Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Planning Commission, Monday, June 8th, 2006. It is now 6 o'clock. If you want to speak, there's speaker slips over there. You just fill them out and give them to Yesa Benson, our secretary there, and we'll call you up on any item that's not on the agenda. And with that, can we get a roll call?

Commissioner Brittingham?

Here.

Commissioner and Cecil?

Here.

Commissioner Keith?

Here.

Vice Chair Newcomb?

Here.

And Chair Barron?

Here. And let the record show that we have our community development director, Kelly Lucia, is here. We have our senior planner, Celine Sevilla, hiding over there in the corner. We have our assistant attorney, Kathleen Reed. She's here. And Yesa Benza is our commission secretary. Would you all please stand and face the flagpole? Ready? Begin. Okay. Do we have any?

I've received none.

Received none. Okay. I don't have any. All right. Thank you. And with that, we will go to our next item, our action minutes. Any changes, corrections to the action minutes? Hearing none, seeing none. I had none. Make a motion to approve the action minutes of May 11, 2006, 2026.

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. I'll second it.

Burt can second it, thank you. Okay, all in favor? Aye. All right, our public hearing. So I'm gonna open the public hearing and we will go to, yes?

Thank you, Chairman, members of the Commission. Our senior planner, Celine Sevilla, will be handling this public hearing this evening. Right.

Good evening, Chair, members of the Commission. Thank you for being here this evening. Tonight, we are holding a public hearing for a proposed entitlement package for the project known as Quick Car Wash. Within the package, there includes a request for Zone Text Amendment 25-03, development plan review 25-01, conditional use permit 25-01, tentative parcel map 39386, and environmental assessment 25-02. The project site is located at 1168 Calamasa Boulevard. Okay, so starting off with the project location. The project site is generally located within the northwestern area of the city. It is within an existing commercial shopping center that is adjacent to the I-10 freeway and Cal Mason Boulevard. Many of you may know this shopping center as The Shops. This shopping center does contain a underutilized pad area that is proposed to be developed with a new Kwikwak car wash facility. Up on the screen, I do have a street view of that pad area. Okay, so for zoning and surrounding land uses. This project site is located within our downtown business district. It does have a downtown neighborhood commercial zoning designation. As you can see on the screen, it is surrounded by many commercial land uses in nature. To the north, there is a vacant property that is also zoned downtown neighborhood commercial. To the east, there is a Sater Brothers Grocery To the south there is the Walgreens and to the west it is the I-10 freeway corridor. Okay, so to give the Commission a little bit of background, this shopping center was originally approved back in 2008 under separate entitlement applications. That approval did allow for a subdivision of approximately 9.37 acres into five commercial parcels. It allowed approximately 90,000 square feet of commercial development, and it also established the shopping center with two drive-through uses and alcohol beverage sales. Up on the screen, I did highlight some of those current tenants. So we have, again, a Walgreens, a Starbucks, a Carl's Jr., as well as a Dollar Tree. Okay, so as I mentioned in the beginning, this project does include five distinct applications being requested. It includes a zone text amendment to amend table 18.39050 of the municipal code. You will also see a development plan review for the site design and architectural. conditional use permit for the operation of the car wash use, a tentative parcel map to create a separate legal parcel, and there will also be an EA in the form of a CEQA addendum. Okay, so starting with the zone tax amendment. The applicant is requesting approval of ZTA 25-03 to amend the permitted uses table in the downtown business district. They are establishing automotive washing, automated self-service as a conditionally permitted use subject to approval of conditional use permit. And they would also add a corresponding land use definition to the municipal code. The proposed amendment would require this car wash facility and any future car wash facility to obtain a conditional use permit, which would allow the city to evaluate operational characteristics such as vehicle stacking, circulation, noise, lighting, hours of operation, and compatibility with surrounding development. So in conjunction to the ZTA, we're also looking at a development plan review. This includes a request for a 3,362 square foot automated express car wash tunnel. It includes a three-lane vehicle queuing area designed to accommodate on-site vehicle stacking, 30 vacuum stations with canopy structures, a trash enclosure, parking, landscaping, and related site improvements. Okay, so very quickly, because this project is located within the downtown business district, it is also subject to the city's downtown business district design guidelines. So the applicant did incorporate some of that architecture into their development. And we'll see that in the building massing and the building materials. So they maintain compatibility with the existing center. That green that you see there is It is familiar with the Dollar Tree that's out there. They also incorporated architectural tower element, metal roofing elements, and masonry accents. Okay, so moving on to the conditional use permit. The proposed CEP would authorize the operation of the car wash use. The automated car wash facility is proposing to operate daily between the hours of 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and will employ approximately 18 individuals. Staff thinks the use is appropriate for the site due to its location within an existing commercial shopping center, access to major ideal roadway, and separation from residential neighborhoods. So I can see here the nearest residential area is approximately 1,000 feet away. This will help reduce impacts such as noise and traffic. Okay, so moving on to the tentative parcel map. This will be a request to subdivide approximately 5.24 gross acres into two legal parcels. The subdivision creates a separate legal parcel for the proposed Quick Quack development, while also maintaining the shopping center on the remainder parcel. So you can see here, outlined in blue, that would be the Quick Quack car wash parcel. And parcel number two would be the shopping center. Okay, finally, we have our environmental assessment. EA25-02 consists of an addendum to the previously adopted ISM&D that was prepared for the approved shopping center development. The addendum was prepared pursuant to CEQA guidelines to evaluate the potential environmental effects associated with the proposed quick ride car wash within the existing project site. Based on the findings of the EA, the proposed quick car wash remains consistent with the environmental impacts analyzed in the previously certified ISMND. Staff is making the recommendation that the Planning Commission recommend the City Council adopt an addendum to the previously adopted Initial Study Mitigated Negative Declaration, ISMND, short and in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act guidelines section 15162 and 15164 finding that the previously adopted ISMND adequately addresses the environmental impacts associated with the proposed project and that no subsequent or supplemental environmental review is required. We're also recommending that the Planning Commission adopt PC resolution 2026-07 through 2026-10 10, recommending the City Council approve Zone Text Amendment 25-03, Development Plan Review 25-01, Conditional Use Permit 25-01, TPM 3936 for the operation and development of a Kwikwik car wash facility subject to the conditions of approval. That concludes my presentation. I am available if the commission has any questions. Following order of business, the applicant is also present this evening if the commission has any questions for them as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, with that, we'll go to, we don't, staff presentation's done. The applicant, do you want to present anything?

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Vasanthi Okuma. I'm with Fountainhead Development. We're the developers for the project. I just wanted to quickly introduce, we've got our team here. We've got our development manager, Francis Chu, who really kind of worked in the trenches with both Kelly and Celine really wanted to thank staff for all the hard work that they put into this, trying to get this project consistent with everything else that's in the shopping center and getting us to this point. So very much appreciate it. Super excited to bring the first car wash into Cala Mesa. So we're hoping that we get approved today. I've got also Vance Shannon who's with Quick Quack Car Wash. So if you have any operational type of questions related to the car wash specific use, he's here to answer any questions. And I remain at your disposal as well if you have any questions.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it. Okay, with that, we'll go ahead and go to commission.

Mr. Chair, you'll need to close the public hearing.

That's right, sorry. Close the public hearing. John.

No, I have nothing. It looks very comprehensive. I think it's well needed. I think it's going to be a good project.

Mike.

I just was wondering if by chance, are you guys going to be using the reclaimed water Since I know you have water limitations and everything.

Great question. Thank you. My name is Vance Shannon. I'm the Director of Entitlements for Kwik Kwak Car Wash. And to address your question, we collect and recycle all the water we use, other than the small amount that might drip off of a car as it's leaving the wash. We take it through three 1,500-gallon Reclamation tanks and use it over and over and over again It ends up being about 21 to 25 gallons per car Versus a hundred hundred and twenty that you might use in your driveway when you're washing at home And then of course all of our water goes into the storm water system Excuse me into the sewer system as opposed to the storm water system Where if you washed it at home, that's where it would end up and then our rivers our lakes and that kind of thing So absolutely recycle all the water

Okay, but you're not actually going to be taking the reclaimed water that Yucaipa has for the dual plumbing?

Because I think their agricultural area or the little curbing has the... water available. We do additional purification of the water that comes in, and so we really can't take water that's that impure through our systems. So we have never been able to do that in the past, but we do reclaim it all and recycle it all.

Okay, thank you.

Lewis? No, no questions, concerns. I'm pretty excited to see something in that lot, honestly. There's always like cars kind of tucked back there, Heidi, so. There you go.

That'd be nice.

How many quick cut car washes are there in California? There's about 90, I believe, in California. We have 358. It changes every day. It's hard for me to keep up, really, honestly, how many we build. But we have the vast number of them. I shouldn't say the vast number, but if in one particular state, California, we have the most of them. We have 1.5 million members to the car wash and quite loved everywhere and people really seem to enjoy it and you know our cars are second most expensive investment in most people's and it's a great opportunity to inexpensively and quickly keep it clean and take care of it.

And how long has this project been on the books? How long have we been working on this, Kelly?

Between Tom and I, when did we start talking?

Yeah, I'm just curious.

It's been a few years. I think the application was actually filed September of 25. Yeah. So this one got through the process quickly. We had a good responsive applicant team, which can make a huge difference in the overall timeline of the project. And this team was all over it and made sure to get any materials that we needed quickly so we were able to get them to hearing relatively quickly.

because it seems like it's pretty well thought out. My biggest concern was queuing. I see the problem with Starbucks and people backing up to there, but it seems like we've got three lanes.

I can share more. So I'm going to just have Celine pull up the site plan. They have a good deal of queuing, if maybe you'd like to touch on that a little bit. Really well thought out, I thought.

See three lanes there? Yeah. You know, queuing's important as much to us as it is probably to you. We do not want to have those kind of issues. Couple things. First of all, there's an excessive amount of queuing for us. We've done many studies. We have members, about 80% of our customers or members, and they don't really queue. We have license plate readers that see their license plate, open a gate, and they go through. So the only folks that are stopping to pay, like you see at a fast food restaurant, and there's really three windows for them, one to place their order, usually one to pay, and then one to pick up their food, slows things down. Ours is all very, very consistent. And then once you get in the wash, it's a conveyor system. So it's very consistent there. It's less than three minutes to get through the wash.

Thank you. I don't have anything else.

Thank you. I'm very familiar with the product idea of 2014 and started using it in Utah in Cedar City. So I know how it works and it's a good product. I like it.

Thank you very much. We take a lot of pride in what we do. We wash cars and right now we're putting together a 25,000 square foot research and development facility that does nothing but perfect the way or we use it to perfect the way the car wash works and operates and Savings of water the reduction of noise and those kind of things are all very important to us So yeah, we work hard for that excellent project.

Thank you. Thank you very much Anything else from anyone else?

Chairman, if I may, I just want to make sure that the commission and everybody understands as Celine laid out in her presentation, does include a zone text amendment. So I just want to spend just a little bit of time explaining what that is and what that means, which I know the commission is very familiar, but just to put a fine point on it. So currently our downtown business district does not allow car washes. The downtown business district was set up a number of years ago. That was a decision made by a planning consultant at that time that said for whatever reason car washes were no good in the downtown. I think one of the comments made by the applicant was this would be the first car wash. I want to just clarify of course we have other car washes and Calamee said this is the first of its kind and meaning the car wash tunnel system that you see automated and whatnot. So again, the zone text amendment would not only affect this particular piece of property, it would affect all properties in this zone, which is downtown neighborhood commercial zone, and would conditionally allow car washes within that zone. So other car wash applicants could come forward in the future. I will say that internally myself, staff, city manager have done kind of a back of the napkin analysis of potential parcels that could avail themselves to this. We think this will probably be the only car wash in the downtown neighborhood commercial zone. But the reason why this application is a series of recommended actions that go to City Council is because of that ordinance that would change the municipal code. So I just wanted to spend a moment to talk about that. There's still obviously a level of review. Conditional use permits for any proposed car wash would come through the Planning Commission. This particular one, because it changes the municipal code, goes up to the City Council. So please let me know if you have any questions on that portion of the application.

Okay. So, everybody good? All good? All right, well. I guess I'll do it. Go for a second. Recommend that the city council adopt an addendum to the previously adopted initial study mitigated negative declaration in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act. and guideline sections 15162 and 15164, finding that the previous adopted ISMND is adequate, adequately address the environmental impacts associated with the proposed project and that no subsequent supplemental environmental review is required. That's number one, and I'll do number two also there. Adopt PC resolution 2026, 07 through 2026, 010, and recommending that the city council approve zone text amendment 2503 and development plan review 2501, conditional use permit 2501, and tentative parcel map 39386 for the operation and development of a quick quack car wash facility subject to the conditions of approval. And, that's all reserved. Can I get a second? Who got it? John. John? It's second with John. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Awesome. Thank you very much.

You're welcome. Just a quick quack, three times fast.

Oh, good. Okay. Thanks again. Appreciate your time tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Commissioner, reports and comments.

I really have nothing to say to thank Celine's staff and all the hard work that everybody puts into this.

I don't think thank you's enough.

Mike. Yeah, thank you, staff. Hopefully didn't break the printer, although it was probably a good way to get a new one, right? So thank you for the book. So that's all I got. Yeah.

I don't have anything else. Thanks, staff. You guys work very hard on this.

Same here. Thanks, staff. Yes, it does great. You guys are all wonderful. We love you all. And with that, we will go to Ms. Kelly, our community development director.

Thank you so much. I also would like to give a shout out to staff. Celine did work really hard on this one. It was a lot of moving pieces. It was a big entitlement application. There was also a joint project review related to our species habitat conservation plan. And she handled that very well. So thank you, Celine. And it was her birthday yesterday. So happy birthday. And I know the commission is aware of this, but I just want to remind the commission and any members of the public that may be listening. We are having a special meeting this month on June the 22nd. There is a proposed annexation into the city of Calamasa. And so just seeing all of you at the public hearing on June 22nd here in this room at 6 p.m. Thank you.

Thank you. Definitely be here.

Sounds good.

Okay. And with that, we will adjourn to our next meeting, June 22nd, 2026, in this room at 6 o'clock.

Awesome.

All right.