Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Meeting Thursday, September 3rd, 2026 at 6 p.m. We will begin with the land acknowledgement. We honor, respect, and acknowledge Elk Grove's first inhabitants, the Plains Miwok, who lived as sovereign caretakers of this land and these waterways since time immemorial. We commemorate and advocate for their descendants, the Wilton Rancheria Tribe, the only federally recognized tribe in Sacramento County who endure because of the bravery, resiliency, and determination of their ancestors, tribal members, and leaders. At this time, please silence your electronics and cell phone devices. The clerk will read the customary greeting.

The Elk Grove Planning Commission welcomes, appreciates, and encourages participation in the meetings. The commission reserves the right to reasonably limit the total time for public comment on any particular noticed agenda item, as it may deem necessary. If you wish to address the commission during the meeting, please complete a speaker card and give it to the clerk to consideration of the agenda item.

Thank you, and now the clerk will call the roll.

Commissioner Sandra Poole.

Present.

Juan Fernandez.

Present.

Suman Singha. Present. Vice Chair Varenda Singh.

Present.

Chair Oscar O'Connor, absent.

Thank you. I invite Commissioner Juan Fernandez to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. If you would please join us in a moment of silence. Next on the agenda, we have approval of the agenda. Can I get a motion to approve?

Chair, I move that we approve the agenda for this evening. Can I get a second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Public comment. Members of the audience may comment on any item not on the agenda that is of interest to the public and within the jurisdiction of the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission cannot take action on any non-agendized items raised under public comment until the matter has been specifically included on an agenda as an action item. I will now open the public comment opportunity Do we have any speakers?

No.

No. All right. I will close the public comment. We will then move to consent calendar items. 4.1, the regular meeting minutes of May 21, 2026.

Chair, I have a parliamentary question on item 4.1. I noticed there wasn't a second on the motion, and I was wondering if it's a valid motion.

Just a moment. Let me check the minutes. Yeah, we'll review the tapes, and we'll revise the minutes with respect to that item, and we would request that you would continue approval of these particular minutes, if that's acceptable to the Commission.

I believe, based on attendance at this meeting, we do not have a quorum to approve 4.1. because neither Commissioner Fernandez and I were here, and Chair O'Connor is missing this evening, so.

Oh, thank you, I appreciate that. Yes, it looks like the minutes were actually continued due to two abstainees, Fernandez and Singha, and it looks like Chair O'Connor was absent, so if you wanted to abstain again this evening on those minutes,

We could just continue it.

We'll just continue the minutes again. Yeah. And they'll bring it back. And then when Ocon is present, he could vote on those minutes because you'd have three. Does that work?

And the issue of the second can be resolved in that duration soon.

So just one more thing. So if you're going to do that, could you clarify the attendance also? Because it shows Fernandez and Singer being absent but voting on that motion. Thank you.

So at this point, would I still be able to seek a motion for 4.1? No?

I think we would just continue the meeting minutes of, the motion would be to continue the meeting minutes of 4.1 and then to approve the meeting minutes on 4.2. Okay.

All right, can I get a motion to continue the meeting minutes for 4.1 and approve the minutes for 4.2?

Chair, I move that we continue the motion Minutes on 4.1 and approved 4.2, which is June 4th.

I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Okay, approved. Moving on to public hearing items. The clerk will call the hearing items.

Item 5.1, 9036 Elk Grove Boulevard, mural, PLNG 26-022.

Good evening, Mr. Vice Chair and Commissioners. My name is Kara Killingsworth. I'll be presenting you the mural at 9036 Elk Grove Boulevard. The mural was installed in 2025, and therefore an applicant is requesting a design review to legalize the mural at this location. The property is located in Old Town Historic Main Street, and it's known as the Science Center, the building. The building was built in the late 1950s, early 1960s, and has not been deemed eligible for the historic resource. It is a non-contributing resource within the historic district, which means a building or object that does not add to the significance of a historic district as determined by the city's historical resource survey. The last survey that was done was in 2019. The SPA requires that murals obtain a design review to ensure that murals are compatible in scale and design with the historic Main Street. This mural is on the east side of the building. It is a secondary facade, not the primary facade. The building's primary facade is the front. And as you can see, the mural is painted with colors of mostly blues and has a checkered theme to represent Kyle Larson, who is a local native of Elk Grove and a professional NASCAR winner racing driver. The artist for wide open walls painted a portion of this elevation and does not interfere with any potential key defining features of the building or endanger any drivers or pedestrian along Elk Grove Boulevard. And therefore, staff finds that this is compliant with the SPA. The project is exempt from CEQA per 15301. The installation of the mural does not alter any of the physical structure and also will continue to operate in the same manner. With that, staff recommends the Planning Commission adopt a resolution finding that the project is exempt from CEQA and approve this Old Town Design Review for 9036 Elk Grove Boulevard. That concludes my presentation and staff is available for any questions.

Thank you. Any questions for staff?

Kira, what's, on the side of the car, there's a website or something, but I couldn't see the first part of it, and I was wondering if it has the name of Kyle, or is that anywhere?

The applicant is here. They can explain a little more of the details of the mural. Okay.

Any other questions?

No?

No. Okay, I declare the public hearing open and invite the applicant to speak. Thanks for your report. It was beautifully written, by the way.

My first experience with a report written by the Planning Commission. To answer your question, Sandra, during the parade, we had arranged for Kyle Larson to jump out of his race car and sign it with a pen, and we were there immediately after, and it was sealed. His signature was sealed in the mural. So a pretty cool, lasting legacy for Kyle and for Elk Grove.

What does the website say? I just see the last part of what's on the side of the car. I was just curious.

That's HendrickCars.com. That's Kyle Larson's sponsor.

What was it again?

HendrickCars.com.

Okay, thank you. Any other questions for the applicant?

Do you have any questions for me? Do I get to make a statement now?

Yes, you can actually go and speak now, yes.

I was actually going to ask, since you brought it up, he jumped out of the car and signed... What did he sign?

He signed his signature on the door of the mural. Oh. So where he would normally sign the car, he signed the mural and... I think that was the picture that was in the Yale Grove Citizen, and there's lots of people around, take lots of pictures, and the TV cameras were there. It was a pretty cool deal. Got it. Thank you for the additional detail. It was a very fun event. Besides that report that was so well written, I did have some questions. And the first is, if it's not historical building, and it's not facing the street, why was it necessary to do a Planning Commission report on this particular property? on this particular mural, and why was it necessary?

Is that okay for me to answer? So in the Old Town SPA guidelines, all murals in the SPA, historic or not, have to go to the Planning Commission for a decision.

Okay, so that's the reason why, and I just might ask, is it really the role of the Planning Commission? Is that something that you might consider changing on that charter where that rule was written, where that's not necessary in the future, that the Planning Commission does not get involved with art that's being produced? It's not a building. It's a piece of art. It's a painting on a building that is completely temporary. No outdoor mural is permanent. We built nothing. We decorated the outside of a non-historic building. So my question again, is that something that's worth changing? I brought that up to, I think, city manager or economic development, and it was a much more involved process as far as changing what that charter says. Just wonder if that's something we might consider in the future, and I'll leave it at that. The other thing is, I can't think of any other circumstances where the Planning Commission is involved where the fees were equal to what the project cost. Let me repeat that. The fees, what the artists got paid, were $4,500. That didn't include the materials, the insurance, and everything else involved, but the artist got paid $4,500, and so did the City of Elk Grove. Just trying to figure out a balance here. It's an awfully big fee for a non-profit, a fee that we were unaware of that we would have to pay. We understood that if we painted it, there would have to be approval, and that we were gonna obviously did it in asking for forgiveness, and obviously with the recommendation of report, thank you for that, that you will get approval to have it legally there, but again, pretty much cost prohibitive. And what this policy will do, it will prevent any other artist, any other arts organization ever to paint on Main Street in a historical district. Nobody can include those fees of applying to the Planning Commission to do a project.

You haven't applied for a certificate of appropriateness recently, have you? Pardon? You haven't applied for a certificate of appropriateness recently, have you?

I don't know what that is. Maybe you can explain it to me.

Yeah, we had to apply for one for the windows on our church, and I felt the same way that you felt, that the fee was exorbitant for what we were proposing. So I understand your position, and it's a fair question. Is it a question that anybody can answer?

Mr. Chair, if I could. Fees are established by city council resolution, not by planning commission designation. It's city policy to the extent possible recoup the actual cost of the services provided. Appreciate the applicant's concern. We are going through an update to our fee program comprehensively. We will look at all the fees in total and the cost of the time of service to provide for reviewing of applications. So it's something we continue to look at and we'll be looking at more over the coming months. Unfortunately, the regulations, which have been in place since about 2005, do call for Planning Commission approval of murals in the historic Main Street corridor. This may be something that we look at in more detail with the update to the SPA in the coming months. We actually had an item at the City Council back in July, and this was one of the topic areas. They have asked us to look at it and maybe look at some revisions. But in the meantime, this is the appropriate process. I think really focusing on the question before you this evening, do you want to approve the project as proposed? Are you seeing some changes or are you looking in denial? That's the question before the commission this evening.

If I might, Christopher, I would suggest that the applicant entity, if it was a non-profit, be taken into consideration of the cost of the fees for certificate of appropriateness or mural, for example.

Thank you, Juan. When we did pay that application fee, we were told that was based on the number of hours that it would take for staff to report. One of the things that was discussed at that time is that Economic Development was putting together a template that would be used in the future for this project and the project that they used for their mural festival, a template that would basically take less hours for the Planning Commission to basically prepare their report for the template that was prepared. So I guess my question was, did the report take all of the fee or is there a refund coming and how do we find out about that?

We won't know about the final fee until after this evening once all the staff hours are accommodated for, but the projections are based upon our understanding of it. We're happy to follow up and see if there's any refund that's due. We would process a refund if there was one, but we can't do any of that until the conclusion of the matter. Thank you, Christopher.

Anything else for me? Appreciate everybody's time.

Thank you. Next, I'll open the public comment. Do we have any public comments?

Yes, Randy Becker.

Good evening. First of all, I've got a question. Are you trying to tell this gentleman that every mural in Old Town The city received a fee of $4,500 every mayoral?

It's on a per-application basis.

I don't really care. The question was, did every mayoral in Old Town have to pay $4,500? I can answer that. No, let them. It's their responsibility. I take the silence as no, that's unacceptable. I know the back story on this issue and I'm here because I'm not happy. I'm not happy because this mayoral was rushed through because of the parade and his second championship. Every time they announce his name, the next two words is Elk Grove, California. We get a free thing for our city because of him. What we tried to do, meaning not myself, we in the racing community tried to do something special. And this gentleman's getting his hand slapped for it. Few weeks ago, Kyle was racing in Richmond. A few days before that, he raced at Knoxville, Iowa, the national sprint cars of the year. Sat on the pole and realized he was not going to be able to race in Saturday night's main event. Well, Mother Nature played a role And Kyle got out of a race car in Richmond, got on an airplane and flew to Knoxville, Iowa and won the national championship. 17,000 people followed that airplane on the internet. So he's not only a hometown hero in the racing community, He's also a hero to the region. Dirt track racing gets the most people in the United States going to a sport family. So I would suggest that we revisit this mural debacle and refund this gentleman's money. Otherwise, we're going to start making some noise.

Thank you, Randy. I would like to invite the applicant to respond if there's anything else you'd like to say.

What a surprise guest. I can respond to the question that he asked of you, and that was, did every muralist pay the $4,500 fee to the city for each of those murals on Main Street? And the answer is no. Economic Development informed me that they paid a total of $8,500 for the nine murals that they created during the mural festival. Gazillion dollar budget, non-profit. $4,500, $8,500. Can you confirm that that's the number?

I don't have those numbers with me tonight. This was meant to be a discussion about the project.

Okay.

I have nothing else, but again, I appreciate everybody's time.

Thank you. I will declare the public hearing closed and begin commission deliberation in action.

Chair Singh, I move to adopt the resolution finding the project exempt from CEQA pursuant to state CEQA guidelines section 15301 and approving the Old Town Design Review for the 9036 Elk Grove Boulevard mural project PLNG 26-022 based on the findings and subject to conditions of approval included in the draft resolution.

Second. All in favor? Aye.

OK. There are no regular agenda items on this agenda. We'll move to the director's report.

Again, chair and commissioners. So on the director's report this evening, at the last city council meeting, the council did approve the moratorium on the personal storage facilities. They've asked us to return with a conclusion to that process of updating the regulations in about two years. We don't have a schedule together yet about what that will look like, but we'll keep you updated and certainly be back to this body with any draft of those regulations for your consideration and recommendation to council at a future date. Looking ahead, we do have the item confirmed for September 17th's meeting at this body. That is the Summer Flats project. Again, this is the summer project which is south of Bond Road, a little bit north of the Bel Air along Waterman Road. So this is coming to you soon. Notices have gone out. Some of the packets will be ready in the next day or so. We do have one item that is forthcoming for October 1st, the Logan Incubator Project. I believe it's all signed up. We're getting close on that one. And then for City Council, happy to announce we did receive a state grant for some historic preservation work. So Cura's gonna be busy with that one in the next few months. And so the grant agreements and funding plan for that will go to the council next week on their agenda. And then at the end of the month for the second council meeting, we do have a recognition of historic week. and proclamation and then, that should not be on there. All right, otherwise I'm happy to answer questions if you have them.

So given the issues around fees, I know you said that you all are working on that. Do you have any projection on when we might have some feedback or information?

So our fees, generally speaking, the city establishes fees based upon either the actual cost providing services. So it's a time and materials charge based upon staff's fully burdened hourly rates and then various overhead charges on top of that consultant charges are those charges plus. an overhead administrative rate. It's the same process we've had in place going back nearly 26 years, if not the entire time. We are doing an update, our last update, the fee programs in 2011, so it has been quite a while. So we're re-looking at everything. We've had a consultant working on it for a bit. We're trying to get a better handle on some of the internal overhead charges to make sure that they are appropriately calculated. So that's a process we're working with the finance department on. They've indicated they're getting close on those. And so we're hoping the next few months we'll be able to pull those numbers together. We do outreach on that with the Building Industry Association. We have monthly meetings with them on a variety of topics. And of course, this will be one that'll get a lot of scrutiny. Some of our fees are on a flat fee basis. We do in some cases, like our temporary use permits, do have a reduced fee for non-profits. That's all within the council's purview if they would like to establish those. We can certainly carry the request that came up this evening. As part of that, I know we do on occasion have other nonprofits that do businesses. We have also historically had nonprofits that have requested through some sort of grant program or other effort to go to the council and receive either a reduction in the fee or some sort of grant to be able to pay for the fees that are associated with that. In particular, the Historic Society received one back, and I want to say about 2008 or 9, for a use permit they needed over at the Historical Society campus. So we've done things before I can't speak to if the council would approve one in the future of what the nature would be. But there are certainly processes for that. But yeah, we can we can look at all this and see and ultimately it becomes a question of is there a general fund obligation to make up for the difference because we do operate development services as an enterprise fund.

It sounds like it's going to be a couple of months for your recommendation.

It's going to be a bit longer. Again, we're waiting on some information from the finance department that they're working on calculating, and then we have to go through the full review of everything. There's unfortunately a lot of moving parts because we haven't spent a lot of time on it, or we've not looked at it since 2011 comprehensively. We did do an update. Our council approved an update, I want to say back in April. We moved a couple of the planning fees and several of the engineering fees out of the flat fee category and into a time of materials. Great example of this is reviewing construction plans for subdivisions. Those were being collected on a flat fee basis and we were getting a lot of feedback from the development community that, like, hey, you're keeping all of that because it's a flat fee, it's a one-time charge, great that we have the stability to know that we make one payment and we're done, but it just feels like it's a very high level. So, okay, we can move to a T&M if you're feeling more comfortable. The city appreciates it because it reduced our risk liability around how much that service cost is. And ultimately they said, that's great. We look forward to it. Please make the change. The council agreed and adopted the change. It wouldn't do effect in July. So we're looking at them as we can, but it's a more comprehensive update to really look at the structure of these things and make sure that services do not become a burden to the city.

But this one, this type of project doesn't fall under a TNM anyway, right?

So this would have been, this was a TNM project. The classification of the type of Old Town Design Review is a time and material service. So in those cases, what we do, staff, There's an initial deposit fee just to get it in the door so we can start the review. And then staff will work up a full estimate of how many hours we're projecting and what additional costs, like public hearing notices, recording fees, that sort of thing, would go along with it. So staff did that in this case. It came up with a number of whatever the value was as possibly what was quoted this evening at the dais. And then we're waiting for that collection in order to be able to move forward. Because we don't want to end up with a case where a project is, whatever action is taken, we're still waiting on the receipt of those funds after the approval. We need to have those up front. And then we'll settle the books in a few weeks once all the final charges show up. So in this case, the staff time's not a big deal. We track that on a weekly basis. we'd be looking to make sure we have whatever the hearing notice charges are, postage and whatnot, all fully accounted for. The staff will close out the books, and if there's a refund to be had, obviously we'll issue it.

Thank you. What hearing notices are necessary for a non-historic building of reference in the Old Town Special Planning Area?

So in this case, it's an Old Town design review, so it would have required a 500-foot notice pursuant to our requirements. And so the staff cost and the mailing cost for those notices? You have the 500-foot notice, so we have postage and printing associated with that. We also have the published notice in the newspaper, which is a state requirement. There's a cost associated with that, which is several hundreds of dollars to publish that. And then the staff time in preparing the staff report, doing the initial review of the application, conformity, make sure it met all whatever applicable standards were applicable in this case. And again, the staff report, the resolution. So there's curious time, there's Antonio's time. Everybody up here is reviewing it in some way, shape or form, including legal. So there's a lot of hands that are touching every project as it works through the system.

And then in your report, you were going through the upcoming matters for City Council. Did I hear you say the last item listed for September 23rd was not intended to be included on the?

No, I believe it is going. We're still working on some details for it, so I want to confirm that. So we'll give you better information for you on the 17th. Thank you.

All right, and then any Planning Commission matters?

Actually, no, I thought you jumped ahead. Just a quick comment. Does the Art Commission look at murals?

So that's actually one of the questions we're studying internally based upon the Council's direction back in July. The Arts and Creative Economy Commission was responsible for reviewing the larger economic development mural package that happened back in June. because it was a city sponsored activity and had city funds committed to it. So it was part of their purview to review the bid essentially from the arts organization that had proposed and was being selected for the work. So they had to provide a recommendation to council to ultimately enter into the contract arrangement. We do that with all of our city commissioned artwork. whether it's over at District 56, the library, anywhere else at any city facility. Parks and Laguna Ridge is another example. So they would have done that review and provided some feedback on it. But ultimately, the way the SPA is written today, the approval of, from an activity perspective, an improvement to private land, it is an obligation of the Planning Commission to do that review, to do that final approval for the activity. So again, we're going to look at this. Unfortunately, this is the regulations that exist today, and there's no way to get around that without a code amendment.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any Planning Commission matters? All right, there being no other agenda items, the meeting is adjourned at 6.31 p.m. Good night.