Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Good evening. I'd like to welcome everybody to the City of Fontana's Regular Planning Commission meeting. Today's date is 03/17/2026 here at Still Workers Auditorium. I'd like to remind the audience that this is a meeting and this is a business meeting and as such, while the commission welcomes all members of the public to participate in open discussion regarding matters of this session's meeting's agenda, speakers must conduct themselves appropriately so that the commission has the ability to listen and consider all of the information, comments related to the agenda item and to deliberate on on that item and the context that allows the viewpoints to be heard and be respected.

Please remember that that disturbing a public meeting is a criminal offense, and the city of Montana is authorized by law to ensure the orderly conduct of this meeting. Engaging in conduct that is disruptive this that disrupts this meeting or may result in a microphone being muted and the disruption continues, if the disruption continues, then the request to leave the meeting if the disruptive conduct persists after a warning. Disruptive behavior includes verbal and nonverbal outburst and prohibits this meeting from being continuing in an orderly fashion. I would like to call this meeting to order for the Fontana Planning Commission. City clerk, would you please call for attendance?

Sure, chair. Commissioner Sanchez?

Present.

Commissioner Quito?

Present.

Secretary Lozano?

Present.

Vice chair Quintana?

Present. And

chair, I have you here.

I am present. Okay. Can we please stand for the invocation and the pledge of allegiance? The invocation will be given by chaplain Diane Forr, and the pledge will be led by secretary Lozano.

Good evening, everyone. Let's pray. Heavenly father, we come before you today with a gratitude for the opportunity to serve our community. We ask for your guidance and wisdom as we gather to make decisions that affect the lives of the city of Fontana. Grant us clarity of thought and with a spirit of cooperation to resolve the items before us. Give us patience and understanding and I ask for your favor and blessing upon this meeting and all those we serve in Jesus name. Amen.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Now this brings us to our consent calendar. All matters listed under the consent calendar will be enacted by one motion in the form listed below. Consent calendar approval for the minutes of 03/03/2026.

You overlooked public communications, which we we have no request to speak.

Okay. I'm sorry. Sorry. Public communication, and there's no request. Okay.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you, city clerk. Alright. And, now let's go back to the consent calendar. All matters listed under this consent calendar will be enacted by one motion in the form listed below consent calendar approval for the minutes of 03/03/2026. Are there any written communications or requests for the public to speak on the consent calendar?

Only one written communication, but that's for public hearing, item a.

Okay, thank you. Alright, can I have a motion to approve the consent calendar item?

Motion to approve.

Alright, motion made by commissioner Kiedel.

I'll second that motion.

And a second by Commissioner Sanchez. Let's place our votes.

Five in favor, motion passes.

Okay. The next item for this public hearing, item A, I will be opening up a public hearing. PHA master case number MCN18Dash000053, tentative parcel map number 18Dash00005, TMP number 19950, and design review for number 18Dash000010. A request to split one parcel into two and for site and architecture approval for the development of two new industrial commercial center buildings. Building Number 1 will have 41,218 square feet and Building Number 2 will have 30,767 square feet.

And with associated site improvements on a 3.9 acre nine eight acres located North Of Hilton Drive and West Of Hemlock Avenue, APN 1 11 0 Dash151Dash03 pursuant to the category exemption in accordance with the sequel guidelines section one five three three two. City clerk, did we receive any written correspondence on this item? Okay. So her speaker was off, but she said one public comment was distributed to all

Yes. It's been distributed to

each everybody.

Do I have any

the commission. Alright.

So with that being said, everybody has received that? All commissioners? Okay. All right. So now Salvador Quintanilla. Senior planner will provide a staff presentation.

Good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the Planning Commission in Salvador Quintanilla, the project planner for the Hilton Commerce facility. The applicant Karl Van Der Hook Architects is requesting to subdivide one parcel into two parcels. One parcel will be 2.29 acres. Parcel Number two would be 1.69 acres for a total of 3.98 acres.

As well as a design review for the construction of two industrial commerce center buildings. Building Number 1 will be 41,218 square feet. Building Number 2 will be 30,767 square feet with a total of 71,985 square feet on approximately 3.9 acres. Here's the project site area of the facility, which is located North Of Hilton Drive, West Of Hemlock, East Of Redwood Avenue. As you can see, aerial on the aerial photos that the project is surrounded by the industrial development.

You have the targeted distribution center to the North. You have a warehouse to the South. You have another warehouse to the East and you have the Edison development to the West. Here is the project site. As you see, the Building Number 1 is facing Hilton Drive, which is the 41,000 square foot building.

You have Building Number 2 at the rear, and that's the 30,000 square foot building. The trucks will be entering off the Westerly driveway and will circle around the property and exit down to the easterly driveway. Passenger vehicles will use the Easterly driveway to go in and out of the project site. There is parking for the pedestrians along the easterly side, northerly side in between the two buildings. There will be gated at the Building Number 1 as well as Building Number 2 on the West Side and Building Number 2 on the East side.

There will be some trucks for base for each of the buildings on this the property in the property. Here is the elevations for the proposed development. They're doing a modern tone design, which will have different gray tones. They're providing also broken rooflines, pop outs as well as black storefront mullions for that project, which exemplifies the modern style design of the property or the building. Here is a daytime rendering of the project site.

Rendering The to your left is Building Number 1. Building Number 2 is to your right. And like I was mentioning, it's keeping with the modern style design with the various pop outs, the black mullions as the also those well as the glazing. Here is the nighttime rendering. To the left is the Building Number 1, and to the right is Building Number 2.

Staff received a common letter which has been mailed to the planning commission for your consideration. The common letter states that the exemption that was done for this particular project was inadequate. However, does not agree with that determination and staff is okay with the determination that we have made for this particular project for the exemption. Therefore, based on the information contained in the staff report and subject to the attached findings and conditions of approval, staff recommends that the Planning Commission adopt resolution number 20 26, zero zero six, determine that the project is categorically exempt pursuant to section fifteen three three two, class 32 infill development of the CEQA guidelines and section 3.22 of the local 2019 guidelines for implementing CEQA and direct staff to file notice of exemption. Approved tenant partial map 18000005 and approved design review number 18000010.

Staff and the applicant are here for any questions. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much, Salvador. Does the commission have any questions that they would like to ask staff? I do, chair. Commissioner McEatle?

I noticed that in the parcel division that the only access is from Hilton Drive to reach Parcel Number 2 in the rear. Are they planning on recording an easement indefinitely to ensure that if the rear parcel is ever sold that the owner will have access to that?

Correct. In the part of the parcel map, there is a designation that shows that there will be a reciprocal access agreement. As well engineering has a condition that shows there will be a reciprocal access agreement recorded on the project site. So they will have consulates perpetuity that access will be available for from the first parcel to the second parcel.

Perfect. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Hello Mr. Quintinilla. The question I have is to enter and exit of the property, is that all right in, out?

For the trucks, it will be in on the westerly side and out on the easterly side for the trucks. The passenger vehicles, yeah, will be also on the easterly side, will come out on the same driveway just for the passengers. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions? Okay. With that being said, can I please ask the applicant to step up to the podium? And will the applicant state your name and whether you accept the conditions of approval?

Yes. Good evening, Planning Commission. My name is Doug McCann and I'm here as a representative of Hilton Lane LLC, the developer of the project. We have read the conditions of approval and we accept them as written.

Okay. Would you like to tell us anything about your project?

Yeah. Well, first of all, I'd like to introduce a few more people who are here with me. George McCann also with Hilton Lane LLC is present. Additionally, I'd like to introduce our architect Carl Vanderhoek who will be able to provide any additional technical background if needed on the project. Just to kind of reiterate what's already been stated, two industrial warehouse buildings totaling approximately 71,985 square feet along the north side of Hilton Drive between Redwood Avenue and Hemlock Avenue.

Access to and from the street is going to be provided by the two drive aisles along the east and west sides of the property. Some examples of tenants that we might accept based on other properties that we own and manage would be tenants engaged in warehousing and storage of goods without significant truck traffic as well as tenants engaged in light manufacturing activities. So we'd like to thank the Planning Commission for your consideration of this project as well as our lead planner Salvador Quintanilla for his time and effort getting this project to the finish line for entitlements.

All right, thank you very much. Any questions from the commission for the applicant?

Good evening, sir. Mentioned you might have some tentative clients?

We have employed the services of real estate broker, Randy Lockhart, who's actually joining us today from Newmark, and he is actively looking, for tenants. We don't have any tenants at this moment in time, but we are actively looking.

Well, hopefully Randy can help you get a point of sale. Hopefully. Thank you, sir.

Alright. If there are no other questions, city clerk, are there any requests to speak on this item?

There are none, chair.

All right, this public hearing is now closed. Is there any further discussion by the commission or may I have a motion?

I'll make the motion to approve master case MCN 18Dash00053 as well as tenant parcel map number 18Dash0005 and design review number Eighteen-ten.

Second.

All right. So we have a motion by Vice Chair Quintana and a second by Commissioner Quito. Go ahead and place your votes. I need somebody to go ahead and fix your mic for you.

So I'll repeat that was unanimous five in favor and the motion passes.

Okay, thank you. Alright, the next item on the public hearing item b, we'll be open for public hearing. PH B Master Case 20 six-seven and Municipal Code Amendment 20 six-one Fontana Municipal Code Amendment two Chapter 30 to modify multiple sections of the zoning and development code, including modifications to definitions for medical land use in commercial zones and definitions of regulations of business parks screening requirements for loading areas and industrial zones and regulation in the form based code zone, including the definition of frontage coverage, maximum setback standards in the Route 66 gateways, subdistrict glazing requirements for the shopfront frontage type and landscape in the park areas. City clerk, do we receive any written correspondence on this item?

We received no written correspondence for this public hearing, chair.

Thank you. Cecily Sessions Goins, associated planner, will provide a staff presentation.

Thank you. Good evening, commissioners, staff, members of the public. I'm Cecily Sessions Goins. This project is a request for a municipal code amendment, specifically to chapter 30, which is the zoning and development code. I'll get into, some of the details of the requested amendment, in the following slides.

The city of Fontana is the applicant for this project, so it is a city initiated, municipal code amendment. So, just to give you a little bit of information about each of the, areas that we're looking to make amendments to, we're looking to add a definition for both acute care and urgent care, which will tie into the changes that we're proposing for medical, land uses in the commercial zones. So by providing, these two new definitions, we can clearly, distinguish between the two, uses, which will help with, business owners and operators knowing what type of business they run and will also, assist staff in evaluating proposed, land uses. The next thing is the definition of business parks. So we currently have several definitions of different types of business parks in the zoning and development code.

However, several of those do not show up elsewhere in the code. So we look to simplify and kind of clean up those definitions. And then we also wanted to amend the definition of one definition of business park to easily distinguish that use from like a typical warehouse use, which also factors into some changes I'll talk about in just a moment. The next thing is medical uses in the commercial zones. So staff has found that urgent cares are operate in a similar manner to typical medical offices.

However, their hours are expanded. So, we are looking to put to allow that land use while also continuing to disallow acute care uses. And the reason for that is acute care tends to be more intense of a use. So it's more rehabilitation, admittance, that sort of treatment versus like an urgent care where it operates more like a doctor's office. So we are looking to put that in the C1 and C2 zones.

This will not impact those areas that are zone c one and c two that are also in the entertainment center overlay as that has its own standards. And I know that recently came before you or in the last, I don't know, six months or so. So just as a note, it won't impact those areas. They will keep the same intention and the same land uses. Next, we have a few different changes for the form based code that we're proposing.

The first one being the modification to the definition of, frontage coverage, to ensure a more uniform application of that term and that standard, as that standard does apply to several of the sub districts in the form based code. And we also have found that, the typical requirement for frontage coverage which is basically the area in the percentage of the area in between the maximum and minimum setback that has building has a building located in it. It's harder to meet on more narrow lots. So we're looking to exempt lots that are 75 feet or less in width from the minimum frontage coverage requirements that do show up in several of the subdistricts. We're also looking to increase the maximum front setback in the Route 66 Gateway, allowing consistency with existing development in the area.

We are looking to, as you probably saw in the resolution, to only have that apply to parcels that do not front on Foothill Boulevard. So and the reason for that is we do want to along Foothill still have buildings pushed way up close to the street or sidewalk to create more pedestrian activity in the long term. But for those streets that run north and south, such as like Calabash, Banana, Ilex, those types of streets, the existing development does have does not have the development as close to the street. So we're looking to allow buildings to go a little further from the street while still keeping with the intention for the zone in the subdistrict. And then we're looking to have a modification to the glazing requirement for the shop front frontage type, which is one of the allowable frontage types in several of the subdistricts.

The shop front frontage type is exactly probably what it sounds like, where it looks like a shop front. A lot of times for flexibility purposes or safety or just operational purposes, main entrances are located on the back of the building where the parking is behind the building. And in order to keep the glazing as a design element and to kind of give the look of the shop front, we want to allow the use of spandrel glass, which is not see through for the for the front areas of the shop front. So it will still look like a shop front, but the building has a little bit more flexibility in how it's operated. And then the last one for the foreign based code is the addition of the requirement that parking areas for commercial and mixed use developments meet the citywide standards for landscaping.

And the reason for that is, you know, currently for the projects that we have had in the form based code, developers have provided some landscaping, but we wanna have a uniform requirement that we can apply across the board. And as you probably know with large expanses of paving, you end up with a lot of heat. And so having trees and other landscaping will help kind of keep that heat down or at least mitigate for it. So that requirement, it will refer back to the citywide landscaping zones for parking areas. And then last but not least, staff is proposing to exclude business parks from the special use regulations that are applicable to warehousing distribution and logistic land uses in the m one.

Currently, it's all under one umbrella. However, based on the revised definition of business parts and really the way in which the section is written and the standards are written, it really pertains to warehouses which are, you know, more singular single building focus focusing on the movement of goods or storage of goods. Business parks are a little different in that it's usually like a campus like setting with multiple buildings with a range of uses such as service uses, offices, sunlight manufacturing, that sort of thing. So it's a a bigger mix. So we found that the standards that are in the special use regulations do work for warehouses but do not work for business parks.

So we're looking to exclude business parks from that section. And then, as far as warehouses and industrial uses, we're looking to clarify that the screening requirement of loading areas applies only to dock doors and truck courts like for warehouses as opposed to say a service use for like a tire business or something like that where the doors become more of a design feature and it's a little harder to screen those doors completely as you know businesses like that depend on visibility. So we're looking to just add dock doors and truck courts into that to be more specific. With all that said, staff did place a memo on the dais, and we were looking to add, just a little bit of language to section four of the resolution. The gist of the language is stating that if there are any projects that are in process and that have been deemed complete under the standards as they stand today, not the new standards, that they would be able to continue on with processing.

This is language that we've used in previous resolutions, but it was inadvertently left out of this one. So for the final version of this resolution, we'd like to insert that paragraph that's underlined. And outside of that, based on the information the staff report, staff recommends that the planning commission adopt resolution number p c twenty twenty six

Zero zero seven.

And determine that the ordinance, is categorically exempt and approve a resolution recommending that the city council adopt an ordinance for, municipal code amendment number 26 dash zero zero zero one to amend chapter 30 of the municipal code. That does conclude my presentation. And since I'm the applicant and staff, I can answer your questions. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you so much for that. Is there any questions from the commission for staff? Okay. With no questions, this public hearing is now closed. Are there any further discussion by the commission or may I have a motion?

Motion to approve master case number 26Dash0007 and municipal code amendment number 26Dash0001 and Fontana oh, Fontana municipal code. Oh, sorry. Too much. Yeah. Motion to approve.

Legal, do we have to add anything about the memo or is that fine?

No. It's sufficient. I think, the motion incorporates the additional paragraph before you.

Okay, thank you. So we got a motion by Secretary Lozano. Second. And I have a second by Commissioner Kietel. Let's go ahead and place our votes.

Five in favor, the motion passes. And for the record, chair, there were no speakers for this most public hearing.

I'm sorry.

It's okay. I'm here to help.

Okay. Now moving forward to director communications.

Just a happy Saint Patrick's Day, what's left of it for you. Thank you for her being here. We appreciate you. Thanks.

Alright. Thank you very much, Patty. And now moving forward to commissioner comments. Let's go ahead and start with, commissioner Kiedel.

Just like to thank the staff as always. Director Nevins, your your group is amazing. We appreciate all of the planners and and everybody that works hard at the city to make this easy on us. I'd like to wish everybody a happy Saint Patrick's Day as well as a happy Easter as I don't think we meet before as we celebrate the resurrection of our lord and savior Jesus Christ. I hope everybody gets to spend time with their families, and, thank you, have a great night.

Thank you, commissioner Kiedel. Commissioner Sanchez.

I also want to thank staff for making our jobs easier every single time. And I also want to thank City of Fontana for giving me the opportunity to serve in this commission. And good night and god bless.

Alright. Thank you very much Commissioner Sanchez and Secretary Lozano.

Thank you, chair. I just want to say just echo thank you to the planning staff. Thank you for your support and answering the questions that we have. Thank you for the presentations today. And also, wanna say we had a wonderful time at the planner Planning Commissioners Academy this last week. It was very informative. So thank you for that. Happy Easter to all the families, and have a wonderful evening. Thank you.

Okay. And vice chair Quintana had to take an emergency call, so he just wanted to echo his same sentiments to the planning planning department and let them know that he appreciates all the hard work you guys do. And lastly, myself, I just want to again thank Planning Commission the Planning Department for everything you do and and assisting us. Myself, Vice Chair Quintana and Secretary. Zano had the opportunity to go to a commissioner's academy this week.

A lot of great knowledge, lot of information given. Sometimes they say, you like you were soaked in it, but a lot of the information given to us, I think, really helped us to move forward in our growth and in learning what the commission abilities are and how to navigate some of the situations that happen on daily basis as well as give us insight on our roles and what we are supposed to do. So I appreciate the City of Fontana for allowing us to go to that and giving us the opportunity to attend that conference. So with that being said, I wish everybody a happy Easter, happy Saint Patrick's Day. Again, my prayers to everyone who's out there for all people that have mothers, fathers, children, brothers, and sisters that are in harm's way in this military conflict that we have over the pond.

But just if I just send my prayers out to all those families, and I hope that there's, at some point, a resolution so that we can bring all all of our people home. So that being said, thank you very much for your attendance today and God bless everyone and have a great evening. So our next commission will be we'll be doing adjournment for our next Planning Commission meeting on 04/07/2026 at 6PM in the Steelworkers Auditorium here at 8437 Sierra Avenue, Fontana, California. This meeting is adjourned.