Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I call the planning commission meeting to order. Please stand if you can for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Will the secretary please read the roll?

Commissioner Callaway? Commissioner Davis?

Here.

Commissioner Rosenbluth?

Here.

Commissioner Williamson? Here. Commissioner Wong?

Present.

Vice Chair Ramim?

Present. The first item is selection of chair and vice chair. And I would like to invite Director Johnson. to run this.

Yes, thank you. So this is the time of year every year that we reorganize all of our commissions across the city. So tonight, the Planning Commission is the first of those commissions to do so. So staff will now open up not a nomination time period. So nominations are now open for position of Planning Commission chair. Do I have any nominations?

I'd like to nominate Vice Chair Rameen for chair.

I'll second.

So Commissioner Rameen has been nominated for the position of chair. Do I hear any other nominations? Hearing none, all nominations have been received. and nominations for the position of chair are now closed this is the time for public comment related to the appointment for the position of planning commission chair anybody in the audience please come forward if you would like to address the commission looks like we have no audience tonight um so no comments from the audience um the public comment period is now closed Do I hear a motion to appoint Vice Chair Rameem to the Office of Planning Commission Chair?

I'll make a motion to appoint Vice Chair Rameem to the Office of Planning Commission Chair.

I'll second. Are there any objections? Seeing no objections, it has been moved and seconded to appoint Vice Chair Rameem to the position of Planning Commission Chair. Do I hear any other motions? Can we have a, oh, since we had no objections, there's no need for a roll call vote. Oh, I'm sorry. We do need a roll call vote. I stand corrected. Lee, if you could please take a roll call.

Commissioner Calloway?

Yes.

Commissioner Davis? Yes. Commissioner Williamson? Yes. Commissioner Wong?

Yes.

Vice Chair Rameen?

Present.

and Rosenbluth.

I'm sorry, Commissioner Rosenbluth. Aye.

So the motion passes unanimously. Congratulations, Chair Romney. The chair will now assume the gavel and conduct the nominations for vice chair. And you have the same script in front of you. So if you could please handle that next part. Thank you.

I was hoping that you would continue in the position. All right. So thank you, everybody. We need to elect ourselves the vice chair. Are there any nominations for vice chair?

I'd like to nominate Commissioner Rosenbluth for vice chair.

I like to nominate Jason Wong for vice chair.

Are there any seconds on either? Okay. Director Johnson, what do we do? So we just got here.

We need, we need to take each motion separately. So if we could hear a motion, ask for a motion to appoint Commissioner Rosenbluth and see how that goes.

Sure. I'll move to appoint Commissioner Rosenbluth as Vice Chair of the Planning Commission.

Okay. Can we have a roll call vote? Or do we need a seconder? Any seconds?

I'll second.

Okay, could we have a roll call vote, please?

Commissioner Callaway? Aye. Commissioner Davis?

No.

Commissioner Rosenbluth?

Aye.

Commissioner Williamson? Aye. Commissioner Wong?

No.

Chair Rameen?

No.

All right, so there was not a majority vote received. So if we could move to the next nomination and see if we can get a majority vote.

I'll move to appoint Jason Wong as Planning Commission Vice Chair.

I'll second. Could we have a roll call vote?

Commissioner Callaway?

Aye.

Commissioner Davis?

Yes.

Commissioner Rosenbluth?

Aye.

Commissioner Williamson?

Aye.

Commissioner Wong?

Yes.

Chair Rameem?

Aye.

So it's a unanimous vote, and congratulations, Vice Chair.

All right. Very good. So we can move to the next item. The next item is Annual Training on Open Meeting Laws, Public Records Act, Conflict of Interest Rules, Claremont Elected and Appointment Official Handbook, presented by City Attorney Alicia Patterson.

Can you hear me now? All right, sorry about that. Good evening, Chair and members of the Planning Commission. I'm here again in September to give your annual training on a variety of laws that apply to you as appointed officials. This year we have a new topic that I haven't covered in several years, and that's the Public Records Act. So tonight we're going to be going over the Brown Act, Public Records Act, conflicts of interest, and some points that we wanted to highlight from the locally adopted city handbook, which is on the website under the commission tab. This is not a replacement for your AB 1234 ethics training. That's something that you have to do separately. And Director Johnson and Ms. Atanza can coordinate if you haven't done that already. I'm going to start with the Ralph M. Brown Act, and that is California's open meeting law. The gist of it is that any time a quorum of commissioners is discussing commission business, it needs to happen at an agendized meeting, like what you're doing tonight. You can't do it off the dais. You can't do it in the virtual world. And a quorum is a simple majority of the commission, which in this case is four out of seven of you. So to try to spice up this training as much as I could i've added a few interactive elements, this year, and so this slide. contains two statements that are true and one statement that is lie and I want to see if the Commission can spot the lie. So the first statement is that brown act violations can happen in either the real world like we're in right now or the virtual world like emails text messages and social media. The second statement is that most Brown Act violations are intentional. And the third is that you could be fined up to $1,000 and or imprisoned for up to six months for violating the Brown Act. So does anyone want to make a guess on which of those statements is not true? Two are true and one is not. B. Two. Number two?

Two.

Two. Yay, you're correct. Ooh, the colors didn't come through as well as I wanted them to. But the second statement is a lie. Most Brown Act violations are not intentional. The vast majority of them happen completely by accident. You could almost say innocently. No one intending to commit a Brown Act violation. It's very easy to accidentally violate the Brown Act. And the biggest source of Brown Act violations that I've seen in the course of my career is accidentally hitting Reply All. when an email is sent to the entire commission. And so that would be one of my biggest takeaway tips is that if you're emailing and corresponding to just look out for who the recipients are before you hit reply all.

Can I ask a question?

Did this used to be, I have a vague memory that the violation would happen when more than two members of a commission communicated. Has this changed or is my memory false?

So the two members, I think maybe you're thinking applies to the city council because they have five members total. And so up to two council members can have discussions outside of meetings without it being a Brown Act violation. Once you get to a third council member or more, you're at a quorum. And so for you, you have one extra member. You can have up to three commissioners discussing business outside a meeting outside And that's okay once you start adding in a fourth or more commissioners. That's when you get to a Brown Act violation. Got it. Thanks.

Just two questions then. So if two seats are vacant, though, three would be a majority then, correct?

So the majority doesn't change based on vacancies. The majority is still, and that's a really good question. But yeah, the majority stays the same. It's based on the total potential membership of your body.

So if we had three vacancies, people would need to get a unanimous bill basically in order for anything to pass.

So- Not necessarily. The voting requirements differ depending on what you're voting on.

Okay. So quorum and voting, okay.

So there are some things that can pass, and that's also a very strange situation where depending on who's present on a particular night, you might only need three votes to pass, whereas normally you would need at least four.

So the issue of quorum, excuse me, the issue of quorum in question for a Brown Act violation is, You're saying depends on the potential full number of the commission, which would always be seven in our case, even if there are only three at the time.

That is correct.

It's an odd anomaly where... That is because those three could get together and speak about anything and with impunity. Right.

But they couldn't have a meeting because you need a quorum to have a meeting.

Right. The three... If only three commissioners are... If there's, for some reason, four vacancies, then you can't have any meetings. Right. Or if you have a night where four people are absent, you can't have a meeting. Or if there's conflicts of interest and four people can't vote, that actually gets more complicated. If there's four conflicts, if you can't have a quorum due to conflicts, you effectively draw straws to decide who gets to come back notwithstanding their conflict. just one more question related to the slide on on the fine are we responsible for that personally or is that covered by the city no like you know responsible personally yeah if um you end up in an unfortunate position an unusual position of the da coming after you for a brown act violation it would be a you're they'd come after you as an individual not the city okay um that's very very unusual But I do have some examples later of folks who got themselves in trouble. The last slide touched on Brown Act violations can happen in the virtual world. Social media can be really dangerous for Brown Act purposes because one thing that we're seeing more and more is that people will start to tag you when they have a post or a message that they want you to see because you're a planning commissioner. And a lot of times they'll try to tag, if you are active on social media, they'll try to tag the entire planning commission so that they... have the whole commission's eyes on it. So this happens a lot with the members of the city council. Council member Reese has a really diplomatic way of letting folks know that he's not able to interact with those posts for Brown Act purposes. And so I put up his message. This is something that I've seen him post a number of times when people are trying to invite him into online conversations in social media that involve other council members. All right, this is the second and last two truths and a lie. So two of these statements are true, one is not. The first is that outside meetings, you must be careful to avoid discussing commission business with a quorum of commissioners through a series of communications like a game of telephone. The second is outside meetings, you must be careful to avoid discussing commission business with a quorum of commissioners through an intermediary or one or more intermediaries. And the third is, as long as a discussion is occurring in an agendized meeting, it won't violate the Brown Act. I'll give you a minute to think about it. How many think it's number one, number two, number three? I see one hand for number three. It's number three that's the lie. So the first two are known as serial meetings. And those are meetings that happen not all in the same place or at the same time or with the same group of individuals. they happen through a series of communications. And that can happen where somebody is going from commissioner to commissioner, trying to have a discussion, like, hey, I heard commissioners X, Y, Z are planning to vote a certain way. What do you think? Are you going to vote that way? If you go down that road and have that conversation, that would be a Brown Act violation. Same would be true if you're trying to have an offline discussion with a less than a quorum group, but you're not being careful about who's talking to who. With the council, they sometimes refer to these sort of offline groups as a Brown Act buddy system, because on the council, you can have up to two. You can have triplets. So you could have some Brown Act triplets if you wanted to and have conversations offline about commission business. But if your triplets are talking to other commissioners, you're going to end up with a Brown Act violation through a series of communications. The lie on this slide is that as long as you're in a meeting, you can't violate the Brown Act. That is not true. There's lots of ways to violate the Brown Act during a meeting, and the most common is just straying from the agenda and having a conversation about a topic that hasn't been agendized.

This is one of the reasons why we can't comment on general public comment when it comes up, because the issue usually isn't on the agenda. And if we started talking about it, we would certainly violate the Brown Act.

That's exactly right. Yep. So anytime that you find yourself... Maybe straying from the agenda or having a conversation, for instance in in response to a public comment or one good way to sort of pull the Commission back is to raise a point of order. And just ask hey is this on the agenda staff can try to jump into hopefully and steer you back to the agenda is topics. Um, Costa Mesa, by the way, city of Costa Mesa is in current litigation over an alleged Brown act violation for the council discussing something that wasn't on the agenda. So this, this is something that, um, there is a real world cautionary tale that's being played out right now in court.

Question, if a member of public brings up a topic that's not on the agenda, would a member of the commission asking the staff to look into it at a later time, is that a Brown Act violation?

No, and that's actually a really good response. If it's something that you would like to explore, you can ask staff to possibly bring it back. Scope of work permitting, and there's another slide later on about staff workloads and How much authority, the Commission has to direct staff workload, but if it's something the Commission wants to see on a future agenda that's certainly something that you can request of staff it's not something that you can order staff to do right, what if.

What about asking a member of the staff to comment on that in the meeting.

So that's where you get into a potential gray area. The Brown Act does allow for a very brief discussion if a point is raised and it is very common in other cities to have staff provide a brief response. That's something that the city council often does when commenters come up at general public comment at council meetings, but they're also very careful as a council to avoid ending up having a discussion amongst themselves about that topic. So if it's just, hey, staff, can you respond to the commenter? The Brown Act would allow for that. If the commission then wants to follow up with a conversation of their own, that's when you're treading into a Brown Act violation.

Alicia, could I take you back to the issue of whether a member of the public brings up in public comment an issue that is of interest to the commission later on after the public part of the meeting is gone? In asking staff to look into an issue and bring it back, does that action need a second, need that degree of formality from the commission?

So it doesn't, and it's largely because the commission, and this is going to be covered a little bit later, but the commission doesn't have authority to direct staff to do work. So at most you can make requests. So if there is a commissioner that would like to see it, it's fine for other commissioners to say, I agree. I would like to see that too. But if you start to get into the now we have a motion and a second and there's been an action on it, I think that I would discourage that because I think you're treading in the direction of a Brown Act violation by taking action. I see. Or you're treading in the direction of doing something that staff could be construed as the commission directing staff, which is really outside of the commission's role.

So that's, and that's my experience. I just wanted to sort of flesh that out because so many other issues can come up in public comment. And sometimes, you know, there is interest in asking staff to look into it. So thank you. Yeah. So it's more of an informal thing. And of course, staff can gauge the degree of consensus and interest in that issue.

Yep. I think that's a good way to handle it.

Thank you.

There are cities that have more formal rules for that, but Claremont's not one of them. All right, second section of the presentation addresses the Public Records Act, which I have not included in my trainings for several years. So even if you have had these trainings year after year, there's a good chance these next slides are going to be new to you. The Public Records Act requires that pretty much every piece of writing done by the city or its employees or its planning commissioners or other appointed officials or staff is all subject to public disclosure with a handful of exceptions. So, for instance, attorney-client communications are communications the city does not have to provide to the public. Personnel records that are... deal with employment do not need to be disclosed a lot of times copyrighted plans are protected where members of the community have an opportunity if they want to come to city hall and look at a copyrighted plan they can do that but they can't take a copy of it with them unless we've gotten consent from the holder of the copyright but in general everything that you put into writing about commission business could be subject to public disclosure if somebody requests it And so for this slide, I have a handful of cautionary tales. The first is that the Public Record Act applies to much more than what you would consider to be, I think most people would consider to be like official public records. It applies to your emails. It applies to your text messages. If you're sitting taking notes on something, potentially somebody could request your notes. If you're using non-city accounts, so like Gmail accounts, Yahoo, Messenger apps, Signal apps, there's a lot of different messaging applications now, Snapchats, all of those are subject to disclosure under the Public Records Act. And if you create a public record, you have an obligation to to maintain it for at least two years under state record retention laws. And so this is, it should be daunting because it is. An example of Public Records Act becoming, I think, very embarrassing for County of Orange lately is This past January, when there were all the fires orange county had a fire as well, the airport fire that it turned out was started by county public works workers who are trying to move boulders they. didn't have adequate water fire suppression and sparks emerged from like trying to move heavy rocks or something like that it started the whole airport fire. And it was all documented in text messages where the workers who started the fire wrote some pretty, I think they would later feel are embarrassing text messages about what had happened. And the news submitted a public record act request, got those messages. I think this was like front page news in Orange County for quite some time, this message exchange. You probably can't, it's hard to read from here, but... They texted that the ones that are in the news i'm going to talk about that we started a expletive fire and it's bad and then the response is we someone didn't follow directives. So. I'll go to my best practices first, then I'll share my other cautionary tale. So my first piece of advice with Public Records Act is as much as possible, use your city email account for discussing commission business. Don't use text messages, don't use personal accounts. If you are using personal accounts or text messages and we get a Public Record Act request, The onus is going to be on you to search your devices and your accounts to locate the responsive records and provide them to the city. That can be logistically a nightmare text messages. There's not a good way to get a text message from somebody's phone to the city clerk so that they can give it out. What we've been doing is basically using screen grabs where if somebody does have a conversation, which happens from time to time, they'll screen grab it and then send like the screen grabs to the city clerk, which is, they need to then like try to figure out how to put in order. Sometimes it's not easy to figure out what order the conversation went in. It's also like, it's just a hassle to try to identify and locate commission related communications that are mixed in with personal communications. And so our advice is, Stick to your city email when you're discussing Commission business if somebody sends you a text message or sends you an email to your other account just. We recommend you diplomatically redirect them to city email, so that the conversation can happen there instead. And then, when you are discussing city business keep in mind that what you are writing could end up on the front page of the paper and so. write your messages with the thought in mind that the audience might not just be the recipient. It might also be a much broader audience or somebody who's just curious about what are the planning commissioners thinking. And this happens to the city council all the time. They get a lot of public record act requests for their communications, but it can happen to planning commissioners too. So we want you to be aware of it.

Does there have to be any reasoning behind it? Or can I just say, hey, I want, you know, Ed Reese's emails from starting, you know, from the beginning of the year, from the beginning of time, and then you have to provide all this to me?

So if your request is too broad... There are ways that we can try to narrow. It's a high bar, but if I want all of the emails from the beginning of time, that's probably something that's going to take a year to complete that request. That is such a huge volume. But in general, the requester doesn't have to have a reason. They don't have to state why they're making the request. We do get plenty of requests that are broad for, I want all of so-and-so's emails over the last two months. That's fair game. We get those. More often, it's about a project. They'll say, like, I want all of the emails that relate to Citi Ventures, or I want all of the emails that relate to, and text messages. And I think a lot of folks know now that you can ask for lots of different types of writings. But yeah, the requester doesn't have to have a reason for asking for it.

Do they have to pay for it? Or is there any financial responsibility from the requester?

They only have to pay for it if they want paper copies. So we are allowed to charge by page for the cost of printing out the copies. We're allowed to charge if... It's pretty common for folks to ask for electronic records to be loaded onto a flash drive. And so we will... charge requesters for the cost of the flash drive. It's only $6. I don't think it's cost prohibitive to most folks. We don't allow folks to bring their own flash drives because that's a security risk.

And nothing can be redacted from these emails or no?

So we do redactions for, I had listed like exemptions. Sometimes there's information that's privileged. Sometimes there's personal information. Claremont is protective of if somebody is a member of the community reaching out to the city for some reason to make a comment, to ask a question, and they provide their personal information, like their cell phone number, their personal email address, their home address, we will redact those. There's... a public record act exemption that we feel solidly covers those people's right to privacy over their own personal contact information but for the most part um as long as it's about city business and it's not covered by a recognized exemption we don't redact it we provide it um So just keeping in mind that you gotta be careful what you put in writing or don't put things in writing that you would be uncomfortable being disclosed in a public record after Quest.

I want to just do a quick test of the boundary of absurdity. I just want to say how far this goes. For example, I have a notepad in front of me. I literally, before every meeting, I write down the names of the commissioners because I'm really bad with names and where they're sitting, frankly. So is this, at this point, public record?

So the notes...

Why do we have to keep these?

I know. So there's the record retention. The general rule is two years. There are exceptions for what the state has called transitory records. And so there's lots of little things. People jot down notes or they put something on a post-it, like things that you would not be expected to keep. It's not. And so I would not think that the notes you're jotting down are things that you need to retain for two years. I do think if somebody came to this meeting and said, I saw Chair Rameem taking notes during the meeting, I want to see his notes. We would have to review them for, like, did you write down anything that's privileged? There's certain exemptions that might apply to your notes that we would look, but there's also a chance that you might have to provide your notes so i would just like if you're writing this person's an idiot or things that you wouldn't want like um so nothing as casual as sending a sticky note down to the chair for a request for a five minute break so you know we dealt with this city of irvine um had a public record act request they could tell that folks were texting each other when they were on the dais. They could see people using their devices or using their tablets to, like, it looked like write emails and text. So there was a point where they had gotten a public record act request. Basically, people wanted to know what are all the communications going on. I can tell the council is texting or emailing. In Ruvine's case, they weren't passing notes, but it was sort of like a similar thing. exercise and they had to disclose all of the substantive. There were a few things, if it was something like a request to use the restroom, we viewed that as more of a personal private matter. Those types of notes weren't disclosed, but I think it is fair game if you're supposed to be deliberating publicly and it looks to the public like you were having a private conversation with somebody while you're on the dais and you're supposed to be paying attention to what's going on up here, then that's something that if I were there, I would be very cautious about what I put in writing as I was sitting, especially if it's something I'm sending out. If it's not just my personal note, if it's a message that I'm passing to a member of the community or staff or another commissioner. So those are good questions. And I do have a second cautionary tale with Public Records Act, and this involves using your personal accounts and your personal devices. There are now two examples of pending litigation that involve officials who declined to provide records that they had been storing in their personal devices or their personal. And what had happened was they got the agencies, they were both cities, city of Poway and city of Paso Robles, got Public Record Act requests specifically asking for council member emails that were on personal devices, like text messages and things like that. And the council members, I know in Poway, the council member said that he didn't have responsive records, but they knew that was not true based on the recipients of the messages he'd been sending. They outed him basically. And so an example is up on the screen where he had sent a message, a text message to someone that said, delete all my texts to you, okay? The Poway mayor and attorney said, are trying to sue me. Let's change to Signal app. Signal doesn't create, it's encrypted and it doesn't create like a record of your, I've never used it, but apparently it's something where you can be more clandestine, I guess, in your messaging. Let's change to Signal app. They can't access it. And then in Paso Roble, the council member declined to provide emails and the city got sued because the city wasn't able to produce the emails that the council member declined to produce. The city then in turn sued the council member because he was, his choices were what got the city into the trouble. So those lawsuits are pending. These are unprecedented. We're very curious to see what the outcome of them was. Like we, It's fairly recent that courts decided that the Public Record Act extends to your personal accounts and your personal devices. This is, to my knowledge, the first time that it's been tested in court. What do you do if somebody declines to cooperate and declines to provide? We don't have access to your text messages or your Gmail accounts. We would rely on you to provide that to us. And if you don't do it, the city is...

potentially liable so these are cases that will help us understand what are the consequences if an official chooses not to comply all right so so we access our city email i don't know how else we didn't access it because we don't have a city device but does that open up everything else that's on that device or is it just strictly related to like you know if i have like six email accounts on my email and they're all Merging together into a joint box or whatever.

So that's a great question. It's no, it's, it's, um, if you're emailing in your city account, it doesn't matter what device you're using to access it, whether it's your personal phone, your personal PC, you obviously don't have city equipment. It's not going to open. It doesn't mean that everything in your phone is now fair game. Okay. It would be if you start texting about commission business or you start having conversations in your personal accounts or your work account about city business.

I just misunderstood that.

Yeah, no, no.

Because when you said device, I was like, well, I'm deleting my email right now.

Yeah, no. No, device is the wrong word. I shouldn't have said that. Yeah. No, device is the wrong word. It's account. So in the city can actually, they can access your city account as well. And so a lot of times when we get public record act requests, the IT department will do a search where they just pull all the emails that have the search term or within the parameters of the PRA request, um, So, but that is, I mean, that's another reason you don't want to write things in your emails that you don't want other people to see.

At first I thought you said device. Yeah, sorry.

No, I misspoke. No, keep your phone private and keep your accounts separate so that you don't have intermingling. Yeah. All right, the next topic is financial conflicts of interest. And this is generally enforced by the Fair Political Practices Commissioner, FPPC, or the Attorney General. Again, this is not a replacement for AB 1234 ethics training. That's something that you'll do separately, probably through the JPIA course that's online. The financial conflict of interest statute and regulations basically prohibit you from either making participating in or influencing I underscored influence. A decision if it may have a reasonably foreseeable material financial effect on you, your immediate family or other financial interests. And so, if you do have if you identify that you have a conflict of interest and you're not able to participate in a vote on something. Not only do you need to recuse yourself and get off the dais you also are not allowed to try to influence the Commission's decision in any other way, and so. For instance, trying to. tell staff what they should or should not share what they should or should not recommend. having conversations with fellow commissioners. You certainly can't come back up to the dais and comment on something if you have a financial conflict. And so you have to basically stay 100% out of it. There are fairly severe penalties for violating conflict of interest rules. You can be fined up to $10,000 per violation, and that goes to you, not to the city. You can be forced to... give back up to three times any ill-gotten gains if you were able to financially benefit from a planning commission decision. And they can calculate how much you financially benefited. They can say you have to repay, you don't repay the city, you give money to, I guess, the state. But up to three times what you were able to benefit from the decision. And then even if you don't face any of these, there is quite a bit of public shaming that goes on if you have a conflict of interest and you don't recuse yourself. The conflicts of interest, there's five main sources, business entities that can be either companies that you invest in or companies you work for. Real property, it can be property that you own or you lease. Generally, the rule is that within 500 feet, you have to recuse yourself. There's situations where even broader than 500 feet could create a conflict if it's going to have a meaningful impact, if the decision will have a meaningful impact on your property interest. But 500 feet is a very good rule of thumb. And staff can help you with maps that show where the 500 feet go of all your properties if you want them. Sources of income. And so that could be employment income. It could be investment income. Gifts are something that you need to track. It's not, this doesn't apply to gifts like that you get from your family members or your friends. This applies to if you're effectively being courted by someone who could potentially be an applicant. So sometimes an applicant might send like a thank you basket or they might host a reception or something. I feel like the companies that do work that come before planning commissions also try to, and it's not a bad thing, but they, they're at the conferences that you might be going to. They are trying to show their appreciation in ways that are completely acceptable in the public sector, but need to be reported in, or sorry, in the private sector, but need to be reported in the public sector. And so just keeping track of your gifts, there used to be an FPPC app that you could use to track your gifts. Apparently that app did not work very well. I don't think that it's used anymore, but you do need to keep track if you're getting gifts from sources that could potentially be applicants. And then just a catch-all for personal finances. Generally, if a decision could impact you by more or less than $500, either to the positive or negative, that creates a conflict. And I wanted to underscore that the conflicts also apply to your spouse's and your dependent children's financial interests. And so spouse, domestic partner, their employer, their investment sources, their properties. So for this one, I have a trivia question to get you, keep you engaged. According to the FPPC, which county in the state of California had the most FPPC violations in 2024? You're guessing LA? Orange County. LA, Orange.

San Bernardino.

Ooh, San Bernardino. Anyone else want to guess? They track it. They have a heat map on their website. They like to publicly shame. So it was once again, LA County had the highest number of violations at 22 last year, but Orange County had the highest amount of penalties imposed at just under $150,000. A huge chunk of that went to a Costa Mesa city council person who did not comply with reporting requirements for her campaign. She was, find $68,000 last year.

There's like an orange guy. I think that had some like about, yeah, like there was like a whole bunch.

There's a lot of stuff. The Orange County guy is on the next slide. So if you like best practices first, best practices, make sure you fill out your form 700 every year and that it's accurate and complete. That's where you list your financial interests. You can get fined for not turning in your form 700. So don't forget to turn it in. The city clerk's office will hassle you quite a bit before you miss the deadline. You can ask staff for a radius map that shows 500 feet of your real property and trusts. It's always good to check the agenda carefully in advance to make sure that the applicant isn't a person or an entity that creates a conflict and that the property that's the subject of the application isn't one of the properties that's in your 500-foot radius. You can ask for advice from me or from the FPPC. My advice is not binding. If I give you bad advice, it doesn't protect you in any way. The FPPC can provide binding advice, but it takes... typically about three weeks, sometimes longer to get binding advice. You can also ask for informal advice. They have a helpline and an email address where they'll answer your questions. And then when in doubt, my advice is always to recuse and we have two cautionary tales up here of folks who I Don't think there's a whole lot of dispute that if they did what they were alleged to have done that it was Intentional but these are both ones the City Council member From City of LA and the other is Orange County or former Orange County supervisor Andrew Doe that were awarding contracts that benefited, in the council member's case, it was his wife. And then in Supervisor Doe's case, it was a charity that was effectively, allegedly, a sham charity run by his daughter, where all of the county money appears to have gone towards his family's interests, not a charity's interests. So those folks are in a whole lot of trouble. Andrew Doe has been sentenced to five years in prison.

jail and a whole bunch of financial penalties so one question what what constitute as a gift i guess like you know what i mean is there like a monetary amount on that or is it like someone buys you coffee it's like is that

So there is, there's a monetary amount, $50 over the course of a 12 month period. So unless it's a really expensive cup of coffee, the one cup of coffee won't do it. And then if it is a relationship where it's sort of a reciprocal, like I bought you a coffee and then you bought me a piece of cake and like it all came out in the wash, like you can kind of like, our view is that if it's that type of thing, you probably can net it out as long as you're, being diligent and making sure that like you are actually, I think there's a lot of folks that sort of have that relationship in their world where they're not trying to like woo each other. They just don't want to have to like split every check. Um, but yeah, it's $50 in over the course of a 12 month period. Um, All right, the last section is on the city handbook. And this is the handbook that was adopted by the city council and that's on the city website. None of these rules come with fines or jail time or any involvement, DA or the AG or the FPPC, no one's coming after you if you violate these. But what might happen is the city council might decide they want to remove you from the commission. These are rules that the city has recently revised their handbook to highlight because it's really important to the city council. And I don't know if you noticed, but they now are having you sign basically an affidavit saying that you received the handbook. And so if you haven't done that already, the city clerk will probably be following up to find out where your signed receipt is. but these are important to the council. So we wanted to highlight them in the presentation. The first is that if you're speaking publicly at another commission or a city council meeting, you need to always clarify what capacity you're speaking in. And so what they wanna see is that you come up, you're welcome to comment at council meetings, but you have to come up and say, even though I'm a planning commissioner, I'm speaking in my personal capacity tonight. and if you don't do that they're probably going to stop your comment or circle back and make sure that you clarify what capacity you were speaking in um the second is that you're not authorized or you're not allowed to speak on the commission's behalf or on the city's behalf unless you have proper authorization and the only time you're going to have authorization is basically um in certain appeal situations or if the council wants to hear from the chair or the vice chair or if neither are available from another commissioner on why a council made a decision or why the commission made a decision it did or why it made a recommendation, sometimes they will ask the director to arrange to have you come to the council meeting so you're available to speak on what the decision was or what the recommendation was. So those would be times where one of you is authorized to speak on behalf of the commission. Otherwise, you have to be careful that you're not speaking in a way where people could misconstrue that your comments are individual or personal, that you're not posting as a planning commissioner or the planning commission supports this or doesn't support this or just being cautious about how you present your views to the world, that it doesn't get mixed up. Um, the second, um, is that as the planning commissioners, the council really wants you to act as advisors, not as advocates. Um, and so it's possible that you all have things that you're passionate about that you want to advocate for, but the council really asks that you leave advocacy at the door when you come in to serve as a planning commissioner and instead, um, think of your role as a role as an advisor to the council. Um, They also want to make sure that you are aware, and they put this now in the handbook several times, that you keep an open mind until you've heard all of the evidence. This is something that for a lot of decisions, state law requires you to do if it's a quasi-adjudicatory decision. But for all decisions, the council wants to make sure that commissioners are aware waiting until they've heard all of the testimony before they make up their minds. And so as much as possible, keeping an open mind, respecting the process that even if you don't agree with the commission's decision or the council's decision, that that is the process. And at some point, You need to go with the majority. You don't need to agree with the majority, but the majority decision is going to carry and go to the council. Lastly, that you treat each other, staff and the public with civility, even if you don't necessarily agree with them. There's no guarantee that members of the community will treat you with civility, but in Claremont, it's important that to the council that staff and the commissioners treat others with civility and try to set the tone as much as they can. Lastly, points to highlight from the city handbook, you don't have authority to assign work to staff. Staff's work plan is already very full and it's directed by council priorities and objectives and a huge volume of state laws that more and more are putting shot clocks on staff where if they don't get applications processed on time, there will be consequences like the application will automatically be deemed approved or the applicant can be file a lawsuit to have a court order the city to speed up and process the application. If you think about it in it so there's seven of you if each of you were to ask a question that took or to have staff look into something that took one hour that's going to add up to almost a full day's work. with just the seven of you. There's I think five commissions in the city that each have seven members that adds up to 35 different individuals. Just small questions can add up and easily take up an entire staff FTEs bandwidth of like a week's worth of work, just if everything, so there's, keeping in mind that there's a large number of commissioners, there's a limited amount of staff and they already have very full plates. So if you're asking for staff to look into something or bring something back, just appreciating that staff is not necessarily going to be able to say yes to those requests. And it's going to be based on how much bandwidth they have and what the council's priorities are. And last point is if you know in advance that you're either gonna be absent or that you have to recuse yourself from an item, please make sure to let staff know as soon as possible because that can affect whether or not there's gonna be a quorum for the meeting. And so we've had it come up where there was, it wasn't this commission, but there was another commission that had an item where due to a mix of folks who were conflicted out and absences, they ended up having a meeting where they weren't able to hear the item because they didn't have a quorum at that meeting. And it was due to just like an, it was bad luck, but it was largely due to like an unexpected absence that if the person had let them know in advance, they could have rearranged the schedule and not had the applicant there with the applicant's whole team and the staff member there. it is a lot of time and money and work to get ready for a hearing. And so if it's not going to go forward, it's better to know in advance so that everybody can adjust and reschedule. And that's all. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Are there any questions?

Thank you for the presentation.

Thank you.

All right, so we move to the next item. It's time for public comment. So the Commission has set aside 30 minutes for persons in the audience who wish to comment on items that are not listed on the agenda but are within the jurisdiction of the Commission. Members of the audience will later have the opportunity to address the Commission regarding all items on the agenda at the time the Commission considers those items. The city has discontinued taking public comment via Zoom or telephone. Public comment will be taken in person or in writing. Written public comment received prior to 3 p.m. today has been distributed to the commission and placed in the city document archive. There's a link to the document archive on the city website calendar listing for the meeting. Will the secretary please state how many general public comments were received and distributed?

There were none.

General public comment for items not on the agenda will resume later in the meeting if there are speakers who did not get an opportunity to speak because of the 30-minute time limit. The Brown Act prohibits the Commission from taking action on oral requests related to items that are not on the agenda. The Commission may engage in a brief discussion, refer the matter to staff, and or schedule requests for consideration at a subsequent meeting. Before I open a public comment, I would like to remind audience members that out of respect for these proceedings and for others in the audience to refrain from behavior such as cheering, jeering, and clapping. The commission requests but does not require speakers to identify themselves. When it is your turn to speak, please state your name unless you wish to remain anonymous. Each speaker will be allowed up to three continuous minutes. Members of the audience will have the opportunity to address the planning commission regarding items on the agenda at the time of commission. Consider those. If you wish to speak during public comment, please approach the podium. Are there any members of the public in the council chamber who wish to address the commission on matters not listed on the agenda? Thank you. Thank you, you have three minutes. We'll see.

Oh, there we go. Now I can hear myself. Well, good evening, Douglas Lyon, Claremont resident. I just wanted to point out regarding the last presentation our state legislature has exempted themselves from all of those requirements. Good for them.

Thank you. Are there any other comments? I take that as a no. I will close public comment and bring it back to the Planning Commission. Anybody on the Commission would like to discuss items not on the agenda? Okay, no? So we move on to the consent calendar. We have two items on the consent calendar. One is planning commission meeting minutes of July 15, and the other one is the update on city council priorities and 2024-26 objectives. All matters listed on the consent calendar are considered to be routine. The planning commission or one or more commissioners or committees have previously considered most of the items on the consent calendar. The commission may act on these items by one motion following public comment. Only commissioners may pull an item from the consent calendar for discussion. The commission will waive reading of resolutions. Each resolution will be numbered following public comment. Each resolution will be numbered following Commission approval. Now is the time for those in the audience to comment on the consent calendar. Each speaker will be allowed three continuous minutes to comment on items on the consent calendar. Are there any members of public in the Council Chamber who wish to speak to the consent calendar? Okay, seeing none, I will close for public comment. Would any commissioner like to pull an item for discussion or is there a motion to approve the consent calendar?

Chair, can we take these motions individually? I think, you know what I mean? Just given Commissioner Calloway's, you know.

Then you have to pull them.

Oh, okay. Then I'll pull item number three, the meeting minutes of July 15th.

Okay. And commissioner Rosenbluth, you were going to say something.

I was going to move acceptance of the consent calendar, but I will move acceptance of item four. Okay. I'll second.

Okay. Could we have a roll call vote on item four on the consent calendar?

Commissioner Halloway. Commissioner Davis. Yes.

Yes.

Commissioner Rosenbluth?

Aye.

Commissioner Williamson? Aye. Vice Chair Wong?

Yes.

Chair Rameen?

Aye. Okay, so item number four on consent calendar has been approved. Vice Chair Wong, so you pulled planning commission meeting minutes of July 15, 2025.

Yeah, I'll make the motion to approve.

Second. Could we have a roll call vote?

Just a reminder that if you were not at the last meeting or have not heard the meeting, if you could abstain from the vote. Commissioner Callaway. Commissioner Davis. Yes. Commissioner Rosenbluth. Aye. Commissioner Williamson. Aye. Vice chair Wong. Yes. Chair Rameem.

Aye. The motion passes with five yeses and one abstention. All right. Let's see. Do we want to take a break? Director Johnson, any news on the applicant for the next item?

No news, but I mean, the commission's welcome to take a break if you'd like to take a break at this point in the meeting.

Okay, why don't we take a five-minute break? It is 7.59. Let's come back at 8.04.

So now I'm like, oh, here we go. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Google has one now. Yeah.

So we have a situation which is there's an applicant for conditional use permit the applicant was to be here their flight is late of their flight landed at eight o'clock. They may or may not be here. or something like that. So we have, I suppose, the situation is the city could make a presentation, we could have questions for the city. If we have either new conditions that we want to add or if we have questions for the applicant, if the applicant isn't here, then we would not be able to get answers. And we have the option of sort of moving forward and seeing what happens or pushing this by two weeks to the next meeting. The applicant does live in the city. So can I fill out everybody's seeing what the opinions are? Should we move ahead today and see what happens or push it back to two weeks from now? Commissioner Williamson?

You know, if the humans are, if their planes just landed, I don't believe they'll get here tonight. And I mean, if they were, you know, 1520 minutes away, that would be different. I, I would be willing to grant them that. But I don't think that'll work tonight. I don't mind continuing this to the next meeting. And I'm sure they would probably be much more fresh and and relaxed by then.

Okay. Does it make any difference that is Ontario Airport not not LAX? Just throwing that out. I don't have an opinion myself. I have no idea. Okay. Vice Chair Long?

I would be more inclined to hear the presentation tonight. If we get to an impasse where we feel like we need some input back from the applicant, just giving us our time is here. We showed up. The assistant planner probably has her presentation ready as well. You know what I mean? If we're in the interest of time, if we could get this at least heard tonight, and if there is an impasse, then we can continue to a subsequent meeting, but at least we got the majority of the public hearing out of the way and getting it as far as we can if we can't get it across the line tonight.

Commissioner Davis?

I think I agree with commissioner Williamson. I'd rather kind of continue it to another meeting and just have it be as complete as possible for our normal process with the applicant here. I mean, absent, if the staff tells me that this sets them back a tremendous amount, I would be inclined to disagree, but I would, I prefer to hear things kind of all together and not split over two meetings if possible.

Commissioner Rosenbluth.

I'd be inclined to can to hear the staff report tonight. And if we get to a point where we feel we need the applicant, we can continue it to another meeting. I think I'd prefer to go that way and see how it goes.

Okay. Commissioner Callaway.

I agree with them. What was just said and with Commissioner Wong, if we can make progress tonight, let's try. Go forward.

Okay. Question from city planner. If we push this back by two weeks, one, will you be here in two weeks? And how much of your time have we wasted by, you know,

I will have had to do the work anyway, and now I've done it, so I will just show up again in two weeks. I have another item, so I will already be here. So it's not setting me back either way.

Do I take it your preference is just to do it?

Or get it going if you don't have a preference.

All right. The commission seems somewhat split. And I guess my feeling is let's just go ahead and just start off with your presentation. Maybe the applicant will show up. Maybe not. Maybe we'll have a lot of questions. Maybe not. And then let's see what happens. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Excuse me Jeremy. May I ask a question if we proceed tonight and staff gives the presentation and The applicant is not able to appear in that time and we continue the item won't I'm assuming then at the next meeting staff will have to make the same presentation essentially again and

I don't think so. I think, I think, no, we can say, we can just continue it to the next session and then say the additional step is our questions and so forth. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't believe it's up to your discretion. We will likely have to notice public notice again, but other than that, but the public hearing should be closed.

You know, if we take comment tonight on it, you know, we won't have to take a public comment on the next meeting.

Yeah.

Correct. That's correct.

Okay, so let's get started and let's see what happens.

There we go good evening to remain and the Commission, I am Jordan goose and assistant planner with the city of claremont and i'm here to present cp file 24 dash CO six a proposal for a three story mixed use residential building, on behalf of the Tucker schumann venture. The subject property is 115 Harvard place. So on screen is an aerial view above the property. 115 Harvard Place is located in the center of the block between North College Avenue and North Harvard Avenue. The subject property can only be accessed through this existing public alleyway from either West First Street or West Second Street. The subject property is surrounded by a variety of uses, including the United States post office in the north village dance arts and crafted sellers to the south, the Sumner house is to the east and creme brick bakery is directly to the West. So on December 24th, 2024, an application was submitted requesting the approval of a CUP to permit a new three-story mixed-use residential building in the Claremont Village. the Claremont municipal code allows for mixed, uh, residential commercial developments with the approval of a conditional use permit. And this, uh, code section also specifies that the residential component must be part of a larger mixed use development that includes commercial uses on the ground floor. And if this CUP is approved, the APC architectural and preservation commission will review the design of the proposed building at an upcoming meeting. So for some background on the property, it is zoned Claremont Village overlay with the associated general plan designation of Claremont Village. The property is 3,286 square feet in size. There is an existing building on site that is 1,340 square feet. This building was built in 1902. And the proposed building is 2,715 square feet. There are currently no formal parking spaces on the property, though there are currently cars often parked on site. I will get into parking a little bit more detailed in a later slide, but to preface, AB 2097 has no parking requirement for development projects within a half mile of a major public transit station, and that is applicable to this project. For some further background, the site, as I mentioned, is currently developed with an existing 1340 square foot two unit residential building built in 1902, which was originally as a barn and carriage house for the Sumner House, which is one of the oldest homes in Claremont. This building is also listed on the Claremont Historic Register and has had many uses over time. including a restaurant, a meeting house for the Rotary Club and the American Legion Post, and it's currently residential. So parking so pursuant to a between 97 essentially public agencies are not impose or enforce any minimum parking requirement on a residential commercial or development project within half mile of a public transit station, as I mentioned, this applies to the property located at one 15 Harvard place the. project will offer no parking spaces following the construction of the development. And as I mentioned, because we are aware that vehicles are currently parked there, uh, we will ensure moving forward that the site will always maintain an adequate and ADA accessible path of travel given, um, both the residential and commercial uses that will, that are proposed for the site. So, as you can see the subject property is well set back from West first street the proposed building will be located just to the left of the carriage house in this photo matching roughly the height of the Coppola on top. This is the view from West second street, we are standing next to the post office. And because the property is difficult to see from the street, I have also included a couple of photos taken closer to the subject property from the alleyway first facing roughly south. And then northwest, the paved area shown will be the main access point from the alley to the proposed property at the back. So next we will move to the site plan, indicating the arrangement of the buildings on site. You have the existing residence located in the top northeast corner, and the proposed building is in the lower southwest corner. It will be exactly on the property line, so zero property line wall. And again, it's a three story building 2,715 square feet. So then we have the first floor which consists of the 464 square foot commercial space and then unit A, which is a 226 square foot studio and a 216 square foot studio unit B. There's also a small laundry room in the corner. Next we have the second floor, which consists of the first level of unit C and D unit C is 825 square feet and unit D is 792 square feet. Both are two levels that carry up to the third floor. Uh, as shown the third floor has additional bedrooms and bathrooms for each unit respectively. So though the design and architecture of the proposed building will be reviewed by the Architectural and Preservation Commission, I did want to provide some general information about the design of the building as shown. So there's a smooth exterior plaster finish, deep red tone with zinc shingle accents, aluminum-clad windows and doors, a painted steel external staircase, and then select features feature aluminum Juliet balconies, and a large painted trellis over top that adds articulation. The northern elevation looking from West Second Street. This is the facade adjacent to Creme Bakery indicating a light well on this facade. And the south elevation looking from West First Street. i've also included a few renderings by the applicant, providing different perspectives of the proposed building within the context of the village so first we have a perspective from the alleyway. Harvard place and with the carriage house removed. Then we have a perspective further down the alley now closer to the post office. And lastly, we have a perspective from City Hall looking out across Harvard Avenue and West Second Street. So ultimately, the basis for staff's recommendation of the approval is based on staff's determination that all of the findings can be made to allow for the development of this project. As one of the few places in the city with amenities accessible on foot, staff believes that the property is suitable in location and size to introduce new residential mixed-use development. The project, as I mentioned, The applicant has worked with staff to thoughtfully design and introduce this density in a manner that doesn't visually overwhelm the building's simple but effective architecture, and the proposed request would support several of the general plan's goals and policies, particularly those focused on sustainable development and providing a variety of housing options within the city. So in conclusion, staff recommends that the Planning Commission adopt the approval resolution found in your packets and find the item exempt from environmental review under CEQA. And that concludes my presentation. Are there any questions for staff?

Any questions for the staff at this point? Let's start with Commissioner Rosenbluth.

I know that the parking issue is something that's superseded by state law um that just apply to automobiles or trucks and automobiles my question is i didn't see any evidence of any uh facility for parking bicycles anything like that on the property would we be able to uh suggest that there should be some bicycle parking or would that conflict with the state law

Not to my knowledge, so that's definitely something we can speak with the applicant about. So I will make note of that. Thank you.

Commissioner Davis? Could you go back to the first floor layout again? Yes. So it has two residential units on the first floor next to the commercial unit? Correct. Is that correct? Mm-hmm. Okay.

And I will also say the commercial unit was originally proposed as a retail and we worked with the applicant to do something more office professional given the lack of parking site context. And even the applicant himself said, depending potentially on rental prices that even someone like him would be interested in moving into that space.

Okay. So the commercial units intended to be primarily office professional.

Correct. Yeah, about 794, I believe.

The commercial space?

Correct.

So in our notes, it says the municipal code. Sorry.

Sorry, may I provide a correction, Commissioner Wong? The commercial space is 464.

And then the total building is?

2,712. 15. 15. Thank you, Matt.

Commissioner Davis?

Sure, I was just noting that in the municipal code, it says that in the village, residential components have to be part of a large mixed use development, but it also encourages residential uses to be located on the second floor above commercial units, I think, rather than next to them. I think everything else that I see with the development looks great. I think my one concern would be having the commercial and the residential on the same floor.

Uh, commissioner Williamson, do you have any questions?

No, I, I've got the questions at this point. Okay.

Commissioner Wong, any other questions?

Can you just explain, or maybe, you know, um, director Johnson can possibly clarify the commercial requirement, um, as part of the code is, you know, being a mixed use, is there any requirement that they have to have a minimum commercial size or cause to me it seems like, you know, this is the very minimal amount. to kind of get away with doing a four unit plex. And, and that's just where I'm just kind of a little weary on, you know, what's, what's taking place.

So if I read directly from the code section, it says that it's approved provided the resident residential development is one component of our larger mixed use development, followed by such mixed use development shall include commercial uses on the ground floor. Um, residential uses are encouraged, but not required to be located on the second floor above commercial uses. Um, so I think there's some leeway for discretion and that would be left to you.

Yeah. And unfortunately, yeah, I don't feel comfortable putting any units on the ground floor. Um, I would like to see all that reserved for commercial use. Um, you know, especially given the fact that the commercial space is only 17% of the overall square footage of the building. It doesn't seem adequate that it's providing enough commercial uses for for for the village. Okay.

All right, I have no questions at this time, so we'll we'll we're going to answer question wasn't just one of the question probably better for the applicant, but you have any idea what the expected rents are for the. residential units.

I do not. It is something that I have reached out and asked. But again, I think the applicant would have that information.

Thank you.

Yes, please. So probably a question for the city attorney who I think is not here. But we do have something from Cal HDF sitting in front of us. So probably being advised by, I think our city attorney or by staff on, um, if we are kind of tied and we can only roll against it on grounds of violating health and safety standards, which is, I think what the note is telling us.

So I'll, uh, I'll take a crack at that answer. Um, I did discuss this letter with the city attorney, um, earlier today, um, she hasn't had the time to take a deep dive into all these new bills. Some of them are as recent as a few weeks ago in the, in the governor's budget. So she said, she told me if she was here tonight, she would probably say this letter is probably accurate. Um, but it's not as, I think definitive of an answer as you're actually asking. Um, so I, I don't have a great legal response for you. Um, and there's, there's some gray areas in some of these new laws about, um, what applies in affordability levels and propelling wage. And so, yeah, her answers would have been tonight if she stayed was, it appears to be, but I can't be for certain without spending more time into a legal dive on it.

Thank you.

But I would also like to respond to one of the earlier comments, who I think, yeah, I mean, the intent of the mixed use in the village was part of a larger mixed use project. So to put the amount of square footage that Commissioner Wong is referencing, I think does... not completely conflict, but I think probably wasn't the intent when that code was drafted. I think this is a very, very tough site though. I mean, this site is essentially buried in an alley, buried in a back alley. And on top of that, the building is buried at the back of the lot. So it's when you saw pictures of those elevations and you might I mean staff wasn't initially a little alarmed at the architecture But that we received some and this will be handled at the architectural commission where they're more into design issues But when you look at photo sims of adjacent streets and how non visible this site is it really is it would be a tough commercial site to lease out Perhaps not for some office passive office uses, but I think you kind of brought out a point of the code of larger mixed use project is.

Actually, it brings up a question. I went and looked at the site as best as I could because there were walls and everything. Can you give us a feel for, particularly for the ground floor apartments? I see there are entry points, but how much space does a human being have to get to that entry point? Like what is...

Let me bring up the site plan one more time.

I know they're flush with the boundaries of the property on the other sides, but at the entries, how close is it to the existing historic building?

So the proposed building is 15 feet, 10 inches away from the historic building. And there's a quite large, uh, Chinese Elm, uh, in between those two buildings that is intended, intended to be preserved, um, from the, the sort of driveway ask pathway, um, from the alley. If I'm approximating, the dimension isn't explicitly annotated here. But referencing the 15 feet and the 10, I would say this is about 13 feet in width.

OK. I see, actually, just looking at one of the site plans, it seems like in order to get in, there's a five-foot wide pathway on the north side of the existing two-story structure. Yes. They would have to walk there. And then basically for one of the apartments, you make a left turn, into the 15-foot separation to get entrance. In the other one, they will sort of continue going forward until they get to their entry. Am I reading this correctly? Yes.

Yes, so there's one apartment entry is on the top north side and then the other is on the eastern facade.

And am I reading the numbers correctly? That is the path coming in from Harvard Place north of the existing residence. Is that five feet wide or is it less than that?

It's five feet from the proposed building from the existing residence, perhaps three. Three and a half.

I don't know whether that's architectural commission issue or us. It's three feet. Are there any regulations regarding how wide that path has to be?

My understanding is because it's an existing building, the intention was to make the other side the main entryway.

Yeah, but how do they get in from the other? Is there another way to get in? I mean, that entire lot, how do they get in to get inside their apartments? Is that only through Harvard Place?

Correct.

OK.

Yes.

So they're going to have to go through that three foot?

Or the 13 foot entrance on the other side.

Oh, the South. Okay. That's open.

Yes, it is open.

I guess when I looked at it, there was a wall there or something.

They're going to open it up.

They're going to open it up. Got it. All right. All right. Thank you.

You have a comment. So does the city have any floor area ratios that they have to abide by? Because it seems like, you know, this is a relatively small lot and they're putting a lot of square footage on this. You know, I don't, What did you list what the square footage is for the two story house? For the main building?

The main or the existing residence?

Yeah, the existing residence. And does this, because I imagine the square footage in this other residence is going to be way, way bigger than the main building, correct?

Yes, I believe it's 1000 more slides. One moment, please.

But Director Johnson, does the city establish any kind of four-area ratios?

We do. In our general plan, all the districts in the city have FARs.

Okay.

And what is the FAR for the village?

There is none.

Oh, there's none.

Same as with the setbacks. There are no setbacks in the village. So the limiting principles would be the three-story height. There are a few others. Pull up. But to answer your first question, the existing residence is 1,340 square feet, two stories. And the proposed three-story building is 2,715 square feet. 2715? Correct.

So 4,000 square feet, basically, on a 3,200-square-foot lot. 3,300-square-foot lot.

Any other questions for the planner before we let her sit again? Okay. All right. Thank you. I'm sure we'll circle back to you. Um, typically of course the next step is applicant presentation. Applicant is here, is not here. So we're going to kind of scramble it a little bit and why don't we move to public hearing a step? And uh, so, uh, Hold on a second hold on a second all right any member of the public would like to comment on this particular item. I see the public moving forward. You have a total of three minutes.

Good evening again. I'd like to address one particular point about this project, and that is the exterior design and the horribleness of it. And we're not talking about Baseline Road. We're not talking about Arrow Highway. We're talking about the village. We're not just talking about West Village. We're talking about the historic village. And I mean, seriously, anybody's third grade class could have come up with this design just by driving around town. and looking at anything that's been built in the last 10 years. This is absolutely nothing special, and it's really a god-awful design for the village. On page one, it says staff believes that the proposed building is consistent with the municipal code and the village design plan. Well, I'd sure like to know what staff was thinking when they wrote that. Because I've gone through the village design plan and I can't find any sense of anything that would resemble this. Perhaps Director Johnson could tell us whether the staff even gives a copy of this village design plan to prospective builders for the village area. It seems to me that would be a pretty valuable thing for them to have. And regarding the, so we have the village design criteria, design plan criteria, and we also have the municipal code. The village design plan is required, let's see, right here in the village district specifications. Development regulated in this chapter shall conform to the village, Claremont Village Design Plan. Crystal clear, it's mandatory, it's not optional. and it's not based on any of our opinions about the validity of this project, our opinions about the way it looks, does it conform to this, to at least the spirit of this? And no, it doesn't. Why didn't they, for example, make it look like the existing carriage house? the clabbered facade and whatever else, whatever other design, make it look like it's been there as long as the carriage house has been there. And since the municipal code is within your purview, the village design plan is required by the village code, this is in your lap. you guys have authority to say, no, this does not comply. And that brings us to page two of your staff report, letter C under alternatives, express an intent to deny. Why? Well, based on non-compliance with 16.060.040. It doesn't comply.

Thank you. Your time is up.

Yes, I know. Thank you. It does not comply with the village design plan. Please do not approve this until they redo the design.

Okay. As we don't seem to have any other members of the public, does this go ahead?

We did receive one written public comment on this item.

Yes. And Chair, if I could also clarify an earlier question from Commissioner Wong. We do have a FAR for the Claremont Village, and it ranges from 0.3 to 2.0. So at a lot size, roughly slightly under 4,000 square feet, roughly 8,000 would be the limits that they are.

Anything you want it to be. We do. Okay. Does the staff wish to... Make a comment regarding the public comment.

Oh, sure. So our, our architectural commission is tasked with design review on projects of this nature, and it does go to them. And I know the commenter, um, made comments uh... a lot about design issues and how it conforms with the design issues outlined in that uh... in the document he was showing you the village design guidelines so we really do leave really all design related issues to that commission i can tell you that uh... staff did have some concerns initially especially with some things colors and things of that nature and the applicant actually went to heritage to one of their uh committees claremont heritage a formal committee they they um regular meetings of and the the committee actually um was in favor of the project as long as they changed the color scheme um so they at least from a part of claremont heritage i'm not saying claremont heritage in its entirety but a preservation committee that they they hold meetings um it it went through that you know less formal city process but it's certainly a process that claremont heritage um use utilizes But I think ultimately the architectural commission needs to weigh in on these design issues.

Before we go further, since there are no members of the public here, I would like to close the public comment section. So Vice Chair Wong wants to say something?

Yeah, I just had a quick comment or quick question for Director Johnson. It's my recollection that, yeah, all design issues are going through the architectural commission, architectural and preservation commission with that. No, no building permits will be issued unless they get an approval from them. Correct. That's correct.

All right, so again, I sort of scrambled the steps in here, hoping that the applicant would arrive. Applicant is not here. We obviously have a number of questions, but do we want to at least have a preliminary discussion amongst ourselves at this point, or absent that, that basically we would have to continue this to the next meeting? um anybody would like to have make some comments have some discussion right now commissioner callaway

I think the point of the commercial versus residential space is interesting. And I'm new to this. And that seems like a really tiny amount of commercial space. And also, since it's really hidden, this building, it would have to be office space. Nobody's going to put a retail space in an alleyway with no visibility. But I guess I'm I'm curious about, and a couple people, commissioners brought it up, having residences on the same floor. And does that seem weird? And if so, what are the concerns?

Okay. Commissioner Rosenbluth, do you have any comments right now?

What are we discussing now? Whether we want to discuss it now or whether we want to do the discussion now?

I have a hunch we're going to continue this to our next meeting. So we're going to have a chance to discuss again. But if there are any points of discussions we want to have right now... You know what I mean?

If we do have some discussions... So, you know, when they do bring it back with the applicant, at least staff will have some sort of recommendation of, you know, what the commission's concerns are. I think that's what could be beneficial from some preliminary discussions right now. If you, you know, like the project as is, then obviously there's little to discuss.

If we're discussing it now, I feel that this is a misused project. Roughly, I mean, almost 20% is commercial. And I've seen several other mixed use projects come before this where they put 5,000 feet of restaurant or store in a 50,000 square foot mixed use development and it's called mixed use. So I think this is well within the priorities we've seen the village itself has quite a few residences that are first floor residences if you go through the whole thing so having residents on the first floor is not unusual for the village the issue with the village design plan is that the designs are supposed to maintain the massing and pace of the buildings around it in the village. And I think this does that very well for an infill project. It actually gets on a very small lot. It gets a usable amount of space in there in a way that doesn't overwhelm anything else. And obviously the design itself isn't one that I would favor, but that's not our purview at this point in terms of the way it works in that area is providing extra residences within the village area, providing some more commercial space within the village area. I think it benefits from the fact that we can no longer require parking, because if we did require parking for four units, we probably would have a problem with whether it relates to the streets effectively. The fact that there is no parking means that we don't have to worry about the way it relates to the streets and traffic issues. I am concerned that we would expect somebody living there to use alternative non automobile transportation, but not just public transportation. So the fact that there's no evidence of a bicycle parking is an issue that I have with it, but I don't think it's sufficient to prevent approving it. I just think the applicant should look at that issue and maybe provide some uh bicycle parking there so that the uh residents would be able to use it uh if it doesn't look like it would be a suitable place for one to expect one to take a bicycle inside a 216 square foot a studio to store it for instance and so something should be done about that but otherwise I think it really does use the space in a way that our applicant has shown up well pretty much but I suppose I will hold the rest of my comments until we've heard from the applicant.

All right, all right, all right. Well, there's a chance we may be able to move forward. We dilly-dallied enough and then... So unless commissioners object, basically the next step, the step we have kept on pushing back is for the applicant to come to the podium, either make a presentation, have some discussion, answer questions. You have a total of 10 minutes.

and I won't need but two or three of those. First of all, thank you very, very much for your patience. Thank you for seeing this and making this project possible, or hopefully making it possible. I am here mostly to answer questions. I think it's a pretty straightforward thing we're asking for. Been working with staff, This is a project we've been kind of developing over maybe the last 12 months with both of those in order to come up with something that was workable and viable. It's a very, very small site, as you can see. And the client, my client, Mr. Reeves, is very, very interested in creating more housing stock here in the town. And he does kind of specialize, or he really likes catering to college students. And that's the intent of this. We're asking for a CUP because it's housing and basically a mixed use. We understand that it's a small amount of mixed use, but because of the size of this project, we limited it to that one bay if possible. If the stars align, hopefully it'll be a small architecture firm's office, I don't know, with a four-letter acronym for their name. But we can only hope for that. So I really am here to answer any questions you might have. And again, thank you for your patience and your delays. You guys are wonderful.

Thank you. So basically what's happened so far is the city made a presentation. We asked some questions. The city planner was able to answer some, but we have a number of questions for you. And we were basically going to kick this to the next meeting until you showed up, which you did. So unless the commissioners object, I would like to propose that we ask questions the applicant or questions. So may I speak, may I ask every commissioner, starting with Commissioner Williamson, if you could ask your questions and see, yeah.

By the way, for those of you who don't know me, I'm Mark Schuman, the applicant, the architect of Tucker Schuman Venture. I know a lot of you two know me and served on commissions with me and such. Okay, great.

Great. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Chair Rameen. Welcome. I bet it was a little hectic for you, Gideon. So you've come in good time, though. Some of the thoughts that we've had so far are about the percentage of commercial space on the first floor and the two residential units with that. Do you... Do you anticipate, first of all, that that size of the commercial component will be viable and adequate? And second, as an architect, what sort of accommodations or protections do you anticipate with having residential on the same floor as the commercial?

So I don't know, for those of you, I used to occupy the upper floor of the design alley, which is about, I don't know, 300 or 400 square feet, and was asked to leave by the new owner of that building, and I have spent the last two years looking for a space to replace that. So the viability of a couple hundred square feet for a small firm, startup, psychologist's office, what have you, I think is very important, could be easily leased out in the village here, especially in this location where you can step outside and get a latte, because that's all architects do all day is we drink coffee. So I'm very comfortable that it is a viable size. Sorry. I don't think there's much concern in regards to safety concerns or worrying about issues there any more than anywhere else in the village um you know the one space that's we left as or wanted to use as that commercial space faces the alley you can kind of look down on that um they've never had problems in the existing house and that or anywhere in that back alley and my daughter was at the dance studio and we know the dance studio's owner pretty well they've never talked to us about any issues in there. So not that it was thought of, but I don't personally see an issue. I never had issues at the design alley. So I don't know if crime is rising here in Claremont, but I don't think this would be a, I'm going to say this word wrong, impotence, impetus for that, impetus for that. I'm probably saying the wrong word. So, yes, I hope that answers your question.

Okay. I have one quick additional question. It's about parking. From a pragmatic standpoint, your occupants are going to want parking. a space. And of course, we all know you don't have to provide that. But if you don't, they're going to be taking up the precious village parking spaces. And we have grappled with that.

Yes, we all have grappled with that.

is there really a compelling reason why no parking spaces are being?

So when I'm sorry, so when we were starting to develop this, I was shooting for the young urbanite because I like doing cool stuff. And Brad just kept saying, uh, not this Brad, I'm sorry, Brad reads the owner of the project. You have no idea how confusing that is. Um, we kept pushing back and forth because he too would like that. But the reality was that there was no way a young urbanite was going to rent an apartment without parking. Absolutely not. But college students do. They have other places to park their car. He's got currently six students living in the house in front to maybe five. It's a five bedroom. The ones that have cars use the lots at the college. They, uh, pay for those spaces there. Likewise, the Metro link lot is actually very close to this site. I know there's a, when I was doing the back Abbey and um, those projects, there was always a concern about employees parking and a hundred percent agree with that. that the MetroLink parking was considered too far. And I'm like, you don't want to, you know, not too far from your clients, but for your employees. So I think from the, his target audience for the housing, I think that it's not a non-issue and I don't think it would be viable without it personally speaking. For that one office, you know, again, this, I know a particular architect who'd be interested in that, who would be riding his bike there. And also if he needed a car, we just simply park over, you know, he understands that there's also likewise, the parking that you can do longer than two hours, just over here on second street. I think when I was a design alley, I would park on fourth street. So, but so it wouldn't be in the retail areas that I think that the people would park. It would be in the areas that are already being used for that long-term parking. So I don't think that is an issue, but I will tell you that. It was talked about, and the only reason that this is viable is because we are not required. If we were required to do parking there, there's no way it would fit. Oh, well, of course, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you couldn't even raise it a full, you know, there's no way to get a car around in there. I mean, it's just really tight, so. Again, I hope that answers your question.

Yeah, well, the elevations do show parking next to the building as if those were residential parking spaces.

I'm actually not... There's no, I mean, the driveway there or that space, you could park cars there, but we're not counting them as parking.

Yeah.

But I know you're not trying to show any parking on there because we don't know. There's the spaces to the north, which are the actual adjacent building. I think I may have shown a car or two there.

I think I'm just looking at the west elevation.

West elevation is a blank wall.

In the existing parking space.

Yeah, an existing parking lot is for that doctor's office. Yeah, they would not have access to that. That's just to show scale and the fact that there's a parking lot there.

Okay.

Yeah, no parking.

All right. Any other questions, Commissioner? Commissioner Callaway?

No questions. Thank you.

Commissioner Rosenbluth?

yes i have a couple of questions um one refers to the the parking i didn't see any evidence of a bicycle parking bicycle racks or anything like that there and i would think for the audience you've now uh i was wondering why not given the um potential residents. Why is there no bicycle parking?

Yeah, absolutely. That wouldn't be unreasonable. It's just something we haven't gotten to at this point. And I'll have to check the Cal Green code. We may be required to do some by code. So it'll show up. As you can see, there is enough room for that.

Well, it's part of design, so it's not really in our purview, but I would hope that you would look into it.

Oh, yeah. It's a good idea.

To make it work with that. The other question is, what do you think the market rate rentals are going to be for these units?

You know, I owe the city or the staff apology for that. They did ask for that information, and we were going to provide that, and then I went on vacation and simply forgot everything. Okay. I don't remember the specifics, but I believe the studios were going to be around the 1250 mark. Yeah, pretty impressive. And it was going to be, I mean, basically what I heard was roughly $1,000 a bed. So the three bedrooms would be three students, $1,000 each. It might be $1,100. I can't answer that distinctly or specifically. And I'm sure once he sees what the numbers are, that may change. But that's the goal. I think that's what he's charging roughly for all the other beds he has here in the village for college students. and they already he's already doing that with the carriage house now that is that is the the two units there are actually being shared by a number of students rather than one it's it's a four or five bedroom living space so they're all roommates yeah it's not like a duplex or anything they share one kitchen stuff it's you had a chance to get inside it was open but it's actually pretty nice inside well those are my questions thank you commissioner davis

I don't have any questions that haven't already been asked, thank you.

And Vice Chair Wong?

I just wanted to kind of bring it up. You know what I mean? I think there's been some discussion here, um, particularly for myself that I don't feel that this is a adequate mixed use to be called mixed use. Um, you know, just as, you know, given that you're only allocating 464 square feet of the 2715 of the, of the building, you know, roughly 17%, um, to, to, to commercial uses would, um, The owner, would you, I don't know if you can speak on behalf of the owner, would they be willing to up the commercial uses? You obviously said that commercial is very viable. I know we've had some discussion on this dais that it wasn't, and we have multiple businesses that operate out of an alleyway. I know there's a tea shop, I think, that has no front access. So there's other viable, and like you said, the architectural lawyer, some other professional services. would the owner be willing to up the commercial uses to make it more feel like a mixed use rather than an apartment building?

That's a good question, and I can't answer that. It's only one we can present. One of the differences that, and I think Commissioner Williamson kind of pointed, is that this is tucked behind another bill. I mean, it's not even just ALIACs. It's a very European feel is what will happen when it's done. So that's going to probably limit some of the people, architects like that stuff, maybe a lawyer, tea shop. I just can't picture it happening. Right. So I don't think any sort of retail would be viable there. I'm sure that if it's a question of having to or not would be, uh, easily open for discussion now and i don't mean to sound defensive here what have you but like if you take the what used to be the old bentley's and look at the proportion of the housing to the amount of the retail you'll see that that's probably the roughly the same percentage it's just flipped right it's housing is the small one so i don't i've never looked at it as being a City Council Chambers, percentage to be mixed use it's just whether it's a mixed use or not, so I don't know if I feel that's. City Council Chambers, A good indicators whether it's mixed use and then and we got to this point, based on the projects up on the housing up on Harrison Harrison Harrison yes where it's they're small little. units at the end of that dewplower, but there's two buildings, and I bet you the proportion is not much better. I mean, this is only, I mean, it's under 3,000 square feet.

It's smaller than a lot of houses today. So your flow-to-air ratio is, you know what I mean?

Yeah, it's pretty impressive, isn't it? Yes. I trust me, I was surprised that it worked at all, so I don't I don't think it's out of proportion and in that fashion right it's not like it's it's 10,000 square feet of retail to you know 100 square it's it is a percentage so i'm.

And it's 17% of the new building and then of all the living space on the property, it's about 11.4%.

I appreciate you doing the math for me. I didn't calculate that. But it was, again, something that we talked with staff about whether this was viable or not. It was kind of thought, yeah, I mean, precedent was set. It feels right. It really is a place that we need more housing than we really need more architects offices. We can always use more architects, just not.

So, yeah. Okay. I appreciate the question. I appreciate your answer. And yeah, I think the only way that, you know, at this time I could support it is if there was more commercial uses.

Yeah, that's fair.

Did I hear you say basically you yourself will be using that space or?

I am hoping that I can convince the owner to, give me a discount. But I can't guarantee that. I would have actually loved to own a little piece of this thing, but he's not going to give that up. Wait, I'm on the record. Is he going to read this? No. We'll see.

All right. So I think we have asked the direct questions we have from you. How about we move to the commissioners having a discussion? Fabulous. Well, thank you very, very much. If we need you back up there, we'll ask you.

Appreciate, again, everything about the night. Appreciate the questions. Have fun. Okay. Thanks.

All right, so why don't we bring it back to the commission and perhaps any comments we have and get a feel for how we're gonna go with this. Why don't we start with Commissioner Callaway?

I think it's a project that makes sense. I don't love the design on the outside, I have to say, but that's for the architecture. Commissioner to look at, but in terms of using this tiny lot and creating commercial and residential space in the village, I think it makes sense.

Commissioner Rosenbluth.

I basically like this project, I was hoping that the rents would be a little more affordable than we've been suggested because the unit sizes are nice and small, I believe that the. The. you this kind of infill really fits in with this with the village design plan rather than as one of our public commenters said going against the village design plan it seems to be the right kind of scale uh it keeps the right the kind of pace of the village uh it doesn't seem to uh overwhelm or call attention to itself in any way that would detract from the village in any way. So I find that to be, in terms of the use of the space, to be very good. Design itself is for someone else to comment on. With the idea that there should be a little more attention to how the residents are gonna get in and out, whether one question came up earlier, whether there really is enough room for people to get in and out. We decided that there's enough access on the South, even though it's very narrow pathway on the North. I think that this generally is the kind of thing that this CUP process is designed for, that we have to see that we can, increase the residential usage in the village in a way that doesn't damage the village. And I would think that this does a pretty good job of that. So I would support it in its current form. Thank you.

Commissioner Davis.

So I think I have the same first floor design concerns that Commissioner Wong described. Just my personal experience, the commercial and residential units side by side, not talking stacked on top of each other, but side by side, tends not to work that well, but I do agree with Commissioner rosenbluth that that's not the purpose of this Commission to talk about the viability of this what I think the success of a project would would be, and I think based off what. My understanding the cup process has been from my time in the Commission that that I would vote in favor of it, despite some of the concerns that i've noted earlier in the meeting.

Commissioner Williamson.

Thank you. I'm really happy to see this project come forward. I remember last year we had the project of the residential unit. I'm not sure where it's at right now, but right next to the Folk Music Center on the second floor there. I was really eager to see that on Yale Avenue. That sort of... residential infill I'm really enthusiastic about in the village. And this mixed use, I don't, you know, it's, in my opinion, the balance of commercial and residential is up to the applicant and to their take on the market. And so I'm very happy to see, what, four residential units coming in. So I'm in favor of it going forward, and I'm prepared to approve. I will just add, well, having once served on the architectural commission, I won't say anything else except that I just wish it looked a little bit more like the carriage house next door. I have a 135 year old house, so I'm partial. So that's all beside the point. I think this is a positive project going forward. It will be a positive contribution to the village.

Vice Chair Wong.

yeah i'm prepared to vote no on this project um you know i don't think it meets the the terminology mix use well enough um you know i just to give you guys some perspective there can be up to 13 students living on this on this 3 000 square foot lot um so just you know kind of put that into some perspective that's not including the commercial space tenant um you know if if that's only provided that there's only one person per bedroom So obviously if there's two people per bedroom, that can get up to 26 people on this very, very small lot, which to me creates a safety concern. You know what I mean? I know the applicant kind of sat here and said, well, you know, when the... the students do have cars, they park off site or this or that, but I just feel that this is too dense and it doesn't really make the mixed use requirement as I'm interpreting the code. So I will be voting no.

Just before I make my own comments, I'm not sure how you came up with 13. There are two three-bedroom apartments and two studios.

Plus the five bedrooms that are in the main house. Oh, I see. Eight in the new unit and five in the other unit. So 13 if it's single occupancy per bedroom. 26, it could get up to you.

Okay, all right. All right, thank you. I think, no, we're all glad to have more residential spaces being built and I happen to think this is a very good use of this very small property. I sort of see mixed use when you look at it because of where it is, because it's so surrounded by other commercial properties and retail spaces and so forth. I think it sort of meets the spirit of what is meant by mixed use. Like Commissioner Williamson, I would have loved for it to look different. I live in a hundred year old house myself, but we're not here to discuss that. And I'm really happy to see this sort of thing kind of getting built in the village. To be honest, as yesterday I was reading these in a different life, I would have wanted to take one of these apartments myself, you know, to be able to just walk out of my apartment and have my coffee next door and go to the... a pharmacy or whatever. So anyway, I'm prepared to vote yes for it. Given all of this, are there any other comments the commission wants to make? Any discussion? Anyone wants to make a motion?

Yes, please. City Council Chambers, We haven't actually specifically said that we can make the findings that need to be made for this, that the subject site is adequate in size and shape to accommodate this proposed development, the proposed mixed use development relates appropriately to streets and highways. City Council Chambers, properly designed to carry the traffic generated since there's no parking allowed we. it'll all be pedestrian traffic, which seems to be pretty clear, that it will not impair, even at the density that Commissioner Wong was projecting, it will not harm the integrity and character of the Claremont Village zoning, and that it is not contrary to the general plan. In fact, definitely not. supports several goals of the general plan sustainable development though i didn't see that it was a lead building but it does seem to be a fairly green building i don't see any evidence of natural gas or anything like that in the building it utilizes mixed-use development at some reasonable ratio And it continues to encourage pride in the quality and character of the Stark area, particularly in that it doesn't overwhelm the historic building that's already on the lot, and it is clearly. Not subject to sequel because of all the exemptions and it doesn't come into into any of the exemptions to the exemptions that are contained in sequence, so that. I would like to move that the Commission. City Council Chambers, approve a resolution of the planning, Commission of the city of claremont California approving conditional use permit. City Council Chambers, 24 to see oh six to allow development of a new three story mixed use residential building in the claremont village located at 115 harvard place applicant the Tucker schumann venture. I do have one other point to make. There were a couple of typos in the resolution in our packets. In the presentation, one of them was corrected, that the first whereas should be whereas on December 16th, 2024, not 25. And I think there's an extraneous parenthesis someplace that would be dropped. Assuming that those corrections have been made, I move that the Planning Commission approve this resolution. Any second?

Commissioner Rosenbluth, if we could also include the exception for CEQA also.

Sorry, I thought I did. Yes, and it is categorically exempt from CEQA.

Do we have a second?

I will second.

Could we have a roll call, please?

Commissioner Callaway? Aye. Commissioner Davis? Aye.

Yes.

Commissioner Wilson-Lew?

Aye.

Commissioner Williamson? Aye. Vice Chair Wong?

No.

Chair Rameem?

Aye. Okay, the motion is carried. Five yeses and one noes. The applicant or any other person may appeal this decision within 10 calendar days. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on. Do we have any reports from the staff?

We do. I'll do my usual wrap up of the city council meetings and upcoming projects for this commission. So since this commission met last, the city council met on July 22nd. Had two very interesting items that night on the agenda. The first that this commission was familiar with because you heard it first was the cannabis zoning and regulatory ordinance. The city council actually voted to take no action on the item. It actually went down on a four to one vote, but that means the... Prohibition on cannabis businesses will continue and we will have no ordinance, no city council ordinance and no cannabis businesses moving into the city of Claremont for the foreseeable future. And the second item was an adoption of the new fire hazard severity zone. And that's a map prepared by CAL FIRE and it adjusted slightly the boundaries of where the city's high fire zones are and added another layer of the district So that was approved and it will go for a second reading at the City Council's next regularly scheduled meeting. It went very smoothly. as far as upcoming items for this commission uh two weeks from now we have two items that are tentatively scheduled one is a conditional use permit for walter's restaurant they're doing a slight modification to their floor plan so that conditional use permit will come back to the yeah we'll come back to this commission and then the second is the corner grill and bakery they're requesting a conditional use permit for beer and wine sales and that's a a restaurant that's located at San Jose and Indian Hill Boulevard, just north of the I-10 freeway. So it's in the same parking lot as that in the new hotel that's being constructed. So that is all I have to report tonight, other than I would like to extend a warm welcome to Commissioner Callaway and congratulate her on her appointment to this commission. We're excited to have her on board. She has an amazing resume that we previewed before she interviewed. And so we're excited and happy to have her on board and thank her for her volunteerism. She has a lot of history with the city of Claremont and a lot of knowledge, spent time working at the colleges. And so just a warm welcome to you, Commissioner Callaway. Welcome.

Do any of the commissioners have any reports to the group?

I do have a question of staff. Do you have any idea when the council will appoint a seventh member or will consider a seventh member for the commission?

They have selected somebody. It's just taken a while to get them onboarded. So hopefully we'll have that answer soon. It's just some background work to make that happen. You're welcome.

All right, if there's nothing else, the next regular meeting of the Claremont Planning Commission will be held on September 16, 2025, 7 p.m. in the Claremont Council Chamber, 225 West 2nd Street. The meeting is adjourned.