Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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

Commissioner Global?

Present.

Commissioner Jammu? Absent. Commissioner Morales?

Present.

Commissioner Perez? Present. Chairperson Condit?

Here. Can you join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? All right, going on to citizens communication. While the serious planning commission welcomes and encourages participation in planning commission meetings, adopted rules allow no more than five minutes for expression of non-agenda 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-minute provision. 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 Ceres. The American flag belongs on the other side of the POW flag.

Let's get that fixed.

American flag's in the wrong spot. Always goes on the far right. Thank you very much.

I think this is the mayor's chambers, so. All right, anybody else for a public comment? Anybody, any emails or anybody on Zoom?

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. So this is the second of two, sorry, three possible extensions. 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 conversation. With that, I'll make a motion to approve item one, two, and three on the consent calendar. I'll second that. We've got a first and a second. Can we get a roll call?

Commissioner Global?

Aye.

Commissioner Morales?

Aye.

Commissioner Perez? Aye. Chairperson Condit?

Aye. All right, then on item four, as it relates to the second time extension for Whitmore Ranch, Mr. Beltran, can you speak on the legalities to these time extensions? Or city attorney, yeah.

So the state law offers time extensions on these. Typically, it's up to, we see 10 years now, but there's multiple sort of exceptions and extensions depending on the circumstances involved. So, but for by right, I believe it's six, up to six years.

Up to six years. Okay. Mr. Beltran, can you speak on phase one and where that. project is?

So phase one is right now we're updating the subdivision improvement agreement. As soon as I receive that updated copy back, I will be taking that to council for approval. And then hopefully we can, you know, I know that the developer owner, you know, they're talking to people. And so we are hoping that that MAP will kick off fairly quickly after getting the subdivision improvement agreement updated.

Do you know off the top of your head if phase one received multiple time extensions to get to where it is now?

I don't know the answer to that question. I would assume that it has. And then is the developer or property owner here for that project?

Yes. Sir, just a question. Do you believe this will be your last time extension for this phase? If you mind.

Depends how many new city managers we get. You get it? There's been four or five. So we're doing our best.

I appreciate that. All right. With that, I will make a motion to approve item four on the consent calendar.

Second.

Got a first and a second. Could we roll call?

Commissioner Goebel?

Aye.

Commissioner Morales?

Aye.

Commissioner Perez? Aye. Chairperson Condit?

Aye. All right. Moving on to public hearing item number five.

Hold on. Let me confirm the vote. Motion passes four to zero, one absent.

OK. Moving on to item number five, public hearing. Not sure who has this item.

Good evening, Commissioner. I'll be presenting this evening on the Mitchell Market Sign Program. This is a master sign program. This proposed sign program is intended to ensure a cohesive and highly 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, prohibited signage types, and construction and illumination requirements. The site is currently developed with an abandoned one-story commercial building that is approximately three 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 was recently approved as a tentative map and has two site plan approvals for future tenants, and these tenants will adhere to this signed program. The project site has a general plan land use designation of community commercial. 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 city council in 1989 and amended in 1995. They established a comprehensive guide for development of about 450 acres located along the 2.5 miles of Mitchell Road between 99 and Tuolumne River. The 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. The zoning district community commercial in section 18.26, as 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's zoning code to ensure compatibility with surrounding development. Staff recommends that the Planning Commission find the proposal sign program category exempt from environmental review per CEQA Section 15.3. 1.1 accessory structure and adopt the resolution approving a signed program for Mitchell Market located at 1670 Mitchell Road.

Thank you, Julian. I'll bring it back to the commission for any initial questions of staff or the applicant who's here. Commissioner Goble, go ahead.

Yeah, I mean,

sign that you want to put up it looks like there's going to be two separate locations for that sign 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

I noticed also, too, you have room for nine tenants per sign, or are you going to use both sides of the sign?

Oh, on the pylon signs? We'll be utilizing both sides, but 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.

The current plan is to have each tenant have the front and back side of each sign. And so I think we have nine spots and we'll have about nine tenants. So it should be each tenant has both sides of each sign.

Because I was looking at the pads and I think I came up with 10 tenants.

Is that including 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? We weren't allocating anything to them.

OK. That's it. Thanks.

Thank you.

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

No emails and nobody on Zoom.

OK. Go ahead and close the public hearing and bring it back to the Commission for further discussion, questions, and action.

I do have another process question. So CEQA exemption, I know that's kind of pro forma now to expedite construction, but is there any kind of secondary review, like when 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. It's just to direct it to you.

Once you have CEQA compliance in a project, then that's sort of the end of the process. If things come up and you're not following maybe some of the requirements of that, then there may be some consequences there. But it's mostly on the front end of the project.

And is that a state-enforced?

It's a state law, yes.

Yes, CEQA. OK, thank you.

Julian, just a quick question for confirmation to the public. This signage is consistent with the municipal code as far as sizing and location? That is correct. All right. With that, I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve 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.

Commissioner Global?

Aye.

Commissioner Morales?

Aye.

Commissioner Perez? Aye. Chairperson Condit?

Aye.

Motion passes 4-0 with one absent.

Moving on to unfinished business, none. New business, none. Matters initiated by the Planning Commission staff, none. Moving on to reports. We'll go ahead and start with the City Attorney.

Good evening, Commission. Tonight we have somewhat of an orientation for the new Planning Commissioners as requested by Chair Condit. And so we've got hopefully a quick presentation for you all, but I might move quickly through it. If you have questions, I can slow down and we can discuss them. 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 your basic role 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 parliamentary procedure. just to give you a sort of first review of everything here. You could just jump to maybe the third slide there. One more. And so the agenda tonight is going to loosely follow 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 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 requirements. Next slide, please. You can keep going through there. And just before we get started on into the role and responsibilities, the commission is really driven by staff. And so I wanted to make sure you knew who to talk to if you have questions. And so you all know Stephanie and Julian and myself. If you don't know the arrangement with the city attorney, I work for Nubia. I work for her law firm. She's contracted with the city. 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. Slide, please. I'm sorry, I should have added Beltran as well. He's a fundamental part of this. So speaking of the things that you, the decisions that you can make as an advisory body, you generally have three decisions. The decision-making body in certain circumstances, for example, like a conditional use permit, if that's not appealed, then that's the final, your decision's final. The next one is going to be making recommendations to the council. And that's going to be for legislative acts, like zoning ordinances. And there's also some non-legislative acts, like development agreements. And finally, I haven't seen this yet, but you can have appeals of administrative permits. And that's going to be somebody appealing a decision of the planning director. I don't know if we've seen that yet. Next slide, please. Okay, so 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 is going to be challenged legally, it's going to have to go through the city council first. So As an advisory body, I think one of the fundamental roles that you serve is you connect the community with the planning department. And so a lot of times, you might not have a planning background, but 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 you're sort of the conduit there. And so that's how your role 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 agendizing items, and they're going to be the ones making recommendations and providing you those details. And so to further to that point, a lot of 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 broad discretion to the city on how it wants to implement its planning commission and the rules around it. And so for series, this is the attendance policy. 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 two consecutive unexcused absences if you move out of the city. AS WELL. SO THAT'S THE GENERAL PLANNING 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, THE BUDGET IS DETERMINED BY THE CITY COUNCIL AND ADMINISTERED BY THE CITY MANAGER. SO WE DO SET AN ALLOTMENT FOR training for planning commissioners. I believe there's 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. And so the trainings are allocated each fiscal year. And so coming, I believe it's in March, I want to say, is when the next one will be. We missed this year's one. So coming next year, we'll be able to send two commissioners if approved in the 27 budget. So if it is approved in the budget, then those commissioners will select two commissioners to go to that academy. Next slide.

OK, so now might be a good time if you have any questions regarding local requirements, because we're going to be moving on to state law. All set there? OK. Well, we'll start with the Brown Act. And the Brown Act is going to be sort of one of the main players in how we conduct the meetings. And it's meant for meeting transparency. And so it really wants transparency. 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 planning commission meetings are going to be open in public. And you cannot take any action or have any discussions on items that aren't agendized. There's some exceptions there, but you're unlikely to use them. They're more geared towards the city council.

Sorry, Thomas. Going back onto the last slide before we move forward, the council, I just, I missed it. You each get a monthly stipend. That monthly stipend is $80 per month. That's initiated by our office. That is also, 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 stipend, you'll still get that stipend. Any questions? Sorry.

The important part, the finances. Okay, next slide, please. So... The way that the Brown Act defines meetings is something that you need to consider. And so any time 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, it hasn't been agendized, and it's not open in public, then that's a violation of the Brown Act. So you do have to be... Be aware of when you're interacting with your fellow commissioners 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 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 official city council members if they reach out to us regarding a project? How does the Brown Act work? dictate in that situation?

I believe that it's limited to your legislative body. So if you're talking one-on-one with a council member, that's not going to be an issue. 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 considered to 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 can follow up with you just to confirm that. but because 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. The social media components are a bit nuanced and can be easy to violate. So 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. Next slide, please. And so this isn't to say that you can't get together with your commissioners outside of these council meetings. You just need to be cognizant of what you're discussing and your setting. So, you know, feel free to go to public events and community events and interact with each other, obviously. Next slide, please. One final point on the Brown Act is if you do need to teleconference in, you can do so. And there's two options for doing that. It's just cause. It's more for emergency circumstances. You're sick, a family member's sick, something like that. And then the second one would be reasonable accommodation for a disability. That would be more of a long-term accommodation. 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, as officials, your, um, correspondence can be, um, overturned for a Public Records Act request. So if you're discussing agency business with city staff, you wanna be cognizant that those records can be provided to members of the public who request them. Okay, now on to conflicts of interest. So there's 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 you don't have any contracts coming before you. Next slide, please. So if you have a financial conflict of interest or any conflict of interest, you're prohibited from making or participating in any decision before the commission. And so you can see those bolded phrases there. Those are sort of steps you take in the analysis, which is 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 the prohibition on what 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. or participate in the discussion. Now, that's not to say that you can't participate as a member of the public. 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 prohibited. So the one that I'm going to get into, because we deal a lot with property and with land use, is the financial interest in real property. If you have an interest in property within 500 feet of a project, there's a presumed conflict of interest. If you have a property that's between 500 and 1,000 feet, there's a conflict of interest if it affects one of those components of your property. So if it's within 1,000 feet, you're going to want to start thinking about 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 the decision. Then you have gifts and personal finances as well. And finally, the common law conflict of interest. This speaks more to 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 hearing, just because we want to make sure that everybody gets a fair opportunity to be heard. And you could start to run into the common law conflict of interest.

So how does that work if 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? Is there any blurred line there since we're an independent body?

So if the decision is not before them, then there's not going to be a conflict. But I will say that the 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, you see less of it because it's kind of hard to define and it doesn't quite 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 yeah 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 to their for them to vote on yes right okay just question all right trying to get through this here for you guys And so finally, if you do have a conflict, there's an opportunity during the agenda to announce that conflict, and you'll have to say what type of interest that you have in it. And once the decision, the item comes up, you'll have to leave the room. Okay, finally, we're getting into parliamentary procedures. Thankfully, Chair Condit has a pretty firm grip on them by now, so... You guys have been guided well, but these are 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. And so it also provides an opportunity to ensure due process and fair hearings. And so under the Rosenberg Rules of Order, which is sort of the main stay parliamentary procedure guidelines, every person is entitled to participate in the discussion, but they can only do so one at a time as recognized by the chair. And then I think you see a little less of this in the city council, but if you start to get disruptive discussions, 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 dais it's also good to maintain composure and try to avoid anything that's too inflammatory. And then here is just a step-by-step process for the public hearings. You're going to hear from staff first. 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 discussion and decision.

And...

Oh, and finally, the last point I have here are motions. Approvals are pretty straightforward, but I wanted to talk about continuances a little bit. It's important for the commission to make a decision without with the information that they have in front of them. And 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 delays. 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 continuances are generally gonna 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 continuance, but Again, if it's kind of a minor, trying to clarify maybe a legal requirement, I would say make the decision, and then that can be a flag for the city council when they come back to review it, if it does go to review. And then that's, there you go. Thank you. If you have any questions, happy 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, 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 operating correctly?

So the attendance, the planning commission, the way it works is two consecutive regular scheduled meetings if they're missed. except for the event of an illness or absence, 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 gonna be absent, that you please email Stephanie or the planning email. with a description of the absence, whether it's sickness, an emergency in a timely manner. And then we can bring that to the commission to prove that it is either an unapproved absence or not. And then those will be documented during the public time so that we have it documented moving forward in this way. If there's two consecutive unexcused absences, then at that time, then it'd become for the commission then remove that commissioner from the dais.

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

I want to say from previous allotments for the planning commission, I believe it's allotted $1,200. I mean, $1,600, so it's about $800 for each commissioner. That includes the hotel, the registration, and then any per diem to and from. So there's a per diem that costs in it. So that fluctuates depending on each year, during fiscal year, how much we allocate for it. And so then it's based on if it gets approved. But normally it's about $1,600 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 stipend and that roughly.

No, it's a yes, yes, yes.

Okay.

Was it allotted last year in the budget or is there a reason that we didn't send anybody? So it was allotted.

We had the two brand new commissioners were barely coming on board and we missed the deadline to send the planning commissioners to it.

Okay. Do we feel, I know we don't have a planning director, but is that... something we could do in house? Because 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, you know, I don't know what the training consists of, but is that something that could be done in house if we had a planning director or Somebody from staff that feels comfortable doing so?

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

If you're looking to recommend a future agenda item.

Okay, so I'd have to wait until the next meeting to do so. Is it based on this presentation?

If you want to ask Julian to get the ball rolling, I wouldn't say that's quite a recommendation.

Okay. Well, Mr. Geary, then I would like to formally just request, because I know the budget is coming up for the city council, that we remove the stipend as well as the travel for planning commissioners. And that could come back to the meeting and we could all vote on it, of course, but that would be my recommendation based off of this.

Sure. And for further discussion on that, it will be, will need to be agendized, but if you get the staff to begin looking into it, that'd make 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 want to circle back to the local. Oh, yeah, go ahead. I mean, is that a workshop that we can put together? I mean, I don't want to add any more work to your agenda, but I'm curious, like a local training with the five of us. Is that possible? Because I think I would really appreciate that. You know, I think most of us are not lawyers. You know, the legalese is a little, you know.

Yes. It's something that will need to be approved by the city manager or the city council because it'll require the expenditure of some funds. Yeah.

Probably an extra cost of the consultant we're currently paying or something like that. Sure.

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. With that, any other comments from staff? Seeing none, we'll go ahead and adjourn to the next Planning Commission meeting on April 20th at 6 p.m.

Thank you.