Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. The planning commission of 10/15/2025 will now come to order. Stephanie, will you please call the roll to establish that we have a quorum today? Commissioner Barcelona?

Present.

Commissioner Hurst?

Here.

Commissioner Herrera?

Here.

Commissioner West?

Here.

Commissioner Ross? Present. Commissioner Lainey? Here. Commissioner Reynolds?

Here. If you all please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone. At this time, it is time for citizen communication, and that's the time where anybody would like to address the commission can come up who is addressing the commission on anything that's not on tonight's agenda.

So is there anyone here who would like to address the commission on anything that's not on tonight's agenda? Okay. Hearing and seeing none, we'll close citizen communication. Commissioners, that takes us to the minutes of, 09/17/2025, one short month ago. Were there any concerns or corrections on the minutes?

Any objection to a unanimous roll call to, say they're approved? Okay. Hearing none, that, the minutes are deemed approved unanimously. So that brings us to item number one of new business, PC 19 dash 00122, Comstock Drive tentative parcel map and determination that the project is exempt from CEQA with Josh Kincaid on the front lines. Hi, Josh.

Good evening, Chair Reynolds, commissioners. Alright. Is this the one? This is the one. So, yes, the developments, before you tonight is a four lot tentative, parcel map located on Comstock Drive.

Here we see some photos of the project site. It's mostly flat on the south side here with some slope on the north side of Comstock Drive. The project area is mostly undeveloped outside of an existing home and a detached garage and otherwise contains some fencing, as you can see here, and several mature trees. The project site is located on portions of three existing parcels, including the entirety of the 814 Comstock parcel. You can see in blue here.

The blue is a little faint. Comstock Drive runs, up to the project site. The right of way itself runs up to the project site. And an access easement goes through the site and onto the parcels to the south, southeast before it dead ends. Comstock Drive intersects with Bidwell Street to the north up here and has commercial land on the corner, here excuse me, here and here, before transitioning to mostly single family residences with a a duplex beyond on Comstock.

The applicant purchased the 814 parcel and the knife shaped parcel that you can see here to the Northeast, with the intent of developing a four lot subdivision and, have recently had a land exchange approved by city council, which results in the applicant obtaining a portion of the city owned parcel, this triangular shaped parcel here, to the Northeast to create a more developable rectangular parcel shape. I'll see what that looks like here. So this map shows what the resultant parcels would look like after the partial exchange. Parcel a is the developer's parcel. Parcel B is the city's parcel.

This was a a very long process as I'm sure the applicants can attest to, but we were finally able to get the exchange in front of council recently, And it was approved unanimously as, it does also make the city's parcel, which is which is on our regional housing needs, inventory, larger and more developable. However, the exchange would only happen if the the tentative map here tonight gets approved. We have a proposed condition of approval that this land exchange and lot line adjustment be finalized prior to recordation of the parcel map. So with, that background out of the way, we can move on to the analysis of the tentative parcel map itself. The applicant seeking approval of a four lot tentative parcel map with parcels between about 7,011 square feet in size, shown here in orange, as well as right of way dedication between this northern parcel and three southern parcels.

The project site is located on a point nine one acre area. It's in the R3 Neighborhood apartment zoning district. The zoning allows for anywhere between a two family and four family residents on each parcel by right. Each residence is required to have between, one and a half and two off street parking spaces, depending on how many residences are on each parcel. Development of the parcels would be subject to a future design review application.

The general plan designation for this area is multifamily high density, which does not fully correspond to the R 3 zoning as it typically requires a higher density than what the R 3 can can typically accommodate, especially at the smaller lot sizes. However, we do have a general plan policy in place that allows for development to occur under these circumstances, these these same circumstances, as long as the project wouldn't interfere with the long term development of the area. Staff determined that this was the case for this map as the exchange, actually helps the long term development plans for the city's, arena parcel. And the and that the rest of Comstock Drive is already built out, and there's no, no current development plans to do anything with those those built out, properties. There is, as I mentioned previously, an existing single family residence and detached garage on the project site.

They're pointed out on the map here. Here's the house. Here's the garage. The garage would have to be demolished prior to recordation of the map as it can't be the primary structure on that lot. However, the house can, stay up as is, since it was legally constructed, in the late 1940s. There is, unfortunately, some discussion in the staff report about requiring the house to either be demolished or have a garage added to it. But staff, ultimately, after that was written, determined that this was not required, but the discussion wasn't inadvertently left in the staff report. The condition referenced in that discussion in the staff report has been removed, though, and there's no additional action that needs to be taken about that. So I apologize for that. Excuse me.

All right. So now looking at the proposed roadway improvements. As part of staff's review of the map, we're we are requiring a right of way dedication through the parcel site through the project site, excuse me, including a street and public utility easements. The fire department also noted that because Comstock is over 500 feet long and dead ends, it does require a secondary vehicle access for the fire department. Staff were emergency vehicle access, or EVA.

So staff did work with the applicant on the location of that EVA and ultimately determined that it made the most sense to put it on the city site right here. Since if our parcel ever does develop, it would require an access anyway. It'd be multifamily housing based on the size of the parcel. And in its currently proposed state, there would also be a gate on the north of the EVA, as shown here on the map, that would only be accessed by the fire department. The applicant is also showing in the, red hashed area that you can see on the map here, how adequate fire truck turnaround, would be met, given the given the dead end.

As you can see, they'd be using a portion of the EVA to to address that. And the fire department has signed off on these these preliminary plans. All right. Moving on to the preliminary utility plan. Water, electric, and sewer would all be, connected, to the proposed parcels via the extended Comstock Drive.

Typically, we have new developments underground, new electric facilities, but, the existing electrical on and surrounding the project site, are all overhead poles. So it makes more sense in this case for the proposed project to continue that pattern rather than attempting to just have one small area undergrounded when the rest is still overground. Looking at the tree removal and mitigation plan. As part of the utilities and roadway improvements, the applicant's proposing to remove several trees, in and around the the right of way and the the EVA Road, as can be seen here in red. Staff typically requires that new development install sidewalks for pedestrian safety, and the applicant is showing a sidewalk on the south side of the extended Comstock Drive here.

However, installation of this sidewalk would necessitate the removal of three large trees, two of which are large enough to be considered heritage trees, based on the city code. Staff noted that outside of the, commercial, area near near Bidwell Street, there were no other sidewalks on Comstock, as as you may have seen when you if you've driven down there. As such, we are willing to forego the sidewalk condition in this case if it does mean saving those trees. We've created kind of a unique condition of approval to address this issue where, if the trees are saved throughout the development activities, the sidewalk would not be required. However, if the trees have to be removed based on these activities, the appropriate tree mitigation fees would be paid, and the sidewalk would also need to be installed at the applicant's cost.

Hey, Josh, before you move on from that slide, could you do you know which trees are the big ones?

Oh, I've got them numbered in the staff report. Believe it was whoops, hello 434, 440 let me check the staff report. I've got the numbers You

can do that when we talk about it during questions. But I just wanted to make sure that I wondered if they were all clustered together, if they were

Got it.

For their part.

Yeah, can figure that out for you. Thank you. Yeah, sure.

I don't know if you want to look. It's 434, 436, and 440.

Yeah, so 434 the roots here, 436 here, 440 is this big guy here.

Thanks. Thanks, commissioner.

Yes. Thank you. Alright. Now moving on to, Comstock Drive itself. We did recently, hear from some of the the neighbors on Comstock expressing concern about additional cars on Comstock that would be associated with the project once it's built out.

And those letters have been shared with commission. The issue generally stems from Comstock being a quite narrow street, as you may have seen. I believe it's about 25 feet wide, the street itself, at this intersection here with Bidwell. As you can see here, there are often several cars parked at the intersection along Comstock during business hours, some even around the intersection, as you can see on this image. It appears that most of the vehicles are likely associated with the commercial businesses on the corner, which include the glass shop on the left and the Quonset hut and the auto repair shop that you can see on the right here.

Neighbors have stated that only one car can often get through this portion of Comstock at any given time when these cars are parked like this. And, turns off of Comstock Drive are also often treacherous due to reduced visibility at the corners because of the cars all being parked here. Based on these concerns, we are having code enforcement staff reach out to these two business owners to see what they can do to get cars associated with their businesses away from these intersections. Public works staff is also actively looking at this portion of Comstock to see what kinds of potential hazards that they observe and what measures can be taken to alleviate them, whether that means no parking zones, striping, or something of that nature. We do have Public Works Director Rebecca Neves here tonight who can speak to those efforts.

However, because that would be a city led effort, we did not include anything on to this effect as a condition of approval on the project, though we could certainly work with the the commission to craft one that would be appropriate if the applicant is agreeable to that. So with that, staff does recommend approval of the proposed tentative parcel map as conditioned. And we can take questions from the commission at this point.

Okay. Commissioners, do do you have questions for our staff? Commissioner Lainey.

I understand that under normal circumstances we'd like to have sidewalks in the area but just given the kind of the uniqueness of of Comstock Drive is there are there any thoughts about you know if you can't save these trees just to replant trees instead of having just one strip of sidewalk and one kind of far down on the street it seems like a little bit of an awkward section to to require there to be sidewalk I would in my opinion, but I would think that if we're going to lose trees, wouldn't it be nice to just exchange and say that we need to have trees replaced if we're not able to save those heritage trees instead of having just this random piece of strip of sidewalk in that one area. Right. So I don't know if that's possible.

Right. We we do the the mitigate the way the tree mitigation works, it would either be paying the correct me if I'm wrong here. Would either be paying the the tree mitigation fee for trees of that size, and then that fee would be used to replant throughout the city. Or on-site replanting, I believe, is also potentially feasible. I'm not sure how feasible it would be on this property, but that is a potential option. With regards to whether we would want that instead of a chunk of sidewalk that doesn't currently connect to anything, I'll let Rebecca speak to that.

Yeah, I mean, this was something we kind of wrestled with a little bit too, much more of like a rural character of the road itself. And it felt a little bit tough to have a sidewalk there while still also not having sidewalk for the rest of it. It was something we looked at. The conditions were worded loosely enough to where we could kind of figure that part out as we went through the design too. But I mean kind of to your point to replant the trees, I think that that's something that's valuable and worth pursuing And it actually kind of helps the applicant a little bit offsetting some of the mitigation requirements.

So the the condition is currently written, it would be if those trees have to be removed then we would make them do the sidewalk. So if we wanted to potentially modify that measure to just do replanting instead of saying it has to be a sidewalk and it could be replanting or a sidewalk, we might be able to Thanks so Okay.

I mean, honestly, we're open to either approach. It tough wanting to condition it with a sidewalk, even though that that was kind of our city standard. But it was tough kind of conditioning it that way because we knew that there wasn't sidewalk anyplace else. Neighborhood is, I really do have to extend my gratitude to the residents that have chimed in because this neighborhood really is very unique within the city. It's very rural in character, and it's kind of like a little precious pocket.

And so I really appreciate the I mean, I see the applicants really making a lot of good faith effort in terms of trying to come up with a thoughtful project while still addressing some of the city's housing needs. So we kind of wrestled with a little bit of this one took a while to get to this point too. I mean we're open to what the commission's desires are. And you know I believe the applicant is here this evening and so you know we can kind of talk through it a

little bit as well.

I think I would just love to see that at least that be an option especially if you want to continue to have the character of that neighborhood, that kind of historic feel and that rural feel. It feels like going down a road and then all of a sudden there's just this strip of sidewalk if the trees can't be saved. Know twenty years from now might have been nice to have had trees replace trees instead of concrete replace trees.

Yeah I mean I'm not opposed to that either. We kind of followed what we require everywhere else, but I I will tell you we talked about this quite a bit and I kind of wrestled with it, was like of the comment in my head that kept coming up was the sidewalk to nowhere, and I didn't want that for this little pocket But I mean I'm amendable to making that change.

That's a good option.

Yeah. Commissioner Barcelona.

Thank you. I do have a problem with the sidewalk that goes to nowhere. And it seems like the biggest concern on Comstock is the width of the roadway being so narrow. And I think you mentioned here in the presentation that these new parcels would have, two on street parking spots as well?

Between one and a half and two. If if it's a duplex Yeah. On on each parcel, the those units are required to have two off street parking spaces each. If they're beyond their three to four unit, parcels, then they have to have one and a half, spaces per unit. Well, then,

I mean, my suggestion would be why not eliminate the sidewalk and make provision for a wider roadway in front of those new parcels so so you can have on street parking. Because it is really difficult. Everybody ends up going down that street when they they go to Folsom Motor Werks to try to get out, and then they have to turn around and come all the way back. It is really difficult to to navigate that area.

Commissioner, could I clarify the new section of street will be our standard residential width, right, Josh? Yeah. So it actually will be wider than what exists right now.

Right. So we've got the I'll point to that on the map here. We've got the proposed 36 foot right of way, including the street within that.

From 23 to 36 then?

Which is its own potential issue. But at least in this area, you should have the proper space for the two on-site, yeah, the street parking. But

on-site means on the parcel, on the street, Right?

No. I mean, it would be it would be through the parcel. So it would be right of way that includes, an extension of Comstock Drive. And then beyond that, it would be just this this private road easement that currently exists.

But if we're requiring on-site parking, that means each parcel has to have parking on their parcel, not on the street.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It would be off the two spaces, the one and a half to two spaces would be off street. So garage, driveway, that sort of thing. Okay. It

says the residents proposed as part of this project are required to provide two off-site covered parking spaces. I think it was meant to It says off-site? It does say off-site per unit for two family or 1.5 off-site parking spaces per unit per multiple family structures or complexes.

Is that a document?

That's in the staff report.

Okay. And it's meant to be off street.

I think it's supposed to be

Off street.

Off street.

Oh, Okay. Yes.

We can make that clarification.

Okay. Yeah. Does that answer your question, Commissioner?

I'm not sure.

So if we're reading it with the understanding that that's supposed to say off street it's two parking stalls either in a driveway or a covered space And then the way I read it then is also allowing one and a half on street parking.

Okay. So

So three and a

half total.

No. No. The parcels are Poor. Poor. Yeah.

I'm sorry. So would be the one and a half as if it's a if that's that's also off street parking, and that's if it's a triplex or a fourplex. It's one and a half per unit when it's a triplex or fourplex. This is just out of the municipal code. And then it's it'd be two off street parking spaces that have to be covered if it's a, duplex.

Yep. This is why I'm not the planner. He's way better at this than I am.

Okay. So

So so the street's 36 feet wide, and the parking is required to be on the lots, not the street.

Yep.

So this is gonna be the easiest section to get turnaround in in the whole street.

And we also have the the portion of the EVA that the fire trucks would be using to turn around to also accomplish additional turnaround.

So you can have it's zoned for up to a fourplex. Right? Correct. And if it's if if Fourplex is built, it will have two parking spaces.

The Fourplex would have one and a half spaces per unit. So one and a half times four.

Six. Six. Okay. Thanks, Matt. Okay. Alright. Thank you.

Go ahead. Commissioner Herrera.

So will there be parking on the street or available? If people are driving in, they can say they're coming to visit. There will be it'll be wide enough for people to park on the side of the street.

Considering the 36 foot, right of way, Rebecca, that's that's standard for allowing parking on both sides. Yeah.

We allow one street. Yeah.

Okay. We allow one street parking with that width. Sorry.

Oh, no. You're fine. So four units. So you're looking at there's a potential for 16 dwellings between these four units?

If they can squeeze a fourplex onto each of these lots, they are pretty at least the three, lower lot, three southern lots are pretty small. I know the applicant initially wanted to do single family on all all four lots. Single family is not allowed by right in the R 3 zone, unfortunately, even though that's the vast majority of what's on Comstock Drive. And so the, duplex would be the next, you know, least intensive, type of type of unit on each of these lots.

Okay. And then just a quick question about on Parcel 1. I believe this is out of his historic district, but has there been any evaluation of the existing home that does it is there any historical significance?

Not that we could find. We we we did evaluate that. We reached out to the history museum, Sac State, who has their own resource. And none of them had any information on that house. And it wasn't on our inventory as well. So we didn't see anything there.

Those are the questions you get when you get stuck on historic. Thanks, Josh.

Sure thing.

Okay. Anybody else before I ask a few? Okay. As far as the trees go, I got stopped by that condition because I thought it seemed very wishy washy. Washy. It seemed like we're either going to tell them they need to protect the trees, but this one just seems like, Okay, well, if you destroy these trees, well, then go ahead, but we're going to make you put a sidewalk in. And just seems And

pay medication.

Okay. I mean, it just I don't know. So I guess my question is, could we condition the project on preserving the trees?

Can certainly condition that the we don't require the sidewalk regardless of what happens. Actually preserving those trees, I believe that's reasonable.

So I think if I understand the situation correctly, already have to be preserved under the FMC because they meet the definition of heritage trees.

Two of the three.

Two of them, yeah.

Two of the three. But if the commission wanted to basically override that and say, no, these trees have to be preserved, I think we can do that.

And is that appropriate at this stage, at the parcel map stage, or at the design stage when they come in with their plans? Because, I mean, we don't really know yet what's gonna be built there when Right. The parcel map stage.

And the design review may be a staff level decision depending on how large. If it's a duplex, those are those are staff level. So I feel like it'd make more sense on the map. Yeah. But that would just have to be carried over if the developer does parcel map and then sells the lots, then the next folks would have to be, of course, aware of that.

Okay. And then, I mean, I expressed this frustration to you today by phone, but it seems so strange that this zoning and general plan is on this area. Yes. I mean, it's not a high density neighborhood. Yet we've got this thing that we're kind of stuck in a box about having to deal with it because of the way our planning documents are.

Yeah. That's an unfortunate timing that we have parcels throughout the city that we've we've found these inconsistencies, and we want to clean those up as part of the zoning code update,

which Right. Yes. Because it's completely crazy that they couldn't come in and do single family there. Just very uncomfortable that this is happening, that we're having to deal with this.

Yeah.

Desmond has a comment.

Excellent.

There's a couple areas of the city that have this inconsistency. We also have it down along Sibley Street where it's got this apartment multifamily designation, but a lot of the homes along there are homes or duplexes. So we have a similar gives us there's a couple there's a couple areas of the city like this. The, and I think some of this may stem from some of the rezoning efforts that we that we did back around, 2000 when we were having to rezone land to allow for more multifamily development in fulsome as a result of challenges from the the the state and, from legal services in Northern California and their and their lawsuit. The the the challenge that staff runs into is that for those folks that, you know, are happy with the home that they have, they don't have any problem with us changing the the land use or zoning designation back to the appropriate, designation.

But those folks that maybe wanna sell their home or wanna do something different with their property, they don't wanna see their, their property down zoned because in their point of view, well, then you can do less with it, and it's less valuable. So we often run into that kind of dilemma when we try to go back and fix these kinds of things. So

And it happened in the historic district, right, in the nineties.

Yeah. Yeah. So just some context around kind of the difficulty of actually going back and cleaning this stuff up. To to you and I, it it looks pretty simple. There's single family homes there. It should be single family zoning. But in reality, trying to go back and unravel that, you know, pull pull it back to what's on the ground is sometimes, trickier than because then we're now we're all of a sudden taking away somebody's property.

Right. No. That's a very interesting point, Desmond, that, yeah, their property actually is more valuable with this designation.

And it's a potentially a general plan amendment as well to to to make that happen. So there's CEQA implications to that.

Commissioner Ross. Thank you.

Just piggybacking off that question, Josh, that general plan designation, is that what part of that is this is it the neighboring parcel the city owns? Is it the single family homes to the south of this parcel? Where did that boundary drop

gets drawn here? Believe it's all of the residential parcels on Comstock. I'd have to see the zone

Our designated multi family high density. Yes. Yeah.

It it also goes across the street to a portion of Riley there at the corner.

Okay. So I had asked, if we split this parcel up, it wouldn't be amenable for high density multi family development. So I'm wondering if the city has allocated Rina numbers to this parcel and if we end up reducing what we if there has to be some changes if we end up splitting this lot.

Splitting the city owned lot?

No. Sorry. This per this one lot here that is zoned high density. Right? Multifamily.

The the the city owned lot is on our arena inventory. The the other lots on, on here, I don't believe, are

Are not? Oh, great.

Yeah. Okay.

Potentially underutilized land for eightfourteen, Just but beyond that,

on that issue, the whole kind of the parcel map and the transfer of one of our a portion of our parcels to them and to the owners and the owners' transfer of a part of their parcel actually ends up resulting in better parcels for both parties. Ours was kind of a triangular shape, which was pretty difficult to develop. This actually makes that property more developable for the city if the city develops it or sells it or leases it at some point in the future for the development of housing on Riley Street.

Thank you. And then, so the EVA Access Road. We've talked about developing the city parcel and access to that parcel being off of this EVA access. And I think there was concern from the community about their potential for the public to drive through that and then on to Comstock to cut through. And is there some ideas that staff have if we do develop this to avoid that potential future issue?

At the time that, you know, that development is proposed, it's certainly something we would take into consideration as as, as as part of our analysis. Yes.

I think I think there's two gates on this EV. Right? There's one on the Comstock side, and there's one on the Riley side, if I read the map correct.

Let's see here. Great.

Yeah. I

see two. I maybe if this one here

It's right above the hash mark, I think. Yeah. Okay.

Yes. So enough room for a turnaround, but Yeah.

Other gate.

Yeah. Great.

Thank you. Yes. Commissioner Hurst.

Hi, Josh. I'm also curious about the EEA. Commissioner Aleni and I visited the Comstock Drive site. And from my recollection, there was a difference in grade between Riley Street and Comstock. So to what extent are there concerns with cutting into the land to develop this EVA? And will that have any negative effects on parking on the street?

Rebecca, any insight on that?

We do have an option to kind of ramp it up a little bit. It would have slopes coming off of the EVA line or the road itself, but it's not an impossible feat. There's enough distance from Comstock to Reilly to meet that grade.

Thank you. And then to the extent that that grade will be additional covered land, perhaps intended or not, I would imagine there would likely be some parking on that EVA at some point. Has that been considered in

Typically for EVAs, we wouldn't have it allow for parking. It's usually red zoned and no parking. And then our municipal code actually delegates the ability of the city manager to designate areas with no parking through red curbs, which we do on EVAs throughout the town. The alleyways in the historic district is an area where we've had to implement those rules and guidelines to allow for solid waste trucks to go through. And we do allow that we go through what I call the three legged stool is your education, your engineering, and your enforcement when we are dealing with parking concerns. But we typically parking is not allowed on UVAs.

Got it. Thank you.

Sure.

I have one more thing. As far as the existing homes on Comstock, is it true that they were built before we had the current parking standards of two on-site parking spaces per residential?

Right.

Okay. So I think that also exacerbates

the

park or the width because existing residents have to if are if they're a two or three car family, they are liable to have cars on the street, right?

Yes. I believe that was discussed in the staff report, but not in the presentation. But, yeah, I think the, having one a one car garage definitely leads to additional street parking. I believe the residents' concerns were more about the street parking closer to Bidwell Street more than, along, the, the deeper parts of of Comstock, but, it certainly, you know, could exacerbate that a bit. And given the the parking requirement now in place, we don't anticipate that the new development will lead to exacerbated on street parking.

Right, right.

If I

could chime in It really quickly on the seems that there's, and rightfully so, that seems like there's a lot of comments and concerns around the parking right at that entry point at East Bidwell Comstock. And so one area I really kind of want to highlight is even on Google Earth, it shows you the image of a trailer parked right in front of the curb return. Would be amazing.

I just really want

to clarify for everybody's education that that's actually illegal to park that way. California Vehicle Code does not allow parking in or at ramps and in crosswalks. It's actually California Vehicle Code Section 2,250. So we'll be doing that education part of that three legged stool here pretty soon with those businesses. And then also, as I mentioned earlier, there is provision in Title X of our municipal code that does allow us to designate areas as no parking whenever we see it becoming a potential safety hazard.

I would qualify this as one. We made the decision as staff when this law came into effect it's fairly new when this law came into effect to not paint the curbs of every curb ramp in town, which you think of like the historic district and areas too where that would be applicable, but rather just address it with enforcement. And so that's something that we can follow-up with our PD and more importantly we're going to do that touch point because these are our residents, these are our people. So we would want to go and have a conversation with them and just say, hey, FYI, please don't park there. You legally can't.

And it does seem like there are a lot of cases where there's a sign that says no parking here to

Warren Yes, ma'am. Or

something like

That's an effective tool that

we That might be the type of thing to do there so people know

about And I'm not opposed to talking to our streets guys and seeing about getting a post up like that. We'll go and talk to the businesses and then we can look at getting that in place.

Okay. Well that's good. Okay. Any other questions for our staff? Commissioner Barcelona.

So I have an R3 question. Can meet the two family criteria by a single family dwelling with an ADU?

ADUs don't count towards the density. Okay.

All right.

Okay. Is everybody done questioning staff? Okay. With that, thank you, Josh. We really put you through it. And thank you, Rebecca. Okay. Now we'll hear from the applicant. Would the applicant please come on up and make your case? Come on up and introduce yourself. Hi. Hi.

I'm Patricia Aghelli. My husband and I bought this property back, I believe it was 2017, and soon after that started thinking about what we would do with it and how and all that, and contacted TSD Engineering. And since then, we've spent a a lot, lot of time, effort, money on arborists and surveyors and city fees and engineers. And, we were assured that this would be all finalized before Steve Cron retired. That didn't happen.

Unfortunately, with the good help of Rebecca Neves and, Josh Kincaid, we've gotten it to this point. We think that the map is gone, so I'll stop referring to the screen. But we think that it will be a great improvement to the neighborhood and to the city and are a little surprised that there's been any pushback from neighbors. But the EVA will make the neighborhood safer, allowing for an emergency vehicle or if a fire truck right now is to pull down the street, I guess they'd have to back out. The concerns about EVA being a pass through really is not a concern because it will be gated off.

As far as the parking goes, I do wanna mention that, when these homes were built, people did have fewer cars. And they are small homes with single garages. But a lot of the neighbors have converted those one car garages to living space with or without permits. And I would say quite a few without permits. And that has resulted in a lot of the parking being moved from the garage and from the driveway out into the street.

So we won't be doing that. Our properties will be of course, the structures would be constructed according to current code with the parking that Josh suggested. So we don't think we're going to be adding to the parking issues at all, even though some of the current residents have added to the parking issues. And as far as the commercial property, that does need to be And we don't think that a commercial business overflowing into the street should create any restriction on residential development. So we think it will be an improvement and will increase property values and look nice.

That's all I really have to say. But if you have questions, shoot.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions of the applicant? Okay. What's your feeling on trees? Mean, if you could, would you save them?

We do would say, right now, since we don't really know exactly I know there's been some talk about if it's going to be two units, four units, or whatever. And we haven't gotten to that point yet because we've just been focused on, let's get this mapped and then go from there. Initially we had thought, well, maybe we'll just do single family. Okay, well that's not an option. So the question about single family with an ADU, we thought about, well, maybe we could make it look like a single family with an in law, like a second unit that would be smaller so it won't look like we're not trying to build a big apartment complex on this little street.

And so we don't really know in the end what we're going to do and how we'll develop it. So we'd like to say, well, let's save the trees for now because why cut them down and then later say, oh, we could have saved that tree. So let's keep the trees for now. And then later, when it comes time to develop and we say, oh, oh, you know, a driveway has to go there, the tree has to go, then we would pay the mitigation fees and there would be some trees planted, whether it's someplace else in the city or there or whatever. And if the trees could be saved, then they would be saved.

We also agree that, you know, a sidewalk to nowhere is kind of goofy. I mean, think the the the thinking on that is that if if we had to put a sidewalk now, then later on, somebody else wants to do something at their property, they would have to put a sidewalk. And then so there would be, like, sidewalk, no sidewalk, sidewalk, no sidewalk. And eventually, fifty years or one hundred years from now, there would

be all

sidewalks. So we are just fine with no sidewalks because it's a savings for us. And also, we think it's a little goofy to have no sidewalks at all. And then suddenly, you've got these new structures with sidewalks or no structures with sidewalks. So we're just fine with saving the trees and not having sidewalks, and then take it as it comes. If the trees have to go later, we'll pay mitigation and plant some trees.

If they don't, we like to keep them. I understand. Okay. Anything else for the applicant? Okay. Thank you very much for coming up.

Sure.

All right. Okay. Now is the time for public comment. So we are going to open public comment. Traditionally, I should have announced this before. Traditionally, have you fill out an orange card back there and hand it in before you speak so that we have record for the public record of the spelling of your name, if you'd be willing to do that. If not, everybody's looking at me like they're like, are you kidding? I don't want to do that. So if you feel like you can't, as long as you pronounce your name adequately and let us know how you're related to the project, we'd appreciate that. So you're welcome to come on up, whoever wants to be your spokesperson or as many as you want.

But please know we have a three minute limit per person. So you're welcome to come take the floor. But yes, if you'd give us your full name for the record.

I can. My name is Jo Kingsley. I live at 815 Comstock Drive. And I'd like to say, we have none of the people on the street that I have spoken to nor us have any problem with the building of the duplexes. We think that's fine. And I agree. I think it will increase the value. Our problem is with the width of our street. And yes, we do have to park on the street. We have a garage.

But even if it hadn't been converted years ago before we bought the house, you can't fit a modern vehicle in it. It was built in 1959. And I know Bob's house was built in 1959 And '40 Bob, wasn't that street originally a driveway to the end of the street where there was a mining company? Company. Natoma From what I've heard about the history of the street, it was a driveway.

And so Comstock Drive came about. So really, that corner is one of the biggest bugaboos. We get honked at and get, gestures to us when we try to turn on to our own street because only one car can go through there. And if there's a car there, they'll have to back up so we can get in or we're going to be hit by traffic. So it's a very dangerous corner.

Our concern then is the width of the street and the amount of traffic. Generally, only one car can go through if there are two cars parked on one on each side of the street. If there's a truck on the street like the garbage truck, everybody stops, pulls off as far as they can so that that truck can do its business. So that's our main concern. No problem with the building. We think that's the way it is. And we need the density and we need, housing for people who can't afford a McMansion. So that's all I have to say.

Thank you, Mrs. Kingsley. Is there anybody else who would like to address the commission on this issue? Okay hearing and seeing none we will close public comment. Commissioners that leads it to our us to deliberate anybody want to kick us off commissioner Hurst.

I think for me I don't see a strong argument for the sidewalks given that it sounds like it wouldn't help with the parking situation. There would be more concern with the tree situation. So I would say I'm just in favor of there being no sidewalks.

Commissioner Laney. I

agree with that. I also would like there to be to your point, seems a little wishy washy. Are we really focused on saving the heritage trees and saying do everything you can to do that I would like to see it be a little stronger in that direction the sidewalk thing I understand the purpose it just seems very awkward to insert that into this neighborhood.

So maybe what we could do is throw out the sidewalk. But I mean, the beauty of it is they haven't figured out their design yet. So design can take into account saving the trees. I think at issue is whether we want to mandate that the trees be saved. But I think I like where you're headed. Commissioner Ross?

I'm just going to clarify. When you say trees, you mean those specific ones that have been The tested in heritage So it's like three, I think.

Well, two heritage trees is what I inherited.

Two heritage trees. Okay.

And for some reason, the other one was fairly nice tree, I guess, or in

good Good shape. Yes. It wasn't large enough. Trunk width wasn't large enough to be considered a heritage tree, the species wasn't either.

But it was rather large.

Call it

out because it's pretty big and it's healthy, right?

Yes. That's when the city arborist looked at the trees in there, those are the three that she identified as. Okay.

Because I mean, also think preserving trees tends to be good for a property value in addition to their zoning and general plan amendment or general plan designation. Commissioner Ross?

I have no problem removing the sidewalk requirement because I've run into that a lot sometimes in communities where it's just a dead end of a public walkway or a bike trail. Then where do you go from here? And this would be it doesn't connect to anything. So I see no reason to have it. I also wanted to just quickly say to staff, please urgently fix the problem at Comstock because I took my daughter down that street to see this during rush hour so I could myself experience the traffic. And I blocked traffic with my Subaru. And someone tried to pull in probably one of these neighbors I'm so sorry, that was me that didn't let you get into your street because there were trucks on both sides. Now, I thought you couldn't park at a stop sign.

You can't. And I actually have an email up I'm already sending to my streets guys.

Okay, great. Because I think that would definitely clear up at least some of that without there needing

to Absolutely. Be Yeah. I think it's just helpful for the businesses to kind of be situationally aware what they're causing too because it's not a flattering look for them either. Right,

okay, thank you.

Yeah, it's a difficult place. Mean I was there today just to remind myself but I used to take my car there to one of the businesses. Sure. Yeah, I was one of the people that had to go down the street to turn around. And it's rough. Yeah, it's really rough. But Okay, anybody else want to weigh in about trees or sidewalks or anything else?

So I already voiced my anti sidewalk position. But I'm a little concerned about mandating the trees right now because we really don't know with a duplex or a quad how you're going to design a driveway for that if we lock them into these trees. I don't see how that's going to make those parcels very

Could make it infeasible in certain circumstances.

I think

we I would suggest we have a little bit more flexibility here and have it dealt with when it comes time to develop those parcels.

So Josh, do you feel that our current language at least emphasizes that the trees should attempt to be protected? I mean, does that cover that? And then when design review comes in I mean, the applicant's hearing this concern. So I mean, when design review comes in, do we have adequate grounds to I mean, to me, I don't know. It just seemed like we so rarely leave something so open ended. That's just the way it feels.

Right. So the way the condition currently reads, it mentions those three trees. It states that if they are retained and protected through construction activity, the sidewalk should not be shall not be required. However, if they are removed or damaged, to the point where the city arborist determines that they would need to be removed, the sidewalk shall be constructed as shown. And the tree mitigation shall be paid, basically.

I think if I Chair Reynolds, I think so our tree preservation ordinance already requires protection of the heritage trees, which isn't all of the trees that were under consideration. But if the commission looks at condition of approval 22, I do think it might be sufficient to cover the issues that are under consideration right now. So at least one option is to potentially delete condition of approval 23 and maintain condition 22. And that could get us potentially, I think, to what's under consideration.

Or, Sari, to add on to that, we may modify or delete 23 and replace it with something stating that no sidewalk shall be included on the tentative parcel map. If that's, if if if we're saying, no to the sidewalk regardless of what happens with the trees, then we could, we could potentially replace condition 23 with that.

Yeah, we've got to deal with the sidewalk issue too. But I'm not sure. Do we want to call out if we do that, what you're recommending, Sari, would we want to call out three trees by number, though, like the way it is in 'twenty three, in 'twenty two? Or do we want a tree permit application?

The normal tree permit application process would require the arborist again at that time determine which trees are healthy and we want to preserve and do all of that. So I think the normal process that's covered by condition 22 and the normal tree preservation ordinance would cover the arborist getting to say, don't get rid of those trees.

If I could call it attention to condition 15 too because we actually cite deferred improvements and we specifically call out including sidewalks too. So we do say prior to recording the parcel map, the owner applicant shall enter into a deferred improvement agreement with the city identifying public improvements to be constructed including sidewalks and undergrounding of dry utilities. The owner applicant shall provide security applicable to the city guaranteeing construction of the improvements. So one thing I want us to kind of capture is we did briefly talk about the undergrounding of dry utilities. We felt that that wasn't necessary.

So we may want to capture that too. And then in this one, we would need to delete the including sidewalk. I mean I would just say perhaps the suggestion would be to revise that condition to say identifying public improvements to be constructed period and eliminating the including sidewalks and undergrounding of dry utilities. Does that sound like a reasonable approach and then we can kind of address condition 23 then to pull out the sidewalk in that route? Question mark?

Yeah, that makes sense to me.

Okay. Makes sense to me too.

I pulled the, tree removal and mitigation plan up again to also note that you'll see four thirty six and four forty, are not shown on here as being removed. It's the city arborist in reviewing these plans had concerns that because of their proximity to the sidewalk that they would necessitate removal, because of that sidewalk. So as shown on this plan here, they're they're not those two are not shown as as being removed on their their plans. It's just based on our analysis, would have had to have been with the sidewalk in place. So food for thought.

Well, it sounds like everybody's feeling like that type of motion. So we're talking about the motion with the amendment to condition 15. So well, let's just put a motion on the table. How about that? And make sure we do it right. Does somebody want to do that for us? And then we can go from there.

All right. Always We're have have fun trying do use that.

There's a couple of conditions that we wanted to make sure before if Yeah. That's fine. So condition 15, strikingly including sidewalks, undergrounding of dry utilities. Correct? Condition 19 striking the mention of sidewalks from from condition 19 and then replacing condition 23 with no sidewalk shall be included on the tentative parcel map Those are kind of everything that we discussed here.

I think we want to remove 23 altogether. There's, like, no point to it without the sidewalks. Right?

Remove and replace. There's currently a sidewalk showing on the tentative parcel map, so we wanted to ensure that. You know, if we're saying the tentative parcel map's approved, we wanted to ensure that that sidewalk is not included as part of the parcel map.

So '23 will become a whole different condition about sidewalks?

A new yeah, a condition that would state no sidewalks shall be included on the tentative parcel map, something to that degree. Excuse me, on the parcel map.

Okay.

I may suggest so on condition 23 perhaps something along the lines of if trees four thirty four, four thirty six, and four forty four is identified in the tree mitigation removal plan and attachment seven are retained and protected throughout construction activity. Would say shall be retained and protected throughout construction activity period and then strike out the proposed sidewalk shown on the project plan should not be required. We're just not going mention I

think we're just going strike all that altogether. And 2023 will just become something along the lines of remove the requirement for a sidewalk from the tentative parcel We just want it gone.

We're not going to call out the trees anymore. Yeah. Okay. Go for it, Commissioner Weiss.

On condition 19, do we want to remove the underground infrastructure requirement also since we don't want them to do that anymore?

Yes. Oh, on '15, not '19.

That's on '19 also. 1519 both have those

things. So

I'll remove it from both.

Well, infrastructure would be sewer.

Sewer? Oh, Okay. So we don't want to give you

that one.

Okay, dry ones.

So we do have existing underground utilities. We're not going to run a sewer service on top, it wouldn't meet standards, if that helps any. But I think the context of that was intended to be for dry utilities.

Yeah.

Okay, so I mean I guess I could leave underground infrastructure because it says just in accordance with what the city of Folsom wants so it doesn't hurt anything to have that one in there.

So you

can just

do it at fifteen. All right. Here we go.

Thank you.

We have to confirm staff's determination that Comstock Drive tentative parcel map project is exempt from CEQA and approve a tentative parcel map for the project PC19-one 122 based on the findings included in the report findings A through N and subject to the attached conditions of approval conditions one through 28 with the following changes in condition 15 removing everything after to be constructed, so removing the section including sidewalks and undergrounding of dry utilities to condition 19 striking the word sidewalks and striking all of the existing condition 23 and replacing it with a condition to remove the requirement for the sidewalk from the tentative parcel map.

Beautifully done. We have a motion on the floor. Is there a second?

I second.

Seconded by Commissioner Ross. Is there any discussion on the motion on the floor? Hearing and seeing none, Stephanie, please call the roll.

Commissioner Barcelona? Aye. Commissioner Hurst? Yes. Commissioner Herrera?

Yes.

Commissioner West? Yes. Commissioner Ross? Yes. Commissioner Laney? Yes. Commissioner Reynolds?

Yes. Okay, that measure passes. That was the way you see things be done on the fly like that, which I think we did fairly well as far as this. I think our city staff has gotten the message loud and clear from the neighbors about what difficulty it is at your intersection there. And then that will be somehow alleviated, I think, very soon. So appreciate you giving us a pressure on that because I think it needed to be done. And congratulations, property owners, to go ahead. We look forward to seeing you. If we need to see you on design, we might not need to, depending on what you decide to do. It would be a staff level. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you

very much.

And we are on to our next item. Yes, it was nice that Thank

you very

much. We have

worked really hard. We really appreciate it.

All right, well, we look forward to what you're going to do. All right, thank you. All right, our next item is wait, that was them. Thank you, guys. That one was pretty tough, and it was well done. Well executed. Where's my agenda? Here it is. Our next item is item number two, SPEC 20 four-seventeen, development and design standards and determination that the project is exempt from CEQA. And up for this, we have Desmond Perrington. And a little birdie told me that today is Desmond's birthday.

So rather than

sing, we're gonna say happy birthday, Desmond. I thought we should

Yes.

We should

spare the public us trying to sing from up here. But, anyway, welcome.

Because it would be recorded. Yeah. Thank you very much. So chair Reynolds, members of the commission, Desmond Perrington, planning manager in the community development department. I'm here tonight to talk to you again about objective design and development or objective, objective, development, and design standards. Tonight, we'll be asking

If I can interrupt you real quick. Josh, I didn't say thank you to you, and thank you. That was a toughie. So I appreciate your hard work on that, okay? And Rebecca, you too. That was making sausage right there, but we did good. All right. Thank you. Go ahead, Desmond.

And just so you know, I have been in contact with code enforcement, and they talked to the auto shop business about the parking because they appeared to be the main violator of that provision. That was, in fact, the owner's truck and trailer there. So they have been talked to. And as you heard, Rebecca, there's going to be additional follow-up on that. So I'm before you tonight to talk again about objective development and design standards.

We had a workshop last time to kind of familiarize yourself with what these are. As you are aware, the state is now requiring objective development standards for all development that's residential and more than two units. There's been a number of laws that require the use of objective design standards. So this will be putting those in place for those areas where we did increase the densities and the height. So the goal of this is to ensure that the more intensive development that occurs in the areas where we established this new general plan overlay that allowed for greater densities, greater heights, higher FARs or floor area ratios, that we would have objective design standards in place to ensure that they developed in a way that was consistent with fulsome and enhance those areas rather than detract from them.

So we are no longer able to use our multifamily design guidelines. We'll be talking about the repeal of those in just a bit. But really, these are to go along with the general plan amendments we did last August. So the general plan has a number of guiding principles that really kind of speak to this issue and really were the reasons behind why we looked at and ultimately adopted this overlay that allowed for mixed use and residential development along the East Midway Corridor around our Iron Point Light Rail Station and then the Glen Or Robert G. Holderness Light Rail Station.

So the idea is, as I mentioned earlier, is to ensure quality site as well as architectural design. These are some of the images from our objective development and design standards, again, bringing the buildings in these areas where we want to encourage pedestrian traffic, bringing them closer to the street, having the parking generally in the sides and in the back, and then having that differentiation in terms of the top, middle, and then base with kind of corner features. So we've done extensive outreach throughout this effort. We began the effort in 2022 with our targeted mixed use and multifamily housing study, where we brought in Opticos Design. They're an architectural firm.

And then they worked with us to show the public how sites along these corridors could develop consistent with our general plan and in a way that enhanced these corridors. So they did several different examples. One at the Park And Ride lot, which the city owns at the Glen Station, another one at the Snowline Thrift Store site. You know, again, these were with the idea that in someday in the future that these could redevelop and they showed how they could, develop in a manner that would really kind of complement the area. We also did an extensive survey, and got about 400 responses, getting feedback from residents and business owners about, you know, what height, what design features, what massing issues that they were interested in or concerned about or felt were appropriate in the various different areas from the Bidwell Corridor to the light rail stations to the town center in the Folsom Plan area.

Then we continued our So once we got that feedback and got the support from the city council, we then, of course, did establish those overlay areas in August 2024 through the general plan and specific plan amendments. And then we got to work with Optikos on preparing a draft of the document, which we released in 2024. And then we reached out to local architects and developers, as well as the general public, to get their input on these in terms of how workable they were. In addition to that, we talked with other jurisdictions that have been using similar objective development and design standards and then got their input on how well that they had been working through the process. What were the aspects they really like?

What were the aspects that were not working and needed refinement? And so we got some really good feedback. And then we worked again to revise the document to make it simpler and more straightforward and easier to use. So we went from about 120 pages down to about, 80 pages. Now, in mind, 80 pages still sounds like a lot.

There's a lot of graphics and a lot of imagery in there. And the whole idea is, while these are objective design standards, we wanted to use the diagrams and the imagery to show to, developers and the property owners and to architects, these are the kinds of things that we're looking at so that they're absolutely clear on what the expectations are from the city. So as a result of that, we released a revised version in July 2025. And then, of course, we had that workshop with you at the last meeting to go over this. These are the areas that I've talked about.

This is from East Midwell where Middle School is right here, all the way down to Highway 50. Then we have the area around the Iron Point Light Rail Station and the area around the Glen Station up in this area here. So the Glen Station's right about there. In addition, we have the Folsom Plan area. It's actually a little bit further to the west there.

It's actually right there. Just for some perspective, this is East Bidwell Street. This is Aldergreek Parkway. This is the new UC Davis Medical Center building that just opened. This is Dignity Health Folsom Center for Health that will be starting construction there soon.

And this is the town center, which will have, as you can see here, a mix of they'll have mixed use as well as higher density residential along with some townhomes and then this Paseo Lake Park. So we felt that these were good areas for these types of standards to apply to ensure that we get quality design in all of those areas. This is just a sampling of the diagrams that are in the document that identify different aspects in terms of the form and the character, and that they identify the different features and aspects here. So there's really kind of there's four key elements to this document. So obviously, there's the introduction, which provides architects and with developers with kind of a cheat sheet of how to go through and what sections would apply to their project.

That we have the actual development standards themselves that relate both to site development and then building development standards. And then we really it really dives into massing and articulation the building form, how it's broken up, how it should be broken up when it's closer to existing residential, this step back so you don't have a massive building abutting a two story home. And then also provisions about, adjacency to open space. And then we have the standards for larger sites. Three acres are larger.

These are envisioned for those sites where there might be a big box retail store that goes under. And then eventually they want to do something different with the site. So this shows them how they can break up that site to make it more, more kind of a human scale. And what I mean by that is not one massive building, but breaking it up into smaller buildings that have maybe the ground floor retail or have active uses, even those that might be live work studios on the Ground Floor. And that the street lengths, it's not one huge street, but you have interior streets, maybe some open space area, elements like that that kind of really create the kind of walkable and livable community that folks that we'd be looking for as those areas redevelop.

Then in addition to that, we've got a few more administrative chapters. One deals with exceptions to standards. When you start dealing with infill sites, that's where it gets tricky because there's often a reason some of these sites haven't developed because they may be littered with easements. There may be topography challenges, things like that. So we've got exceptions to that that provide some allowances when they're dealing with those kinds of things on-site.

Because we've had situations where easements interfere with our ability to bring the building closer to the street. That was one of the issues that we dealt with with the Harrington Grove project, is there were several easements that they had to work around that kind of hampered their ability to bring that kind of cloak closer to the street, if you remember that affordable project that we did. So we've got those kind of exceptions in there. And then, of course, we have the definitions because there's a lot of architectural terms in this document. We want to make sure that those are clearly defined.

And then we have our measurement methods for how those should be used measuring the site and the building elements. So there's as I mentioned last time as part of the workshop, while we are referencing these in the zoning code, and we are going to be updating the design review section of the zoning code to refer to these, we are not pulling these into the zoning code. Because zoning code is part of the municipal code. It takes an ordinance to amend that. We realize that this is gonna be new for developers and for staff and for architects and all of that.

We wanted the ability that if things are not working to be able to make adjustments without having to go through the ordinance process, which is, you know, bringing it to commission, then two hearings with the city council, then thirty days before it can go into effect. We wanted to be able to do this through a resolution. So that's why we refer to them in the zoning code, but the document actually lives outside the zoning code, and it will be adopted through a resolution. However, that being said, as I mentioned, we are going to amend Chapter seventeen oh six, which is our design review section, to create a new subsection talking about the ministerial approval by the community development director for these types of projects. So the feedback that we got from the city council, as we've taken some of these controversial multifamily projects the Vintage Apartments was a classic case up here on Ottoma Street was that they said, under state law, we cannot deny these projects unless there is a significant health and safety finding that we can point to.

And so some of the council members said to us, we don't if we can't actually take any real action on this, then why are you bringing these to us? Because it's you know, the state has changed the rules. And by bringing it to the council, you're giving the community the expectation that the council can actually do something about this, which they can't, unless there is a health and safety issue. So we have taken this and brought these to ministerial so that they're staff level. What that means is there's no appeal.

There's no noticing on it. Staff handles it at the staff level. We will, of course, provide information on the website about the project so that people are aware of what's going on, but it won't go through the hearing process. Again, more and more of the state law changes are making these kinds of things ministerial. So they have to comply with objective design standards, and you've got to approve them ministerially.

So, I mean, we just had a fairly major one that was approved and signed by the governor just a few days ago, which is SB 79, which was a pretty significant change around our light rail stations. We're going to be looking at whether the work that we did last year might qualify as an alternative plan to achieving SB79, which is allowed under the legislation or under the new law. So we're investigating that. We would also be rescinding our multifamily design guidelines. The reason that we're looking to rescind them is because, number one, they're outdated.

Number two, they actually conflict with some of the language in our zoning code. We will hopefully be doing objective design standards for the rest of the city because we acknowledge that this is not the only area where multifamily can occur or residential mixed use can occur. But we wanted to get this in place sooner rather than later because this is the only area in the city where we can have densities above 30 dwelling units per acre, and we can have those taller heights for residential of three, four, and five stories. So that's why we wanted to put those in place now. And then we'll start looking at the historic district and other areas of the city to look at doing something along the same lines.

So it may not be quite as detailed as these, but we do feel, given the way the legislature is going, that it would be prudent to put those in place. So just to kind of walk you through we talked about this last time, but to walk you through tonight, we're seeking your recommendation to the city council. This would be heard on the twenty eighth, with the first reading. Then the second reading and adoption would be on the twelfth. And then we'll have it go into effect.

I mean, it's required to go into effect at least thirty days after the second reading. We're going to have this go into effect on January 1. In the meantime, between the twelfth and the first, we would be doing outreach to architects. We'll be having our own checklist that we would use and would share with the applicants so they can fill out that checklist, so they can see what elements are required. And then we're going to see how well they work and what's the feedback that we've gotten from them and then make adjustments, as needed.

So, tonight, we're asking you to do two things. One is to adopt a resolution, that, indicates that the project is exempt from CEQA, adopting proposed objective design and development standards for these, for these overlay areas that are in the general plan, and then repeal the city, Folsom multifamily design guidelines. And then the second action relates to the actual change to the design review portion of the ordinance, of the zoning code, and that would be the ordinance amending chapter seventeen oh six to reference the new objective development of design standards and establish this ministerial review process. So with that, that concludes my presentation. And I am happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Okay. Thank you, Desmond. Are there questions for Desmond? I think I just had one as a result of your presentation. The resolution that it would take to amend the appendix once adopted, is that a city council resolution?

Yeah, it would be a city council

So if staff sees there's something that's really not workable in the document we recommend approval for, then you guys formulate a resolution. You don't come to us?

No, we actually would because this is under your purview because it's referenced in the zoning code. We would come back to you, identify the issue, ask for a recommendation of support for that resolution, and then bring that to counsel. It's just that's an easier step than going to you

Oh, yeah.

With the counsel twice, waiting thirty days, and then yeah.

Right. Right. Right. So it just streamlines the process.

Yes. Okay.

Okay,

very good. So no other questions for Desmond? I think this is a result of the thoroughness of last time's meeting. So yeah, good job. It's been a long labor of love.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, thank you very much. Okay, is there anybody from the public? We will open public comment now on this item. Is there anybody from the public who wishes to comment on this item? I don't see droves of people coming to the microphone, so I will close public comment and, that leaves it to us commissioners anybody want to kick us off?

Well why don't one of us make make a motion? You wanna bring the motion back up, Desmond? It looks different than the one on our paper, but I'm assuming it's the same.

It should be the same.

Okay. So then I will go ahead and move to recommend that the city council adopt resolution number eleven thousand four and sixty four, a resolution determining that the proposed project is exempt from CEQA, adopting proposed objective development and design standards for certain overlay areas, in repealing the City Of Folsom multifamily design guidelines and number two, adopt ordinance number thirteen fifty seven, an ordinance of the City Of Folsom amending chapter 17.06 design review of the Municipal Code to reference the objective development and design standards and to establish a ministerial review process the recommended approval is subject to the proposed findings a through c I so move is there a second second Seconded by Commissioner Barcelona. Is there any discussion on the motion on the floor? Hearing and seeing none, Stephanie, please call the roll.

Commissioner Barcelona? Aye. Commissioner Hurst?

Yes.

Commissioner Herrera? Yes. Commissioner West? Yes. Commissioner Ross? Yes. Commissioner Lainey? Yes. Commissioner Reynolds?

Yes. Okay. That labor of love resulted in us approving it and handing it to you in a package for your birthday, Desmond. Congratulations. Sorry we had to take you away from your family tonight. All right. Last up is the principal planner's report. Jessica.

Oh, my gosh. Okay. So principal planner report. A couple of you know because of your service on the historic district commission there was an approval or recommendation for approval related to taking minor permit reviews down to a staff level and some other kind of administrative changes to projects in there that's going to the City Council on the twenty eighth. We are also taking a set of minor amendments and cleanups to our community development department user schedule on the twenty eighth and then the odds are also heading over to the City Council on the twenty eighth so we have all sorts of stuff going to the City Council in two weeks.

The next Planning Commission meeting is scheduled for November 19. We have two potential items. One is a consideration of the inclusionary housing ordinance. Yep, getting a nod. And then the other is the Chabad use permit for their facility that they're looking at at Hana Way. Just a request from staff that if you believe you're going to be absent, if you could let Steph know or one of us, that's always helpful to make sure we have a quorum. And then the last month design reviews have gone through a little

bit of an

uptick. We approved at a staff level two custom homes, two residential additions, two residential accessory structures, and one EDU. And that is staff's report. Thanks.

Okay. Thank you very much, Jessica. Commissioners, is there anybody who'd like to bring up anything else under the good of the order? Okay. With seeing none, I am going to adjourn the meeting at 07:55. Thank you, everyone.