Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

for e [Music] it's that time um I will will call the Planning Commission meeting of March 5th 2025 to order at 6:00 p.m. Madam um associate planner Schultz do you have um a roll call for us commissioner me here commissioner Bard here Vice chairman Lee present and chairman Malikov I am present and I believe that M chair commissioner mcf is excused now um we'll stand for the pledge of allegiance to our great country to the flag of the United States of America to

[Applause] for confirmation of the agenda do we have any changes to the agenda no changes to the agenda okay and we don't need any motions and we can move on to public comments and we'll have our normal public comments I learned last month that for special meeting special comments thank you commissioner Le that tidbit of information the public is invited to address the Planning Commission on matters not on the agenda if you wish to speak on the agenda please wait to be recognized under that item except for special circumstances the brown act prohibits the Planning Commission or staff from responding or taking action on any comments made by the public unless it pertains to an item that appears on the agenda all speakers should give their name and city of resid please limit your comments to 3 minutes so the city clerk will do we have anybody that wants to speak on a non-agenda item I did not receive any speaker slips and just as a um do we want to pass out speaker slips to anybody that would like to speak make sure that they have them if they want to speak um I noticed a couple people in the back row is there anyone in the public who wishes to speak on an item that's not on the agenda all right we have no one wishing to speak our next item is approval of minutes um do we have a motion do we have any changes to the February 19th minute 2025 if not do we have a motion so moved do we have a second I will second

second and the motion passes for to zero unanimously and I'm going to read that into the record so let let the record show that a motion was wait made by commissioner Lee and seconded by commissioner me and all passed all in favor [Music] our next item is a public hearing item for tenative parcel map 3983 approval of a tenative M parcel map 3983 to subdivide approximately 18.43 acres into 12 commercial Lots with an existing commercial center the Cathedral City Marketplace located in the PCC planed commercial Community commercial zoning District here in to after referred to as the project um I do have a conflict of interest on this with my um employer and I will recuse myself and leave the room and turn the gavl over to our esteemed Vice chair um J [Music] we okay can we have a staff report please all right uh good evening Commissioners by chlee my name is Manel roacha assistant planner here at the city of Cedro city today I bring before you tenative parcel map number 39083 which is a proposal to subdivide approximately 18.43 acres into 12 commercial Parcels with an an existing commercial center by the applicant Jonathan wall on behalf of CTO City Ventures the project site is located at the southwest corner of Day pal drive and dinosaur Drive within the cathedal City Marketplace the subject property is z plan Community commercial with a general plan designation of General commercial here is a photo of the property which is the cathedal City

Marketplace the project site is comprised of multiple multi-tenant commercial buildings and has an existing access on date palm drive and dinosaur drive there are no on or offsite improvements proposed with this project as mentioned the applicant is proposing to subdivide an approximately 18.43 Acre Site into 12 commercial Parcels um the project proposes the following parcel sizes which you can see on the table here on the left the creation of new Parcels within the PCC Zone District requires that each parcel have a minimum lot size of of 8,000 squ ft each parcel meets the minimum size requirement the proposed subdivision is consistent with the zoning code and permissible under the Subdivision map act staff recommends that the Planning Commission finds that the project is exempt from squa pursuant to section 5 15061 B3 the common sense Rule and approved TPM number 3983 subject to the attached conditions of approval and based on the findings contained in the staff report I conclude my presentation I available for any questions and the applicant is also in attendance thank you um let me start with questions from Commissioners um to staff um commissioner Bard um I'm very familiar with this location and I have several problems with it just being the upkeep of it the maintenance of it the cleanliness of it the Landscaping a lot of plants are not replaced not watered trees are badly pruned it's not a very well-maintained property so although that is outside of this particular thing um I am curious if there's any feedback as to why the property isn't maintained

and if we are going to be subdividing it how is that going to affect current maintenance of it that's a very big concern lots of dead trees lots of spaces where there were trees and lots of trash I was just at that opening of the mega dollar store that's there the store is quite nice and I see that they're actually doing doing some finally doing some painting of the building but again the parking lots is isn't paved at least hasn't been in some time there's a lot of gravel in the parking lot and lots of trash um so that is a concern I would like to know the purpose uh of this uh dividing up uh how it serves us I know it is it sounds like it's something that's by right but I'm really curious as to uh what's the point okay so um commissioner Bard in terms of the maintenance so there are one of the conditions of approval is that they are required to update the ccnr um which do cover the maintenance of all the parcels involved in this shopping center um so that is something that will have to be updated with these new Parcels that are being proposed um in terms of the maintenance in the past I can't really speak for it however Cedro City Ventures is a new owner I believe they purchased it within the last year um so I know I know they do have plans for this the shopping center so I know that um there was a a sun Community Bank was looking at purchasing one of these spots and developing there and they ran into lots of uh push back which I thought it was very interesting because it was done by the HOA that was uh pushing back on this um disappointed as to why that didn't happen I don't know the inner workings of that but is this going to help uh those future developments so if you don't mind I'll go ahead and respond to that question so Sun Community Bank is still looking at this location oh they are now they are still looking at this location I talked to the person who was in charge of all

that a few months ago and they said it was completely off the table yeah no they're they're still looking at the location we've been in contact with them great um and so um that's that's moving forward we we anticipate something coming in soon as far as the property maintenance I understand the comments that you raised we also will uh consult with our Code Compliance Department that's also Property Maintenance is under their purview um you had another question there though or was it just about Sun Bank uh it just s go ahead so the portion that some bank is proposed within is not it's part of the commercial center but it's not within the boundaries of the subdivision map okay okay so it's that bottom left corner just for people who are looking at the the map in the bottom left corner on date palm Drive I think it say nap and it's sort of um what is that right word trapezoidal is that the right word it shape believe it's this one yes that one okay and that's interesting cuz I know people that it's a Federal Credit Union I shouldn't say Bank uh that are there and and uh they said it was completely off the table and it was because of so much uh disruption by the other tenants which I thought was very odd okay all right so the maintenance of the parking lot is going to improve well there there will be ccrs in place for the requirement of the maintenance of the parking lot and the landscaping and I would step in as well and say that we have been in contact with the new owner from an economic development standpoint it is our understanding that they intend to improve the property we will continue to communicate with them from an economic development perspective encouraging reinvestment in the center and then as well as deputy director Molina mentioned uh there are outstanding code issues too we can also use Code Compliance to

encourage them to make those improvements and I have all the faith in the city that we are going to make those efforts to do that in in what you guys are doing it's really in the results that I'm curious about is I know we can do so much and we could push and we can prod and we can ask them to be responsible and they're here in front of us and I would like a promise that that is going to happen but so I know that's not your place that's for for ongoing conversation in just probably a few minutes um anything further no I'm good okay uh commissioner maid thanks um my only question is how does it work uh since uh probably almost half of the the buildings in this property are not going to be part are still going to be existing the way they are but we're subdividing the rest so are is that other building still part of the ccnr so they are still even though we're subdividing part of it I'm sorry which ones are you referring to so the ones at the bottom that are not part of the the okay um so you're referring to all of them that have the nap yeah yeah yeah so those I want to say I don't know if John knows a history but I want to say they were a separate approval well uh developers you know in these case of shopping centers you actually just approved one for the basically the shopping center where troa is here uh the developer not creating any new Parcels there was always the same amount of parcels so through the map act he can reposition and um make the land more available obviously the potential to sell just a a parcel off uh the whole ccnr still applies to

the entire development it's the shopping center we reviewed it and yes there's uh different conditions in there such as the maintenance that we're going to re review and um basically um uh strengthen that uh so the bottom line is CCR I can go in a big ccnr still apply to everything I guess my question is is in the other one that we approved all the buildings were part of the the pro part were being subdivided and they were all part of the same ccnr so what I'm asking is for these for the buildings that are along datal that are not part of this subdivision process are those also part of the ccnr that govern the other ones the ccnr and once again in the uh and I'm probably speaking for the developer but if they had the DRS they'd probably parcel out those too but they cannot create any new Parcels or it actually reverse to going to a new parcel map and they have come through okay so they so in this case they were massaging the existing Parcels that are there not creating a new got it I just wanted to make sure there wasn't going to be any potential conflict between the maintenance of the parking lot or anything since they're all sharing it CC covers everything regardless reviewed them in the sharing they have reciprocal access they have recipal drainage everything all the communal portions of it are taken care of in the ccnr perfect thank you that was my only question thank you and I I have no comments for um staff other than to confirm as we did already um so this doesn't affect any of the tenants this is simply a um repassing of the property yeah that is correct yeah okay um so with that I'll um move to open the public

hearing and invite the uh developer the applicant uh to come up good evening Commissioners uh Jonathan wall Cathedral City Venture LLC and I will scoot over here all right uh thank you for uh entertaining this track map and the feedback you provided I hope I'm able to provide the answers uh which I believe I will so I guess just starting on my list uh the credit union is very much alive backing up we purchased the center towards the end of September of last year so we have not been involved long enough through maybe a former process or interest with the credit union but we quickly re-engaged that interest and uh I think you'll be pleasantly surprised to see something come to life very soon um regarding improvements of the center uh since our acquisition of Cathedral City Market Place we've already completed quite a bit of work um as you guys may or may not know we have ret tenanted the former Regency Theater the old dollar theater that's been around for a very long time it's been baking for a few years uh we're currently in construction for a future trampoline park user um we did start painting the center so we spent a couple hundred, on pressure washing cleaning up repainting removing all the grein and turning into an iron or darker color SAR like on the back of the Dell screens here um that includes the monument signs off the main streets uh we are working with Food For Less on an approval for parking lot improvements uh they are tied to the cc&rs and all parties contribute through what's called cam commoner maintenance that gets built back to the tenants so we're seeking their approval to complete

over half million dollar in repairs to the entire parking lot uh for example Food For Less will get a full Mill a full repave a full seal and stripe uh that'll also happen in front of the portion sorry it's not up anymore uh three and four were planet fitnesses and it'll also happen in front of DDS in area 10 and then the rest of the center we're going to do a crack fi seal and stripe um and all the parts that we own so I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with those improvements as well um we're working with a company called pave coat they've already performed some work on our property and in the area and our goal is to receive that approval from Food For Less here in the next week and uh get that done before the season heats up um regarding the questions for the ccnr as one of the conditions is to uh reenact the ccnr and revise the ccnr to accomplish and include uh Lots 1 through 12 uh you will see lot one is the parking lot itself and so our approach with that is uh it improves maintenance oversight when we lay it out this way and what we tend to do through the ccnr is we establish what is called a declarant uh that's basically the person the property owner that leads the maintenance of the center so they're responsible for the ongoing maintenance uh to ensure it's the high quality upkeep there that you may not have seen in the past um this will keep all the current owners all the Naps that we may not own and future owners um honest and um contributing to the overall all wellbeing of the center I think a question came up why we why we're trying to do this uh this expands our F our financing and investment opportunities um it enables access to additional capital for us and continue to Redevelopment with our lenders uh it

also uh strengthens our ownership structure here in the center um where at one point there might have been one owner that you know didn't maintain the center well and then became two and three uh one of our development goals here is to obviously enhance the center uh bring it to our standard and uh we work with several um institutional investors or REITs publicly traded companies uh they really like the single tenants um National retailers you know the Grocers the planet fitnesses the DDS discounts and we also work with um future owners uh like local business businesses local investors uh that want to come in and buy a piece of the center as well down the road so having the op ability to um you know provide maybe a small store owner make a dollar for example the opportunity to purchase a parcel here in the center is something that we we enjoy doing um and this track map allows us to maintain the center um increase our flexibility with future funding future job improvements and future transactions here at the center and yes all the Naps are all tied in to the original ccrs and will remain in the original ccrs thank you um commissioner me do you have any questions for the developer for the um applicant no I'm just glad to hear you're you're putting so much money into it and it sounds like you've got really great plans for it so that's that's good good to hear thank you commissioner B I appreciate where you're coming from I'm still a little um pessimistic just because it hasn't not a lot has been done and I know you've been there very little time so I look forward to seeing uh what you do with the place uh as an example the Smoke Tree Commons in Palm Springs I'm sure you're familiar with that development they do a really good job uh I'm always pushing for a way to have uh architecture and built space

support mental health so over there they have overhangs and shade areas and trees and benches and all kinds of really good stuff this is a really good Community where you could spend some considerable time in as a resident you can go to the gym you can go to the grocery store you could grab a cup of coffee uh something where it's a place that supports that type of being there hanging out doing something I would off subject but I would love to actually uh see more of that coming from you guys appreciate the feedback okay um we'll move to uh public comments um do we have anybody that wishes to to uh address us I did not receive any request to speak is there anyone from the audience who would like to speak on this item I see no one in the audience wishing to speak in that case I'll I'll close the public comments for this item oh you just enjoying a stroll um okay so any uh any discussion before we move to a motion no okay that I entertain a [Music] motion I move that we adopt a notice of exemption finding the project exempt from the California Environmental Quality act squa pursuant to section 15061 B3 common sense of the state sea gu lines and approve tenative parcel map number 39083 subject to the attached conditions of approval and based on the findings contained in the staff report we have a

move do I have a second a second thank you um and we can move to a vote uh oh that did the seconder on that particular motion vote for a second yeah there we go okay thank [Music] you have to get this thing back sorry I've lost the the voting page we can we can do a verbal roll call if you'd like it's don't there there it is no that's there finally thank you all right let the record show that a motion was B made by commissioner me and seconded by Peter um uh commissioner Bard and the vote was three three in favor motion passes and I with that I um relinquish the chair to the chair thank you Mr Lee I appreciate your help um our next [Music] item is variance 25-2 to allow a 35% 3 and 1/2 ft encroachment into the front yard setback for eight lots and a minor 15% 1 and 1/2 ft en Coachman into the front yard setback of 11 Lots located in the campan community within the R1 single family zoning District here and to Here and After referred to as the

project um on this Pro on this project I've worked with Dr Horton before and they've worked with clients of ours but we don't have any relationship with them on this property or any direct relationship now so I just wanted to disclose that so I I do not have a conflict but I wanted to put that out there um do we have a staff report yes we do okay um again my name is Manel roacha assistant planner here at the city of cro city um I bring before you variance 25002 which is a request to allow a 35% or 3.5 ft encroachment into the required 10t front yard setback for eight lots and a minor 15% or 1.5 ft encroachment into the required 10ft front yard setback for 11 Lots located in the Campo Community um just for the record the public hearing notice stated that the applicant was requesting for a minor 20% encroachment um into the front yard setback uh it's actually aif a minor 15% encroachment um and that was stated in the staff [Applause] report the proposed project is located north of raone Road and Via campanil um within the campanil community the project is z single family residential R1 with the general plan designation of low density residential RL the campano residential development was approved on May 26 2004 through approval of a a planed unit plannned unit development and a tenative track map to develop the 68.2 Acre Site with 286 single family homes um Dr hordon has acquired the remaining 83 vacant properties and will be constructing single family homes on each lot most recently Dr hordon has obtained approval of the architectural Master plans for the development of the 83 lots and has submitted precise grading plans for review so here you'll see a site plan of

the campano community so the colored lots that you see um those are the 83 remaining vacant lots that will be constructed by Dr Horden um so you can see them spread out throughout the site plan so the the Campo Community is unique in its design um and layout a portion of the design incorporates Ali loaded Lots measuring 48 to 60 ft wide with the front of the homes fronting um onto common open space with other Lots fronting onto private streets so as you see here in between the Lots there's actually an alley um and there's alley loaded garages um I know you doesn't clearly show on the site plan but just for reference I wanted you guys to know that um and then as seen in the in the outline in the green area there is an open space area located in between the residential lots um the front yard setback encroachment faces common landscape open space areas resulting in in at least a separation of at least 50t feet between the house um with the encroach with the encroachment and the opposing residents um so basically what what that means is as you see these Lots these are single family homes that were constructed by Williams homes and these are the homes that are proposed by DR Horton there is an open space area here in the middle um so there is 50 ft in between um the the rear or yeah the front of this property of 149 and 156 for example so upon staff review of the precise grading PL staff determined that multiple houses would be encroaching into the required 10t front yard setback specifically eight Lots encroaching 3.5 ft um into the required setback and 11 Lots encroaching 1.5 ft into the required setback so staff advised the applicant of the encroachment and after um considering various options DR Horton ultimately made the decision to file variance application to deviate from the required front yard setback requirement the the variant request is

solely for the 19 of the remaining 80 83 Lots listed in the staff report and not the entire project site although a 15% encroachment into required setback can be processed administratively the entire request is being pres presented to the Planning Commission since the 35% encroachment requires Planning Commission review as you see on the site plan the property is outlined in purple um depict the Lots where the proposed house Footprints would encroach 1.5 ft into the into the front yard setb um and the properties outlined in red depict the Lots where the proposed house Footprints would encroach 3.5 ft into the front yard set back when plotting the single family dwellings the applicant encountered a challenge with the alley loaded Lots facing the open space um The Alley loaded um Lots facing the street are 124 ft deep and the Lots facing the open space area are only 119 ft deep due to this difference in lot depth the 18 housing plans plotted within the Lots facing the open space area are shorter in depth measuring only 119 ft deep the exhibit here shows um an example of the variance request so the the three metal Lots outlined in yellow represent um the Lots encroaching 1.5 ft so as you can see here um the setback is 8.5 and then the the Lots outlined in purple are the lots an example of the lots that are encroaching 35% or 3.5 ft and as you can see here it's 6.5 ft from the front yard setback so in order to Grant a variance for many development standards certain findings need to be made these findings are contained in the staff report determining that the variances will not be detrimental and impact the operation of the other properties in the area that the project site is small in size and therefore has exceptional circumstances that do not apply to the other properties in the vicinity that the strict application of the development standards deprives the property of privileges enjoyed by other properties

in the vicinity that the granting of the variances do not constitute special privileges consistent with the limitation of other properties in the vicinity because of the existing physical constraints and last that the granting of the variants is compatible with objective policies and general Plan used specified in the general plan thank you Mr Rosa um we'll have commissioner questions now we'll start with commissioner me do you have any questions um I just wanted to confirm it looks like in the close-up shot and I couldn't really tell this when I was looking at this at home so where that open space is is there also an alley there in between the home lots and the open space as well so the alleys will look be located here where um where my arrow is pointing so what's the gray strip at the top of the Lots this is sidewalk oh that's walking path sidewalk okay and then for the for the for the tops of those lots are there walls or fences along the tops of the those lots between them and the sidewalk or are they just opened up to the sidewalk it's just open up to the sidewalk to the walking path yes okay then I it seems to me that because there's that sidewalk in the open space that the CU my concern is always if there's a wall there can fire get through if they need to get through but if there's just open space on a sidewalk then I don't really have much concern about it thank you um my only comment is a compliment on the staff report in that how you used the color coding to show where the different setback requests were was really easy to spot and I think if you had written this staff report 10 years ago it might have been a lot more difficult to understand so kudos to using the technology just to make make

it um what you're trying to say more simpler and I think you prove the adage a picture is worth a th000 words so um good job on that I understood everything and don't have any additional questions um Vice chair um whoever I am the usbd questions um yeah could we go back to the site plan um slide you had there because I'll I'll just base this question of part of this plan so um if I look at Lots number 135 through 138 um those are already built and that was by the the other developer was that correct correct did that developer require any variance no they did not okay and we have really a mirror image so 131 through 134 are a mirrored image of those lots and we're being asked for variances here now if I understand it correctly when you were talking about Avance and the requirements for Avance it's we have to show that we're not giving favor to a particular developer we're not giving an exceptional thing which wasn't allowed somewhere else so I'm struggling to understand how Dr hton took over this development knowing that those properties were already developed on exactly the same type of site and they're now coming to us asking for a variance um something something is there's a disconnect for me in that because they should have known the size of the Lots they should have designed for those sizes and they already knew that no variant had been granted to anyone else so I have a problem with that we can talk to the

developer um and see what they say about that okay thank you commissioner Bard Echo Danny okay um at this point then if there's more questions for for Manny um we'll open the public hearing and call the applicant up to answer questions and or make a presentation good night Planet commission my name is Mario oras um uh DR Horton project manager for campano um we I want to thank you for considering the uh uh our request for the variance we have had extensive um conversations with the planning department and I really uh thank him for uh preparing the staff report I believe all the facts that were presented we uh are facts that we agree with and we're in support of uh what manual has uh recommended um I would like to answer your question uh when we first started the process uh we were doing a due diligence and we found out that this project was part of a PUD plan unit development uh so at the beginning we we're looking for a uh copy of the report and uh all the information that we needed so we can go ahead and come up with a design uh this is an older project and apparently uh there was no copy of the uh document electronic or hard copy so at that time uh planning and us we started working together to try to find out exactly what uh what the requirements or what requirements were used in the past for the developers so U manual and the planning department started doing some research and I believe they started

looking at different uh permits that were issued and uh they went out to the site and at the same time we went out to the site and started taking photos uh and walking the site to realize or find out exactly what or at least get an idea what the uh uh what the setback requirements were going to be uh so we started plotting uh everything based on um the information that we had so we have two different products a standard product and we have the Aly loaded the Aly loaded are basically smaller Lots so we had to come up with different plans that were going to fit the uh specific Lots uh and we started looking at Lots uh 127 through 130 we use those lots to come up with a plotting uh the plotting was presented to the plotting department and we said okay everything works is fine so we decided to go back and uh put together a plaque plan in in a uh precise waiting plan it was at that point that we came back and we realized that uh the Lots facing the landscape uh Comm area were smaller 119 ft in relations to the other lots that were uh that are 124 lots that fight lot difference is what's making the difference and that's why we're you know requesting the variant we have the option of uh doing a lotl adjustment but we felt that that was going to be uh really cumbersome uh more difficult to try to accomplish and it was going to uh just we have to take a lot more steps to do that and uh we agree that uh the way to go was to uh request the variance now remember only eight Lots which are the ones that are located the corner Lots those are the ones that are encroaching uh 3.5 ft those are the lots that require the full variance all the other Lots uh we could have gone with a uh administrative review uh because it's

only uh 1.5 ft uh but also those lots uh the encroachment is uh the porch and I think that's what created some confusion is because typically in a lot of the other cities that we work with uh a porch could encroach into the front setback so when we came uh to see the planning department uh and they presented some of their information uh apparently they uh they do not allow the uh the porches to encroach into the Set uh into the front set back notless they're covered I believe that's what the Zone uh the zoning Cod say so basically we decided to uh step back and look into our options and we felt that the variance was the cleanest way to do it uh and at the same time uh we walked the side and there are uh some of the Lots from the original development that uh appeared to be um the corner lots a little closer to the front set back than the Lots in the middle uh so once we took all the information together uh we sat down with planning and we came up with the uh option of requesting a variance request and we're here uh so looking at um uh the the slide of the the larger slide excuse me it appeared that the middle two in in any set of four there as a 1.5 mhm um foot uh variance which would be ministerial so um and it looks like the the end properties um I've got 131 and 134 on this slide here um those appear to be slightly larger Lots

and you're proposing a larger build on those lots which is pushing you to a 35% so why did you not look at using the same model property on all four Lots then you'd have a just a 1.5 foot variance when we're looking at the project as a whole one of the things that we attempt to do is to create uh a lot of differences and not create the same uh cookie cutter house and uh setbacks on every single lot uh and we want to create some differences to give the area more character and for the uh Aesthetics to be more pleasing rather than seeing the same house being repetitive in five houses right next to each other uh and that's why when we present uh a project to the cities we we try to come up with four five six different plans so that gives the opportunity to create character within the community not having the same house right next to each other uh it gives the area more character aesthetically is more pleasing Matt just so just so I understand I'm the newest one here and all that just so I understand basically you came in with a bunch of standard designs that you just are plopping down into this area the designs have already been done they've already been built there's nothing Innovative or new about them they're just designs that you had before and you're trying to fit that design into this lot is is that correct um as a company we we do have a library of different plots that we can plant that we can use and uh we we basically go through a series of checklist depending on the area depending on the architecture what kind of character do we want what is a market what is the best uh floor plan for that area if I'm

going to build something here in quella there are two different markets and there are two different plans that we're going to be using if I'm going to be building in the city of linta I'm looking at the same challenge I need to make sure that we come up with a design that is going to be uh fitting with that community and and it's going to be able to uh Supply the demand of the market in that City uh in the that sounds all very nice and I appreciate that and I appreciate your varying the Styles I I just wanted to understand that this isn't anything special that you're doing for us this is just taking a design that you already have plotting it down and you thought that would be the most appropriate correct and you probably could have put another design that maybe was a little smaller or something of that sort that you already had already built you could have done that but you decided to probably do a bigger something with bigger square footage with a bigger price tag that you could then fit on there which is why you want the variant am I understanding correctly but I think what happened is that at the very beginning when we were doing the analysis we were looking at Lots 127 to 130 and those are the bigger lots that are facing the street right uh I think that was an oversight on our part in in the planning department uh we went ahead and looked at Lots 127 to 130 to kind of come up with the idea of what setback uh requirements were going to be appropriate because remember this is part of a PUD and it's also a PUD that uh they couldn't find so we have to come up with some some sort of a guideline there but I think the problem is that that we started looking at Lots 127 to 130 has a guideline M and we oversaw the the fact that the Lots right behind it are uh only 119 ft long and when we plotted everything we submitted the the precise Gooding plan that's when Manny and I were looking at it like oh oh there's a problem here so so again not to have and not to give attitude or anything but it's basically you wanted

to put something there you discovered after you did all the work that it's not going to work and and so now you want to get the variance instead of go back and redo everything uh the the options were doing a lot line adjustment and we felt that a lot judgment was not going to work um we felt that the variance is the cleanest way to do it okay that's that's what we're and that's B based on on conversation that we had with with your staff with planning we all agreed that that was the best way to go okay thank you and if you I good you're good probably if you did a lot line adjustment and made the lots a little bit bigger or changed the open space lot and we would have never seen that right that would have been an administrative action um handled strictly by the engineering department signed off by planning correct yes so at least with this we're seeing it and um since we don't have any some cities have like front yard extension rules you know to allow like a porch or a patio to go 2 feet into a front yard setback if it's like less than 30 ft wide or something like that and fortunately we don't have that yet um correct maybe we will someday um but would you just out of curiosity um kind of duv tailing on commissioner bedard's idea would taking your standard plan that you have cuz you have to be consistent with the architecture that's there so you're not going to introduce like a Queen Anne Victorian to come in here because it would completely stand out as being in a not fitting in so that

limits the number from your library of what you can actually use but in the back of the homes that you're proposing if you were to shave off the 15 or the 30% how much floor area would that account for and how complicated would that be to do that so that you would either just need the administrative action um going to 15% rather than the 30 it's a little more complicated than that uh the fact that we have our construction drawings that went through for reviewing approval through the city they have been approved everything has been approved uh by building planning and everyone within the city we have precise grading plans that have been approved also for the whole site uh so making changes it would basically mean going back to square one but when you turned in your building plans you did that at risk right uh that issue had not come up yet the issue came up later so so you turn in your building plans and then at some point it was identified that you needed to make a modification you discussed the lot line adjustment you discussed the variance you discussed the administrative variance and decided that making a modification um to the encroachment would be the easiest way to move forward uh based on our conversation with the planning staff uh we looked at different options and we we felt thought that was going to be the most uh appropriate way uh to uh to go about it when so it's it's very standard that people submit plans at risk knowing that the Planning Commission or the city council can make

changes and then you have to go back and make those changes you might have gotten ahead a little bit but if there's changes made um you know that's a known quantity so when was it identified to you that you were proceeding at risk uh this issue did not come up until we were submitting for precise grading plan and the precise grading plan was submitted after the rcds were approved so you already done with the planning review correct you were doing the precise grading plan which just so everybody knows is very detailed and shows where everything is in quite um a bit of minutia maybe that's the wrong word John but quite a bit of detail on a on a on a precise grading plan um so so that's at that point when you discovered that you had a planning issue that's when the issue was identified and you had already done everything else that is correct and did you go through some kind of preliminary review before you submitted everything uh like I said the preliminary review that we did was uh showing Lots uh 127 to 130 uh that's the the review that we uh ended up going back and forth with planning uh like I said uh neither planning or us really uh look at the lot behind it being only 118 ft long well I guess what I want to know is when you submitted the con the the Civil plans did you know there was a possibility that there was a setback issue uh no not at that point it was not identified it was identified through the review of the prage gring plan U by

planning department so there was some kind of preliminary review and nothing came up and then you submitted your civil plans they came back and said that you have a zoning issue and then you went back to planning and you discussed what options you have the three options were um to change the footprint of the building to file for a variance and a minor variance and or to and would would okay so on the open space Lots which there's a lot of open space in campan as a whole if you were to make the lot u t and v a little bit more narrow would that give you enough space not to need the major you know need the regular variants and only need the the minor variants we could go through the process of the light adjustment but in reality when you are standing out there and look at the uh the construction uh you're not visibly going to see any difference and the fact that you have the atlans common area in the middle uh it gives you that impression that you have a really extended front your setback uh and that's what planning and I and the planning department and I discussed and that's where we a lotl adjustment on either Lots 131 through 134 or lot U which one would be easier uh we would have to get involved in the HOA uh because there are owning the konary Lots so it's not a process just between us and the city we have to get their parties involved so lot you would be a lot more complicated than it appears that is correct but if you were to make

a modification to the floor plan of lots 131 through 134 that would be just modifying your standard plan which what you're saying is a little bit more complicated than it seems basically revise a whole set for eight Lots out of 83 that's the reason why we had these discussions with planning and we went back and forth and we we looked at it and decided that hey it looks like the variance is is the um the the way to go and uh they uh looked into it and they gave us full full support they agreed with all the facts and uh that's why you see the tough report a well me ask one more question before um I think we move on to commissioner me um I remembered um so let's say you were standing in lot U and you're talking about the mirror image that commissioner Lee was vice chair Lee was talking about would one be able to see the difference in the setback without actually physically measuring it with a tape my answer will be no um I did take a lot of photos I just happen to have the photos on my phone uh I was trying to get put everything in the USB that I can show you uh I went through every single Aly loaded area and took photos and reality uh a 1.5 or 3.5 encroachment is really not going to be noticeable especially because they have a uh wide common area in the middle and then and I'm sorry and also some of the Lots uh especially in the corner are

closer and it's shown on the on the photo that they are probably about a foot closer than the Lots in the middle one of the ways I might be a fifth way that you might be able to work with this and we could decide whether that's an alternative that's acceptable to the rest of the commission is you could do a point of view analysis if that you were standing at maybe two points and seeing where the house would set so that we could get an idea if you were standing in the open space what exactly it would look like it's called a point of view analysis um and you could actually do that for not only 131 through 134 as an example but but you could also do it to show that the human eye really I'm assuming what you're saying is correct it may or may not be but then you could also do the same analysis from the same points on Lots 135 through 138 um have an architectural view analysis to show that to support that the it it's not a significant request if that came up as an option would that be possible we are obviously hoping that we can get your support to move forward with our request has presented tonight but if there's something else that you would like to see from us obviously we are here to uh hear you and work with you but obviously our uh desire will be to move forward with with what we have you're looking at a one and a half feet is this much three and a half you're looking at

that much so when you're looking at a big home that is laid out in 60 foot uh White lot I I can only speak for myself I haven't heard everything that my fellow Commissioners have to say but the the one the 15% I agree with you that's not a huge deal and it could have been done without going through us at all but the 30% I wouldn't say it's a gigantic deal but it's it's a bigger deal than the 15% so and I apologize Mr chair I I just wanted to reiterate a comment made by staff and this is Staff support and the findings that are in your staff report there is a difference in the lot depth and I think what the applicant and staff have described you know this is a little bit of a conundrum uh this is not easy this is um challenging and you know this is perhaps messy in terms of the development of a solution but I think where staff really came to the recommendation was the lot depth uh being 119 ft on those lots that back to the open space versus 124 and The Limited nature of those lots there's only a few of those scattered throughout campan that's where we found that there is reason to Grant the variance that there are exceptional circumstances that those are different than the standard sized Lots throughout the neighborhood and there is reason to consider the variance you're right there are range of Alternatives that could be considered but I think as staff evaluated those it doesn't change the character of the neighborhood um we could make this more difficult we could make this more timec consuming more expensive for the applicant uh but that's not necessarily in our interest and I I think staff is looking for a solution and is recommending a solution that perhaps is the most direct path and it may be messy getting there U but but I would suggest that we consider the lot depth as that

exceptional circumstance that differentiates the Lots back into the open space from the other Lots within the development and The Limited extent of the variance request just may I add to my esteemed colleagues comments and this is a more global view this is a legacy development that's languished since 2008 in the the bus and so it's not the original Builder going in here and fitting their product that they had designed the product uh for so we we've already had another National builder in here and uh they basically have passed that on to another National Builder so we're not going to get that custom fit on that I'll give you an example there's another development Real Del Soul that we're working with another Builder it wasn't the original Builder but we're having the massage uh and they're choosing to do lot line adjustments on theirs small ones it's not changing the fabric of the entitlement not changing the fabric the community to be able to fit the product that that developer used to that'll blend in with the community thank you commissioner me thank you um so uh I think my question has been answered but I just wanted to maybe turn it into a little bit of a statement so I understand where commissioner Lee is coming from that we don't want to look like we're giving a exception to one developer versus another but it sounds like from what we've heard that part of the issue was that the plans and the detailed information about these Lots had been lost and if that's the case then we it's it's somewhat the city's fault so I don't really see how we can then be penalized for trying to work with them to say hey we we messed up um so you know to me it seems like it's less of I have less of a concern of it looking

like we're doing them a big favor that we wouldn't have done for somebody else um because Lally the city wasn't aware that there was a 5ot difference in those two sets of lots and they didn't have the original plan so you had to go out and basically base all your plans on physical measurements going out and taking photos and you know kind of coming up with your own lines and measurements so to me I even while I understand your concern I think it's it like uh uh like our development director said it's it's just a messy situation and it seems like it couldn't really be helped um and that anyone who came in might have had a similar situation so that's my feeling if if I've gotten any of that wrong please correct me but yeah right okay thank you um Comm Bard thank you just it's a little off Note the gate on mallum has been quite neglected is that going to receive any improvements on your end it has been replaced already if you go out there today it's been replaced if you go out there today we is matching the gate in the front lovely all right and we're putting pressure on Willian homes to make sure that they finish the landscape that's and they're supposed to do that yeah um 1ot 3 and 1/2 ft I to me it's not that much of of a difference I appreciate what you guys are doing it's always a disappointment we always want something special not pulled out of the catalog to they put into our cities uh I understand where you're coming from though and uh the type of develop you are and it's a planned Community I I would tend to support do you have some pictures or what are you bringing up I Commissioners um I guess a Smoking Gun if you would you give your name and sure Rudy proost um with Dr Horton I'm a director of land Acquisitions um a Smoking Gun if you

will so the document they gave us for the Pud is a staff report back from the original entitlement um and there there's a section on setbacks which I believe we fall into cuz it it spells out that the 10t setback is supposed to be on private streets or uh public streets and so these Lots Don't Front that so I think this is a way if you want to feel comfortable that we're not getting anything special you can follow on if you want to take a look at the wording here thank you commissioner Lee do you have any more comments no I have a question for um either directors fire Stein or U Molina so um I'm not sure if I'm getting in the weeds if I am just tell me I am and I'll be quiet I think one of the things if we were leaning towards approving this um is 5 years from now when there's completely different people looking at this and they're saying why did they do this would the pictures that I'm talking about attached to the variance findings provide any more clarity or would they be a waste of time from my perspective if it's a waste of time you can say opinion I I I think it's it's not a good use of time it I'm sorry I didn't hear you it's not a good use of time I don't think it's going to demonstrate I understand um that that's why I asked I wanted an honest answer it's just sometimes times it's hard when you're looking at the history of a project to know you know what were they doing but I guess that's what the findings are for um so um want to look his highlighted section da it does actually say so it does actually say in the pink

highlighted section that the 10-ft setbacks are only between the homes and fronting the streets of which neither of these are fronting a street or and we because you have that open space 50 ft they're not even remotely close to 10 ft from each other so corre well if there's no more if there's no more questions for the for the applicant I can close the public hearing and we can have commissioner discussion public comment thank you do we have um is there any um I'll reopen the public hearing is there any is there any is is there any um body in the public that would like to comment on this project we have no comments from the audience okay then I will reclose the public hearing and open the floor to commissioner comments do we want to start with commissioner me no I feel I think I already said what I said before is pretty much how I feel I tend to agree with commissioner me that um that it is a sticky situation and if they weren't told when they first went through the process that it would be at risk to get the variant um and they were told halfway through um I think that um I I I I think that makes it a little bit honorous on their part so I I I agree with commissioner me on that aspect of it and that um um I would be supportive commissioner Lee um I tend to agree I I think we were

missing some of the background here in uh in the staff report so um we didn't know the detail of missing plans and advice that was given to the applicant beforehand because I guess we don't want to write all the mess down in in there but um uh having heard that I think that helps to understand the reasoning here um uh in general my point of view is I don't want mcmansions but that's not going to happen a PUD anyway but but uh any variance needs to actually be um justified in some way um it shouldn't be a rubber stamp from the PC just because an applicant asks for a variance and and I don't think that's what's happening in this case but but that would always be my first concern to make sure that's not happening um so otherwise I think I'm happy with the the staff report and the recommendation um before commissioner Bard goes um in reaction to what you're saying I I think often times staff's in the position with you know people come in and they want to get it done and they're in a hurry and staff is trying to look at everything as quickly as possible and and um sometimes you know they do do it at risk and that's their choice and then if they had been told that at the very beginning that would be a total different story yeah and they weren't told that at the beginning so that's why I think that it you know it was an information that they had and um so um I wanted to explain that commissioner Bard I I like what you're doing I like that the Planning Commission is taking this more flexible stance and I would support so I'm good well with that um do we have any member that would like to make a

motion we've done that what public I CL and you closed it closed it so now we can have a motion right yeah if sure I'll move and I need the text to the findings in the staff report yeah that's what I'm looking for should be on your screen where the um it is I want to get the numbers the proper does anybody else have it I'm not seeing it they should be on the screen where they're present would you like me to read the motion into the record yeah I would like to but all I can see is a a waiting for second and I can't get to my screen you want me I read yeah would you like to read it sure on behalf of commissioner Bard uh he is moving that we adopt a notice of exemption finding the project exempt from the California Environmental Quality act squa pursuant to to section 1 1561 B3 common sense of the state squet guidelines and approve variance 25- 00002 based on the findings contained in the staff report thank you welcome and do we have a second a second I would but it disappeared yeah what's happening it's gone again she she took it away oh I didn't vote no please hold we appreciate your

patience take a Voice vote want take up V well I think we're going to have to um something technologically happened um commissioner Bard made the motion seconded by commissioner me um I didn't second it but can we can we go ahead and take a roll call vot I was trying Lee seconded it and me okay did you want me to hold off no all right let's go ahead and take a roll call vote commissioner commissioner bard I commissioner Lee I commissioner me I and chairman Malikov yes all right let the records show that a motion was made by commissioner Bard and seconded by commissioner me voted in favor Mr Lee Lee sorry thank you gentlemen good luck thank you okay now we move on to non-public hearing items public noticing requirements for the city of Cathedral City we have a staff report um does it say from who it's from me thank you chair Malikov members of the Planning Commission so this is brought forward to the commission for discussion input and some further Direction um if you recall in the in the recent past um there was a concern comment expressed by initially commissioner me and I think some subsequent meetings other Commissioners

also expressed a concern that with with public projects or public hearings for projects we do notify Property Owners but we don't notify um occupants and so and that's because of the way the law is written we're following the law but that's not to say that we can't expand upon it and so um particularly there was a particular project that had an apartment complex next to it the residents aren't notified but the property owner is and so um the state law requirements what city follows is that a minimum of 10 days prior to a hearing uh we provide notice and the notice is to the mailed excuse me to the property owners of the subject property uh there is a caveat in there when um when the project includes a zoning Amendment or a change then the notification period extends to 20 days um but we do follow the state law we mail notices to owners within a property foot radius we notify utilities and agencies we also publish in the local paper um the public hearing notice but state law does allow us to expand um the notification process based on our community needs so what we did is we went ahead and looked at um adjacent cities in the Cochella Valley we also looked at a few outside the valley to see what type of notice they provide and we see kind of a um how some have expanded some haven't um some keep it at 300 ft such as Desert Hot Springs but you can see Coachella expands to 500t for certain type of uses um Indio has 500 foot mailed radius on-site posting some require posting of a sign onsite um some have variations thresholds on the radius that they will notice um Palm Desert and Palm Desert was an example

that was provided in the staff report as well as India with regard to um a level of Outreach but Palm desert's probably the most robust they recently have gone through the process of amending their code to make it a more robust notification process we also looked at outside of um the cochala valley and saw that um it's kind of more typical at least with these cities that we looked at that they do required on-site posting in addition to the not notification or the mailed notification um to proper within a certain radius you'll also see that um of the five cities outside our Valley that we looked at um all but one have extended that notification radius beyond the 300 ft um so given what we've seen in the valley see what we're seeing in the few cities that we surveyed outside the valley and the concerns expressed um we put together in The Matrix possible proposed changes which could include increase in the notification radius um expanding who gets notice tenants of commercial spaces occupants of apartment complexes um look at maybe perhaps signs on site to notify also the public carrying and then some level of neighborhood Outreach and so this was a menu that was provided of possible changes but let's kind of look at what those things mean so an expanded notification um our it Department's been really good as helping us with these Graphics that we provide but um this particular site is 16 acres in size um in the red is the 300t radius then it goes to 500t and it's 1,000 ft and in this little table on the bottom right you can see how many properties are involved in that notification process process and so the staff report indicated let's just move from 300 ft for all projects to a minimum of 500 ft so we expand the radius um we also

looked at maybe when it's greater than 500 ft then expand it to 1,000ft radius which is this green area see here as we were preparing for this uh presentation and looking at um you know the maps and what that means also started looking at what's the intent of this whole process is to provide notification on those types of projects that are particularly import right expanded U for those projects and so when I was looking at larger projects such as the ren Rosemont Nirvana Estates these are all properties that are at least 10 acres in size they're like 16 Acres 15 acres and so um so one of our uh thoughts for consideration is maybe extending it to 1,000 ft when that project sites 10 acres or more um so that one thing that we can look at and give some consideration to as we look at potential changes the other thing is expanding the notification to non-property owners and so this exhibit you probably saw just a you know a few minutes ago this is the tenative parcel map um that was just looked at at the marketplace and so um what you have here is it is a 300t radius that's just the exhibit we're using but you have adjacent to um the site you you have a mobile home park that's all on one property so the property owner was notified what we would suggest is for consideration we notify the residents within that park again we have a number of commercial tenants within the marketplace but they weren't notified because it's to the property owner across the street we have some commercial um uses as well property owner got notified that property owner may or may not be the business owner and then again there's a residential uh excuse me an apartment complex to the East and so again um we're looking at notifying um residents within the apartment

complex as we look at this notification process we do internally do the the mailing labels so there's not a um so we have the records to look at who the business owners are who the um what's the addressing for apartment complexes so that we can work with our it Department to generate whatever that expanded notification is going to be um and so we have Assurance in that manner that we're we're to the extent that we can that's reasonable and to that we have those records we can notify those additional um persons or entities we're also looking at posting on-site these are just a few examples um wiemar has a larger sign they use it's on two post Marino valy uses something a little bit smaller but the point here is that um providing signage on the site so somebody's driving by they see it they may not even be within that radius whatever it is but they're driving by by and they get notice in some fashion and so um if this is something we're looking at then things we would want to consider is how many signs um there one sufficient is one on a street um uh each Street Frontage if there's more than one sufficient um some cities look at um if your street Frontage is over 500 ft then you're looking at one per every 500 ft of lineal Frontage and so there's different ways to look at this um again based upon possibly partial size or Street Frontage and so that's something for consideration the other thing is the neighborhood Outreach and so the cities we survey there's two cities that do some level of that that we could find Indio and city of Palm Desert and they both do it a little bit differently um one's a little bit more robust robust than the other but um both of them have the same intention and that's to provide pro project information to the community that will be Noti noticed of this project when you get to the public hearing process they're developer Le the purpose

is to have the developer present the project listen to the community that's going to be uh within that radius help let them identify potential issues that they may have or maybe they don't have any issues but if they do have um some concern that they work with those uh community members to try to find a resolution they may or they may not but at least they are making that effort um then they provide a report back to the city as far as um what type of notice was given to the to the people that they notified um when was the meeting what were the issues what was the resolution who attended and so we get some report back um and so there's also procedures as to you know when is it you know can't have it on a holiday you know maybe you have it after hours when people who are working can now come in the evening maybe it's on a weekend where do you have it um how do you have it and then who do you notify so those are if we were to consider neighborhood Outreach those are the type of parameters we want to include in some uh revisions to our code um the other thing is when you look at um Palm Desert proposes to require the neighborhood Outreach for projects on F five acres or more India would seem like if it's a discretionary project they're all doing this I guess we would consider we would want to consider leaning back into those projects that are huge that are more complex again 10 acres or more cuz that was you know the nirada states the ren Rosemont so those were the larger projects which you know had some input from the community and so maybe a prior to submitt type of community neighborhood Outreach would have been beneficial um so those are some also some uh considerations to think about and so again here is the the menu of options that were in the staff report but I did um highlight some of the changes that maybe

if we were to look at these we might want to consider again the notification radius if it's a 10 acre project or more maybe that's when we look at 1,000 ft that's when we do the neighborhood Outreach at 10 10 acres or more um and then we have the expanded notification and then the um on-site um public hearings and so for discussion we can look at all of these balance that out because there is um there is cost to staff and there's cost to more importantly the applicant right so they need to go through the effort of more signs more notices um so that's that's time and that's effort um so we just want to balance that out so we can look at all of these the commission can say maybe just certain one of them but consider this the menu and with that um yeah we're more than happy to hear some feedback and get some direction and and move forward with some sort of a uh procedure questions of the city start with commissioner Lee um I wonder a little bit excuse me I'm having throat problems um I wonder a little bit about the 501,000 Ft um both are kind of arbitrary I mean they're good Ram numbers uh I happen to be 498 ft from Desert at Bloom so I would definitely have wanted to know about that one um but why would we want a bigger number just because the property area was bigger so I I I'm not sure that that's actually necessary Our intention is to ensure that people directly affected by a project would know about it and would then get a chance to talk about

it so it may be that 00 ft would be sufficient I think the the bigger part of what's recommended here and and by the way I I love this report and thank you so much for doing it um but the bigger part would be the the actual notices that are displayed on the property and neighborhood meetings um and and I think the however we distribute those signs whether it's one on every street or it's one every 500 ft or what we do um we do need to also make sure that they're bilingual um so with that I mean I can imagine for take an example like the uh the uh uh food for less gas station we we had a room full of people here for that and that's a fairly small project so um it it still applies to small projects as much as a uh a a Rosemont kind of project I think um so we have to make sure that we get notification in the right way for all of them and in that case a lot of those people were renters um so the owners weren't notifying them and in that same project that they had a consultant that came in and told us that they'd held meetings with the neighborhood um but that you know the neighbors were saying well we didn't or they didn't listen or they just told us what they were doing and then went away so another Point somewhere in your uh report was about um whether staff needed to attend neighborhood meetings and I I don't think that's particularly necessary for staff to be there but I think that both um Arc and and the PC should be notified and be allowed to attend those meetings so that we can get feedback on exactly

how the meetings were conducted yeah so um just want to make sure I'm hearing everything um and I know we still have more discussion but your your point is that the radius may not be as effective than on-site posting and neighbor and neighborhood meetings um the um the way we would consider formulating the provisions for neighborhood meetings is that we would indicate in our regulations how they go about it you know the type of noticing where they have to have it when you know the make it so that people can participate but they also need to provide us a uh report back as far as what issues were raised and how they tried to resolve them they may or may not resolve them but at least we have that information the reason why we um uh agree with developer Le not having staff maybe even attend is because we don't want to give the appearance of being an advocate for the project cuz that's not what we're doing we just want them to have a neutral so to so to speak neutral in that the city is not involved they're having that discussion but they are reporting back to us um because in these um Community meetings sometimes with staff being present or maybe City representatives there is the risk that they feel that they have um there is the risk as far as that perception and that's why we try to stay stay back and away from that the um the the pro and I understand that the problem I see is that always there's going to be some of the public who say that you know they didn't say that or or we said that and they didn't listen and so the question is how do you get that feedback as part of the report from the applicant and maybe what you say is you

know as an applicant you've also got to sub uh uh you've got to um uh give the the the people who attend the meeting a feedback form that they can then send to the city you know and and they may not want to send it but that would give you a balanced view of what actually happened you get the report back from the applicant and you get some feedback forms from the public yeah thank you anyway thank you we just I think Danny that's a fantastic idea and since we have this really cool robust website that is evolving I wonder if there'd be a place on the website where there could be if a meeting was happening at a certain time popups aren't that difficult to do and that popup could be the day after the meeting that says if you know if you go to the website pop up if you're at this meeting would like to give feedback about it I don't I don't know how difficult that would be I know putting a popup on a website's pretty easy and they're pretty easy to take up and take down a way to direct people at the meeting to give their feedback by going to the website maybe it's not a popup maybe it's something else uh but a easy way to access that there are are definitely ways for us to solicit feedback and you know the simplest may be just for the public to send comments to uh planning a cathedral city.gov and you know that is a very direct way to provide feedback to planning staff and I think that can be part of the instructions that are shared with an applicant that they need to provide multiple ways for the public to provide comments uh to staff and those comments too that report that is something that we would share with the Planning Commission so I I I want to make sure that you feel that you're receiving that information either the applicants report or any public comment that we get that would be communicated and shared with the Planning

Commission um so I have kind of mixed feelings um I think the brown act and public notification is extremely important um I think that it needs to be done right but I don't think that you need to Overkill either um in my experience most of the people that complain that never got notified um did you know when you show them the return envelopes or you know the list then they see they were notified and the husband or the wife or the mother never gave it to them so I don't know that that's an issue I think um commissioner me had brought up an issue a long time ago about people at the same time as owners being notified that we should send it to the people living in apartments you know as occupant since we really don't have a way to find out you know what their names are um I agree with that um I think that the 500 ft is a good measurement to notify people in the area cuz some people do complain that they don't get a notice and they live right outside the 300 foot so I think the 500 is good I think the thousand foot even for the larger projects is overkill um th000 foot notices can come to a huge amount to mail and um I think 500 for just about any size project is the right way to go um the on-site signage I at one time thought that that would be really helpful and I don't really think that anymore because people pass by it too fast and then they don't you know you don't they don't have time to really see see what it says other than something's going to happen and um then they wind up calling the city anyway so I'm not sure that the on-site

signage really serves the purpose that a lot of people think it does um Palm Springs started it then Indio followed it I've never seen Palm Desert actually do it if it says it in their code um so I don't know that you know our applicants need to go to the trouble of spending $500 to have that kind of sign installed I don't think you get a lot of bang for your buck with it um I think you get a lot more Bang from commissioner Bard's idea of having it on um you know having some kind of pop-up message on the internet for future public hearings um the last thing is um the Outreach is good but not on every project I don't think you could generically say well five acres or S Acres should have the Outreach it's it's it's kind of the best way to describe it is Sandra I know you would know this um when you get a kind of a project in you know when to tell them they need to do their Outreach and I think it should be optional um I just don't see it you know when we're trying to simplify things as being a requirement it should be optional and then when we see that it's it's going to cause um a lot of questions and a lot of problems that's when you should require the the the Outreach we I've seen them where they weren't much helpful where people just came and yelled it gave them their chance to yell um that was good then there were others where they were very substantive we did it for the um Staybridge hotel and I think that really helped when we got to public hearing but I think I don't I think it should be optional and for what it's worth those are my things commissioner me I have a bunch of

things mainly because this was I think something I brought up at the beginning so um I'm trying to think of this twofold one from how can we get the public more engaged um and two how can we try to potentially uh bridge the gap between property owners and and renters it does seem like it comes up on occasion it did more when I was in LA that renters are transient they don't care about the community they're not invested in the community sometimes you hear those kind of comments from property owners and I think part of that is because we don't notify them of what's going on they are it's very hard for them to get involved and to feel like they are invested in the community if we're not telling them what's going on so I think that was part of why I brought this up um I'm trying to look at this from a perspective of not where the city is now but where we're going to be in 20 years so if I can tell you just a general idea of how it worked in Los Angeles which is a way bigger city right you've got the city council you got the Planning Commission underneath all of that you have neighborhood councils neighborhood councils represent 48,000 approximately stakeholders that include residents and businesses um anyone who works lives or owns property in a boundary those neighborhood councils had 15 to 20 people on them who represented that area and it was a requirement of any project that came that was coming through the Planning Commission ultimately that those developers had to have a public meeting with the local neighborhood Council which was then a public meeting for the people who lived in the area within their boundaries um or worked in those boundaries and one of our requirements on the neighborhood council is we required that the developer before they even came to us have a community meeting with the people who lived in the area so if it was a new hotel that was going in they had to have a community meeting with the apartment buildings

next door with the proper any sort of local property owners have an open meeting gather that feedback then they came to the neighborhood Council they told us what they did at that meeting they had to provide proof that they had had that community meeting um and anyone who was at that community meeting was welcome to come and tell us if they didn't feel the developer was representing what happened in an accurate way and we took that into account we were not a leg decision-making body all we did was basically then hear a presentation basically like what we do here we would listen to the the residents we would take into account the community meeting and we would present that uh we would write a letter in support or in opposition of the project to the Planning Commission um as someone who lived in a Condo building we would get notified our neighbors in the apartment buildings next door would not get notified and there were often times um where we would just be walking down the street and the only way we knew that a plan had been put in was the signage on the property which was typically a chain link fence because it was an existing property or was a vacant lot and there would be a chain link fence and there would be a big sign that said someone's applied for something and that was a that was um often an indication to me because I was on the neighborhood Council if I hadn't heard that that project was being done I knew that they had not done that community outreach because I knew they hadn't contact Ed us I knew and the developer was kind of trying to skip through that in which case we would then sort of take a harsher view on them when they came to the neighborhood Council we would be like you clearly didn't do Outreach right so um so I think all of these elements are important um because they reach people in different ways and one of the things I think there was a question about you know whether or not the size of the project should indicate the noticing distance so I would say the size the bigger the project the bigger the potential density the bigger the potential impact on a wider area of people so again we might be talking

about now we're building some apartment buildings you know let's say the ren they're fairly low density they're probably we saw aren't going to cause a lot of traffic in 20 years from now if you're talking about putting up 15 story buildings and a you know a one giant mega block of apartments on that property or a property of that size it is going to cause overflow impacts on a much larger area so maybe notifying people further than 300 ft or 500 ft maybe makes more sense um I do agree that it shouldn't necessarily be based on the size of the project though the notification I think like the project we saw earlier where it's just a subdivision of there's no new construction no actual new development I don't know that that's really has much impact on people's lives in the area um but I would say if they had come in and said hey we're going to tear all this down and we're going to be putting up a new building that has a much bigger impact right so it almost seems to me like if it's something that's going to an E process or a negative declaration process that that's maybe the level that we look at expanding the notification and we look at it more by the impacts because that's really what drives people to show up at the meeting is how they feel like they're going to be impacted um so maybe that's sort of a better way to define things um but I do like all of these ideas I mean I think we could always EXP on them in the future but I think they're you know yes the having a community community meeting costs the developer money but if they like we saw earlier if they go through their whole process and they're planning on doing something and they show up here and 50 people show up here and are really upset and we then say to the developer now you got to go back and make major changes that's a lot more expensive to them so if they can get that Community impact up or the community feedback up front they can have much more confidence that when they get to us that we're going to say hey clearly the community supports this or

you made an attempt to you know incorporate feedback and we might be more likely to approve the project which is better for them um I don't have the thing on my screen which is why I keep looking at his um and then uh yeah and so I think that was pretty much those were all my comments but I really appreciate you doing this because I think it's so important like I said not just for where we are now but where we're going to be 20 30 years in the future did you want to talk me sure should um yeah I think you did some great work here and I'm one of those people that really like notifications and I like mandatory notifications cuz there were so many times in other cities I lived in where I would find out about something being built when they break ground or they made a deal with somebody in the city or did something in some way where they were able to wave notifications and Community meetings and all of a sudden there's a 7 eight story development going in a half like a half a block from my house that has no parking requirements like that was literally what you know and I know that's not the same city and to think forward I I really think mandatory requirements are are great how they are decided upon I don't know like it was suggested the maybe you said a few different things about certain meeting certain requirements and um I'm also one of those people that when I see a sign I literally do a U-turn and go back and take a picture of it and then when I have some free time later go on to go online and look it up or scan the QR code or whatever that is so I really appreciate those signs on

site uh just as a as a uh they usefulness maybe maybe it's only me you to so I I like that I'm the type of person if I see offense and they're doing something and they leave that little hole in it so you can look through and see what's happening I go look through it so I want to be involved in my community I want to know what's happening in my community I want to really have that information um so I I think I addressed each of the issues I I think what staff is hearing I there's some areas where maybe there's more discussion but I think that there's at least I think there's at least an agreement with regard to who the notice is provided to right Property Owners renters occupants and some cities I worked at um it was um property owner and or and occupant so um so we're talking about property owners talking about occupants um residents of apartment complexes U maybe the mobile home comp complex so I think we're in agreement on that so that's good um so that's clear clear for us um you know the onsite public hearing signs you know I guess the effectiveness you know what's going to be effective um some of us are more cognizant and um curious about signs that go up um you know probably a small 2 by two sign is not going to be as effective as maybe a 16 you know 4x4 sign so those are those are things we can look at um if if there's a um a consensus or at least maybe furthering discussion of what those parameters might be right so you know what we're looking at is a way to further the discussion um then we look at the radius I you know commissioner Lee again you know we're going to have a radius and it's whatever that number is but what's

more effective is it the sign that's more effective is it the neighborhood Outreach that's more effective so maybe there's some balance in there thousand is a lot I mean that that is a lot um but in all of this we're always going to have the director's discretion to determine this particular project even though the standard might be 500 ft this particular project we look at that and we may decide it should have something more or again like you're saying right so food for L gas station that is not on 5 Acres that's not even on 10 acres it's probably I don't know maybe it's two um maybe maybe it's B but that had uh Community you know um comments you know concerns and so maybe it's certain uses that trigger those type of concerns that we look at an Outreach and so we can look at things like that to further discussion um about this and so I was just going to say take can I say really quick to something she was going to say um I I think also to your point maybe there's you know smaller projects just get the sign because maybe they're not the kind of thing that requires a community meeting but sometimes maybe there's neither or so if it's a small thing there's a sign and people who are walking by they're still in the neighborhood they might see it and it gives them the notification but it doesn't require a community meeting so I think when we're considering this one of the things that you should just look at is that we shouldn't be the most have the least requirements in the valley and we definitely shouldn't have the most um I hear what you know how people talk about some of the Cities I won't mention names um and I I wouldn't want us to be among those you know grouped with those cities so I think we need to definitely increase our requirements but not to the

point that we're you know at the top should stay in the middle yeah I you know our intent is not to be overly burdensome our intent is to how do we reach the the the residents that are most impacted by the projects so if I can expand on deputy director M's comments I think this is a great discussion and I think where we should go from here is actually to prepare uh a red line prepare a draft ordinance for your consideration you're missing a member tonight I know he has advocated for seeing Redline changes so let's take what we've heard uh prepare a a draft something for you to react to so you can see that the text when you see this in your packet again uh think about those projects that you've heard either here or or in other cities and how that would apply I think that's that's a a good next step for us as well we can work on a flowchart and what would trigger a community meeting uh what would um require posting on a site what would require notice we can work on that flowchart something that we didn't put in the staff report and that we haven't mentioned um the distinction between ministerial and discretionary projects and some of the movement as of late for more housing projects to be made ministerial and I wouldn't want to set a false expectation for public input to give someone the the idea that they can shape an influence a project where our hands are tied we're very much limited because the state has made that administerial project so that's something for us to think through as well just how we uh anticipate how we incorporate that into this process but I think there's a lot here um that that uh we can react to um I strongly support where we're going as an organization where we're going as a community we're trying to be more facilitated we're trying to be more predictable and by doing this by requiring this uh the onset of a project uh we're actually doing a lot to give an applicant the feedback they need in order to design

their project we're not leaving that to just before the Planning Commission I've seen too many projects over the course of my career get derailed right before the Planning Commission because we notified the public of a project after it's been in review for six months for 12 months that's not fair and I think what we're advocating for is really better public process better public input meaningful opportunities for public input where that input can actually shape influence a project so a lot a lot of great discussion and uh I think we can uh bring this back uh with a draft a flowchart and uh some more information for the commission to respond to okay thank you okay so there's no action to take to that's not okay so um if there's no further questions for staff are there any public comments I don't see anybody in the audience um so I'll close public comments um we've already provided Direction um next section is commissioner comments do any of us have comments for the staff I was just going to say thank you for that last agenda item I really appreciate it and I think that was a really good discussion and I'm sure you guys have a lot to work with um this is a super nitpick which I just take with me um I don't like when we refer to the public or our stakeholders as the audience they are our stakeholders we represent them they are the public and they are not just here to watch what we do if they've shown up that means they're engaging and this is for all of us cuz I sometimes say it too just to remember

that they're not just passive observers that's why I made sure that we asked the people that were in the back you know if they understood that they could speak on the project and we checked and they did um as you know just want to compliment um we had a really good zoning session um Cynthia I think that went really well um and I think you're managing the Consultants very well I look forward to the future sessions that we'll have so that was a good job all around Manny again um I think 10 years ago your staff report would have been much harder to understand so I really like the way you did the boxes and I think that made everybody happy and understanding and most of all the applicate got to leave with his approval um but um good job on that using modern technology to explain something like that commissioner Lee Vice chle no nothing commissioner Bard okay move on to um staff comments so you do have a meeting on March 19th and we are continuing to work through the items that have been raised by the commission so you'll see our building official and another report from staff in response to uh comments uh made by the commission so we're continuing to work on that uh and then I would also call attention to an attendance log in your packet and really this is a reminder um to the commission that uh um we appreciate your attendance it's also uh expected in the municipal code uh as part of your appointment to the commission I'm not calling out anyone

I'm I'm just sharing the log so that everyone has eyes on that this is shared with the city clerk's office and it is shared with city council um we're not having any problems right now but uh this is in full transparency so that everyone is aware of attendance and how it's being monor that's it City attorney comments it's a pleasure to see everybody tonight but I don't have any other comments thank you okay then um I call the speeding adjourned at 7:50 on March 5th we're adjourned good meeting everybody