Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. This is the planning commission regular meeting of March 11th, 2026. I call this meeting to order at 6:01 p.m. Roll call, please. Commissioner Suther here. Commissioner Kulie here. Commissioner Copelan here. Vice Chair Qua present. And Chairman Smith stated he would be absent this evening.

So that goes into request of any excused absence. We have the one. Okay. Pledge of allegiance. Commissioner Copelan, would you republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Um, are there any adjustments to the agenda? No adjustments. Perfect. Um, are there any conflict of interest disclosures?

None. Public comment period items not on the agenda. Any one person may address the committee on any matter not on this agenda. If you wish to speak, please fill out a public comment form provided in the back table and give it to the committee chair or secretary. There is a threeinut limit on public comments. There will be no sharing or passing of time to any other person. State law prohibits the committee from discussing or taking action brought up by your comments. Do we have any comments not on the agenda?

I have no request for this portion of the agenda. Jillian, do we have any callers on the line? No callers. Um action items. public hearing requests. Oh, on this one I'm a little confused on this part. I have just dashes. This item is approval of minutes. Okay. Approval of minutes. Uh, may I have a motion? So moved. A second. Motion a second. Uh, may I have roll call, please? Commissioner Southern. Yes. Commissioner Kulie. Yes. Commissioner Copeland. Yes. Vice Chair Qua. Yay.

All right. Public hearing to consider approval of conditional use permit CUP 2023-000074 and environmental ENV2025-00005. Staff report please.

Good evening, vice chairman and commissioners. Katie Jensen, planning staff. An application for a conditional use permit for Calvary Chapel was submitted to the city on June 30th, 2023 to expand the existing religious institution at 1780 Orchard Heights Avenue. The expansion includes a new 11,000qt sanctuary building, 7,700T multi-purpose building, a 5,000t children's ministry center, new baptismal area, two sport court facilities, and an outdoor barbecue area. The proposed project is located on a 5.49 49 acre parcel in the residential single family zone and has a general plan land use designation of single family residential. Surrounding properties to the north, south, east, and west are single family residential with the properties just to the north and east sitting outside of the city of Bulmont boundary designating them under the Riverside County jurisdiction. The site currently features a 3,300 ft building and five portable trailers. With the expansion, three new buildings will be constructed with a total building square footage of 23,700 square ft and removal removal of the portable trailers. In addition to the proposed buildings, the proposed expansion will also feature the two court sport court facilities, an outdoor amphitheater, barbecue area, new landscaping, and a total of 213 parking spaces. This project was analyzed under SQUA with a mitigated negative declaration. Based on the analysis contained within the M &D, there is no anticipation that the proposed project would result in any significant and unavoidable environmental impacts. The project could result in potential significant impacts related to biological resources, cultural

resources, tribal cultural resources, paleontological resources, and temporary noise constru construction noise. However, the implementation of identified mitigation measures would reduce all impacts to a less than significant level. Mitigation measures would be enforced through the adoption of a mitigated monitoring and reporting program if approved. On February 8th, 2026, a notice of this meeting was published in the press enterprise and property owners within 300 ft were notified of the public hearing through a mailed notice. At this time, staff recommends to hold a public hearing, certify the mitigated negative declaration ENV2025-00005, adopt a mitigation monitoring and reporting program, approve conditional use permit CU 2022-0074, and direct staff to prepare a notice of determination for the applicant to file with the Riverside County Clerk Recorder. This concludes my presentation, and myself and the community development director are available for questions. We also have the applicant in attendance tonight for any questions.

Thank you, Commission. Any questions for staff? Yes. Um, what is the purpose and the use of the sanctuary building? So, it's going to just be the expansion of the church. So, they're building the new sanctuary itself, but I can have the applicant speak to the involvement of it if you'd like when it's Yes, please. And what is the distance from the sports court to the nearest residence?

Let me pull up the site plan really quick so I can see if there's a setback on there. Come on. It looks like from well we can look at the on the site plan right now. One of the closest residents would be about 113 square feet. I'm sorry 113 ft.

Okay. And is there any determination uh any kind of a study or any good guess of what if any increase in the daily trips in and out of the facilities. This project was not required to perform a traffic impact analysis because they didn't meet the threshold. So we don't have that those numbers at this time. All right, that's what I have at this point in time. Uh I was curious, uh I see here we've got about uh we're adding 200 parking spots. How many are existing right now on the facility?

Um I don't have that total. Let me see if the applicant has that the current total. existing. Um, just a repeater, it's 59 regular stalls.

Perfect. Thank you. Um, I have a question regarding the amphitheater use. Uh, what are typical uses for that facility? I think it's for out for their outdoor baptismal area. Is that correct? It's for their outdoor baptismal area. No entertainment.

That was not in their scope of work for entertainment, just the baptismal area. And what would the hours of its use be and days? Are we doing seven days a week, 24 hours a day? I'll defer to the applicant on that. Hello, my name is Pastor Henry Ky Chapel Bulmont. Uh the baptismal will be used uh only during uh church service hours. We normally have it after our third service, which would be around 1:00 to 1:30. So once a week, probably three or four times a year. Thank you. Welcome,

staff. I have one one question. Correct me if I'm wrong. In the conditions of approval, there is a requirement to um secure a cup for any events that are outside. So, it's typically a special event permit. Usually, if it's outdoors um or outside the scope of what's permitted under their conditional use permit, they would need to come in for a special event permit. Okay. Does that help you on that? Okay. Are there any other questions?

All right. Um I will open the public hearing at 6:12. priced your qu before you do or since you have I did want to just provide you an update from the city attorney that says if you would like to recuse yourself it may be appropriate if you want to get um further due diligence from the attorney's opinion but it's up to you just so you know perfect thank you uh public hearing at 6:13 are there any requests to speak

yes I have four people uh in person and I will call them up first and then I'll check with the phone lines. Uh Sharon Waitman Hello, my name is Sharon Weightman. I live at 1048 North View Drive. I uh am a member of the CCB church uh here in Bumont. Um thank you for your time and consideration that you've given to our application. I understand that there are many things you may consider before approving applications and we know the religious aspect like any other applicant can only be approved if it benefits community and surrounding area. So what CCB offers to the community are the following. It provides community gathering space, strengthens family and social connections, provides philanthropic help to our local schools and seniors, contributes positively to neighborhood stability and property values, assists in financial hardship, life transitions, and charitable charitable endeavors as they arise. This campus is not a place of worship. It is a place where people receive support during illness, loss, family crisis, and financial hardship. It strengthens families and builds community connections. We have survived and thrived from a tiny church in Banning to years of tent services and temporary trailers in Bulmont. We pray that the time is now that we may grow into the campus that our community and neighborhood would be proud of. I

believe approving this project will strengthen our city, not burden it. Thank you.

Next speaker is Keith Roberts.

Okay. Thank you for the opportunity. Uh, I'm Keith Roberts. I've been a resident of Bumont for over 21 years. I've been a member of this church for over 14 years. But Bulmont is growing. And as Bumont grows, the church is growing. It's growing quite a bit. And we're frankly just running running out of uh running out of space. We have five services on the weekend. Uh even on Sunday mornings, we put chairs outside for the overflow uh crowd. Uh and uh again, we appreciate all of your consideration for this. We really do urge you to uh to approve it. And as uh previously mentioned, we have relationships with some of the uh schools and other organizations in the community. We want to make this a better place and and and really bring in more people for Bowmont. Thank you.

Next speaker is Karen Roberts. Good evening, commissioners. Thank you so much for for all that you're doing. You know, you're serving the city of Bowmont and it's evident that you want the best for the city because you're spending so much time. So, thank you for that. Um God's amazing work at Calvary Chapel Bowmont has transformed the lives of and strengthened many families and it's blessed our communities. As the city of Bowmont continues to grow, our church is also growing and we're at capacity as as my husband said and we need additional facilities. With more space, we'll be able to expand our outreach to our community through the outreaches and local partnerships that we have and expanding those. And as stated in the staff report, the Bumont general plan goals and policies strive to create development patterns that give most residents a walking distance of 1 half mile uh to a variety of neighborhood uh serving areas including grocery stores um and inst religious institutions and much more. So the report states that consistency with this goal is met since there are over a thousand homes in one half mile walking distance to the proposed project. I strongly urge you to approve this project. Thank you. Next speaker is Katherine Phillips.

Good evening, commissioners. I didn't plan on speaking, so this is kind of off the cuff for me. I've been a member of uh CCB for three years now, and it's a wonderful church. We are absolutely at capacity. It's it's very difficult uh for the children to squeeze into all these little trailers that we have around. So, approving this building project would be of great benefit to not only our church, but as everyone else has said that spoke was to our community. Uh it's a it's a very strong church. We're very oriented to the community outside. we give to the to the two local schools, two local elementary schools. And I just feel that this would be a really positive step forward in Bowmont's city uh Bowmont city. Thank you,

Jill. Do we have any callers on the line? No callers.

Anything? Um, I know I'm going a little bit off script. Applicant, does the applicant I want to make sure whoever would like to speak is speaking. Would the applicant like to speak? Sure.

Thank you, council, for your for your time and uh we've uh been about three years uh looking forward to to this day. So, we're grateful for all of the work uh that uh everyone has done and as was mentioned uh we are extremely community-minded. So, we've uh actually adopted uh three schools. So, we've adopted Starlight Elementary uh San Gregio Middle School and actually Palm Innovation Academy. So, what we do is we provide them with uh not only popsicles um once or twice a year, but we also provide them with bikes uh and scooters for when school begins. So they use those bikes and scooters to give to um those who have great attendance. We also sponsor lunchons uh to them when they're have having parent teacher days along with the bikes and scooters and pens and papers uh and the popsicles. We also do uh pass out teddy bears to the convolescent homes here in our community. Um and also with San Gonial Middle School, we uh last year uh fed 27 children each Friday of last year. Again, we very much believe in community. It's important that as a as a church that we uh go outside of our walls. We love Bulmont. Bulmont's been really great to us and we want to continue to make an an effect positive effect in Bulmont for the families and also for uh for the kids. So, we are very community-minded. So, we are um hoping and we've been praying a lot uh that you would approve this uh this project. We are good for the community. Uh we're good for the kids. We're good for Bulmont and families. and we're looking forward to having a continued impact in the city of Bulmont with your approval. Thank you.

Thank you. I will close the public hearing at uh 6:21. Commission discussion.

Will the applicant speak as the applicant at some point? Pardon me. Will the applicant be speaking as the applicant at some point? That will Yes. Yeah. So, I'll wait till then. Thanks. No, the applicant um was this last person. So, the um when the public hearing was open, um the applicant did speak. Yeah. Did you have more questions for the applicant? Yeah, I have a number of questions for the applicant. Is this the appropriate time? Okay. Um what is the the use and the purpose of the sanctuary?

We gather we gather for worship. We gather for reading of uh God's word. Uh it's a place where people who are uh sick, ill, struggling mentally or physically, people who are needing hope, they're able to come into the sanctuary and uh receive hopefully all of the needs that they have. So it'll be used primarily for religious services, not social activities.

From time to time, we would have what's called date night. So we have a marriage ministry. So what we do is um probably once or twice a quarter, we invite uh the married couples to come to our church. We put tables up and we uh have a time of worship, a time of God's word, and we have a time of eating. So we would have we would we would call it uh fellowship. So, there's times that we would eat in the in the building and there's other times we would just have a church service. Thank you for that. Um, you say you currently have 61 parking stalls. You're going to install 213. Yes, sir.

Can you do you need those? I'm trying to uh get a handle on on growth. It appears from the maps and what we've seen, this is a fairly small church building and it seems to be expanding into a much bigger social organization. Uh do you anticipate those 213 stalls could or would be used and needed upon the completion of the project if approved?

Yes, sir. The the 213 stalls uh will be needed. I believe we have 5 something acres. So, we have a lot of uh dirt on our property that we will eventually make into parking stalls that would um fit the ratio of our of our building. Okay. And the uh sports courts, um what hours are those used and how many days a week?

Um the sports court will be later on in our in our project. Um, but they would be used uh in hours that would be um uh prevalent with the Bulmont uh order of of noise. What we try to do at our church is make sure that all of our neighbors are happy. We keep the noise level uh down really low so we would uh never uh have the the sports facility available during uh hours that uh that are late or against city ordinances. Thank you. I have a question on the sports courts. Are they lighted? Uh they're they're currently not in existence yet. It's just down in our

when they're built. Will they be lighted? Most likely they they will be. Um but there will not uh the sports courts again will come later on in our in our project. Um and we would adhere to all of the the rules of of the community. And then um thank you. Um after the project's completed, what happens to the current sanctuary?

We're going to let um give that to our youth. So right now we have uh six modulars. So in the sanctuary that we're in uh once you uh approve this project, we will then move uh from the current sanctuary to the new one. Uh that's uh larger in size and then our youth uh would then take over the current sanctuary that we're in and they'll be happy to do so. Thanks. Can I ask uh when are your uh services typically?

We have Sure. We have a service on Saturday night at 6:30 and then on Sunday mornings 8, 9:45, 11:30 and then our Spanish service is at 1:30. See no more questions. I'd like to ask for a motion. I'll move to approve. I'll second. We have a motion in a second. Ask for roll call, please. Commissioner Southern, yes. Commissioner Kulie, no.

Commissioner Copelan, yes. Vice Chair Qua, yay. Okay, staff comments. Do we have any staff comments? There's only one. The last day to appeal this item is March 26th, 5:00 p.m.

Okay. Uh, commissioners, do we have any comments? Nope. No comments. All right. Adjournment. Uh, the next uh, regular meeting of the Bowmont Planning Commission is scheduled for Wednesday, April 8th to uh, 2026 at 6 PM unless otherwise posted online. And I call the meeting concluded at 6:28 p.m. Steve. Not a word.