Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Someone hit the speaker. What can everybody?

Good evening. By way of introduction, my name is Matt Comar and I'm the chair of the planning commission. Uh, I'd like to call to order the meeting of November 25th, 2025. Thank you. Commissioner Scissor here. Commissioner Bajooki absent. Commissioner Aling here. Mr. Bwander present. Commissioner Aquino present. Lester Fields present. Chair camcorder present. Thank you for that. Minutes. Has everyone had a chance to review the minutes? And are there any corrections?

Yeah, I usually don't make corrections, but uh on item four. There it is. Uh bullet four. Okay. Item four. Yeah, it says commissioners were informed that the city has two high density project projects including the creek size creek side project and Hickory Pit project which may benefit from the proposed density bonus. Uh Creek Side, unless I'm mistaken, I think you may be referring to Cresley. That's correct. Okay. So, that should be Cresley. Um and then on item five, um what page is that?

Item five is page Seven of eight, I think, of the of the minutes. Eight. Eight. Eight of eight. Okay.

Eight of 80. Um so so in the public comments uh it said the the first bullet is where the the coalition of realtors came and spoke and it said would support the creation of rent control and would in turn I think harm land owners in turn harm land owners within the city of Cam. Yes, I think that was what they're trying to say. Uh so it's it's page eight of AD and then is it first bullet? It's under public comments. Under public comments and seven of eight page seven of eight

of seven of eight under public comments. First bullet uh comments about the the the number of people came here to represent realtors. The third paragraph from the bottom of the page. Yeah. So so it's the last line of that bullet. I see said would in turn harm harm land owners not hard. I think that's but but they were not in favor of rent control. I think that's what well it says in turn hard land. So that makes it so so before that they didn't say they were in favor of rent control. Yeah they didn't know. Right. Right. They were pretty clear. Good catch. I didn't I didn't I thought you

would not that should probably be not support the creation. Correct. that clearly not. I didn't catch that. All right. I was looking at the next I thought you misspoke. Good catch. All right. Okay. You were listening. Okay. So, for a while, are you clear what they're referring to? Perfect. Okay. So, that takes care of that item. Um, so can I make can I make a motion to approve the minutes with the correction? You mentioned with the corrections of October 28th. I move. Okay. Okay. That that that is a motion. But but before you second, did attorney have a question? Okay. You're okay. Yeah.

Wonderful. So, do I hear a second to the motion with the amendment with the amendments that was made? We have a second motion and a second. Uh any discussions? Seeing none. All those in favor? I'm sorry. Commissioner Scissor. Commissioner Aling. Hi, Mr. Paper. Hi, Mr. Aquina. Hi, Pastor Fields. Hi, Mr. Conor. Hi. So, and we did incorporate those couple corrections. Yes. Yes. Yeah. The the motion was with the corrections. Yeah. Okay.

And Okay, that's great. Okay. Next are communications. Um uh and or any agenda modifications. Chair Camar, plan commissioners. Uh you do have one communication. sent out to you on the business item you have from the California Housing Defense Fund. That's right. And uh no gender modifications. Note, we did update the packet. It was a test for you on what was updated. [laughter] I couldn't figure it out. It's actually clarity of the plans. We got some feedback that we need the plans to be a higher resolution. So,

you're looking for higher clarity in the plans, the updated packet, they're a bit more clear. And by plan you mean the the pictures that are included in the right the development plans. Perfect. You know one thing that you know while we're talking about the item one thing that would really help is we put some of the street names you know because it's such a limited um view of the project if you could see the you know the street names you're referring to we can picture it in our mind. Yeah. Okay. Just if it's if it's easy to do and the plans for camcar or somewhere else.

No, no, just in the pictures that are inside the thing, you know, the um inside the packets

like at the area maps. Okay. Uh uh so we move on to oral communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for individuals wishing to address the planning commission on matters of community concern that are not listed on the agenda. In the interest of time, the chair may limit speakers to five minutes. Please be aware that state law prohibits the commission from acting on non-aggendaized items. However, the chair may refer the matter to the staff for followup. Are there any oral communications? Okay, seeing none, any on uh on the online seeing none. Okay, perfect. So, we move on to our public hearing item for tonight. Uh so public hearing to consider the application of Msumi Brothers LLC to allow demolition of two existing duplexes and construction of a 16 unit housing development project uh uh for housing unit housing housing development project consist of 16 town home units across three buildings with creation of 16 residential lots and one common lot on property located at 960, 962, 970, and 972 Michael Drive. The application under consideration includes a minor housing development project with use of density bonus law waiverss from the zoning and multifamily and design standards MFDds and investing tenative subdivision map submitted under the housing crisis act HCA preliminary application file compliance with government code section 65941-1.

This is file number PLN 20225-23. Our project planner senior planner is Dan Farmer. Daniel Farmer. Yes. Thank you.

The application before you is an application for a minor house development project permits and vesting map with use of state density bonus for project located on Michael Drive. Uh this project site has two parcels each developed with one duplex that would be demolished as part of the project. Uh in combination the two parcels are approximately half acre located on Michael east of um Barbano Avenue just south of the broomyard. The properties are within the medium high density residential zoning district. The MHDR and the corresponding MHDR general plan land use designation that ranges from 26 to 33 units of gross acre. Uh the two principal components of the application again are the housing development permit. So that would allow the 16 town home units AC spread across three rows. the five, five, and six units in those rows along with the use of state density bonus law waivers. And then a tentative subdivision map that would provide corresponding 16 ft simple lots for the town homes and then one common lot that would be managed by homeowners association that would be primarily the roadway and the storm water maintenance facilities for the site. In terms of design, you have uh basically the same comparable building, 37 feet tall, three stories in height, uh comp roofings, stuckle and stone veneer, cladding, and three different color schemes. In terms of affordable housing, uh the city does require 15% of the units to be subject to an inclusionary housing requirement. Uh that provides a obligation of two units. That's 2.4 round. is just a side note because his application was submitted pursuant to a preliminary application and lock in the standards that were in effect time that that preliminary application had his application been submitted today uh that point4 would not be rounded down. He would have to be subject to an inloop

fee that under today's methodology would amount to 240 $240,000 but that does not apply here. Now under the inclusionary requirement they are provide they are required to provide one low-inccome unit and one moderate income units. The applicants voluntarily reduce the increase the affordability rather of the moderate unit to a low income to provide two low-inccome units that then render the project eligible for a density bonus law. In terms of use of density bonus law, uh those two loan units hit the 13% target unit threshold. uh that would provide a 23% density bonus if the project uh wish to avail itself of it which it did not. So there's not literally density bonus and an actual bonus is not required to exercise the other privileges of the law. So in that regard applicant does have use of unlimited waiverss. So the housing incentive request provides a request for two specific waiverss having to do with setbacks and then a broad blanket waiver as it were to basically acknowledge that applicants requesting wavers to any other development standard that would physicallyclude the project from being constructed as it is currently designed. also provides for one concession which was not necessary for the project as well as reduced parking standards which are also inapplicable because the sites within the AB2097 no parking area the the review considerations as discussed further in the staff report the city's deeply constrained and under its review under both the housing accountability act and the housing crisis act generally consistency with objective standards and general plan except for a density bonus waiver or concession is requested And so in that regard, the standards that are found within the city's objective design standards, the multi-development and design standards, the MFDDDS are largely voluntarily at this stage. Uh but general plan

consistency is still required. So the project would fall within the minimum and maximum range of the general plan. And luckily, ATD did recently determine that a waiver cannot be used to reduce density. So the floor of the city's density designations still are being enforced. In conclusion, staff recommendation is based on the affirmative determination of the required findings for housing development project permit, the tenative map and secret determination, staff does recommend that the Pine Commission adopt a resolution approving the minor housing development project permit and tenative vesting map to allow 16 unit housing development project. a lot of words there and with that I'll take any questions you may have.

Okay. Thank you very much. I do have I want to start out with one question and I'm going to go around. Um so uh even though u they didn't use the density bonus, they still get the waiverss and concession because they were providing affordable housing. Exactly. Okay. Um Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Um uh does anybody want to start with questions? Well, to clarify, it's the AB2097 zone is not a no parking zone. It's a no required parking zone. Yeah. No required parking.

Well, that's that's all I have. This looks very straightforward. Oh, I also I should disclose um I live about 1100 feet straight line from this project. Okay. Not within the recusal area, but I should mention I'm in the neighborhood. Thank you. Um uh has has anybody visited the project by the way? I should have asked that. Okay, so one, two, three, four. Excellent. Block by. Okay. Uh Gary, any questions?

Uh the only [clears throat] question I would have uh Mr. Fz, did the applicants um get a chance to Well, you know what the stage of this proposed project was on the corner of Campbell and Baskin. Is there any preliminary renderings of what that might look like? You know, it's a high density housing project, right? It is. I mean, that's very very very preliminary conceptual at this point.

Because I guess my my question is from a contextual standpoint, um the vernacular of this building, what's it going to play off against when this new development is built? And then as you know if there's further development along the street in the future because I think there is another duplex or there's an old farmhouse or something. There is a building and we did try to see if the two owners could have some sort of arrangement. Sometimes you try to softly encourage property owners to speak with each other to see. Unfortunately that did not pan out.

Okay. But in terms of architectural binocular and the built the built environment is really not a consideration as part of this. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you. Okay. Wonderful. I I actually have a question related to the other the canery. I guess it's called the canary. So it's it's possible that there could be an overlap in construction time on on these two projects, right? It's possible. Highly unlikely. The the Canary project is still not necessarily even feasible according to the developer.

So they weren't going to come back to us with the bigger with the bigger high more density numbers that they talked told us about. Yeah. But he's still indicating that he still has financial challenges with the project. All right. Okay. So, I was going to ask when we we've every actually not seen where there's two projects next to each other like this. It's like does the city or the developers, you know, take work out something to make sure there's not chaos. That was that was going to be my question. Yeah. And they typically do. We actually have the the Robson project may overlap ever so slightly with the Cresley project. Maybe. Huh? Maybe.

Okay. Um, the other I had just another tech question. I I don't see any patios on this. Am I correct? There's no patios. No, they do have little balconies. Yeah, that's second floor. Yeah. 50 square foot balconies, but there are no patios at the bottom in the back or barbecue area. No. Okay. Okay. Um uh and there's no visitor parking, right? Well, there's the public streets. Oh, I mean on site. Yeah. Right. Okay. And uh if I if I counted correctly, there's 20 new trees. Is that correct?

I don't recall the exact number. Okay. All right. I was we got the clear version. I think I counted. There's there's a there is a chart that shows 20 new trees which is good. I was wondering about that. So those are the only questions I have. Okay. Thank you for that. Commissioner Phil. Yeah.

Uh [clears throat] so as we go to higher density construction, it's natural to assume that the time of construction is going to be extended or if not extended the impact of construction is going to be higher on the neighboring structures. So my question is is what in this plan because I didn't see anything deals with the impact on the immediate street during the construction and what I'm looking after is are we going to be closing portions of the street for extended period of times and is it a developer's intention to use a portion of the street as an extended construction yard during the time of construction? I mean that typical degree of construction detail is something that's managed through the city's building department and public works department. That's not typically really a scope of the request here. So where I'm coming from is my experience having lived here of using the street as an extended corporation yard where not only construction materials, construction activity and construction worker parking is then mandated at the expense of neighboring people who are already adversely impacted by the extent of this kind of highdensity construction. So can we are we permitted to manage that here with the approval? Well, we actually have Roger Stores with public works here, so he can probably speak more to the typical expectation of activity in the public street.

Okay, that's handy. It is [laughter]

welcome, Mr. Good [clears throat] evening, commissioners. Roger Store, senior civil engineer with public works department. So, we really try to um be cognizant of the impacts to the neighborhood with the use of the rideway. Generally what you'll see the the most severe use of the ride ofway that we generally allow is what you'll see kind of like over uh with the Robson project and the Cresley project uh next to Campbell Park where we'll let them push their construction fence out to the face of curb generally that area so that there's still room along the curb line for construction workers to park. We generally do not allow the staging of materials in the public right of way because it just becomes problematic. Um, you know, uh, some of these projects, the developers are encouraged to find a nearby vacant lot or or like a light industrial lot to to stage their materials and then bring them in as they need. Um, we'll work with them. I This is kind of a different situation in that Michael Drive is, you know, there's no other properties at this point that are taking access from it. So, we could we could look at some options, but we'll really try to make sure that what we do is doesn't impact the uh the adjacent property owners who are active in the use of their properties. I mean, part of the good thing is is that with the um with the Hickory Pit closed, um you know, perhaps this developer can work with that property owner and see maybe if they can uh rent rent that parking lot if they need to do some staging. That would be kind of our first response if they said, "Hey, you know, it's a really tight site. We're having trouble moving materials around. you know, doing active construction while we have these materials in our way. Uh, so we would probably one of the first things we'd say is why don't you go talk to the Hickory Pit or other nearby property owner before we even entertain,

which is great. And that's going on at Dry Creek and Baskam where the old boat place is now leasing out the parking and construction area for the neighboring construction. Fantastic. But what you said so far is hopes and dreams and best intentions. What I'm after is requirements. What are the requirements to not impact the traffic and parking of the adjacent property owners during construction? And it sounds like there is. Is that correct? It's generally worked out between like like Daniel said between the building official and public works, but I don't believe there's a there's uh we have some flexibility in what what we can do. I don't think there's any severe restrictions that are uh placed in the municipal code that

So there's no specific restriction to put uh construction have construction equipment on on the right away. You're saying there isn't a a there's nothing that says we have to give them that. No, I'm just saying there's nothing in the code that says they are not allowed to stage things on the street. I mean, I haven't looked at that portion of the Munich code recently, but I would imagine that the only thing that might be in there is some sort of discretion by the city engineer, the public works director, but I don't believe there's any straight uh prohibit, you know, prohibitation of of doing

if I can add condition of approval number 25 actually speaks to this. So, the general plan requires preparation of a construction management plan and that's subject to approval by the city engineer. But basically, whatever they want to do, it's really subject to the city's discretion to allow or not. Makes sense. Okay. Thank you. Um, vice chief,

uh, I couldn't 100% tell why we're reviewing this. Is it because of the emergency application? Because this otherwise is a big town home apartmenty thing in a quadrant of a city that's just a bunch of apartments. So what what exactly is triggering the review and just curious about I would I think we would want to see a lot of these and and so I'm curious if other property owners because this is sort of the zone that we're seeing now which is these small town host town home things getting approved. So I'm curious why this is coming to us generally and

well the permitting framework that was created two years ago starts at a default assumption that housing projects are still discretionary. So there are three tiers. If it's under five units it's an administrative action. If it's more than five units and large smaller than five acres then it's within the planning commission's discretion. If it's larger than five acres it goes to the city council. Now where we see exceptions to that is where state law requires ministerial approval such as small starter home projects. Those are 10 units or smaller SP35 or AB 2011. But absent absent use of a state law, there's still a discretionary process. That's the city's determined permitting process for housing projects. And if we wanted to change that, because like you're saying, anything more than five units we will have a planning commission meeting about going forward.

That's correct. If we wanted to change that, how might [clears throat] we change that? Because this just feels to me like we're going to hopefully see a lot of these that are going to be really benign where there's not much for us to debate. And I wonder about making this more efficient. It's a broad theme. I sure think we've been discussing for years and probably a theme that will continue. Uh I I guess I two things historical perspective when I got here and started the housing and I think all housing projects but to the city council. Sure. We we have done streamlining to try and push that decision- making down. Yeah.

Regardless of the city's municipal code, as Daniel said, there's a lot of sections that the state has carved out are just straight up administrative ministerial. uh to streamline further uh we'd have to take a look at our ordinance. I mean the city c plan commission in its own right can permanently vote to send a referral to the city council to look at it. I'll say at this moment we're sorry to pour mouth the commission we're down 2.5 staff. So the bandwidth to get under ordinance codes right now is a little limited. Um I'd say observationally uh given the limited discretion of decision makers on housing projects the push to streamline is theme that I think would be well recognized

and I think with the popularity of SB9 and 684 uh those are the ministerial types so it would probably be less of these types. Um well I mean the sheer number of this one is making it you know um right because if it was less than 10 684 could have been used new provision. Yes. I mean conceivably you could almost have side by side projects. Okay. And ministerally approve them. Right.

That's right. Because this is two lots and so they could have divided into two do 2684 at the same time. Go ahead. Well, but you'd have lot, you know, lot setbacks that would then throw a wrench into sideby-side concurrent construction that they get to wave their hand away from when you join a lot like this. [clears throat] That was my question. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Um uh you know the the um my fellow commissioners have asked the questions I needed to ask. I will wait for my other questions after the um after the applicant presentation. So with that I'm going to open the public hearing. Uh and applicant presentation if you would like you can make a presentation up to five minutes if you choose. Wonderful. I'm Sharim Basal the project architect. Um

so I mean we developed the project with owner and work with Daniel to get to this point and uh actually I have nothing to present. I mean everything was presented properly and u if you have any question be happy to answer. Okay. I know I have a couple of questions but I'm going to start with my [clears throat] see if there if they have any questions. No I don't have any questions. Not much. Okay. Uh I comment that you did a good job with the presentation.

Okay. Let's go to point a question about um how this is done. Um I noticed it's a very tight lot. So I assume that the the drive is as narrow as it can be. What determines the width of the drive? Uh it's basically because we have garages back into each other. So a backup for you know each car has to back up at least 25 ft. Okay. So that's determine the uh the width of the driveway. If you don't have cars back up we can go with 20 ft driveway if there is no car. So that's what determine the width of the driveway. Okay. Then the radius when it turns. All right. So it's not fire code or trash trucks or anything like that.

Well fire requires 20 ft but you know fire because the depth of the project they don't need to bring their trucks in. So they can park in the street. Okay. So it's just a backup car. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. Commissioner K. No questions. No questions. Okay. So my question is regarding I'm a civil engineer, you know, and I work on projects like this, you know, and so you know maybe um uh maybe our public works um staff can can chime in. I ask you um so the rain water that pours on the thing has to be treated you know you are beyond the minimum

trigger point and so uh my understanding is you collecting the rain water and putting it in the pous pavers so actually there is a drainage plan that I think our civil engineer work with Roger and then u that's where the water get treated you know and directed to the right area so it's in the civil I can't speak up on the civil drawings you know I was watching I was looking at those civil plans yeah yeah so there is some uh areas

I just I just want to make sure because when I do these things I coordinate with architect very very clearly um so in order to bring the rain water down to the thing you want to make sure all the gutters around the building come to the front and you know so from the back of the uh these buildings that water still needs to make it to the to the area where the roadway is where this previous paper. My understanding state law states that water may uh on every site that develops water must be contained upon that site.

So square feet have retention ponds or retention areas. Yeah. Right. It can't it can't leave the property. U right Roger can you make [laughter] encore encore

so we we generally encourage that water be kept on the property there are obviously are situations where water cannot be kept on a par parcel uh specifically it's not this case but like when you think of hillside development you don't want to percolate that water in you want to try and get it you know you don't want to create like erosion issues and and slope failure issues and things like that. In this case, the uh the driveway is so large, right? And um when you design one of these pvious paver driveways to accommodate heavy loads like a like a trash truck, it has to make a very thick section, right? You've got your pvious pavers on top and usually you've got like 10 inches of rock below. In some cases, you see it as deep as like 18, 20 inches.

[snorts] you look at the volume of the rock holds a lot of water. And so essentially what you're doing is we're we're treating the water on this project because this PA uh driveway is so large. There's a 2:1 rule that is allowed. So basically you can take two square feet of runoff from an adjacent building

or a parking lot or whatever and you can stick it in within. This acts like a big infiltration pit almost. And so you're not only treating the water that falls directly onto it, but you're capturing the water that comes from the structures adjacent to it. And getting to your point, when we get into the construction drawings, we'll make sure that the downspouts, if they aren't facing um the uh the driveway area, we'll run some pipes around the perimeter and tie into the base course of because, you know, we'll have a decent fall. Perfect. And we'll make sure that's all tied in so that pretty much any water that's coming off the buildings finds its way into that rock section under the pus drive.

This is this would be categorized as a self treatment, right? Or because it holds the water in until it

Exactly. It's it's it's essentially treated as a you know because you're allowed an infiltration trench as an LI facility. It's basically considered just a massive infiltration trench and then because of the new MRP 3.0 You know, there is going to they're building off-site improvements. Fortunately, they're not building a lot. They're building some curb and gutters, some driveway, some sidewalk. So, uh, right now the project conditioned and designed to do a bio treatment area in the park strip. But we actually are working on a different design on another project that we'll probably propose here when we get to the construction drawings. Because the volume is so small relatively, it's not like we're rebuilding a half street and having to deal with all the runoff from all that big. Um, we'll we'll do some sort of infiltration trench within the park strip.

Okay? Because part of the problem we're running into is when you do these bio treatment basins in the park strip, the park strip's so narrow. Okay? And you've got these these bio treatment basins that have to be fairly deep because the water's coming off the pavement going through openings into the curb and then going down into the So, usually if you look at the grade differential between and if I'm getting too much on the weeds here, let me know. No. But um if you look at the grade differential between the AJ sidewalk and the bottom of the infiltration trench, it can be like 12 in 18 inches, right? Which you don't want people walking off of that, right? So we're looking at now you got to put a fence around, right? Well, if you got to put a fence around it, then you probably don't want people parking next to it. And it just creates all these things that in some projects

we can't get away from. But in this particular project, if we do like this infiltration pit in the in the park strip, we can the park strip can look like a normal park strip. You can park next to it. You can open your door. You can walk on it as opposed to like and then and then like you said, the driveway is so large. You could actually use as used as an inloop as well, you know, just Well, the problem is when it comes to when we run it um when we have off-site improvements because the the um the state waterboard requirements require essentially for a project like this where you're scraping the entire site to be separate, you've got to treat everything from the site and you can't treat more than 100%. And we really don't want to take public water

and put it on private property, right? Because then you run the risk that during a very large storm, you're taking public water and you're putting it onto private property and you could be creating liability issues and and flooding issues, right? We always try to design the streets so that the private property drains to the public street and the public street becomes the conveyance for the larger storms when the storm drain system along. So wonderful. Thank you for that elaborate explanation. Okay. All right. We're understand. Can I ask the applicant? Of course. Of course. Thank you.

So, this is just kind of anformational question so I understand where um in terms of architectural considerations. So, so the the building that is where the back faces the east building on the eastern side. Okay. 11 through 16. Okay. All right. So, the second and third floors of these town homes are mostly the living areas, bedrooms, um, uh, family rooms, things like that that are facing the back from what I can tell.

So, that's the back of that those units are are overlooking commercial structures on Baskam if I'm not mistaken. Okay. So the view is not great. It's it's looking at parking and and and and the the buildings. Yeah. That are there. [clears throat]

So my my question is just in terms of livability kind of thoughts about people are sitting in their living room or their bedroom and looking out the window and that's what they see. Do do you take those things into consideration? I mean it's a tricky question because each side has its own you know surrounding like you got the house with nice view particular side faces. Yeah. So this one uh we don't have a choice. Yeah. Unfortunately. Yeah.

And you try to set back the building and but there is so much we can do. What what the opposite side of that is if it was back into a residential then you would have a privacy issue like you're looking into. So there's always something Yeah. And there is like things that controls privacy issues where you have to you know uh have certain setback or angle the window. Anyway, okay. Thank you. Thank you. Uh uh we have no other questions. Are there any members of the public that wish to speak? Thank you. Please uh please um come here and you know um you can identify yourself and let

Hey, I'm Phil Interine. I live at 940 Michael Drive. Um I have a question about what kind of plan there is to make uh living in the neighborhood tolerable throughout the uh progress of this project. Um there's a handful of us that have living there for many many years. Um, how are we going to deal with the noise, the dust? Um, I'd like to have some kind of a sense of how we're going to deal with that.

Okay. And then the other question I have is sort of on a another subject is at this density level um will I be able to uh develop my property at a similar density level? [clears throat] In the future I believe so in the future I believe so I mean you guys change you know you do have changes in the policy as long as the zoning I think is the same or I'm sorry go ahead. So if you have a single property, the thing that you would you could probably develop it to a higher density using something like Oh yeah. I'm just asking if my percentage or my ratio of density would be similar or the same as this.

Well, can I can I can I just rephrase your question to make sure I understand what you're asking is nothing these people are doing is going to impact anything you can do. But there might be lots of other things that impact Oh yeah, I understand that. But it's not because anything these guys are doing. It's not like they took your lottery tickets and now you're out. Well, my fear is that at some point the the staff might think that there's been too much development and that I would be limited. We're we're we're bound by the state laws. The state laws have opened up. There's no more single essentially no more single family parcels. So you can take a single family parcel. I don't know how big your parcel is,

but you could put multiple you could split it. You could put multiple units on it depending on how much you can put in there. The these are these threetory town homes that are really sl town homes that are pretty slender. So they're putting them on small parcels in in groups of four 6 8 10 12 in this case 16 on basically two parcels. So yes, the answer is you probably would be able to redevelop. You're just down the street, right? I'm next door. Next door. You're next door. So, and I have a Okay.

The view you were talking about the view um out the their view on the the western building would be directly down into my house. So, you're not west of them. You're It is west of You're west of them. Okay. Yeah. There's a a number of duplexes and houses down there, right? Okay. Yeah. So, those are potentially I don't want to speak, you know, out of place, but those are potentially redevelopment parcels if you want. But but your fear is not misguided. It's just the wrong forum because it's Sacramento that's gonna decide that too much of a good thing is a bad thing, right? And then they're going to change the laws that we're bound by and now we're bound by course. Yeah.

But in the alternative, if you like if you like the sound of this, you might want to talk to these gentlemen because if two is good, three is better. Well, I have my own I have my own plans. [laughter] So uh I would also like staff to chime in you know for your questions just to make sure we get the professional answers. This is this was all our opinions but

yeah I mean yes that is correct. I mean he can certainly exercise uh the starter home revitalization act the SP123 I mean practically speaking we probably built fiveish units on that property without too much difficulty. Um in terms of construction activity, I mean the city does again have a requirement on this approval that they have to prepare a construction management plan. So subject to standard best practices regulating construction noise, construction hours, project completion expectations, but there is a practical reality that construction next door is difficult to deal with. I mean

now in the future, I'm I'm concerned about parking. I know these guys have got everything dialed in for uh the required parking on on premises, but the street there is just jam-packed with people. And I want to have some kind of idea if I'm going to be able to have parking for me and my tenants living in the building. I have off street parking for them at the time. Um is there is there the curb parking used up a lot? There's no curb and gutter. Well, it's not going to get better. It's not going to get better. I mean, you're gonna have 16 units in there. Yeah. And there is nothing we can Are my tenants going to have to go around the block to park?

I don't know. Around the block might have construction. Will they be allowed to park on my property? Yeah. And um and also that's one of the reasons they're building three so that they can provide for parking on [clears throat] on but it's the no guest parking I think that you everybody's fighting for the same spaces on the street. If I can clarify um I think we provided um the ability to park on the street and it's been very helpful but there's no guarantee to park on the street easily for free. It's kind of a free-for-all. If people want to park on the street they'll park for free. The fact that people have been able to do that is because there's just not that many people around. Yeah. And it's sort of been kind of a free rider thing. So like if you need to provide parking for your tenants, you're going to have to provide it on site.

But I would like my tenants to have uh the ability to park on my property in the front of the building. There's room. Do you mean on the street in front of your building? No, in the front. Oh, are you the property that doesn't have a sidewalk? Pardon me. Is your property the one that doesn't have the sidewalk in front? Uh they don't. They don't. They have the old uh uh home the homeowners courtesy sidewalk. It's not it's on private property. So again, if I tell me if I'm wrong, but I think what you're saying is you don't want this construction to result in a new sidewalk and curb that would prevent your tenants from rolling in and off your property. Uh yeah, actually yeah, come to think that's about what I'm asking. Okay. Is that so I don't have an answer

like that's your property. I don't think that they shouldn't be I have three permitted driveways. Okay, guys. Let's stop. Let's go back to ST. Let's see. Yeah. I think it's probably outside the scope of this hearing at this. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, that's my concerns. Uh you you should talk to Roger. You should go and find out this guy's name. This guy right here. Oh, you're and meet with him. Thank you. Okay, thank you for that. Thank you guys. Thank you. Uh any anybody online? Good suggestion.

Okay, so with that I'm going to close public hearing um any staff any any other comments based on what we heard? Nothing. Okay. So um uh discussion. What do you guys think?

Um, you know, it's pretty straightforward. There's nothing that we can we can uh change um as far as I know. And um you know I I think I think that is actually aside from the potential for you know arcing issues and things like that that we have no say over that um uh it's it's not a a bad place to have a a more dense development. It's you know one block off of Campbell in a commercial near a commercial area. Exactly. And that street is kind of a funky little street. And I mean my only regrets is it seems that the you know I don't know if those are some of those places are affordable. I know that technically there's we're not pushing anybody out that is you know has affordable issues. But um but you know there's some duplexes and stuff on that street and well now now we're making them into more than duplexes. So, I you know, I I'm fine with the development and uh hopefully the next door neighbors won't have too much trouble with the uh construction.

Okay. Um commission.

Yeah. My I'm my discussion pertains to the impact during construction and leaving this at the staff level to approve or not as they see fit. I have an issue with because of what I've been seeing going on. And I'm going to point to the parking lot at city hall that steady steadily lost parking spaces to accommodate the construction needs of the police station as well as the street out front that reduced the parking available during construction. And therefore, I for one would like to see something attached to this that says you're just not going to allow the street to turn into worker dedicated parking or storage facility for construction materials. Okay. Um, uh, Commissioner Bookbinder, what do you think?

Um, I think it's super cool that we're quadrupling the density of a small site given the difficulties we've been having in getting these giant projects off the ground because of the just it's a big project that'll totally work out, but this point we're, you know, have this many fees and takings on it. um if we're gonna if we're going to do at all well this cycle, it's going to be because of projects like this. Um like my only concern is the extent to which this is kind of like bespoke and like to what extent did it barely work and we should look at that because for every project that barely works, there's, you know, 20 more that didn't. Um but I'm very glad that this one seems to be working out and I'm hopefully looking forward to taking my kid over it to see the buildings come down and buildings go up. Um I do have a question. Are the existing tenants and duplexes that are being um demolished being offered an opportunity to you know purchase one of these new units or they have first right to refusal or how does that work? So the uh applicant signed an affidavit that indicated that the current occupants of these units do not qualify as lowincome households that would otherwise qualify them for some of those types of benefits such as first right.

Okay. Thank you.

Uh I'm supportive. There's nothing to discuss. I mean we spent 40 minutes on it. There's we got there's nothing for us to discuss on this. We can't mandate parking. We can't change the designs. There's nothing like I don't I I I hope we I'm incredibly supportive of this project. I appreciate staff putting together the report, but like I don't really want to see more of these at planning commissions because there's not this is creating the illusion there is something for us to discuss and there is not. And we spent 40 minutes kind of talking about nothing like we were always just going to approve. can't not approve it. So, like what are we doing here?

We're helping the public feel like they're heard. But I understand that for large projects for this I I can't I I'm sorry. I I don't know. That guy the guy the next door neighbor seemed to have the only avenue available to eras grievances was here tonight. But there's we won't do anything with the grievances like but we can make it worse by not even giving him any forum to air. I think there's other ways to address the process than creating a forum that implies there's something to discuss. Like I I wouldn't just keep running these in here like this. It's like dude, I'm not unsympathetic. No, no, I just like

I just don't want to shut off the only avenue a guy has terra grievance because we don't have anything real important to do. Okay. Um, thank you guys. Um, you know, I'm also in full support of this project. To me, this is exactly the type of project we want. We we called it missing middle. These are smaller projects, a little bit more affordable than your, you know, mansions and you got projects, you know, and so I commend them for fitting as many units as they've have

in a in a they have so many constraints, you know, from the fire department, from set banks, from, you know, environmental, from so many, you know, um, uh, constrictions to work with to try to come up with something that will functionally work, you know, and give people chance to, you know, own piece of the American dream, you know, and so um and looks like they've they've met all of them, you know, they actually have not used a lot of the waiverss and concessions that they could be using, you know, and again, I commend them, you know, for that. As far as the parking, you know, of course they want to provide parking for their guests, but by state law, they don't have to even provide that because of the proximity to the uh to the light rail, you know, and so um I'm in agreement with vice chair and cobbinder and probably the rest of you is that um it's it's not perfect. I agree with that. You know, it can always be improved. However, um given the state of development and where we are with our codas and I think this is a perfect project, you know, and I commend the owner, the you know, architect, the you know, civil engineer, you know, everybody for um the project. Um I don't have anything else. does uh a and your concern about uh not being able to park construction equipment on street. I'm I'm 100% sure public works and the building department will address that. You know, as far as taking parking away, you know, that I don't know. But

no, I'm not, you know, I mean, construction work your parking, you know, to me it's actually best for them to do park there so they don't impact other neighbors, you know. Um, so yeah. Anyway, um, okay. So, with that, is there a motion that somebody likes to offer? I'll make a motion. Okay. Uh, can we make a motion that we adopt a resolution approving a minor housing development project permit investing tenative subdivision map with use of density bonus waiverss? I second. Wonderful. We have a motion and we have a second. Um, if we can please have a role. Commissioner Scissor. Hi. Commissioner Alname. Hi. Commissioner Buckbinder. Hi. Commissioner Aquina. Hi. Vice Fields.

Hi. Chair Camar. Hi. Okay. So, that motion passes unanimously. The commission is present. Thank you very much. Congratulations. I just have to read one last statement because I didn't read it at the beginning. And that's, you know, if anybody needs to appeal this, just want to make sure I Sorry, I want to make sure I get to that page to make the attorney happy. What's wrong? Yes. So, um, the planning commissioner's action is final unless appealed in writing to the city clerk within 10 calendar days. Thank you, guys. Absolutely. Thank you. Good luck.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again. Okay. Um we move on to the next item is new business uh planning commission planning commissioner subcommittee reports. Um is there Nope. There's no planning subcommittee reports. Report from community development director.

I was trying to get you out of here by 8. Uh I'm going to do my best. It's two minutes. Uh two reports at the last city council meeting which was last week. Uh two items of note for commission. Uh one of them you reviewed this was the inclusionary housing ordinance density bonus ordinance. Uh you had forwarded a favorable recommendation to the council. Uh they approved the ordinances and just to remind the commission couple things with that extends entitlements for affordable housing projects three to five years. uh exempts ground floor retail requirements only for 100% affordable housing projects outside of downtown. Allows smaller projects seven to nine units in size to pay an included housing fee rather than put a unit on site.

And then there's a sort of inventive new density bonus program. Uh if you do a density sort of affordable by design smaller unit less than 640 square feet, you get an additional unit. This was the item where we had two developers come and one was the crustly, the other was the agree pit and it's working with those to make those projects work. So all four of those items were approved and will go into effect. The other one of note likely for the plan commission that are uh they had a study session to discuss potential creation of a housing commission. So this came out of the housing element was a policy program for the city consider a housing commission that would put more light emphasis on housing issues in the city. Uh the housing comm commission could do a couple things. One is just housing policies that come through. Sometimes you see those recommend as a policy advisory body to the council. Two, at some point we're hoping to have some funds in our trust fund and the housing commission could make decisions on the rules of allocating those monies and deciding or recommending what projects get funded out of our housing trust fund. Three, uh we're trying to stand up more homeless programs and could advise the council on those. And then finally, uh today, I'm not sure if the commission knows this, there is a committee called the rental factf finding rentalfinding increase committee. I might have butchered that name. Uh it's been on the books for 20 years. Uh it's generally defunct. Uh this committee its intent is if you're a tenant and your landlord increases your rent or does something uh that you think is out of bounds of what is normal,

you you you first go through mediation. The the the city has a contract with Project Senol. They're a mediation agency. If that doesn't work, you have the right to request the rental factf finding committee to review uh the situation and they can make a determination if the rent increase or the action is reasonable or not and they issue this determination and the city actually has subpoena powers. You can can subpoena either the tenant or the landlord. The decision is non-binding. Uh in effect, if they decide it was unreasonable that the increase was too high, the landlord can take that under consideration and increase. Uh in effect, it hasn't been used for about seven or eight years. Uh the last meeting was in 2018.

Is that me? I didn't see your name in the record. Commissioner, I went through it. It was utterly useless. [laughter] Well, to add clarity, I went through it 20 years ago and it was just as useless then. There we go. So, there was there was was discussion if that should it exist? Should it continue? Should it be put into the housing commission? [laughter] Well, clearly with these reviews, should testify to city council. [laughter] I'd say,

well, they they talked way too much about it. Yeah, I I I was in the study. I sat in on a study session and I spent instead of talking about the other things, they spent threequarters of the time talking about the this rental thing which the data is ridiculous and uh I should just let you finish because I have a couple of thoughts on

Yeah, they didn't make no hard decisions. I think the consensus was continue looking at it. uh pro majority didn't want a new commission to to think about and this is the effect on the plan commission think about a couple of options one is putting it into the plan commission you know there's a theme where you're seeing less housing projects you could dive deeper in housing policy as the commission another was to create an new commission create of ad hoc me or members from both plan commission and CIC and put them together into a housing commission third option was to create a subcommittee of the planning commission then have to report through you to city council. So some of those were kicked around know our decisions. Um so likely in March we'll come back to to pick out those options a bit more. We'll rete up the item if the council wants to continue the rental finding duties as part of this

and I'm happy to report out as we get close if you want to take a look at the report or testify but February March time frame. So come back to council. Okay. Wonderful. You said you had some thoughts. Well, I just, you know, kind of in terms of reporting on my fact that I went to the subcommittee and I actually did two minutes, which as you mostly know, that's really hard for me. [laughter] It's really hard to do two know what I saw. It's really hard for regular people. Yeah,

for me. So, um, so, um, I was very much in support of it being folded into the planning commission where the most to me far most likely commission to do it because we have a s significant piece of our responsibility is knowing the housing stuff, the the general plan, the housing element. And so, that that's a significant part of what

what um this this portion would do. So, I I'm not sure the council people were listening that closely, but um [laughter] but I did make my I did do my two minutes. I also suggested there wasn't really anything on homeless and I homelessness and I suggested that be added. So, hopefully uh Rob took that point. But um uh I had actually six years ago before all this stuff came along and after I'd left CIC, I'd gone to a couple three council people to suggest a housing commission. I actually talked to three council people. This was in 2018 or something. And I talked to three council people and the previous uh development uh community development uh and they they were like h they were not that excited about the prospect. So but that was before all this stuff came along and and housing has become such a big part of you know a piece of what the city has to look at. So, to me, it makes perfect sense to have a commission

um take a look at at whenever this stuff comes up, which is not going to necessarily be every every meeting, but but it makes sense to have a commission to take a look at these things. Y Okay. Can we just recommend that when you get to March that it just be folded in and we can talk about it closer to them, but Yeah. Talk about as we get closer. Yeah. because I I mean I agree and obviously from what I said earlier I would love for us to really dig into like something substantial. Not to mention that we don't have a whole lot we're getting doing. You know there's this we're getting light on. We have light on on stuff. Right. And uh so I think we we certainly have the ability to handle it.

Right. So you brought up something I would like to um opinion on that. You said you talked to three council members. That's a majority. Are we allowed to talk to three council members, you know, on issues? I wasn't on a commission. I was a resident. Oh, I see. I see. So, and I I talked to them individually. You talking on on your capacity as type of a commission? I wasn't I wasn't even on a commission then. I was between commissions. So, I was doing it as a resident. Good good catch. So, so if so if any one of us or any other commissioner uh is it advisable to talk to three council members having five total council

as to an item on planning commissions within the planning commission's perview. Yeah. I mean if it's housing you could we could argue it's a planning commission. Yeah. It kind of you talk to them. It's a great I mean three of them meeting together would be a brand. Yes. Yes. So they meet together. Yes. If you or if you find out their opin something that is before the city council where you've gathered their opinions as to one matter and they've therefore it's a serial meeting. Yeah. Yeah. I Yeah. In this such a situation but but I wasn't on a commission and I it wouldn't wasn't it wasn't agenda item but it could have been their it could have been their problem. Yeah. It was their

Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone. Happy Thanksgiving.