Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

You guys ready? Okay. I would like to call the March 5th, 20, excuse me, mark May 6th. the May 6, 2025 meeting of the Cloverdale Planning Commission to order at 6:02 p.m. We'll now recite the pledge of allegiance. Commissioner Kadel, would you please start us off? I pledge alce to the flag of America to the stands, justice for all. Clerk, can we please have a roll call? There is clerk. Uh, Kadel. Oh, excuse me. Commissioner Kadel. Hi, Commissioner Waggy. Commissioner AC Commissioner Frankston, Chair Springler, Springler here. Okay. Are there any conflict uh do any commissioners have any conflicts of interest for any items listed on tonight's agenda? Uh staff, are there any changes or deletions to the agenda this evening? No changes, chair. Any person wishing to speak to the planning commission on any item not listed on the agenda may do so at this time. Pursuant to the Brown Act, the planning commission can is not allowed to consider issues or take actions on any items not listed on the agenda. Comments from the public will be allowed on all agenda items at the time each item is called. In person commenters may fill out a speaker card before or after they have spoken. Please submit it to

the city clerk for the record. Three minutes are allocated to each speaker. We are not taking virtual comments at this time. With that, I will now officially open public comment period at 6:04 p.m. and let it reflect that there are no members of the public in attendance. um presentations. Excuse me. I think my minutes got moved around here. Um we have no presentation. So we will move on to approval of minutes. Is that right? Yep. No. Is the date right? Approve the October 1st draft minutes. We didn't approve the October minutes. No, I don't know why they carried forward. It wasn't an issue. It just didn't get time October and March. Correct. Can we do them as one item? Yes. Okay. Um I move to approve the minutes for October 1st and for March 4th 1st, 2024 and March 4th, 2025. favor say I I opposed. All right, passes. Okay, moving on to public hearings. Um recommend city council update the up adopt the updated circulation element. Thank you chair. Uh Mary Bean is here tonight. She's our SQA consultant. She's

going to be helping us out on the uh presentation. Uh Rafel and I are going to go through a little bit of background and a little bit more of like uh what a circulation element is. And I believe we have our transportation consultant. Do you see him out there, Mary? Or yes. Okay. Ian um is also joining us. So um you you can just take it down to the next one, Mary, if you don't mind. Uh so we've talked about the general plan a fair amount here at the planning commission. We did the housing element. That was a big project. That's part of the general plan. There's seven required they call elements, but they're like chapters. Circulation is one of them, housing and land use. And there's there's obviously there's other ones. Um, but what we're trying to do tonight is go through our updated circulation element. And there's some reasons why we did that that Mary will go into related to SQA, but it was getting a little bit older. And so we're, you know, this is a good process to go through either way. It is required. It's a required component. So if it's it's the part of the Hello. Is that the bad one? speaker. Okay. So, just point it like that. Okay. Can you guys Can you hear me? Yeah, it's on. He's got it. Check. He's got Oh, hold on. Always

something good. Yeah, sounds like Okay, I'll go until it starts doing feedback again. Um, so the the circulation element is really the part of the general plan that looks at the way people get around town, cars, um, the way things move through town. You know, it's really kind of the uh the backbone of our infrastructure. Uh, it does look at a lot of different things, cars, truck routes, pedestrians, bikes, everything. And you may recall we did the active transportation plan fairly recently where the planning commission gave a lot of input on that. Um it's similar to this but the active transportation plan you know really focuses on non-motorized transportation walking and biking and those are generally done for grant funding. It is a separate uh document and it you know it really focuses on that but that's not really required by law. This is required and transport active transportation plans are good for getting grant funding to have one of those in place and that was actually funded by a grant through SETA. So they offered to uh complete the active transportation plan which is done and this is kind of a secondary thing to that. This is required by law. Um so it you know it it does integrate our land use planning and our sustainability and public health. It uh looks at how we're going to grow and how we're going to accommodate that in terms of you know policies for getting streets, highways, transit, bikes and pedestrian networks, you know, making sure movement of goods can is efficient through town. And it also talks about airport and rail systems which you know we have we it does talk about smart a lot but we don't have you know really uh much of a rail system other than the you know the future smart. It also talks about complete streets, which is um a concept we'll talk a little bit about. It's really talking about making streets that

are available for every mode of transportation, not just cars. And that is in there's been a couple state laws that are requiring us to consider that in our in our uh circulation element. And then there's the VMT, which I'm Mary's going to talk a lot more about. Um, it is a metric used to evaluate um, well, I'm not gonna say it, Mary. I'm gonna let you do it because you're better at that one. U, so you can jump in at any of these if you want. Rob. Yeah. So, you know, the key components are the roadway classifications. You have arterial roads, um, side roads, smaller roads, public collectors, collector streets, arterial arterials. Yeah. Thank you. uh public transit planning, bike and ped infrastructure and traffic safety, emergency access and again goods movement routes. These are things that are required to be in the circulation element. Next multimodal integration. This is kind of the uh complete streets concept. you know, we're we're not just looking at the ways cars and trucks get around town, but also pedestrians, cyclists, public transit, and, you know, moy impaired individuals. Um, active transportation for healthier communities. I'm not going to talk too much about this because Mary is um this is really the metric that we use to evaluate projects and how they're going to impact our roadways. And there's a couple ways to do that. And this is a good graphic kind of, you know, showing that uh level service isn't going away, but this is kind of the main uh I shouldn't say the main reason why we're updating our element. There's lots of reasons why we're updating the circulation element. But in terms of squa, how they evaluate, you know, the California environment environmental quality act, how they

evaluate impacts the environment nowadays for traffic is vehicle mile travel, not level of service. But in the in our actual circulation, you'll still see that level of service is still there to, you know, just for like our own um making sure that our uh you know, intersections are still functioning properly to city standards and things like that. But um so there's they're both still around. Next slide. So uh this is just an example of like kind of where the rubber hits the road. So you know previous slides are just kind of in general things what it generally talks about but this is just an example of what actually is in our in the document. There's you know lots of goals and policies and then there's implementation measures and then uh so yeah going to break it down. There's general goal and then each goal has a policy and each policy has implement implementation measures. how you actually you know how we how we get get the things done and then even below that there's you know responsibility who what department's responsible for it the time frame to get it done and we have to list some kind of uh funding source as well. Yeah. So when we when we evaluate development projects and we say it's consistent with the general plan, I mean these are the kinds of things, you know, that we would look at to see um and it it's also a good tool for us to ask for developers to do certain things like bike connectivity and things like that if it's in the general plan. You want to be in conformance with the general plan, so we're going to ask you to do these things. So it is good to have it you know adopted in in the plan so we can we can use that. So the complete streets um this is just a kind of a graphic of what it is. Um you know we're required to include this in our circulation element as a sort of an evaluation tool. I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but it it does, you know, it it it deemphasizes the car and it puts, you know, an equal amount of weight on all of these modes of transportation. Also, the way streets look, you know,

lighting, shading, things like that. Um, and there was a I forget SB, one of those SBs that really required cities to consider complete streets in their circulation elements. And one thing that one thing that relates to complete street treats also that we didn't have any throw graphic in here too, but was like you might hear the other term um safe routes to school. That's uh something that's that's it also in our any element. Um and complete streets kind of goes along with that. Mary is is Ian out there or Yes. Ian, can you can you hear us or are you guys able to hear me? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Cool. Sorry. Unfortunately, the way my setup is here at home, uh the screen with everybody else is up there and the camera's down here. So, apologies for me looking up up there here, uh on the screen. So, Ian's from Fairen Piers is really reputable transportation traffic engineers and uh he did a lot of work on our circulation element. I don't know, we kind of went really, you know, high high level. I don't know if there's anything you wanted to add, Ian. I didn't want to put you on the spot, but um I think maybe just a couple of things here as as you guys were noting um AB 1358, the complete streets act, you know, really makes us plan for all modes, walking, biking, public transit, rail, airport, I think as Kevin might have mentioned earlier. So that was kind of a a gamechanging piece of legislation from the early 2010s. And then also uh kind of in the realm of safe routes to school and some of the integration with the uh county active transport act active transportation planning work is Senate Bill 932 and the integration of the safe systems transportation approach. And what that and what that approach basically means is you know trying to have separation of modes and just reflecting the fact that um you know collisions happen. And so we need to

design a roadway system uh that is uh you know more more forgiving if you will in terms of uh when when accidents do happen. Um, one other thing I think just kind of tearing off what Rafael and Kevin said, um, for the general plan, uh, the general plan guidelines say that using level of service to plan out the sizing of the circulation system is still a still a great wonderful option and the circulation element is the right place to put in level of service policies. So, future traffic studies can still require congestion related analysis. It's just that um that congestion related analysis can no longer live in the environmental document. Um you can still condition uh projects through conditions of approval to make uh adjustments to the roadway system. It's just now the state has moved to that vehicle miles traveled metric which I believe Mary will touch on here in a little bit. Hey Ian, can you just give like a two second level of service definition for maybe people who don't know what that means? Yeah. So level of service is kind of traditional uh grading A through F uh for the operations of the circulation system uh for kind of local roadways within the city. Um we measure it based on uh intersection delay as the primary metric. And so uh level of service A is the you know really really good operations. Uh level of service F is over capacity operations. People usually like to use the word failing in that case. Uh level of service E represents at capacity operations. So when the traffic volumes are highest, the intersection or the roadway system is operating at capacity at level of service E. Uh for a long time and also retained here in the updated circulation element, uh the city's level of service standard is level of service D. So, uh, roadways would still be, you know,

pretty full in that peak hour condition under that standard, uh, but they would not be over capacity or even at capacity cuz we're one one notch below, uh, at capacity. So, uh, that's traditionally when you've seen traffic studies and doing congestion based analysis, uh, we review development projects uh, versus that city level of service standard. So, I think that's it for us. Oh, you want to go ahead, Commissioner Waggy? Or something like that. Sorry. Sorry. Would you mind repeating that? Uh, it only came halfway through. Bill, is there a time element to the level of service measure like uh 10 minutes, 20 minutes or something like that that how do I mean how do you measure it in a time? Yeah. Based system. Yeah. So the traditional analysis periods are the morning AM peak 1 hour of traffic and the PM uh peak 1 hour of traffic. So uh we look at those weekday AM and weekday PM uh peak peak hours if you will and assess the level of service over that period. There is some other without getting too deep into it, there are some other ways that we adjust for peaking uh within that hour particularly near schools. But uh kind of the standard practice, if you

will, is looking at that morning peak hour and that afternoon peak hour that generally align with school and commute traffic. And so and so what that does is um kind of for the the worst case two hours uh throughout you know the weekday um you know that's how the uh level of service standard is identified and the other hours of the day the uh traffic volumes are less so you'd see a you know you'd see much better operations than in that peak uh the morning peak and the afternoon peak hour. So I think that's it for um we're going to talk about the SQL analysis which was a big part of this scope of work on this on this uh updating of the circulation element and that's where Mary comes in. She works for first carbon. It's a SQL consultant that uh we've used in town several times and um so I'll just go for it Mary. Sure. Good evening madam chair, members of the commission. Um, Mary Bean, I'm a um, vice president at First Carbon Solutions, so I oversaw the SQA documentation for the update to your circulation element. Um, your current general plan was adopted in 2009. I know there have been amendments since then, but your current general plan still uses level of service as Ian was just explaining. And the state of California now mandates that you use a different metric called vehicle miles traveled rather than loss. So you still do your LOS work to make sure that your intersections and streets are functioning properly, but for SQA purposes, you have to include um vehicle miles traveled. So we needed to update your circulation element to ensure that you were in compliance with state requirements. And that's called SB743.

came into effect in 2020. So it looks at average trip length per capita and it requires projects to demonstrate a reduction against the city or county or regional average trip length. So it's a way to try and get projects to be more pedestrian friendly, get people out of their cars, get them walking using alternate forms of transportation or transit and not so much single occupant vehicles. You get some uh there's a screening process at the start if you're within a half mile of a major transit stop, bus stop, that's a high volume um uh cadence. Uh if you have a greater floor area ratio than 75, you screen out of having to do more analysis for VMT. So depending on where the project is located, you may or may not have to do more work. So again, trying to encourage people to be infill close to transit and and make things more walkable or certainly not need for a car. So the circulation element addresses that SB743. It updates policies where needed to affirm that the city is using um VMT rather than LOS under SQA. And then as Ian mentioned before, it ensures consistency regarding complete streets. So there's policies in the circulation element that talk about um supporting all modes of travel, pedestrians, bicycle, children, seniors, disabled persons, transit. So it's a pretty simple process. Ian did a great job providing the updates so that we could do this on a accelerated time schedule. So the city's the lead agency. We're looking to see if there are any potential environmental impacts and to avoid them if we can or to mitigate them

if needed. Um the circulation element update is really limited to these policy changes as I said. So it doesn't propose any physical improvements or environmental changes. So um the subsequent this EIR that we prepared is focused solely on transportation. If you've seen a EIR before, you know it goes through, I don't know, 17 or 18 different topics now from aesthetics and air quality, geology, hazards, all those different things all the way to utilities. We were able to scope all of those out and just focus the EIR on transportation. Here's our timeline. We started about a year ago. um gave the public an opportunity to comment on what they thought the scope of the document should be. Um then we prepared the document. There was a public comment period. Um later in 2024 we prepared responses to comments although we only got one letter. It was from CALR and they basically said thank you for for doing this. So they didn't ask any questions or require any changes to the document. So, we're here tonight and then we'll go to the city council, assuming you recommend approval, for a final uh certification of the document. Some key conclusions. So, I talked about this 15% reduction from a a statewide or regional average. We look at a few different things. Residents, employees, and total city VMT. So you meet the metric on two of the three, but I highlighted in yellow the one that doesn't give you that 15% reduction. A lot of small cities and towns have this challenge. So it's not surprising. That just means that we had to call out a significant and unavoidable impact for

that one metric. So we did that. We have a bunch of mitigation measures that Ian helped us craft. Uh ensuring that all future projects have to apply those screening thresholds. Are you within a half mile of a transit station? Do you have a a higher floor area ratio, etc. If you don't screen out, then this second mitigation measure requires you to do the the quantitative analysis and identify what's called TDM, transportation demand management. if you can't meet that 15% reduction. And those are things listed here that um will enhance people's ability to get out of their car, to walk, ride their bike, um parking reduction to encourage people to to find another way around, transit enhancements, etc. And the final one relates to a mitigation bank for VMT that the county is looking to set up, um Solano County Transportation Agency. So, if you don't screen out and if you can't do your um transportation demand management measures in sufficient number to to get you to 15%, the city may also require a developer to um pay into this mitigation bank. So, those are the three we came up with. Um like I said, we got one letter from CALR didn't require any changes to the draft. So, if I hold it up here, there's our final EIR. It's pretty pretty thin. Um, so the next steps is to go on to city council, but both myself and Ian, uh, Kevin and Raphael are here to answer questions. It is it safe to say that like small rural towns like Cloverdale are more affected by this VM this VMT change

because everyone kind of has to drive out of here to get to work. So just by the nature of where we are there's more miles traveled. So correct. That's kind of why we're so we we could have been in a situation where a small project could have been had to do a full EIR because once there's an an impact identified that can't be mitigated like okay they can do this or that and mitigate that impact once they can't do that then they have to do an EIR. So we were kind of thinking that small projects could really be put into EIR which is very cumbersome and expensive and timeconuming and so I don't know that's yes and and Ian can talk more about that as well. I know at the state you know this this came into being five years ago and the state is always looking to refine and improve and enhance. So I think they've realized that small cities, rural cities and towns are kind of penalized by this. So there may be things of foot that might refine this. But the step you're taking tonight in updating your circulation element provides cover for future projects because you've already disclosed, hey, there's this um unavoidable impact. part of the approval um for the council will include an overriding consideration that'll likely talk about that that small towns, rural communities are kind of at a disadvantage when it comes to complying with VMT and implementing it. So, it's it should be an easy decision to make. Yeah, I was just going to add in that I think Mary hit the nail on the head. um for small agencies and certainly agencies that are further away from let's say the core of the Bay Area um have you know uh have been taking this approach if you will of identifying the

uh significant unavoidable impact uh with the general plan EIR to allow future projects that are consistent with the general plan to not have to go reinvent the wheel and do their own analysis. They can tear off of this uh of this environmental document. they'll still be they'll still need to implement the mitigation measures uh as as were presented by Mary and Mary if I'm saying anything wrong here from a SQA perspective you are the SQA expert but uh generally speaking yes uh agencies that are further away from the from the core of the Bay Area or the core of the Los Angeles metro region if you will um are taking this approach to help streamline uh future development projects going forward projects that projects that require a general plan amendment, however, will not be able to tier from the current general plan from this updated general plan EIR. So, they'd still be subject to doing their own VMT analysis because they need to do, you know, an amendment to the general plan there. Uh, but this, as I was noting, this is a pretty common or it's becoming a more common approach. And just one other notation, um, uh, that Sonoma County Transportation Authority VMT Bank and Exchange Program, that's kind of sort of like a a wetland mitigation bank, if you will, in terms of it's a different way for projects to be able to mitigate uh, their their impacts. SCTA is currently working through that program. actually I'm our principal in charge on that project with SCTA. So you may be hearing more from uh Kevin Rafel on that uh in in coming months. So that's a a new and evolving strategy that uh counties and regions are taking on to help uh address this uh SQA VMT issue.

Very good. Thank you. I will now officially open the public hearing at 6:31 p.m. Inerson commenters may fill out a speaker card before or after they have spoken. Please submit it to the city clerk for the record. Three minutes are allotted to each speaker. Please note the staff and the planning commission will address your comments and questions after public hearing is closed and will not enter into dialogue with commenters. Mr. Mr. City Clerk, are there any members of the public wishing to make public comment? Very good. I will uh close the public comment period at 6:31. Bring it back to planning commission for their comments and questions. Want to thank you for the presentation. I have a question with regards to the uh TDMs and I know that the state has put severe curtailed severely the ability of the municipalities to regulate low-income housing and I'm wondering how those two interplay and whether or not the requirement for TDM how that interplays with the streamlining process for low-income housing. Um that's a great question. So there are certain Oh, do you guys want to take this um projects that meet certain affordability levels um are allotted certain concessions and waiverss from standards. So that does come into play. I think it's always a negotiation. um developers may ask for for the world and you may be working with them to find something that advances their um objectives while also meeting the needs of the community. So, it's always that balance. But you're right.

So in some cases they can be exempt. So, they have to state their case, why they're exempt under certain rules, but they don't have to I mean, Mary, am I right? I mean, in theory, they wouldn't have to perform the analysis because they're exempt from large part. Yeah. Yeah. There's um a number of streamlining checklists. And so, in that case, we would look at what the underlying document, the EIR said, and it says all these things. You have to go through those steps. So, it still would apply to a project that might be seeking a streamlining under 15183 or I'm going into the jargon, but they'd still have to walk through those steps and be subject to and demonstrate consistency with your general plan policies and mitigation. So, then would that fall under the objective standards then that we've set in place now for for vehicle miles traveled? Yeah. or for the I mean for the low-income housing because like we just went through a whole thing with if we have objective standards then they do have to meet them and and they can't streamline that process. Wasn't that right? That's related to the appearance of the project the uh the objective design standards is that there was multiple facets to it. So um but they were I yes but it's about the look of the of the project. So um not so much the the impact of the project. Got it. Thank you. Like uh the deer in the headlights here. Um, if you

if you declare it I can't remember your terminology but it's something you can't fix significant and unavoidable. Yep. If it declared that in this document, then a developer doesn't have if they can't meet the standard, they can just rely on that. They don't have to do an EI. Is that what you were saying, Kevin? That's right. That's the advantage of um updating your elements and and providing cover through the EIR that we've prepared that calls out significant unavoidable and so subsequent projects don't have to go through that same cycle. Yeah. muddy the waters at all but but VMT treats so you know there's residential and commercial and industrial generally in development and in VMT looks at correct me if I'm wrong Mary but doesn't like are significant and unavoidable is is it across all three is it residential projects isn't there one of them that we actually don't trigger a significant one and it's more the office ones or is it you know what I'm it was the total it's it's so like if someone you know developers wereing something that's just a residential project or something that's just a office project. Um, that's a I I think it would depend on the specifics of the case. So, I I don't want to say one way or the other here. I'd like to think that I mean those are just good practice mitigation and it's it's state law where you look at are you within a certain distance of a a transit stop and you go through all those steps. So, I think developers will likely still be subject to transportation demand management programs, TDM. Um, yeah, have to see the the actual what's being proposed. What did I

misstate it, Ian? No, I think you're spot on, Mary. Um, so projects with that are consistent with the general plan may tear off of this analysis. They don't have to. a project could come in and do a VMT analysis to show that they're that they are in a part of the city where maybe they are more VMT efficient than in other parts of the city. So develop uh applicants and and the city have other options available to uh to perhaps not be subject to that TDM mitigation measure depending on where they are in the city. So, uh, I would say that this, uh, environmental analysis that's before, uh, the, uh, commission tonight provides a one of many different ways that a application could could go through the process. Um, and, uh, you know, for example, you know, um, a project does not need to necessarily tear off of this document with a section 15183 exemption. uh they could go for what's called a class 32 infill exemption for example. So there's still a lot of other this this process does not uh restrict the avenues that an application could progress uh but it but it does solidify a pretty substantial avenue avenue where uh for streamlining purposes that projects could uh progress through. One uh just one note on that total VMT per capita metric that Mary noted. Um the reason why that is kind of the metric of choice for this process is because uh when you're doing a general plan, when you're looking at a general plan, you have to look at residential development, employment focused

development like office and industrial as well as retail. and total VMT per capita really is the only metric that binds all of those different land uses together. So I think as Mary noted in her presentation, the housing metric alone uh citywide was, you know, was maybe 15% below that number uh below the below the average. Uh but what that really means is that there's parts of the city that are, you know, maybeif, you know, below that 15% number and above that 15% number. Kind of on the on the grand average, you're going to have some on either side of that 15% number. And so in areas where you are above uh where you're not meeting that 15% standard, let's say more on the outskirts of the city, you could tear off of this analysis, not have to redo your VMT calculations and then be subject to the mitigation measures uh that which Mary noted. But if you're closer, let's say, to downtown, uh, and you're an applicant, you have the option to conduct a VMT analysis and show that you're 15% below the citywide average and then get out from under those uh, mitigation measures. So um you know you can always provide uh an applicant can always provide more data or a city can or the city can always request or require more data to either demonstrate consistency for section 15183 uh exemptions and be subject to the mitigation measures um as they stand in the document uh tonight. Uh but if they want to provide more information to try and get around that process based off of where they are in the city, um that is uh that that's always uh been an option and it can still be an option uh going forward. Mary, did I have that right

just in terms of the various options? I know that that was a lot uh but there's uh this does not this process here tonight does not necessarily restrict paths forward for projects. It just opens up another path forward that substanti that can substantially streamline the VMT review process. Yes, Commissioner White mentioned was made of a bank and I'm [Music] wondering how the fees that go into that bank I assume the developer is going to have to put some money into it. How is that determined? Uh that the the project to set that uh banking exchange program up by SCTA is still ongoing. So we're about halfway through the process. So we don't have any uh unfortunately don't have any details uh for the for the group here tonight. Um but uh Kevin uh or Rafel, I believe one of you is on the technical advisory committee uh representing uh Cloverdale for that project. Correct? Yeah. Yeah, I'm on that think. Yeah, Raphael. They're still working out the details. So, is the city is the city going to have the authority to set that those development I guess these are development impact fees. I guess they fall under that category. It's still being worked out. It's it's, you know, still in conversation. So it's that's not going to be something that the city did. It's a it's a you know Sonoma's in the same boat as us. Sebastapole, there's other cities that are it's not just us. That's why that's why it's a mitigation bank. The bank refers to it's you know this city that kinds into it because we can't uh you know solve the problem ourselves. So we're uh

hypothetically get another bus up here. Yeah. Yeah. But through impact fees. Yeah. So then if projects are meeting the right criteria, they can pretty much forego giving us those impact fees, right? Which if there's low income projects or projects that are deemed exempt from this or they work around this through different application processes, they can avoid this. Are there come on that? It's I know it's kind of a strange concept, but it's other impact than transportation. Yeah. Um, are there any other comments or questions from the commission? All right. Can I get a motion for the public hearing item? I move that the planning commission uh recommend the resolution to the city of Cloverdale uh that the city council adopt the subsequent environmental impact report and mitigation monitoring and reporting program MMRP in connection with the circulation element and approve a general plan amendment to update the circulation element of the general plan. Can I get a second? A motion was made by Commissioner AC, seconded by Commissioner Kadel. All in favor say I. I. I. All those say nay. Motion passes. Mary and Ian. Okay. With no new business, we will move on to item G, which is commissioner reports. I think I have I have one item. Um, so on May 22nd, just so you all know, they're doing an openhouse on the Edge Esmeralda project that'll be held at the Cloverdale Museum, and I highly

recommend you attend. In fact, I was passed on from the developers team to recommend that the commission come and attend. They're also going to be planning a onsite event. So, this is going to be going for a month and there'll be an on-site event. So, um, I don't know if I'll get that information, but we probably hear about it on that 22nd event when they're going to meet on site and kind of walk the property, which I think will be very valuable for this commission to walk the property and see um all of the aspects of that project and how it could impact our city. Quick on that, just if you do end up talking to the developer in any way, just keep track of any information you give for exparte disclosures at the next time that if that ever comes to the planning commission, definitely encourage that. You can you can definitely have a dialogue with developers whenever you want. Um it's really just anything that you any information you gain that's not part of a staff report or information we just want the entire council or the entire commission has to have the exact same information when they're making a decision. So as long as you know if they're like we want to do this but only if you do this like you got to share that with the whole commission. So it's only but most the information that they're going to give you staff will provide. Um, I don't think we have had a meeting since we did the academy. Commissioner Waggy, is that right? I don't reported back on that, have we? No. Do you want to comment or do you want me to start? I can start. I mean, you know, thought it was very worthwhile and well done. Um, one

[Music] thing which isn't a drawback or a criticism of them, but most of their problems. Um, I think we can thank our city staff and the commission. We don't have them. But, um, some of them have got these builder. I think it was Morgan Hill had 40 Lascatus builders remedy. Yeah, those remedy projects going because they still apparently haven't got their their housing element sorted out. Um, that was pretty eye opening. Um, the big cities definitely have much huger issues than we do and that was pretty apparent. People organized it, I thought did an excellent job. The hotel was great. You know, it was they did the accommodations, everything was very well done and it was a good exposure to to listening to people with a lot more indepth experience certainly than I have. Yeah, it was um it was a little discouraging because they did kind of in closing say that you know the the future of planning commissions may become obsolete because of the way the laws are being shifted now that we're really having our um authority constricted. Um I did take away one thing. I didn't have my notes with me, but I thought it was the objective standards that they were really kind of hammering home about having those in place to have a minuscule amount of control over um some of these low income

um projects in that if we have them in place beforehand, like if we had had certain things in place possibly at say the AI road project. Um, and I thought that they had said as it also relates to health and safety, like the design as it relates to health and safety. If we had those things in place, you know, we could have made some sort of reasonable objections about certain things, but we can't go back after the fact and say, well, this isn't health, this doesn't meet health or safety for whatever reasons. Like, we have to have those reasons established in advance. And they were just saying how important that is to make sure that um since those are the only tools we can use, which is still very difficult to use those, but if we happen to have them in place, it gives us a better argument. And that was probably my biggest takeaway. Wasn't it objective objective standards that we were I thought that was the term that they were using and that that and people were kind of giving those health and safety kind of concepts or hypotheticals and they were saying well those would have to be in place in advance you even if it even if you know you have a good argument that it's you know doesn't meet health and safety once it's been proposed you can't backtrack and say well it's not healthy it doesn't meet health or safety now like it has to be in in advance. And I think that was maybe the biggest most important takeaway I had from it. Great. Yeah. And and it is the really the only legal recourse you can do to kind of put any control on some of these projects that are exempt from so many other things. That's health and safety. Correct. Which we tried to address in our own way with that project specifically. So, I feel like we attempted to get a full curb system and all of that worked into the plan. So, yeah. Yeah. And it was like basically what I took away from it was had we had

those things already implemented in advance or built into um our housing element, I guess, or into our codes that then we could have said, "Uh-uh." Um the other thing though that you know is really concerning um and I brought it up at um the um town hall that we had regarding the removal of the Potter Valley dams is that um you know moving forward they really said that we're very limited and that we absolutely which we already know right we already know that we have to approve these projects um but moving forward I don't know if If the the dams get removed, which obviously it's it's looking probable, and we see this serious decline in our water resources, is this something we can put into our objective standards now so that we can have more ability later to say, hey, we can't do it. And have some sort of standing with the state because what's going to happen? Are we going to have to start because we have to approve these lowincome housing and we're already taking away restricted resources. Do we now have to then, you know, decline the things that we have control over? Like is that what's going to happen? Are we going to have to decline, you know, the projects that we can just because we are being forced to do the lowinccome projects? So, we're not getting a really good um uh mix of, you know, different income levels and and um housing. Yeah. It's really limiting what we can do is particularly when we're talking about the removal of the dam. So, I don't know if that can somehow be worked into health and safety because it really does impact our health and safety. It's

complicated. I know. And and again, it's like there was there they were honestly discouraging. They're uh or not I mean discouraging but straightforward, right? Like they didn't they didn't, you know, skip around it. Yeah. They didn't sugar coat it. Like you have to do these things. So, you know, it it does put us in a difficult position if we have to build those and then that's increasing the population, but we don't have the water to even support that. then do we have to say no to projects that we can simply because now we don't have the resources to do, you know, and something that I think is very real and that we need to continue having the discussion about and coming to the table um with all the other communities because I don't think that most of the people down river realize what's happening. Like I don't think that you know going further south through Sonoma County into Marin County that they have any concept of of affect them all but not not nearly as much as Yeah. really gets slammed for sure. Everyone else gets affected by how the river could affect different migratory fish or things downream, but we're the ones that are It actually will help Gville because Gville will be less of a flood zone, right? I there was a study done of water resources that can't remember it was last a couple years ago the city did it or it it was sort of there there was a bit of controversy about do we have enough water for Bumgartner do we have enough water for Alexander Valley and then there was some kind of a study that was referenced that said, "Yeah, we got enough water." And I'm wondering where that study is

today with respect to the possible closing of the, you know, the end of the Potter Valley thing. Um, that was taken into consider if that that possibility was taken into consideration when it's a multi-year study. often that next study would include that um but I don't know when the next study is yeah we're doing a water master plan now and that's part of that but I mean I think the study concluded that we had the capacity to clean and deliver water you know our general plan projected we would be at 12,000 people right now so a lot of the studies and the infrastructure we put in place was to accommodate the 12. We're at 8,900. So, we haven't meet that. But all bets are off if there's no water down there. But we can pump it, clean it, and get it, you know, get it in the tanks for up to 12,000 people, even more. But it's just again, it has to be there in order to So, that's the the unknown. We have the infrastructure to process it. Yes. And we're just about to redo two wells. uh that's going to council next week to do the the bid and we've got a bid and so that's going to re rebuild two current wells that's going to help us with our capacity. Um, the Esmeralda theme I think was supposed to be water independent or something like that. Where they're going to get their water's heard, which is not concrete until this goes through, but they're they are sourcing or looking to to put a plan together where not only could they be more water independent, they could provide storage of water on site. Um,

we've talked about purple pipe for years and I know we've been putting this into a lot of our plans like the um that Alexander Valley or the one on Ashie Road that that project has supposed to have purple pipe going in. They might be willing to merge that gap and be the first test subject to try to do that, but I don't know if our water treatment facility is set up for that. So, so it's kind of like a, you know, I great news is I feel like if we can get a good project that can help us get over that hump and help us get to there, we can start to build a resourced water plan. I think that this was one of the points that I had made during the town hall is that you know with the forced lowincome housing we have and it's not that we don't need it and and you know people need absolutely need homes but when that's all we can build or all we are building we get reduced income from that and uh people don't understand that we really need higher income housing to get more revenue to be able to do these things and to be able to have more water storage and approve projects for those things. And you know, it's it's kind of a catch 22 because if we keep doing one, it's difficult to do the other because we don't have the water, but we also need to do the other so that we can have the infrastructure to build the water. We don't have to do affordable projects. We we've now met our arena numbers for years to come, but we don't we haven't met it in the higher to moderate housing, right? They they said in the even when once our arena is met, we still have to approve if they come in with it. Yeah, we still have to regardless. So, you know, it's just it's it's it's making it much more difficult. Chair, sorry to interrupt you, but for the Brown Act, since this is an agenda item, we don't want to get too into the specifics of it. um unless there's anything else that the commissioners want to report. But I definitely suggest if you want it to be

a future agenda item talking about all of this Potter Valley project water um the water master plan, we can definitely add it, but I just want to keep us on. Very good. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Kadel, did you have anything to add from the academy? Um yeah, I thought it was good. that I thought they did a great job of u taking some real life scenarios and sharing the stories of interactions with people and uh you know especially disgruntled people in the audience um when commissioners were in the wrong and you know how to handle some of those situations. Um and then I like how they broke it up where they had u different topics you could go and learn on at different times. It wasn't just like one convention where you're stuck in a room listening to the same presenter or you know um they did a good job of uh giving you options to go into more basic stuff or more advanced uh topics and strategies. So that's good say um if you haven't submitted your travel and advance reimbursement forms please do so. For those of you who have apologize I will get those processed this week. Uh, it's been on my to-do list for a while. Council uh has um rerouted some of my workflow um as far as priorities, but that is talking about it tonight reminded me I need to get you guys paid. So, for those of you that went um if you haven't submitted, please do so and I will get you paid as soon as possible. Any other commissioner reports, department reports? Uh just real quick, we are processing a uh 64 unit mark pretty much market rate project right now that they've applied and they've spent money and we'll see where it goes, but it's at the end of Second Street a little bit south like behind the church. There's a big vacant parcel there. So that it's mostly afford uh not affordable. It's market rate housing. Um, it's kind of a good mix of small

houses and a little bit bigger. I think there's like 12 affordable units, but most of it is standard market rate housing. Um, I know this is one we've been talking about forever, but 101 North has submitted building permit plans. The hub Gartner, I've requested an update. They did say they were going to start in April. I think they did. There was some things going on out there, but I don't think it's full going full full boore yet. So, I have requested an update from the project proponent with the hub and bomb gardener. I think they're both PG& delayed and I did see the hub met with P Gen finally. So, they got out there. So, maybe that's freeing things up or maybe they're not getting super accommodating to the hub. Oh yeah. Um, so we really we we feel like uh they they submitted some really good plans drawn by an architect like really good stuff. So yeah, hopefully that's going to alleviate all that. Change much. Do we have to come back to us? No. Um there's some there's not not a lot of changes. I mean like from the exterior uh um appearance of it, it's pretty much the same. I mean there's Yeah, yeah, stage is there. It's covered. I don't remember if it was covered when you guys Yeah. Yeah. How far along is Bumgardner then? They're still in the first phase, but like are any of the units completed? Oh, no. No. Yeah, that's what they have been telling us. I mean it it does people are you know jing with that story. So, um, the SQA work for Soda Springs is about half done. So, Soda Springs open space, we're hoping to have that open like early

fall. Actually, Mary Mary's the consultant on that. And our next meeting is June 3rd and we are going to have that meeting. Um, there's a couple things that have came out of a subcommittee that requested the planning commission consider. I'm not going to get in get into what those are, but you you'll get a crack at it. and uh it be zoning changes. Are there any commission direction on future agenda items? Chair, just one last thing I forgot. Our vacancy ordinance is going to go for its second reading at the council next week. And so that's going to require owners of vacant properties to register with the city, pay a fee, requires an inspection um from the fire department and our building department, and there's a couple other things in there. So that uh one thing the council changed was it was we proposed it being downtown. They said do it citywide. So it's going to be a pretty big effort. Um in the in the real estate world, that's something you might want to know about. Um it's not not overly burdensome, but it is trying to get at some of these chronic vacancies, commercial vacancies. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I could report something was going in there, but it really was. There was some leaking going on between the two buildings and the neighbors complained. So, and then there was some work being conducted without permits. Commissioners like to provide direction on any future planning commission or council subcommittee agenda items. Yes. Commissioner W. I'd like to continue the conversation about the valley project and water resources. Yeah.

project is such a big scale project that our city plays a minute part in it, but we're so influenced by it. But I think what our attack should be on a resource plan, how do we get resources wherever we can, how we can, and how do we involve ourselves in that Potter Valley project? There's any updates on that lately from since since the town hall Potter Valley project? No, but the P Gen is still continuing to dis or to decommission and so they have a calendar. Mike's getting brown egg. So the best best case scenario is that we could try to get a plan in place to help coordinate with that. Learn a lot about it and we can put an agenda item. Maybe we get someone in here who's knows more and give us an update. Then just so the commission's aware, um, yeah, one second. Huge amount of council recently uh requested that we create a subsite on our website, cleverdale.netpotter project. If you go to that, we do have a call to action from the council. They're requesting citizens to submit fill out a letter and submit it to a bunch of folks. So if you go to that site, um, it's worth checking out. There's a lot of links, lots of information that the council's wanting to provide. What? Yeah, we I'll send you out the link to it. Um, it's in the newsletter. It's on our social medias. It's We're really pushing it out hard because we really want um community involvement on it. Um, and council has made a standing item on their agenda for the Potter Valley project. I'm not sure if that's something that interim director Thompson would want to have here or if it's just an individual item, but as far as if you're just looking for information. But for this um direction on future agenda

items, one item recommend we agendaize it and then if you want to keep going or we can Yeah, we want to definitely keep you folks in the loop on what's going on. Um and then you know there's discussion amongst commissioner our council members to have ad hoc things and different things and I think that it's a valuable resource to have our commissioners be a part of that. So definitely reach out to your council members. One of our council members is the planning commission liaison. So I will shoot them an email and let them know that they uh are interested. We'll add it. Thank you. Um, so if there's nothing else, then thank you all for coming. This meeting is adjourned at 7:07 p.m. to the next regularly scheduled meeting of the planning commission on June 3rd, 2025. I was like,