Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, 6 o'clock. Go ahead and call this meeting to order. Uh, can we start with a roll call?

Commissioner Global present. Commissioner Jamu absent. Commissioner Morales present. Commissioner Perez present. Chairperson Condiff

here. Uh, can you join me in the pledge of allegiance? All right, going on to citizens communication. While the series planning commission welcomes and encourages participation in planning commission meetings, adopted rules allow no more than 5 minutes for expression of non-aggenda items. Matter under the jurisdiction of the planning commission and not on the posted agenda may be addressed by the general public. However, California law prohibits the planning commission from taking action on any matter which is not on the posted agenda unless it is determined to be an emergency by the planning commission. Citizens are entitled to address the planning commission on any agenda item subject to the five uh minute provision. Uh is there anybody in person that would like to make a public comment? Mr. Warren. Hold on, John. One second. Get that mic turned on. John Warren, city of Series. The American flag belongs on the other side of the P flag.

Let's get that fixed. Right. American flag's in the wrong spot. Always goes on the far right. Thank you very much. I think this is the mayor's chamber. So, all right. Anybody else for uh public comment? Anybody any emails or anybody on Zoom? Uh, no. Nobody on Zoom and no emails.

All right. Go ahead and close citizens communication. Moving on to conflict of interest. Is there anybody on the planning commission that would like to declare a conflict of interest on any item on the agenda? Seeing none, moving on to the consent calendar. All matters listed on the consent calendar are considered routine in nature and will be enacted by a single motion unless otherwise requested by an individual commissioner or the public for special consideration. Otherwise, the recommendation of staff will be accepted and acted upon by a roll call vote. Anybody on the commission that would like a consent item pulled for further discussion? I just have a quick question. Yeah.

Um, so this is the second of two, sorry, three possible extensions. I just It's just a process question. This would be their last extension. Okay. Thank you. I'll go ahead and pull that item item four for further uh conversation. With that, I'll make a motion to approve item 1, two, and three on the consent calendar.

I'll second that. We got a first and a second. Can we get a uh roll call? Commissioner Global. Hi. Commissioner Morales. Hi. Commissioner Perez. Hi. Chairperson Condit. Hi. All right. Then on item four as as it relates to the second uh time extension for Whitmore Ranch. Um Mr. Beltran, can you speak on the legalities to these time extensions or city attorney? Yeah.

Uh so the state law offers uh time extensions on these. Um typically it's up to we see 10 years now but there's multiple sort of exceptions and extensions depending on the circumstances. Uh so but for by right I I believe it's six up to six years up to six years. Okay. And Mr. Beltran can you speak on phase one and where that project is?

Uh so phase one is uh right now we're updating the subdivision improvement agreement. Um, as soon as I receive that updated copy back, I will be taking that to council for approval. Um, and then hopefully we can uh, you know, I know that the uh, developer owner, you know, they're they're talking to to people and so we are hoping that that uh, uh, map will kick off uh, fairly quickly after getting the subdivision improvement agreement updated. Do you know off the top of your head if phase one received uh multiple time extensions to get to where it is now or

I don't know that I don't know the answer to that question. I would assume that it has. Okay. And then is is the developer or property owner here for that project? Uh yes sir. Just just a question. Do you believe this will be your last time extension for this phase? And if you mind depends how many new city managers we get. get it. There's been four or five, so we're doing our best. I appreciate that. All righty. With that, I will make a motion to approve um item four on the consent calendar. Second. Got a first and a second. Can we get a roll call?

Commissioner Global. I. Commissioner Morales. I. Commissioner Perez. I chairperson conduct I. All right, moving on to public hearing item number five. Hold on. Uh, let me confirm the vote. Motion passes. Uh, four to zero with one absent. Okay, moving on to item number five, public hearing. Um, not sure who has this item.

Good evening, Commissioner, that I'll be presenting this evening on the Mitchell Market sign program. This is a master sign program. All right. This proposed sign program is intended to ensure a cohesive and highly qual quality visual environment while allowing for tenant branding and creativity. The program includes standards for wall signage, the shop and pad tenants, freestanding pylon sign, monument signage for pad buildings, window and door signage, uh prohibited signage types and construction and illumination requirements. Uh the site is currently developed with an abandoned one-story commercial building that is approximately 3 acres in size with associated parking. The site has been underutilized for an

extended period of time and contains deteriorated paving vacant structures and aging infrastructure. This is was recently approved as a tenative map and has two site plan approvals for future tenants. Um and these tenants will adhere to this signed program. The project site has a general plan land use designation of community commercial. Uh the project site is located in the Mitchell road corridor specific plan and has land use designation of community commercial. The Mitchell road corridor was adopted by the Siri city council in 1989 and amended in 1995. Uh the established a comprehensive guide for development of about 450 acres located along the 2.5 milesi of Mitchell road between 99 and river. A specific plan has integrated design standards and these design standards have a chapter dedicated to signage and its purpose. The design guideline reference the standard provided in the municipal code as the regulatory sign authority for the specific plan area. The specific plan expects that the standards established through a master sign program be reasonable and non-discriminatory and lend itself to good design that integrates the sign into the building's facade. Uh the zoning district community in section 18.26 26. You can see there the series municipal code. The planning commission is required to approve a master sign program for commercial centers with four more tenant space. The purpose of the program is to ensure all tenant signs are integrated with the building and landscaping to create a cohesive and unified visual appearance. A master sign program establishes uniform standards for the design, placement, and appearance of signage

that is accessory to existing or approved commercial use and does not in and of itself authorize significant physical development beyond what is already permitted on the site. Implementation of the program would result in the installation of a signage that is limited in size, scale, and intensity and regulated by the city zoning code to ensure compatibility with surrounding development. Staffer recommends that the planning commission find the proposal sign program category exempt from environmental review for first equal section 153 111 accessory structure and adopt the resolution approving a sign program for Mitchell Market located at 1670 Mitchell Road. Thank you, Julian. uh bring it back to the commission uh for any initial questions of staff or the applicant who's here.

Yeah, Commissioner Go, go ahead. Yeah. And the sign that you want to put up, it looks like there's going to be two separate locations for that sign. Um yes, there are currently two pylon signs for the the property. One's actually we we discovered it just a few weeks ago. It's hidden by the trees and so uh that one is being relocated onto Hatch Road and then the other one is just being it's actually being relocated by a few feet. Okay. I noticed also too you have room for nine tenants per sign or are you going to use both sides of the sign? Oh the pylon signs

we'll be utilizing both sides but there there's no LED. That was just a rendering. We're just doing fixed panels. Okay. So, I'm going to take for granted that if you fill one sign up with all nine, you're going to have the other tenants on the other sign. Uh the the current plan is uh to have each tenant have the front and back side of each sign. And so, I think we have nine spots and we have uh we'll have about nine tenants. So, it should it should be each tenant has both sides of each sign. Yeah,

because I was looking at the pads. And I think I came up with 10 tenants. Is that including the the back area? Yeah. We're not going to give any signage to the back area. None for the back. No. How about the existing two tenants that are there now? McDonald's and the audio store. Uh we weren't allocating anything to them. Okay. That's it. Thanks.

Thank you. I'll go ahead and open it up to the public. Uh, anybody has any questions or comments on this item. Seeing none, anybody on Zoom, any emails?

Uh, no emails and uh, nobody on Zoom. Okay, go ahead and close uh the public hearing and bring it back to the commission for further discussion, questions, and action. Uh I do have another process question. Um so SQA exemption I know that's kind of proforma um now to expedite um construction but is there any kind of um secondary review like once something's built is there any oversight or is that something that just kind of moves forward? Sorry I'm directing it to you. I don't know just to direct it to. Well, I I once you uh have SQL compliance in a project, then it uh that's sort of the end of the process. If if things come up and you're not following maybe some of the requirements of that, then there may be some consequences through there, but it's mostly on the front end of the parking

and is that a state enforced? That's a state law. Yes. Yes. SQA. Okay. Thank you, Julian. Just a quick question for confirmation to the public. this um signage is uh consistent with the municipal code as far as sizing and location. And that is correct. All right. With that, I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve um item number five on the public hearing. I'll go ahead and second. Got a first and a second. Can we get a roll call? Who seconded?

Francisco. Yes. Okay. Commissioner Global I. Commissioner Morales I. Commissioner Perez I. Chairperson Condit. Hi. Motion passes. Four to zero with one absent. Okay. Moving on to unfinished business. None. New business. None. Matters initiated by the planning commission and staff. None. Moving on to reports. We'll go ahead and start with the city attorney.

Good evening, commission. Um, tonight we have uh somewhat of an orientation for the for the new planning commissioners as requested by Chair Condet. Uh, and so we got a hopefully a quick presentation for you all, but um I might move quickly through it. If you have questions, I can slow down and we can talk discuss them. So once this gets pulled up, we can get started here. While she's pulling that up, I can just talk about what the agenda will be for this presentation. We're going to start out with sort of your your basic role um as an advisory body, and then we'll move on to some of the state law requirements, which are going to be the Brown Act conflicts of interest, and then we'll wrap it up with um parliamentary procedure just to give you a sort of cursory view of everything here. You could just keep jump to the maybe the third slide there. Yeah, one more. And so the uh agenda tonight is going to loosely follow uh the legal requirements you have when you're making decisions and holding meetings. And so that stems from two separate areas of law. The first is going to be from uh the local law from the municipal code and the second is going to be from state law. And so both of those are going to have procedural requirements and substantive requirements. I'm not going to talk about the substantive ones, but we'll stick to the procedural. Next slide, please. And you can keep uh keep going through there. And just before we get started on um into the the role and responsibilities,

uh the the commission is really driven by staff. Uh and so I wanted to make sure you knew who to who to talk to if you have questions. And so you all know Stephanie and Julian and myself. Uh if you don't know the arrangement with the city attorney, uh I work for Nubia. Uh I work for her law firm. She's contracted with uh the city. Uh, so we're an outside law firm, but feel free to ask any of us questions related to the planning commission. We're all here for you. Next slide, please. I should I'm sorry. I should have added Beltran as well. He he's a fundamental part of this. So, um, speaking of the things that you the decisions that you can make as an advisory body, you generally have three decisions. uh you're the the excuse me the decision-making body in certain circumstances for for example like a conditional use permit uh if that's not appealed then that's the final your uh your decisions final. The next one uh is going to be making recommendations to the council and that's going to be for legislative acts like um zoning ordinances and there's also some non-legislative acts for like uh development development agreements. And finally, I I haven't seen this yet, but you you can have appeals of permit of administrative permits and that's going to be um somebody appealing a decision of the um planning director. I don't know if we've seen that yet. No. Next slide, please. Okay. So, um, as an advisory body, I just wanted to outline sort of the parameters that you have. And so, the city council has final authority over anything that you do. And so, if anything's going to be challenged uh legally, uh, it's going to have to go through the the, uh, city council first.

So um but so as an advisory body I think one of the uh fundamental roles that you serve is you connect the community with the planning department. And so a lot of times, you know, uh you might not have a planning background, but um the staff is really going to drive those details and be able to guide you and make that recommendation and then so you can make the decision if that's what's good for the community because you are community members. That's a requirement. The city council has appointed you. So they so you're sort of the conduit there. And so that's where that's how your role is uh is generally seen. So stemming off of that, you're going to see staff driving almost everything. They're going to be the ones who are agendaizing items and they're going to be the ones making recommendations and providing you those details. And so, uh, to further to that point, uh, a lot of those the items that you'd like to maybe bring to the agenda are going to have to be reviewed by either the city council or the city manager if they have a financial component to them. Next slide, please. So these are some of the local rules and what state law does is it grants um broad discretion to the city on how it wants to implement its planning uh commission and the rules around it. And so for for series this is the attendance policy. Uh you you serve four-year terms at the pleasure of the council meaning they can remove you at any time for any reason. And then you may also be removed for uh two consecutive unexcused absences if you move out of the city um as well. So that's the general uh planning uh commission attendance policy. And for this next slide, I'm going to have Julian speak to the finances.

So good evening. So training and travel uh the budget is determined by the city council and administered by the city manager. So we do set an aotment for um training for planning commissioners. I believe there's uh two slots set aside. If I'm not mistaken, the trainings are usually done. One in Southern California one year, one in Northern California the following year. Um and so the trainings um are allocated each um fiscal year. Um and so coming I believe it's in March I want to say is when the next one will be. We missed this this year's one. So coming next year we'll be able to send two commissioners. If approved um in this the 27 budget so if it is approved in the budget then those will commissioners will select two commissioners to go to that academy. Next slide. Okay. So, now might be a good time if you have any questions regarding the local requirements because we're going to be moving on to state law. All set there. Okay. Well, we'll start with the Brown Act. And the Brown Act is going to be sort of uh one of the main players in how we conduct the meetings and it's it's meant for uh meeting transparency. Uh and so it really wants um to have all meetings open to the public and as a advisory body you're not going to have any closed session items. So everything's going to be done in open session. Next slide please. So all all planning commission meetings are going to be open and public and you uh cannot take any action or and have any discussions on items that aren't agendaized. There's some exceptions there, but you're not unlikely to use them. They're more geared towards the uh city council.

Sorry, Thomas. I going back on to the last slide before we move forward. The council I just I missed it. You each get a monthly stipen. That monthly stipen is $80 per month. Um that's initiated by our office. That is also uh will depend on city council approval for the budget. But that is what is allocated for each of the commissioners. That includes that even if we do not have a commission meeting that stipen you will still be you'll still get that that stipen. Any questions? Okay. Sorry. The the important part the the finances. Um, okay. Yeah. Next slide, please. So, the way that the the Brown Act defines meetings, uh, is is something that you need to consider. And so, um, anytime that there's three commissioners discussing city business, that's considered a meeting for the purposes of the Brown Act. And if it's done uh it hasn't been agendaized and it has it's not open in public, then that's a violation of the Brown Act. So, you do have to be um be aware of when you're interacting with your fellow commissioners uh outside of these chambers. And so, there's a list there of things that can end up turning into meetings. And it's just good to have to to have that in the back of your mind when you're discussing agency business. Next slide, please. Tom, I got a question for you. Sure. What about the elected officials, city council members, if they reach out to us regarding a project, how does the Brown Act um dictate in that situation? I believe that it's limited to your legislative body. So, if uh if you're talking one-on-one with a council member, that's not going to be an issue. Uh if you're talking to three council members with one of you, then that's going to be an

issue because those three council members are going to be um considered to have be having a meeting. Now, if you have two council members and one commissioner, I don't believe that that would be an issue, but I would I can follow up with you just to confirm that, but because you you're separate legislative bodies. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense.

So, moving on to social media. Now, this this recommendation is more geared towards uh the city council, but um it's good to be aware that interacting with your commissioners on social media can lead to issues with the Brown Act. For example, if one of the commissioners is speaking with a member of the public regarding agency business and you like one of their comments, then that's going to be a violation of the Brown Act. So the the social media components are a bit nuanced and uh and can be easy to violate. So it's it's best to avoid talking about city business with other commissioners on social media. And those things are enshrined and they're there and you can see the violation. So next slide, please. And so this doesn't this isn't to say that you can't get together with your commissioners outside of these council meetings. Um you just need to be cognizant of what you're discussing and um and your setting. So you know feel free to go to public events and community events and interact with each other obviously. Slide please. One final point on the Brown Act is um if you do need to teleconference in if you you can you can do so and there's two options for doing that. It's just cause is more for like emergency circumstances. You're sick, a family member sick, something like that. And then the second one would be reasonable accommodation for a disability. That would be more of a long-term situation. Uh if you do end up wanting to teleconference, I would recommend just reaching out to our office and we could just make sure we have all the details squared away. Moving on here to conflicts of interest, I believe. Oh, a

quick note on the public records act is that as officials, your um correspondence can be um overturned for a public records act request. So, if you're discussing agency business with agency staff, with city staff, you want to be cognizant that those records um can be provided to members of the public who request them. Okay. Now, on to uh conflicts of interest. So there's uh three types of conflicts of interest and we're going to focus on two of them but mainly on the financial conflicts. The contracting conflicts who we're not going to see much of because uh you don't have any contracts coming before you. So next slide please. So if you have a a financial conflict of interest or any conflict of interest you're prohibited from ma from making or participating in in any decision. um before the commission. And so you can see those bolded phrases there. Those those are sort of steps you take in the analysis which is it can it can be quite involved depending on the circumstances. So if you have a concern, I would also recommend reaching out to our office and we can make sure everything's squared away. Next slide, please. So, this speaks to um the prohibition on what you you can't do when you do have a conflict of interest. And that means you can't vote as your role as a commissioner, but you also can't try to sway other commissioners um or participate in the discussion. Now, that's not to say that you can't participate as a member of the public. If you have if you want to come up and say something about the project, you're more than welcome to do that, but outside of that is uh pro prohibited. So, the the one that I'm going to get

into because we deal a lot with uh property and with land use is um the financial interest in real property. If you have an interest in property within 500 ft of a project, there's a presumed conflict of interest. If you have a a property that's between 500 and 1,000 feet, there's a conflict of interest if it affects one of those um components of your pro of your property. So, uh if anything, if it's within a th00and ft, you you're going to want to start thinking about uh having a conflict or not. And so, there's other financial conflicts of interest. You can see from the business entity might be one that we run into here dealing with permitting and then source of income would be whoever your employer might be if they're affected by um by the decision. Then you have gifts and personal finances as well. And finally uh the conflict the common law conflict of interest. This is speaks more to um having fair hearings. So, it would be best to not be on social media, maybe voicing strong opinions one way or another before having a a uh hearing just because we want to make sure that everybody uh gets a fair opportunity to be heard and uh you could start to run into the common law conflict of interest. So, how does that work if if a a council member does that regarding our items as far as using their influence to I guess put pressure on us to vote a certain way? Like, how is is there any blurred line there since we're an independent body?

So, you know, if if the decision is not before them, then they're not there's not going to be an conflict. But I will say that if you want to find a conflict of interest, you're going to find one under the common law. And so it's sort of um it's you see less of it because uh it's it's kind of hard to define and it it doesn't quite uh fit into an easy box. But um I think it's for like especially egregious situations where maybe you're vocal about a project and you haven't No, it makes sense from our standpoint, right? So, but so that the council member might run into an issue if that decision gets elevated to to their for them to vote on.

Yes. But okay, just question.

All right. Trying to get through this here for you guys. Um and so finally, if you do have a conflict, uh there's an opportunity uh during the agenda to announce that conflict and you you'll have to say what type of interest that you have in it. And once the decision or the um item comes up, you'll have to leave the room. Okay. Finally, we're getting into parliamentary procedures. Thankfully, uh Chair Condit has a pretty firm grip on them by now. So, uh, you guys have been guided well, but this is these are not not laws per se, but guidelines on how you want to conduct the meeting and make sure that they run smoothly and they move quickly. Um, and so, and it also provides an opportunity to ensure due process and fair hearings. Um and so under the under the Rosenberg rules of order, which is sort of the main stay parliamentary procedure guidelines, uh every person is entitled to participate in the discussion, but they can only do so at one at a time as recognized by the chair. And then I think you see a little less of this than the city council, but if you start to get disruptive um commenters or people are maybe making insults and things like that, that's not acceptable and people can be removed for that type of behavior. And if if decisions or discussions do get heated from the das, it's also good to maintain composure and try to avoid anything that's too inflammatory. Next slide. Oh, and then here is just a step by step um process for the public hearings. You're going to hear from staff first. Uh then you're going to hear from the applicant. You'll open it up for public comment. You might hear from the applicant again addressing any

of those public comments. And then you're going to come back for a discussion and decision. And oh, and finally, uh the last point I have here are motions. uh approvals are pretty straightforward, but I wanted to talk about continuences a little bit. It's important for the the commission to to make a decision um without uh with the information that they have in front of them. And it's it's difficult and it can impact due process and fairness. if you want to go back and clarify something or you want to make a request to the city council, things like that, it can cause um delays to the to the project and it can also create some biases or some issues with providing a decision based upon the regulations that you have at the time of the public hearing. So continuences are generally going to be driven by staff if they need maybe additional time or if you guys wanted to see something that was a fundamental change you can propose a continuence. But again if it's kind of a minor cl trying to clarify maybe a legal requirement I would say make the decision and then that can be a flag for the city council uh when they come back to review it if it does go to review. And then as there you go. Thank you. If you have any questions, happy to to answer them.

So, can we get just I know we're missing one commissioner, but can we get clarification on the attendance? How is that being enforced as far as um you know, we're missing a commissioner tonight, so I don't know if that was given a notice? I know in the municipal code it states that the chairperson is supposed to approve that absence. So what how are we currently operating to make sure we're we're operating correctly?

So the attendance um the planning commission so the way it works is two consecutive uh regular schedule meetings if they're missed except for the event of an illness or absence um excused can only is excused by the chairman with the concurrence of the majority of the commission. So, it's consensus. So, what we've asked is moving forward is that if you're going to be absent that you please email Stephanie um or the planning email um with a a a description of the absence whether it's sickness, an emergency in a timely manner. Um and then we can bring that to the commission to approve that it is either a an approved absence or not. And then those will be documented um during the public time so that we have it documented moving forward. And this way if there's two consecutive unexcused absences then at that time then it become for the commission to then remove that that commissioner from from the dis.

Okay. I think that follows the municipal code correctly. So okay so that'll be moving forward. Yes. Okay. And then secondly on the um travel and stipen, how much does that come out of the budget? Would you say a rough number? Just off the stipen, you're looking at 5,000 between all of us. Um but travel, do we have an aotted amount of money?

I believe I want to say from previous aotments for the planning commission, I believe it's a lot of $1,200. Um, I mean, $1,600. So, it's about $800 for each commissioner. That includes um the hotel, the registration, and then any pdium um to and from. So, there's a pdeium that costs in it. So, that fluctuates depending on each year during fiscal year, how much we allocate for it. Um and so, then it's based on if it gets approved. Um, but normally it's about $16 to $1,800 for two commissioners is what it's allotted at this time.

So total budget you're looking probably $7,000 roughly between the stipen and that uh roughly. No, it's Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Um was it allotted last year in the budget or is there a reason that we didn't send anybody? So it was uh it was allotted. Um we had the two brand new commissioners were barely coming on board and we missed the deadline to send the the uh planning commissioners to it.

Okay. It do we feel I know we don't have a planning director but is that something we could do in house cuz I remember when I first got appointed I sat down with Christopher we had an hour meeting discussing you know conditional use permits all the different kinds. I mean that felt efficient and for me at least I you know I don't know what the training consists of but um is that something that could be done in house if we had a planning director or some somebody from staff that feels comfortable doing?

Yes. And I I believe it was a discussion that I've had with the consultant um that even there's there's opportunity for us to come in and do some zoning um land use education to the commission and I think she was for it. So it' be like we did today like we would present um what we had on on calendar on the agenda and then we would uh do a presentation on the zoning or some land use. Uh but yes, we can do that. Okay. Um, well then I, uh, Mr. Attorney, you're going to have to advise what recommendations could be made off of this presentation as it relates to

Well, if you if you're looking to recommend a future agenda item. Okay. So, I'd have to wait till the next meeting to do so is based on this presentation or I mean, if you want to ask Julian to to get the ball rolling, I that that I wouldn't say that's quite a recommendation. Okay. Well, Mr. Gary, then I would like to formally just request uh because I know the budget is coming up for the city council that we remove um the stipen as well as um the travel for planning commissioners. Um and that could come back to the meeting and you know, we could all vote on it of course, but that that would be my recommendation based off of this.

Sure. And it for further discussion on that it will be will need to be agendaized but if you staff to to begin looking into it. Okay, that makes sense. So I would I would make a matters initiated by the planning commission at our next meeting regarding it. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Then I'll wait until then to officially do it. All right. Anything else? Any other reports from commission or staff? I just wanted to circle back to the local Oh, yeah. Go ahead.

Um I mean is that a workshop that we can have put together? I mean I don't want to add any more work to your agenda, but I'm I'm curious like a local training with the five of us. Um is is that possible because I I think I would really appreciate that. You know, I think most of us are not lawyers, you know, we the legal ease is a little you know Yes. Um it it it's something that will need to be approved by the city manager or the city council because it'll require expenditure of some funds. Yeah, probably an extra cost of the consultant we're currently paying or something like that. But sure, but I but I think it's appropriate to request it. Okay, thank you.

So at the next meeting, we could do that. Any other questions of the city attorney? Okay. All right. Thanks, Tom. I appreciate it. Um with that, any other comments from staff? Seeing none, we will go ahead and adjourn to the next planning commission meeting on April 20th at 6 p.m. Thank you.