Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the Planning Commission meeting of Monday, June 22nd, 2026. I now call the meeting to order. First order of business is Pledge of Allegiance and will be led by Commissioner Klipak this evening. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madam Clerk, will you please do the voice roll call?

I ask, Mr. Chair, the record will reflect that all commission is here except for Commissioner Martinez.

And just to note that Director Carrie Tai is attending tonight's meeting remotely. We have no announcements or presentations this evening, which takes us to public comment. Public comment will be heard this time on items that are not listed on the agenda, but are within the Planning Commission's jurisdiction. I'll open public comment. If you'd like to speak, please come to either lectern. And if you're participating by Zoom, please use the raise hand option. Or if you're joining us by phone, please use star nine. Anybody in chambers wish to speak?

Through the chair, microphone, please. It's on. Thank you. Through the chair, thank you for your service. I've got a friendly challenge tonight. I believe my city of Costa Mesa is broken. I've got some examples here. In order to be a commissioner, I think you need to be talking to residents and businesses. And so if you're not aware that the city's broken, that these permits are very challenging, respectfully, you shouldn't be there. If you think as a commissioner, well, what can I do? maybe as an individual, but not as a body. If that's your thinking, I just don't think you should be up there either. So I want to give you a couple of examples of how the process is broken. So I've got a buddy looking to sell a multimillion dollar home in Newport and come to Costa Mesa to DEMO AND REBUILD IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD ABOUT $6 MILLION. IT'S REALLY BEEN A CHALLENGING PROCESS ON THE TIMING, ON THE TYPES OF COMMENTS, WE'VE RESOLVED ALL THESE THINGS. HE ASKED FOR A DEMO PERMIT. NOW, MIND YOU, THIS IS A R1 RESIDENTIAL, NOT PART OF THE HOUSING ELEMENT, NONE OF THAT. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE NEW PROCESS IN COAST MESA IS? YOU HAVE TO SIGN AN Affidavit notarized affidavit promising that you're gonna buy a multi-million dollar dirt site Promising you're gonna rebuild a house Then you have to show the city a financial ability to replace that house Plus all these other things and the demo permit still isn't issued So I called the city of Newport Beach just to understand how other cities handle this Do you know how Newport Beach handles this they will issue the demo permit over-the-counter and? One of my buddies has named this process economic terrorism. We are taking from residents. We are taking from businesses. And for you not to do anything about it, I think is such a missed opportunity. You know, tomorrow night I'll be at the traffic impact fee, just a heads up. The state is requiring us to move from level of service where the impacts are. Let's widen streets to vehicle miles traveled where the solutions are. Let's put in bike lanes and bus stops and all sorts of things. I need your help, okay? Animal services, holy cow, the city just did them dirty over there. They pulled the contract. They went behind closed doors and a backroom cowardless act to really harm our nonprofit here. I'm going to show you the facts that I hope will compel you to act. I just don't know why commissioners aren't acting as a group. If you ask a question of staff one-on-one, they're going to pick you off and ignore you. It's probably already happened. If all of you in your comments say, I'd like to look at TESA and how long does the average permit take? I'd like each one of the staff reports to indicate when the applicant applied. We have two tonight that I think might be a success story, but how do you know it? It's not there. So I'm asking for help. It's a friendly challenge. use your position for the good of Costa Mesa. Thank you for your time and your service.

Thank you. Anyone else in chambers wish to speak? Madam Clerk, do we have anybody on Zoom or phone?

Yes, Cynthia, please.

Good evening, Cynthia McDonald, Costa Mesa resident. I spent many hours today going through the environmental impact report for the Measure K and housing element. And I just looked at the impacts that are significant and unavoidable impacts. There are over 35 of those. And what's really surprising is that there are some with no mitigation measures are feasible. What's noticeably missing from all of this is a traffic impact report. Here we have pages and pages and pages of impacts, nothing mentioning traffic in this city. That is Just amazing to me. I also this weekend was up in Hollywood where they are doing a considerable amount of building of housing. And I took a lot of pictures of the nine story buildings. And I took a lot of pictures of the shadows cast by those nine story buildings in the mid afternoon. And here we are beginning of summer hours are longer. Shadows should be shorter, but those streets, some of them were completely in shadow because of those tall buildings. That's going to be a big impact on the city of Costa Mesa coming up. So I hope you are looking at those reports and especially the first very significant impact where it says, yes, we are going to have a lot of shade and shadows in this city. Thank you.

Thank you.

No further speakers.

Okay. I will close public comments. That takes us to Planning Commissioner comments and suggestions. Let's start with Commissioner Dixon.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's been a few weeks since we've been off, so I'm glad to see everyone here again, and I'm glad that we're back. Just along the lines of the last three meetings that were canceled, and there's usually a reason for this, is whether or not there's an issue with the staff's ability to get things done, whether or not it's too much of a workload, or whether or not they're understaffed, or there may have been not enough items on the agenda that were ready for a hearing or whatever, but I think I see three missed meetings as a missed opportunity when we have such significant things in the city that are pending before the residents whether or not it's the fairview developmental center specific plan that's working its way through the environmental impact process or the changes to the housing element or measure k er or things like that i just understanding that engagement is one of our toughest things to deal with especially for staff you can't make people you can put the water out but you can't bring a horse to drink I STILL THINK THAT ANY OPPORTUNITY WE HAVE TO ENGAGE THE RESIDENTS IN MORE MEANINGFUL INTERACTION REGARDING PLANNING ISSUES WOULD BE GREAT. I DON'T KNOW IF WHEN WE HAVE A CANCELED MEETING WE HAVE THE DOORS TO THE CITY HALL OPEN AND IF A COMMISSIONER WANTS TO COME THEY CAN HANG OUT AND SEE IF ANYBODY COMES TO ASK QUESTIONS. So some good news, we've got Songs in the Canyon. I don't know if anybody here is familiar with that. It's this phenomenal event that's been going on for a while that takes place in Canyon Park. And it's such an incredible example of how great Costa Mesa is as a community. With so many people coming together, local artists, local restaurants, local vendors, musicians, it was just a fantastic event. It's our own music festival right in Canyon Park. So I hope that the city can do everything possible to encourage that and not dampen that in any way going forward, because it was a phenomenal event. It was great. You get to see all your neighbors and listen to great music, all this other wonderful stuff. You know, I listened to the comments from former Commissioner Fitzpatrick and from Ms. McDonald, and, you know, we do have some issues that we need to address as far as how we approach business and how we approach interacting with the city. I'll give you an example. I recently bought a car, and I was thinking about there's a dealership that we don't have in Costa Mesa. I don't know why we don't have it in Costa Mesa, maybe because We have sort of a decentralized Harbor Boulevard of cars as opposed to an Irvine Auto Center or a Santa Ana Auto Mall or a Tustin Auto Center or something like that. But Huntington Beach still has a pretty good thoroughfare for cars that they mix things up with. But as I'm sitting on Victoria, because I live on the west side and I commute to an apartment temporarily during a remodel, on a Saturday afternoon, it took me four signal cycles to get across Harbor Boulevard on Victoria from the 55. Now, if I'm going to buy a car, am I going to go to our wonderful Cadillac dealer on Harbor that's stranded behind all these signals and all this traffic way far off the freeway, or am I going to go to an auto mall or something like that? I think we need to be much more mindful about how all the decisions we make in the city as far as circulation and as far as active transportation, as far as everything else, how it will impact our businesses and our economic engine. And it includes South Coast Plaza, Harbor Boulevard cars, 17th Street is an absolute gem, West and East 19th Street. So I think we need to be mindful when we're looking at these things of how every decision we make when it comes to planning or stuff like that can impact our business and our economic development. You know, we talked about, Mr. Fitzpatrick was talking about some of the things in his comments that he said about how we had changed our approach to some of the regulations in response to state communications. And I think, again, I would love to get some consistency among the commission and everyone else about how we approach different mandates from the state. Something I talked about previously, which I never really got an answer to, The authorizing legislation for our acquisition of Fairview Elementary Center provided a very clear and distinct limit on the number of units. It was between the 1,500 units the city council came up with prior to that and a maximum based on their own examination of the property's carrying capacity or capacity for development of 2,500 units. Somehow we're talking about double that or more. So it's a curious thing how we can respond to the state very quickly when they have a mandate on some things, but we kind of ignore them on others. So I appreciate everyone's comments, and I think that we have a lot of work to do here in this city. We have so many great opportunities. We have such a great city. I just think we have to be very mindful in everything we do about how our decisions best impact our businesses and residents. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Commissioner Andrade?

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks so much for being here. So first off, I wanted to do an appreciation for the development team that was out on June 3rd, 6 p.m. at the Senior Center, reviewing the neighborhoods where we all belong. So although we didn't have a formal meeting earlier in the month, earlier in June, we did get to connect and review that publicly. It was great to see the new housing opportunity sites that are being explored, and I hope that the team got great feedback from that session. Also, as a FYI for the community and everybody that's watching along, now, as you heard from one of our speakers, callers, The environmental impact report is out. And as you heard from her from June 16 to August 3, we all have access to it. And that's literally the handle of the website where you can find the full program, neighborhoods where we all belong. It's an opportunity for everyone in our community to provide input, to review what is going to be the vision and future of Costa Mesa. So a really exciting time, but we really need the community to take a look at it, dive in, and give us your feedback. Also a recognition, and I would love to hear if there's opportunities from Director Carey, Director Tai, excuse me, from the May ICSC, the national largest retail conference that you all were at, highlighting the great benefits to national businesses to have the opportunity to come and engage in business here in Costa Mesa. So I'd love to hear any feedback or highlights that you guys heard back, but really appreciate your effort in traveling across the state to, out of the state, to EXPOSED TO MANY BUSINESSES, THE GREAT OPPORTUNITIES THAT ARE AVAILABLE HERE. I ALSO HAD A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO CONNECT WITH THE STAFF BACK IN JUNE FOR THE GROUNDBREAKING OF SHALOMAR PARK. GREAT TO SEE SOME OF THE STAFF OUT IN THE FIELD, BUT THIS IS A PROJECT THAT THE CITY HAS BEEN UNDERTAKING FOR QUITE SOME TIME. WE'RE REALLY EXCITED TO SEE SHALOMAR PARK HAVING A GROUNDBREAKING AND ALSO KETCHUM LIBEL. JUST AS I WAS DRIVING HERE, I SEE THAT SOME PIECES OF THE PARK ARE GOING UP AND I THINK ALSO I THINK MR. YANG SHARED, WE'RE ALSO UPGRADING THE SKATE PARK. SO THREE MAJOR PARK RENOVATIONS HAPPENING IN OUR CITY. I CANNOT WAIT UNTIL THESE ARE HAPPENING, ESPECIALLY BECAUSE THE WEST SIDE OF COSA MESA THAT LEAVES US WITHOUT PARKS, BUT IT'S OKAY. WE'LL JUST DIVE INTO THE OTHER DISTRICTS. Also, a huge congratulations to the Economic Development and Community Relations team in Costa Mesa on June for what sounds like, I think, and I would love to learn more, was a first time participation of the Small Business Diversity Network EATS program, Entrepreneurship and Food Industry and Training program that the city 24 participants, mostly Costa Mesa residents, got to participate in this six-week economic development program provided by the city on how to start a business, how to create a business plan, how to develop the funding that you need, how to start up. So thank you for the investment and opportunities for small businesses here in Costa Mesa. Great to hear that 24 graduates are walking away with a a tangible plan hopefully to implement right here in our city. And then lastly, looking forward, July, lots of great celebration and community engagement opportunities for everyone, a whole series of movies in the park, also a whole series of concerts in the park. So I encourage you all to visit the city website. Their social media is pretty active in listing all the great opportunities that you can engage with your neighbors and connect with others across your districts in the month of June and July. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Commissioner Klipek.

I'm excited to be back and nothing additional for me.

Okay. Commissioner Rojas.

No, no, I'm good. Thank you.

Okay. Vice Chair Zick.

Thank you, Chair. I hadn't expected to say anything tonight other than it's been an awful long time since we've been here. I was going to reintroduce myself. You know, I can't let comments from the public, particularly concerns, go unresponded to. Whether it's our charter or not to deal with some of those subjects, I think if somebody's got a concern or a complaint, beyond just letting them speak and then we go about our business, I think it's... at a minimum, respectful to respond. The general comment about certain roles and responsibilities and whether or not we should be up here or not, not quite sure how to respond to that. I've said before, and I think I'm speaking largely to the camera because I think most of the people here are applicants and they're not generally concerned about matters in the city. If you are, that's good too though. I've said before that although we're called the Planning Commission, some people think we do planning. And maybe we should, but we don't. What we do is we get applications that have been studied by staff and we determine whether or not they're meeting the requirements of the city. And we approve or we don't approve. But we don't do planning. And so when I hear concerns about the demo permit process as an example Boy, I would love to dig into that. I'm not even sure it's within our charter I'm not sure if I asked for details about that if I'd ever even get it I've asked for a simple list of active planning applications now that does seem to be something within our I've asked for that over half a dozen times and Never got it. I don't know if I have to make a motion, get a second, get a majority vote, just to get a list of active applications the city's working on. I don't know if that's what I have to do, but nobody seems to care about that other than me. And that's not even changing process. That's just understanding workload, what's coming down the pipe. Yes, seems like there's a problem with the demo permit process, according to Mr. Fitzpatrick, who I have a tremendous amount of respect for, especially as a former planning commissioner, chairman. But I've never gotten contacted by any businesses. about concerns with demo permits or processing time for CUPs. So as much as I'd want to be responsive to detailed complaints, I really don't have those details and can't speak other than to the generality of that concern. The way we've treated businesses, This has come up, but again if businesses aren't contacting me with specific concerns whether it's within my purview or not I can't do anything without any of that detail I Can pass along concerns to city council members I can pass along concerns to staff, but if I don't get those concerns and the details from businesses, there's nothing I can do I Don't think there are too many people as active as as Mr. Fitzpatrick is in the city. There's a number of them, there's a handful. And so I take his concerns and his comments with a great amount of concern because he's engaged, he's active, he's hearing things I'm not hearing. Another person who commented tonight was Cynthia McDonald. This is another one of our very active residents in the city, very active in the area of housing and development. And you heard her concerns tonight. What, over 35 unmitigated impacts in an EIR? What do you think we're doing about that?

Charging head?

Yeah, that'd be my guess, because I haven't seen that reported or presented to us. No, there's a lot going on, but it's not going on up here. And I think a lot more should be going on up here.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your comments. Our next item this evening is consent calendar. We have two consent calendar items tonight. All matters listed under the consent calendar are considered to be routine and are acted on in one motion. There's separate discussion if an item has been pulled. Madam Clerk, has anyone pulled an item from the public?

No, Mr. Chair.

Anybody on commission wish to pull one of the items? Seeing none, we have two items, minutes from April 13th, 2026 and April 27th, 2026. May I have a motion?

I'll move the minutes.

Moved by Commissioner Dixon, seconded by Vice Chair Zick. Let's call for the question.

Motion carries 6-0.

We have three public hearings tonight, two CUP applications and one code amendment proposal. Madam Clerk, would you please read the title for public hearing, item number one.

Thank you. This is conditional use permit to allow the sale of alcohol for on-site consumption until 12 a.m. within 200 feet of a residential zone for a restaurant called Three-Eyed Tiger at 2930 Bristol Street. Staff presentation by Mr. Villalobos, assistant planner.

Any ex parte communications to report? All right.

This is its site.

Okay. All right. Mr. Villalobos, you have the floor.

Good evening, Chair and Commissioners. My name is Gabriel Villalobos, and I'm an assistant planner with Economic and Development Services Department. presenting application PCUP 260005, which is a request to allow the sale of alcohol for onsite consumption after 11 p.m. within 200 feet of a residential zone for a proposed project 3i Tiger. The project site is located at the Lab Anti Mall at 2930 Bristol Street. The project site is zone C2 and is designated general commercial by the city's land use element of the general plan. The subject property is adjacent to similarly commercially zoned properties to the north and south and across Bristol Street to the west. A planned development residential zone property is located to the east and is developed with apartments. The lab is a multi-tenant commercial shopping center with as many as 11 food establishments on the subject property, of which three are currently entitled to operate past 11 p.m. and serve alcohol. Subject property is a 2.5-acre property with 184 parking spaces and is currently developed with three commercial buildings totaling approximately 33,000 square feet of gross floor area. The proposed restaurant will occupy Suite B60, which was most recently occupied by retail use. Slide above shows the proposed floor plan layout for the restaurant, including an indoor dining and bar area, along with an outdoor dining patio to be located within an interior pedestrian pathway on the subject property. The proposed restaurant, Three Eye Tiger, will be a full service restaurant and cocktail bar that will be approximately 2,520 square feet in size with a new 500 square foot outdoor dining area. The proposed hours of operation will be from 11 a.m. to midnight Tuesday through Saturday. The restaurant will also be open on Sundays for brunch from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will be closed on Mondays. The restaurant will operate with a Type 47 on-sale general state ABC license, which authorizes the sale of beer, wine, and distilled spirits for consumption on the licensed premises. The applicant is requesting approval of this conditional use permit for the sale of alcoholic beverages for on-site consumption after 11 p.m. within 200 feet of a residential zone, which is required pursuant to Costa Mesa Municipal Code Section 13-47. No live entertainment, live entertainment area or dancing area is proposed as part of this project. As mentioned previously, the proposed restaurant will operate within an existing commercial shopping center with other existing businesses with similar approvals. The location of the restaurant is nearest the Bristol Street frontage and is located approximately 320 feet from the shared property line of budding residences. Planning does not anticipate noise or nuisance impacts from the restaurant operating past 11 p.m. due to the location of the restaurant away from sensitive uses and because no live entertainment is proposed. The project has been conditioned to limit noise and to implement good neighbor policies. The tenant improvements are also concurrently in plan check as the proposed restaurant use itself is permitted by right in the C2 zone. One written public comment was received prior to this public hearing and is provided as an attachment to the report. The public comments urged to limit serving of alcohol in the area to before 11 p.m. only. Staff recommends that Planning Commission adopt a resolution to find that the project is categorically exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15301 and to approve conditional use permit PCUP26-0005 based on the findings of fact and subject to conditions of approval. This concludes my presentation. I'm available for any questions.

Thank you very much. Commissioners, any questions of staff? Vice Chair Zick?

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Villalobos. I'm looking to page 45, which is attachment two. This is the letter from Three-Eyed Tiger. I'm wondering why there is no date on this letter and no signature on this letter.

The letter was recently submitted to staff and was a revision of the previous original applicant letter that was formally submitted with this project. At the time, it was not requested of the applicant to provide the date or signature for the letter.

So you indicate that there was a previous letter that was submitted with the application?

With the original submittal, yes.

And why don't we have that letter?

Because the letter was since revised to address concerns from staff.

Tell me again why there's no date or signature on this letter?

It was unless it has a requirement.

The initial letter did not include clarification about the live entertainment, so the applicant revised the letter for clarification. I think This letter came in, Gabe can correct me, I think just shortly before the staff report was updated. The application came in in mid, actually I just wrote it down. The initial submittal came in on 4-15 was the original letter.

So is it our practice to accept letters that don't have dates and don't have signatures? I mean, this is kind of a, it's a legal process. We don't require that. I send a letter to my grandmother. It has a signature on it and usually a date.

We have the email transaction and we will make sure that we date stamp them moving forward.

I would appreciate that. Thank you.

Any other questions of staff?

Commissioner Andrade. Yes. Mr. Villalobos, there was the previous facility that was in this location. Was it also, did it have similar business hours and also serve alcohol? I think it was the den or something like that. It's been a while. Gypsy Den or something like that?

From my understanding, that was actually located in an adjacent suite. The suite that the proposed restaurant intends to occupy was most recently occupied by the Urban Outfitters.

Okay, okay. But, okay, so then, but the den that was, the Gypsy Den was also similar hours. I guess what I'm trying to, like, establish, right, there has been a restaurant that serves alcohol in this space, in this general space.

I don't believe within that specific space that this restaurant proposes to occupy, but there are other restaurant uses that are currently operating within the shopping center, one of which is Habana, Ruin Bar as well, Bootleggers, which if I understand correctly, just recently closed down, but there are other similar uses or similar hours.

And just down the street along Randolph, that's when we start hitting all the breweries as well, which have similar operating hours?

Correct. Yes.

Okay.

Okay. Thank you.

Commissioner Dixon.

Thank you. Just a quick question. I saw that the police department didn't have any concerns, but was there any indication that whether the bootleggers brewery or Habana have had a noise complaints in the last six months or a year?

No, a PD didn't report on any sort of complaints or anything like that. So,

Okay, and I am looking at the figure A01 and it's page 52. I think that used to be, oh my gosh, I can't remember the name of the restaurant. I used to eat there all for lunch because I love their salads. There was an outdoor patio and there was a restaurant there. It had salads and fresh bread and teas and stuff like that. And I think they had some sort of alcohol, but I don't think they were a bar. I think they may have had music at some point. But that's, I believe that's the area we're talking about, right? Right there where... Close to Bristol. Yeah. It's away from the back of it because Urban Outfitters, I think, was also kind of facing toward the back at one point in the opening. So, yeah. All right. I just want to get my orientation. Thank you.

Yeah, there are other businesses that operate, but only a few of them are entitled to operate past 11 p.m. A lot of them do close before then.

All right.

Any last questions of staff? Commissioner Rojas. Just a quick one because you mentioned three of them and I was looking up their hours. Ruin Bar has 12 a.m. three times a week, 1 a.m. one time a week, and 2 a.m. three times. Havana had 12 a.m. two times. And then Bootleggers obviously is a moot point, but they did have a 1 a.m. two times a week. So essentially they were already operating past the hours that the applicant is requesting. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Okay, just wanted to clarify that. Thank you.

All right, if there's no more questions of staff, and we can certainly ask later, I will open the public hearing and ask where the applicant or applicant's representative is present. So if you wouldn't mind, I'm going to ask you three questions. Sure. State your name for the record, and have you read the staff report and conditions of approval, and do you agree with the conditions of approval?

My name is Zachary Scherer. I'm the business owner. I have read the staff report, and I do consent to the conditions of approval.

Okay, my last question, just to set the vice chair at ease, did you write a revised letter and submit it to the city?

I did, and I'm sorry, I didn't sign and date it.

Okay, thank you. Anyway, the floor is yours if you'd like to make any kind of presentation.

I mean, it's just going to be short and sweet. Our whole plan is I own and operate a restaurant called Dark Room over in Santa Ana. This is going to be a secondary location where we are trying to basically make a... worldwide award-winning bar program and food program. The goal of this project is to be recognized nationally on different lists, such as Michelin, San Pellegrino, et cetera, et cetera, not to just be a bar that's serving until 2 a.m., hence why we're only asking until midnight, because we do want a certain client sale inside this building. That's all I have.

Okay. Thank you. I'll give you an opportunity to speak at the end of public comments if you want. All right. I will now open public comments. If you'd like to speak to the item, please come to either podium. And if there's anybody participating by Zoom or by phone, please use the raise hand option and star nine respectively. Go ahead, Mr. Fitzpatrick.

Through the chair. So I don't really have an opinion on this per se. I just wanted to comment on the process. And by staff, by not having a date on the letter, by staff not indicating the staff report when this application was received, I think staff is missing an opportunity to take a victory lap here, right? I'm not always negative. I just call balls and strikes. The trouble is what I mostly see out of the city is a big fat strike. But I went on TESA today. And this is dated PCUP 260005. So it means it's the fifth application in 2026, okay? On TESA, it says the application was received on 4-2. And here we are tonight with this on the, that is a record. I've never seen that before. In all my years of processing, four months was the best that I can do, okay? I think this is a by right issue because they already have their tenant improvements submitted. They couldn't do that because you can't really submit at risk. So I think this is by right. All they're simply doing is asking for the opportunity to serve their clients a little bit later. Now, here's what happens. You apply. Staff has to take it in, work their magic, look at it, deem the application complete. Then tomorrow morning, it's a cross-functional, there's finance and fire, and all the departments meet and do a development review. So you have to wait, and you have to get scheduled on that. That's no easy task. Then they have Permit Streamlining Act. The city has 30 days to respond, and typically on the 29th and a half day, you get comments back. Most of the time, your application is deemed complete because some department says you didn't fill something out. Then staff has to write a staff report, right? It's a very thoughtful staff report. Then all of a sudden you have to give 10 days notice before the public hearing can occur. I don't know how they did it this quickly. If I would inquire, because I think you should be celebrating this, you should understand the process and understand most importantly how we can replicate it. SO I DON'T NECESSARILY HAVE AN OPINION ON THIS. YOU KNOW, IT'S OVER IN A PLACE THAT I ALWAYS SAY IT'S SO CROWDED NOBODY GOES THERE ANYMORE, RIGHT? BUT I THINK WHAT THAT IS AN INDICATION IS THAT THIS OPERATOR PICKS AND SELECTS GREAT OPERATORS THAT COME TO OUR CITY AND ADD VALUE. BUT AGAIN, THIS IS WHERE ALL OF YOU, ALL SIX OF YOU SHOULD BE SAYING, I NEED TO SEE THIS STAFF. I NEED TO UNDERSTAND HOW LONG IT'S TAKEN. WHEN IT DOESN'T GO RIGHT, I WANT TO UNDERSTAND IT. THE OTHER THING, TOO, HERE, ON TESTS IT SAYS IT WAS ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED FOR THE 6-8 PLANNING COMMISSION. EXCEPT THAT ONE WAS CANCELED. WHY ISN'T ITEM READY TO GO FOR A PLANNING COMMISSION? BUT THE MEETING GETS CANCELED. THERE'S JUST SO MANY QUESTIONS YOU GUYS SHOULD BE ASKING THAT I DON'T SEE ASKING. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE. Motion second, six votes. Welcome to Costa Mesa. Let's go home early. Thank you. Thank you.

Madam Clerk, anybody on Zoom or phone?

No, Mr. Chair.

Okay. I'm going to close public comments. Commissioners, do you have any other questions of staff or the applicant?

JUST TO FOLLOW UP WITH THE APPLICANT REALLY QUICKLY REGARDING THE ORIGINAL HEARING DATE AS 6-8 AND THEN THE HEARING TODAY 6-22, DID THAT NEGATIVELY IMPACT YOUR OPENING OR YOUR PROCESS? NO. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU.

I WILL NOW CLOSE THE ITEM. MAY I HAVE A MOTION? I'LL MAKE THE MOTION ACTUALLY. DO YOU KNOW WHAT MY MOTION IS? I MOVE TO APPROVE THE STAFF'S You can second if you'd like.

Yes. Okay. Oh, sorry. I can un-second that.

Everybody's eager to do that. So I was thrilled to see this application. I'm a big fan of Darkroom. I've been a number of times, and I'm always trying to get people from out of town to come. We had a family celebration recently, and everybody was floored. And it has irritated me that it's in Santa Ana. NO DISRESPECT TO TOMMY PASTROMI OR ANY OTHER PLACES IN THAT AREA BUT IT'S NOT TOO FAR FOR US TO GO BUT I'VE BEEN HOPING THAT YOU WOULD COME TO COASTA MESA. I THINK THIS IS A PRETTY STANDARD STRAIGHTFORWARD PROJECT. WE'VE GOT EXISTING USES JUST LIKE THIS. I SEE NO PUBLIC SAFETY CONCERNS AND I'M JUST HAPPY TO SEE US MOVE THIS AS MR. FITZPATRICK NOTED VERY QUICKLY THROUGH OUR PROCESS. Commissioner Andrade, you'd like to speak to your second?

Yeah, just in the same vein. Thank you for choosing Costa Mesa. This is a really exciting place where you guys are going. It's one of my favorites. I think, Mr. Villalobos, I was sitting at Seabirds. I saw you from a distance taking pictures. I was trying to zoom in. I was like, oh, that's so great. So welcome to Costa Mesa.

Commissioner Dixon?

A quick comment and a potential comment. Clarification for the maker of the motion in the second if you take a look really quick at conditions of approval one and nine They're look they're very similar and possibly a little bit contradictory. And so I just wanted to know if We wanted to strike one of those or make a quick amendment because it's one of them is Review authority determined by the director or the designee. The other one is We're not sure if it's zoning or planning and I guess they kind of say the same thing

WELL, ONE OF THEM SPEAKS MORE TO, WELL, THEY'RE BOTH OPERATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS. LET ME ASK THE STAFF, ARE THESE THE STANDARD BOILER PLATE CONDITIONS OF APPROVAL? NUMBERS ONE AND NINE IN PARTICULAR?

YES.

AND SO MY ONLY CONCERN IS THAT ONE, IT'S UP TO THE DIRECTOR AND THEN TWO, IT'S KIND OF WHATEVER THE It's either the zoning or the commissions, the administrator of the commission. So I just want to make sure we have clarity on that one.

If you wanted to strike nine, that would be sufficient.

Okay.

Yeah, that's what I was going to suggest. Okay, so same motion with the recommendation to strike condition of approval number nine.

And just a quick comment. You want to ask?

Yeah, I want the second consent with that.

And again, I wanted to echo the comments of the other folks. I'm super glad this came through so quickly. I really appreciate that with staff and how fast that was processed. More importantly, this is such a vibrant area now. Like I said, I'm living over an apartment where my house is being remodeled. I walk my dogs around this area every night. It is so cool. Like what's going on along Randolph and all the other stuff that's happening. It's a very vibrant area. I think that anytime you have an outdoor restaurant, with a patio and you have the potential for noise, there's an issue. But this location, I think, is perfect. It's insulated from that. It's on the inside, is where the walkway is. And it's more facing Bristol than it is facing the homes in the rear. And that space being empty for a while is a bummer. And so I'm super excited to see you guys there. Thank you for coming to Costa Mesa. Thank you for bringing this here. And we're looking forward to coming and checking it out. Thank you.

All right.

Any last questions by commissioners? All right. Let's call for the question.

Motion carries 6-0.

That decision is final unless appealed to the City Council within seven days. Congratulations and welcome to Costa Mesa. All right, Madam Clerk, could you please read the title for public hearing item number two?

Thank you. This is conditional use permit to allow the sale of alcohol for on-site consumption until 1.30 a.m. within 200 feet. RESIDENTIAL ZONE FOR AN EXISTING RESTAURANT AT 3033 BRISTOL STREET UNIT 117. PRESENTATION BY MR. VILLALOBOS.

FIRST LET ME ASK, ANY EX PARTE COMMUNICATIONS? OTHER THAN VISITING SITE? OKAY. ALL RIGHT. MR. VILLALOBOS, ALMOST DEJA VU AGAIN.

Good evening again, Chair and Commissioners. My name is Gabriel Villalobos, and tonight I'm presenting CUP application PCUP 260003. As described, this item before you is a request to allow the sale of alcohol for on-site consumption after 11 p.m. within 200 feet of a residential zone for an existing restaurant, Naisho Omikase, and High Ball Bar. The project site is located at 3033 Bristol Street, Unit 117, an existing restaurant, Nysho, Omakase, and Highball Bar. The project site is zoned C1, which is a local business district and is designated general commercial by the city's land use element of the general plan. The subject property is adjacent to similar C1 zone properties across Palo Reno Avenue to the north, which is currently developed with the medical building gas station with convenience store, as well as to the south, developed with the paint store, And across Bristol Street to the east, which is currently developed with a gas station, with a convenience store, as well as a bar, massage establishment, and other food use. Across Bristol Street to the east is a C2 general business district zone property, which is currently developed with a dry cleaner use. And R3 multifamily residential zone property is located to the west and is developed with apartments. The property directly adjacent to the subject property on the corner of Paul Reno Avenue and Bristol Street is zone C1 and developed with an oil change business. Subject property is a 2.7 acre property with 167 parking spaces developed within approximately 39,000 square foot multi-tenant commercial building. The existing restaurant currently occupies suite 117. The existing restaurant is an existing full service Japanese restaurant featuring omakase style dining and a specialty craft Tokyo style bar that has been in operation since the beginning of this year. The current hours of operation are 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week, and the restaurant currently operates with a type 47 on-sale general ABC license, which authorizes the sale of beer, wine, and distilled spirits for consumption on licensed premises. The applicant is requesting approval of a conditional use warrant to allow the sale of alcoholic beverages for on-site consumption until 1.30 a.m. within 200 feet of a residential zone and would maintain the type 47 ABC license. In addition, no live entertainment, live entertainment area, outdoor activity, or dancing area is proposed as part of this project. That plan is requesting approval of a conditional use permit to allow the sale of alcoholic beverages for on-site consumption until 1.30 a.m. within 200 feet of a residential zone, and the restaurant will maintain the Type 47 ABC license. And yes, exactly. So this proposal is just for the... for the extension of the existing hours of operation past 11 p.m. to 1.30 a.m. Omakase is a Japanese dining style in which a multi-course meal is curated and prepared by the chef as part of the dining experience. This type of dining experience requires an advanced reservation for a set dining time. Walk-ins are not typical. As part of the dining experience and reservation, patrons would be allowed to order drinks before or after their meal in the entry and waiting area, and when the seating is available, patrons would enter the main dining area where their multi-course meal would be prepared and consumed. As mentioned in the applicant letter, the project would employ approximately four to eight employees that would be on site at one time, depending on the shift. The proposed extended hours of operation would remain compatible with the existing commercial development pattern in the area and would not result in adverse impacts to nearby residential properties. As a condition, the proposed use would not generate adverse noise, traffic, parking, trash, lighting, or other operational impacts. Conditions of approval have been included to ensure the use is operated in a manner that avoids disturbances and maintains the quiet enjoyment of the surrounding neighborhood. The city's police department has reviewed the request and indicated that it has no concerns regarding the proposed extended hours of operation and alcohol service. Two written public comments have been received and are provided as an attachment to the report. The public comments raise concerns with the requested additional late-night alcohol service and potential related impacts from inebriated patrons and proximity to residential neighborhoods. Staff recommends that the Planning Commission adopt a resolution to find that the project is categorically exempt from the provisions of CEQA pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15301 and approve conditional use permit PCUP26-0003 based on findings of fact and subject to conditions of approval. That concludes my presentation and I'm available for any questions.

All right. Thank you. Commissioners, any questions of staff? Vice Chair Zick.

Sir Thank You mr. Villalobos does this establishment operate currently under a CUP I

They currently do not. They currently operate within the hours of operation that are permitted by right per the city's municipal code. I believe the current hours of operation are before 11 p.m. or ending at 11 p.m. Anything past 11 p.m. is what is triggering the requirement for the conditional use permit.

So the by right hours is up to 11 p.m.? Up to 11 p.m. Yes. Okay. At the bottom of page three top page for the staff report It seems like you are Indicating that there is another bar That's open till 2 a.m Maybe with the idea here of establishing an equivalency like saying Open till 1 30 isn't so bad because there's another one that's open till 2 but as I read that The establishment that's open until 2 a.m. is on the opposite side of the street, further away from the residential, correct? It says across Bristol to the east.

Yes, I believe that's correct.

Okay. Okay, and then there is a Public, so regarding the police department, I see that they apparently had no concerns. One of the public commenters mentioned that there's late night racing on Palo Reno virtually every night so that he doesn't or she doesn't want extended alcohol hours for that reason. There's no evidence of this claim in the letter. Are you familiar with anything along these lines?

Staff did receive the public comment and did inquire with the police department regarding the concerns from what we were told the planning or police department is aware of Such I guess violations if you want to call them that they don't believe that there's any sort of correlation between this specific application here today and

And and that but they are aware of it and they are Working on possibly Enforcing those kind of things appreciate that and then on page 80 I Think you're gonna know or I'm going with this one This is attachment to letter from the applicant no date no signature and Can you assure me that in the future?

We are going to have applicant letters that carry both dates and signatures Yeah, and one thing I do want to reiterate is when we do receive the applications through the Tessa system They are electronically date stamp that just doesn't get duplicated when it's printed But we are documenting them through that submittal portal so not every

everything that we submit comes in like they used to over the counter with a date stamp and put and upload it back into the system they are electronically date stamped as they come in well okay given that what I'm what I'm asking for in maybe a different way then is some evidence in the staff report of when the application is received we can work on that yes thank you right any further questions commissioners of staff

Commissioner Rojas.

Along the same line of questioning there, you know, the engine shows that they are open until 1 a.m. seven times a week, and curry dough indicates they're open until 1 a.m. two times a week. Does that sound accurate to you?

I'm sorry, could you repeat the question?

So the two restaurants that are already in the same shopping center indicated on the bottom of page 5, where it states other restaurants within the same shopping center, including Anjin and Curry Dough, are open after 11 p.m. And looking up their hours, Anjin is open until 1 a.m. seven times a week, and Curry Dough is open until 1 a.m. two times a week. Does that sound accurate? Yes, that's correct. Okay, I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you.

All right. There are no more questions for staff. I will open the public hearing and ask the applicant or applicant's representative to come to the podium. And please state your name and have you read the conditions of approval and do you consent to them?

Yes. Good evening. My name is Michael Cho. With Paul Mary Tyler, I represent the applicant, Nisha Omikaze, and the highball bar. My client has read the staff report and has read the conditions and accepts the conditions and is hoping for an approval here tonight. And if you're going to go and perhaps delete condition nine, as was done in the last one, they indicated that they have no objection to that.

Okay. Anything else you'd like to offer before we open up for public comments?

Just looking forward to having later hours. One of the comments earlier tonight from a member of the public was how hard it is to get a reservation. It is quite a small space if you look at the floor plans. And so, you know, by adding additional time, I think we'll ease that up and allow people to come in for later dinner. If you have any questions regarding operations, one of the owners is here, and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. Okay.

I have two questions. Anybody else have questions? no okay you might be able to answer it sure so i don't need to drag the applicant up there uh so there's no bar in the space correct or publicly accessible it's all served with with dining patrons correct correct you have to get inside and they don't do standing room it's all seated because it's specially crafted cocktails and second are there specific seating times

Yes. So the seating times are on the hour, and so they'll rotate through. And if there's availability after your meal, you're welcome to go back into the bar. Okay.

All right. That's all I have. Any other questions, commissioners? Okay. Thank you. If after public comment you need to speak to anything, I'll have you come up.

Thank you.

Sure. Okay, I will now open public comments. If there's any members of the public who wish to speak, please come to either podium. And if you're joining by Zoom, use this raised hand function or by phones, please press star nine. All right.

Thank you, through the chair. Vice Chair Zick, I appreciate you being persistent in getting dates here because, quite honestly, I'm tired of doing the planning commission's job and coming to you and telling you here what the dates are. And for the commissioners, your silence is deafening.

Your inactive approach to this is deafening.

So, okay, this was applied for on 326. It has the CUP number 260003. Again, this is a record opportunity. My only comment here is it's impossible to get a reservation. I've lived two years in Japan. I've been dying to go. So not only given the extra hours up front, if you care about me as an individual, if you could demand that they open earlier so there's a maximum time here, I mean, this is just something to celebrate here, both in the rapid processing of timely application and rewarding of business and good standing for what they're asking for. Thank you for your time and service.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, anybody on Zoom or by phone?

No, Mr. Chair.

Okay, I'm going to close public comments. Commissioners, any further questions, either of staff or the applicants?

Just for staff. Okay, go ahead. Regarding the commission approval number nine and one, it's the exact same thing, so if they don't have a problem with us... moving forward when we make a motion on that particular thing. And again, just to double check on the question about the police department not having any problems or issues with this. I'm not sure if you pulled a complaint or log for that area. And I ask because we have a specific comments from two neighbors about late-night noise and eb8 patrons their concern and so I was just curious since we do have two that are there Has there been many complaints or any complaints or issues that that you're aware of?

The PD representatives I spoke with did indicate that they did receive complaints about it. They are aware that it is an issue. They don't, as far as that specific location, it doesn't seem to be really concentrated just in one area, but it seems to be an issue throughout the city. So... They didn't pull calls of service for that specific area just because it's more of a widespread thing and not something that is specific to that specific part of the city.

Okay, and I think the plain reading of the staff report and the condition of approval, number one, is that if this is going to move from an omikaze operation to a regular sit-down or a bar or something like that, condition of approval talks about the operational characteristics, that that would be something that staff would have to approve. They couldn't just unilaterally decide that, you know, omikaze is not working out, we want to have a speakeasy or something like that. That seems to be the plain language of the condition of approval. I just want to put on the record that staff's understanding as well.

The approval would allow a future restaurant to have service until this time. I think we would review operational characteristics, but if another restaurant were to come in similar to this, it would most likely be approved.

And the reason I ask that is because there's a big difference, as the applicant's representative talked about, as far as everything is seated. It's not a standing up at the bar, and they're not looking for that. But I want to ensure that with this entitlement that we're not allowing a future bar until 1.30. AT THAT LOCATION. SO IF WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING ADDITIONAL ON OUR END, LET US KNOW. BUT THE WAY I WAS READING CONDITION APPROVAL NUMBER ONE IS DESCRIBED IN THE STAFF REPORT AS AN OMICAZI BAR, SO I JUST WANTED TO GET STAFF'S OPINION ON THAT.

I THINK IF THE COMMISSION WANTED TO PROVIDE FOR AN EXTRA CONDITION THAT INCLUDED MORE OF THE dining experience with patron only service for the alcohol is what's intended, then we should probably include that as part of it.

Okay, we can. Okay, thank you very much. Questions. Okay.

If I could also, through the chair Harlan, if I could also chime in. The alcohol type approved by the CUP is for it's for general on sale with a restaurant. And so if the concern is that this would evolve into a bar someday, i.e. without a restaurant or food component, that's a completely different license type. And so I just want to make sure that we remember that, you know, in essence, the accompanying alcohol license already is for a restaurant. And so as planning manager Carlin was saying, if another restaurant were to come in and under a same alcohol type, it would fall under the CUP. This would not allow it to simply be converted to a bar in the traditional sense, i.e. a mainly primarily drinking establishment without food being the primary service. So I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Tai. All right. I'll close the item and entertain a motion. Motion by Commissioner Dixon.

I move that we approve. Of course, I don't have the page open. I move that the Planning Commission find that the project is categorically exempt from the provisions of CEQA per guidelines section 15301 and that the Planning Commission approve conditional use permit PCUP-26-0003 based on the findings of fact and subject to conditions of approval and that we strike condition of approval number nine. And I think I'm okay with Director Tai's explanation about the type of license. I don't think we need to add anything about that. So that would be my motion.

Okay. Is there a second to Commissioner Dixon's motion? Second by Commissioner Klipak. Commissioner Dixon, you'd like to speak to your motion?

Yes, I'm excited about this. That, again, I don't want to belabor the dog walking point, but when you're walking two very large dogs for two hours every night in that area, you get a very good feeling for how that place operates between 10 o'clock in the morning and 3 o'clock in the morning in that whole neighborhood. This center at 3033, the way it's oriented, there are homes directly behind the alley, behind the restaurants, but That alley is not somewhere where customers are out wandering around. It is not a pretty alley. And so I wouldn't expect folks to gather out there and smoke cigarettes, and I would anticipate that the operator would not allow them to go through the kitchen and do all that good stuff. For Engine and Curry Dough, they operate late at night. Sometimes I don't even know they're open until my dogs are like, hey, I want to go in there. It is quiet. A few times there'll be folks who spill out and maybe are boisterous, but it's very rare. And again, I'm over there almost every single night. I do think this is a good option for that location. I'm excited about it coming there. I think it's really cool. Omikazi is great. You can never get a reservation. I'm looking forward to it being open and having longer hours. And I think that with the conditions of approval and the nature of the center, I don't think we're going to be having some of the concerns. I don't think some of the concerns that the neighbors have Justifiably raised will be a problem. So that's my enthusiastic support for this motion and project All right Nothing additional.

Okay, any other comments place chairs ache.

Thank you. I'll be supporting the motion I think it's kind of cool the uniqueness of this restaurant Which brings diversity of restaurants to Costa Mesa? I think that's pretty special The fact that it's hard to get into now has been mentioned by a couple of people. I don't know if extending the hours is going to make that appreciably better, but I would recommend to Mr. Fitzpatrick that you take the opportunity to come over and talk to Mr. Cho after the meeting. Maybe you'll be taken care of that way. Regarding the 1.30 a.m. every night of the week, my reaction to that wasn't particularly favorable, but this is why we send out notices to every property owner, every resident within a 500-foot radius. none of those people showed up tonight to express concerns. We did have a couple of letters, but I really rely on residents adjacent to businesses that are applying for CUPs. I look to their voice probably more than my personal preference, so I'll be supporting the motion, and good luck to you.

All right, if there's no more comments, let's call for the question.

MOTION CARRIES 6-0.

ALL RIGHT. THAT DECISION IS FINAL UNLESS APPEALED TO THE CITY COUNCIL WITHIN SEVEN DAYS. CONGRATULATIONS. LET'S TAKE A QUICK FIVE-MINUTE BREAK, OKAY?

right we're back on the record uh madam clerk can you please read the title for public hearing item number three proposed amendments to title 13 of the custom mason municipal code to update land use classifications for various non-residential uses INCLUDE BUT NOT LIMITED TO PERSONAL SERVICES, ARTISAN STUDIO AND RETAIL USES, ACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT USES, EVENT CENTERS AND ASSEMBLY USES, SPECIALIZED FITNESS STUDIOS AND OTHER NON-RESIDENTIAL USES AND STANDARDS. PRESENTATION BY MS. GUERRON, PLANNING MANAGER.

ALL RIGHT, MS. GUERRON, YOU HAVE THE FLOOR.

Thank you so much. Good evening, Commission. Again, Planning Manager Martina Caron, and I'm here to present this city-initiated zoning code amendment to update targeted areas of the Title 13 for Economic Development Land Uses and Regulations and formally established as PTCY 260001. Did it work? Okay. My screen didn't, let's see. Okay. Um, thank you. So the zoning code plays an important role in supporting economic development in the city. When the code is clear, applicants and property owners have a better understanding of what is allowed, what processes apply and what standards must be met. This certainty helps facilitate new businesses, tenant improvements, adoptive reuse, and invest reinvestment within the city. The city's land use matrix has remained unchanged largely since 1997. The current matrix lists approximately 155 different individual uses, which are very specific. has proven to be somewhat difficult to apply to newer business models and emerging businesses because many modern uses do not fit clearly within these listed categories. As a result, staff often has to rely on the similar use determinations in a discretionary process. The purpose of this amendment is to align better with some of the more modern and emerging businesses, support EVOLVING BUSINESS MODELS, IMPROVE REGULATION CLARITY, REDUCE RELIANCE ON SIMILAR USE DETERMINATIONS AND FACILITATE REINVESTMENT AND ADAPTIVE REUSE WITHIN THE CITY. SO AS A BRIEF RECAP ON APRIL 13TH THE PLANNING COMMISSION REVIEWED MOST OF THESE PROPOSED AMENDMENTS AT A STUDY SESSION. Overall, the Commission was generally supportive of the proposed approach to consolidate and sort of group some of these different uses. In summary, the Commission supported the approach to moving toward broader use categories rather than relying just on the narrow ones that we have listed in the matrix. Secondly, the Commission asked staff to remain mindful of potential operational impacts for SEVERAL OF THE USES DISCUSSED LIKE GHOST KITCHENS, FITNESS STUDIOS, ACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT AND EVENT CENTERS. AND THEN THE COMMISSION ALSO RAISED QUESTIONS ABOUT PARKING STANDARDS AND WHAT WAS THE APPROPRIATE PARKING THAT TIED TO OPERATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS. AND LASTLY, THE COMMISSION ACKNOWLEDGED THAT THIS EFFORT WAS A GOOD STARTING POINT, BUT ALSO NOTED THAT THERE WOULD BE ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT IN THE FUTURE. I think it's skipped. So the proposed package includes 11 targeted amendments that all focus on non-residential zones. THESE INCLUDE PERSONAL SERVICES, ARTISAN STUDIOS, ACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT, EVENT CENTERS AND ASSEMBLY USES, SMALL FITNESS STUDIOS, FOOD HALLS AND GHOST KITCHENS, ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING, SPORTS CLUBS, COMMERCIAL KITCHENS, HEIGHT DEVIATIONS, AND FLORIA RATIO DEFINITIONS. I'LL BRIEFLY WALK THROUGH EACH THROUGH THE PRESENTATION, BUT BEFORE I DO, AGAIN, I WANT TO EMPHASIZE THAT THIS IS A TARGETED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CODE UPDATE. IT'S NOT A COMPREHENSIVE REWRITE OF THE ZONING CODE OR THE LAND USE MATRIX, BUT REALLY WAS INTENDED TO CAPT top 10 emerging businesses that we're seeing. Topics were put together and input from staff, economic development trends and suggestions from the business community. So before we walk through each of the topical areas, I want to note that when we were approaching the update, Each kind of use has four components or categories. We deal with the use, the development standards, the parking standards, and the permitting process for each. So this table here shows how those were approached through the update. The different exhibits demonstrate the different sort of amendment area that was required. So although we can update a definition, then we still have to update the permitting process and deal with the parking related to such and the development standards. So as we go through this, I like to look through the strikethrough versions, which is over here on the far right column, that will relate to each of the amendments that we're proposing for each of the different uses. So the first amendment establishes a broader personal service category. Today the code lists some uses such as barber shops, but it's less clear on all different types of beauty shops, nail salons, day spas, PET SERVICES, TUTORING AND WELLNESS SERVICES. THIS UPDATE WOULD ALLOW ONE TOPICAL PERSONAL SERVICE CATEGORY TO BE CLASSIFIED FOR IMPLEMENTATION. IT ALSO MAINTAINS SEPARATE REGULATIONS FOR MASSAGE AND TATTOO AND BODY ART ESTABLISHMENTS. GROUP INSTRUCTION OR GROUP SETTING USES WOULD ALSO BE SUBJECT TO LAND USE REGULATIONS AND WOULD BE ADDRESSED THROUGH POTENTIAL OPERATIONAL IMPACTS OR would be addressed to minimize potential operational impacts. During the study session it was discussed that group instruction would require an MCUP however after reviewing some options and the existing uses staff is proposing some special land use restrictions to then allow these uses to be permitted by right in most of the commercial zones. At the study session we also noted that group instruction would need additional special regulations as well. The next category is the Artisan Studio category. This is intended for small-scale creative production, artist spaces, maker studios, and related retail accessory uses. These are often hybrid businesses that don't really fit squarely within either an industrial or a retail use. The examples include a ceramicist, custom furniture maker, photographer and recording studio where the craft production of a product happens on site as well as the retail. This new category provides clear path for those uses to occupy commercial spaces and helps activate brick and mortar spaces without treating them as really an industrial use even though there's some fabrication there. The uses would be permitted by right and we have provided special land use restrictions to help minimize adjacent impacts. The next amendment creates an active entertainment category. These are indoor participant-based entertainment uses where customers are actively engaged in the activity instead of watching or observing. Examples include escape rooms, virtual reality venues, sports simulators, interactive arcades, or e-sport gaming lounges. Based on further review and the study session discussion, staff is proposing a cap up to 15,000 square feet for this threshold. Above that, it would be listed as an amusement center. We've provided different operational standards as well as parking regulations for this category. The next amendment consolidates event centers and assembly uses and provides more clarity on this topic. The category includes banquet halls, reception facilities, and conference venues, assembly halls, and spectator-oriented e-gaming arenas. These are different from active entertainment because the customer is generally attending and observing and not participating in the activity. Event centers would continue to require conditional use permit, but the update provides now some performance standards and definitions for consistent operating standards so we can better classify the uses. This was discussed at the study session and the special land use restrictions will help provide clarity to the applicant when they're submitting applications. The next amendment establishes a small fitness studio category. It applies to smaller type of studios like Pilates, martial arts, and dance studios. During the study session, the commission discussed the importance of distinguishing smaller class-based studios from larger gyms or sports facilities. So this provides a distinction and different permitting processes for each. However, as proposed right now, they still will maintain similar parking standards. Special land use regulations are also provided. The next amendment includes introduction of food halls and ghost kitchens, two definitions that we don't currently have within our code. Food halls are shared dining destinations with multiple food vendors and common seating. And staff is proposing to define food halls and clarify they're regulated under the city's current food and beverage standards. DEFINING THEM IN THE ZONING CODE PROVIDES EXTRA CLARITY AND NOW STAFF WILL BE ABLE TO REVIEW THOSE MORE CONSISTENTLY. THE NEXT TOPIC IS THE INTRODUCTION OF THE GHOST KITCHENS INTO THE CODE. GHOST KITCHENS OPERATE DIFFERENTLY THAN A FOOD HALL OR RESTAURANT BECAUSE FOOD FOR DELIVERY, MOBILE ORDERING OR CUSTOMER PICKUP IS THE FOCUS OF THESE ESTABLISHMENTS. THE COMMISSION SPECIFICALLY WAS CONCERNED ABOUT DIFFERENT OPERATIONAL INTENSITY OF THE GHOST KITCHENS, DELIVERY DRIVERS, PICKUP ACTIVITIES, PARKING LOT CIRCULATION. SO THE AMENDMENT DEFINES GHOST KITCHENS, ESTABLISHES SPECIAL LAND USE REGULATIONS AND REQUIRES A MINOR CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT IN THE C1 ZONE WHILE ALLOWING THEM BY RIGHT IN THE C2 INDUSTRIAL ZONES WITH THOSE PERFORMANCE STANDARDS. Sorry, the lag, okay. So the next topical area that we've amended and introduced into the code is how we would address electric vehicle charging stations, EV stations. Right now, the code is basically silent on this and we have introduced a streamlined ministerial review for EV charging stations. This update makes the code clear and it expressively allows consistency with state law. Sports clubs are now established as a broader category. This includes indoor basketball, pickleball, volleyball, soccer training, and similar facilities. These uses would be regulated under the existing physical fitness facility, but it's clarified now where before it was not as clear what category these would fit into. And we've included definitions, and we still require conditional use permits like the physical fitness facilities requires today. The next amendment establishes the commercial kitchen classification. The commercial kitchen includes catering kitchens, sharing kitchens, and similar food preparation facilities. These uses are different from restaurants or ghost kitchens and are more of a food preparation or light production spaces. We're proposing allowing commercial kitchens by right in industrial zones. The definition and parking requirements are proposed to help streamline review of these different types of uses. And then the remaining two amendments deal with some of the commercial development standards. Staff is proposing, as discussed in the study session, to allow non-residential height limits, a process to modify a non-residential height limit. In most commercial zones, the current height limit is limited to 30 feet, with only a narrow exception for rooftop equipment and screening. staff is proposing to allow a process of a height deviation through a minor conditional use permit process up to 12 feet or 40% of the maximum 30 foot height limit and this review would not be automatic and Additional findings have been introduced for the review of these requests Staff is also proposing clarification on with the floor area ratio calculations. The proposed definition is listed here on the screen. By way of background, the floor area or the FAR is the primary tool for regulating non-residential development intensity in the city, and it's also tied to trip generation. However, we're finding that some areas that really don't drive areas that are related to the intensity and should be included in the FAR. IT PRIMARILY OMITS DIFFERENT NONFUNCTIONAL INTENSITY DRIVING AREAS LIKE MECHANICAL SHAFT, PIPED CHASES AND STORAGE FROM THAT FAR CALCULATION. IN SUMMARY, THIS SHOWS THE EXISTING PROCESS AND THE CURRENTLY PROPOSED PROCESS FOR THESE DIFFERENT NINE DIFFERENT TYPE OF USES AND THE TWO OTHER PERFORMANCE STANDARD MODIFICATIONS. Let that sit here for a second if you'd like to review it. And lastly, staff recommends that the Planning Commission find that the proposed amendments are consistent with CEQA and are exempt pursuant to sections 15061 and 15305. And staff recommends the Planning Commission adopt the resolution recommending that the City Council approve the proposed amendments to Title 13. This concludes my presentation. I'm available for questions.

Thank you, Ms. Caron. Commissioners, any questions of staff? Vice Chair Zick.

Thank you. Ms. Caron, could you go back to the floor area ratio slide? Yes. I may have misunderstood. You went kind of fast on that one. The thing that... Oops.

I apologize for this. That's all right.

The thing that caught my attention, yeah, I see it on here, excluding storage areas. Let's see, it says use solely for accessory building functions. Can you give me an example of what you're referring to?

Yes. SO THE INTENT IS TO EMIT AREAS THAT DON'T DRIVE INTENSITY AND TYPICALLY WHAT DRIVES INTENSITY IS ANYTHING THAT WOULD INCREASE THE OVERALL ABILITY FOR A BUSINESS TO OPERATE. SO THE EQUIPMENT ROOMS, ELECTRICAL ROOMS REGARDLESS OF SIZE TYPICALLY DON'T DRIVE AND ALLOW FOR MORE PEOPLE TO SHOW UP AT THE SITE. ADDITIONALLY STORAGE LIKE like a walk-in cooler, for example, or something like that, the larger the walk-in cooler does not typically and is not reviewed for trip generation when we're dealing with uses.

OK. I understand that answer. I don't agree with that answer. And I suppose I'll elaborate on why when we get to motion and discussion. Would that be your preference, sir? Sure.

Let's hold that.

Okay.

All right. Any other questions of staff, commissioners? Commissioner Rojas.

Just a quick question. If I wanted to see, I was actually thinking about this when you presented it, but did you state pet services were listed on a personal services group?

Yeah, we can go back to that slide. The short answer is yes.

Okay. And is there, um, by pet services, what are we talking about? Are we talking about like somewhere where you can, you know, board and care kind of thing? Are we talking about medical services? Like what, what falls into that pet services category?

Generally it would be like similar to, personal services like barber, beauty shop, grooming facilities, those types of things. We didn't classify kenneling in that, but it was more for the day-to-day dog washing, those types of businesses that we're seeing.

Right. So that's great. Thank you for clarifying that. So if kenneling and medical services would be in another category altogether, then is that my understanding?

Medical would fall under the personal services, but the kenneling has a different provision in the land use matrix.

Okay, so it is a separate category?

Yes.

Okay, that's all I wanted and I just want to clarify that. Thank you.

Any other questions? Commissioner Andrade?

Some time ago, I think it was for the lab, we saw a cafe and we had to have a full meeting just on that one business. So is there an opportunity for a unique business like that which I'm sure is not coming up so frequently that would help streamline.

Yes. So the cat cafe would actually be like an active entertainment use where you're participating with that but also would fall into the food and beverage service if there's food as well. Those are more aligned to so that the use would most likely not have to be discretionary now.

OK great. Thank you.

And just to clarify Commissioner Rojas that animal hospitals and veterinary services and shelters and pounds and kennels all have different line items in the matrix.

Thank you.

All right, I have just a couple questions. One use that seems to be coming up, it's in Costa Mesa and I believe around the area, these golf simulators, whether they're membership clubs or not, would that fall under active entertainment or is that more of a physical fitness facility?

It would be active entertainment up to the 15,000 square feet.

Okay. AND THEN SINCE COMMISSIONER MARTINEZ IS NOT HERE TO SPEAK ABOUT PARKING I'LL ASK BECAUSE WE DID RECEIVE AT LEAST ONE PUBLIC COMMENT THAT CAUGHT MY EYE REGARDING THE PHYSICAL FITNESS FACILITIES AND SMALL FITNESS STUDIOS. SO STAFF REPORT VERY CLEARLY SAYS THESE ARE DISTINCT AND THEY HAVE DIFFERENT INTENSITIES BUT THE PARKING STANDARD IS THE SAME.

Yeah and as it's proposed right now the process for them are different based on the intensities but we didn't modify the parking so some of them are more by right and then some of them require the use permit depending on the size.

Okay I'll leave that for discussion. Okay. If there are no more questions of staff, I will open the public hearing and ask if also open public comment if anybody would like to come and speak on this item. One brave gentleman late in the evening.

How are you guys? Thank you so very much for hearing from me today. My name is Daniel Peetenpole. I own six commercial buildings in downtown Costa Mesa, specifically the old area on Newport Boulevard. And I'm really excited with what staff has presented here. I get people all the time wanting to do things and it doesn't fit in, and now it's going to fit in. It'll make it easier for them. It's going to save everybody money. I'm really excited to hear today how quickly some of these processes are going through. In the past, it's taken a lot longer to get these things through. So I'm very excited. Your staff's doing an amazing job. I think there's an amazing opportunity here if we look at some of the community and the chair had mentioned some of the parking concerns. Specifically, I think it's awesome what you've done, but I don't think you've gone far enough. I think you have the opportunity to really make it easier to look at the parking. If you look at other areas specifically for the fitness studio, small studio, personal services, or I'm thinking of not personal service, but the other one, you are keeping it at 10 per thousand. That's a huge threshold. If I have a space that's 2,000 square feet that I'm renting, and I have to come up with 20 spaces to have five Pilate chair, you know, Pilate things, that's, no one's gonna want to rent that. So I looked at some of the local areas. Newport Beach requires four spaces for under 2,000 square feet, five if over 2,000. Irvine is the highest locally at seven, besides what you're proposing. Fountain Valley is four, and Huntington Beach would be five, and then 10, if there's group instruction. So you're almost twice what your local areas. And because I'm dealing with people who are looking at all of those markets to rent in, I'm at a disadvantage. You know, I have to lower my rate. I have to lower those things. Now, I know that's not a big deal to you guys, but it's actually keeping people from renting as well. And I don't want to make it all about me, but my family has been here for 80 years now. We own the building that the El Matador restaurant is in. That customer has been there 60 years. So we really love Costa Mesa and we want to stay here and we want to bring in these amazing new tenants that never existed 60 years ago, you know? I mean, when my grandfather was in business, none of this stuff happened. Day spa? What was that? Nobody did that, right? So I appreciate what you guys are doing. I know it's very difficult to bring such a small thing, but you made such a huge change, but now we're still being looked at for a small Pilates studio, something like 24-hour fitness is being required. I think there's some movement there. So I will appreciate your time and any consideration. Thank you so very much.

Thank you.

through the chair so i want to read you on the city's website where your job description is and then challenge you because I don't think you're fulfilling your job description. The Planning Commission functions as an advisory body to the City Council.

Mr. Fitzpatrick, I'm going to stop you there. If this relates to the item before us, please draw that connection. But if this is generally about Planning Commission duties... Mr.

Chair, don't interrupt me.

I am interrupting you.

No, you're not going to interrupt me. You're not going to interrupt me. I am making my case. Don't interrupt me, Mr. Chair. Stop. I'm giving you an opportunity to stick to the topic. I'm giving you an opportunity... ASK THE CITY ATTORNEY, THIS IS COAST MESA PRECEDENT NOT TO INTERRUPT. MR. CHAIR, DON'T. MR. FITZPATRICK? MR. CHAIR, DON'T.

I'M TRYING TO BE VERY POLITE.

SO AM I. I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU NOT COMMIT. ASK THE CITY CLERK.

SHE WILL TELL YOU WHAT THE CASE IS. I'M NOT INTERESTED IN CASE LAW HERE. I'M INTERESTED IN OUR COMMISSIONERS MAKING A DECISION WITH SOME INFORMED INPUTS. MR. CHAIR, RECLAIM MY TIME TO THREE MINUTES.

YOU CAN CONTINUE GOING. RECLAIM MY TIME. Okay, here's your job. Functions as advisory body on other things, including amendments to the zoning ordinance. You don't have to wait. This is ridiculous that over the years it's waited so long. You allowed staff to commit economic terrorism on these things for not doing your job. You should be reviewing this on a quarterly basis. The fact that Artisan now has to have its special zoning, Anybody knows what an accessory use is? It's already in your code. Your staff just needs to demonstrate that flexibility. I put my public comments in here, Mr. Chair, about EV charging. I think the reason why your last meeting was canceled is they were bringing forward the zoning code here that was in conflict to state law, and they needed the time to do that. And you know why you can't prove me wrong? You have no idea why that meeting was canceled. OK, in the draft that I put in my letter today, it was in clear violation of a legislative alert, legal alert from the attorney general saying the city can't do what it tried to do. It tried to put it in there that required discretionary review of EV charging against a 2025. State regulations. I will tell you that on Newport Boulevard, our city went over and above and charged a row of $153,000 in traffic impact fees. I have it on good authority that in another one, the city attorney's office attempted the operator to sign a document that said we are knowingly and willfully ignoring state law and we want you to indemnify us. I have it on good authority that Tesla, down by a bear flag, wanted to apply and put 24 units, and our staff went against this. Our staff went against this ordinance and said, nah, how about eight? When they left, they told the property manager, sir, we do this all over the country. This is the worst city to do this business in. The worst city. And here we are, I'm watching my commissioners, through the chair, not doing enough. You are being managed by staff. You have a job description that says you can do this. You are willfully and intentionally allowing this to happen. You are enabling the economic terrorism that I shared through the chair, doing nothing. You should be making a policy right now saying, you know what, as the leader of this body, We should be reviewing this on a quarterly basis and not waiting so long for the cleanup to occur. That would be leadership that isn't occurring. That is the job description of the commission. We have bad interpretation of existing staff. We have willful and intentional violation of state laws and regulations. I had to call GO-Biz to come to the city to have them force your staff to make this change because Mr. Chair, you're not doing your job.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, anybody on Zoom or by phone?

No, Mr. Chair.

Okay. I'm going to close public comments. Commissioners, any further questions? Go ahead.

Thank you. So I didn't want to bring this up during questions earlier because I think that this is something that the commission should talk about, and it's about the small fitness studios, and I really appreciate the effort, and I really appreciate Thank you so much for saying your name at public comments because I had no idea how to pronounce it. I really appreciate your comments. And I agree. I think a small fitness studio is at 15,000 square feet, which is basically the size of a Trader Joe's. I think we can, I think if you look at, and then Mr. Piton, Piton Pole. Okay, I apologize. you pointed us to Newport Beach. And I went and looked at their standards. And for instance, a health and fitness club, in their definitions, small is an indoor facility of 2,000 square feet or less in size where passive or active exercises and related activities are performed using minimal equipment or apparatus for the purpose of physical fitness. And they're talking about, you know, Pilates and personal training and yoga studios, which I think is exactly what staff is trying to to incorporate But that's small is considered 2,000 square feet or less and then large is 2,000 square feet or larger and it includes the full service right with all the Apparatus and the equipment and stuff like that. I know we have a separate gym category but I think that a small fitness studio, I think it's the intent of that, if I remember from the study session, was exactly the kind of use I think that Newport's describing here and we described in the staff report, which is, you know, like a one-on-one or a small group yoga studio or Pilates or whatever. Because I think of my gym experiences, you have, you know, Planet Fitness, which is a huge, gigantic gym running around the neighborhood, you know, and stuff. So I just think we can, we should massage that a bit because I agree with the, with the comment and the general, if you're going to have a small studio because you know, a 2000 square foot or a 1500 square foot, maybe it's yoga or Pilates or a specialized personal trainer, then that parking requirement would be onerous, quite onerous. If it, if it, is miraculously outside of AB 2097. So I think we should massage that. That's my opinion. And my comment on the small fitness studio thing is that we should get that a little bit more tailored so we have a better size sort of differential. Because 15,000 feet's the size of a Trader Joe's.

Yeah, and the distinction that's provided in the update is that Under 15,000 square feet would be permitted by right, and then over that would be conditionally permitted. But there isn't a distinction for parking, so we could work to update that and maybe provide a lower threshold. So it would maybe produce three categories is the idea, because we could do that to help minimize the impacts for those smaller facilities. AFTER WE DID RECEIVE THE PUBLIC COMMENT, I DID SOME REVIEW OF SORT OF CURRENT APPLICATIONS THAT WE HAVE FOR ONE-ON-ONE STUDIOS AND SORT OF TRIED TO FIGURE OUT SIZES WHERE THAT WOULD FALL. More of them actually were a little bit, they were two to 3,600 square feet. So I'm hesitant to put a number on it tonight, but I think a recommendation from the planning commission could be for staff to refine that and bring that forward to council. I just think that 15,000 square feet kind of defies small. And then the second question for the Commission would be are you're looking for reduced parking requirements for that lowest threshold as well? Right to reflect the nature of the business.

It's not it's not a yoga class of 20 people coming every half hour It's four or five people maybe and maybe less right if it depending on the size that the staff to terms and then my other comment about the the floor air ratio definition is I think it's a good, I think you're going in the right direction. My concern is that that may include, for instance, I work at a law firm, and so we have a very large records department, for instance. That could be considered storage, it could be considered a non-traffic generating, but it kind of is. We also have, for instance, server rooms and things like that. So I just, maybe, like I know in the, I think in the ADU ordinance that there's a non-usable or non-livable space definition when they're talking about converting an existing building into an ADU and they're calculating and stuff. I think they had some language in there that talked about the kind of nature of spaces that wouldn't be considered. And so maybe we just tighten that up a little bit.

could look into that I think one of the distinctions that's provided and the proposed definition does also include not intended for human occupancy okay so it doesn't it would so if you had files and you're going in and referencing the files that would be part of the FAR it's more for areas that people are not going to be within

Yeah, but we also have storage that is a war room. So we're in there working out of there, even though we have boxes piled up all the time. So maybe just a little bit of additional clarification on that. And those are my comments. But thank you very much.

Right. Vice Chair Zick? I had a question, but should I roll comments into this opportunity? Sure. Okay. Okay. So my question relates to this small fitness studio. So there will be a question. I can imagine a 2,000 square foot fitness studio having 20 people. And so 10 per 1,000 would make perfect sense. I can also imagine, as the public speaker commented, that there might be a 2000 square foot fitness studio that is configured or designed for 10 people. My question is, if an applicant for that kind of business came forward and said, this is what I'm gonna do in my 2,000 square foot fitness studio, and I don't need 20 parking spaces, I only want to provide 10. How would you process that? Can they request that as part of an application?

As it's proposed, it would be similar to today where they would get a, minor conditional use permit for a parking deviation in that instance. So there would be an opportunity to come in and say, I'm only doing one on one training. Um, but if there's an opportunity for us to streamline that, and if we can put better parameters around that consistent application, we can do that.

Yeah, I hear streamline, and I know you mean it in a constructive way, but when I hear streamlining in a bureaucracy, I think of that's a way we can make mistakes faster, okay? So I'm not interested in streamlining, I'm interested in getting things right. So if an applicant can apply, say I only need 10, and therefore my unconditional use permit would be applicable, then that would be our opportunity to ensure that in the conditions of approval, that kind of right would only apply to similarly configured fitness studios in the future, not somebody that then comes in and says, yeah, I'm putting 20 people in this,

That's correct. They would have operational limitations put on it through that person.

So that's it for my questions, and I'll have comments. Oh, no, comments. You can do comments. Okay. So I don't like the definition of floor area ratio, and Commissioner Dixon gave one perfect example that I would have also used. If you looked at IFMA, which is the International Facility Management Association, or you looked at BOMA, the Building Official Management Association, definitions of space, you would find some very useful definitions. When you talk about gross area, it's very simple. It is the entire footprint of a building. You're trying to get away from that, and I appreciate that, in terms of wanting to equate intensity traffic purposes to what's going into the space. Well what goes into the space is what a landlord rents. So if you looked at rentable square footage or usable square footage, they're two different things, they're two different definitions, that would be a lot closer. Both of those would include storage. They don't exclude storage. If it's tenants stuff, I don't care if it's a machine that operates by itself or requires three operators or a storage area of file cabinets. The totality of that operation that they're in there with should be part of the calculation of FAR. Why? Because the next person that goes into that building may have a slightly different kind of use using that same amount of square footage and having a completely different impact on the area. So far is appropriate if you include all the usable square footage. Excluding storage doesn't make any sense at all. Okay, that's my comment on that. I'm ready to put in a motion whenever you want.

Let's see if there are any other comments or questions. Anyone else? Okay. I would agree with Commissioner Dixon about trying to come up with some more appropriate parking standard for the small fitness studios. I think staff's already acknowledged that there is a distinction that the intensity is less, and it should be reflected. I don't know what that number is. It may be worthwhile. A SURVEY OF OUR ADJACENT JURISDICTIONS. I KNOW MR. PINAPOL HAS ALREADY DONE THAT. BUT THERE SHOULD BE SOME ACCOMMODATION. I THINK THAT'S THE DIRECTION WE'RE HEADED IN. AND JUST A GENERAL COMMENT, I APPRECIATE US TRYING TO FIND SOME MORE FLEXIBILITY IN TRYING TO INTERPRET WHAT MIGHT BE NEW USES BUT ALSO WORKING TOWARDS MORE BY RIGHT APPLICATIONS. I THINK THAT'S DEFINITELY GOOD FOR OUR BUSINESSES, OUR PROPERTY OWNERS AND CERTAINLY OUR APPLICANTS. ALL RIGHT. DO WE HAVE A I'M GOING TO CLOSE THE ITEM. DO WE HAVE A MOTION? MOTION BY VICE CHAIR ZICK.

My motion is that staff take the comments and suggestions regarding parking for fitness studios and comments regarding the FAR definition and come back to us with this item when they are ready with revision. I don't think this is ready to go to city council because we're not done with it. That's my motion.

Okay, so second by Commissioner Dixon. Would you like to speak to your motion, Vice Chair Zick?

Yeah, I'll say it a slightly different way. I've long been of the opinion that as an advisory, Commission to the city council we should be sending up to them finished work not what I've uncharitably called half-baked work and I think We have some T's to cross some eyes to dot here I'd like to get that done so that then when we make a recommendation to city council, they don't have to hash through, well, is 10 the right number? Should it be eight, should it be six? How about instead of 2000, we make it 3000? How about we put a range in? That isn't what the city council should be working on. That's what we should be working on. And so that's the basis of my motion for this to come back to us.

Okay. Commissioner Dixon.

Just a quick follow-up. I agree with Vice Chair Zick and I really appreciate the work that staff has done to echo the Chair's comments because there are areas where we should get some more by right and we should get a lot easier process for some folks to generate this more economic activity and allow businesses to thrive. And I think we've got a good start here, but I think we should take into account the comments that were made tonight, because there are some pretty sticky, FAR is important, and parking also for small business is very important as well. So I appreciate everything staff has done, and I look forward to when you bring it back.

So I'll support, Director Tai, you want to chime in?

Could I just add a little perspective? I know Planning Manager Caron provided some background on how this item came about, but it was a culmination of a year and a half of listening to businesses and watching applications go through discretionary processes that perhaps in this day and age we could accomplish by introducing set transparent development standards and a ministerial process. And so I would ask For the sake of the business community, if there are topics as part of this package that perhaps the commission feels comfortable with that you bifurcate that. And so we're happy to take that forward to city council and we can reserve and return back with the items that you feel need a little more work, you know, because I know. There's a, the collection of uses is only tied together by the, they only, they relate to new uses that the traditional zoning code didn't accommodate for. And so that's the only commonality. So if you want to cut a few, that's great. But I would just, for the sake of our businesses, anything that we can move forward, we would appreciate. So just wanted to add that. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Tai. Well, prior to that comment, I was going to say that I would support the motion on the floor with the understanding that A, all staff brings back to us are the narrow items that we have some disagreement or at least some concerns about. And then B, we recognize that ultimately as a body, we may not have consensus on what we sent to the council. And so that advisory recommendation may be unanimous. It may not. But we have to at least acknowledge that it's only going to be a recommendation. And it might be a split vote for that matter. I APPRECIATE THE INTEREST IN TRYING TO GET THIS TO OUR CODIFIED SO THAT OUR BUSINESSES CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT. I DON'T KNOW THAT THERE SHOULD BE A SIGNIFICANT DELAY. I WOULD ALMOST RATHER JUST DO IT IN ONE SWOOP AND SEND IT TO COUNCIL. Vice Chair Christian Dixon.

I think it's better. My concern Director Tai with Director Tai's suggestion which I understand and appreciate is that I'd rather we move this entire package forward with the narrow focus that we have and not leave those two things kind of hanging out in the wind for a potential I don't anticipate it happening but potential delay. I think these are narrow and focused enough and there's enough precedent out there as the Vice Chair brought up as far as real concrete industry definitions of what is considered FIR and what exactly a tenant would be renting from a landlord. I mean, they're paying for that space. And then also as far as we have some really good precedent as the public comments brought up with some better, tighter definitions of what a small fitness studio and what is an appropriate parking ratio for those. And so I don't think it's a super heavy lift. I think that the staff has done a great job getting to this point. And I think we have just a little bit of fine tuning. So I'd like to stick with the motion as a second.

Okay, does the maker of the motion agree with that?

What I heard was that the motion is unchanged. So from that standpoint, yeah, I agree with it. What I also agree with though, the nuance that you suggested which is in terms of expectation that what will be focused on is the parking for the fitness studios and the far definition what I'm open to is that as staff goes back to work on that if there was something else that is kind of uh... related or they say you know maybe we should handle this other area kind of in a similar fashion and do this and that i wouldn't want to preclude them from making a suggestion when they come back to us for another change Clearly, the majority of these categories we've left untouched and undiscussed. So the focus is on the areas that we have discussed. With regard to any sense of, oh, we need to do this right away because of the business community, we can't afford any delay. I'd say, you know, I've been available to come down here for the last six weeks. We've been canceling meetings. So we're obviously are not in any big hurry and we could certainly wait another two weeks four weeks six weeks To deal with this. I'm not saying that should take that long, but I'm in no hurry to send incomplete work up to Council Okay, my motion stands.

All right motion and the second Madam Clerk

WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE TO INCLUDE IN THE MOTION THAT YOU REOPEN THE PUBLIC HEARING AND YOU CONTINUE IT?

YES.

THANK YOU.

AND TO A DATE CERTAIN WHICH WOULD BE 7-13?

YES. ALL OF THAT IS FINE WITH ME.

THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, BRENDA.

GOOD WITH ME AS WELL.

ALL RIGHT. SO IF EVERYBODY GOT THAT, PUBLIC HEARING REMAINS OPEN, CONTINUED TO A DATE CERTAIN WHICH IS JULY 13th. OKAY. LET'S CALL FOR THE QUESTION.

Motion carries, 5-1, with Commissioner Andrade voting no.

All right. We have no old business tonight and no new business. So that takes us to departmental reports, public services report. Mr. Yang.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good evening, commissioners, for tonight's public works report. Just a reminder that the 2026 OC fair is just around the corner. So the fair will officially open on July 17th and run through August 16th. And just as in the years past, the fair will be open Wednesdays through Sundays and closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. So Public Works would like to remind the public to observe all traffic controls, watch out for pedestrians and bicyclists, and at all times be courteous and cautious when driving to and from the OC fair. And also to have fun as well. Good news for the Planning Commission meetings, since the fair is closed on Mondays, there'll be no traffic concerns for commissioners coming to and leaving City Hall during those times. So that's it for my report. I defer it back to the Chair.

All right. Thank you very much. And tonight for Development Services, Director Tai.

Yes, thank you, Chair and members of the Planning Commission. Yes, and I just want to start off by saying, yes, thank you for your patience. I know we didn't have a meeting, a couple of meetings. There's a couple of things that contribute to that, and part of it is the ebb and flow of our development applications. It's just how the timelines fall. And so when we don't have public hearing items, it's a natural cycle. The other thing is I do appreciate any opportunity we can to take study sessions and discussion items to the Planning Commission. However, I will also tell you that our advanced planning team, specifically the team that's working on Fairview Developmental Center, the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan, neighborhoods where we all belong, they've had their hands absolutely full with all of the work product going into preparing the draft plans, as well as the environmental documents. you know, staff bandwidth does play a lot into our ability to put discussion agenda items on, and we can whenever it's possible, as you see. However, I just wanted to give you some background on how the agenda planning sort of works there. And if anybody has any questions, I'm always available during the day to give you some background as well. In terms of just brief city council recaps, The Ohio House public hearing, which previously was scheduled for last week, was continued to September 1st to allow the applicant to work with the city on some additional matters. And so the that's that's sort of. the development project update in terms of upcoming city council items and planning commission items my advanced planning team is queuing up many different things for july august september and october and that is when you will see all the projects that previously i mentioned climate action adaptation plan neighborhoods fairview development center all starting to queue up there and so this work product will show up and it is all coming down the pipeline as we speak Related to that, as you heard from a couple of public speakers earlier, the Neighborhoods Where We All Belong Environmental Impact Report was released for public review. That public review period goes until August 3rd. And then not to be forgotten, the Fairview Developmental Center environmental review period ends next week. And so both those documents, and I will tell you they are thousands of pages long, and have a very thorough assessment of the complete suite of environmental topics that the city is required to study. That is all on the city's website and available for public review as we speak. A couple of major projects updates in case you haven't seen the Trinity Broadcasting Network building is completely demolished. That site is in the grading phase, and that is for the Meritage Homes construction project over on Bear Street. The other update we have, it's not visible yet, but one Metro West over off Sunflower north of the 405 did come in with a project modification. They reduced the number of units from 1,057 to 957, increased the size of those units, redid their office building into a creative workspace, and then reconfigured some of the buildings to create a more centralized amenity and podium connection between the different residential buildings. Overall, the project remains the same and in terms of meeting affordability requirements, open space requirements, they just shifted things a bit and now they're working on construction drawings and I believe they will be submitting toward the end of the year. Let's see, I've got a brief, some happy news. The Association of of California City's Orange County Chapter, has nominated the Neighborhoods Where We All Belong outreach effort as one of the finalists for their Golden Hub Awards. The awards ceremony is going to be this Thursday over at the Richard Nixon Library. And so everybody keep our fingers crossed that we pick up an award. Also, the City of Costa Mesa has finalists in categories for emergency services as well as mobility planning at that same ceremony. You know, we're all we're all hoping for good news there. A couple of the commissioners mentioned some updates for things that the department is doing that are slightly outside of the everyday planning commission realm. But yes, the city city manager's office, as well as development services, staff and economic development is administrator Dan and Lowe's. attended the ICSC conference in Las Vegas. We conducted meetings with between 60 and 80 businesses, and we engaged with over 10,000 conference attendees to amplify the visibility of Costa Mesa as a place in California to do business, places that are targeting businesses that perhaps are looking for their first location in California. And so it's an annual effort that the city goes out and does. And then we spend the entire year following up with the contacts that we make at that conference. And then following that, the city did partner with the Small Business Development Center up at Cal State Fullerton for the EATS program. And there was a recent graduation with 24 students. entrepreneurs that launched food-oriented businesses. And one of the really special parts about an event like that is watching people turn their personal dreams, their family recipes into a livelihood and seeing them being supported by their family network and the professional contacts that they make along the way as they launch their businesses. And then the last thing I wanted to announce is that with the adoption of the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget, the Department, the Economic and Development Services Department will be undergoing a name change starting July 1st. We will be rebranding as the Community Development Department and that broadens the name of the department to reflect the complete scope of the department services. Economic and Development Services is a very forward-facing name, and we will continue to move in that direction. as you can see by more efficient application processing, being more business friendly. However, as we see major changes coming down the city with efforts like neighborhoods and with efforts like Fairview Developmental Center, we thought it was very important to respect the existing community. helping to manage change and maintain the quality of life for residents that have been here for many decades. And we wanted to establish a department name that balanced a little more and not only looks forward, but also respects what was already there. And so look for announcements for name changes and branding coming up at the beginning of the fiscal year. And so that's my news. Thank you for giving me the opportunity for a slightly lengthier report. I had to catch up on some lost time. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. I know it's late where you are, so thanks for sticking around with us. City Attorney, Mr. Preziosi, any report?

Thank you, Mr. Chair, but no report this evening. Thank you. Okay.

I will now adjourn the meeting.