Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Sorry to interrupt everyone's conversations, but we'll get started. I'd like to call to order the Planning Commission meeting for the City of Cloverdale for June 2nd. Start off with the Pledge of Allegiance. And Daniel, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Can I get a roll call, please?

Thank you, Chair. Let the record reflect that Commissioner Cato is absent today, as well as Alternate Commissioner Williams, and that Alternate Commissioner Daniel Frankston will be in their place.

Perfect. Thank you. Are there any conflict of interest from any of the commissioners on the board on any items on this agenda? Seeing none, we'll move forward to the next for the agenda review. Are there any changes or deletions needed to be made to this agenda by?

No changes, Chair.

Perfect. Opening up to the public. We will allow three minutes per person in the public, no more than three minutes. Please do not interrupt other people talking, but any person wishing to speak on any item not listed on this agenda may be willing to do so at this time. Written correspondence is also attached in the supplement attachments in your agenda as well. Anyone from the public wishing to speak? Seeing the slow response, we'll move on to the next item. Any presentations? We have none.

No presentations.

And no approval of the minutes of our last meeting. We'll talk about that at the end. And then let's move on to the public hearing section. Item E1. This is a public hearing to consider various zone ordinance amendments to Title 18, the zoning of the Cloverdale Municipal Code in an effort to facilitate economic development with increased flexibility in land use regulations and to comply with the state law. I'll turn this over to you, Kevin, or to Rafael.

It's going to be Rafael, but I'll just start a little quick. A little intro here. Some of these zoning amendments are from the state, and we're going to be required to do those. Others are, since we figured it's kind of a cumbersome process to amend the zoning, we would propose some additional changes that, you know, Roth works with the zoning code for the last 10 years, and we've seen things that are just... could make it a little easier for people these are just for discussion right now and if we can amend these how you see fit we can eliminate some but we just wanted to bring these before you so you can take a look at them and you know if you agree with them or we can bring them to the council we can bring them back to the planning commission if you want to see them again we can make amendments on the fly so with that I'll turn it over to Ruff

slides that's all right thanks kevin so so yeah before you tonight as a proposed zoning ordinance amendment uh to zoning text amendment and again yeah like kevin said we're uh there is a resolution before you for a recommendation for the council to adopt the proposed ordinance that would um I meant to follow through with the zoning ordinance amendments, but yeah, we're here for this discussion and open it up to see how the commission feels about what we're proposing tonight. So next slide, let's jump right in. So as Kevin said, some of these, specifically this one, is for state law. We got a letter, city got a letter from HCD in December, them requesting us to repeal our ADU and GED ordinance. come up with our own to that complies with state law and what I the kind of bullet points here are just some examples of the many things that have many regulations or legislation that has come down in the last a few years these words were more last year but this is just some examples of things that sorry yeah sure these are just examples of things that like our code We were essentially in compliance with this stuff, but essentially there's so many things that the state has put in the code, like these that, you know, that the cities can't provide or require D restrictions on ADUs, properties with ADUs, or, you know, HOAs and third parties can't influence approval process. And, you know, again, the city's code didn't require any of these things, but just for clarification, yeah, the state wants these things kind of in everybody's code. So, yeah, essentially we are... Yeah, we're going with the state's recommendation and request. We're going to repeal the ADU and JADU ordinance and refer to the state regulations for both of those things. Any questions on that? Yeah, as we go, please, if I go too fast, just stop me.

Yeah, I got a question. What led up to the letter we received?

Yeah. Again, that's, that's just, that's, there's a couple of examples right there. I mean, there, it goes on and on. Um, there's, the letter was like five pages of, of just lots of, like lots of changes again, that, you know, our, our code, uh, didn't, didn't, uh, require things or didn't, you know, some, some, some of the things are talking about, you know, you can't have require owner occupant or, uh, Yeah, or an occupant of an ADU. Some jurisdictions are requiring that. We weren't. So it's little things like that, that the state has said, you know, we are prohibiting this, we're prohibiting that. And again, like I said, our code was in compliance with that. I mean, in my mind, it's in compliance because we weren't requiring that, but the state wants us to... not only not correctly say it yeah so do you think do you feel like it's just because they're changing the ordinance and we're not keeping up fast enough or is it is it a negligence issue that we need to be more aware that changes every year yeah these are just some from from last year and it's easier for us to you know there were so many things that happened it's just easier to refer to the state ones so again there's probably gonna be changes next year and we'll we'll just we don't have to change it again you know so in our code it will

just refer to the state law. So as they change it, we won't have to keep coming back. But then we did get the letter requesting this. So we kind of feel that this one is one we're compelled to do. The rest of them are not, we're not compelled.

By the way, I highly recommend referring to the state law. I think everyone in the community would appreciate that we're making these changes because of the state law, not because we're coming up with the law ourselves. So yeah.

So that's that one. Next slide, Mike. So you start off an easy one. This might be a little bit more of a grab or a push. So everything in black is in the code. This is, well, sorry. At the bottom, everything in black is in the code, but the minor exception section is in there and allows, there's like five different, you can have a minor exception for height, for fences, for setbacks, for parking. So what we're proposing is a couple amendments, one to the parking and one to the residential setbacks. So right now our code allows for a 10%, and so minor exceptions is at the staff level. This is something that the zoning, or that the planning director can approve. So right now, our code allows a 10% setback. So yeah, it allows a reduction in up to 10% of a setback. So yeah, over the years, people have come proposing an addition to the home. this isn't for like at a porch or a, you know, a stairs. This is, you know, they want to increase the size. They want to add a bedroom or they want to increase the size of their living room or kitchen, something like that. And then into the backyard. And so our 10% would only allow two feet. So we've got people who have come, you know, done and got a minor exception and they expanded their room, you know, house by two feet in the backyard. Maybe they would have done a little more if they allowed it a little more. So again, you know, a lot of this stuff is kind of like Kevin said at the beginning that, you know, just, you know, as familiar as I am with the zoning ordinance and going through, you know, ours for so many years and other jurisdictions I've worked for, I've just saw, so this is one of an example of a discrepancy, not discrepancy, but something that I thought our code could benefit from. Like working in Healdsburg, they allowed up to 50% with a minor variance. We don't have a minor variance, but a minor exception is kind of like that. So I just listed there a couple, I just looked through the county, like it says Healdsburg allows 50% with the zoning administrator hearing. Sonoma allows up to 30% with planning commission. Petaluma is a little more lenient. I guess there's no, there's no max, you know, 50% or 30. It's a minor use by the zoning administrator, which is the planning director. But as long as the encroachment isn't consistent with development pattern in the immediate area. So you just kind of look around and say, if, you know, that looks pretty similar to what the neighbors are doing, then that's okay.

So what this, we do have a thing. We don't use it very often, but it is in the code zoning administrator hearing code. So folks around there would get a notice of this proposed reduction and setback. We would have a public hearing. People can come in just the same way you do. I would be the presiding officer, I guess you'd call it. And so it's... we're suggesting here up to a 50% reduction in setback. These really are going to apply to existing homes. If you're getting a new subdivision, you're going to be able to look at all of those things. This is really the guy trying to put an addition on his house. Maybe 50 is too high. But again, we're just trying to have a discussion. But just so you know, if you were comfortable with 50, there would be a hearing so people could come in and discuss that. Also, The code does allow the zoning administrator to bump things up to planning commission. So if it was something like a two-story going in 50%, coming really close to someone else's houses with windows and things like that, and we weren't comfortable with it, it could be bumped to planning commission, or we would discourage them for those reasons. this is really from Ralph's experience of dealing with our code and having people come in for additions in existing neighborhoods, wanting just a little bit more flexibility. We have the 10, you know, maybe 50 is too high, but maybe 30 or something. But again, if you are comfortable with it, just so you know, it's not just something we approve and the neighbors would be aware of it and have an opportunity to comment.

Yeah. So like those examples I said before, like, you know, people have come before and they've, you know, went two feet in the backyard. So they, you know, expanded the living room or bedroom by two feet. But if, you know, because they didn't want to apply for a variance, anything more right now, our code is minor exception is 10%. That's it. If you want, you know, three feet, if you want four feet in the backyard, you got to go to the planning division for a public hearing and a variance. And you know, for, that's probably, you know, that's probably, that's why they just, they didn't do it and they just, you know, did the minor exception and got two feet. But, you know, I have a feeling that they would have expanded the house a little bit more if they didn't have to go to the planning commission for, you know, five feet or even 10, you know, instead of just two.

So as an example, we're saying that right now if the setback's 20 feet, they only get two, but in this case they would be able to get 10.

Yeah. And it may not make sense in every case. it, but it may, it may make sense in a lot of cases. So it's not that it's automatically granted. There would be a process. And so again, if, if the commission's not comfortable with these, we don't have to do them, but it's just things that we've, that have come up over the years where, you know, it did make sense and someone could just got a little bit more of an addition on their existing home. Um, And so that's really where it comes from.

Yeah, it is residential. Yeah, it's not commercial or industrial.

So a question, you know, as this hasn't come up, at least to the commission in the last several years that I've been here anyway, how often does it come up where, you know, a homeowner, you know, trying to do a remodel just changes their plans on account of this particular thing. I mean, I read, you know, I just don't know what the frequency of any kind of variance request is.

There's a pretty recent one in an existing older home that I think they would have done a little bit more that would have been, in my opinion, fine to have done.

They're doing an ADU in a detached garage, yeah. But I would say

Maybe once a year.

Maybe, yeah, maybe once every other year. But, you know, we don't have, you know, we only produce like four ADUs a year. You know, we don't have a lot of construction going on. But, you know, for the people that do want it, this could be a nice benefit for their property.

But if you're requesting that they bring this to a zoning group... Before the Planning Commission, the same Brown Act would apply because it's now a town hall, right? You have to still publish so many days in advance, all of that same information. So it would be similar.

300-foot notice. The difference is that I would be the presiding. And again, if I wasn't comfortable and there was some things that just didn't, then I'd just say bring it to Planning Commission.

What triggers it? Is it just that they want to go beyond 10?

What triggers what part?

What would trigger a hearing?

We're kind of amending the code to any setback. I think over 10. Yeah. Well, I guess we didn't actually say that. As it's written right now, it's any minor exception for a setback. So, yeah, I guess it could be as simple as 10. It still would require... Well, the way I would see it is 10...

We can approve 10 if that makes sense, but anything over 10 and up to 50 would require the hearing.

So I have a couple of questions. You mentioned there was about four instances where this came up. Were these applicants that were looking to do more than 10%?

Yeah, I mean, that's why the questions here started. Yeah, basically, what can we, how much, how big, you know, how far can we expand into the yard and You know, if I would have told them 10 feet, I'm sure they would have went with 10 feet. You know, what do I tell them to? And then again, like I said, if you want more than the 10 percent, you got to go to the planning commission for a hearing for a variance.

And what sort of criteria would be utilized to determine whether the variance should be granted?

That is the thing, you know, with, you know, to me, in my eyes, it's kind of opening a can of worms if we do, like, say, we create a minor variant. Because, you know, like, the standard, you know, for variances, it's something that's, you know, you can't build unless there's a unique situation with the property. Other than, you know, they've got a backyard and they want to use it. You know, there's, like, a variance is supposed to be unique in, you know, unusual circumstances. Like, there's a creek running through the yard and... You literally have to, you know, build on the side because there's a creek there, you know, but not just out of convenience. So in my opinion, minor exception kind of stays out of that, what a variance is.

Yeah, so a variance is defined in state law. So there's something unique about your lot that you can't meet the standard setback. So like you said, if there's a hill or... We're not suggesting that this be called a variance just because there's all that other stuff, the findings that we have to make. So this would just be an exception. Now, I see what you're saying. So should it just be a single story to go that far? Or could it be two stories? And we should probably work on something like that.

Yeah, because I was looking, I think it's section C2, which talks about the findings that are required. And I was puzzled by this one sentence. I'm trying to come up with how this comes about. And it's the findings, exceptional circumstances or conditions applicable to the property involved or to the intended use of the property that do not generally apply to other properties in the same zoning district. I'm trying to get an example.

That's a variance.

Well, but that's, yeah, that's one of the findings that'd be required to issue a variance. And I think what you had mentioned about a creek, that kind of makes sense because I was trying to put in my mind, well, what would happen to my property that would not be applicable to my neighbor's property, so to speak?

And that's, I think, what we don't want to call this a variance because there's those findings. We're going to call it an exception. Yeah. Yeah.

I understood, but I'm trying to come up with a basis for the exception, if you will. And then the other issue that I have is that 50% seems like an awful lot to me. I don't know. And that's why I was querying about the number of people that wanted more than 10%. And obviously, you guys don't know entirely because a lot of people go, oh, damn, 10%. I guess I can't do it. And they don't come to you to seek it. But I'm just curious because 50% seems a lot, especially when we don't have a good guidance as to what would constitute the basis and how those, what determinations would be made with regards to that, so.

Yeah, I mean, we, 50s is the max. I mean, Healdsburg has a lot of small lots in those, you know, I'm sure that there's a lot of big remodels going on in those little lots, and that's probably where they came up with it. But, you know, I, 30 might be an option. I like the idea of doing the admin hearing just because we can do those really quick and people can just because these are just building permits. These aren't like big time projects. So I don't know. I mean, I'm thinking just the way this is starting out that we're probably going to come back to you guys and and not seek a recommendation unless we can work through all these things. But

Just right off the bat, I think. Another issue that I saw is, you know, I know the staff here is really bogged down with work, and I understand it, and I appreciate what everyone's done, and I'm just concerned that adding an administrative hearing load onto everyone else's, onto the current workload, I just wonder the extent to which that would be done. I understand that under the state law we're mandated what is it, 60 days from the application to the approval process. So we're under the gun as far as getting that approval. But that was another concern I had is the staffing required to have these admin hearings.

Yeah, I mean, it potentially is less work if we don't have to come to Planning Commission and we do just an admin hearing. But that's if we want to go forward with some type of exception that's greater than 10%.

could we add on to it to say something along the lines of 50 but no closer than x amount of feet and then leave like a you know a 20 or whatever feet so once you get start encroaching that distance from the setback that's where we have to take a closer look at it we could um we probably i don't want to get into like a

A lot of prescriptive things, but I think to have something would be helpful. And maybe it's 50% if it's a single story, because a lot of times when people are doing a two-story and they're getting that close and then they have a window that looks right down into the neighbor's yard, I mean, that's a problem. So I don't know, we can...

Yeah, one of my other questions would be if we allowed this administrative hearing to happen, how was this reported back to the Planning Commission? Because a lot of this would influence our decision making on parking and on different zoning. And so that's pretty important that we understand the numerous requests that are happening, which doesn't sound like it's too much. And my sidebar comment would be just that I feel like we're only filling up half of our agenda with the year for planning commission. So I don't think we're maxed out either on taking on one or two more of these cases per year. I just, I'm concerned about you know, you do have this, you're pulling a permit, you're trying to get this done in a certain time manner and to delay to the planning commission, is it really that much more delay? That's why the Brown Act question was out there. I feel like it's close to the same timeline and this doesn't sound like it'd be that part of an agenda poll to get them to just put what they want on the agenda and then bring their items to present. I mean, that's fair.

I mean, it probably would be a little quicker if it was a zoning, just as the zoning administrator, but... I mean, there's cost to, I mean, bringing something to the Planning Commission is more expensive, but I hear you. I hear what you're saying.

In general, it's like how people take it, just like, you know, when we tell them, oh, you got to go to the Planning Commission, that's just, they take it as, that's a big thing, even though we don't see that. That's not much difference than going to, they don't see it as that. That's my take on that.

That and being able to, you know,

minimize costs were I mean not coming to the commission could potentially be less costly to some extent I suppose right I don't know maybe we can come up with some criteria bring this back and and do a little maybe a little more research I mean what does it say uh Sonoma's 30 percent by planning commission yeah so

Yeah, that's kind of where I was going to recommend to lead. Or maybe to find a basic ground that is 10% or less is under the description of you all to make that decision, but any extreme exception beyond that. Yeah, that's what it is now. Yeah, that's what it is now. But I'm saying find a level above that where we feel comfortable that this could be done without having to go here because it's so simple, but... The nuances of 10 feet broken down to 5 feet or 10 feet broken down to 8 feet or 10 feet broken down to 7 feet sounds really simple if that was the setback, but it all determines on what is on the other side of that setback. It really is what's over it. You can't just say 5 feet, 10 feet because you need to know what that's talking about. So there's kind of a case-by-case deal, but maybe there's a minimal we can figure out.

I mean, maybe that top line could go to 20% done administratively if we had a couple criteria. It's just, I mean, again, these aren't, these are really just trying to help people who have older houses. You know, it's, you know, if it comes to planning commission versus us doing it, I don't know if the outcome would be terribly different, but.

And this isn't just ADU, JDU, this is all residential. Yeah, residential.

ADU gets their own special. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Why don't we we wrote some stuff down?

Well, we can probably should put these on different pages, but I left them on the same one for because they're both minor exceptions.

But maybe as we go through, we can get the direction.

Yeah. So so I did run a search over, you know, various jurisdictions in the state, a bunch of them. And it's 25, 30 percent is pretty standard. Most places. I mean, it's there's a few outliers at 50 percent like Healdsburg, but. seldom want to emulate Healdsburg in any way.

We don't have again, we this is just from our experience of, you know, and if, if the admin one on top was 20, that might do it. But we'll come back with some some options.

Yeah, I think my initial intake was 50% seemed like a little extreme. It's a lot. 20 definitely seems a lot more aligned. 30 even seems doable, maybe up to that limitation, but maybe 20% is done without going to the planning commission, and then up to 30 could happen if they go to the commission.

Yeah, I mean, that's reasonable. I mean, 50 is a lot. I mean, for sure.

Well, it could be, depending on the project. Exactly. There could be a project where you're going from 100 feet down to 50, and that could change things, so...

Well, maybe we could keep 50 with planning commission or just in for those certain cases. It makes sense.

Also could be willing to, I mean, to give us the 50% rule to make that decision between five people, I think is a lot safer.

Yeah. And I would also support a three tier system, 10% just go right through the city planner. 10 to 20 have an admin hearing, and then 20 to 50 before the PC. That would kind of solve everything.

Anything over 20 is coming here.

Yeah, one thing that I'm always concerned about is that to the extent you take things off of the dais and you put them on the planning in addition to the additional workload, it also shuts the public out. So at least you have a planning commission, you give the opportunity for public input as well, and I think that's important.

And I'd also say anything above that 10 should be reported. to the planning commission in some kind of report that, Hey, we had this request happen or we had this one just so that we're aware what's going on from staff. Cause we may not see that transparently.

Okay. That's, that's good for that one. I think.

All right. So that's like, sorry, I should have probably put, I knew I should have put these on different pages, but Mike, you don't have to change pages yet, even though we're kind of next topic. So still minor exception, but parking. So the other bottom two paragraphs are what we're talking about for the parking amending the section to basically allow for a little bit more flexibility with the parking standards in the downtown, even though we don't specifically say that in the code here. But so in the black and the italics, that's already there in the code in commercial zoning. So we're just proposing or adding the sentence in the red. So, you know, like the bank building across from City Hall, the properties that are totally built out, there's, you know, that it's not going to tear down the building and put parking somewhere. So things like that for new users come in, you know, how do we treat the parking? Yeah.

So this is really, we might have to add, we're going to have to add some language to this, but the gist of it is downtown building covers the entirety of the lot. No opportunity to provide parking. We want to have a way out for that.

I was even thinking, like, you know, so there's the vacant building, I mean, the vacant property across the street, you know, from City Hall, or even there's the vacant property on the corner of 1st and Main, and, like, they're not... How much parking can they fit on there? Kevin was talking about earlier. As we have it now, the property is not capable of providing additional parking, but on those properties where it's vacant, they could, but how much? Those are the situations we're thinking about. Downtown where maybe there's a vacant property and they can't provide much, but we want some... you know, economic development and new business downtown, and there's other properties that are totally full with building, and they can't provide any parking.

And we do have a convoluted way through the code to excuse the parking requirement downtown, but it's just not clear, and it's, I mean, how would you describe that? It's, what is it, the... The shared parking thing? Yeah. This would just make it cleaner. I mean, there could be an instance where a building has a couple parking spaces and they want to go to a restaurant. A restaurant has a super high parking requirement. They're never going to make that. We just want to be able to make it work for them in the interest of economic development. And this doesn't say in downtown zoning only, but it could. So that could be another thing we could talk about.

I'm not necessarily opposed to it. However, it is important to me and I think to a lot of people that if they are places that are open to the public, that we have adequate and close enough ADA parking. So maybe there needs to be some sort of stipulation of limited parking with one ADA space or there must be an ADA space within X amount of feet of the entry, something to that effect.

Yeah, and that could be a way to, you know, convince them to help us create an ADA program. And you can do it on the street. It's not great, but I do like that idea.

And again, are these exceptions hoping to go through an administrative review or are they looking, this would always go through the PC for these exceptions, correct?

No, this is an exception without it. Yeah.

And so we'll just take, for example, you want to put a restaurant downtown. There's no use permit. There's nothing that would trigger going to planning commission. If it's an acceptable use in that zoning, it's just a building permit. But we do a planning check during that process and parking comes up as one of the things that planning looks at. So in some cases it would not come to planning commission. I mean, if they're changing the facade and they're doing design review, it would. But like the old bank building, if a restaurant wanted to go in there and they were just pulling a billing permit to do tenant improvements, it doesn't go to Planning Commission.

What triggers the review of the parking requirement then?

If it was to change the use or change the scope of the plan of the already zoned, that would require them to go back through the Planning Commission. If they go through the Planning Commission, then they're required to address parking and ADU. ADA and all of those other requirements. But if they're continually using an existing, already pre-approved building space that's already established, they're not required to go through it. So if you had a change of use from a bank to a restaurant like that where it requires 20 to 30 spots, they're not going to have it. But can't they use those public street spots as their numbers? None of that counts.

We can't. I mean, yeah, they can, obviously, in reality. But we can't count that as meeting the parking requirement.

The way it happens to Commissioner Wagee is when a building permit comes in, it gets routed to the different departments.

Planning is one of them, and so that's when... And by the way, all the empty lots would still have to go through the Planning Commission and address parking for empty lots that would be developed. These are existing buildings that we're talking about.

Yeah, I think in theory I wouldn't be opposed to it. I think it should be limited to the downtown corridor area. Yeah. The one thing that I'm concerned about is the cumulative effect that, you know, obviously if it's just one or two businesses that open without parking, that might not be a problem. But to the extent that it happens on an ongoing basis, we need to have some way to measure the... businesses that are opening that don't have parking so that the planning couldn't be adjusted accordingly, whether it's city parking or something like that. So I think it'd be important to keep a ongoing report as to exceptions that are granted so that yeah, there's cities do like downtown parking districts.

So if you're coming in, you don't have any parking, you pay into this thing. And in theory, it's to for the city to help create parking Yeah, I think this is going to be a future item, by the way.

We talked about this before, that we're going to need three-part parking plan for the city. I agree that it should just be the downtown because I don't want to go into Ferber Plaza and have this same kind of issue going on over there or the south side where there is so much land to develop and these current buildings not taking care of the parking. They could already be in those areas. But, yeah, I think we need to address. I think we need to monitor this closely. and then really address future parking sooner than later, especially as the south end's starting to grow so much. How do we address where to keep, because traffic's not too bad right now in the downtown. It will be bad if we start to cluster up. But I do want to fill in the empty buildings, so whatever we can do to help.

I mean, that's the intent of it, is just to try to remove one barrier. Yeah, having some flexibility makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, that empty lot on 1st and Main. I've gotten calls, you know, I've been here for like 11 years. I get calls at least a few times a year on that one. Because it's OR. That one's not downtown commercial. That one's OR. So, yeah, like we didn't do, when we say the downtown area, you know. Should we go, is the map on the next slide? Yeah, yeah. Actually, it's a couple slides. Oh, yeah. Does this one show that a lot? But anyway, yeah, this one doesn't show a lot. I'm talking about specific. Actually, no, it does.

Yeah, it's on the... Why don't we start with the downtown zoning for this one, and then we can always amend it later if...

Well, I was just going to say, though, like, yeah, I've gotten several calls over the years about like that a lot in particular. And some of them could be, you know, they've asked about putting a home because it is office multifamily residential. So it allows for a mix of some residential use and some commercial. But, you know, the commercial conversations don't usually go that far because you start talking about parking and. We usually don't know. It doesn't seem like we can fit it on that lot.

Would you layer in there that anything outside the downtown corridor needs to go through the Planning Commission?

Yeah, I was just going to say that same thing. So we could do, in downtown, we can do it staff level, but outside of downtown, there's an ability to do it, but you've got to get a Planning Commission approval.

I like that. What's the status of the area behind the police station and La Tequila and...

Yeah. That's where parking gets fun when they fight over the parking lots.

It's all private. It's private parking. Yeah.

It's owned by each of those building establishments from the empty Asian restaurant owns a big portion of that. La Tequila owns a portion of it. Even the chamber building, whoever the building owner of the chamber building owns a portion of it.

the police do not so yeah so for this one we're going to change it to downtown zoning only but with the ability outside of downtown to get approval through the planning commission yeah and i do like the additional script because there are buildings right now that i can see there's no parking that they could ever create so why stop business from occurring in there it'd be nice just to have the clear path for them to move forward through this and not have to Yeah, so that's, okay.

All right. That was kind of, I think, the toughest one. Yeah, so next slide, please, Mike. Let's go a few. Yeah, a couple, yeah. So these are proposed changes to the uses in the commercial zone. So, yeah, we can just kind of go through. Before you start. Yeah.

Yeah. So a lot of these are going from full-blown use permit, which is you guys, to what we call a plot plan review, which is still a review done by planning, right? Yeah. There's no hearing, though, right?

No, but it looks for the same thing, you know, hours of operation, parking.

There'll be conditions of approval, the whole thing. And these are just some suggestions. If you guys aren't comfortable with any of these, just please let us know.

One thing that kind of prompted, you know, just over the years we've talked about this stuff, but even just so more recently, so you guys all probably remember when we had a planning commission not that long ago, I think over the summer for the orthodontist, the dentist, you know. you know, stuff like that. Do we really need a planning commission hearing, public hearing for a dentist going into an existing building? Like, you know, in my eyes, kind of, you know, what do you get out of a condition, having a, you know, a business or proposed use go to the planning committee for a conditional use permit? You should be getting something out of it. I don't know how much we really benefit from having a, an orthodontist come to the planning commission or even, you know, more so, actually more recently didn't come here, but build business-wise, business license-wise. Reuser has a, you know, Reuser's, you know, industrial, you know, property down on the south end of town. He had a master. He was smart when he developed that years ago. He had a master used from it done when he built the thing and had a whole list of things. I remember seeing that years ago. And so we had a business license that came into it. in the last several months. And it was for a new like cheerleading or dance school or something like that. And you look up industrial, we'll get to that later, but industrial districts that requires a use permit. And, you know, again, for that case, Roy's already had that. So that was approved, but you know, what did we really get out of having a cheerleading school coming here for a use permit in that kind of, you know, industrial zone. Anyway, so that's just kind of our thinking of looking at these things. What do we get out of it for, we're not trying to eliminate use permits. It's definitely a good thing for some uses, but maybe not all. So that's just our thinking for some of these as we kind of go through.

Yeah, going through these changes, I mean, it's clear that, you know, the attempts being made to be more accommodating, less onerous, and allow us to do further economic development. That's the goal, yeah.

So there's a few pages of these, so unless you guys want me to read through it. So I'll just point out, so like on the right side, and some of these are, like Kevin said, some of these are going from conditional to plot plan, but some of these are going from it's not permitted at all to conditional. And so like bed and breakfast in the general commercial and the service commercial. Go to the next slide, Mike. So it's hard to see. So like, but in that general, so right in the middle on South Street there, there's a general, and there's only houses right there. There's like four houses. Those aren't going to change to commercial. So why not at least allow them, well, a couple, something more business opportunity if they want to have a bed and breakfast or, you know, I think also a non-hosted vacation rental, we're allowing. That's a new use allowed, I guess, you know. And also there's, behind the gas station on the Fast and Easy, there's a couple, those are houses right there. And then in the service commercial, kind of, I think, like, Boehm, I forgot her name, but, her first name, but, yeah, the Boehm's property, they have a couple houses right there, too, across from, like, Cherry Creek, or the Cherry Creek property. There's not a huge amount, you know, of opportunity, but, you know, even the TOD, there's a couple houses right when you, the Quonset Hut little thing, there's, like, a house right there. So, again, examples like that. Can you go back, Mike? Yeah, sorry, yeah, go back up, Mike. So that would be an example of like a new use in a zone. And that was our thinking of why would we add it in that zone is, you know, that, yeah. So that's like bed and breakfast and then also non-hosted vacation rental.

So bed and breakfast in the general commercial, which was that red. Yeah. Right. Currently is not allowed. There are some homes there. So this would allow it with a use permit. Yeah. You know, maybe commercial, like Rafael said, some of those commercial zones have a lot of houses in them. Not a lot, but they do have some. They're near downtown. Seems like an okay place to have a bed and breakfast as long as it comes to the planning commission and you can check, you know, the different aspects of running that business and does it make sense there. So that's one. And then we'll see the non-hosted vacation zones. So you're going from the TOD, which was kind of the center of town around Citrus Fair, and you guys are probably familiar with TOD. We talk about it a lot. So it's going from, so what is it, not permitted? Not permitted at all. Yeah. To conditional use permit. I highly recommend. With a non-hosted. And some of those are near downtown, so that might be a good place to have like a VRBO situation, a non-hosted vacation rental. Yeah. So I don't know if you guys...

I do believe you need to go from a permit to a conditional permit, a no permit to a conditional permit for there. Did you say again? I think that's... What was it again? Sorry, go ahead and say it again. I said I do believe you need to go from a non-permitted to a conditional permit in that. That's exactly what he told me.

Yeah, I was being a little going from not permitted to plot plan, but no, yeah, we're going conditional.

Conditional is good because of the number. This is one of the mistakes I think Healdsburg made is not really specifying the number of that and going through a permitting process of that. So they just got out of hand before they could get control of it.

What's the bottom one? So that's... Oh, hotel.

Hotel's up to 12 rooms. So that's it. It was conditional before.

So that's OR.

Yeah.

So OR is the one that flanks the downtown on either side. So it's kind of, there's offices, there's houses, there's, it's not a huge zoning area. But so this, what is this saying, Rob? This is going to go from... Conditional to plot plan. Yeah. I mean, maybe we leave that one conditional. I don't know.

Yeah, as we go through, please, yeah, if there's any suggestions.

Well, 12 rooms. There's a lot of proposals here. I'm going to say let's leave that one condition. Okay.

When you're talking about that, you said it's on either side of downtown? Is it east, west, or north, south?

Mike, do you mind going back a few? Sorry, bud.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, this is fine. It doesn't show the entirety of it. But so you got your red, that's the downtown and then the OR east and west of it.

So it's purple.

Yeah, it's the it's the purple. See the old. So it's commercial and it's kind of that in between commercial and residential, like surrounding the downtown and You could have like a dentist office. I think there is a dentist office, things like that.

So as you're thinking about that, so, you know, like this didn't actually go to planning, but like... Fred Cook's lot. A lot of these are actually through lots, meaning even though the commercial street side is OR zoning and the Cloverdale Boulevard side is downtown commercial.

Split zoning.

Yeah. Some of these are one lot. Even though the zoning divides it, it's one lot. So the owner has two different zonings on his lot. Problematic. Yeah, so like, you know, Fred Cook, so, you know, where there's a plank and he's got the open area there, like the back, I think there's some, but he's always got some ideas of business stuff and he has to deal with something like that. And, you know, where he's got mixed zoning and allowing maybe a little bit more in the OR would help some of these property owners that have this dual zoning on one property.

Mike, sorry, can you go back to the table?

You know, I was looking through the table, and the one thing that concerned me is the larger than 1,500 square feet, reducing that to just a PP. I would be amenable to increasing the amount to maybe 2,000 or 2,500 square feet, but I think we should have a ceiling after which it needs to...

The offices you're talking about?

We're talking about for the general commercial and SC areas. Yeah, office and related use.

Yeah, okay. We can leave those as use permits if that's what you guys are thinking, too.

I think that's what... Daniel, is that what you were saying? To leave it as conditional, but up to change the $1,500 to $2,000?

Up to $2,000 or $2,500. So, I mean, obviously, we don't want to have a huge installment, so I'm amenable to increasing it somewhat.

But leaving it at a C. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

I want to suggest that the hotels and the OR not go to conditional use. I mean, don't go to... Stay as a use permit. If there's consensus on that, that's kind of big for just a plot plan.

You guys got to help ring me in here. We're just having a discussion. Okay, I think we can go to the next slide.

Is there more comments on this one?

Yeah, is there any more discussion?

So we're going to leave it use permit for 12 hotels of 12 in OR. We're going to change the office administration. But leave it a conditional use permit.

Can we go back to that map really quick? Okay. Okay. For a minute, it said no bars or cocktail lounges. And I was like, wait a minute, isn't Wolf House already in that area? But I see now that it's on the line.

Those are staying at use permit, I think. Sorry, Mike. Go back down. Yeah. Yeah, those are still, yeah, use permit. Yeah, we didn't change anything there. Any other discussion on this? Okay, Mike. I think we're safe to go to the next one. One more. Again, another table is in the commercial zoning. So, yeah, this is kind of what we were talking about, the minor medical uses, like the orthodontists, the dentists.

Just to Anything that was not permitted before or it goes to use permit, and there's a few cases there. We didn't go from not permitted to just plot plan and anything. So you can see the NP, those might be ones that you...

And take a closer look at another, you know, the car wash. So that's maybe a good point to talk about. I guess the car wash, that was one other thing that kind of triggered just, you know, one of our not housekeeping, but like it wouldn't need, I need, you know, to bring these changes to the planning commission for discussion. So yeah, as you might know, the planning, the car wash application was submitted and we propose, or we are anticipating that they will be going to general commercial and or sorry, Yeah, general commercial. And yeah, it's not allowed use in that zone right now. So that would be one new suggestion on that. This is going via commercial use for the car wash. Current car wash isn't zoned for a car wash?

No.

No.

It got rezoned somewhere along the way. Yeah. They're changing their color on the map, their land use designation. Along with that, they could amend this table to allow it as a use in that zone, or we can suggest doing it now, and they could do it with their application, which is a few months away, but... Yeah, we figure we'd just lump it in with all the rest of these.

Since we're doing this tables.

Um... So what's exciting on here? So not permitted sales or automotive. What's that one?

That's a general commercial and downtown commercial. So, yeah. So, you know, so go back to you back to the map, Mike. So up and up. Yeah. Sorry, Mike. Maybe two more. Yeah, there you go. I think. Does this show the Clovell Auto? Well, you guys know where Clovell Automotive is, right? That's downtown commercial. It's close. It's just off the street. Yeah. So right now, that's not a permitted use. And the same thing with the tire. Eric's. Yeah. Oh, no, not Eric. Yeah. That's not an allowed use in that zone either.

The old Sutters? Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, how did they get there?

Because back in the day when this was Highway 101, we had all those allowed uses. I kind of think a lot of this came through, you know, when the city, when the freeway, you know, moved and the city did a lot of changes in the downtown. Re-zone correctly. Yeah, we re-zoned a lot of stuff to get rid of all those old freeway uses, but some of those uses aren't going anywhere. You know, that auto, Cloverdale Auto is probably not going to go anywhere and neither is old Stoddard. Stoddard's not going to go anywhere.

So they're like...

They're like a non-existing... Yeah, yeah. But this would... legalize them, I guess.

I mean, I guess Eagle Tech would probably fall in that category. Yeah, exactly. Eagle Tech, yeah. But I don't know if we want to... Can you go back to the table, Mike?

It's conditional.

I don't know if we want to...

So it's downtown commercial and GC.

They're existing, non-conforming. They can continue. They can sell their business as long as it doesn't stay closed for over six months.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know. Maybe this one's I don't know that that's the kind of use we want downtown.

I know. That's why I was taking that. That's why I was, you know. I agree with both sides on this one. Maybe just leave it non. What do you?

Well, you probably don't want it for future, but. Yeah, that's a good point. They're kind of innocuous now. They're not. They're fine.

Neither of those.

Neither of the three of those are. really an issue you know in terms of they don't park all kinds of junk in front and they don't you know they're they're not they're clean randy's thing he's all behind high fences and stuff like that you really can't even see what he's doing i guess technically with the non-conforming like you know say say i you know i don't maybe one of them doesn't do uh you know detailing or doesn't do automotive or i mean doesn't do repair or something like that one doesn't

They have to, you know, not conforming locks you kind of into that. You can't change any use at all. This would allow for a little bit of a change in, you know.

Yeah, I'm torn on this because I don't know that it's the kind of use that we would want to encourage downtown. There's a path forward with this.

That's just what I was thinking is that we, you know, they're great, but it's not something we want to encourage more.

Let's leave that one.

Yeah, we'll leave it as, yeah, okay.

But the general commercial.

But the general, yeah, because they got the car wash coming in. So that one, but the downtown commercial, no.

That doesn't leave someone some kind of legal action to come in and challenge the city for permitting Eagle Tech or something like that? It's existing, non-conforming.

Yeah, it's been, it's, they may have a use permit. I don't know from really old, but... If we, I mean, right now, like you said, they're existing non-conforming. They can continue, they can sell, they can do all those things. They just can't close for, I think, for six, if it's six months. Yeah, six months. Then the use has to go away. Yeah, I think it's, I think we don't allow it downtown just because it's not really what we want to encourage.

At some point, we'd want to...

Phase them out.

...develop any downtown... Places as possible, right?

So if there's consensus, we'll put that back. Leave that one, yeah, on DTC. Okay. So what else you got here, bro? If you got daycare, what is it going from? Conditional to plot plan.

Sorry, I can't.

Yeah, it's a... Or is it plot plan to permitted?

It's going from conditional use to plot plan review. And there are... So that use... There is a... Well, I must be thinking, I think it's child, it's, so we have a few definitions that I'm getting confused. I was going to say we have, you know, standards for that kind of use, but I'm thinking it's more, it's like that says daycare facilities. I think it says child daycare facilities. There's... It says daycare. Yeah. Yeah, not that one.

The one I'm looking at is recreation use.

Yeah.

And doesn't, I know the Grange Hall has been repurposed right now, but doesn't that fall in the OR?

No, that's actually its own zone. Did that get caught? Sorry, Mike.

It just looked like it was in that vicinity.

Is it on that one?

No, it's off 2nd Street. Go back. You go back to the, yeah, right there. I think it's OR, but it's.

It's right there, isn't it?

On the way, that's. Commercial street area, that whole.

Yeah, it's in the. Yeah, first and, yeah, it's on that purple. It is OR, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, what if that, you know, what if it changes again? I don't think it's. I mean, that was a public place or a place where they were using for, like, karate practice and ballet and stuff like that before. Yeah. We had other facilities, so.

Well, I. Worst case, it's an existing non-conforming, but I think best case is we wouldn't call it a recreation. We would call it assembly hall or something different, but we should look into that one just to... Back to the tables, Mike.

Yeah, this, yeah. XO because OR. Yeah, it's not permitted now.

We should just take that recreation use off of there if there's no... Is that defined in the zoning? Yeah, look it up.

Did you pass the public and quasi-public section, or was that listed?

That's a different zoning section, yeah. That's not a commercial. We're not suggesting any changes there. No, not in that one.

Yeah, you're not changing anything, but I think you do need to change the TOD of that to it. some kind of permitting, because I can imagine in TOD land, you're going to want to put some kind of music event facility. It could be a movie theater. It could go into one of those areas that's TOD. It would bring TOD revenue, too, to both of those. So those would be uses that would bring tax dollars. That's under the... It's not on these slides. It's in our packet under... public and quasi-public uses theaters, including motion pictures and live performing arts. And in the TOD and the OR, it's not permitted. Oh, the theater, yeah. I think the TOD, it should be permitted. We're always going to want to promote mixed use, so that could blend in with some of this.

So on that one, the theaters are saying in the TOD, it's conditional use permit.

TOD is NP, it should be a C. All right.

What's this multifamily one, Raph? Where is that one? So in downtown commercial... Oh. It would eliminate... A plot plan, yeah. For first floor residential. Yeah.

It's... Like multifamily. This is multifamily.

So someone could build an apartment downtown that does not have commercial on the first floor and it would just be like a... Kind of like a regular apartment building you see in San Francisco or something.

I mean, it's not like it wasn't not permitted before. It was just a plot plan, which would be an administrative staff level.

Which something like that is going to go through an extensive building permit process.

You'd have to go through the Planning Commission and all that, and we're going to try to enforce mixed use anyway, so. Yeah.

Most of them are pretty benign. Is there any more discussion on this? Go to the next one? Yeah, any more discussion on this slide?

All right, next one, Mike. And we'll go, I think, to the next one.

Okay, we moved it to industrial. All right, we're making progress. I mean, there is definitely still some, but not as many in industrial as in commercial.

Can we back up really quick to the map? Back up to the map so that we can see which areas we're discussing.

Industrial is... I don't think it's on there. Yeah, you know what? I don't know why. I didn't even think of that. Sorry about that. It's mostly... Here, let's... Maybe we can bring it up. It's going to be on the south. It's like... Yeah. It's the Reuser.

It's the... I just wanted to get a visual of... Mostly on the south. Yeah. Designating what where. Yeah.

But I think there's some industrial on the north end, too, where the other two lumber yards. It's service commercial. Barnes isn't industrial? It's service commercial up there.

Well, Barnes isn't in town. I guess that's true. That's true. If it was. If we could do that. Get an annex in.

We're talking about kind of like the Bear, like, you know, Reusers, and then a couple properties across from him. And then, like, the Bear Republic, like that on Sandholm. Is it that color? Yeah.

so yeah so behind the bear the old bear republic red door um the frontage of south cloverdale boulevard like the uh co-op in that area and then like you said over uh mgm breaks is is industrial and then reiser yeah it's all pretty much on the south

Oh, I might be some this. Oh, we talked about this. Wait, no MP. Yeah, sorry. I'm just, you know, I thought I broke one of my own rules not doing MP to see.

That's cheap. Okay. I don't have any questions on that area.

Yeah, like, I mean, you know, to the vet, vets are allowed. There's one. We're going proposing a plot plan instead of conditional use with a vet hospital with exterior kennels. I'm just bringing that one up. I don't see a ton of controversy on here, but I don't know if that one warrants any discussion. It's an allowed use already, but it would be a conditional use permit. So we're just saying vets proposing a new vet hospital with exterior kennels be a plot plan instead of conditional use permit.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's usually the issue is the exterior, the noise. The kenneling. Yeah. We should probably leave that as conditional use permit then.

Is there another industrial zoning screen?

Yes, I don't know why. I didn't even think about apparently.

Oh, no, no, no. I was just wondering because in looking at the materials, the one item that really stuck out at me is the live work.

Oh, yeah. There's another slide. Okay. Mike? I believe that one's on there. Go back up. Oh, no, down. Down. Keep going. Other way.

Or in the beginning. We want to get to the very last slide.

Almost.

Not quite the last.

Keep going. Keep going. There we go. Wait. Yeah. So this was...

There is the live work, yeah.

So my thought on this... So yeah, so not permitted in... So my thought... The Barry Public building. So those... If you look at the map on that, those were... That building was conduized years ago, so someone could just buy one of those and wallet and have a live work. So that was my thinking with something like that.

Why don't we just... leave a muse permit.

That one in particular was not permitted in the MP. I think literally the MP zone is only... I don't think there's any other properties in the city zoned MP except for the very public property.

Think about the Roozer commercial.

That's M1.

Okay, yeah, and that's the one, the M1, the live workspace. That was an area that I had significant questions about because, you know, having people live in that area is going to really change the nature of that. And I'm just curious... with regards to that, whether or not there's been adequate studying of the extent to which that's going to increase the services, whether it be fire, whether it be police. I mean, you have people living there. There really isn't the infrastructure for people to be living in that area. And I'm just, that's my primary concern.

Well, that one is, it's an allowed use now with the conditional use permit.

I believe when I worked up there quite a few years ago, there were people living there. Yeah.

I'm just reluctant to have it have that changed because I think that would, but we could, I mean, we can leave it, leave it as traditional use from it.

And then, you know, they would have to do building code things. There would, there'd be private parking discussions and all of all the things with, I didn't think it would be like a wholesale conversion to residential, but it'd be like an artist trying to build a little loft or something in.

That's what it was.

Yeah.

19 years ago. And it was, you know, somebody building a loft in there and a, you know, are converting, like if you come in and there's a big office and there's a bathroom and people are converting that into their living unit and then the workspace. So it's been happening for quite a while.

Yeah, no, I certainly understand that. Having come to San Francisco, south of Market Street, all the warehouses turned into live workspaces, but there really wasn't the infrastructure in place. And, you know, if it's just a couple here or there, that's one thing, but to the extent that we're going to allow it to just go through the planning department without any control, that's where my concern comes in. Sure.

Yeah, let's just leave it. There's not a lot of people asking for it, but there is a way to do it if you want to do it, and so I think it's okay.

Yeah. Not affecting the other nearby businesses or that as well over a long period of time.

Just the plot plan is we do look at it. We do condition it, but it's all just in-house.

Whoops, sorry. I got both tables on the same side. Sorry about that. Sorry. Sorry, it was the last one.

I think we did it.

So next slide, Mike.

So we're not going to suggest this. We'll come back. We've got a lot of notes.

Wow, that didn't feel like an hour.

Just for the record, we're not going to look at adopting an amended resolution tonight with those changes? Just so you don't have to come back? Or is there still more discussion you'd like to have?

I mean, the very first one with the setback reduction, I think you want a little more information. The other ones we probably could just amend on the fly with that one. Yeah, we probably should come back. And the parking, just to properly address. Oh, sure. Yeah, the parking. Yeah, with the downtown.

No worries. I just like to give the option that you can always amend the resolution based on what the planning commission likes. But if you want more information.

I appreciate your effort, Mike. I just think we need a little more research on that one.

And just for the commission to be aware, the next meeting that you would potentially be able to discuss this would be in August because the July meeting is canceled due to its proximity to the 4th of July holiday.

And my cast getting off on the 6th, so we can't hold a meeting.

But that might give staff ample time to get all the information they need. Got it.

Can we go back to the ADU issue and the amendment for that? I understand that the state changes their rules for ADU all the time, and I certainly understand that it's difficult for us to keep up. with the city to keep up with all the changes. And so accordingly, I would certainly be in favor of moving to adopt the state, I guess it's the handbook, but I'm a little bit concerned because essentially what's happening is the entire ADU is being gutted, the current ordinance, and it's being replaced with the state. And I don't, it's impossible for me to look through the red line and see what are the substantive things that currently exist in our ADU that will go away. Because obviously we need to comply with state law, but there may be things that are in our current ADU ordinance that we want to preserve that are not in conflict with the state law.

That's a good point. I mean, yeah, yeah.

I mean, no, I, I, I totally agree, but in my, in my eyes, you know, the, To me, the state isn't taking anything from us that I thought that we were ahead of the curve as far as years ago. We were probably one of the first cities or whole state to allow to. Now that's part of the state code.

So is it your understanding that all of our local are surpassed

Yeah, essentially everything that we allow now is going to stay. It's just a lot of the stuff that I kind of listed before that the state is prohibiting, like requiring deed restrictions.

So is it all of our stuff and...

Yeah, and the state.

Because the way I looked at it, just looking at the resolution, it looked like the entire ADU ordinance was redlined.

That's their request, yeah.

But is there any reason why we can't keep our ADU and adapt that one paragraph that says that we'll comply with the state and keep our current ADU ordinance and say to the extent there's a conflict between what we have and what the state has, the state will prevail?

I thought one of the new ordinances passed at the state level negated any ADU ordinance we had in place if it did not comply completely. Essentially, yeah.

And that's why they sent us the letter.

There may be places where we're in compliance and we want to preserve those, it sounds like.

But then the catch-all is, and the state, Right, and to the extent there's a conflict, state rules, and that's fine. And that way, you know, because I didn't have the time to go through and try and look at the substantive things that we would lose. And, you know, if we had a full staff, that's probably something that I'd ask the staff to come back and say, what changes would, what currently rights are currently in the ADU that would go away? Obviously, to the extent there's a conflict, it has to go away. I understand that.

Yeah, I can't think of anything that we would, like, again, that we'd be losing just going with, you know, like, again, by the number of two units, you know, we were always allowed that. And we weren't requiring the restrictions. We weren't requiring owner occupancy. And we, I was just going to say that. Oh, parking. Yeah, that's another thing. One of the new things is you can't – we haven't required parking for years for that. So, again, they're not making us do anything we haven't already done before. They're just making us add more language to say we're not going to allow HOAs to have another process. We're not going to have – which we don't anyway. They're just kind of making us put in more stuff that we don't require, which they want in writing, I guess, essentially.

But this hasn't happened yet, so who knows when it will happen.

And share really quickly, as part of a report, just to take a quick poll from you guys.