Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Calling to order the regular meeting of the Fairfield Planning Commission on 12/10/2025. Miss Sheehan, can we please have a roll call?

Yes. Of course. Commissioner Kennedy?

Present.

Commissioner Singh?

Present.

Commissioner Matthews?

Present.

Commissioner Reese? Oh, sorry. Sorry. Commissioner Greevy?

Present.

Commissioner Reese is currently absent. And commissioner Ollie Sullivan?

Present.

And commissioner Paul has an excused absent for this evening.

Thank you. Alright. Next is the approval agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda tonight? What's that?

Pledge of Allegiance. Commissioner Grieve, will you please lead us? I flipped them, sorry. She has arrived.

Alright.

That was a little bit of So now we will go on to the approval of the agenda. Do we have any changes?

Yes. I do want to just note a very minor change at the end of the agenda. It notes that we will continue to our next meeting and it notes tonight. Our next meeting would be January 14. So that's just one minor amendment.

Alright. Thank you. Do I a motion to approve the agenda?

Make a motion to approve the agenda.

Thank you. Second? Second. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you. Any opposed? None. So approval of the minutes of November 12. Are there any changes to the minutes of November 12?

Not from staff, no.

Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. Thank you. Second? Aye. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor?

Aye. Aye. Opposed?

Carried. Okay, now information for public comments. This is the time for the public to speak on items that are 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 into consideration without any discussion by the commission and may be referred to staff. Comments will be accepted in person and via Zoom.

Public comment instructions are, if you want to speak on an item, please complete a speaker's card and give it to the secretary before the meeting or at the latest prior to the time for public comments on that item. If you're joining via Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or press 9 on your phone to request to speak. You will be called on by name and you'll have three minutes to speak. I will now open the public comment period. We do not have any items for public comment.

So I'll now close public comment period. Public hearings. The next item on the agenda is public hearings. For each agenda items, there will be a presentation by city staff. For items that involve the application request, I will open the public hearing and ask the applicant to address the commission if they so desire. Then commenters via Zoom and in house will have the opportunity to provide public comment. I will close the public hearing after all comments have been provided and after all our questions regarding the 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 have closed the public hearing. Each comment will be limited to three minutes.

So

as Ms. Sheehan noted, H1 Objective Design Standards is being continued to another date. So now we'll go on to H2 Resolution PC 20 five-eight Chick fil A. It's a public hearing request by Nathan Loveland to develop a 4,857 square foot food service building with an associated drive thru at 4560 Central Way. Our presenter tonight is Yeelin Wang.

Thank you.

Good evening chairperson and members of the Planning Commission. My name is Yulin Wong and today I'm presenting the project d r twenty twenty five dash zero zero zero seven, a new Chick fil A food service building with drive thru sales at forty five sixty Central Way. There's an associated use permit with this project for the drive thru sales portion. So the location of this project is at 4560 Central Way. It is on a existing parcel that's 2.37 acres.

The development of the project itself is taking up roughly 1.8 acres of the site. The existing land use at this location is a Globe Truck Center, which is truck sales. There's also an old antique building there. For context, here's the site plan. The proposed site will include a 4,857 square foot food service building and associated drive through and various landscape improvements.

The site is bounded by I 80 to the north and Central Way Slash County Road 87 to the South and Southeast. A commercial retail center abuts the parcel southwest property line, and the parcel across County Road 87 on the Southeast side is a vacant parcel. The proposed building itself includes a 2,233 square feet of indoor dining space and 350 square feet of outdoor dining space. For food service, counter service, land uses, one parking space is required per 80 square feet of floor area. So a total of 61 parking spaces are required for this project and the proposed project exceeds this requirement by providing 64 parking spaces.

The site will be accessed from the southeastern side of the site using Old County Road 87, which is also connected to Central Way. And Old County Road 87 will be brought up to city standard by the developer. The drive thru itself will be accessed on the east of the site through the parking lot. There will be a traffic overflow queuing management plan in place should the drive through queue overflow out into the parking lot. More on that later in this presentation.

And then as per the city's municipal code, a required eight stacking spaces in the drive through is required and this project exceeds that by providing 36 through the two lanes that you see on the site there. So the project parcels to the south, east, and west of the site are all zoned CR or regional commercial and they all also have the general plan land use designation of highway and regional commercial. I-eighty abuts the northern property line, so there's no technically no zoning designation or general plan designation there. And the product site itself is also both of those, so regional commercial CR and highway and regional commercial from the general plan land use designation. Areas with the general plan land use designation of highway and regional commercial typically include highway oriented retail and service uses that exceed the market area.

So this project being a drive through fast food does is consistent with this land use designation. So landscape wise, the project proposes a mix of evergreen shrubs, grasses, and crushed stone ground cover. The majority of the existing trees on-site will remain. There are proposed to be six trees removed and those are unprotected trees. So a total of 39 trees will be planted on-site in addition to that and with five of them planted along County Road 87.

The development also meets our parking lot tree requirement, requires one tree per every eight stalls in the internal parking area. And here you can see the building elevations, I'll go through each of them. Here's the south elevation, so this is what you'll see from the parking lot. Here's the north elevation, so this is what you'll see from the freeway. And then the west and the east.

A traffic assessment was submitted from the applicant and it analyzed the queuing data from other Bay Area Chick fil A restaurants, and the assessment showed that the maximum queuing on a weekday is 25 vehicles. Our site accommodates 36 vehicles in the drive through queue lane, which will comfortably fit the anticipated maximum queue for a weekday. And then for weekend, the study shows that the maximum queue is 34. Again, the 36 that is accommodated on-site should comfortably fit all of those vehicles. And again, to reiterate, we do have a overflow queue management plan and this plan will be implemented should the vehicle queuing extend beyond the allotted vehicle queuing spaces.

So when implemented, the plan calls for Chick fil A staff to place traffic cones in the center of the drive aisle to delineate the extended queue lane and signs will be placed at entry points to indicate the new queuing pattern. The lane used for overflow queuing will not impede customer parking as the stalls you see highlighted in yellow will be designated as employee parking and you see the highlighted blue is where the additional queuing will be for the overflow plan. This project is categorically exempt from CEQA under section 15,332 infill development as it complies with the criteria listed. It's an existing developed parcel surrounded by urban uses, less than five acres in area and can be adequately served by utilities and public services. And so part of our development condition package, we do have some key development conditions.

One of them being that overflow queuing management plan as discussed in the previous slide. We do have the public works conditions that include County Road 87 improvements and so I'll go into that a little bit. These improvements include two minimum 12 foot wide travel lanes, a monolithic curb gutter and sidewalk along Old County Road, and providing a path of travel from Central Way to the proposed development frontage. And all of these conditions are or all of these standards are to be solely borne by the developer. Architecturally, we have a condition to change the color of the parapet wall coping.

So here's a reference photo here. If you remember from the previous slides, the top of that roof which is called the parapet wall coping was a white, so we've conditioned them to change it to an existing bronze color that's in their materials palette just to provide more contrast for the building elevation. And then lastly, we have a condition for them to comply with the provided arborist report just to follow the recommendations from the arborist in terms of tree protection and other procedures. We have some key use permit conditions, which include that no alcoholic beverages may be sold, dispensed, or distributed through the drive through window. Truck deliveries are limited to be outside of the operational hours to ensure drive through functions are not impeded.

We require a kitchen ventilation system utilizing pollution control and high efficiency filters to be employed to reduce site odors and again reiterating the overflow queuing management plan to ensure that parking and circulation are not impacted by any drive through patrons. And with that, staff is recommending the Planning Commission adopt resolution PC 20 '20 Five-eight approval of the development of Chick fil A Doctor twenty twenty five-seven and accompanying use permit for the drive thru UP 2020 Five-three. I'm happy to answer any questions you have. We have some of the applicant team here in person and on Zoom. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Mila. So I'll start with questions and we'll start with Vice Chairman Singh.

Yes. Thank you so much, Chair. First and foremost, thank you so much, Ms. Huang for that presentation. It was fantastic. And my first question is, this item was originally on the November Planning Commission meeting, but it was continued to this meeting because there was going to be more detail added to this presentation. And one of those details that was very important and I really appreciate and have questions about is that queue management plan. For that plan specifically, could you go over what's what specifically will trigger that queue management plan again?

Yep. So that plan will be in place should the operators of the Chick fil A at the time realize that the queue is at capacity. So if those 36 spaces are filled up and it looks like there's more cars coming in and it's gonna spill over into the parking lot, they would employ this queue management plan to ensure that's done in an orderly manner.

Gotcha. Thank you for that. And then also should the applicant or actually should the project find itself in a position where the queue management plan cannot adequately accommodate the car stacking queue, what options does the city have to come up with a new solution potentially? Is that a component of the queue management plan?

I think the queue management plan is geared towards in the case that it does spill over from the drive through queue and not necessarily on to County Road 87. We don't anticipate that it will spill over into the County Road or Central Way just because of the data that we have and it shows that our the spaces that we have in the development and the proposed development do exceed that by quite a lot.

And I'm happy to add a little to that. So yes, absolutely we don't anticipate that the overflow would go beyond the queuing management plan. I think at that point, you're probably talking about 40 plus vehicles. But in an absolute worst case scenario, maybe everyone needs Chick fil A that evening. It it could become a code enforcement matter in which the operator is no longer in compliance with their use permit, and that would give opportunity for the city to take enforcement action. So that would be the very worst case scenario.

Gotcha. Thank you.

K. Commissioner Matthews? Thank you. Would you mind bringing up the queuing schedule there? So at what point do you start counting the 36? Is it where those two arrows are at the entrance? Is that where the queuing starts? Presumably you would have another eight or 10 cars that could still be in the drive aisle but not in the road. Is that correct?

When you say drive aisle, you mean like the blue area indicated there?

The red area.

The red area.

So are you talking the bottom two arrows?

Yeah. So that's what I'm asking. Does the 36 start with the two arrows that are on the horizontal line to the beginning of the building?

The 36 count starts here.

Starts where? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So then if you go from there down to the road, you probably have space for eight or 10 more vehicles.

Yeah. If you go down the the red part but

Before you enter into the road.

It's Yeah.

But the queuing management plan redirects them so that it doesn't since they need proper ingress and egress on both sides. So I don't think they are proposing the extended overflow queuing to be in this area. It's gonna be in the blue area.

Okay. But I'm telling you just by nature people are gonna go in the red area. Now, the current Chick fil A side, do you know the capacity for queuing there? The one here in Fairfield?

Do not.

I I mean my guess having been a customer there it's somewhere in the vicinity. There are two aisles maybe you've got a 10 maybe 12. Each side? Yeah, on each side. So probably 20 to

20 My

recollection is when we approved the Dutch Brothers station that has what 27 I wanna say and that was the largest queuing area of any site in Fairfield at the time.

I believe so yes.

The new Starbucks is bigger.

Yeah at the time Dutch Bros. To commissioner Kennedy's point, there is a new Starbucks on Travis that might be larger than that queue. I can't recall. We

experienced any issues with the Dutch brothers queuing?

To my knowledge, no.

And if there were a rush, you you would think, you know, morning rush would be the the worst time. So I I I go down that meandering route simply to say that I think 36 plus more is more than abundant in my opinion. Thank you.

That concludes my comments. Thank you. Commissioner Grebe?

I think you're correct. Although I think that your data seems a little bit off when you're using numbers from 2018 to establish the number of vehicles that are going to be in there. Is that the most current you have for data for them is 2018?

That is the data that we were provided from the applicant, but I can let me sorry. Let me let me pass it to our traffic engineer or traffic planner, Tina, who should be on Zoom right now. Okay. Thank you.

Tina, Did you hear the question?

Tina, please go ahead and answer.

They're trying to bring her on.

Hi there. Good evening. Can everyone hear me?

Yes.

Yeah. So that was definitely something that, traffic did, consider. We had asked the applicant to submit, additional data, especially with data, updated data showing queuing for locations within Fairfield, Vacaville, and then I believe Vallejo has a a Chick fil A. However, after discussing with the applicant, we understood that the data that was provided is reflective of of current queuing at the moment. And and I know 2018 was, you know, pre COVID, and a lot of, you know, driving and and and It was actually big.

Car drive through trends have changed. But the applicant has compared the queuing data with the with their their sales, and the numbers are are are accurate. I do also want to add that these locations are in cities that are either comparable to Fairfield or larger, so the numbers are more conservative. Or and we felt more comfortable that, you know, if this if the data was still relative and comparable, then we accepted that. Yes.

Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Reese?

Thank you. Commissioner Ali Sullivan? Yeah. Thank you, chair. A couple of quick questions for staff and then for the applicant. First off, for staff, thank you for the report. Super helpful. Appreciate the the detail that went into it. Old County Road, where is Old County Road? Because if I'm looking on Google Maps, an Old County Road looks like it's a quarter of a block.

So

can you show me?

It's let's see.

It's right along here. So this is Central Way, and then it's right

It's that. Yes. So is that still going to be a road or is that just part of the parking lot now?

It's still going to be a road. It'll be brought up to city standard.

What does that road access?

The

Can go

to the parcel map then just to show me on the parcel map? So where is it on here?

Yeah. So it's this one here.

Okay. I guess it's the orientation. Okay. Got it. Perfect. Thank you for that. Let's see. On the coping, appreciate that the city has asked for that. I think it adds an attractiveness to the exterior. So that's great to see. For the applicant and this is more of a comment for city staff and then the applicant. When we see projects come to us, it's not the city applying for a Chick fil A. There's presumably a person and a company that's applying for it. As a basis, I would like to hear from the applicant. So I'd like to invite the applicant to come up and because I have a question for the applicant.

Later, right after. So right now the questions are for staff, and then I'll open the public hearing, and then this applicant will address us, and then we can ask questions to the applicant at that point in time.

So as part of the from a process standpoint, as part of applications for review, there's a city component. It is not standard to have the applicant also present to the commission.

During public comments.

So the applicant can address the the commission, but as George noted, we just want it to be part of the public hearing portion, the public comment portion.

Okay. So we're choosing that. Got it. Understood. Then from the city perspective, can you explain to me what the, the benefits for the city are with this project?

Yeah. So benefits include, like a redesigned of this site which is largely just like in kind of more industrial use. Sorry. And also economic benefit in terms of more employment at this location and also it will be right next to the freeway. So it will be generating some foot traffic from other regions in terms of people that are coming to get Chick fil A.

Regarding the economic benefit, can you have we quantified in conditions of approval 11 dot two the capital improvement fee what that looks like for the city? What our benefit is?

So we haven't done the calculations on that. I'm more than happy to follow-up. The various impact fees are typically based off of square footage. And so through our building division, we have different fee calculations. So we could we could return or follow-up with the total

on that.

And what about taxation?

I apologize. I would not know the tax

What I'm trying to what I'm could coordinate with our partners. Yeah. What I'm trying to understand and, obviously, there's significant benefit for the applicant here. I want to understand what the benefit is for the city and for residents. And, course, we're very concerned with the traffic component here. I think there's a very good traffic plan in place. But with any development, yes, there's benefit on the private side, but I also want to understand what the benefit is on the public side for the city, which is why what I would like to question of the applicant when they do come up during the public hearing.

Yeah. Sure thing. Yeah. Unfortunately, I don't have the dollars and cents in front of me, but any development will contribute to our impact fees. It will contribute to tax fees. Additionally, with this particular site, you are getting a redeveloped site at the moment. It is an older area so the buildings that are there and the asphalt and the sites that are there are not quite as modern as they potentially could be. And as Yulin noted, you would get street improvements or or infrastructure improvements with this project as well. And the last thing I would note, it does meet our general plan designation for the property. It would also be implementing our general plans vision.

Got it. Thanks. Thank you. Couple questions. If you go to traffic assessment table 17, please. Thank you. Okay. It was mentioned a little bit, but my question is the closest one to us would be like maybe Santa Rosa. And why none of the Solano County or Contra Costa County Chick fil A's were part of the survey. Number one, because that does affect what happens.

Do we know that? Why they chose not to include locals?

Yeah. Like our like Tina had explained, they chose locations that are comparable to the city of Fairfield's population size if not larger. So on that end, we're pretty comfortable with the counts that they have here since if it's a larger city then they would have a larger generation of queuing counts. And then did you ask about the

Yeah. And the reason I asked is like Walnut Creek on North Main Street and yes, I know Chick fil A's. The Walnut Creek, even though Walnut Creek doesn't have the population of Fairfield, I do know that location has historically had a large number of cars going through that parking lot, especially the first few years it was open. It was closer to what this design shows. Then the second traffic question I have is in all the traffic reports, it shows Pittman And Central Way, Link Road.

But what it doesn't show is the more important aspects of the traffic in the area, which is at Pitman and Central, the main light there where Burger King, seven Eleven, Slanted Tree and the Shell station are. And the one at the entrance to Interstate 80 because most of the people are not going to be turning right out of Chick fil A and dropping down onto County land and then going around. Most of them are going to be going through these things. And the traffic generation hitting that light at Central And Pittman, think is could be significant. So I just want to know why they didn't go that extra why we don't require the nearest stoplights to be incorporated into those traffic counts.

Yeah, I'll defer to Tina for this question.

And when I say and when I talk about traffic counts, I'm sorry, I'm talking like level A, B, C, D, so traffic levels.

Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Kennedy. That's a really great question, and that's something we've also considered. We didn't require the analysis, the level of service analysis of those locations because those intersections are already built out. So they've been signalized.

And in terms of turning lanes and through lanes, those have already been built out. So we have we had them resubmit the traffic site to include Link Road and Pittman to assess, like, any further impacts to other nearby intersections. And if that did show that the impacts to Link and and and Pittman would be insignificant. But that's that's a good question, and that's something that, you know, I can go back to the consultant and applicant and, you know, request additional information, like, after the fact. If that that if that's that would be helpful.

Great. Another question. Due to its proximity to Interstate 80, does Caltrans run that four way light or does Fairfield?

I believe that's Caltrans.

So the and the reason I ask is that light at times with with the the Starbucks there and the others backs up and a lot of there there I've been through there several times where cars don't make it through the light and that's that's why I'm asking about these traffic generation letters. So okay. And then now another for staff is the building design. I know they have several different models. And one of the things says a variety of building materials is the city's design guidelines.

We look at this building and there is there's no variety. It's all stucco. And if you if you wanna say, oh, the awnings are are metal. Yeah. And the and the roof cap there is six inches. And it's it's going to create the entire center next to it and 100 yards down on the other side of the street. It's all flat. There's no building variation whatsoever in that area. And it's it just looks like, you know, I just think Fairfield deserves better. I'll just say that.

There are I have seen many locations that are better. I've got examples of how it could have been made better because I just really feel that when you've got 280,000 cars a day that drive by that location and it's probably, you know, the most traveled spot on Interstate 80 between the bridge and Sacramento just because of the confluence of 680 And 80 there. That Chick fil A would want to bring some attention to itself instead of just blending so much with the surrounding area that they just might get lost. So and we'll let the applicant talk about the taxes, commissioner Ali Sullivan. But the average Chick fil A, that street side is about $9,000,000 a year, which would provide our measure P funds about $90,000 a year plus additional tax monies in real estate things.

So we're probably closer to that $200,000 range directly to the city and by doing this so in additional funds. So with that I don't have any other questions. Are there any other questions before we open public comment?

All

right. Now, I will go ahead and open the public comment and invite the applicant. They'd like to speak.

Good evening, commissioners. Thank you. My name is Garrett Moore. I work with four gs Development and Consulting along with the applicant, Nathan Loveland. First, I want to say thank you to the planning staff and planning department.

They've been wonderful to work with and for all their hard work, not just tonight's presentation, but the months and months of behind the scenes collaboration that has been happening. So, Yulin, you've been a pleasure to work with. Thank you. We appreciate that, and appreciate your efforts in fostering a development friendly environment, while still upholding city standards and, your vision for growth. So we're excited to partner here with longtime local landowner Ricky Vidge at this site to bring Chick fil A or to bring the city of Fairfield this new Chick fil A restaurant.

This restaurant is gonna feature double drive through lanes, indoor outdoor dining options, a kids play area, which by the way, my five year old son Zion thinks is our most important design element here. And we're really excited about it. These features all reflect Chick fil A's commitment to quality service to the customer, as well as operational excellence. We believe that this project does align very well with Fairfield's vision for growth and quality development. And we respectfully ask that you uphold staff's recommendation for approval here. Myself and our design team are available for answering any of your guys' questions. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Don't go away. Do we have any questions for applicant? We'll start with Commissioner Ali Sullivan. Yeah, thank you.

Appreciate that. A couple things here to start off. First off, there's two Chick fil A's in the adjacent area. Do you anticipate that this is going to incent new customers, or are you going to be cannibalizing from the existing Chick fil A's in the area?

I mean, that's hard question to answer. Probably both. Right? The the hoping goal would be obviously to expand, Chick fil A's branding to, additional market, but I'm sure that there will be, customers who choose go to this location rather than the other Fairfield location due to its convenience or just where they're at.

Got it. And so if you are redistributing your existing tax base in Fairfield, then it's that has impact on what the net benefit would be for the city. As far as the location itself, is it company owned or is it a franchise?

The Chick fil A? Correct. Yeah. So it's an operator based model. Okay. And so the the operator will work with Chick fil A corporate and the operator will essentially be the the manager of this individual store.

So it's like a franchise model. Yeah. It's not it's not company owned. Right. Got it. Okay.

It's kind of I mean, yeah. It's one of those where it's a little bit of both. It's unique to Chick fil A.

Got it. Then I guess larger question, and you touched on it, but can you speak to me what like, what is the value proposition for the city of Fairfield here to approve this?

Yeah. I mean, one, I I think it's really cool that this location used to be a very family oriented restaurant. It's gone through an iteration as an antique mall. It's currently not operating as anything family oriented. And so we're really excited to partner with a local landowner who sees the value and potential to bring, you know, a restaurant in here where where families can dine in and enjoy that experience, or they can conveniently take their food and and carry on, wherever they're heading.

So as we're redeveloping that area, we're we're the work that's gonna be done by the landowner for County Road 87 will actually be a tremendous improvement to the city. If you have passed by or seen that entrance or right there off of Central Way, that's gonna get brought up to complete city standards and open up opportunity for additional development down County Road 80 where there isn't currently now.

Does the applicant own the adjacent land? Yes. They do. Does the applicant plan to further develop the adjacent land?

The applicant or well, sorry. Let me clarify. The applicant does not own the adjacent land. The landowner owns both parcels.

Okay. And is there any are you working on any adjacent developments?

Not with the landowner. The landowner will, I would imagine, be able to speak to that when he comes in.

Is the landowner here today?

He is. Yeah.

Okay. And then I guess it might be a question for the landowner as well, but you noted the investment that you're making in the city. I'm curious if you are amenable to showcasing that investment in the city with a contribution to either parks in the city or to public art in the city as a condition of development?

I would not be able to make any type of decision like that. We've been working with the city staff, city planning department to make sure that everything we do is in step with kind of their needs and requirements of this development. And so we'll continue to do that as the applicant.

So is that a yes or no? I can't I can't Who would be able to speak to that? Would love to see I would love to see the developer really double down on their investment in the city here and say, look, we also wanna make a contribution to, for example, the pool for Matt Garcia Park. I think that'd be a great opportunity for the applicant to really show their investment in the city.

Sure. Yeah. I can't speak to to that. This is the first time even hearing of that idea or proposal, but we've been very agreeable to work with the city and and we're excited to be here. So

k. I'll ask the the landowner then that question. Yeah. No problem. Thank you,

chair Kennedy. Thank you. Any questions? Commissioner Rees, commissioner Grevy, commissioner Matthews?

Just to chair Kennedy's point, what other considerations did you give for the exterior design?

Yeah. So this is a prototypical model that Chick fil A is using here. We were happy to be agreeable to the bronze coping on the top to maybe help it stand out a little bit. It's a very different model, like Chick fil A and and their design team comes up with new prototypical models, and so this is gonna be a unique look to the city of Fairfield. It's not anything like what currently exists.

Our design team and and, us as as four g development, we really wanna come alongside the city and work with them. And so that's the consideration that we've had is we work with the city planning department on and we go back and forth. I mean, I think the site plan that we settled on was 50. And so there have been quite a few iterations and discussion and this is the one that's landed.

And then a separate question, do you have a sense or data that would show how much freeway traffic, so non local Fairfield traffic would typically be brought in because of its the proximity to the freeway and exposure?

Right. That's probably the golden question. And if Chick fil A could answer that question, right, for all of their locations, they probably would. We work with Hexagon traffic consultants here for this project and and they do a lot of work in this area as well as the Bay Area. And so, we defer typically to the experts, is gonna be the City of Fairfield traffic engineers and then hexagon traffic consultants to work out exactly what type of stacking and design that we're gonna need in order to best serve what we think will be the demand of the area.

Yeah. My question really isn't about stacking. I'm I'm very comfortable with that but it's more to commissioner Ali Sullivan's point. If we're going to if there were some data based on other locations

Mhmm.

You would get of the 200 and some odd thousand a day traffic passing in front of the site, you know, 2% or whatever, then you could extrapolate and get a better sense of tax revenue. That that's where I was going with it. It sounds like you don't have that data.

I do not have that information. No.

That's my question.

Commissioner Singh? Commissioner Singh?

Yes. Thank you so much, chair. Gary, thank you for making yourself available for questions. Absolutely. My question is again about design. This is very important because this site sits directly in the middle of three major freeways. So you have 12 coming down from Napa, you have 12 coming from Sassoon. You also have 80 and then 680 as well. So when it comes to traffic, this site captures that. There's a lot of eyeballs on this site specifically.

Yeah. And this site as well is directly adjacent to I 80. Mhmm. It has frontage along I 80 as well. And so I was just curious, what was the motivation behind the almost 100100% stucco exterior facade?

I know that typical Chick fil A's, they have a mix of brick, stone, and actually some of the newer ones even have wood elements as well. This one seems and comes across as a less favorable Sure. Exterior facade than those. And so we're curious, what was the motivation behind that?

Yeah. Absolutely. That's a great question. I'm sure I'm saying that's a great question a lot. You guys are all asking such great questions. Right? Really, there's a lot of factors that come into that. We don't believe that this is a less desirable design. If anything, this is a more desirable design from an operator standpoint or from a city standpoint. We're not a 100% confident on what those sightings and how long they might last on other Chick fil A stores and frontages and things like that.

Again, our goal is design and development partners is to come alongside what the city standard is and what is going to benefit the city when we come in and partner. And so that we walk side by side with the city staff and propose things, they say, can we do this? Can we work with this? And then there's also the the cost. Right?

This deal has to has a lot of different factors that come into making it work out, and the doing this stucco sighting, we found or well, I'm sure there's a lot of different factors, but one is that it lasts. It lasts and it looks good for for a longer period of time than perhaps other siding. And and other Chick fil A restaurants are gonna have different design standards based on the jurisdictions that they're in, and so we don't have a, this is exactly what we have to have to have in. There is a branding standpoint from from Chick fil A's perspective. Right?

They want there to be a identification. Right? Every, commercial business does to catch your eye and to to know, oh, that's a Chick fil A restaurant. But really, you know, we try and work our our our best angle is partnership. So that's what we try and do.

Gotcha. Thank you so much for that. And so my follow-up question is, where possible and able and, you know, if it is feasible, are you open to incorporating additional design elements including, but not limited to, either brick, stone, wood.

Mhmm. Mhmm. It was something that was brought up during the conditions of approval that was discussed. I believe where we're at now with the conditions of approval, everyone is agreeable, the staff and ourselves. And so we feel very confident in this design being one that is both beneficial to Chick fil A and to the City of Fairfield. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Alright, have a couple of questions. So what are the plans for the Gateway location now? Because I know back when Gateway was built, they said no, the mall location is going to stay and I people probably don't realize this, but at one point in time, the mall, the Solano Mall Chick fil A was the only location in the state of California, in fact on the West Coast. So my question now is, Gateway is there, it does well. There's not a lot of, I don't know of any, Chick fil A's where a city our size has multiple locations.

And, you know, I look all around Northern California and, you know, there's one. So my fear is, are those 100 jobs going to transfer over here? Is all the tracks revenues going to transfer here? And we're not at a net positive. So what are the plans for gateway? That's the other Chick fil A location in Okay. It's up by the Hilton Garden Inn.

Yeah. The plan from especially from that operator standpoint, and I by no means can speak for them, but they would be to to be as successful as possible and to hold by the mission and values of Chick fil A that has brought it success so far. And we hope that the the operator of this location will come in and do the same thing.

Okay. And the location is gonna be a true double drive through like the Fairfield location or is it going to be a runner location? Do you know? This this location that we're proposing tonight?

Yes. Sorry. Can you clarify the question for me?

So the Fairfield location has a second building that where it's elevated that the product is elevated from the store over the first line of cars. And other Chick fil As use a runner system where the runner runs from the store out to the second drive through.

To deliver the food to

the second Yeah. Because the the speed of service with the second drive through is significantly faster than what where runners use, not to mention safety. But

Sure. Sure. Okay. I I think I understand what you're saying from like an operational standpoint.

Because I I looks like it's is it I don't see another building there like Fairfield has. So that's why I'm curious.

So Okay. Yeah. And I am not familiar exactly with what the current location in Fairfield does as far as their operation goes. We would not have a second building next to this, so what you see now is in, what we call our OMD Canopy, our our meal delivery canopy, where there would be a staff employee that would use what's called the Tormax door that opens up, and they would walk out and deliver the food to that vehicle.

Alright. Thank you. And the other and okay. One other question.

Yeah. Thank you, Chair. Do you represent Chick fil A or do you represent the developer?

I'm a

little confused. The developer meaning the the landowner?

Well, do you represent Chick fil

A? Yes. Yeah.

Do represent Chick

fil and Consulting is hired by Chick fil A

Okay.

To assist them in Okay. The development.

So you can't speak to the impacts on the other Fairfield Chick Fil A location, though?

No. I cannot.

No. The owner operator who is requesting this application, do they own the other fair the Chick fil A in Fairfield or in Vacaville?

No. So originally, your question about is this an owner's franchise, Chick fil A will help they will select the operator of this location. And so that operator has not been selected.

They have not been selected. No. Okay.

Got it. So they have very strict standards for for what they will allow in an operator, and there's a lot of metrics and things that go into that, none of which I am a part of that conversation.

So whose analysis is saying that Fairfield can support basically three Chick Fil As?

Well, it's my understanding is Chick Fil A is Well, there's

one in Vacaville as well. So in the the immediate area, there's three Chick fil A's.

Sure. I'm I think it would be, you know, the the real estate developer development team in Chick fil A who sees this location as a good opportunity and, you know, all of the different factors that go into that. A willing landowner, a city who who's looking for partnership, so. To

address the operator issue real quick, Chick fil A does an operator, it's a quasi franchise where Chick fil A puts up the money, the operator is someone who with a great experience with Chick fil A and their their reward is getting the store where they share in the profits. Chick fil A, in the last week, just is pulling a lot of their franchise models away because the owner operator system works better than a pure franchise model. So the only one the only non traditional that will be left that won't be have this operator model will be The US airports. So it's very unique not only not only to to the restaurant industry, but just an industry itself where the where you you have somebody that's on-site that is has skin of the game.

Chair. Just because there have been several questions involving the landowner, is the structure of this transaction such that the landowner is building the building and entering into a lease agreement with Chick fil A? Or is it a ground lease? Or is it a sale of the land?

I think the landowner is going to speak. Did put a public comment So I think Ricky is going to be the best person to speak

to that.

Thank you for now. Thank you. Appreciate it. Great. Thanks. And now we'll call up Ricky Vizj.

Hello, everyone. Good evening, members of the planning commission, city staff, and fellow community members. My name is Ricky Vidge, and I'm the property owner at 4560 Central Way, the site associated with this Chick fil A development. Fairfield has always been a place I've called home and held very close to my heart. Back when I was in middle school at Green Valley Green Valley Middle School, which used to be just down the road, I would walk by this very property every day on my own on my way to my parents' small business, family run business that we had.

I admired the train cars and remembered having a few special dinners there when it used to be the old San Francisco Express. Now, it's amazing to see life come to full circle. Having run my business here and now bringing in a new chapter to this location, Chick fil a is not just a popular restaurant chain, it's a business known for its commitment to community engagement and local investment. By bringing Chick fil a here, we're adding a place that values giving back, creating local jobs, and providing a welcoming space for families and residents. This is more than just a new restaurant.

It's an opportunity to strengthen the fabric of our community with a partner that truly cares about the places they serve. Thank you for your time and consideration, and I'm happy to answer any questions about the structure that you guys may have.

We'll start with commissioner Singh.

Thanks so much, chair. Ricky, thank you you so much for making yourself available here for questions. So this question is a bit outside the scope of this specific project here, but I know that there are train cars on-site right now. And this parcel, I wanna say as it is today, actually extends beyond this site. So it actually goes into the adjacent as well. What are some of your plans for that adjacent site? Is

it yeah.

So we don't have any concrete plans what we're gonna do next door just yet. It's about three quarters of an acre that's gonna be left over. Currently, there's nothing concrete. We haven't come up with any plans yet at the moment.

Good. Thank you. Mhmm.

Commissioner Matthews? Would you mind bringing up the overall site location? Yes. That one. Ricky, do you own the land across the street from this as well?

That section there? No, I do not.

So you just have the triangle piece where that is being highlight? Correct.

Just the red. Yes.

Okay. And again, based on the structure of the transaction even though it's outside of the purview of what we're doing, just so we'll understand it, you're building the building and then leasing it to Chick fil A. Is that correct?

No. It's actually a ground lease.

It's a ground lease.

It is a ground lease.

Correct.

And four g development who is the who is the applicant is helping Chick fil A develop the property

Okay.

As far as planning anything else.

And it again, just to be clear, right now you have no other interested prospects for the remaining triangle?

We currently do not.

Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Greevy, Commissioner Reese, Commissioner Ali Sullivan. Yeah.

Thank you very much. So to clarify, when you say ground lease, you are leasing the ground to previous gentleman who spoke to us?

Chick fil A. We're we're gonna be leasing we have an agreement with Chick fil A. Four gs Development and Consultants are

You own the land. So so who is leasing? You are leasing or or they are leasing? I own the land and Chick

fil A is gonna be releasing from us.

Correct. That's Yes. Okay. That's my understanding. Do you are you aspiring to be the owner operator of this Chick fil A?

I don't think I qualify, and I I don't plan on doing that.

No. Okay. So we don't know who the owner of this is going to be? The owner occupant. The owner occupant. However we wanna whatever phrasing we wanna use, the operator, we don't know

who that's going to be. From my understanding, and I can't speak on behalf of Chick fil A. Yep. From my understanding, they have not chosen an operator just yet.

And then you you touched on the community engagement local investment piece, and I also agree. I think Chick fil A is, you know, out of fast food companies, they probably excel in that department. I'm curious, can you tell me how you see this development as a community investment?

Sure. I mean I I can't speak on the behalf of Chick fil A again. I don't know their exact numbers and that's kind of you know, that's their business. But from my understanding, Chick fil A's on average do about $9,000,000 in sales. This location, if I was to guess, will probably have around 150 employees.

If they were cannibalizing sales from the other stores, the location wouldn't make sense. So you know as a savvy business person, it seems like you are Mr. Sullivan like it seems like they've made the decision that this is a great location, they'll have a lot of employees here, they'll probably reach their targets. So I think you know from a tax generation standpoint, it's probably good for our community. From a job generation standpoint, again, I'm making an educated guess, but I think about 150 jobs probably will be developed here. Will some of those be taken from other the other stores? Maybe. Will they cannibalize some of the Vallejo sales? Maybe. Or Vacaville? That works in our favor. But that's kind of how I look at it.

I I don't disagree with any of that. I guess the question for you, would same question I posed to the previous gentleman. From an investment standpoint, are you willing to make an investment in the city here as as a condition of approval to include a contribution for, for example, Matt Garcia Park or for other parks in the city or for public art or something of that sort.

Sure. And I appreciate you know, the candor in asking that. Yep. We've been working on this project for months, years at this point, back and forth with the city. We've made a significant commitment to develop the city road, which is is not a small amount that we're gonna be bearing. I'm from the community. I went to school with Matt Garcia. I went to Armio. I went to Green Valley. I'm all for trying to make, you know, the city better and and helping the community.

We've already committed to certain things in the approvals here. If we are talking about additional requests, I'm open to discussing that because again, I'm flexible and I wanna help the community as much as I can. But some of these other expenses that we're bearing from developing this road, maybe they may make it cost prohibitive. And if we start bearing too many costs, then this project may not work. So I'm more than happy to discuss that and we can definitely have a conversation, but it has to pencil out at the end of the day. And so if if it's within the, you know, feasibility, we can definitely talk about it.

Thank you. Any other questions? So real quick.

Mhmm.

I actually know you from your family business and I miss Bravo's Pizza. To vouch for the family, when Cordelia Tri Valley Little League was first getting started, This family stepped up and was the first sponsor for our league. They did fundraisers for us. The board met at the at the business. They did above and beyond anything for the community. And I'll never forget what you guys did. So and I do remember when you were like eight, nine years old in the family restaurant. So I didn't realize this until you got up and spoke and all of a

sudden, oh,

click click. But so I have confidence that that this family venture will continue to invest back in our community. So thank you, Ricky.

Thank you so much. Chuck, any one more question if I may? Sure. I I think about a year ago when you purchased the facility I saw on the news, what's gonna happen to the train cars?

So that's still a work in progress. Okay. There's two types of cars that we have. There's boxcars that are from the nineteen forties. There's not so much value in those. And we've talked to every museum across the state of California and some nationally as well. But there's two cars in particular that are actually very interesting. They're they're passenger cars from the nineteen twenties. So we're talking about a 100 plus year old memorabilia that can't be replaced. So for those two cars, we're trying to come up with a plan to either get them in a museum and potentially, you know, our adjoining space there.

They may be staged there for a little while until we figure out where they're gonna go. So we're working through the logistics right now just because it's a lot easier said than done. These are very, very big cars. The the two passenger cars are 75 feet long. So just moving them is is gonna be a challenge. Also lifting them up and putting them on a trailer of some sort is also gonna be challenging. But we are trying to salvage and save those two cars so that they don't get destroyed. The boxcars unfortunately probably will have to be scrapped. But even from those, we're donating parts of the wheel systems, the bearings to the Niles Canyon Museum because they can use those parts. They're not being

made anymore. Great, thank you. All right, and I have one other comment. Khalid? Thanks, Ricky.

Yeah, good evening. I look at the traffic data, I was really surprised why they provide 2018, 2019. This is like five, six years old data. So to my understanding, can look, I don't know, you guys, you cannot see it straightforward. This is not targeting Fairfield.

It's targeting the freeway. 200200 cars possible, Freeway 80. Personally, I use that road to go, to exit, to take Suzhou Road to avoid the traffic. You know what's happened around 04:00, 05:00, 06:00. Now with the pay toll now, it's going to drive more traffic to the right.

Chick fil A has a history of causing problem to the traffic. You can check. Recently Walnut Creek approved check-in without drive thru. So I'm throwing this to you guys if you can study or they can implement the plan to have them have the restaurant but without drive through. Because drive through you're going to see spillover of cars.

And I would love to have more data about the traffic to see some simulation how this will affect the user of the freeway, the people that are exiting to Suzhou Valley Road, the other people who go to Cordelia to the school, I'm one of them to pick up our kids. This really will create a public noises.

Great, thank you very much sir. Any further discussion? Thank you. Any other comments? Seeing none we'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the commission.

For any further discussion or Commissioner Ali Sullivan? Yeah.

And this is our deliberation period so I can give comments. So a couple things. One, I I love Chick fil A. I think most people love Chick fil and I am happy to see development in the city. I think that's something that I've been pretty clear about. It's not lost on me that the largest concern about this project is traffic and what the implications of this project will be a traffic perspective. Associated with that for me, what is the impact on our roads going to be? What is the impact on movement going to be? I think Chick fil A as an entity is pretty darn good at figuring out the flow on their on their property. Right?

Better than most. But what are those sort of secondary and tertiary impacts of all of that traffic going to be on the city, which is why I was asking what the benefits are for us. To be able to quantify the tax basis would be very helpful for me to make a decision as you're thinking about the impact of these projects. Additionally, I appreciate the applicant being willing to take my question regarding contributions for the city. I would direct city staff, I think as we look at these projects, I, as commissioner here, I'm very cognizant of, like, what is the value proposition?

Right? Again, I'm pro development, but I'm not just here to rubber stamp projects. And so I really want to see what that tangible benefit for the community and for the city is going to be, and I would like to see beyond, you know, did you have the correct number of parking spaces? Do you have the correct fire department hookup? Contributions, as I said, for parks, for public art, for the libraries.

Right? These are things that we have as tools as a city to ask developers. You know, one could say that maybe it's, you know, inappropriate for me to be asking the applicant tonight for the first time, which is why I'm directing city staff. Think as I continue to see projects come, I would like to see that as part of the conditions of approval for these types of projects and similar projects. And then I also would like to see, you know, the clear quantifiable impact from a financial perspective of these projects because I think that makes it easier to say yes or no to something when you're actually able to determine what that benefit is.

So I you know, those are my my thoughts on it. My comments, I'm curious to hear what my other commissioners have to say. Final thing, Chair Kennedy and Vice Chair, appreciate both of your comments. Vice Chair Singh, I appreciate your comments on the design because I had not thought of that. But as you look at it, you know, with full respect to the architects that put this together, it's kind of a lazy design, comparatively speaking to other Chick fil A's. And as vice chair, you mentioned the amount of eyeballs on this confluence of three major freeways. It's a unique opportunity to have something somewhat unique here as a showcase, and the design is is, you know, somewhat lazy. It meets the requirements. And so again, the city staff, I think we should also be looking at how do you meet the requirements plus one. Right?

Like how do we push our developers to have really interesting, unique, not lazy projects? And this to me is kind of

a lazy project. Thanks. Commissioner Rees, any other comments? Thanks. Commissioner Grieve?

Thank you. Everyone is very focused on the money and what it's gonna bring in for this community, and that's all wonderful. But I'm kind of surprised there aren't more people from Green Valley here tonight. You go and you put in a nice place for people to live with 300 units, and everybody shows up and complains about the traffic. You bring in something like Chick fil A that can handle 50 cars in a row, and you multiply that over all of the numbers that are going to go through there in a day, and we're pushing it all into one intersection.

This is the real problem. This is the real issue. The real issue is I I I think Chick fil A is a great organization. I think that the family that wants to put this together is fantastic. That's not my issue. My issue is how are we gonna handle the traffic flow? And you're not. You can't do it. Not with what we have right now. Thank you. Commissioner Matthews?

Frankly, I think they've addressed the issue of the traffic management. The issue of how will those intersections up above is really what I think commissioner Grieve and others are responding to. All said, I'm supportive of this project and when the chair is ready, I'm prepared to make a motion.

Thank you. Commissioner Singh?

Yes. Thank you so much, chair. Just wanna say this operator itself, a Chick fil A, they are buttoned up. They understand operations. They understand staff.

And there was a comment that they are gonna bring north of a 100 jobs into this area. They are going to redevelop this site. This is positive movement here on the site. And for the landowner himself, this is a local resident who went to Green Valley Middle School, upgraded to Armie Hill High School, and it appears to me stayed in the local area and did everything possible to continue to invest into the community that he grew up in. And so those are great positive factors.

It gives me reassurance that from an ownership and project perspective, there are good operators behind this site. The design, in my opinion, is lacking. The stone, the wood, the brick elements would be appreciated here, but I understand the hurdle for that. You guys are improving Old County Road, and actually, as my fellow commissioner said, it doesn't look like a road right now. And so I imagine the costs to improve that road and to make it into a permit final condition that's satisfactory to the that that says that is satisfactory, there we go, to the city is going to require a cost.

And so and so with that, I'm ready to make a motion here as well, and I am supportive of this site and project.

Thank you. And just a quick reminder, the only reason this project is literally before us because it it is a permitted use for the land is that it has a drive thru. And so because ten, twelve years ago, the council, anything that had a drive thru had to come back for permission. It wasn't just a permitted use. So this conditional use permit is technically based on the drive thru.

Knowing Chick fil A, understanding queuing and as part of my consulting business, I understand queuing very well. I think they're meeting the qualifications. Do I like to design? Absolutely not. Am I willing to vote no because I dislike the design so much as commissioner Ali Sullivan is, very lazy design.

When you can look at Springfield, Missouri, you can look at Seattle, Washington, some of the unique designs they did to to make the community better. Like I like I said earlier, Fairfield, I believe deserves better. But we will I I will be supporting this project as well. So

Chair, sorry. If before you entertain a motion, I do just wanna add one tiny bit in terms of the community contributions that commissioner Ali Sullivan is suggesting or potentially entertaining. I just wanna caution the commission when it comes to community contributions. It there needs to be a nexus. So it has to be proportional to the project.

So, you know, hypothetically, you couldn't ask Chick fil A to build a park, you know, 30 miles down the road. It has to be a proportional to the project that is being proposed. And with that in mind, I do wanna identify that the city does have a variety of impact fees that go to several different, as you can, you could title them community contributions. So for example, we have a b 1,600 impact fees. So you would be paying, public safety fees.

You will be paying, urban design fees. So there are a variety of different development impact fees that through a fee study adopted by the city council has a proportionality to new development. So I do just want to emphasize that. It's not to say that, you know, you can't make comments. I I just wanna caution a little bit if there were to be a motion to include a condition for, you know, a specific kind of contribution.

Chairman? Yep. Yeah. And appreciate that, Micheanne. And that's exactly why I asked what those, like, figures are to understand what those impact fees would be for future projects.

Yes. Absolutely.

If if it's $50 or if it's $20,000, right, that's I I don't know. Sure. So that's what I would like to know.

And I think that's something, you know, I brought up a couple meetings ago about arts fee and such. I think that's something that that would be interesting to add to a study session where we can talk more about that the city council could take up as well as have have some type of an arts fee to benefit the entire city proportionally base. Okay. Seeing other, I'll I will entertain a motion to approve resolution PC twenty twenty five dash eight.

I'd like to make a motion approving Planning Commission resolution twenty twenty five DashO8 Chick fil A.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. I have a motion and a second. It's been moved and seconded to approve the vote. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed. Thank you. It carries five-one. Congratulations. And now we will go on to H3. Because

I live in close proximity to some of the parcels under this location and because my employment is involving parcels very close to these under advice from city attorney, I am going to recuse myself for the next.

Great, thank you sir. Have a good night. Are we all good without a break? K. Alright. Our next item is h three, a public hearing on the request of the city of Fairfield to amend the general plan designation of five parcels, the zoning designation of seven parcels, and the zoning ordinance text to implement 2023 to 2000 31 housing element. Our presenter is Alison Moore from Dia and Batia. Good evening, Allison.

Good evening, Commissioners. Let me just start this.

All right.

Good evening commissioners. My name is Allison Moore. I'm an associate principal at Daidenbatia helping the city with its general plan implementation. This evening's presentation will largely follow what I presented at the November 12 planning commission hearing. So I will walk us through the background context and components associated with this project, zoning amendments to implement the 2023, 2031 housing element, And all of these are important actions that help the city comply with state housing law, maintain a certified housing element, and demonstrate progress towards Fairfield's housing goals.

So Fairfield's six cycle housing element covers the eight year period between 2023 and 2031. It was adopted in February 2023 and certified. Certification means that it was determined to meet the requirements of state law by the California Department of Housing and Community Development or HCD in April 2023. And there are really two core components of the housing element. The first is the site's inventory, that's list and maps of land that is suitable and available for residential development to meet the city's regional housing need and that is by income level as well.

A robust level of analysis is required to demonstrate the suitability including its physical features, location, zoning, environmental constraints and others. The other important component of the housing element is the housing action plan. That is the city's roadmap to implementing its housing element goals. This in these include programs that increase housing production, affirmatively further fair housing, and expand housing choice across neighborhoods. So as I mentioned, the site's inventory details sites where housing needs across income levels can be met.

Fairfield must plan for a little over 3,000 additional housing units in that eight year period. Lower income sites in particular must meet additional requirements for site size, density, and other criteria. And while Fairfield did meet most of its overall RENA requirement through existing projects and appropriately zoned sites, there are still a few where it fell short of its lower income RINA requirements. So if the inventory demonstrates that there's insufficient sites to accommodate RINA for any income category, so this lower income category, the housing element must identify sites for rezoning to be included in a program. So as part of the housing element, seven sites were identified for rezoning to meet this lower income arena and provide a buffer if any of the other sites were used to count towards lower income arena were to redevelop with something else.

These sites were identified through a detailed technical and community driven process reviewed through multiple rounds by HCD. And here on the map are the seven sites proposed for rezoning. These also include general plan land use amendments before you tonight for consistency with these zoning changes. State law requires that this rezoning be completed within three years of housing element adoption, and missing that deadline would cause the city to fall out of compliance which has significant consequences including affecting the city's capacity for local control over housing approvals, loss of eligibility for key state funding, and potential legal action. So in addition to the site rezoning, the housing action plan as I mentioned includes several other actions that require zoning ordinance amendments to implement the plan and comply with state law.

We went into more detail about each of these last time, I'm happy to answer other questions about them but they're I really wanna hone in tonight on these two highlighted in yellow. I will take action eight point two first and then talk about action 2.4. So the first action, action 8.2 relates to housing types that support people experiencing homelessness or have special needs. The action requires that Fairfield amend its land use regulation tables, standards and definitions to comply with state laws for low barrier navigation centers, emergency and transitional housing, supportive housing, and residential care facilities. And at the November hearing, we focused mostly on the requirements for supportive housing.

And there were two main questions that came up. First, does supportive housing need to be permitted in all residential and mixed commercial zones? And second, must all supportive housing follow the city's objective development standards and by right processes? And the team really did a deep dive into this, looked at the state laws and we have determined that there are really two different rules that the state provides for how supportive housing must be treated. The first rule is what we're calling the default rule and this states that supportive and transitional housing shall be considered a residential use of property and shall be subject only to those restrictions that apply to other residential dwellings of the same type in the same zone.

So in other words, that means that supportive housing is permitted in all zones that allow residential uses and are not subject to any restrictions like occupancy limit, not imposed on similar dwellings in the same zone in which that project is located. So for example, supportive housing located in in a multi family apartment building in a multi family zone is permitted in the same manner as a regular apartment building in the same zone. If supportive housing is located in a single family home in a single family zone, that is permitted in the same manner as a single family home in the same zone. And then the second rule is what's called the state by right rule. So in addition to that default rule which says it must be treating treated as housing as in the same manner as housing in that base zone.

By right housing the state by right rule states that if supportive housing meets certain requirements under state law, it must be treated as a use by right in all zones where multifamily and mixed uses are permitted. By right approval means that the use cannot require a conditional use permit or other discretionary review even if a permit is required for other residential dwellings of the same type in the same zone. But there is an exception to this rule based on project size. So as chair Kennedy astutely pointed out at the last hearing, for cities with a certain population size and a certain number of people that are experiencing homelessness as identified in their point in time count, this by the state by right rule only applies to projects of 50 units or fewer. Projects greater than 50 units then do not have to follow this by right rule but they are still subject to the default rule where they have to be treated the same as residential uses allowed or permitted in the base zone.

So it's always helpful to have examples. So for example, 51 units that's above the 50 or fewer. Let's say that it's being proposed in the residential, very lower residential low zone, those do not allow multifamily at all. So as such, a 51 unit project would not be permitted in this zone. If that same project were proposed in the RLM, RM, RH or RVH that is residential low medium, medium high or very high, it must follow whatever permitting rules apply to multi family housing in that zone.

So for example, currently multi family is a conditional use in residential low medium but a permitted use in residential medium, high or very high. So that's you know, a project that is not eligible for our state by right rule. Now let's talk about a by right project, so 50 units or fewer. This project that meets all of the state requirements must be permitted by right in any of the following zones. So medium, high, very high, and these commercial zones where residential is is an allowed use.

And then the second question was about when objective design standards apply. So the city may must use, sorry, must use objective standards for the Bi Rite projects, 50 or fewer. And those require ministerial review and only to the same extent that those standards already apply to other multifamily projects in that zone. Those that do not qualify for the by right approval, so greater than 50, follow the same process and standards that apply to other comparable residential projects. So may not necessarily need objective design standards to apply there or the ministerial process depending on the base zone.

So to account for that, there are now notes in the zoning ordinance in both the residential land use and commercial land use tables as well as development standards that differentiate by that supportive project size. So whether or not it's going to be by right or not. And then the notes in those tables reflect what I just talked about, the default rule which states that it must be the same, must be treated as residential use and if it is by right 50 or fewer, then it must be approved ministerially. And then lastly, action 2.4 required changes that allow for expedited permitting and approval processes for project that provide affordable housing as well as for processes for ministerial review for qualifying projects that may be using objective criteria. And the changes to implement this action now go through each eligible housing law clarifying the applicability of ministerial review and review specifics for each of those laws.

So rather than create one general process, the changes now align with the state's minimum requirements including for department review only for compliance with those objective design standards for eligible projects. And and Mele can speak more if you have any specific questions about that. And then just overall the environmental review for this project. For rezoning and zoning ordinance amendments, CEQA is not required per SB 131 and other provisions for actions of this type. However, associated general plan amendments do require environmental analysis.

So an addendum to the 2024 general plan and climate action plan was prepared and no new significant impacts were found. So to close staff's recommendation is that the planning commission adopts the resolution recommending city council adoption of the general plan amendments, the zone changes, and the zoning ordinance amendments to comply with the city's adopted housing element.

Thank you, Allison. Real quick, I wanna thank you, thanks staff, because I kinda open a hornet's nest on this thing. And you guys went very deep diving into this and turned it around very quickly because as I've been on the side doing my own research, it's amazing how many of these Senate bills, Assembly bills, even even I mean, there's a new one that just got signed a month and a half ago, that they contradict each other. So having to dive through this was a very tough job by you guys. I appreciate it immensely.

And I want to clarify, there were some things online and before I get to questions here, that there are people in public that thought this was an intentional type situation that the city was trying to put over on everybody. And I wanna clarify that under no circumstance, I believe that this was intentional by planning staff or anybody in the city. As you look at these laws, the lack of clarity that the that the state has done on this is absolutely ridiculous. And the the state has hijacked so much of what California cities and their ability to implement proper zoning and planning for their individual cities that some of these laws that we think, oh, you know, it's designed for LA, it's designed for San Francisco, not for cities of our size. LA was against this.

San Francisco was against this. Our cities our size are against these things because it it they're they're trying to put the entire state under one type of zoning where they can start controlling everything from us. So again, I wanna thank you. And remember that a lot of these issues, if you don't like it, it's not what city's causing, it's what Sacramento's causing. So when you're done here, let your let your assembly people and state senators know that cities should have a right to plan their cities to be the best they can be. So with that, I'll go to questions. Sorry. Any any questions? We'll start with Commissioner Reese.

I'm just gonna say I appreciate you bringing this information back to us.

Thank you. Commissioner Greevy?

I appreciate what you did. It it wasn't truly a deep dive. I hope that it provides the clarity that creates not animosity, but cohesion with the community going forward.

Commissioner Singh? Yes. I just wanna co sign, chair, your comments and then and then as and then as well as my fellow members on the dice, commissioner Reese and then also commissioner Grieve. Allison, question, what would happen if the city did not update its code to comply with the state law as well as the assembly bill twenty one sixty two. Do do we have a

Yeah.

That's a good question, commissioner Singh. So this as, you know, chair Kennedy mentioned, this is an issue that other jurisdictions have also struggled with. HCD has what is called a housing accountability unit where they can send letters to cities that do not have compliant laws and even bring forth lawsuits if they're not compliant. So there would be consequences if HCD did find that projects were not in compliance with state law.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'll just kinda piggyback on what Allison said. And I think you mentioned it in your presentation as well. In addition to, you know, getting those kind of those noticings, it could open up the city to legal risk as well. The state could take action or, you know, a private entity could take action if they were interested. Currently, the city has a pro housing designation that would be at risk of being revoked.

That would reduce our eligibility for some grant funding. And then at the moment, we are on the typical housing element cycle. So the state requires that we adopt a new housing element every eight years. Should we fall out of compliance, we could be put on a four year cycle instead. And then the last thing is in kind of worst case scenario, the state could revoke the city's jurisdiction over our housing. So that they could make it to the point where if it was 51 revoke units and plus, it's permitted by right. So they could take that that oversight away from us if, you know, again, worst case scenario there.

What's the city deadline?

I apologize. We're gonna wait the till public comment. We can't receive comments straight from the crowd.

Thank you so much for that.

Great. Thank you. If you questions on earlier on the seven parcels, if you could go back to that table, please.

On

Sites 56 And 7, East Taber, Heath Drive, Were these initiated by the property owners? And if not, what are the property owner, did we contact the property owners about adding this to changing the zoning from high density to very high density.

Yes. So this was noticed at the November hearing, I believe I'm not sure about this time around. Yes, yes it was. So they should have received notification that these rezonings would be happening. The housing element process was also very thorough, lasted a few years, and engagement in that was really comprehensive as well. So none of these sites should be a surprise. HCD has seen them. The public has seen them. Yes.

So the owner the owners of the property are, on board with this?

I can't speak for all of the property owners, but I haven't received comments from any of these property owners against this. And to Allison's point, these sites are already identified in our housing element, was adopted several years ago. So we would have done noticing at that time and then we did additional noticing this round as well.

Okay. I'm always concerned about private property rights.

And then just one more note. Our rezoning does not mean that it requires the owner to

Got it. Okay, thank you. And then we will now go to public hearing. And we will start with, I have several cards. So we'll start with Carol Haddock followed by Rick Johnson.

Thank you. Well, a lot of the questions I had were answered in that presentation, which weren't coming from the November meeting. Was, is this a may or is this a must? And I understand it's a must. That's unfortunate because I agree with chairperson Kennedy that the state has basically hijacked all the cities and the homeowners who have, you know, their biggest investment is their home.

That's that's just a shame. Definitely we should contact the state legislators on that. And residents need to be heard. And I know a lot of things that come through planning commission, most people are not aware of to go to the website and even understand what it is there you guys are voting on. Chick fil complicated and heady stuff.

And it's hard to read it. So really, when you're zone changing zones is the only time that the citizens can come in here and say, hey, wait a minute, put the brakes on. And we really need to do that. We were not given the opportunity to really understand what that was in June when you rezoned next to the Texas Roadhouse to mixed commercial from commercial, which is why we have our referendum and petition out to overturn the city council's decision to put permanent supportive housing in there. We actually could have come back and overturned your decision because it was improperly done in June.

It was done out of order because Dan Coe basically did a breach of contract which shows who they are and did not do the public outreach. So people didn't even know what it was. So it slid through under the radar and you rezoned to mixed commercial in North Texas area, which jeopardizes the businesses, it's the safety of the residents, and the value of their homes. Really, unless you're prepared to go to counsel and ask for an increase in budget to cover the services that are going to be needed to, you know, for the extra police, the increase in crime, the residents are going to have to pay for it out of their pockets. And that's what's going to happen with this type of permanent supportive housing.

Not the other ones, but the permanent supportive housing. And it's just a shame and, you know, we have to do better to communicate to our residents what you all are doing here and what does zoning change means and the ramifications of those decisions. So I'm going to ask you again to really consider whenever you do a zoning change, the, you know, the responsibility you have to the homeowners for, you know, the value of their homes. Really, it's it's just the safety of their family, their children, and, you know, their health and and wellness. And I think that we haven't done that well.

We haven't communicated to the citizens in Fairfield what zoning changes mean, what it means to them, until something like this comes in. And I hope everyone will come out and support us in our, you know, referendum and sign our petition so that we do not do this in North Texas. The other last question, and I hope you

can answer it. Fifteen seconds.

That's, it's an easy question. Since Vista Ridge is already in the hopper and in the process, does this affect what we are doing with our referendum? Or is it continuing to be a legislative process? Thank you. And right on time.

Thank you. Rick Johnson followed by Crystal.

Were you guys able to answer her question or it's your choice.

We're moving along?

Yeah. We I'm sorry to cut you off. We'll answer all of the questions we receive after we receive all the public comments.

Okay. Great. Thank you. I'm gonna repeat a large part of what she just said, and I've been educated on this process and I've learned a lot more about your world and I thank you for serving in a position that is very thank thankless and directed so much by Sacramento that I think you have two hands tied behind your back trying to do your job. And for the voters of Fairfield and the state of California, we need to look at what we have going on here.

The bottom line is something is gonna take place the community does not want and it cannot be stopped. It could have been stopped if it hadn't been rezoned, my understanding, and if you can clarify that at the end for the questions. Had the property not been rezoned, that it would not fall into the category that it gets to sail through, that it gets to go through or that it's by right, that it had not that ability in its prior zoning. If that was the case, and again, you're the experts, the city council the experts, staff are the experts, we are not as the residents the experts. We are completely dependent on our gatekeepers and you guys are that, and again thank you for serving.

But serve well, learn well, and we all know we're in California, so that means look behind every bush and every tree and look for the fine print, get the magnifying glass out, get the microscope out, do what you can when something potentially is going to be one of these deals. This is not even a slippery slope, it's an elevator shaft. And again, your world is difficult, I truly appreciate it. I would never do what you do. I don't have the patience for that.

So thank you for that. But please take that extra serious and take the time. And I'll be saying that to the city council because they and staff and I'm going to think well of them that they did not know by altering the zoning that they could circumvent. Not saying that. Some will because it is a possible understanding.

I'm not saying it, but they need to do that extra work, the extra looking behind the bushes, the trees, the fine print, the microscope, everything. Please do that kind of work. We would truly benefit from it and the grief that we're gonna have and we're talking public safety. This is not just we don't like the siding on a building, this is we have children that are gonna be in danger estimation or our fear. So thank you for listening to me and I appreciate the job that you do.

Thank you. Thank you, Rick. Crystal, followed by Andrea Layer.

Good evening. I'm against this project, the Vista Ridge. I am on a committee to get signatures for the petitions that's going on right now. I've encountered two homeless who signed a petition, said they're against the project and they don't want any services. And then they're just being there for a few days, I've observed a lot more homeless coming around, bothering the patrons of going into the store, going in and out of the store, nothing coming out, and just going in.

And I've seen them threatening people for money. If you don't give it to them, they want to attack you or say something stupid to you. And I'm just seeing all this right now that really in other businesses do not have the manpower to keep on keeping the place safe. With the amount of homelessness that are coming in right now and if you want this project to go through, you're gonna have a lot more problems. And we're gonna lose businesses, people are gonna sell their homes, the the danger to the community, everything is gonna happen.

It's not gonna be a a beautiful, Fairfield City like it should be, and that's what my concern is. I feel so we don't have a voice in this. I feel so we've been kind of blindsided on this. I feel so we just pushed under the rug. We didn't have any kind of say whatsoever when they tried to push it through.

And knowing that we there was this house, I want to say something about this house that's in my community, where a homeless person not homeless person, but it was rented out. So these people, there are traffic going in and out 247 on Stewart Street. And every day there are police coming in and out, called, and neighbors there were feeling threatened. They're harassed, properties were stolen, they're broken into, Things that we don't want this to happen, not for anyone here, not in your neighborhood, not in our neighborhood, and everyone else here in this neighborhood. So that's what I want to say. Okay?

Thank you very much. Andrea followed by Nora.

Hi. Good evening. It's my birthday and I Happy birthday. I did I canceled my dinner reservations to be here really quickly. I just I noticed a lot things online so I just really quick What are you so afraid of? What can they take from you? They have no money, no home, no car, no power, no lawyers or petitions. Heck, they're not even in the room with us. We're making decisions for others that we're making decisions for others that affect others and they aren't even in the room to speak for themselves. You're worried about crime, it is the residents that are riding around in ice cars following the ammo truck, Amazon truck for your neighbor.

It is my neighbor that beat the living daylight out of her daughter. It is the neighbor that flashed a gun on one side of town and caused an entire neighborhood to go on to lockdown. Complete with drones and canine units, multiple department vehicles blocking off several neighborhood streets and hostage negotiators were called in. How much do you think that that cost us? Every time we lock up an unhoused person, you are paying for their three meals a day, you pay for their mental health care, and if needed you pay for their drugs and substance abuse treatment.

Would we not actually save money in the long run if they got on their feet and not repeatedly jailed sex offenders? I have a map for you. Sex Sorry. Offender's concern. We have 131 non transient registered offenders. Where was your outcry in petitioning 131 times ago for our safety? Treatment first, give me a place to go receive services. Educate your residents that getting off a substance oftentimes can require methadone and the closest place is Vallejo. The expectations that you want to impose are not realistic or in touch with us on the ground that see or have been through this ourselves. Service on-site?

Yes. Treatment on-site? Yes. No buts. Fairfield residential homeowners, you pay more in property taxes than the people who live in a nonprofit retirement community. This is because eligible nonprofit organizations are exempt from paying property taxes on the real estate that they own and use for charitable purposes. The ironing here is actually called the welfare exemption. The average homeowner in Fairfield does not qualify for this type of exemption and is subject to local property taxes based on their property value. Yes. You have homestead exemptions, but not the same level as the welfare exemption.

My point here is the very A few very wealthy are using the middle class to do their dirty work by punching down to the lowest class. And the wealthy man is peeing on your shoe and telling you it's it's raining. Miss Moy said in the last meeting that we are all family, I'm here to tell you that my family would not leave me homeless. Homeless individuals in Fairfield like those in other cities are more likely to be victims of violent crime than other general populations. Research shows people experiencing homelessness are at higher risk of violence. This is a nationwide trend. Higher rates of violence. Studies indicate a high significant percent percentage of unhealthy I have maps. Here's your here's your sexual predators. Please go to Megan's blog.

You wanna know what neighborhood they're in. You live right next door to them. You say hi to you say hi You say hi to them when you're in Raley's. And I have proof of the violent Thank you. Violence that is perpetrated by the housed.

Nora Dizon. Deanna Murad next.

Everyone, please keep your voices to yourself. We're gonna do public comment.

Good evening. I wanna thank Chair Kennedy and Vice Chair Singh for making the effort to bring up the additional study for that by right definition. Thank you staff for doing that too. I was so concerned when I heard that topic on November 12. So thank you.

Thank you very much. I have a series of questions. This is supposedly where we need to comply with state laws so that we maintain our pro housing designation and get approval for special funding. But I'm wondering what good is this pro housing designation? I'm sorry, it feels like it's backfiring on us.

That's what I feel. And is this special funding that we don't get to qualify for, is this the HomeKey Plus funding? Would we not get approved for this because we don't have that pro housing designation? Maybe that's a goal. Maybe that's what we should be doing.

We should never have that Homekey Plus funding because it is a financial disaster for our city. Next question. You have a number of parcels that already have approved projects. Like the Peachtree excuse me, Peachtree And Heath is the Archway Recovery Services. It's a 62 bed facility.

And then the one on Susan Valley and campus is called Blue Horizons. I believe that's 82 apartments. So why is this being rezoned when you already have projects? Is there a danger that any of those are gonna change? So like the apartments, are they gonna suddenly come back as if they're 50 units or less, a ministerially approved supportive housing instead of the apartments that we think are gonna get built?

You know, are not the types of questions that I would have thought about, but I feel like we were bamboozled and fooled by so many of the steps and the hearings that happened before that I'm asking the questions that I would never have asked before. Anyway, I thank you very much for having done the Is that it? That's it. Okay. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Deanna Murad followed by Mike O'Hara.

Good evening everyone. I've really watched with admiration your discussion. Particularly I'd like to address these three members of the committee because my last attendance was here in September and I recall that all three of you including Mr. Matthews voted yes on Vista Ridge. I take it very personally.

So start with Deanna Morett, resident of near Vista Ridge, vehemently against the project. And as I said, I watched with admiration today's questioning and yet I did not observe the same what was done with Vista Ridge. And specifically Mr. Ali Sullivan, you specifically said you're interested in economic benefit and economic benefit and benefit to residents that Chick fil A brings? Good question.

Yeah traffic congestion all that wonderful concern for impact on the community by Chick fil A. Wow. Yeah. But have you guys, the three of you, excluding Matthews, thought about what impact Mr. Ridge will bring to our community? Actually, Mr. Kennedy quite eloquently addressed that issue in September. He advised all of you that it will have a negative impact on businesses in that location. It will be destroying the economic benefit to the citizens of the Fairfield. And yet, you voted yes.

Isn't isn't that a hypocritical approach? Insignificant, uncaring? I don't really understand. I don't understand how you're thinking because it's not logical to me. It doesn't make sense. And it's not benefit the residents of our community. You're here to benefit us. There's a great amount of people who speak against it, and yet you're not hearing. You just moving you know like that. Horses, they're blinded and you're not hearing, you're not seeing. I don't know if I'm still out of time or not but I am

You have forty five seconds.

Impressed with today's and extremely disappointed with Vista Ridge.

Thank you. Mike O'Hara.

Chair Kennedy. Sir. If I can just clarifying point, just to correct the record. Mishehan, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Planning Commission at I believe it was a September meeting did not vote on Vista Ridge. We had a project review of a site improvement for an existing land use. It was not a vote on Vista Ridge.

That is correct. It was exactly. Site improvements for the property.

Correct. Thank you.

It wasn't to allow or not allow the use.

Correct. Yeah. Okay. Mike O'Hara. Followed by Adrian Stevenson.

Good evening. I'm Mike O'Hara. I'm director of forward planning for Tim Lewis Communities and TL Solano LLP. We are the owner of the properties number 5 And Number 7 on East Taber Avenue and Railroad Avenue. And I wanted to just point out, I appreciate chair Kennedy bringing up the question about are the landowners in agreement with this. This landowner is not in agreement with the rezoning that has been proposed for a couple of reasons. We we are a home builder. Obviously, we support housing. We support the city meeting. It's it's it's it's mandate basically from this from the state.

But we didn't receive a notice of the planning commission meeting. The first notice I got was dated we received on November 14. It was for the city council hearing. Furthermore, that notice made no mention of the changes to the densities within each category. In other words, the increases that impact the current zoning of our property were not mentioned in the notice.

We've owned that property for a long time. We had a 91 unit townhome development that was approved back in 2005. We didn't proceed with it due to concerns for financial feasibility. There's two real reasons why we disagree with the proposed action. First, it's inconsistent with the conditions that would make high density housing viable.

There's nothing of that density of this this density which is proposed to go from a midpoint of 18 and a half per acre to 33 per acre, which is almost a doubling. There's nothing of that density. Furthermore and more importantly, there's no transit that serves that area. The transportation network just does not support high density in that area. The nearest bus stop is eight tenths of a mile away, And it it would give us none of the it would give any developer none of the benefits, the CEQA exemptions, etcetera, that that exist under the laws that you that you brought up earlier.

You're you'd be pushing density further from transit, which increases reliance on a car. Secondly, costs to build that higher density are much greater. And we we would anticipate a cost increase of about 50% or more on a per unit basis if we were to have to build the 35 to 40 to the acre that's being requested versus the 15 to 22 that exists in the current zoning designation. Residential homebuilding has taken a beating right now. And so at this point in time, we don't believe that increasing the density makes it viable.

In fact, we think it goes the other way. We think that you might end up with more housing built under its current density than you would under the higher density due to lack of viability at the higher density. So for that I would urge you to abandon this modification zoning density for our two sites.

Great. Thank you very much. Adrian Stevenson. Followed by Khalid.

Hello, good evening and this is my first time coming to the commission Planning Commission. I live in that area on the other side of in North Texas. I have seen homeless people laying on the sidewalk coming across the overpass. I walk every morning between 06:30 and 07:30, and they're there with their suitcases in the bushes, and I walk around in the street because of that. I urge and I've been in the community for thirty years, I have not seen or anything where I was actually asked if something like this was going to be built in that area.

And I'm just wondering why, because I do check my mail. I am very opposed to this, because where are the services coming from? I am an alcohol and drug counselor, so I know that they need their services. But wouldn't it be better if their service if they were closer to facilities that could give them their services? On-site services are great, but if it's residential and they're coming and going and not staying for thirty, sixty or ninety days, then they're going to be out in the community.

And I don't think that that's helpful for the residents that are there. I think the value of the the homes are going to go down. I just I'm understanding more tonight than I have before because it seems like it's already been designated since it's been rezoned that it's going to happen. So I would like for that question to be answered. Is it going to happen?

Is it already slated and it's going to happen? I want to know that question when you answer questions tonight. And I urge that if it's not going to happen, then it can be modified and placed somewhere else, that it be modified and placed somewhere else where it would be easier for them to get their services, to get whatever it is that they need.

Ten seconds.

And it would be helpful for them as far as their safety and our safety as a residence.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Khalid? Followed by Amber.

Well, first of all, would like to thank you for serving. This is my first time in my life attending this type of meeting, but I'm learning. It's a learning curve for me, but I was really impressed with the granulated question, especially Mr. Aidan Ali, and I was curious to look at your background, to see where you're from, you went to Chicago, you know, public policy, I I like that. And I see how you really cared about stucco and I just remodeled my house, I see you very, very picky on the questions.

I am baffled with this project, how it step through and pass. You are the gatekeepers. You are the gatekeeper for the community. I live 0.9 miles away from that project. I am collecting signatures. I cannot tell you, I'll be happy to invite you to see the lines that we have at the park. What's gonna bring 85 years old in 47 degrees to come and sign this petition? This project really affect the community negatively. There's a safety issue. We have a rocker.

I woke up at 01:00 in the morning. Homeless came, targeted our neighborhood, and he was knocking. I have a recording. I would be happy to share it to you. Knocked the door. He was yelling, got bit by coyote. We start having a lot of issues now. Those are 800 to $1,000,000 houses. I just spent $200,000 in remodeling my house, and I have a kid. She's a gay student. 13 years old.

I have a son.

You saw him. There's a dentist here. Why do you think this person is gonna come? If you really care about business, if you really have a common sense. I'm not a politician. I'm gonna speak my mind because I didn't grow up in this country. I see an apple, I call it an apple. I don't call it banana. I told you before about the traffic. Wana Creek. This is the city where I see like I'm I'm citizen. Yes. They approve it with conditions. Here, you challenge them a little bit, someone can give some data. You know, like some if you're a professor, someone's giving you like a d work and you give them a.

That's easy. You see them, they just want to buy their business. Exactly what happened at this project. You didn't know that those people are severely mentally ill. They can there are six offenders, level one and level two. There's school nearby. There's a dentist who's seen 30 to 40 kids. My kids can be one of them. Did you think about the impact? Texas barbecue.

Fifteen seconds, please.

If you really care about the business, you should go and talk to these people. May I ask you mister Jasmine Singh, have you talked to the business there, to the Starbucks? Have you visited that Starbucks lately? I go to the Starbucks at least once a day.

Thank you. Your time is up. Thank you. Amber, followed by Jenna.

Hi, I'm Amber. I'm a homeowner here in Fairfield and not far from where we're talking about Bistro Ridge. I have no issue with it. I'm glad it's coming in. The reason why is we all talk about how we want the streets of Fairfield cleaned up because there's homeless all over and there's this stuff.

Wouldn't it be better to have them in one place and be able to keep an eye on that and if there is an issue, the police know where to go. They're not chasing down people trying to figure out where they are. This is to help them get off the streets and to make it better and give them the opportunities in to go get the mental help they need or anything because when they're on the street, they don't see it as having an option to go somewhere. If they're housed and they can get up and they you know, and they're not all gonna accept it, I get that. I've had homeless people in my family, drug addicted, all that stuff, I've been through it all, I see what it does.

If they would have had somewhere to go that was able to offer them the help whether it was a ninety day place or not, I get that my husband's been to rehabs, I understand all of that. I think it will be better. People say that it's going to affect the businesses around. I go to the loop every day and I don't see homeless people hanging out there. You go down to AMPM, there's a ton.

But I've never been bothered by them. They might ask for money, I tell them no, they move on. They're not aggressive, they're not it's how you treat them. If you treat them like they're animals, they're gonna act like they're animals. I feel it'd be better to keep them in one place and be able to keep an eye on them and help them with all the needs that they need.

And then our streets could get cleaned up. We could get North Texas looking like it should, not like a homeless encampment down the whole row. So I'm for it, I think people say it's gonna hurt the businesses, I don't think it will. My thing is is whether they're on the street or in a house, the crime is not gonna go up or down, it's gonna be the same because it's the same damn people. So when people say that, my husband's had more issues with the kids living in our neighborhood with their parents when he walks the dogs than he has any homeless person walking down our street.

So this is my first time speaking and doing this, but that's what I said. When it comes to the homelessness and that kind of stuff and being a homeowner even, they need help. They're a human being just like all of us. So that's that's what I have.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Jenna? Followed by Jessica?

Hi. I just wanna start by saying thank you guys all for serving us. But I am completely shocked at how this flew under the radar. Now since the city council voted yes for the project, we are trying to overturn it. And I'm over here 13 years old going door to door asking people to sign for petitions while I'm supposed to be doing 13 year old things. We're out in 47 degree weather trying to get people to sign the petition because of what you guys let pass through. The location is absolutely tragic. We have Texas Roadhouse right next to it. We have CVS, Raley's. We have a school.

The safety for the children that walk by there every single day, I go I live like next mile away from there. I go there practically every day. We drive by there practically every day, and we see homeless. Sometimes I have to tell my nine year old brother to look away because of the inappropriate things they're doing on the side of the street. And to see that in your community, it's like, it's really heartbreaking because you're supposed to live in a community where everyone's joined together, everyone's trying to work together, yet you see this out on the streets, and you say this is a solution to it.

It's really not. They are going to be able to be doing their drugs and their alcohol in that facility, and that's not helping them. That's just providing them what they want. I I don't like it. I don't like how we are over here standing up for something when you guys should have like not let it fly under the radar like that. Like it went unnoticed. And that's what I have to say.

Thank you very much. No applause please. Jessica followed by Chris.

Hi. My name is Jessica. I have worked I worked at the Loop for almost four years. I've dealt with the homeless. I've been attacked by these people. I am so against this Vista Ridge project. I see daily. My kids see it too. Why I worked at the Loop? I've seen people get naked, shoot up, have sex right there alongside, and a child came and told me that they saw that.

If you put it there all in one spot, it's just gonna get worse. I've noticed they've cleaned it up a little bit since I've worked at the loop, but it's it's just gonna be bad all around. My question is, if you if it does go there, how are you guys gonna protect our children from seeing things like that? My kids sometimes go to the Loop without me. They go to Raley's without me.

They they've seen so much. It's it's it's disgusting. I've lived in Fairfield my entire life. I'm 30 almost 38 years old, and I've never seen this so bad like it is now. And I get that they do need help, but I think this location is the worst place to put it. Thank you. That's all have.

Thank you very much. Chris Claus.

Hello. I'm doctor Claus and I am not really sure exactly why I'm talking to you guys tonight because I don't think that there's a decision that you guys can make that will help to negate this. And I wasn't gonna talk but I got called out so here I am. I'm gonna I'm gonna talk to you guys a little bit. I'm from Fairfield. I was born on base and went to Oak Brook, Big L, Wilson, Armio, Solano, Davis. I'm from here. Came back here to build my business. I'm the owner of My Kids Dentist which is about 400 feet away from the Vista Ridge project directly across the street there. I have two girls, one's almost eight, one's 10.

We frequent the shops in the area of course. Trying to build in them a compassion for homeless people and honestly they're scared of homeless people. Like we go to to Lowe's and they kinda hide behind me when we run into people that you know aren't really there for shopping. So it's scary for them and it's my job as a father to protect them and it's my job as a business owner and as a pediatric dentist to protect my patients. We definitely need a solution.

This isn't the right solution. It's the wrong location. We've run into a lot of problems since the practice opened eleven years ago and we've had people you know sleeping directly in front of the door, bathing with the spigots there, camping directly outside the window where I'm seeing patients. So we've run into a lot and I think the misconception is that you're going to be getting those people off the streets. But there are 434 or something registered homeless people in Fairfield and there's no guarantee that any of the individuals that are already in the area are actually gonna go into this housing.

So you potentially would have all the people that are already there plus 50 more that are mentally ill plus their co residents and guests. So you're gonna have a lot of people that are concentrated into that neighborhood, into that area and then there's no guarantee that they're going to stay in that location. You know, there's no reason necessarily for them to stay inside. They're gonna be out and about but concentrated in that zone. Potential for theft, burglary, robbery.

If they're doing drugs they're going to need money for the drugs. So where are they going to get that? So there's a lot of potential for crime and harm and what I've spoken to at the previous meetings was the potential damage that it can do to my patients. You know if I've got thirty, forty, sometimes upwards of 60 patients coming and going on any given day, that's a lot of children that could potentially be exposed to some pretty serious stuff and my question that I posed before was how many can get exposed to that? How many children being traumatized is acceptable? And the answer of course should be zero.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Jose? If you Hold could pause please.

Right. I have to say thank you for what you do. I know you guys are the Planning Commission and you guys approve the zoning. And this Vista Ridge that was zoned I think was in the wrong place. And hopefully in the future when you think of this type of project maybe you guys can think of the social impact, the financial impact, you know, the effects that's going to happen to the businesses and the community. So hopefully you guys do that in the future.

Thank you very much. All right, I have one hand online. So if we could bring that individual online, please.

We have

Can you state your name?

Inga Breton.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Can you

hear You have three minutes.

Okay. My question is, what about Shelter Inc? The elephant in the room, there are a lot of beds there that aren't used. So why are they not being utilized?

All questions will be answered after all public comment. Is that all you have to ask?

Can

you hear me?

Yes. All all the questions will be answered after all public comment has been handled and staff will answer your question at that point in time. Do you have any other comments?

No. That was it. Okay. I just want to know what's going on. Thank you.

Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. And with that, I will now close the public hearing and return to return to commission for deliberations first. I believe staff like to comment.

Yes. Thank you. I very much respect everyone taking the time to come here tonight. I do want to make a very clear clarification. However, the item tonight is not regarding Vista Ridge.

So the various sites you see on the screen, none of those sites are the Vista Ridge property. The zoning ordinance text amendments are citywide. They're not project specific. In addition to some of the language regarding supportive housing, there are various other revisions to our text regarding small lot consolidation incentives, some density consistency, streamlining permitting, efficiency units, farm worker housing. So I just wanna make that very clear that the item tonight is not specific to Vista Ridge.

So again, I appreciate everyone making the time to be here and I respect everybody's comments, but I I just wanna make that that very clear that no action tonight whether this commission approves or denies the resolution has impact on that Vista Ridge project. And to answer a question that I think was mentioned from from the public comment, Will this housing element implementation affect the Vista Ridge referendum? No. It will not. It just updates our zoning ordinance, which is you can think of like city code or city regulations for a variety of different projects.

And then moving on, let's see here. There was a question if the Vistaridge site hadn't been rezoned, would would the project still and I'm, you know, I'm paraphrasing. I think the phrase was fly through something along those lines. I will say is under the regional commercial zoning, was the previous zoning for that for that site, residential development would not be permitted. So any type of residential development whether that's single family or something like a Vista Ridge project.

Under the mixed commercial residential development is permissible. And with that in mind, you know, I think there are some comments about this happening kind of quickly or or protect perhaps under the radar. So although the topic tonight is not vistorage, I do wanna clarify that starting in February, there were hearings through council. There was hearings in March. There was hearings in August, September, and November.

So there are multiple layers in which that project was evaluated. I'm sorry. I cannot address comments directly from the crowd. And then moving forward, what does the pro housing designation mean or what does it do? So pro housing designation is something that the state is offering to jurisdictions that move forward the state's goals for for meeting a variety of housing requirements.

We do having a pro housing designation does offer the city more eligibility for a variety of grants. Yes. There are grants related to affordable housing or supportive housing. Those are not the only grants that opens the doors to. It also opens grants for sustainability, for climate action planning, for infrastructure, for transportation and transit.

I think there was a comment somewhere within the the group here about a site not having available transit to support high density. So a pro housing designation would offer the city the eligibility to get grants to put towards our bus systems and put towards our transportation systems. Why are we rezoning these sites tonight? These sites are identified in our housing element. So our housing element was adopted approximately three years ago where all these sites were identified under state law.

We have three years to actually implement the identified sites so that's why that's happening tonight. We're trying to meet the sites that were already identified several years ago and approved by the state. And I think for a gentleman who felt he was not notified, we do have all of the addresses for the folks that we have notified over these several different hearings. So we can definitely connect if for some reason your address is not located on that on that particular list. However, I think you mentioned that you did receive the council notification, so we would have sent to the same address.

And then lastly, let's see here. I just wanna make sure I've hit them all. I apologize. That was my last note in terms of trying to address all the questions I believe I heard.

Thank you. One question from the landowners of five and seven. If they choose to provide a project that's RH, that is still to their benefit. They can go less it just can't go more. Is that correct?

They would have to meet the minimum density for the very high density.

Okay.

And that would be outside the range of the high density. So they would not be allowed to develop at high density if the site is zoned very high.

Got it. Okay. Thank you. Bring it back to commission. We'll start commissioner Ali Sullivan.

Thank you, Chair Kennedy. And Mishehan, thank you for clarifying. I was going to raise the same comment that the while I very much appreciate the concerns that have been raised over the last couple months regarding Vista Ridge, It's not what we're discussing tonight, and so I just wanted to clarify that our decision tonight has absolutely nothing to do with that project, that particular project. So thanks for clarifying that. Regarding the you know, generally speaking, I don't have any major questions or concerns here.

However, it did peak my interest that the, property owner for two of these sites, raised concern about notification. And, you know, if we are rezoning individual property owners land, think it's very important that they be aware of that and they have the opportunity to raise, you know, support or opposition to it. And I'm surprised that no one had raised any commentary. As you said, yes, you've notified them. We don't know where they stand unless they let us know where they stand.

And one property owner did come here tonight to raise concerns with that. And so I guess my question for city staff, not that I doubt your competency, but I just wanna be very certain that we have done our due diligence as a city to reach out in the appropriate fashion on the appropriate timeline to the homeowner or to the property owners of these sites. Is that, do we feel confident in that?

Yes. And we keep all the records of everybody that we mail and notify.

Okay. Alright. Thanks. That's all

Chair Kennedy. Thank you. Commissioner Reese?

I had a similar question. I was just curious when we are zoning, when these type of ordinance come before us, what's the process of people getting noticed? Do like, is it just the landowners? Is it so many people around? Or is it just the notices that are posted?

Sure. So under state law, we are required to notice within a 300 foot radius of the project site. The city of Fairfield practices a 500 foot radius. So we notify not only the the applicable site, but then within a 500 foot radius of that. And then in addition, we also post in the local newspaper, The Daily Republic. Thank you.

Commissioner Greevy?

I I just wanna be sure that I understood what mister Kennedy said asked you. And that is so then the landowner of those two item two properties that he came in with concerns this evening, he cannot build under the RH system any longer. He can he must go to the RVH system or or zoning? Yes. That is correct.

If if these sites are rezoned to residential very high density, he he must meet the very high density regulations.

I thought that's what I just wanted to be sure.

Thank you.

Of course. Vice

Chair Singh. Thank you, Chair. Just wanted to say there was a comment made that hinted that dais was not making decisions correctly, and I just wanna go on record and say that the members of this dais are extremely professional, extremely competent, and I am just very thankful to have served with the members here on this dais. So just wanna say that firstly, so thank you guys. Number two is that, Allison, thank you so much for for that presentation because that did confirm that the state law, it is created by the California legislature.

And once it's passed, it applies to all cities within California. Fairfield is not excluded, and so we have to adhere to that. This is not a matter of optionality. This is a matter of do we comply with the law or do we not? And so and so with that direction, I am ready to make a motion.

Alright. A couple things. So just for public knowledge, some of the bills that the state put through a b twenty one sixty two, a b twenty eleven, s b three thirty, SB four twenty three. And when I mentioned San Francisco, by tightening these laws up that the state is is forced down our throats, we kind of we aren't opening the Pandora's box to anything. San Francisco, for instance, in the Marina District, many of you may heard the last few days, they have a 2.6 acre parcel that because they didn't strengthen their zoning code and and left it a little bit more opaque.

A developer took a four a four story plan that the city liked and made it a 25 story, 792 units on 2.6 acres. And and so that's why tightening all this up has been so important and it'll help us in the short term as well as the long term. We cannot ever go back and retroactively change anything. And once a permit has been filed a developer or a homeowner, those rules take those rules are better in effect are what counts not something in the future. So just wanna clarify that.

I have, I spoke a little bit ago about the state has hijacked so much California City's ability to implement proper zoning and planning. And now, we're in that situation now where are we hijacking property owners by forcing them to zone a property that they did not purchase to be such and that they don't want to develop at that. That is something that kind that very concerns me is the fact that we're we're taking away an owner owner's rights to the property. So one before I get to your question, I want to clarify that the property owner could come back to have it rezoned, come back to the commission to have that property rezoned if they have a project that they feel will be better for the site?

Yes. The property owner and applicant could request that.

Thank you. Okay. Commissioner Ali Sullivan. Yeah. Thank you,

chair Ken. And and to your last point regarding the the the property piece, it's interesting we're honing in on that versus the the the broader ordinance here. But on those property rights, Michigan, you referenced that these sites were identified three years ago?

Yes. That is correct.

Okay. And were they publicly identified three years ago?

Yes. There was a public process in order to adopt the housing element.

Okay. So, I mean, it gives me a little bit more ease here that this is not you know, not theoretically be a surprise to any of the property owners if it's been

a multi year process. Thanks. Any other questions or otherwise I will entertain a motion.

I'd like to make a motion to approve Planning Commission Resolution 2025Dash09.

Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. All those in favor. Aye. I will vote aye based on the property owner can try to zone. So yes. So we have a unanimous. Thank you very much. We will now go on to director's report. Ms. Sheehan, do you have any items?

Yes, I do. Sorry, I've got a lot of paper in front of me. So give me just a moment here. Alright. So just a just a handful of items, nothing too lengthy for you all.

Working with Anna Giles, our deputy director for community development, we have mapped out a calendar for next year's meetings. I can't necessarily anticipate, you know, the meetings where we have no items similar to the first half of this year. We just didn't have applications that were lining up with the timing for the first half of the the year. But what we have done is we've kind of preemptively gone ahead and canceled the two meetings that are always the day before Thanksgiving and the day before Christmas Eve or maybe it even is Christmas Eve. So Anna will be sending out an email probably in the next couple business days just so that you can see that schedule.

So I just wanted to identify that for you. And then the other item I wanted to bring to the commission's attention is the Planning Commissioner's Academy is coming up in March. So last year, three of you were able to attend the commissioner's academy. We try to, you know, keep a balance and allow new members to go to the academy or members that didn't get to go the previous year. I think at this point, all of the commissioners have gone at least once except for commissioner Ali Sullivan, at least not while you've served your time with Fairfield.

So I would be offering one spot to yourself and then I'll send an email around so that we can fill the other we typically send three commissioners to fill the other two spots. So trying to gauge people's interest. I'll send the exact dates, the location, and and everything else. I believe this year it's in Anaheim. I will I will confirm that.

And then my two last things for you is at the last meeting, I kinda teased that we were going to have a new associate planner, but I wanted to wait till all the t's were crossed and die i's were dotted. So I'm very thrilled to announce that last Monday, Noah Ramboa, our new associate planner started with the city of Fairfield. So hopefully, he'll have a project here in front of you soon so you get to meet him. Otherwise, you know where we are. If you ever wanna just stop by the office and say hello.

What what floor are you on these days? Are you still

At the

moment, we are still on the 2nd Floor. Stay tuned to our city website to keep up to date with the city hall renovation project that's going on because departments are moving around as our floors are getting reworked on. And easy simple last thing is happy holidays. I think this is our last meeting for the year, and we'll we'll come back to each other in 2026. So thank you.

Thank you. Commissioners reports will start with commissioners Ali Sullivan. Yeah.

Very short and sweet. I just wanted to wish my fellow commissioners a great end of the year. I we won't be seeing each other till January. So thank you for welcoming me this year. I look forward to continuing to work with all of you next year, and I hope you have a wonderful holiday time. Special thanks to all the city staff for all the work they do, the planning department and the broader city staff as well. So thanks. Thank you. Commissioner Reese? Commissioner Greevy? Merry Christmas.

Commissioner Singh? Yes. Thank you.

I just wanted to say just wanted to say that I really appreciate the comments made on the design, and then and then also the comments made to force developers to do more. So there's a trend that I'm seeing right now in retail where almost all of the retail developments, they look the same. So they're these like rectangular boxes devoid of of so they're devoid of color, very flat surfaces, and they all look the same. We we we see it with McDonald's, we see it with Taco Bell, we see it with a lot of the QSRs, and then today it was Chipotle. So the question is why does that happen?

The answer that corporate will say is that's just our corporate strategy, our corporate image, but that's not the truth, I think. I think a very significant component of it is actually three things. Number one is that it's very affordable to develop when you have very straight surfaces, that's gonna be much very easy to develop. Number two is that it is going to be very simple to re tenant this space, so then after fifteen to thirty years, after that operator is done, there could be another operator that could take advantage of that storefront, put their designs on it, and it's very simple. And then also number three is that it's very easy to sell to.

So when you wanna go to market with this type of product, and then you wanna view how like, it's in the owner's interest to have a highly marketable design slash product, and that square box is perfect because you can go for different operators. And so with that, I think there's a big pressure to, you know, force to to really force that square design. And I love that, you know, we're like pushing so hard on that to, no. You you you need to have an identity behind that development. So I really appreciate those comments.

Great. Thank you. I wanna miss you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and a joyous Kwanzaa to everybody out there. And be safe. Enjoy the holidays. We'll see you in 2026.