Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Good evening to everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Carson Planning Commission meeting for this beautiful day, Tuesday, March 10th. Um we're going to begin with the um roll call. Madam Secretary,

Sheriff Thomas here. Vice Diaz present. Commissioner Johnson here. Commissioner Infume here. Commissioner Huff present. Commissioner Dtoso present. Commissioner Wilson. Commissioner Gara and Commissioner Monteo are excused. We have a quorum.

Thank you. Next on the agenda will be the flag salute and we will ask Commissioner Johnson if he will lead us in the flag. over to the flag of the stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Next item on the agenda, we're having a close session and I will yield to our assistant attorney.

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um the planning commission will meet in close session for conference with legal counsel. Uh a close session will be held pursuant to government code section 54956.9 D2 or D3 and E1 because there is significant exposure to litigation in one case. We will adjoin adjoin for close session. How long? Approximately about 15 20 minutes. So if the audience will be patient with us, we shall return shortly. And to my colleagues, we're going to meet in the executive conference room um right outside the doors. Okay. See you soon.

and we're back. Thank you for your patience. Um, at this time I'll ask our assistant city attorney to report out from the closing meeting uh closing close session. Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, the planning commission met in close session for conference with legal counsel pursuant to government code section 54956.9 D2 or D3 and E1 because of significant exposure to litigation in one case and no reportable action was taken. That concludes my report.

Thank you. Um, next regarding oral communications for matters not listing on listed on the agenda. The public may at this time address the members of the planning commission on any matters within the jurisdiction of the planning commission. No action may be taken on non-aggendaized items except as authorized by law. Speakers are requested to limit their comments to no more than three minutes each speaking once oral communications for non um I'm sorry and we madam secretary there none. Madam Chair,

I'm on a roll. I'm on a roll. Okay. Uh, oral communications for non-public hearing items listed on the agenda. Members of the public, the public may at this time address the members of the planning commission on any matters within the jurisdiction of the planning commission. No action may be taken on non-aggendaized items except as authorized by law. Speakers are requested to limit their comments to no more than three minutes, each speaking once. Madam Secretary, we have none, Madam Chair. Thank you. Next item on the agenda um will be for the approval of the minutes from February 24th.

Move to approve. Madam Chair, second. It's been moved and second. Call for the vote. Motion carries. Thank you.

Um with my colleagues permission and agreement, uh the next item on the agenda is for presentation, but I would like to move that down if we can and then uh just go directly to our public hearing for tonight. Any opposition? No objections. Thank you. Appreciate that. So, we will move to item um 9A. Uh it item nine, which is our public hearing. Presentation will be given to us by our planner, Miss Pompei. Whenever you're ready.

Good evening, Chair Thomas and members of the commission. The item before you tonight is for the consideration of DOR 11 um 1935-23 and CU 1128-23 and DA 33-23. The project's subject site is approximately three acres and is vacant and it contains one parcel and is located on in the northwestern portion of the city south of Victoria Avenue on the south on the southeast corner of Griffith Street and Main Street. The site was previously occupied by BD top soil and LA County Sandbags from approximately March 29th, sorry, March 2019 to February 2025. It was a top soil supplier oper operator. The subject site is situated in proximity to Kaiser Hospital, the city corporate yard, Victoria Park, and Town Elementary. The subject site is zoned manufacturing heavy with the general plan land use designation of heavy industrial. To the west is light industrial. It's the metro station and to the north, south, and east is industrial. To the north is a freight foring office. The south is a truck repair and to the east is the SCE Ner substation. Further east and southeast are various um residential neighborhoods, Victoria Park and Town Elementary. Access to the site is off of Broadway.

One moment. The proposed project is a approximate 100 megawatt best system consisting of lithium ion batteries installed and refabricated steel enclosures housing internal racks, inverters, medium voltage transformers, switch gear, collector substation, and other associated equipment. The enclosures will have battery storage racks with relay and communication systems for automatic monitoring and management of the batteries to ensure design performance. The proposed best facility um would operate uh 365 days a year uh 24 hours a day. The proposed best facility would provide a service to the regional electric grid by receiving energy from the SE electric transmission system, storing energy and then later delivering energy back to the point of interconnection. So here on the site plan you can see in the green that is proposed landscaping. Um the landscaping closed off of uh Griffith Street as well as Broadway. The darker yellow is proposed um storm water retention systems. At the east of the property, you can see proposed um operations and maintenance

containers. And the property will be surrounded by a 10-ft um blast wall. And the project is proposing 132 battery enclosures. A single underground 66 kilo volta generation transmission line also called a gen a gentile line would interconnect the proposed project to the existing nuller substation which is located east of the property. The proposed underground Gentile line route would start on the northeast portion of the project site, run east along the West Gish Street frontage, and connect to the SE Nola substation located approximately 165 ft east of the project site. So, installation of the underground fiber optic cable lines would require trenching and earthmoving activities within the West Griffith Street public rideway and would be contingent upon city granting an easement or license toce or the developer as applicable for the location of the fiber optic cable lines in the West Griffith Street public rideway in exchange for fair market value consideration pursuant to a written agreement. ment and all required city encroachment and excavation permits. Here you can see a rendering um proposed from Broadway Avenue and you can see in the front is the landscaping proposed as well as a six foot um rat iron fencing and then behind that would be that 10 foot um CMU block wall for as a blast wall. Here's

a rendering u with the proposed view from Griffith Street again with the landscaping and then the um 10 foot block wall. And this is a proposed east view um of the subject site. This is a proposed um rendering of the battery enclosures that be utilized on um for the project. Um in preparation of this meeting, the applicant has uh conducted over the past two years four uh neighborhood meetings with the last two being uh in February and January of this year. The development plan presents several concerns. Um, one being the proximity to sensitive receptors in city vital services. As previous previously mentioned, um the subject site is located um catacorner from Kaiser Permanente Hospital as well as the city's corporate yard is north of the subject site and east across Main Street are various residential neighborhoods and then further uh southeast is Town Elementary and Victoria Park. Um, additionally, in the event of thermal runaway, fire or explosions, um, in those instances, um, fires can be ex, uh, intense and difficult to extinguish. There could be a prolonged burn duration and potential reignition. Um, there could be release of toxic gases, chemicals, and particulate matter, and concern for um, projectiles as well as evacuation street closures.

Um, several general uh plan policies refer to the compatibility of proposed project with the surrounding neighborhood and protecting residents and workers from hazardous material closure. The project site is in proximity to multiple uh sensitive uses as previously mentioned. And additionally, public health concerns regarding lithium ion battery systems have documented risk of thermal runaway fire explosions and toxic gas release. So fires involving best facilities must be simply contained and allowed to burn themselves out. So this means that hazardous materials would be consumed and emitted in the smoke and um explosions involving best facilities can uh eject projectiles high into the air. So kind of creating a rainown effect. um and would affect uh neighboring properties. So it is not a guarantee that mitigations are full safe. The potential public health and safety risk presented by the project create compatibility concerns with the surrounding uses and sensitive receptors. Additionally, although the project has completed um the LA County Fires Department alternate materials and methods report, so AMMR, this report and conditions do not preclude the possibility of an event involving the best facility emitting toxic smoke um that could affect surrounding areas um or projectiles that could impact pedestrian vehicular safety. So, additionally, the city of Carson's environmental justice history shows residential and other sensitive receptors near and/or adjacent to industry zone properties. The proposed project still illustrates this. Um although the site is zoned heavy industrial, as previously mentioned,

there are sensitive uses. So, the Kaiser Permanente Hospital, the various neighborhood um residences, um Victoria Park, the city's corporate yard, Town Elementary, um and the proposed um operation of 247365. Um the scale and the consensation of hazardous materials proposed to be used for the project and the potential for catastrophic events involving the project indicates the use and development and compatibility with the surrounding sensitive um uses and the character of the area because of the immediate surrounding industrial properties were not developed with an adjacent battery energy storage um system and hazards in mind. Again, the proposed mitigations do not guarantee preventing an incident from occurring that could negatively impact the area as well as occupants, visitors, and business operations. So the proposed development agreement is required to comply with the procedures established by the city council as required by government code section 65865C and the provisions of government code section 65864 through 65869. Um, the applicant applied for the development agreement and it the DA details obligations of both the applicant and city of Carson specifying standards and conditions that will govern the project for the proposed term of the DA which would be until March 2047 with options to extend to as late as March 2022.

But pursuant to state code, um a de a a development agreement shall not be approved unless the legislative body finds that the provisions of the agreement are consistent with the general plan. The proposed development plan is not consistent with the city's general plan for the reasons previously detailed in this presentation. So, uh, a project is exempt from SQUA if the project, um, is determined to be, um, rejected or disapproved by the city. Public notice was properly um posted on site and published in the newspaper um within a th00and ft of the project site to occupants and property owners on February 18th, 2025 and the agenda was posted 72 hours prior to this hearing. Staff recommends adoption of resolution number 26-2900, which is a resolution of the planning commission of the city of Carson to deny site plan and design review number 1935-23 and conditional use permit number 1128-23 and recommend that the city council deny development agreement number 33-23 for proposed battery energy storage system facility located at 18800 Broadway Avenue. So, this concludes staff report and staff is available for any questions you may have. Um, the applicant is also here to answer questions as well as a representative from Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Thank you to my colleagues. Do you have any questions? Uh, Miss Pompei. Yes, Madam Chair. Yes. Out of all the the hundreds of residents and stakeholders involved in the outreach process, what percentage would you say expressed any opposition to the project, if any? Um, the applicant may be better able to um answer that. Second question to staff.

Excuse me. Excuse me, chair. Um, Kenga, us Alexander, planning manager. Um, Kenneka, can you um advise the commission the number of applicants that arrived attended the previous meeting and compare that to the number of um mailings that was sent out?

Um, I was not involved in the first two public neighborhood meetings. the last two in January I believe about six uh residents and parties attended and in the February one eight individuals between 8 to 10 individuals attended that meeting um approximately how many mailers went out and maybe um planning secretary Laura Gonzalez can confirm 174 postcards.

I'm sorry. 174 what? Mailers were sent out. Right. And if I understood correctly, in January of this year, six residents attended. And then in February of this year, eight residents attended or a combination? For the January, there was six and then for the February, it's between 8 to 10. Were those residents or a combination of business, etc. Or a com a combination of both.

Okay. and question. Out of those that attended uh January and February, uh what would be the percentage of naysayers versus those in favor of going through with the project? Is there a correlation? Is there I'm just trying to get a a feel or consensus. Um at those uh at those neighborhoods meeting, I believe everyone in attendance were supportive.

Thank you. Um, one more question. For our vital infrastructure projects, whether they are gas lines, gas station tanks, electricity lines, sewage plants, etc., are you ever able to say with 100% assurances that there will never be an accident? No, of course not. Okay. Thank you. I'm complete. Anyone else? Any other questions, colleagues? Miss Commissioner Johnson, thank you. What's the reporting radius for the the notices? We mailed out a th00and in a th00and foot radius for tonight's public hearing as well as the last neighborhood meeting.

Okay. Thank you. And may I add the typical is 750 foot radius. Um to uh assure that we reached out to the community, we expanded to 1,00. Any other questions? I I do have a follow-up question. Has the fire department signed off on this project? Our city county fire department.

So, the fire department reviewed the applicant submitt of an alternative materials and methods report. So, that was what was reviewed. um and any details regarding that fire. Um she's still recognizing can elaborate. Thank you. And uh may I add to that the LA County Fire Department, they provide the report and the information to regarding the project as well as mitigation measures. They are not the deciding um body in terms of approval or not. They provide the um the technical review of this project. Are you complete?

I am.

Okay. Thank you. Um, if there I don't see anyone else waiting to ask questions, so that means it's my turn. Thank you very much. First of all, I want to thank the uh our our fire chief for being present for this project. I think this is a very very important discussion that we're having tonight for all concerned and so we want to make sure we give everybody an opportunity to hear what is being said and what the um there are some benefits here and we will have the applicant to speak shortly. Uh but there are also some concerns and so we want to make sure we cover all bases in this hearing. Um, so we'll we we'll we'll keep and I'll introduce him. I'm having a hard time with his last name. I think it's Stillwagger. Is that correct? Awesome. Mr. Richard Stillwagger is our fire chief. And if you'd like to take your position right next to Miss Pompei, you guys can stand together. Um, we generally, and I I say this every meeting, the commissioners do like to not only read all of the information that's provided, but we also attend the site so that we can have a visual of all that's going on. So, we appreciate uh all of you who are here. Um, I I I do have some concerns. I have some major concerns about the proximity of this uh location as it relates to and as our planner has reported uh we have the hospital Katakon from there with I mean you stand on the corner and you're looking at the hospital uh if you're on Maine which this property will extend from Broadway to Maine when it connects toce the NOLA uh substation and right across the street you have uh a number of residential

homes there. Uh I appreciate the uh vice chair uh for his questions. Uh the thing that concerns me when you look at uh community participation uh a lot of people don't necessarily come out uh well let's let's just really get to brass tax. They may not even read the notification. And so that's why we are here to do our due diligence to make sure that we're protecting the community. I have a few questions and either one of you can respond but I'm sure it's going to fall on you. Uh so first of all, can you guarantee this city 100% that this project is safe and there will be no issues?

Thank you commissioner and commissioners. Uh madame chair uh with any project we cannot guarantee 100% safety.

Okay. All right. Um, we know that there are things that have happened in multiple communities across the country. There's always the potential for something to happen with the best of intentions of the construction and all of that. There's always retention of something to happen. What would happen if there was a fire at this location? How would you be able to mitigate that? So in a best facility like this we have several tactics we utilize in the fire department. So primarily we work with the uh applicant at the end of the construction where we are trained we train everybody in the battalion and the neighboring battalions to respond to an incident at their facility. Learning all of their safeguards and all of their security measures for ensuring that an incident stays as small as possible and hopefully in this case confined to the container of origin which in the history of what we've seen with best fires uh throughout the state of California and nationally. So once we respond to the incident, we stop short of the incident. We evaluate the incident as we do with all of our incidents and then we take the best appropriate tactical measure moving forward with best fires. Uh the challenge with best fires is that they are a container within a container. So as we apply our normal traditional method of extinguishment water, it rains down over the overall container. thus not allowing us to penetrate where the active fire is. So that becomes the challenge. However, there are mitigation tools that we can utilize with active hose streams to let's say umbrella a container which is best practices to prevent the lateral spread from container to container throughout the farm in the field. And we also have separation distances which help prevent that spread between energy battery

energy storage systems throughout the energy field. The other item is to utilize hose streams on the neighboring unit to cool it to prevent it from catching fire. That way it can't spread outside of its origin. And then finally that rain down effect does cons uh absorb a lot of the heat and the combustion particles and the chemicals coming off of the fires. So we have several tactics that we can use. Uh ultimately uh the fires do burn themselves out just like a Tesla vehicle fire. Uh but these are on a bigger scale. So with the technology that's being proposed here today, I'm very familiar with which is the Tesla Mega Pac 2. Uh excellent technology and excellent safety uh built-in procedures. So they followed all of the California fire code requirements um which includes a detection source. So we want to get early detection. We want notification to our emergency first responders to initiate action and get on scene as fast as possible. Secondly, those uh that indicator puts off an alarm device. that alarm device is loud to clear everybody out of the immediate area to ensure public safety and anybody doing business on site, whether it's our local electrician union members or our people coming to replace battery packs. Um, and then finally, we have water systems on site to utilize and keep these incidents small. The actual ignition source is built into these systems. If they have a gas leak detection, they have a sparker system that actually lights the gas on fire. And why they do that is they want to prevent explosions. They want to prevent bigger or greater hazards. So that's the way the technology is designed to work and consume itself. Does that answer your question? M

you're getting there. Okay, you're getting there. So, uh, first of all, something that, um, hit me was burn out. If there's a fire and, uh, because you can't, water is not the solution to those kinds of fires. So, when you say burnout, explain what needs to happen.

So, with me, many of our hazardous materials that are present, we allow them to burn out or extinguish themselves. They're consuming the fuel. In this particular case, you get two primary gases that are released. You get hydrogen gas and you get carbon monoxide gas. Hydrogen gas burns at 1,700 degrees plus Fahrenheit. Don't let your voice drop. Keep it Keep it loud.

1700 degrees Fahrenheit, which consumes most of the other chemicals within the burning process. This is why we believe that we haven't seen large amounts of chemical readings off the sites during a best fire. Okay. Okay. So, is there a chance that there can be an explosion and if so, what would be the ramifications of an explosion?

So, in this particular so there's two types of containers. There are closed containers where they use a ventilation system to prevent the explosion. And then there's the uh mega packs that are being used here in this scenario which the igniter system ignites and thus prevents the explosion. Should that igniter system fail ac across the board then you could get a gaseous buildup and then an explosion could occur. What we've seen is explosions in uh small areas of the container and then uh we have seen ruptures in the container. We have never seen a fullscale container explosion. However, we do have all of our companies model to that effect for first responder safety. So, as we respond into incidents, we want to know what those setback distances are so we can be safe and then approach accordingly. And then those also become our evacuation distances,

which is great. You have a plan. So while you're uh assessing these kinds of conditions, what is the neighborhood doing waiting for you to tell them to evacuate or what what happens? No, actually we built one of these facilities in South LA and the alarm system that is on site is a very large alarm system that notifies the whole neighborhood that and and so the the neighborhood is going to know that when they hear that sound, they need to evacuate if they're within that zone. Yes.

Oh, they're within the zone. They're right across the street. And so we're hoping that people hear the sound and don't ignore it. No, it's twofold. One, that's the initial warning sound, and then two, working with law enforcement to evacuate the area as needed.

So, I'm asking all of these questions because we we just went through the fires that took place what, a year ago or whatever in in Altadena, uh, in Palace Veries, etc., etc. And we're all aware of those fires. And I believece has now been identified as the culprit in uh in in one of the fires that started that sparked something and sparked something and we all watched the news where there were residents who said we never heard an alarm, we never got an alarm, etc., etc. What I'm asking you is obviously it's something that can happen. We've seen other instance in instances where across the country in other juris districts jurisdictions that they've had fires and so it came down to having them burn out, people being evacuated, etc., etc., etc. Knowing the proximity that had that we've already discussed here, can you give your assurance that that's something that our our residents don't have to worry about?

I don't understand. The question is don't have to worry about. So worry about an evacuation or worry about the worried about something happening at this facility and whether or not it would be safe for them to be right across the street from their homes, right across the street from a hospital, right across the street from down the street from all of the things that were mentioned. Would would you would you as a fire captain, fire chief, fire chief give your assurances that those concerns are not valid?

I will qualify that question. The California State Fire Marshall's office had says anything over 600 kilowatt hours in a utility best scale uh facility is a 50- foot setback from hospitals, schools, and other sensitive receptors including residential. So that's the California State Fire Marshals ruling and I work for the California State Fire Marshall. So you so the California State Fire Marshals are saying because you have that setback there are no worries. Is that what they're saying? I I just want to understand

that's what the code reads and that's what I'm bound to is the law. And so when an applicant meets the application of the law, then I have to approve the project.

Okay. Well, I do have some questions also for the applicant, but I'm not feeling reassured. And I'm not feeling reassured because as I stand sit here and and for those residents who did not attend a a community meeting and many of them if you were to knock on every door now probably didn't even know the meetings happened. Uh so someone has to be a stopgate. Someone has to be looking out for them. uh and we're looking at the recommendation from uh our staff and I'm talking to you. Uh and I'm not hearing that there's no chance that anything could potentially happen there. No one is giving me that assurance. I'm not feeling that.

So I will answer that question. So what we do here in LA County is we have the most strict requirements in the entire nation. We're actually leading the nation in safety requirements. So, the 10- foot wall that is uh engineered to withstand any blast was actually designed to limit that exposure uh to the community and contain the incident within the property boundaries. That's the intent of that wall

and we've had no incidents that have proven that wall to be ineffective. Uh if you look at the general hazardous materials guide in the California fire code, uh we utilize a 10-ft wall because the containers themselves are 10 feet and then the actual hazardous material is below that level. It's n it's national and state practice to have a wall that's 18 to 36 in above uh the hazardous material to contain all products. So one of the mitigating measures would be if there was concern about that blast would be to elevate the height of the wall to a 13t level which would then give you that 36 inch clearance. Thus as an explosion occurred it would be contained on the property but that would be a condition of the applicant and they would have to speak to those uh types of items moving forward.

And with the connectivity that's taking place at the um at the uh substation. Okay. there are other toxins that could potentially escape in the event of an incident and would they not clear the wall? So when we have these types of fires, the toxicity in outdoor best storage facilities has not put up any readings during emergency incidents that have cleared the site. So we don't have any data that supports that. There were incidents such as Moss Landing. There was incidents uh a second incident throughout the California where they did have vapor exposure offsite, but that was with older technology with heavy metal batteries and it was in a contained building. So the building kept burning and burning and burning, thus reigniting the battery cells, thus keeping this prolonged uh exposure. That's why we have I here in LA County, I have never approved nor will approve that type of facility in LA County because of its dangers and hazards. and I've been fighting that for the last three years. And so we did move to the outdoor containerized vest as a solution to that problem.

Okay. But we don't have any data that tells us it can't happen. No, I think you'd be looking for a toxicology report from the applicant to approve during a large scale fire test. They could do a toxicology report that could show the actual um vapors that are coming off the chemical exposure and then they could do modeling behind that. So, if those were your concerns, that would be a request from the applicant that you could ask for. Okay. So, and I know we we'll get a chance to talk to the applicant after this. Um, Madam Chair, I I'll have some follow-up questions for the fire chief as well. Okay, I'll let you go. I'm sure you will.

Go ahead. Uh first of all, uh Fire Chief, uh Still Wagner, uh thank you for your service as a first responder, um to our great state city and and all. Thank you so much for your service. Uh my question to you, uh chief is uh what gave you the confidence to sign off on this project? I'm hearing um you know, meeting all these requirements and state level, etc., but I just wanted to hear from you. So, like I said before, we we are leading the nation in in safety in the space and we have higher regulatory requirements than anybody else in the state. Like nobody requires a blast wall. We here in LA County uh demanded our applicants to provide us the explosion modeling to where we could provide a reinforced wall to re uh to keep fires and explosions contained within site. So that is a higher level requirement than the state requires. Uh we also were the first in the nation to require and demand internal gas detection systems and or smoke systems to get that early warning and to let everybody evacuate in the area. So there is some public outreach that the applicant has to do to make notifications of you know when you hear this sound here's best practices in in that space. But when you look at the California fire code and you look at the battery energy storage system space, uh we're actually leading the nation throughout um um all the departments and we're working with the department of energy. Uh we have a member of our department that's uh literally on uh the chair or not chair, but he's uh one of the voting members for the California uh entity that's been set up to start looking in the into the space and further regulating as we move into the commercial space with smaller units. And then he also sits into the local the larger uh NFPA committees uh to make sure that we're a breast of all the situations that are going on within the

codes committee. So we're giving our experience. We're leading the way in in that uh national discussion and then we're partnering with the state fire marshall's office working with all the departments in California that have had incidents to learn our lessons and move forward. So when you look at um the proper setback distances, the proper barrier walls, the reinforced barrier walls, uh the California fire code says that a battery energy storage system can be 25 ft from a building if it has a two-hour firewall. The walls that are being built on these facilities are 4hour rated uh against fire. So they're much stronger wall. Uh does that eliminate and take away all hazards? No, but those are emergency response hazards that happen with every institution, every building, every chemical on earth uh are or have their own sets of problems. As one of the leading fire departments, if not the leading fire department, not just nationally, but in the world, we have the capability to respond all incidents. We're an all- risk organization, and we will respond and we will take care of those uh situations. If we have evacuation needs, we'll ensure the safety of the public in those evacuations. We do have the reverse 911 system uh that can be pre-programmed for this facility uh as a quick outreach to our local citizens to let them know there's a hazard in the area and give them directions and instructions. The sheriff's department handles that side of things. I can't speak for the sheriff's department, but when you go through all of the mitigating factors for the hazards, that's our job. And when I look at the mitigating factors, containing the pro uh process or limiting the exposures to one container and or one group of containers is our goal and we feel we have done that. Thus why I signed off on the alternative materials and methods because they provided those mitigating measures. Now I think that the I like

the idea of the toxicology report. I think that would be a a great ask moving forward if commission decides to go in that direction andor increasing the barrier wall height which would then not only get your lateral spread. So in an explosion we were most concerned about the lateral spread of debris because that's what could uh threaten the life or harm individuals lay people outside of the facility. So that was a primary concern of mine and my number one mission is to protect life uh both for the community and our first responders approaching these incidents. So if we go higher on the barrier wall then that presents those projectiles that still have that um possible harmful effect to be contained within the incident and then get ex moved up and then fall back down into their location. So those are additional mitigating factors that I didn't look at at the time but then these questions weren't posed at the time of that review. So excellent questions madam chair.

Thank you. So um if I may uh so with these safeguards in place meeting the standards that you articulated here uh have a level of uh confidence that the residents uh health and safety uh is is in line with uh your profession. I just want to also state that we need to acknowledge that uh as we look at our residents safety, health, we also need to acknowledge our business partners, our good neighbors that uh are invested in the city and uh either live or work here and uh you know the the benefits that they also provide. So, thank you again for answering my question. Uh Chief complete.

Thank you. Yes, Commissioner Huff,

if I may, Madam Chair, may seem a bit redundant. I'm trying to cap capsulize everything. I I listened to you talking about the blast wall and the umbrella condition, the rain down effect, and then we went into the height of the wall that you talked about it. And certainly you talked about containing it around or whatever, but when it came to whether or not there was smoke or any other particles that were able to escape to go up over your wall there are. Is that correct? At this point, there hasn't been testing or there has been testing or what is your take on that one? We're concealing it down here, but what is going up over that wall? Because you spoke of it having to be higher if there was going to be some other protection.

So qualifying that answer, when you look at a an explosion, the explosions go in all directions, but the harmful effects from those explosions are the lateral spread. that lateral blast wave is what's going to create a life safety item, right? So, the wall is designed to contain that blast wave

and then any products or shrapnel or any type of metal debris that would go with it. Once you go up and over the wall, your your chances of those life-threatening injuries are significantly reduced, but that's per modeling at the highest possible capacity that could ever happen on the explosion modeling. What we've seen is we haven't seen anything to that extent ever happen before. We just always do this modeling with like LPG gas, liquid petroleum gas products, and all of our other products because we want to know what that initial setback and evacuation distance is to get everybody out of harm's way and then mitigate the pro problem safely. As far as particulates uh that are on fire, we haven't seen anything escape uh the site of origin or the units of origin. So at this time if uh some of the residents living close there or some of those children or people going to Kaiser for respiratory problems or whatever from substances in the air or whatever like that. We just don't have anything or we don't have any report or anything to tell them now. We're just concerned about what has normally been taking place or whatever. So they're not covered at all so far in this report. No, our rope review is s is specifically for the property of origin and mitigating the hazards on site of that property.

Okay. And one last thing, can you tell me then because I've listened to all that we've had to say, what actually if you're what is a strength? I'll give it that way. What is the strength of your report? What would you say that the value of this report of this report should be used for, sir? So the value of an alternative materials and methods report is the quantities in the battery energy storage system space have exceeded the normal quantities that the fire code was written for. So once we exceed those requirements, we go to a utility scale requirement. Uh when we're dealing with the utility scale requirement, we put in all the safety measures. So the fire chief of Los Angeles County has committed to following every law and safety measure. um that's applicable in this space and we do that here in LA County. We cut no corners and we never will. So we just have to apply all of those safety mitigation factors. When you look at safety, it's not a singular item. It's a it's a it's a the design of the product. It is the battery energy management storage system module that contains uh the energy flow within the unit, if you will. And my electrical partners out there might correct me on that. Um, that's how I understand it as a firefighter. But 34 years into this business, having regulated the hazardous materials space, uh, both as an field inspector and as the supervisor for that unit for a total of five years, um, I look at all hazardous materials throughout LA County all the way up until nuclear. And we utilize the same haz uh, AMMR process with anything that exceeds uh, the maximum allowable quantities under the code. In this case, the code only speaks to 660 kilowatt hours and a setback of 50 uh feet. When we go beyond that distance, then we ensure um that through the testing of the project, the modeling that we've

asked for, the additional requirements we've asked for uh ensure the public safety when it comes to life threats andor toxins. Um if we if you would like a a further toxicity report, that doesn't come from the fire department. that would come from the applicant.

Okay. So, you've how can I say you've covered all that you know to cover and with the understanding there's there's certainly exceptions still out there other things that may need to uh be accounted for from a different way. Yes, I think there's opportunities and I think that staff did a really good job in this case of identifying those uh elements and and bringing those to the commission's uh attention and bringing those to my attention actually. Um so yeah, we do have further mitigating measures that we could utilize if it should be um requested to go back to staff for further review and we could work with staff to provide those.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Sure. Thank you. Any other questions? Yes, chair. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Dr. Osel.

Thank you. Thank you, Chief, for again for your service and for explaining this uh to us in great detail. Um my understanding is uh this project uh has been quite a long time uh coming and um uh the way I understood it is that um pretty much from the get-go the the staff has uh had shared their concerns about the density of the neighborhood uh that this project is in. Uh and hearing that, you know, within a 500 foot radius, uh there are all these other neighbors uh to this project inclusive of actual neighbors, you know, homes along with the hospital, uh school, even the the the city's corporate yard. Um, and hearing from the staff report today, uh, you know, some of those concerns that led them to, uh, to recommend a, uh, deny denial, uh, of, uh, you know, uh, the site plan and the design review. Um, do you feel that city staff, uh, has a valid point in recommending that denial? So, based off of the information that was presented here today and the additional questions that were asked, um, I would say that from city staff standpoint, yes. And but I think that the next step if that was the case and if that was the uh vote today would be to take the item back to staff to uh identify the not just identify those concerns. they've already been identified, but identify the mitigating factors that the applicant would then

have to provide uh additional safety requirements for because I mean again I I I hear what what you've mentioned about like everything that um you know in terms of following the the letter of the law so to speak in terms of the requirements but at the same time um you know to to 's point. Um, there is a risk and there that it's going to be very very difficult to to guarantee with 100% certainty that we can eliminate any and all uh those risks and especially on top of the fact that you know it's it's so close to neighbors. um that would be a challenge and um you know I I I appreciate the the the response and um yeah this is definitely something for you know the this commission to consider. That completes me. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions? Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Johnson. Um what's the blast wall setback from from the facility? from the facility. I'd have to look at the report. I look at a lot of these daily. Got it. Um, how long does it staff can answer that question? Oh, thank you. Appreciate it. Um, the blast the blast wall is at least I believe around 20 feet away from the nearest container. Um, but the is proposed to be around the property. to the perimeter wall.

Understood. That's actually helpful because understanding 20 feet away, 10 feet high, it it makes me wonder like could a blast go if it's going 20 feet laterally, could it go 20 feet high, 20 feet diagonal, 21 feet? Um is is that possible understanding that it's it's 20 feet away. So we we presented the BA um we were presented with the blast modeling and we utilized that into our uh rationale for approving the AMMR process. Restate that please.

So the modeling that was given to us the blast modeling showed that the wall was engineered to withstand blast. That's what we require. And then the blast modeling had shown that if uh product should escape the uh facility. They didn't appear to be lethal based off of the blast modeling. That that's my understanding. So there's no it the likelihood of death is low to know but there's still likelihood of injury if somebody's, you know, standing adjacent to the wall, walking adjacent to the wall.

That is the intent of the wall. Yes. No, I'm I'm specifically asking is there a likelihood of injury outside of the wall with a blast? So, I'm not a design professional nor an engineer. So, that's why we utilize certified engineers to guarantee that requirement and meet that requirement. So, we utilize state certified civil engineers that design

understand. It's it was just interesting to me and not not putting it in your lap. they can give us the likelihood that there won't be any lethal, but we're not giving the likelihood of injury. So, um outside of that, I did want to you mentioned that there was a very very loud alarm when in in the event of an emergency. So in the previous facility that we uh that is in operation right now and has been in an operation for a year without incident uh it we did uh provide a loud alarm because we did have an apartment complex approximately 300 feet away and we wanted to notify local residents that there could be an incident nearby. Uh so that was the choice at the time. Um and then those volumes are always um a mix of residential acceptance, right? Uh we wanted to eliminate nuisance alarms. Uh so we we were successful in that element not having one alarm in over a year, almost 18 months now. So that's been very successful. And then but we also wanted to u notify the public. So in that particular jurisdiction, the public wanted to be notified. They wanted that loud alarm and they wanted to make sure that everybody in the immediate area knew that there was an incident at that facility. So, that was part of the public outreach by the applicant and it was very successful.

Got it. Are those the public's given like a very specific evacuation plan. So, due to property rights laws, we can't go in and tell people what to do on private property uh here in California. So, from the fire department's perspective, uh we rely on the applicant to do community outreach. Uh we also rely on our sheriff's department to uh assist us with those evacuation plans. They're actually the lead agency when it comes to evacuations.

Understood. Because my my next question was actually where's the community to evacuate? Like if you are at a school or at a hospital or in a large residential building, you would think, you know, typically you'd go to large open space and the park's in proximity. So, uh, the park is just one avenue of evacuations, but due to the blast modeling that we saw that we're not talking about large areas. Uh, our our evacuation zone coming in is usually 300 ft uh for that maximum potential and then we reduce the size from there based off the actual event that we're seeing.

Understood. Um, last question. I did want to know about how long does it typically take? Would it typically take a fire to burn out if you guys did have to wait it out?

So, that's hard to calculate because it's going to depend on where it starts in the in the process. So, if it starts on a top cell in the container, then a relatively short time because it's going to burn itself out quickly and then it fire tends not to burn downwards. If it starts on the bottom rack, then it has the potential to burn up. uh due to the 9548 testing that is uh mandated um for these types of fac u facilities and just the container itself that is actually what the test is designed that it doesn't propagate from one cell to the other what we have seen is lateral spread across the top cells uh within a unit rather than the whole thing burning up. So the the chemistry that's involved with the um lithium ion salts uh they're not the heavy metals of old. So they don't go low to the ground. They don't go into the um soils and contamination of soils. We haven't seen any evidence of that throughout the industry throughout any container fires that we've had. Uh they're actually getting consumed in the fire and then becoming trace elements. That's what we've seen. That's also what some of the toxicology reporting that we've seen uh so far has shown.

Understand? I I to be honest, I still don't have a a relative scale of the timing. Yeah, it it would depend. I mean, it could be anywhere from 45 minutes to a couple hours uh depending on uh the significance of the fire uh wind conditions. There's going to be a lot of environmental factors there that go in play with that with as with all fires. That's that's helpful. just giving skill because even when you say short time to be honest I' I've no experience so so giving a a better example we see a lot of fires in the two to four hour range

thank you um you know actually I did you mentioned this current systems exceeding the the parameters of the code as it's written how how much do they exceed

so they're several times uh larger the original code was written for the residential space and limiting the amount ount of battery energy storage onto a residential home. So that was the intent because we are putting the same technology right onto people's homes uh through power packs to charge vehicles uh through um parking lots for battery energy uh for uh vehicle charging stations. It's pretty much the same technology uh with little differences between the the companies. So, uh, it just varies depending on the technology and, uh, what we're seeing out there. Um, this the same technologies in our automobile industry at this point and about 40% of the cars sold in in California now are electric vehicles with the same technology.

Understanding the similarity between the technology, would you say it's one or two or or 10? When you when you say it's several times, it doesn't give me scale. uh it could be 70 times greater okay than that and that's why we call it a utility scale uh best facility so it's 70 times greater than what the current codes model I would have to research that for an exact answer but in in range it's quite a bit larger than our residential facilities yes I'm complete thank you any other questions this time. Thank you,

madam chair, commission. Thank you for your job. Thank you. Um, next we will allow the applicant to come forward. Um, you didn't fill out a card, did you? And it's okay if you didn't. I just wanted to call you by name, but if you didn't, you can tell us who you are. I will.

Thank you. Okay, I think the uh presentation is pulling up. Uh madam chair, commissioners, thank you for the time to speak to you tonight. Uh my name is Kyle Snyder, vice president business development for Ormat Technologies. Um, and I wanted to uh walk through the slides, give you a little bit of background on the company, uh, the project, community benefits, uh, as well as safety, obviously. Uh, so, ORMAT, company overview, leading renewable energy provider. Uh, we've been in business for over 60 years. Uh, we're traded on the New York Stock Exchange, public company under the ticker O. Uh we have about 1,600 employees worldwide. Uh we own and operate about 17 1.7 gigawatts which is uh 1,700 megawws of uh renewable energy facilities. So geothermal uh energy storage and uh solar projects as well. Um our storage fleet uh is actually now 19 energy storage projects uh in the United States. uh similar to the Griffith project that we are here to talk about tonight.

Uh so just real quick, right, what is energy storage? I think it's important that we understand what it's uh what it's capable of doing, what it's meant to do, what the need is. Uh it's a technology that allows us to store energy when there's excess and put it back onto the grid uh in times of need. So it doesn't generate electricity on its own. it stores it um it for example California is a great example there's a lot of solar that's being produced in the middle of the day and instead of curtailing that which is what happens a lot of times when it's not needed um curtailing means you're just not producing it not using it anymore um they put it into energy storage facilities um and then instead of bringing gas peaker plants online at night when the sun goes down and people are coming home turning on their televisions air conditioners ers, heaters, whatever. Um, that storage can then put that power back onto the grid. Um, and so it really helps in transitioning uh to renewable energy. You're not using fossil fuels to meet that demand. Uh, so some of the benefits, economic benefits, uh, obviously it helps reduce system energy costs. You're using less fossil fuels, less variable costs. Uh solar power is cheap if you have a way to store it. Um environmental benefits. So it promotes the renewable energy buildout as we discussed. Um California obviously leading the nation in uh in its transition uh towards renewable energy goals of 100% by 2045. Um so it's needed community benefits. Uh there's tax benefits, obviously, property tax benefits, sales tax benefits. Uh it's a small footprint for energy storage projects. Um you know, we're talking about 100 megawatts on three acres. That's very small compared

to a solar farm, things like that. Uh that can't be done in urban areas. Uh grid reliability benefits. So, you know, this is a big one for energy storage. It helps stabilize the grid. Less brown outs, less blackouts. um energy storage uh eases congestion on the transmission transmission system uh in instead of building new transmission lines everywhere which everyone knows uh is very difficult to do not just in California but all over the place uh energy storage can step in and ease the congestion on the transmission system. Uh so the Griffith project I'll I'll fly through these ones because I think you guys have seen it and then uh we'll spend most of the time on on safety. Um but the project site as you as you've seen uh currently being used for heavy manufacturing uh and and there you can see the the rendering of the project. Uh there it is um from top view. All right. So project benefits from from the Griffith project. Um so we talked about uh so oh sorry investment of over $150 million into the community. Uh generates approximately $15 million in property tax benefits to the city county over the life of the project. It advances the goals of Carson's climate action plan. Supports Carson's clean energy hub initiative. Uh we talked about improving the electric grid resilience and reliability. Uh also discussed maximizing the use of renewable energy resources and it's operationally very quiet and produces zero emissions. Um okay let's talk safety. All of our projects, including Griffith, are built with the latest technologies

in battery safety and reliability, uh, which includes state-of-the-art safety features and automatic shutdown in the case of an emergency. Throughout this process, we've worked very closely with LA County Fire to ensure that we receive the needed approvals. As the chief chief mentioned, these include uh the land development approval, which we received in October of 2025, and the AMMR, the alternate materials and methods review, which was finalized in December of 2025. Um the AMMR, I will point out, is typically done uh post land use permitting. It's done at the building permit phase. Uh but for this project, we actually moved that in front of coming in front of you so that we did have approval of that prior to coming here tonight. Um we were asked to do that by the city uh to address some safety concerns and so we did that um and got through that process in December. It took us almost two years to get through the MMR process. Um there was a lot of modeling and testing and things that were required to submit to LA County Fire uh for them to deem uh it complete and approve the project. Um through the county process uh the chief mentioned additional safety features were added that are unique to this project. Um these include early warning notification system to designed to detect thermal runaway by the use of gas detectors in each of the units. Uh a sitewide fire alarm system with beacons and horns to notify on-site personnel as well as people offsite. Uh the system also can notify LA County Fire and 911 and the inclusion of the explosion hazard shielding the wall that we've we've seen um surrounding the perimeter of the site. Uh we also want to point out that the project complies with all industry codes and standards including County of Los

Angeles fire code, the state of California fire code, national fire protection association NFPA 855, Underwriters Laboratory UL 9540A. These are all requirements, codes, and standards that batteries have to comply with. We've complied with all of those. Um, I also want to take a moment to speak about some of the inaccuracies that provided in the staff report regarding the safety of the project. All the scenarios that we've described have either been studied extensively and mitigated or are not evidence-based. It's important to ensure that the discussions related to the benefits and risk of the project are based in evidence. For instance, the staff report states that projects are typically built in remote areas, not urban environments. There currently around 17,000 megawatts of battery energy storage in the state of California, and they have been built in both remote and very urban areas. It's estimated that the state will need 52,000 megawatts of battery storage capacity to reach their climate targets by 2045. Urban load centers are where batteries are needed most to ease transmission congestion and support a reliable electricity grid. Calstate Dominguez Hills has Tesla mega packs that have been operating on campus without incident for many years. A letter of support was included in the packet from their manager of operations. Another example of a urban battery. We have a storage project in the city of Pomona. It's been operating without incident for over 10 years and we recently expanded it. The staff report states that fire incidents are likely to occur during the project lifespan. This is not a statement based on evidence. Over the last 10 years, while deployment of battery storage has drastically increased, the failure incident rate has

drastically decreased. Plain and simple, this is due to the industry focusing on fire safety. There are very strict test methods and code requirements that best equipment and projects are required to comply with. Additionally, the industry shift to non-building and non-walk-in style cabinets to outdoor containerized solutions such as the Mega Pac 2XL being used on this project has severely reduced the likelihood of catastrophic events. Moss Landing, Ot Mesa, these are the big ones that were in the news, burned for a very long time. building fires, very old technology, as the chief mentioned, uh, not even being permitted in in Los Angeles County. Staff reports states that toxic smoke from a fire could be carried by the wind, leading to severe public health and safety hazards for nearby sensitive receptors. Plume modeling was conducted for the project as part of the LA County fire process and is supported by the UL testing done on the Megapac 2XL and it did not show an impact to sensitive receptors. This is supported by previous incidents where air monitoring was conducted by first responders and the results indicated that concentrations of hazardous contaminants did not exceed dangerous levels. Staff report also states that a best explosion would result in a rain down effect of projectiles. A deflegration model explosion model was prepared as part of the LA County fire process for a worst case scenario and it did not show an impact to receptors from projectiles. It's also important to note that the MegaPac 2XL has multiple safety systems that are designed to prevent explosion like the one described. It has a sparker system in each unit that's designed to ignite off gases within the enclosure before it can

accumulate to dangerous levels. It also has a deflogration vent on the top of each enclosure which are pressure sensitive and designed to safely exhaust the gases upward and away from the system preventing high pressure explosions. I also want to talk a second about community engagement where Matt is uh committed to the communities that we do business in. Um we've been a partner an active partner in Carson for a number of years. Uh and we expect to continue that during the life of the project. Uh it's also been a way for us to engage residents um and the community to provide familiarity with not just ORAP but the project since June made a point as we do with all projects uh to engage with a multitude of events and organizations some of which include the Boys and Girls Club of Carson. We participated in their healthy lifestyles programming where we engaged with club me club members, staff, and residents of the Carson and neighboring communities. The Carson Sheriff Station Support Foundation participated in their senior gift card giveaway. In Cal State Dominguez Hills, we helped organize and participated in a tree planting event which bolstered sustainability on campus. Some other partners, the Carson Chamber of Commerce, Collab CDC, and city hosted events including the state of the city. One of our longest standing partnerships has been with Town Avenue Elementary. At Town A, we hosted a table at the parents open house. We've presented at the esports club regarding orat and energy storage prior to their Minecraft competition. And finally, in partnership with Enrich LA, we developed Carson's first ever solar kitchen, which allows students to learn the value of healthy eating using energy harnessed by the sun. We presented on the solar kitchen at the

December city council meeting and are excited to highlight it in the upcoming state of the city event. An additional way we have spread awareness about the project is by hosting four community meetings in various locations in Carson. They were mentioned, one at Victoria Park, two at Stevenson Park, and one at Town A Elementary. We notified people of their meetings via mailed notices and tableabling at different events and direct outreach. It's been an honor to work with members of the Colorado community on this project. It's our commitment to be an active member uh for our time here. In closing, just want to say that we've been working diligently with staff for almost three years on this project to address concerns and we believe we have. We understand our neighbors, many of them have written support letters and are here today. We were asked by city staff to go get LA County AMMR sign off on the project before proceeding to planning commission. We did this. It took us almost two years. With this, we thought that we had achieved staff's request for asurances of safety. We received a staff report last week that made no me no recommendation to the commission on how to proceed. And today, at the last minute, we were told that staff is recommending denial of the project. We're obviously disappointed, though we believe the merits of the project stand on their own. It was signed off on by LA County Fire. The safest battery technology deployed in the country. We'll reduce brownouts and blackouts for residents, reducing electrical uncertainty. Follows the city's clean energy initiative. We have shown a commitment to outreach and working with our neighbors in the community. Absence of any legitimate opposition after years of outreach and city required notification process and community meetings, including from many of the sensitive receptors that were mentioned, skilled and trained union jobs for our

community members, millions of dollars to the city in terms of tax and impact, and we agreed in our development agreement to indemnify the city from liability from for the life of the project. We obviously have a lot to discuss and have brought our entire team of experts today. I'm the business guy. We have uh we have fire safety. We have SQA. Uh a lot people a lot smarter than me on operations and uh and construction. And we are here to answer any questions you have and we ask for your support of the project today. You're complete. Complete. Thank you. To my colleagues, any questions? Yes, Madam Chair. Yes.

Uh Mr. Snider, thank you for your presentation. Uh, eye opening. Uh, answered already at least three or four of my questions through your presentation. Uh, maybe I didn't catch it, but how many of uh, Omar's, uh, projects are within urban areas approximately? Approximately. We have we have uh, we have 19 storage projects. Uh, they are located in New Jersey in populated areas. Uh, California, as I mentioned, we have the Pomona project, we have one in Carperia, uh, we have one on the big island of Hawaii. Um, so I would say half of them. Okay.

And, and has there ever been an issue with the neighbors because of accidents to your knowledge? Uh, you know, spoke on safety record, etc. No. Okay. Thank you. I'm complete, Madam Chair. Any other questions? I I I did just want to close. I'm sorry, Madam Chair. Thank you for uh the benevolence and for supporting the community, being a good neighbor, uh and uh again hopefully uh continue to thrive in our city. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Yes, Commissioner Johnson.

Thank you. Um, I did want to ask where's the energy for this system being produced? Where's it coming from to to land here? It's a good question. It's not uh it's not designated, right? It'll come from the SCE system. So, Silic Edison, we have a we have a uh substation adjacent to the property that we'll interconnect to. Uh, so the power that Southern California Edison has on their system, uh, it's a lot of renewables, it's some gas, whatever California's, uh, mixes these days in Southern California. So, Got it. So, no, no exact place, but just coming from the

Yeah, it's not a it's a it's a standalone storage, right? So, we don't have a collocation with a solar plant or anything like that.

Got it. Um, I spoke to the fire chief about evacuation plan for the community. I feel like was pretty important. Um, I heard that you guys have an alarm in place, but is is there a specific instruction to the community members or to the adjacent businesses? So, we have fire specialists here as well, but the way I understand it is that when we go through the building permit process, we still have to go through LA County Fire and we'll develop a plan for uh we've done an emergency response plan, but in terms of evacuation, that plan will develop with coordination with LA County Fire. Understood. So, that's not part of the fire risk and alliance process.

Can I bring Christian up? Okay. Fire. Yeah. Fire and Risk Alliance. Thank you. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Christian Ing. I'm a senior fire protection engineer with Fire Risk Alliance. I'm also a licensed professional engineer in the state of California and I am the engineer of record for fire protection for the Griffith project. Could you please could you please repeat your question?

I was I was asking if there was a specific evacuation plan for the community. We're being told that there's an alarm in place, which is sounds like a great start. Just don't know where they are to go or if you're giving them specific instructions after hearing an alarm. Yeah, absolutely. So, upon um initiation of an alarm at the Griffith facility, there will be horns and beacons around the perimeter of the site that are above the perimeter wall. These will flash lights as well play a large a loud siren sound that will alert any occupants in the vicinity to evacuate. Is are they given specific instructions to be very honest we live in proximity

they are not they it is just a siren sound

understood just thinking we live in proximity of schools and oil refineries and I I hear bells and alarms all the time and I I don't have a specific course of action when I do hear those existing bails and alarms. Um, the fire risk and alliance report did mention a reduced likelihood of catastrophic events. And to be honest, even out outside of even the staff report, when you use language like reduced likelihood of catastrophic events, I've seen other items quantified. I've seen the increase in capacity quantified. I've seen a lot of things quantified. I didn't see that likelihood of catastrophic events quantified. I don't I don't know if it's one or 90. It's just reduced.

Yeah, absolutely. What I like to say on that is um since 2019

um so in 2019 there was an event in Surprise Arizona. That event was an event a best fire where first responders were actually injured and um since then the code has come a long way. In 2020, the first edition of NFPA 855, which is a standard for energy storage systems, was developed. Since then, there have been two additional code cycles, one dated 2023 and 2026. And unfortunately, that event happened, but it did drive a lot of safety um renovation in the industry. As such, um catastrophic events have been reduced. As such, since 2019, no members of first responders or members of the public have been injured by Beth's uh incident.

That's that's amazing. Um just out of curiosity, under understanding those events have been reduced, the the capacity of the systems have also increased since then, right? I I would agree with that. Just just clarify. I'm I'm complete. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Well, you didn't have to sit down because I have questions. You can come back. But thank you for Yeah, you can come back.

But thank you for that information. Appreciate the presentation. Thank you. a lot of due diligence uh have been obviously taken but I still have that you you still have those words the likelihood and if this happens and it makes sense that if there's an incident something happens that you look at what happened this is what we do and when we see what happened we say how can we prevent this from happening happening again and then if something else happens s and we continue to move forward and something happens then we say oo that happened and how we can prevent that from happening again and so the questions that I have are because of that because there's always a likelihood that something can happen now I have several questions you can stay it's okay um but I have several questions you mentioned the locations that you have and let's say the state of California or southern California where you have other best systems. Um how many did you say?

So in Southern California we have um the Pomona project. So we have two projects there at Pomona. Um we have the Carperia project. It's called Valisto to us or uh sorry Tiarra Buena to us but it's in Carperia. Um and we have uh we have we have Shur Bottleneck which are two large projects that are in Toair County. So, centralish valley. Okay. So, you have a total in California. Can I say three or four? Oh, yay. So, then we have one in Northern California. So, we have five total, right? So, you have five total. Yeah. Okay. And do you have any others pending? Any pending like

locations that you're going to be putting in storage system? How many? Yeah. So, we probably have uh eight or 10 projects in the queue, right? So interconnection timelines takes the longest amount of time. You have to do them in California 10 years in advance. Uh this pro project was submitted seven years ago for instance and uh and and here we are. Okay. So um what would you say um you said these are all of the ones that you've identified so far and we'll say five. They're in urban areas. Yeah, I'd say three of the five are in urban are

three of the five are in urban areas. And which ones are those? That's Pomona. So we have a Pomona one and a Pomona 2. Okay. And and are they in proximity with each other or are they they are they're they're they share a site. They're they're So they share a site. They're next to each other. So we can call that one site if you want. Okay. Yeah, I think we will. All right. So we got Pomona. We've got one site in Pomona. What is the um um environment around that site? What exists now around that site?

It's it's industrial um around the site. There are sensitive receptors in terms of uh of of residential probably 500 feet away from the project. So Pomona has a residential how many homes would you say from 500 feet away? I say hundreds. Yeah. Hundreds from 500 feet. No, there's a neighborhood there. So, you know, that whole neighborhood is probably hundreds. There's probably I don't 10 or 10 or 20. Did you reach any oppos opposition when you guys built that? We did not. So, that project was originally built in 2016. It was expanded in uh in 2022. Okay.

And we did not. Okay. Um, and so other the other locations, no, the the other urban locations that you mentioned, you said three, but you were counting Pomona twice. I was. Yes. Okay. So, you have one other one. Where is that? In California, right? So, we do have We're in California. I got you. I don't care about New Jersey. Okay. All right. So, the second location is where? In Carperia. Carpenteria. And what is the environment around there? It's very very populated. Urban dense. Heavily populated. Yes. No opposition there. No.

Okay. All right. So when we look at the Carson location, why that location? How did you make that decision?

As I mentioned, it was done about seven years ago when we submitted into the interconnection queue. Uh with battery storage, you are looking it in California specifically. Uh California needs what they call capacity. The state calls it resource adequacy. Um it's a product that ensures that when the grid systems get tight, when there's not enough power to meet the load, um that they can meet that and that you don't have brownouts, um or rolling blackouts. And so deliverability is only available at certain places where this transmission system can handle it and where it's needed to ease transmission congestion. So the California the Kaiso which runs the energy market has deliverability what they call deliverability analysis that was done this project has deliverability that's why the the substation was chosen uh for this project

right but you have substations allce has substations all over the place they do not all of them have deliverability not all of them uh are are previously disturbed land next to a substation right So the project site was selected for those reasons. Okay. All right. So um you also mentioned there was a a decrease in incidents. So a decrease in incidents mean we had incidents but we reduced the number of incidents but we have not eradicated the number of incidents. That's true. We'll never eradicate it. Right.

That's my that's that's the issue. So help me out with that. I can help you. I mean, we and I don't mean to be cheeky, but we will never give it to me. We will never eradicate accidents and cars. We will never eradicate gas stations being uh a safety hazard. Right. So, we will never be 100% without without issue. Yeah. Okay. I'm good with that. Um, also, um, when I look at the the, uh, gas detectors that you mentioned, uh, for the site, uh, the gas detectors are located where? Inside the units. Inside every unit. Yes.

Right. And so, um, if if there's an issue of gas and and in the in the construction of each unit, is it at the bottom or the top? I'm going to bring my fire safety specialist up. Hey, do what you got to do. Come on. Gas locate. The gas detectors are located within the unit. Um they're on the actually the interior doors of the mega pack and um they're located towards the top because gas will rise. It is um the hydrogen it is detecting for is less dense than air.

Okay. So it's near the top and so if the gas is escaping from the bottom and it has to rise to the top in order to trigger an alarm. Is that accurate? So during a thermal runaway event, gas would be released from any battery cells and then it would be detected by that detector within the unit.

Within the unit. Okay. Um there's a lot going through my head right now because If if if it gets in the unit and let's say it finally gets there and the the uh alarm goes off, as my colleague said, we hear a lot of alarms all the time. We don't react to most of them because we hear them. Uh but nevertheless, so at that time when that alarm goes off, what happens? the um the alarms the uh visual and audible alarms at the site will activate and then the fire department will be notified as well.

Okay. So, is there someone on the premises that's looking at a system so they know when everything is going on etc etc for the fire alarm system? So, this is a um automatic system. This is an automatic system. So then if the alarm goes off, is there somebody like me sitting looking at something saying, "Ooh, there's an alarm." I know it's triggering the fire department and all that you said, but is there someone because obviously you mentioned jobs for the union and I understand that's during the construction phase. What is the what what what are the jobs that are going to be there available after the construction phase?

Operation and maintenance. Okay. So, operation, how what what are we looking at? So, in the in the operation of a battery, we have a network operation center and uh and we monitor we monitor all of the batteries that we operate. And where are you monitoring? Where are you doing? Our network operation center is in Philadelphia. Okay. And they monitor all the batteries. Is there somebody on the site that's monitoring? Not all time. It's it's not it's not uh it's not a manned site. We will have or operation and maintenance personnel that come in. Got it. Do maintenance at the site. So, no operation and maintenance on the site. No, ma'am.

Okay. Uh, thank you. I needed that. Um, I own a Tesla. So do I. I love it. So do I. Love it. I have uh charging at my house. Me too. Mhm. Very convenient, especially with price of gas. these days. Yes,

I've hit anyone who does not have an electric car. Nevertheless, I do know that Tesla's catch on fire. I do know that we see it in the news all the time. And so, even with my Tesla, I'm very careful. They're just concerns that we have. And I hope you understand why we're asking all these questions because we're talking about people who will live around that site. Okay. And heaven forbid with all I mean asurances can only go so far as you said. And so we have concerns about that. We have concerns about a hospital where there are people going in and may I add that's my hospital and many other people in Carson. Okay. Uh we have the park right there, Victoria Park. We have residents. I have lots of friends over there. And so when I think about what could potentially happen, it's a major concern. So, I hope you understand that. I appreciate your presentation. Uh, what we're going to do now is uh Did you have another question?

Nope. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you. So, we're going to uh ask you to take a seat and then I will call u those people who have indicated that they'd like to speak on this project. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate you. Okay. I have a Wendy Sanchez. Good evening, um, Madame Commissioner and everyone. Thank you for having me. I'm a little short. Is this okay? Oh, you're good. Wait, she's Oh, three minutes and she'll tell you when to start.

Okay, thank you. Um, my name is Wendy Sanchez and I am the proud principal of Town Avenue Elementary and today I am here to support the Ormet Griffith project from a partner um, perspective. Um, we I'm going to tippy toe because I can't get this to go any lower. Thank you. Over the past year, we've had the opportunity to work with the ARAT team and get to know the organization. Um and within that time we have been able through the engagement of um ORMAT team with our you with our teachers um they've been engaging with our students, our teachers, our staff and our families and um we believe I believe that they have shown um us that they are really do care about our community. They care about our school and that they value our opinions and what we have to say. We have had experiences with ORMAT coming to our school and engaging with our students with our level up competitions in Minecraft. Um they have been teaching our students different lessons with the solar kitchen. Um we have had opportunities for our students to engage authentically with respect to renewable energy. So it's not abstract for them because they've been able to engage with ORMAT and start the conversations. And as you all are aware, they're this is the best kind of education being inspired with what is around us. And so respectfully, we would like to urge you to approve this project. Um, and I do want to add one more thing. As we've been sitting here, I have been thinking, oh, that would be a great project. We should get the students to consider what we could do for safety for projects like this. my mind is just racing with all the potential benefits and ideas that would be able to relate from the ORMAP

project to my school. Thank you. Thank you. Uh next we have Tommy Fav.

Uh thank you commissioners. Uh my name is Tommy Favi. I got to catch a plane but thank you for calling my name next. Um my name is Tommy Favi. I represent IBW, electrical workers, local union 11. And just like what the fire marshall mentioned, um, you have to have partnership when it comes to these type of projects. You have to have the skilled and trained workforce to perform these installations. And there's there's a lot of coding standards that was mentioned in here. Through our apprenticeship program, we have curriculum that meets these standards. these codes as standards. We have our n national electrical code book that we have to read like it's our favorite book every night. Right? So having that curriculum in place where apprentice goes through a five-year apprenticeship program and they complete it to turn out as a journeyman wireman is just because of these codes and standards that they that they learned in school and then they performed that out on the field. So you've heard NEC NFPA section 855 that's the section when it comes to battery energy storage systems and that's what our apprentices and our journeymen they perform these task with our electrical contractors like one of them that's here today Costco fire they do um a lot of this uh fire suppression and low voltage systems on these best projects across California and I can today that uh John Sherker that's here today he has performed 90 projects best projects in urban areas and in other areas across California. So these projects are being performed safely, responsibly with a skilled and trained workforce. And I can tell you that, you know, with our members that were uh going to come out tonight, but they have families that they have to be

with, right? I told them, I'll take care of it. I live in Carson. Please let me speak. Right? So, you know, I I gave them a chance. They said, "Listen, let me let me be here to speak on behalf of IBW Local 11 and our members that live here in our residents, right? This project will bring a lot of good electrical con construction jobs. And it's not just electrical. You have iron workers, you have operator engineers, you have sheet metal workers, you have laborers. So, there's a lot of workforce and members that live in this community that going to be that going to be taking advantage of this project. So, I urge I urge you I know there's a recommendation that's here tonight, but I urge you to look at this. Don't don't make a recommendation of a denial, but have have the parties go back to the table and then come back maybe with a no recommendation, right, to the council because a a denial recommendation doesn't really help the process that has

your time is complete. All right. Thank you. Always good to hear from you, Tommy. Next, we have uh Chelsea Sykes.

Good evening, Madame Chairman and members of the council. Um I represent the community. I've been at several of the events. Um great events, but they also allowed us to kind of pick their brain. I've asked questions the same questions. Well, all of them, but I had the same concerns. What if there's a fire? I had ample time to talk to the members of Ormat. So, I don't want you to think that the members of the community are just like, "Yeah, we're in support." They did a community garden. They did do that, but they did take the time to do some Q&A. So, and I'm a avid environmentalist. Like, I recycle water at my house. I have solar panels. Um, you know, I separate my garbage. So, I was able to look on the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency's website, and I just did a quick Google search and I asked about the best, and it literally has a section where they talk about main considerations for safe installation and incident response. So, I did pull up on the EPA uh website what Mr. Kyle was talking about and because that was my concern. what goes up in the air if I know there's only like a minuscule chance of a fire, but just in case there is, what goes up in the air, not just can you contain the blast. And it said that the EPA monitored it and didn't find anything that was hazardous to, you know, the human well-being, you know. So, I do want to let you know that us members of the community did do our due diligence. We didn't just participate in the events, but u I'm an avid researcher. So, I Google everything and I only look at credible websites and I'm in full support of this project based on the research that I did on the EPA's website based on the data that they show. I trust the fire marshall uh recommendation. I trust the data that they came up with. I cross referenced it with my own data from the EPA's website. So, I just want to encourage the

the members of the commission to make um like they said a recommendation to approve it. They've done a lot of work in the community and I would hate for it all to be for not, you know, and I love he answered a question that I had too. Are you going to continue doing work in the community? He said yes and the jobs that it'll produce it'll be really good for the community. I'm excited about it not being that barren, that ugly site anymore. The landscape looks nice. I'm I'm excited to drive past it and I'm just praying that the data and all of the paperwork and the recommendations of the professionals prevail. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh next we have Lena Whitaker. Good evening, esteemed members of the panel. My name is Lena Whitaker and I am the uh I serve as vice chair of special events for the Carson Chamber of Commerce. And I'd like to and I'm also a resident of over several of 30 years or more in this community. in his community is very important to me. I I know the I know I know everybody is thinking to Orat Oramat, but I look at the people in ORAT. That's who I know. That's who I feel that they're very respectable. They're very committed and they're very involved and they're caring and they show up. That's what's important as well. Thank you. So, let me just say my little few words and I'll sit down. Through our events and community partnership, we've seen firsthand ORMIT's commitment to being an engaged and responsible member of Carson. They've shown up and supported local initiatives and invested in relationships, not just projects. The Griffith Energy Storage Progress Project represents both economic investment and long-term energy reli reliability for our community. We appreciate partners who are present and proactive and we support approval of this project. Thank you. Thank you. Uh next we have um Michael Stewart.

Good evening, commissioners. Good evening.

This is a very enlightening day. I've uh watched you to ask your questions. The diligence is is very very good. You've read and done your homework. You've done your research. I appreciate this commission. I'm a long-term resident of Carson. I live on Sirene Drive, 1639 East Sirene Drive. Been there 40 plus years. I'm also the economic development uh chair for economic development in the Carson Chamber of Commerce and I've talked to many of you many times. I support this legacy project. Legacy it's going to be here whole generation and more. The Griffith Energy Storage Project will enhance the economic viability of the Carson community. $150 million investment in our city. Jobs, creation of jobs, coming in with new viable technology to enhance our community. There will be ineconomic benefits of property tax and taxes with which to be shared by the county and the city. And this project will generate $2 million of ancillary investments in the community. You moving this and digging that, fixing this and bringing in training. And I advised them already and I think we should know we want them to teach our youth how to deal with energy and scientific projects. I contend that the economic development of the

Carson community is a concerted effort of by all of us. I see people from labor. I see people citizens. I see our our nice people who are are our professionals. We support the commission, the electeds and our staff in the viable generation of sustained wealth in our community and investment. We are all here to bring private sector investment opportunities that lead to sustained growth. Now on 267s catalytic development is this spark that enhances development in the community. We believe this project will demonstrate a way to bring economic viability to our community using investments. Thank you.

Thank you.

Um the next name I'm not sure of. It could be Jacob and the Chia and you can correct that name when you get up. Thank you so much. It's Iridia and my handwriting is terrible, so I apologize. So, I want to thank everybody for being here, those in support and those willing to listen to members of the community. I'm here today because I'm a resident of West Carson and frequently there are times when the blackouts and brownouts affect my community. Now, when I was initially pitched when when one of my friends initially told me about what the Griffith um battery storage facility was, I got excited because it is an opportunity for the community that I live in and the community that I work in and the people that I know in this community to have a more reliable source of power in times of crisis. Now, as many of you are aware, the climate crisis is worsening and we have weather extremes which are causing strain on our power grid. I believe that this project is going to be helping the community long term, especially when we have those instabil inst in unstable moments of critical power in infrastructure failing. We have one safeguard that is going to be not only helping the community ensure safety because when I walk outside and I see all of the street lights out, I think, my god, like what's happening? How long is this going to last? How many how long is it going to take before we have uh responders on the scene? Is this something that um is going to be vital when it comes to the health and safety of my community? So, I get excited when I learn about green initiative projects in my area because it's one step away from the fossil fuel dependency that we live in the South Bay. There are three refineries in our area and we our power grid is dependent on fossil fuels largely. We're moving away from that which is good and this is one of those projects that I get really excited about. So, I also wanted to give public comment about how that this is also an economic development. So when it comes to the area that that we have seen that is proposed, it seems like that

there's a lot of um economic productivity that can be done in those three acres much more so than what it seems to be doing now. It's going to be creating jobs. It's going to be uh stimulating the economy and it's going to make sure that there's health and safety within the members of that community. And I understand the safety concerns when it comes to a potential fire or hazard or an explosion, which thank you all for, you know, making sure that these people are on top of their game when it comes to them. uh making sure that the health and safety of the community are considered. Um but I would say that long term it's going to be a detriment to the community's health and safety if we don't get this project on board and if we don't continue with the Carson um with the Carson climate change action plans uh moving forward, especially with that 20-year plan I was reading about. So things like this really get me excited. It really gets uh my friends jazzed about the community when it comes to um further development of green energy initiatives. uh anything that will help us long term uh be less reliant on fossil fuels industries um and the health and safety of my community is more uh taken care of. So if there ever were to be any sort of you know malfunction or any sort of problem that would raise an alarm uh I do trust the LA uh fire chief over there to have a first response very be very quick uh concise and very targeted and yeah that's what I have to say. Thank you for listening to public comment.

Thank you. Uh, next we have Christy Cororic.

Hello. Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for having me. My name is Christy Carrick. I am the community school coordinator at Town Avenue Elementary, and I'm here today in support of this project. And my position at Town Avenue is where I help bridge students academic needs to the community and real life projects. And we've had the opportunity to work closely with ORAT through initiatives like our solar kitchen. And they have supported us with our level up LA competition team. And I'll tell you, this team is really interesting because the students, they learn about the UN sustainability goals. They learn about uh greening of communities and they build their own communities in Minecraft. They build their own little schools in Minecraft. And um Mr. Snyder has actually come to this group, this afterchool group to teach them about energy storage. And so um it has been really impactful to the students. And I want to say that the people at ORAT are very trustworthy. They're very caring and their team has consistently shown up for the students and the community of Town Avenue Elementary. And the partnership I believe is very genuine and ongoing. And I appreciate the positive impact that they've made on our school community. So I want to urge you to please um be in support of this project and thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you. Uh, next speaker, Jonah Henry.

Hi there. Thank you. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Jonah Henry. Um, I'm a resident of the city of Los Angeles and I'm a volunteer organizer with Sunrise Movement Los Angeles. We are a youthled activist organization that is fighting to stop the climate crisis and develop a an more equitable economy. And I'm here today to speak in strong support of this project. And I am urging the commission to vote against the staff's recommendation and instead vote to approve the project. Um, as we heard during the uh applicant's presentation about the benefits of this project, this project will provide reliable, renewable, and cheap electricity to SoCal Edison's grid during the evening hours, especially during the summers when everyone's firing up their AC units at home. And this will allow SoCal Edison to reduce its reliance on the methane fired peaker plants that are poisoning local communities disproportionately low-income communities of color with toxic air particullet. Um and it would will also allow them to um reduce the em the fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions that are slowly very rapidly destroying our planet. Um I wanted to speak with the remaining that I time that I have left about fire safety. Um I have two comments. So the first comment is um you all as a planning commission and none of the planning commissions throughout the state of California or throughout the US are scientific experts on fire safety or on these battery storage technologies. And so the reason that fire departments exist and these all these committees that the state is establishing, the reason that they exist is because it's not reasonable to expect that any of you all with your busy lives would have the time to soak up all this information and come to your own conclusion about whether or not this these facilities pose unacceptable fire risks. Um instead, I believe that you should be relying on the expertise of the fire departments that do have expertise in this field. And you know, the LA County Fire Department does not have any

financial or political incentive to be saying that that a facility like this is safe if it were not safe. Um, if we want to talk about like the percentage of land in the county of Los Angeles, you know, close to the Santa Monica Mountains in the San Gabriel Valley, uh, the San Gabriel Mountains that is off limits to residential development because fire departments have said it's not safe to build there. Even though there's a real estate industry that is exerting a lot of pressure on local elected officials to allow residential development in these regions, the fire department has said it's not safe and so therefore building is not occurring there. I I strongly believe that the fire department would not be saying that this facility is safe if it is not. Um, and then the, um, second comment that I wanted to make about fire safety is that, um, Carson is a city with thousands of local residents living in very close population to the largest oil refinery on the West Coast. And presumably the reason that that exists, that that is possible, is because the local government has determined that the benefits of that refinery exceed the risks. And I'd urge you to take a similar perspective to this facility. Thank Thank you. Uh, next speaker is John Strohicker. Did I? Oh god, got one right.

Uh, thank you for having me here. Uh, my name is John Strocker. I'm the vice president of alarm and detection for Costco fire protection. and you heard all the um technologies and all the code requirements and all those sorts of things. Well, my company is the one that implements them and puts them in place so that it is a physical thing to do. So, my company does monitoring of all those B best gas detectors. My company installs the beacons, the strobes. We incorporate all those things in conjunction with the uh consultants and the fire department and we do a complete plan battery calculations. These systems are battery backed up for 48 hours. Does two hours of alarm um and we provide permits and commissioning plans and all those sorts of things. Um and then we work with the fire department, test the systems and also do ongoing inspections to ensure that they work and continue to work at the the way they're supposed to work. Um, I have done close to 90 best systems across the western US. And in all those systems, about 20 of them were Tesla mega packs. And in all those systems that we monitor, and we monitor them, just so you know, these systems come to a main fire control panel, go to a central station, 24-hour monitored. We dispatch the fire department. They come to the muster point. They have an annunciator on the on the front of the panel tells them exactly which best container is having an issue, whether it's an alarm, whether it's a fault, and we take appropriate actions with the beacons and the sounders. And in all the sites that we've done, and we monitor them all, I can see them all on my on my phone. Um, we have yet to see an incident on any of those 80 or 90 sites. Um, so I urge you to approve this. It's a good project and

uh I am a union contractor. We employ local hire folks and uh would really enjoy to do this project. Thank you. Thank you. Uh next we have Pastor Mike Elely.

Good evening commissioners.

Good evening. Um, I don't come down here often, but when I am, it's for a real good reason. And I really appreciate the Ormat um, public relations and how they've communicated with us. We've done at least three projects with them. We had a blood drive and we did our Thanksgiving program with them and then the Christmas outreach program. Uh at all of these events, we had a table set up to address the community and to reach out to the community. Uh I myself I pastor here at Prevailing in Christ Ministry on Delo. Um but uh I have several members that live in that area and uh at those events um Nathan and and now Anna is the supporter of of the public relations um team. uh they'd sat down one-on-one and communicated with the members and talked to them about uh these various things and things that were brought up tonight and they assured them that uh uh it would be a good project for them to further look into and when they did they felt safe about it and they wanted to hear more and they were very uh supportive of this. So I'm I'm just standing to lend my support because of the building of that relationship. Uh I had three concerns. One, make sure you communicated to the people. That was number one. Number two, uh what was the consumer cost for the public and then of course what all of you have addressed it tonight and that is public safety. And uh when they brought that information back to me, I felt pretty satisfied and safe that it was some good project to stand behind. And I've been approached many of times to come and speak on behalf of a company that did not show.

But for this and for what I've heard, what I've been studying about it, I think it'll be a safe project and I'm in full support of it. And uh thank you for that time. Thank you. Uh, last speaker card that I have. I think this is Lauren Miles. Is that right?

Repeat your name, please. Lauren Miles. Thank you.

Good evening. Um, I represent I'm the managing director of Carson Economic Justice Alliance. We're nonprofit. We represent community stakeholders, residents. I'm sorry. Thank you. We represent community stakeholders, residents, businesses here in Carson. We respectfully request the commission to reconsider the city's reliance on the secret class 32 categorical exemption for this proposed battery energy storage facility. SQA guidelines section 15332 exemption applies only when a project will not cause significant impacts related to noise, air quality or hazards and only when no unusual circumstances exist under section 15300.2. Here unusual circumstances clearly exist. 7,500 residents live adjacent to the site starting at 660 feet along with schools, hospital, daycare centers, parks, clinics, and nursing homes. These are sensitive populations. They are communities SQUA is designed to protect. Yet the city has conducted no air dispersion modeling, no fire plume modeling, no evacuation analysis, and no quantitative risk assessment for a facility that would store large amounts of lithium ion energy. These risks are not hypothetical. In 2023, a lithium battery fire at the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility triggered a shelter in place order within a two square mile area and soil testing later detected elevated levels of nickel,

maganese, cobalt, heavy metals linked to battery cathodes. This project proposes Tesla Megapac 2XL units, the same class of technology capable of thermal runaway events. The city previously required full SQA review for the Avisat energy storage project which had far fewer nearby residents. So the question is simple. How can a project with a greater community exposure receive less environmental review? Under the sequest fair argument standard, if there is any reasonable possibility of a significant environment impact, the city must conduct at least an initial study. That threshold has clearly been met. We respectfully ask the commission to delay approval and require full secret review so the risk can be overly properly evaluated. We are opposed to the project as it presently exists. I also wanted to bring a couple of points to your attention.

I'm sorry. We're out of time. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming.

Are there any other speakers in the audience who did not fill out a speaker card and would like to speak at this time? seeing none. Uh I will add that there were a number of letters that were sent regarding this project and those letters have been added into the record for those who uh wrote letters and may not even be present tonight but they may be watching uh but those letters have been entered into the record for this project. Seeing no other speakers, I will now close the public hearing and I will defer to my colleagues for deliberation at this time.

Madam Chair, yes.

Um, not only did I have an opportunity to digest a lot of information, but thoroughly reviewed uh the packet uh staff's uh report uh visited the site uh had a uh an opportunity to engage with the community uh uh specifically on this project as well. Um I had uh no opposition from uh the community residents that I spoke to regarding this. Um I'm concerned about the recommendation that's before us. I think that uh I would like to recommend that uh uh staff and the applicant uh revisit this. if not to uh defer this to uh uh city council and not to take the action that's being requested before us this evening.

I'm complete. Thank you.

Any other comments? Open for discussion. Seeing none. Am I seeing none? So, it's my turn. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank everyone who has come out tonight to make your thoughts heard. Um, I have no doubt, none, in my mind that this project is well intended. Um, I'm sure that all involved gave their due diligence and feel that this is the best way to go. I am pro green. As I said, I have two cars and they're both electric. I've been in the green business for a long time. I appreciate what we're trying to do here. My issues still remain. I know that we feel that we have done all that we can do for safety. But I refer you back to the fires that we just saw a year ago. All safety measures in place. It wasn't good enough. People lost their lives. Can something happen? Absolutely it can. Have you been a good neighbor to those whom you have assisted? Whether it's town, elementary school, whether it's the chamber, whomever it was, all well intended. I don't know how long you've been I I know you've been working on this project almost three years. Uh I don't know if your relationship with these entities started when you knew you wanted to bring the project here. I don't know. I don't know. But we

appreciate all that you have done and we hope that you will continue to be a part of Carson. The decision we have to make tonight is whether or not we can be, and I know we can't, guaranteed that nothing will happen, that this will be safe. We do want a legacy of getting off of fossil fuel. I cannot tell you how many rallies I've been through, too. I cannot tell you how many times I have marched against oil companies. I'm sure a lot more times than you are old because I'm very old. Okay? And I know what can happen. I have seen what can happen. It's just like the situation we had with the canal around here. That could never happen. That could never happen. Well, it did. And when it did, it unnerved a lot of people in Carson. We were almost in panic mode. I don't like the location. I like the project but not at that location. It has to be somewhere else where we don't have as many what do we call them? Receptors sensitive receptors. I like what we call residents these days. Sensitive receptors. And we are our children, our hospitals, seniors, all of those things. They are critical and it's not an indictment against the applicants. It is not it is an indictment of the location of this project and I don't feel that I could rightfully say well I think you've met all the criteria and and we just need to just forge ahead.

I am concerned about a number of things. You've heard most of them, but SQA is there to protect and when you decide even to bypass SQA, I got a problem with that. So staff did their homework. We've had an opportunity to listen to everyone and we're now going to uh I will be asking for a motion for tonight's and my recommendation is to honor staff's recommendation and deny this project at this time. I will make that motion that we accept staff's recommendation that we do not approve a cup and that we therefore deny the project. Now I can ask my city attorney if he will assistant city attorney if he will state that properly for the record and then I will be looking for a second.

Yes madam chair. So, if I understood correctly, the motion is to adopt resolution number 26-2900 entitled a resolution of the planning commission of the city of Carson denying site plan and design review number 1935-23 in conditional use permit number 1128-23 and recommending that the city council deny development agreement number 33-23 for a proposed battery energy storage system BESS facility located 18800 Broadway Avenue, APN 7339014009. Do I That's the motion. Do I have a second?

Madame Chair, I second that motion. And again, I would like to state it definitely is not the project, but it is the location. Motion is second. And with that, Madam Chair, yes. Like to make a substitute motion.

Yes. uh like to uh again u recommend that uh the applicant and staff uh city go back and uh continue the discussion and if if uh not uh defer this to the city council for a vote. Uh but I don't think that it's appropriate that it dies here. Uh I think that uh uh extensive research uh testimony was provided and that would be my uh substitute motion to uh uh move that back to uh staff and um and the applicant to try to uh reach uh other resolutions or uh mitigations if necessary and bring it bring it to city council for a vote.

Commissioner Diaz, may I request a clarification? Yes, if I understood correctly, I think the motion would be to continue the item off calendar. Uh, so no specific date. That is correct. And that would be with direction to staff to work with the applicant on additional mitigation. That is correct. Okay. And so we have to uh ask if we have a second for the substance. I second that. I would second that. Hold on. So we have a substitute motion on the floor that has been made by Vice Chair Diaz and second by Commissioner Doc Dell. So we will vote on the substitute motion first.

Correct. And and then if that does not pass then we will vote on the main motion on the floor. And I can tell you that as a matter of uh p parliamentary procedure, the correct procedure as you mentioned would be to vote on the substitute motion first. If the substitute motion passes, the substitute motion becomes the main motion. So in other words, you're voting on whether or not to substitute the motion to make that change in the motion that's on the floor. If this first vote passes, the substitute motion becomes the main motion on the floor and then a second vote would be needed on the merits of it. If that makes sense. It does. If the substitute motion fails, we go back to the main motion. Yeah, everybody understand.

Okay, let's hold on a second for it. Okay. and we can have debate on the substitute motion if there is any debate. So, thank you for that substitute motion. Any debate? I'd like to call for the vote. I think we're waiting to do that. It has to be clear.

We just have some IT issues to resolve. If not, we can uh do a verbal if we're having problems.

Okay. So the substitute motion made by commissioner vice chair Diaz and seconded by commissioner Dr. Sil. Any questions about what you're voting for? Everybody's clear. So repeat the substitute motion.

So it's a two-part process. The first vote is to determine whether you would like to change the motion or keep it the way it is. If it if the first vote passes, the substitute motion becomes the main motion on the floor. So there would then be a second vote to determine whether or not to pass it. If the substitute motion fails, then it goes back to the main motion for a vote on the original main motion. Right?

So if if just a no vote at this time would then basically kill the substitute motion. A yes vote would put the substitute motion as the main motion and then we will vote on that motion. Is everybody clear? That's very clear.

Did you want to chair this? Call for the vote. Ma'am. Okay. Uh we will have a verbal and so call. Madame Sher Thomas. No. Pa Diaz. Yes. Commissioner Johnson. No. Commissioner Inform. No. Commissioner Huff. No. Commissioner. Commissioner Dougl. Yes. Commissioner Wilson. No.

52. Five nos, two yes. Thank you. The substitute motion fails. And now we will vote on the main motion, which is to approve staff's recommendation. Madame Sher Thomas, yes. Das, no. Commissioner Johnson, yes. Commissioner, yes. Commissioner Huff, yes. Commissioner Daso, no. Commissioner Wilson, yes.

Five, yes, two nos.

Thank you. So, the um staff's recommendation motion does pass. Again, um we've got to continue working on this location, location, location. Thank you and thank you for coming. Okay, now we will move to the next item on the agenda which is a presentation comprehens comprehensive development fee study. It's on right whenever you're ready.

Okay. Um, good evening, honorable chair and members of the planning commission. My name is James Wyn, special projects manager in the community and economic development department. Um, I have a short presentation here today on the community development fee study. Um, so just a a quick overview. So I today I'm going to go over the general overview of what this study entails. This study will come back to the planning commission later this summer, probably June or July. Uh at that meeting that will be with our consultant who will present the full findings, but today is just, you know, um just a general overview of what the the project and the the study entail. Um so um that's the main uh uh uh overview number one. The second point of this presentation is to let everyone know that there will be an upcoming virtual town hall on April 8th at 6:30. And I'll have the date later on. Um that's that that's the town hall for members of the community to participate in in the fee study, seeing what they want to see these fees that are collected from new development be spent on. And then the third part of the presentation, we'll go over the the survey um which is similar to number two. So um what is the comprehensive fee study? So this is a fee study that um is imposed on new developments. So it includes our development impact fees uh CF uh CFDs, community facility districts, community benefits, inclusionary housing and all the other fees that are associated with development. Um and so um and so the um the the purpose of the fees is really to you know ensure that new growth is um paying for infrastructure and um and and also um ensure that you know the city is also paying for um uh infrastructure that is in line with the community goals. So um these are the five types of fees that are analyzed as part of this fee study. We have our development impact fees

which you know funds infrastructure. We have our community benefits which is a broader use of funds that can be used for a variety of purposes and these fees apply to projects that exceed base zoning requirements but um uh and in exchange for something more intensive they can provide us the community benefits. The third fee is the inclusionary housing and affordable in inlue affordable housing fees. These fees help fund future affordable housing projects in the city of Carson. And then the fourth fee is the commercial and industrial linkage fees. So these fees are um charged on to new commercial and industrial development projects um as a set aside for affordable housing because each of these fees requires workers and workers requires an affordable place to live. And the last one is CFD which pays for ongoing um um services. And so uh uh up and coming ahead we have our April 8th virtual town hall. This is the uh the meeting for our community. So the main purpose here is just to spread awareness and we are going to spread awareness. We spread awareness at the economic commission and are going through all the various avenues to let people know that this meeting is the meeting to uh for the public to come out and to talk to um us about anything they want to see here. Um, also on April 22nd, we have one that's more geared towards developers and property owners just two weeks later at 3:30m. Um, and then as I mentioned, it'll this item will come back to the planning commission in the summer with a full report. So, um, here is the link to the town hall. Here's the Zoom link and the website to the the the study. Um, I also have flyers here. I can pass it pass it around. Um, and this is the survey. Um so we have surveys for our residents who um you know just to get them to be more familiar with this type of work and we want to hear more from them. So with

that um that concludes Seth's presentation. Thank you.

Don't go away yet. So um this information is going to be where? So, we will post it on our um uh social media uh LinkedIn and and and all that stuff. I'm working with the multimedia division and our public information office um for the um um so it should be on our website probably Facebook and LinkedIn. That's where it's going to go. And then for our um development committee for the April 22nd meeting, we'll send out a big email blast to people who sign up for the planning um the zoning code update or anything anybody who has anything to do with um development that we could think of even the course of our work. That's that's who we're going to reach out to. And for the general public residents, u how are you going to reach those people who are not necessarily uh computer savvy?

Yeah. So, um so far we're going to these public meetings um all the commissions um economic commission, planning commission um and we've um worked with our council aids to get them to pass it on to their constituents um sending messages to them, flyers to them. Um, so, um, I mean, all of our information is on the website, but I know that's a website. Um, but going out there for a citywide fee study, this is a little it's it's kind of a a it's not a project site. It's not like a thousand foot radius. It's a little bit it's citywide. So, um, that's a challenge. I'll work with our multimedia and PIO on this. You're going to work on that.

Yeah. The only reason I bring it up is because I mean we know we're in a tech technology world these days, but there are still a lot and when I say a lot, I'm talking thousands of people who are just not on Facebook, LinkedIn, uh don't know how to use a computer. And I know this because I talked to many of these people. So I'm just asking what is our consideration to try to reach them? You mentioned you have flyers.

Yeah, we have flyers. And I just uh want to mention our Sandy here is on from our um our team here. She uh does a lot of community engagement. Um last year we did a big brownfields engagement and received over a hundred surveys. And so we're going to do something similar but given a tighter schedule. Um we have plans to attend a bunch of events including like um council town halls and all of that within the next couple weeks. So we are going to be out there. It's late in the night. My I didn't think of that. We we talked about this all week long, but I forgot. I appreciate that. Any other questions? I was going to add that our our magazine might be in good option. I saw you guys advertising the the Brownfield surveys in there.

Yes, it's it's going to be in the magazine the next round and that'll be released before the public hearing or the virtual town hall, I mean. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Okay. All right. Thank you for the presentation. And so now that brings us to our manager's report. Good evening, chair. Good evening. Happy Tuesday, everyone. Yes. So for my update uh this month, I'm going to defer to my colleague, planning manager McKina Alexander.

Okay. Good evening everyone. Uh I want to bring attention to a familiar face that has joined our team recently as senior planner. Miss Kenneka Pompei. Uh she is a Carson resident, raised in Carson, went to school in Carson after she came back from Berkeley. and we are excited to have her rejoin our team because years ago she started off with us as an intern uh was hired as our assistant uh assistant planner went away and now she's back home and so we are happy to have her rejoin our team with her expertise and her knowledge and I want to make sure she's acknowledged this evening. Thank you.

Welcome home. Would you like to make a statement? Uh, thank you. Um, money manager Alexander. Um, it's just I I just a feeling of gratitude to be back home.

Always always welcome back home. Thank you. Um, any comments? You're good. Okay. Now I have to write a wrong because at our last meeting I forgot to ask our vice chair if he had something to say didn't find out didn't think about it that it was pointed out to me after we had adjourned the meeting and I say I'm going to rectify that because that that was not intentional but I'm going to give him the first shot. I know that and actually even with that uh I've had some collective thoughts but still uh it's just a pleasure working with my fellow commissioners and staff. Uh you do provide us the information. Um again you know uh we agree to differ on on certain things and that's what you know makes up this this uh commission here uh all of equal minds and and thought. So, I appreciate you all and um uh no no no report this evening and also for our uh assistant city attorney. Thank you for always uh clarifying and keeping us on the right path. Thank you.

Thank you. And now I will go to my left, Commissioner Wilson. Um, it's an honor and a privilege to serve and I just want to thank everyone from our staff to my fellow commissioners for um allowing me the opportunity to serve our community. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Docsel.

Uh yes, I I definitely echo uh the gratitude to for this opportunity to serve. Uh it's always nice to see when the community uh shows up. Uh and yes, definitely acknowledge the the hard work that our city staff puts uh every time uh we have these meetings. Uh, and um, I honor our commissioners here because um, you know, just from this meeting tonight, it shows that the value that we put in our community, the safety uh, of our neighbors has of paramount importance. Uh and um I I you know I I reiterate the fact that uh we can uh agree to disagree uh while maintaining that respect um you know within the commission with with our our colleagues and the city staff. uh as long as the end goal is all of us pulling in the right direction which is to serve um you know our our our city our home and that completes me. Thank you.

Thank you Commissioner Huff.

Good evening everyone. I will I usually say ditto is a lot said here tonight. Um, our job is really not our our undertaking, I should say. It's not always easy and of course we all do have sometimes mixed feelings, but know that we are doing the very best that we feel needs to be done for the city of Carson. Um, this was a good meeting. We learned a lot and yet we still remain respectful to one another. Thank you to our staff for all of the work that you put into this, for all of the explanation and the answering of the questions. To our new and old planner coming back aboard, welcome aboard. This was somewhere welcoming you back, but you made it. And to everyone, I just want to say uh it's been a good meeting. It's been a good meeting. I enjoyed our meeting. Our lessons are everything. God bless you. Um, District 1 is having a community town hall meeting March the 12th. That's this Thursday. Uh, I hope everybody that's watching will come out to this town hall. Bring your questions on anything that you have going on I know of in this city because we have the right people in place to get it resolved for you. Thank you so much for this time and thank you, Commissioner Johnson.

Thank you. Um, grateful to be here. Um, grateful to be here, grateful to see the community come out and voice their opinions and just take part and have civil action. um incredibly grateful for the staff doing due diligence and even um going as far as requesting the fire risk and alliance report prior to to it being needed. It it provided a lot of insight that might have swayed, you know, swayed thoughts and gave us uh further further details into, you know, the the risk and not just this project, but even future projects considering that we we probably have them come before us. And I really wanted to echo what you were saying in regards to it not being a bad project, them not being bad people. I I love their community engagement model. They should be teaching other developers Um it's it's just yeah the the wear and I think um it's important when when things move forward it it sends a message to the people that are coming when things don't move forward it sends another message and I think we have to make sure that the message is clear that you know we embrace technology that we're forward thinking we just just because something's within a guideline doesn't make it okay. So I I think that's the message that's being sent. Not that they're bad people, that it's bad technology, that it's just bl bad placement complete.

Thank you, Commissioner Fume. Good afternoon. Um just want to ditto what the what all the commissioners have said tonight. Somebody got to say ditto tonight. Yeah, somebody has to because

it was Um um this meeting tonight um was an eyeopener. I learned a lot. Um can be pretty emotional. You you I I just really enjoyed um everything that was said. Uh the young people who came out and spoke. I just they were really passionate about what's happening here. So I enjoyed the I enjoyed the meeting. I learned a lot. I want to say the commissioners, you guys, you go hard and uh I appreciate you and the staff. You guys are I just thank you for all the hard work you guys put into making sure we know what we're doing here on this podium. Assistant city attorney, thank you. I'm complete.

Thank you. And so comes the end of yet another saga of the Carson Planning Commission. This is a great meeting, a lot of information shared. Uh love the presentation, love the staff and all of that you do uh so that we can be well informed in making our decisions and I appreciate my colleagues as well. I don't have any other announcements tonight. So with that this meeting is adjourned.