that's not very achievable and so it sort of allows allows developers to come in and fit what they can on the site. So it's you say it's not achievable because of physical limitations typically speaking.

Physical limitations, parking setbacks, constructibility, number of stories. Got it. Because yeah, we would have requirements, you know, like if it's backs up to the residential, we would be set back on the second floor or third floor or whatever. So, yeah, it just becomes physic. It's a it's a maximum allowable, not necessarily technically fe. Correct.

Okay. Thank you. There was there was consideration at some point of requiring properties to develop out to their full um potential so that you didn't have um single family places being developed in multifamily zoning, that kind of thing. Do we get into trouble by allowing uh 36 units in density if that's really not going to be achievable on some of these lots?

No, it it provides us an avenue for our EIR to be solid with our with our general plan and zoning code update. Um the state did require minimum density on a lot of our properties um for a while. If they have that requirement again with our next housing element, it will not be to build at the minimum um that we set, it would probably be to build a minimum of 20 units per acre, which is what this is zoned for already. Oh, okay. Thank you. Okay. Are we good? Okay, we're good.

I think we're good. Okay, then we are good. We are going to move on. Uh, council members Peak and Newsome, we're going to move on to the next item. We'll take a very very short break here about 3 minutes to allow them to return. We will reconvene at 10:05.

10:05. We're back in session. We're ready for our last agenda item of the night. I believe management report regard H2 regarding multi multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan. Believe we're going to turn this discussion over to Battalion Chief Dave Vansaw.

All right. Thank you, Mayor and Council. I know it's late, so I'm going to try to get through this as quick as I can, as much information as you as you have. So, what we're talking about up there, if we get slide, is the adoption of the multi-jurisdictional hazardous mitigation plan and the community wildfire protection plan. And actually, this is just an update to the that we already have in existence. So quick background here. The haz hazardous mitigation act of 2000 uh requires is a requirement and it ensures counties and cities update their haz hazardous mitigation plans every five years to say eligible for FEMA funding um and disaster mitigation funding. Um this is this is an update um to an already approved multi-jurisdictional hazardous mitigation plan that the council adopted in 2021. It was developed through a coordinated effort that uh used current hazard information and engaged agencies and the community. Um, this update went through a two-year process of meetings and public workshops and has received state and federal uh approval p uh pending this final council action. At Tascadero was heavily involved in the regional meeting and completed several local spreadsheets to accurately update Ataser's hazards and mitigation efforts. We did this through our disaster planning committees for several months. Um the HMP is very similar to the fire severity zones. The the multi-jurisdictional one is um very similar to the fire hazard severity zones. It has already been already been approved by the county and OES and for

Tascadero to adopt it will allow FEMA to issue uh issue a final approval letter for the plan. Um and then up also included in this update is the Atascadero annex. Um it's the local hazarded hazard mitigation plan that was worked on internally with um the building department, planning department, police and public works department. Um and we spent several several months um working on that and with the county. So what is the hazardous the multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan? So basically the plan identifies the risk pre present in the community and outlines the corresponding mitigation strategy for each risk. It does not address the tactical steps required to carry out those strategies. And for an example here, so heat is an identified risk and cooling cooling shelters are the mitigation strategy. That's what the plan outlines. But that's where the plan stops. The actual deployment of the cooling shelter is the tactical action and that occurs during an incident not in the plan. So the tactical process of implementing the mitigation plan is done actually in the field. It's not part of the plan, the tactical part of it. So the plan identifies community vulnerabilities uh to local hazards, explains which people, places, and systems are most at risk from events like earthquakes, floods, fires, and other hazards. It recommends u practical cost-effective mitigation actions and outlines feas feasible projects and strategies that reduce risk without requiring excessive cost or resources. aims to protect people and property and

infrastructure uh long term. It focuses on solutions that provide lasting safety benefits and strengthen in community over time. And then it helps FEMA recovery by prepositioning the county um for for uh for funding um reimbursement and implementation of approved mitigation projects. So, it makes FEMA's post- disaster funding easier to access and uh accelerates recovery uh because eligible projects are already identified and approved. So, the main the main purpose of these plans are to get reimbursed um FEMA money uh in after post disaster. Um so then here are some some few significant changes to the multi-jurisdictional hazard plan. um the update to meet new FEMA and California requirements with broader outreach. So, it reflects at least uh the latest federal and state hazard mitigation mandates and includes expanded bilingual community engagement and then expand uh hazarded profiles with improved maps and parcel level analysis. So it adds more detailed hazard categories, updated fire and flood maps and finer scale vulnerability assessments. It modernized capability assessments and increased mitigation actions. So updated local plans, policies and resources while expanding the mitigation action list to address current resilience priorities and then refresh development and expose uh exposure data for key hazards. So this incorporates new buildings, populations, wildfire, flood risk, uh data to improve understanding of community vulnerability.

So now we move on to the the annex um which is a lot a lot smaller document. I I think the county jurisdiction plan is 500 plus pages. Um ours is quite quite shorter than that. Um so here are some significant ch changes to our specific annex. Um expanded hazard analysis provides more precise risk understanding by incorporating new data on extreme heat adverse weather and parcel level GIS vulnerability. Improving how hazards are mapped and modeled. Updated exposure metric matrix refreshes structure values, critical fact uh facility counts and wildfire and flood exposure estimates including dam uh inudition inudation zones to reflect current conditions and better quantify potential loss. Um we brought in mitigation actions and capabilities built on past efforts with new initiatives like heat heat preparedness, urban forest management and firewise participation while strengthening regulatory and risk assessment tools. And finally, it strengthen implementation and alignment, ensures clear execution through post- disaster updates, um improve funding pathways, and full consistency with current FEMA guidance and state safety requirements. So, now we're moving on to the second portion of this, which is our community uh wildfire protection plan. Um along with uh along with the process of approving the updates to the multi-jurisdictional plan um and the annex, we're looking at the approval of the updates of our local CWPP. Um again, this is a five-year update. Um it's generally uh the community wildfire

protection plan in California is generally expected to be updated every five years to reflect changing wildfire risks, new developments, updated science and modeling specifically like our fire hazard severity zones and um completed projects and to maintain eligibility for state and federal grants. It's similar um to the hazard mitigation plan updates. Um so basically this document also is needed for us to apply for for state state funding for fuel mitigation or defensible space any kind of stuff like that. We're required to have uh CWPP to apply for those grants. Um the purpose of this provides a communitydriven plan to identify wildfire risks, prioritize prioritize fuel reduction and mitigation projects and guide actions and strengthen wildfire resilience by helping communities qualify for certain state, excuse me, and federal wildfire mitigation funding. Again, this also just identifies the risk and the mitigation practices but does not identify the tax tactics um to help achieve that mitigation uh tactic. Um and then updated hazard uh updated data and hazard mapping incorporates uh refreshed demographic housing data and adopts CalFire's updated hazard uh severity zones and it replaces the city's um 2021 WOOI map and aligning with uh Tascadero with the state statewide hazard mapping. Um there's also some uh regulatory modernization. Um we changed the references to the 2025 California building code um fire and WOOI codes to ensure alignment with the

newest statewide construction and uh fire safety requirements. We expanded operational strategies significant significantly strengthens fuel management, evacuation planning, inter agency response uh coordination including enhanced roadside clearances, broader treatment strategies, improved alertings and formalizing a dedicated fuels fuels crew for the future. And then we enhance community programs and ignition resistance, add structured home hardening assessments that we currently um provide, stronger defensible space enforcement, expanding firewise and contractor education efforts, and introduces a residential cons consultation program to provide tailor home owner guidance on defensible space. So that brings us to our recommendation is to approve the 2025 2030 updates to the St. Louis Bispo County multi-jurisdiction hazardous mitigation plan. That is a mouthful. Um accompanying Atacadero's annex annex B and the community wildfire protection plan. And now I'm open to any discussion or questions.

Okay. Thank you. Um I will start on my left to see if there's any questions. Council member Pete. Nope. Mayor Portandereas, just one question on the fiscal impact of 250,000 roughly. What What is it that imposes that cost? I'm sorry. I didn't hear the 250,000 is the fiscal impact is 250 and it's 75% I know is covered by federal grants but I don't what how is

so so um the county hired a cons a consulting group to do this and that's what and it was a two-year process we had public public meetings public outreach um so that was the total cost of it and then um back in 2023 three. I believe all the annex cities came incorporated with the city and they split that cost by that percentage that was in there. Okay. All right. Thank you. That's all. Okay. Uh council member Funk

and wake up. Okay. Thank you. And I want to thank uh um Mr. Venzone for the you know extensive discussion in advance. You know, these are are dry documents, but they're also really important that we're regularly evaluating and taking seriously the threats to our community and how we plan to address them. Um the uh so just a couple of of things I want to follow up on with that. Um, one of them is on pageuh 191 if you anybody wants to look it up with there's a a mention of uh wildfire evacuation routes being considered for road improvements. Um, do we know if that and this might be Mr. Dar as well. Do we know if that includes the exit uh to highway 41 that a lot of residents have asked for? There's an area that that has no second exit that could if it could you has a surface crossing over uh the creek into 41. Um if that's sort of on the back to

public works director bar I'm happy to report that they do have a second access out and it's through um when the three bridges oak preserve trail head was built in that parking lot. There's actually city rightaway that goes out and they act actually can get through that fire lane that's usually gated so they can get out that way during an emergency. And one of the long-term uh projects that Phil Phil really wants to because I know he uses that area a lot is um with Carmelita extending that um section of Carmelita up to that yes that area there. So,

and uh if residents were really keen on having that kind of an improvement that wasn't necessarily in the community's plan, could they, you know, form a community facilities district or do something like that to um achieve those kind of improvements?

Um, you know, I I guess I mean they could come together much like Amipoa as we were mentioning the other day. And um you know I know there's that we used to have a local road uh repair program that uh I think it was Sania Bank you know back in the day used to um you know work with us on and I know staff has been speaking with um Riviera Bank um about and they've shown some interest in getting that going. So, um I know there was just a email earlier this week that I think Lauraailight tickled, you know, director Rangal and I with. So, we're looking at that as well.

Okay, great. Um are there any city facilities that haven't been earthquake ready? Any critical city facilities that have not been earthquake ready or retrofit? The best to my knowledge, I think we are 100%. I know there was one building that was still needing some retrofitting, but I I do believe that one's been been accomplished. So, I believe they're all they've all been retrofitted uh to the earthquake standards.

Great. Um when does the um this is you made it clear this is the planning um phase for recognize assessing and and planning for um preventing damage or mitigating risk. Um when do we have a discussion um of the uh evacuation and response to immediate response to disaster that you know we should also be updating those plans on a regular basis. Is that going to come to council anytime soon?

So evacuation is actually that would be in our world considered a tactic, right? So it's depending on the situation. So we we do have a developed plan. It's not a plan per se, but we we've split this the city into four different quadrants. And then if the fire is burning in one specific quadrant, we have a a plan already written out that we could hand a public works handle hand to PD and say these are the roads that we need to close. Um this is how many barricades we need. That's already all established. But having specific evacuation routes um we can't we can't pre-plan that because you have to base those routes on what what the activity is doing. So it's a more of a tactic. We have the plan established on kind of like a a mitigation of what we will do for for an evacuation. U but the tactic of actually doing the evacuation is going to be specifically at the incident or the EOC. and we have um resources already developed and how that plan's going to work out. We already have that all worked out.

Okay. Um the regarding the roadside uh vegetation clearance and one of the challenges that the fire department has is is being able to you know in it's hard to inspect all of those roads. Have we considered, you know, or could we consider doing some kind of cooperative relationship with Waste Management since they're driving vehicles slightly larger than the ladder truck um through on all of our evacuation routes on a regular basis?

I we could definitely touch base with them and see what roads that they have access. Obviously, if they're having access problems and our we won't be taking the ladder trucks in those areas, but our other engines might have access problems as well. And they they actually in their current agreement with us um for their exclusive uh garbage collection, they are mandated to do a certain amount of tree trimming work each year and it's in the a value of about $20,000 a year. And they have been doing that. Doesn't get very far because we have a lot of encroaching vegetation in the rightway.

Okay. Um and uh uh we one of the things that's in the plan is uh improving the evacuation alert system as sort of the five-year objective. And we saw in the uh Lano fire that the current system to my mind left a lot of people wondering what was going on uh because the county site official site um was way behind um the the action um

right and that's going to be ongoing that's that's currently in the plan. So it's ongoing review of how the system works and that's a perfect example of the Lano fire that we that the system didn't work as it should have um with communication efforts and dispatch telling one way and we had three different communication routes going different directions. So that's that's why it's in the plan so we could still review that process and streamline it. Um but the county does run our evacuation now. um they went to their own program through that uh through their um there's so many different websites that you have to go to. I can't specifically remember the exact one they have.

Yeah. Um but and that's that's got to be on us too as an education purpose. We did send out a flyer last last um fire season that has all that information for the public. some more public education on how to reinforce the evacuation process and go and go through through sign up through the um ready slow um website. That's where you're getting all the information. So, we'll we'll have to do a better job on communicating that out to the public. Yeah. And would we be allowed to tell people that the Watchduty app has a lot faster information than anything else?

Yeah. And actually there it's a pretty good it's a pretty good app and that is true that they'll get information out before that we even call it on the radio. It's amazing how they do that. But we can do a recommendation of of people you utilizing that wash duty app. Okay. Thank you very much.

I have no questions. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see if we have any public comment. I I have well let's see if we have public comment first. Any public comment? Okay, no public comment. Bring it back to council. Uh since this we're actually asked to adopt the draft resolution improving both the countywide and the Tascadero annex. I had a couple of minor typos. I think I could get together with you afterwards. It would not materially change anything. Um so with that, I think we're ready for a motion. move approval of the uh multi-jurisdictional plan and the Atascadero annex and related documents um with provision to staff to correct typographical and minor errors.

I'll second. Okay, we have a motion by council member Funk, a second by Mayor Promarez. Roll call, please. Council member Funk, yes. Council member Newsome, yes. Council member Peak, yes. Mayor Promarez, yes. Mayor Robo, yes. Motion passes unanimously. All right. Thank you. Uh that is our last agenda item. We'll move on to uh council announcements and committee reports. I'll start on my right with council member news. I have nothing to report.

Okay. Thank you. Council member Funk. um Homeless Services Oversight Council um had a multi-hour um annual meeting at um last uh week and and uh did some larger planning and pres prioritization uh for the upcoming rounds of of state uh funding. um and um continues, you know, we continue to weigh how to make the best use of a rapidly shrinking pool of dollars. Um but are also recognizing the uh results that show that the continued attention to implementing the 2022 uh countywide plan um is paying off in terms of reductions in observed homelessness in our communities. Um and the uh Tescad Arrow Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency is going to be meeting shortly um to uh go over the annual water report which in this jurisdiction is generally good news.

Thank you. Mayor Portz,

I don't have anything to report. Okay. Council member Peak, uh we have finance committee joint with SeaTock tomorrow morning and uh look forward to that. Okay, thank you. Um, county mayors uh met last Friday at at the new Pismo Beach public safety centers. That was interesting because they are using the same they used the same contractor we will be using. So it was interesting to see the completed product uh there. Um they did a lot of course cost a lot more than ours too. So um and I went attended a uh since the last meeting IWMA Integrated Waste Management Authority meeting. We're working on re re uh um relocating the Mororrow Bay hazardous household hazardous waste facility and and completing one in San Miguel and also had a central coast community energy meeting and Tascadero in particular suffered from the CPU's decision to really jack up with a charge that's called the PCIA and so the board created a new rate um for uh folks that are willing to forego their eligibility for certain programs uh you know rebate programs for battery walls and things like that uh and they can sign up for a lower rate that could be of interest to uh residents in a task. So it was good that the board allowed that flexibility and uh that's all I have. Does any member of council have any individual uh determination? Seeing seeing none other than a determination to get out of here. Okay. It's a good thing we we can avoid the motion to go past 11. Uh then we're adjourned. Thank you all.