Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Hello and welcome to the May 19th Planning Commission meeting. All members are present. And please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Oh, yes, pretend. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under all.

Per the city's meeting rules and procedures, public comments are generally limited to five minutes or less time if a larger number of speakers is anticipated or if approved by the chair. Speakers desiring answers to questions should direct them to the planning commission and if relevant, the commission may direct them to staff. Speakers can also follow up directly with staff during regular city business hours. Please file a speaker's card with the administrative secretary on the form provided at the back of chambers. During this portion of the meeting, those in the council chambers are permitted to speak on the items not on the agenda. Public comments or scheduled agenda items should wait until that time and Zoom participation will not be accepted for general public comment.

And April.

At this time, we have no speaker cards.

Okay. Moving on to the consent calendar. For the regular Planning Commission meeting minutes from May 5th, do I, any discussion or do I have a motion? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Yeah, and I guess we go straight to informational reports. I guess we'll start with TransPlan. It was canceled. Yeah, it was canceled, right? Okay. Sorry, it's not on here, so I'm going to go off memory. Let's see. No design review committee. Probably no municipal code meeting. And Ludd has not... We were supposed to have a meeting yesterday, but it was canceled, so...

I think, did I miss anything? I think that's it, okay.

Right, requests for future agenda items. Any new requests? This is a strangely expedient meeting. Moving on to item F2, future agenda item requests from Vice Chairperson Flor to discuss the application review process and how staff formulates recommendations and how the Planning Commission's role in reviewing. We'll pass it off to Eric for a brief presentation.

Good evening, Chairperson Brand, Vice Chairperson Flor, members of the Commission. I do have a brief presentation. This is modeled off of the staff report. And if you noticed, I didn't do a page count. April could probably help me with this later, but I believe it was a record-breaking low number of pages in the agenda packet. I believe it was 15 total. The staff report itself was six pages. Just a little bit of background on this request. It was first initiated by Vice Chairperson Flor when he was Chairperson actually last year in September. Brought it back to the Commission in October for a little bit more discussion and the Commission at that time adopted a motion to prepare this item at a future meeting. So it took a while to get here. Obviously there's a couple reasons for that. One is there's just not a lot of meetings scheduled at the end of the year. Second was that the city council was at the first part of the year going through the process to reappoint or appoint new commissioners. So we got through that process. And then there's just some other time-sensitive projects that took priority. Excuse me, I think the biggest example, best example of that were the objective design standards, which the commission just saw recently. And then I just wanted to point out while the staff report and my presentation really provide kind of a general overview of the process, I fully expect that there's gonna be a lot of questions and comments during the meeting and potentially some public input. So happy to entertain that as we go forward. If the commission has specific questions at a specific point in time, please feel free to interrupt. I'll probably take maybe 10, 15 minutes tops to go through my presentation. And I'm gonna start with just an overview of the application submittal and review process. So applications are submitted by whoever the project proponent is, and it could be a property owner, it could be a developer, a consultant, to the planning division for processing. Once that happens, the application is assigned to a staff planner, and then that staff planner is responsible for reviewing it within 30 days for what we call completeness. And what that means is it's a review of our developed checklist for the different kinds of applications to make sure that we have all the required materials that we need in order to process the application. There are some common requirements across the different types of applications, but for the most part, they vary. And for example, there are different materials that are required for conditional use permit applications as opposed to design review applications. The completeness review ends at that 30-day point with a letter that is sent to whoever the applicant is that outlines any materials that are still needed, that are missing or maybe that need to be supplemented. It's possible, but it's extremely rare, i.e., I don't think this has ever been done, where an application is submitted right off the bat and we have everything we need. There's always something missing or we have a question about. Every time an application is resubmitted, it then starts a new 30 day clock that staff has to review. And typically those subsequent resubmittals take less time because we already have a baseline to work with. This is a really important step in the overall process because it kind of sets the foundation for all of the remaining steps. And it also gives staff with kind of that basic initial understanding of what the project is all about. So for CEQA review, once we deem an application complete, and again, it could be after that second or third submittal, we have another 30 days in which to conduct an initial environmental study, and that's pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act and the CEQA guidelines. This is basically to determine the level of review that's going to be required and the type of document that's going to be prepared. There's really three options at this point. One is an exemption, meaning it's not subject to CEQA. The second is a negative declaration or a mitigated negative declaration. And then the third is an environmental impact report. At this point in the process, it's really important to have a stable, what we call a stable project description. I can't tell you how many times that we've received an application and then somewhere throughout the process, the applicant decides to change something, which they have the right to do, of course, but until they really nail that down, it's difficult for us to kind of move forward. So we want to have that stable project description in order to start conducting the SQL review. So with exemptions, and the commission is used to seeing some of these based on the type of project, we basically handle those at staff level because they're fairly basic. Those get submitted to the commission in conjunction with the staff report and the agenda packet. The negative declarations and the mitigated negative declarations are always prepared by consultants, but always in conjunction with staff. So we always know what's going on, but we're not doing the day-to-day preparation and analysis. These usually take a few months to draft and prepare, and then once they're ready for public review, we circulate them for at least 20 days, and in some cases 30 days, depending on the type of project, where it's located, and if there's like state agencies that are involved. According to the law, these really need to be adopted within 180 days after an application is accepted as complete. So again, it kind of fits within the overall timeline of the processing. Now, EIRs are also prepared by consultants in conjunction with staff, and this is the highest level of review and analysis. These take several, many, whatever qualifier you want to put in there, months to prepare, and then these are circulated for 45 days for public review and comment. And then these are also required to be certified within one year after an application is accepted as complete. Okay, consistency review. Once an application is deemed complete, the staff planner assigned to the project routes those plans to all the other city departments and then outside agencies. What we call outside agencies are things like PG&E, the City of Oakley, East Contra Costa Irrigation District, the school districts, because we wanna make sure they are aware of what's happening and do they have any comments or concerns. And at this time, we also continue to kind of delve deeper into the consistency of the project with all of our various plans and policies and regulations, so of course general plan and all of its associated elements. If it's within a specific plan area like Brentwood boulevard downtown or PA one the applicable zoning ordinance and then our different design guidelines. So in terms of the overall process, they're all critical, but this is a particularly critical one because our scrutiny kind of intensifies, intensifies, I just made that up, intensifies, and then sometimes changes to the project are made by the applicant. Now, not so much the project description, but it could be things like, and I just listed some examples here that these are basically from the staff report, but Maybe it's a change to the site plan for a new commercial office complex. It could be changes to the landscape plan, such as putting trees into the parking lot that weren't there before, building designs, subdivision maps for new single family developments, and then building designs themselves, like say for a new apartment complex. So there's a lot of kind of back and forth at this point. And as I note here, it's iterative, right? So staff and the applicant are literally going back and forth. I've seen, and there's a pending project that we have where I believe we're on the eighth submittal, right? Which again is just, it goes to show you how much a project can and does change over time. And then similar to, as I just mentioned, similar to the application completeness part of the process, this is where you get kind of multiple submittals in order for us to get comfortable with it being consistent. So I put up here in the staff report that it's rare If ever that a project comes to the Planning Commission looking exactly the same way that we first thought at staff level, there's always some level of changes, some minor, maybe some major. And I'll just throw one example in here of, and this goes back maybe 15 years ago or so, but BJ's, when it came in for design review for the streets of Brentwood, I want to say that application was literally, it was one of those examples of it's complete. And I think by the time it was submitted and by the time it was scheduled for a planning commission meeting, it was like two months. And the planning commission, you know, really liked the project, got approved, got built. That's a very kind of, I would say that's a one-off. It's a very unique example. Most projects do not occur that way. And then the changes are made for specific reasons. Sometimes they're initiated by the applicant, sometimes it's in response to something that we asked for, but it's always with the goal of trying to improve the project, and again, ensuring it's as consistent as possible. Staff does work closely, as I mentioned, with other city departments as part of this process to ensure that their issues and concerns are also addressed, again, to the greatest extent possible. And this is something that not necessarily the public knows, but we do have weekly what we call staff review board meetings where we look at new projects and new applications that get submitted. That's really the one sort of unique time in the process where staff from the other departments gather in person and kind of like a round table discussion, look at a project together and ask questions and kind of try to resolve things. And then it's during this part of the process as well, if a project is going to be recommended for approval, especially if it's a development type project, we do need input and conditions from primarily engineering and parks, but sometimes from police as well. So we gather those conditions from them and compile them. Okay, so the recommendation part, and by the way, this is all, barely fluid, so I don't want to make it sound like this is a completely linear process. There's things that are kind of weaving in and out throughout the process. So with the recommendation itself, there's not like a particular time or step where it's made, it kind of evolves. And there is a number of discussions that happen amongst a variety of staff. Our assistant city attorney is involved in a lot of those discussions as projects kind of wind their way through the process. But we're also constantly talking with, again, engineering staff, police department staff, parks and rec staff. We take a lot of things into consideration when we formulate the recommendations. I would say the three most important include a project's overall consistency with the general plan, compliance with all of our other applicable regulations and guidelines, and then of course compliance with all applicable state laws. And that continues to be a more difficult task as the years go on because of the different kinds of laws that get passed. It's also important to note that the recommendation is not made in a vacuum by that particular staff planner. It's again, carefully formulated over time. Again, once the application is deemed complete and we've resolved any consistency issues. And again, it involves a significant amount of discussion with not only planning staff, but also with staff from other departments. What this results in is a consensus based on collective feedback and input we've been provided by staff as a whole. And it also hopefully ensures that one of our key roles is being implemented, which is to serve as the best possible source of information for the commission so that the commission can then make the best possible decision it can make. This is, of course, old hat, but it's in the report part of the process, right? When we get to the meeting, The commission, of course, is reviewing the packet, all the information that's provided by staff, and considers public input. And that could be emails that get submitted the day of a meeting, 60, 75 of them, who knows? And then, of course, input that's provided during the meeting itself, both in person and on Zoom. And then while the staff recommendation, of course, is based on the information and the facts that we have available to us, the planning commission has the ability to modify recommendations and there's a number of examples that you can point to over the years some recently that the commission could be aware of it could be minor changes like we want to tweak a draft condition of approval that staff has recommended you could also switch the recommendation let's say staff has recommended approval the project planning commission is not comfortable with that they want to recommend or or actually take action on it Excuse me, on a denial. These kinds of changes are certainly appropriate, but they're also highly dependent on the type of project. I will say there are certain residential projects, and this is also probably not news to the commission, where the discretion of either staff and or the commission is kind of limited. So density bonus law is just one example where that kind of ties the staff and commission's hands a little bit, and we need to be aware of that. And lastly here, just some key takeaways. This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but number one, each application is entirely unique. There are no two that are processed exactly alike, and that's even, let's say we're processing a CUP for a restaurant in August. We could bring in another CUP for another restaurant in October at another location, and the issues and concerns will be totally different. The timelines that are provided for during our CEQA review and the state's permit streamlining act apply, but each application is processed on its totally unique timeline. So the example I gave earlier of BJ's in about a two month timeframe, which is in my experience, lightning quick, I don't think we'll ever see something that fast. to an application that literally takes years to process. And it just, it's again, highly dependent on the project. We never know how long it's gonna take. I can tell you that we get asked questions a lot by applicants when they submit, how long is this gonna take? We try to give them sort of ballpark examples, but even those I'm sort of reluctant to do because then they get that in their head and they think, well, if we're not there in six months, what went wrong? So we just need to be prepared for applications to take their time. Again, staff recommendations are carefully considered. They're only formulated after we have a complete application. We have all the materials that we need to review it. And then they're not made, I'm sorry, they are made collectively and not by a single person. And then last, of course, is the Commission has the authority to either accept recommendations as they're presented or to modify them based on input and discussion at the meetings themselves. So that's really my presentation. Again, it's modeled after the staff report. Hopefully it made sense both in terms of reading it and my somewhat long-winded presentation. So again, thanks for your patience. In terms of getting the item here, I'm happy to answer any questions and look forward to all the discussion. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Eric. Any clarifying questions of staff?

No? Well... Are we taking public comment on this? Yeah, let's take public comment and then we can go into question and answer unless somebody else has questions.

Any other questions of staff before we move into public comment? Okay. At this time, the public is permitted to address the Planning Commission. Remarks are limited to five minutes per person. Let's see, April, anybody on Zoom most likely?

Nothing here in person, no speaker cards, and looks like in Zoom are just my commissioners.

Okay, easy enough. If no speakers, I will close public comment and moving into discussion.

May I start? Please, it's your item. Yeah, I just wanted to briefly mention why I asked for this item and why I wanted it to come forward. I wanted to, first of all, having asked for this item and people I thought might see this and go, don't those people on the Planning Commission already know all this stuff already? And I was a little worried about that back in October when I asked it. And then we went to Planning Commission Academy and it was the keynote topic on the second day is what does your staff do? And so I think this is that it validated that we really need to have this discussion from time to time. And I really appreciate the presentation, Eric, because it serves as a foundation for I think new commissioners coming in will appreciate being able to see that information in the packet. I DID WANT TO CLARIFY FOR THE PUBLIC AND, YOU KNOW, FOR ANYONE WHO IS CURIOUS WHY THE PLANNING COMMISSION SOMETIMES DOESN'T AGREE WITH THE STAFF RECOMMENDATION. WHY SOMETIMES THE STAFF REPORT WILL COME WITH A RECOMMENDATION THAT WE APPROVE SOMETHING AND WE DON'T OR IT WILL COME WITH A RECOMMENDATION WE DON'T APPROVE IT AND WE DO. Past elections and we've got election season coming up again. I've heard various candidates for City Council Express the opinion. Well staff are the experts, you know, which they are by the way and very knowledgeable and I trust staff and I'm just going to do what staff tells me and that anybody that says that is Saying that they don't understand how this all works it is actually not only perfectly fine for the Commission to disagree with the recommendation, but it is expected to happen from time to time and for the reasons that have already been explained in the presentation. And I just wanted to get that out to the public so they understand that there is a process of review the Planning Commission goes through and it is totally fine if we if we do disagree with the recommendation and it's not any knock on staff or anything it's just because of other information that comes in and also I did want to understand better the staff perspectives on these things because we see we see the end result of all those things that Eric was just listing off and it's quite a process that goes into it and then We're presented with a packet on Thursday, and we discuss it on the following Tuesday. So it's very compressed for us, and I really appreciate having the opportunity to hear from staff what all goes into these things. So I do have a lot of questions, but if other people wanted to go, or I can just start into this. Everybody okay with me just starting in?

Um, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Unless any objections from, okay, great. Okay.

So my first question relates to the topic of the application submittal and review and how it is reviewed for completeness and how it complies with the general plan, including specific plans, zoning ordinance, which I assume in some cases means PDs and design guidelines, et cetera. And we do have occasions where it will seem like the Planning Commission found something that was not permissible. And the staff had recommended that the thing be approved. And I'm just wondering, How strict are we when staff is presented with an application? How tight is it that everything has been gone over and there's nothing left out? Because sometimes we find things in the design review and we'll find things that look like to us that they don't match the design at all, but they were found to be compliant.

Yeah, I appreciate the question. So first of all, on the submittal side of things, again, every application type has a list. And it's a pretty extensive list of things that we need in order to evaluate an application. So we take those very seriously, right? If we don't have a complete application, it's not going to move forward. That's a little bit different part of the process than the consistency review, which kind of comes after we have a complete application. But to your question, we always take a very conservative approach with these applications and endeavor to turn over every possible stone. That's not to say that we miss things on occasion or that we maybe have a different interpretation than the Commission does. But I will say as the planning manager, and I review all the reports that get prepared, I reviewed this one too, but of course I wrote it. Anyways, we take a pretty conservative approach in making sure that we have everything covered. And if we're not comfortable putting an item on agenda for whatever reason, we're not going to put it on an agenda so that doesn't mean again that the commission is always going to agree with what staff has recommended or what they saw on a particular project again which is totally fine but we take a very conservative approach on all that stuff so hope that does that answer your question

It does. And do you guys ever feel like we're out of line or, you know, I mean, to me, I feel like we're just having a discussion and I think everybody's fine. But again, for the public, there are people that feel like if we're not agreeing with staff on something that we're being out of line or we're arguing with the experts or something like that. And what's your perspective on that?

I would say no, not out of line. Again, we expect to have that sort of discourse in the questions. I can't tell you that there's been a number of examples over the years, and you've all been on the Commission for a while now, where those things have happened at actual meetings, right? And so we do our best to address them at the meetings. Sometimes projects have to come back for a second or third time. That's happened recently, which is also totally fine. but we're always aware of the discussions that take place up here even like tonight you know the the planners aren't attending because this is really my item to present but in our we'll meet tomorrow as a staff we always meet on wednesdays and we'll we'll talk about the meeting they might be watching tonight i don't know but uh we'll talk about it right because this is helpful for us so every time there's an instance like that where know we think use the out of line comment which again that's not the case but that's an opportunity that if i always want to know i'm just trying to get to um the the truth of the matter and what's right and what's wrong and so i feel like

staff does a great job of making this a safe place for us all to express what we see. And sometimes we're educated up here on the dais and people need to understand under the Brown Act that we can't really discuss these things when we're not up here. And so they see us learning things, going both ways. They see actual real discussions of real things happening and it's a real meeting. It's not a puppet show, we're not here to to for the for the audience we're here to actually discuss the thing and so there is a lot of back and forth and it's just like any human endeavor there's going to be opinions there's going to be different ways of reading things and so i really really appreciate the effort that staff makes to make sure that everything is well understood and i do appreciate very much that staff is on on the occasions which are not like very often that that there might be something there that they're very willing to take that information in and use it so um let's see and um oh the sequel review exemptions We'll see that in the actual, when we go to consider the item, right? It's not something separate, just starting with that.

Correct. Yes, there's no public review period for the exemptions, they're just basically attached to the staff report, so they're a little bit different than the negative declarations and the EIRs.

Okay. So if a member of the public was concerned about an exemption, the time that they would bring it up is when the packet drops, if not before, if they haven't been aware of the project previously. And another term that I saw in here was the base zoning district under the zoning ordinance, including the base zoning district. Is that referring to usually the PD or just depending on if it's just zoned?

Exactly. So it's the zoning ordinance as a whole, but every property has a specific zoning designation. So it might be PD 18 or it might be C2 or something like that. Okay.

I LEARNED A NEW TERM TONIGHT, STAFF PLANNER. I'VE BEEN HEARING FROM STAFF PLANNERS FOR YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS AND NOT KNOWING THAT WAS THE CREDIT TERM. SO THAT WOULD BE THE PERSON USUALLY THAT'S MAKING THE PRESENTATION OF THE APPLICATION. BUT I AM LOOKING AT THE CONSISTENCY REVIEW. Something I did notice in there is that there's no mention of the residents or the neighbors in that review. And I know that you do make efforts to reach out depending on the project. I've seen full-blown meetings. I know that there is a requirement that you put up a sign. I personally am not always happy with the visibility of the lettering on that sign when somebody's driving by, but that's a discussion for another day. But I'm just wondering, In the process of the consistency review, there seems to be no place for the community to be involved or to come forward with concerns that maybe planning should look at with the project that they might have. and I find often that residents that I talk to are quite knowledgeable about their local location in a way that I am not, and that I think a lot of people would not be. They're the people that live there every day. They live there, they shop there, they drive in their neighborhoods, and they have a lot to say a lot of times about some of these projects. I'm just wondering where, where is the public able to get involved during the review process or does it wait until further on when we come to the public meeting?

Great point, great question. And I did not include anything about that part of the process within the report of the presentation, but it's not because it doesn't exist. And to your point about the discussion for another day, that's probably a good idea because that's sort of like peeling an onion, this idea of public notification, when it occurs, how it occurs, and what's the radius, right? I know Chairperson Brand had brought that up recently. I can tell you that, like you said, residents are pretty knowledgeable. They're either looking at the website, they might see something or hear something. So we will get phone calls and emails and visits to the counter throughout the process, depending on the nature of the project in the neighborhood. We're happy to get those and hear from residents. And to the extent that we can answer their questions and potentially incorporate concerns that they have, we will. We always tell them that if it's something important enough that they want to document, essentially that it does need to be in the form of an email or letter that we can then attach to a staff report. I would say I hate saying in the old days, but in the old days, we used to get more comments ahead of an actual agenda packet and we would attach them just so the commission knew. I would say now those occur more once the agenda packet is published, which is why, and just on that last meeting, you know, you were getting a lot of emails from April that afternoon on the emails that you weren't already copied on, like, hey, here's another one, right? So sometimes those come in pretty late, but the long story short, they can come in at any time and we accept them at any time and we're happy to assist the public in whatever way we can.

Okay, so I think the advice for the public is is to watch for things that are happening. I mean, the information is presented on the website, what projects are coming up. There's a residential projects page and a commercial projects page that people can look at There are those signs that go up. If the sign is close by or if it's a location you care about, I would recommend if you can't see it from your car, maybe pull over one day and walk over there and read it. If you see something that concerns you, if you hear about it, a lot of times residents will hear about a thing happening you know, through the grapevine, or they know somebody that's associated with, somebody that's associated with the project, is to, if you want to have an effect, is to involve yourself early. Because, again, there's not like a set procedure to go out and find people and say, hey, do you mind this? You know, like you're not going to knock on everybody's door and say, does this bother you, or do you like it? It's kind of up to the public to pay attention to what's going on in their city. to bring matters forward. I think that's how you and I met, Eric. Exactly. I brought something forward.

I've met a few people that way.

Yeah, I can imagine.

Can I give you another example, by the way, which I think kind of goes to your question? So the commission recently considered a time extension for the St. James Court design review, which is an eight lot kind of semi-custom development off of Minnesota Avenue. Designery applications don't require public hearings. And leading up to last January when it was scheduled for the commission, we knew about, I don't know, three to six months prior, like the end of 2024, there were a lot of neighbors that had concerns about it, even though, you know, they didn't get a notice in their mailbox or they didn't see anything in the newspaper. so and this is kind of rare but we scheduled our own sort of staff meeting if you will with the neighborhood and we held it here in the chamber i think on a monday late in the afternoon like in november or something and we actually had pretty good attendance and it was just an opportunity for them to bless you some of it was kind of venting, some of it was questions about the process and what was coming up. So that was kind of unique, but we just felt it was important enough to do what we could at that point to address concerns they had, and then also keep them abreast of when that item was actually coming to the planning commission. I can't remember exactly, but there were several residents that came that night back in January of last year. Again, that's a rare example, but that can and does happen at times.

That's much appreciated. And I can give you another example too of, well, the happenings in Deer Ridge. There was a meeting for us that was in the middle school gym over at Adams that was held and was hosted by a city staff member at the time. And a presentation was made so that we were given notification. We also got presentations from the golf course owners themselves. And then when WBA came in and was looking at acquiring Deer Ridge Golf Course, Terrence put on a presentation for us at the Senior Center. And again, well attended and gave us a lot of information right up front so people could decide what they liked and didn't like and so for if something is you know obviously um going to impact the community in a large way, or if it's a community that's particularly vocal, like my good people at Deer Ridge, I see the city making an effort and I just want people to know that. And I think it is reasonable that for other things, if it's something that not a lot of people will know about upfront, it is kind of up to the public to kind of say something and it is always okay to send an email to the city. and it's always okay to go to the website and sign up for the emails that come out of the city too, so. And I did, I think I kinda talked about this at the beginning, so, because we're now getting into planning commission consideration, And I think we did already talk about why there can be differences between planning commission and staff recommendation. And I do appreciate the point that you made here in the staff report that there are certain residential projects where we can't have a say in how things go. And I'll read out loud that incorporate, there are certain residential projects, however, that incorporate one or more state laws to effectively limit discretion on the part of both staff and planning commission. And in these cases with density bonus law, as just one example, Changes proposed by the Planning Commission may not in fact be acceptable and I I do want the public to hear that there are times when we cannot help them because the state is interfering with our ability to help them and everybody Please be aware of that and talk to your state representatives because that's the only way it will ever get changed And again your key takeaways are I think this really sums up things. And I really like your fourth bullet point. It says the Planning Commission has the authority to either accept staff recommendations as they are presented or to modify them accordingly based on input and discussion based on appropriate findings. And we do make a finding on everything that we do. I don't know how many people watch these meetings, but if they've been watching for a while, they've seen us actually adjust the findings and on the fly so that we can get something available for the next step in the process. And so we always make findings. We always need to justify what we do. But at the end of the day, we are the planning commission. We have authority under the government code, California, and we have the right and the responsibility to do things the correct way. And I can tell you that my colleagues on this planning commission have impressed me greatly with the thoroughness and the diligence that they apply. And I just try to live up to that obligation every time I come in here. So I did have one quick question. It's just sort of, and Eric, I asked you about this briefly before, but when we read the staff report, sometimes we'll see something in there. And I'll give a trivial example. It's not like anything that was big or important, but I think it was at a design review. And there was something in the report that, the house was being built close to a neighbor and the neighborhood expressed concern about people being able to look out their window from the new house and being able to see into the neighbor's house. And the applicant had designed that side of the house to have just small windows up at the top to let in light, but not necessarily to look out so much because there were small windows. But in the house, in the application and in the staff report, they were referred to as picture windows. And in my head, a picture window to me is a large window that's designed so you can look out and enjoy your view of whatever it is you have built your house to have a view of. And so I asked the staff planner, something about why it was called a picture window you know these these sign review meetings get a little informal she says no i didn't call it that the applicant called it that i'm going well i read it in the staff report so um i'll stick a pin in that but i i just wanted to to ask a general question when we're reading through the staff report um and it's got a recommendation from staff um but there might be things in there that are really just representations of what was on the application and not necessarily a staff opinion. Is there a way that we can discern those things? How do we, when we're reading it, how do we know what is representative of how the staff sees it? the staffer or the various members of staff that worked on the report, and how do we know that it's just some text that was from the application? I know it's a weird question.

No, I think I understand it. I'm not sure I'm going to have a great answer to it, but it is difficult sometimes because, and this goes back to completeness and consistency. A lot of the stuff that gets changed over time is the actual application materials. I mean, we've seen i wouldn't say big mistakes but mistakes on plans that just you know maybe they've taken it from another project another city like there's a reference to you know modesto as far as the location well we know that's not the case so um we try to catch as much of that stuff as we can because we want the application to be accurate in the example you gave We're basically summarizing what the applicant said, but I understand that might be not how the commission saw it. If it's something big enough, we'll call it out so the commission's aware of it. In that case, it sounds like that didn't happen, but we try to catch those as much as we can so there's not confusion on the commission's end.

And probably in case anybody's listening to this, I should probably clarify there are other occasions that have come up where... it was much more of a consideration. We were doing design review and there was an assertion on the staff report that the design was, while not exactly as described in the design standards, it was adjacent to a couple of the ways And when I asked the staff planner about that, he told me, oh, we didn't say that, the applicant did. And so that's a point where it becomes much more important for me to understand when I'm reading the staff report. And I think for every commissioner when they're reading the staff report to understand where each assertion comes from that's in the staff report. And I know it's not always possible, but I wanna apologize to the two staffers on those two occasions that I made the assumption that those were their opinions because it was in the staff report that they presented. And I know better now, but I don't necessarily know how to prevent myself from making that mistake again, because, you know, uh there's it it's not necessarily clear from reading the staff report you know where every statement that's in there. I mean, again, I just look at things that are assertions, things that say, this is how it is, this is how it is, this is how it is. And I know a lot of that comes from staff. And I just wish there was a way that I could know that when something is being put in there, that's just from the application. And I mean, my assumption is if there's a recommendation, a positive recommendation, even if it's something that came from the application, then there must be some general agreement among staff that it's true. So that's just something that I think we'll look at as we go on. And I think that's something that is just an ongoing consideration for us to consider when we're communicating. And I think that's basically all the questions that I really wanted to trot out and kind of clear the air about. And again, before I hand over the mic, I just want to thank staff. I want to especially thank you, Eric, for letting us do this because I think it's been really, really helpful. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

All right. Any other discussion from... Okay, I I did want to comment the same thing I felt the content here is fascinating to see You know Start to finish with respect to how these processes work You know, I only I only had a couple of questions from it and I remember the first one and this was one of the first questions I had long time ago was these applications are submitted to us. And I know you did a great job of explaining the back and forth and what it takes and what denotes a completeness. My understanding typically has been that as soon as the application meets a certain standard according to staff, it like checks all the right boxes and there's a, I'll call it maybe like a minimum level of discretion. That's the point that it advances to planning for review. Because what I'm reading here is that, yeah, planning has a level of discretion here, maybe not so much sometimes, but other times, like for designs, for example, that there's usually a little bit more leeway versus a VTSM, that kind of thing. Is that a fair interpretation or am I missing something with respect to that?

Yeah, I mean, the way i would put i'm not i don't put words in your mouth but the way i would put it is the process is iterative it takes a long time depending on the application type but staff staff isn't going to prepare a staff report and put it on an agenda unless it's comfortable with the application as it stands with, say, certain conditions, right? There are always little tweaks here and there that staff feels are important. And then again, the commission has the opportunity to say, yeah, those tweaks are good or we want more tweaks or send it back. That happens too. But we never schedule something unless we are comfortable at the collective staff level that it's ready to be considered in that format. Does that?

It does. It does. I think one of the common misconceptions I hear is that, like, how did staff approve this project? Like, why is this here? And so it's, to me at least, my understanding has been, yeah, you've done the back and forth, and then state law has its own sort of shadow on sometimes of the projects. And so... it's almost like once it meets that particular formula, it makes sense to proceed only because there is some criteria, but there's also the level of discretion that I think once a project seems to fall within that last little, hinge moment of discretion, that's when planning seems to provide the most accurate way in.

Okay. Yeah, good summary.

Another thing was, you know, this commission changes a lot. We've got different people up here all the time. Does staff have any discussion in terms of the things that we have a tendency to yay or nay as far as wants, needs, requests. I think we've been adamant about a number of things and previous commissions have also been adamant. Is there any guidance that you've typically provided to applicants that says it's like, yeah, you could push that forward, but we're not sure based off of the last few where they haven't. You know, just to give them a kind of like heads up, because I remember the Kayla Place app application that was a while back. I think the first recommendation was to deny the design review because there were so many exceptions. And so those are the ones that stand out to me as I don't know. like maybe staff deemed to complete, but there was enough discretion there where you thought, well, you know, maybe not. I don't want to kind of put words in your mouth either, but there's that fluidity there that seems to exist, and I would like to understand it better at least.

Short answer is yes. We have conversations with applicants all the time. The ones that are more experienced and especially experienced in Brentwood either come to meetings periodically or watch meetings. I will say you definitely get a different flavor for meetings if you're actually here in person as we are at staff level. But we, yeah, we share that stuff with applicants all the time to the extent that they either have questions or that we can potentially provide them guidance. And to your other point, yeah, the commission does, Canon does change over time. This has been a fairly stable commission for the last couple years, but members rotate in and out every couple to few years. So we have to adjust as well as we sort of learn each other and how we work. And that's part of the orientation process. If you remember, each of you had what we call an orientation. Commissioner Roberts, that was quite a while ago for you, but... We do our best at that point to give you an idea of what the process is like, but until you actually get into meetings and start reviewing applications and projects, there's really no substitute for that.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with that statement. And then I know Vice Chair Flora brought this up is the resident sort of and community input. I mean, I know this body is well aware of the residential and commercial project list that goes up and so once My understanding is that once a formal application is submitted, not finished, but certainly submitted, that then gets pushed to the commercial or residential project list accordingly. Is that accurate?

Yeah, we endeavor to get those applications up on the website as quickly as we can once we have the complete, not the complete application, but the actual application. Sometimes applicants will submit what we call a conceptual review, which isn't a formal or an official application, but they're just looking for like very initial feedback. I can tell you a lot of those never materialize and people just go away. Sometimes they materialize in the form of an actual application and then they go on the website. And I will say as far as the public goes, because both you and Vice Chairperson Flohr brought this up, I want to make sure, and I've said this before in these meetings, we're a resource not just for the Commission but for the public as well. You know, we're at our desks, you know, Monday through Friday, basically eight to five. So if the commission, I'm sorry, if the public has questions or concerns, they're welcome to come into the permit center. They're welcome to email us. They're welcome to call us. We enjoy hearing from them because they're the eyes and ears, right? They live here. So we want their input. And to the extent that that input can make applications better and facilitate things maybe better at the commission level, all the better.

Yeah, understood. I mean, it's very true. I just, I'm not... typical resident visibility into that you kind of have to dig through the website in order to get to it and at least Residents that I've spoken with it's not until the packet comes out where they really get a good sense of This is what the project is and then they have four days to react or maybe sometimes less and so you know that that's one thing to the public that I recommend is that you know if they're if you hear kind of you know chatter or whatever about a potential project it's probably on that website so you can check the residential or commercial list because it's that they're all there and it typically it has a quick snapshot of what the outline of the map looks like or proposed map some designs a couple of comments about oh this is a a ramen store. This is intended to be like the BJ's restaurant or something like that so that people get a sense of what it is. Or if it's a residential project, the density, that sort of thing. And so I don't know if there's anything we can do as far as the... Is there a credential release that staff can provide to the community? Let's say like a monthly, like here's the sit rep for all the projects in the queue that, no, they haven't come up yet, but at least, because I think there used to be a, I think it was like an Excel sheet or something that was being dynamically updated so that you could just always reference that, but now it's obviously a bit more formalized.

Yeah, I can tell you that the format in which we provide information on projects has changed quite a bit over the years. I've been involved with probably five different ones that I can think of off the bat. I'd like to think they've gotten better over time, but the trouble with this kind of stuff is that, in my experience, is that everybody has a slightly different way of wanting to access information, right? So what we have now might work for 75% of the population. The 25% either doesn't like it or doesn't get what they want out of it. So we're happy to look at other ways to provide information, but this is kind of what we settled on a few years ago. And I think it's pretty good overall. But again, I would encourage residents to reach out to us because the other problem is that And I'm not a big social media person myself, but I know that there is a lot of stuff that gets circulated on social media that isn't necessarily accurate. And that's one thing we really don't want to have happen is for people to have the wrong information. So again, that's why we're always happy to have people contact us so that we can give them the information.

yeah uh that seems fair oh brittany go ahead oh yeah i was just going to briefly add for if you're having difficulty navigating the um the website itself you can just uh google development projects brentwood and that should be the first hit that comes up and it'll be a link to the residential projects and the commercial projects yeah that's a great note to the public it just it's as simple as that as i like to call it a dumb google search right

probably lead you to the right place. That, I believe, that's all I have. If there's no additional discussion, Vice Chair, do you wanna answer any questions of the commission? Any questions to the agenda item presenter?

I'm available for any questions.

No questions. I will say, though, thank you for bringing this to the table, and thank you, Eric, for this presentation. This was... if anything you know this was a really good breakdown for the public and for future planning commissioners i'd save this meeting because this is something that they can refer to and look back and say oh okay this is kind of how it works so i i thought this was really good it was timely and it gave um a lot good info and just huge thank you to for bringing this

Okay, no motion needed here. So unless, any other final comments? Seeing none. The next regular Planning Commission meeting is scheduled for June 2nd, 2026 at 7 p.m. and will be held here at the council chambers located at 150 City Parkway. Do I have a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you and good night.

And we didn't have a pool tonight.

No.