Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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I am now calling to order the regular meeting of the Fairfield Planning Commission on June 10th, 2026. Mr. Atkinson, can we please have the roll call?

Yes. Commissioner Holly Sullivan? Present. Vice Chair Singh?

Present.

Commissioner Reese? Commissioner Reese is absent. Commissioner Paul? Here. Commissioner Grevy?

Present.

Commissioner Matthews?

Present.

Chair Kennedy?

Present. Thank you. Commissioner Grevy, will you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance today?

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.

Thank you. Next on the agenda is the approval of the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda? There are none. Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?

So moved. Second?

Second.

Okay.

Commissioner Matthews first and Grebe second. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. 6-0. Now we have the approval of the minutes for the regular Planning Commission meeting of December the 10th, 2025. Are there any changes to the minutes from December 10th, 2025? It's hard to say 2025. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes?

Approve the minutes, please.

Thank you. Second? I second. Thank you. Moved and seconded to approve the minutes as submitted. All in favor?

Aye.

Motion passes. Okay. Public comments? are seven online so we'll see this is the time for the public to speak on items not on the agenda but within the jurisdiction of the planning commission provided that no action may be taken on off agenda items except as authorized by law off agenda items from the public will be taken under consideration without discussion by the commission and may be referred to staff comments will be accepted in person or via zoom to speak on an agenda item in person please fill out a speaker's card and give it to the secretary before the meeting or at the very latest prior to the time for your public comments on the item when joining via zoom please use the raise your hand feature or press star 9 on your phone to request to speak you will be called on by name and we'll have three minutes to speak and we will now open the public comment period i have no hands raised And I have no speakers here, so I will now close the public comment period. Next on the agenda is public hearing. For each agenda item, there will be a presentation by city staff for items that involve application requests. I will open the public hearing, ask the applicant to address the commission if they desire. Then commentators via Zoom and in-house will have opportunity to provide public comment. I will close the public hearing after all comments have been provided and after all of our questions regarding testimony during the public hearing have been answered. After the public hearing is closed, the commission will deliberate on the item and may have additional questions for staff. We cannot take additional testimony or questions from the public after I close the public hearing. Each commentator will be allowed three minutes. So, G1. It's a public hearing on the request by the City Fairfield to find the capital projects program for fiscal year 26-27 consistent with the general plan. And our presenter tonight is Melissa Fryer.

Good evening chair and planning commissioners. I'm Melissa Friar, assistant planner with the community development department and here to present the capital improvement projects for 2026-2027 in hopes that you find it consistent with the general plan. The general plan is the long-term comprehensive vision for the city. The most recent general plan was adopted in December 2024. The state requires annual review for consistency of capital projects with the general plan. Today we will present six capital projects slated for the 2026-2027 fiscal year. Four of the six projects are related to water infrastructure and are consistent with the public facilities and services, sustainability, and health and safety general plan elements. The PAL Center project is consistent with the environmental justice and public health and public facilities and services general plan elements. The transit maintenance facility expansion project is consistent with the land use and urban design sustainability economic development and public facilities and services general plan elements. We are recommending that the commission adopt resolution PC 2026-01, finding the capital improvement program for fiscal year 2026-2027 consistent with the general plan. Very short. Thank you, and any questions?

Yeah, thank you. Now it's time for staff questions. Please hold your comments or deliberations on this item until after the public hearing is closed. Questions? Down the line, we'll start with Commissioner Matthews.

Would you go through just briefly what will be part of the Powell Center plan?

Okay. So the PAL building renovation includes roofing and siding replacement, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning improvements, electrical system improvements, security enhancements, American with a Disability Act or ADA compliant access, restroom modernization, parking lot resurfacing, and interior tenant improvements.

I HOPE IT INCLUDES SIGNAGE, TOO. DOES IT?

THAT'S NOT CALLED OUT IN THE

the program however the reason why i have particular interest is i'm a volunteer there um we our rotary club that some of us are a member of serves meals there on a regular basis and it desperately needs support so that's why i have personal interest and the The sign that's up there now is from prior use many years ago, and it's a ragtag poor front image amongst all the other things that you mentioned. So that's where I'm coming from on this. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Commissioner Ali Sullivan?

Yeah, thank you, Chair. Very briefly, the projects that you presented, that is not the entirety of capital projects for the city for 2026, correct?

That is correct. These are new projects that are- Yeah, okay.

Yeah, it's not an exclusive list of understood. So I guess I was trying to get at these six projects are all because they are being initiated in 2026. Got it. That is correct. Okay.

Thank you. Any other questions? Yes, is that a question? Yes. So the item here today, this is just for my confirmation. It's to determine consistency with the general plan. It's not to commit funds. It's just to understand and verify the consistency only, right? Correct. Okay, thank you.

It and back on along with the towel. It says 2030 completion. When is the anticipation of this breaking ground and will the Pell Center be closed for an extended period of time and be moved elsewhere or what will be will happen in that interim.

I'll defer to David fall.

They belong as a senior civil engineer with our public works department, thank you.

Hey, David Vaughn here. I don't have an anticipated date. I need to go back and talk to my team about that. We're just starting design right now.

Okay. And will it be closed for an interim period, and will there be a temporary facility for the kids while it's being renovated? I assume so. Okay.

So I could be wrong, and I'm certainly not speaking with direct knowledge, but based on what I've heard, they're going to continue in operation during this work. Okay. Interesting.

Thank you. Any other questions?

Okay.

I will now open the public hearing. i do not have any cards and i have zero hands uh raised at this point in time so i will close the public hearing and return to the commission for deliberation

Commissioner Ali Sullivan yeah thanks to city staff for presenting this obviously water infrastructure projects are not the sexiest when it comes to capital improvements I think you expect to see you know big physical things projects whatnot but obviously it's it's critically important to the city so appreciate the work that went into this excited to see these projects move forward over the next couple year couple of years thanks thank you

Commissioner, I think I'm ready to adopt the resolution. Thank you. I have a motion. Do I have a second?

I'll second.

Thank you. Is it moved and seconded to approve the resolution? All in favor?

Aye. Opposed? None.

Passes. Okay, now we'll go to the director's report. Mr. Atkinson, do you have any items for us?

I do. Thank you. So you've probably noticed that I'm sitting up here. So back in April, Maile Sheehan left the city of Fairfield after over 11 years for a promotional opportunity with the city of Walnut Creek. We appreciate all the great work that Maile did over the years. I am currently serving as the interim planning division manager and I'm happy to be working with the commission in this capacity. More information will be forthcoming about the permanent planning division manager. The planning division also has one additional vacancy that will be filled in due time. And as far as future meetings goes, so I acknowledge that it's been six months since we last met. We will have a handful of items that will be coming to the Planning Commission in the very near future, one of which is more of a formality, but election of chair and vice chair for fiscal year 26 and 27. appointment of a member from the commission to the community development block grant or CDBG committee. We will have a Brown Act presentation later in the summer. And a more meatier item, we will have a zoning ordinance amendment package going to the Planning Commission for accessory dwelling unit, or ADU regulations. And I have some more updates on that here. So the city's existing ADU regulations do not comply with state law. The state has been pretty frequent in adopting new regulations for ADUs. So the city has not quite kept up with the annual pace of new laws. So with that in mind, planning division will be bringing a package for zoning ordinance amendments. That will be later in the summer, early fall. And that will come to you for a formal recommendation to the city council. And as far as other items, we are going to be embarking on the second phase of the general plan implementation. So this phase will be critical as the city will create new zoning, districts, land use regulations, development standards, so that the zoning ordinance complies with the vision set forth in the general plan. There will also be additional actions taken as part of the second phase. The city retained Ascent. They are an environmental design and planning consultant firm. They will be assisting with the general plan implementation efforts. The planning commission will play a very critical role in this phase, so please stay tuned for future updates. And last but not least, I do want to acknowledge that Commissioners Grevy, Paul, and Ollie Sullivan will be completing terms. And I know for a fact that Commissioner Grevy, this would be your last meeting on the Planning Commission, as you did not apply for a second term. So Commissioner Grevy, we thank you and appreciate all your service to the city of Fairfield, and we wish you the best of luck with your endeavors. Thank you. That concludes my report.

Thank you. Commissioner's reports. Commissioner Ali Sullivan.

Very brief, and Jonathan, thank you for sharing the information about Maylee. Obviously, I saw the email. Did not get a chance to say goodbye to her formally at a meeting. She probably won't ever see this, but I did want to just acknowledge the work that she put in in the short time that I was here. Always found her to be extremely professional and supportive of the questions I had, so I'm appreciative of her time and her work for the city and wish her the best of luck and i'm very happy to see you stepping in an interim basis and look forward to continuing to work with you commissioner grievey obviously i haven't had much opportunity to interact with you over the the course of my term but i did want to of course thank you for your your service and uh unfortunately i won't have an opportunity to get to know you further but i'm sure that just based on the comments from fellow commissioners you've distinguished yourself and appreciate the service you've done and hopefully we'll be able to interact together outside of the planning commission so thank you sir commissioner paul

Yeah, it just came to my notice, well, Melly's gone and Jonathan is now our interim manager, so we welcome him. And at the same time, I feel, well, I wish Grebe should have been with us for another term, but I think he's more on the road these days and he has already planned the next six months to be on the road and have fun with the family. I wish him good luck.

Okay, well, this was not really planned initially. My wife retired last July, and she's decided that we need to, and I'm not opposed to it, by the way, but we are doing a lot of traveling. And I have enjoyed being on the planning commission. I've enjoyed working with city staff. All of you, I think I'll just leave names out. I have been very impressed with the quality of work that the city of Fairfield puts out and I've been very proud to be a part of that the folks that I've met here on the Planning Commission have been fabulous and I do not intend to just go off into the sunset It's just that I cannot give this position that effort time that it requires, in my opinion, with everything else that's going on, which is truly just nothing but fun and games. But I may come back for another term or at least try to have another term in the future. So thank you all. It has been a joy. Thank you.

Commissioner Matthews?

Well, Commissioner Grevy, my friend, we'll miss you. You bring solid, well-reasoned, and well-prepared thoughts every commission and have been an exceptionally good listener to those issues that have been controversial and you're a man of integrity and i have the highest respect and regard for you and wish you well and hurry to come back for a future terms

Thank you. Commissioner Singh? Yes. First and foremost, I wanted to say, Jonathan, it is beyond reassuring to know that you will be the interim planning manager during this transition period here for the planning department. You are very level-headed and are able to present the facts and details of each item and answer questions objectively, which is a rare quality so beyond reassuring. grateful to have you as uh so beyond grateful to have you as the interim planning manager and then secondly i just wanted to say commissioner greevey when i first became a planning commissioner there were a lot of questions about how to do the role how to be prepared some of the expectations for the role as well and i just wanted to say thank you for helping me become a better Planning Commissioner, and that was only because of how selfless you are with your time with everyone on the dais. And then I would just like to co-assign some of Commissioner Matthews' comments as well. Whenever there's a detailed agenda item, we can always count on you to be beyond prepared for those items and to ask the appropriate questions at the time. So thank you so much for your time.

Thanks. Commissioner Gravey, I will echo everything that's been said to you so far. It's been a pleasure. It's been great. And I hope you and your wife have a great road warrior trip because you have many trips planned and enjoy it all you can and enjoy this great country. And Jonathan, I know we have a little bit of a... history back where I grew up and where you started your career. And so we've been able to talk about those days a lot. We're very happy to have you up here as the intern. And we look forward to a long relationship with you. So thank you very much for all your professionalism. Appreciate it a lot. And on that, we will adjourn until next meeting, June 24, 2026. Thank you, everybody.