Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Alright. Good evening. Welcome to the City Of Fontana's regular planning commission meeting on today, 05/19/2026 here at Stair Workers Auditorium. I would like to remind the audience that this is a meeting of business is a business meeting and as such, while the commission welcomes all members of the public to participate in open discussion regarding matters on this session's meeting agenda, speakers must conduct themselves appropriately so that the commission has the ability to listen and consider all the information and comments related to an agenda item and to also deliberate on that item in the context that for all viewpoints to be heard and respected. Please remember that disturbing a public meeting is a criminal offense.

The city of Fontana is authorized by law to ensure the orderly conduct of this meeting. Engaging in conduct that disrupts this meeting may result in your microphone being muted. And if disruption continues and a request to leave the meeting if the disruption conduct persists after the warning. Disruptive behavior includes verbal and nonverbal outbursts that prohibit this meeting from conducting continuing in an orderly fashion. I would like to call to order this meeting of the Fontana Planning Commission.

Would the city clerk please call for attendance? Thank

you. Okay, chair. I have noted that Commissioner Sanchez and Secretary Lozano are not present. I'm

going to

start with Commissioner Quito. Present. Vice Chair Quintana. Present. And chair, you are here.

Alright. We'll move forward with the invocation and the pledge of allegiance. Invocation can we please stand for the for the invocation and the pledge of allegiance? Invocation will be given by pastor Joe Conway, and the pledge will be led by commissioner Kiedel. Alright. With no pasture, commissioner Nikita, would you like to share the indication?

Bow your heads. Our dear gracious heavenly father, we're so very grateful for this day. We're grateful for the opportunity that we have to meet as a commission and as a city. We ask that your hand may be in our decisions and that the spirit may reside here this day that we may do thy work. We ask that that we'll watch over those who are unhoused or struggling in their lives throughout our city that we may feel inspired on how we can help uplift the city and help them through their struggles. We ask that your spirit may guide all those who are the decision makers and those living within our city and throughout our great state. We're so very grateful for all that thou has given us and for the atonement and thy sacrifice in our lives, and we say these things in name of our savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Alright. Moving on to our public communications. This brings us to public communication. This is the opportunity for members of the public to address the Planning Commission items not on the agenda. City clerk, do we have any public communication request?

None for public communications, chair. I only have you. Okay. Alright. Then, we have one for public communications, the People's Council of Montana.

Okay.

Has my time begun? Thank you. Good afternoon. Good evening. My name is Bobbi Jo Chavarria.

I am with, Grow Fontana and our current project, the People's Council of Fontana. I am, to introduce myself, Fontana High School graduate, longtime Fontana homeowner since 1993. I have two young children who are not schooled here in Fontana for various reasons, but we are raising our family here. I am also the former chair of the San Bernardino Riverside County San Gorgonio chapter of the Sierra Club and previous previous organizer with a clean transportation for all campaign as well as the interim director for Sierra Club California. I have just returned from a sabbatical.

2025 was a sabbatical for me, and now I'm kind of easing myself back into community engagement, hence our People's Council project. Two things. One, last night, one of our people's council members shared a project for which there is a Southern California Air Quality Management District notice application application of notice for a project near Citrus Elementary School for a gasoline station to expand their storage for gasoline next to an elementary school. I we don't see it on the planning information yet, but it this is a project that is obviously here in Fontana right alongside, near, impacting an elementary school. So, we are, activating community members to reach out to public comments for the AQMD so that we express our displeasure and and negative support for this expansion.

Our children are already subjected to incredible amounts of pollution, enabling a for profit business with the gasoline station whose model needs to be limited and actually decreasing, not expanding, we would say no. Secondly, I would like to bring attention to the fact that these this planning commission, your terms have expired, and the city has not fulfilled their obligations under the Act to post for those, vacancies nor has there been a public notice of accepting applications that we can find on the website. And so, a warning to all of the projected prospective project, this is an illegitimate commission as of this point and might be subject to invalidating any votes that they take since their expiration of terms in January. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. This brings us now to our consent calendar. All matters listed under the consent calendar will be enacted by one motion in this form listed below. Are there any written communications or request for a public speaker on the consent calendar items?

There are none, chair.

Okay. Can I have a motion to approve consent calendar? Motion to approve.

Now I'll second that. Alright. Place your votes.

Three in favor, motion passes.

All right. Moving on to our next item. Pub public hearing a. I will open this public hearing for master case number MCN 24Dash0040, tentative track map number 2020, TTM 20,704, variance 20 five-one, design review twenty four-fifteen, a request to establish condominium map for development of a condominium complex and to request to reduce the required landscape setback along Barbie Street from five feet to two feet and a request for the site and architectural

approval for a new multifamily condominium condominium complex development consisting of 265 multifamily units within six buildings for with associated site improvements on 8.1 located on the Northwest Corner of Foothill Boulevard and Maple Avenue, APN 0243 dash 1 42 dash 0 1 through dash zero six pursuant to an initial study mitigate negative declaration and mitigation monitoring and reporting program.

Alexia Barbarina, associate planner, will provide the staff presentation.

Testing. There you go. If you could just give me a few minutes to pull up the presentation.

Alexey, before we start real quick, I I did miss a little something I had to say here real quick. City clerk, did we receive any ring correspondence for this item?

None. None, chair.

Alright.

Good evening, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Alexi and I'll be presenting masterpiece number 24Dash0040. The project before you today a request to establish a condo map, request to reduce the required landscape setback along Barbie from five feet to two feet, and build 265 multifamily units on approximately eight acres on the Northwest corner of Foothill And Maple

we'll

results

results of the multifamily as well. And Here we have the site plan. The project consists of three and four story buildings. The four story buildings will be located in the center of the project site, site, and the three story buildings will face Maple and Foothill. Part of the request includes a landscape variance along Barbie.

Barbie Street requires a 36 foot wide street, and because the North Side of Barbie is already developed, the applicant is providing an extra six feet of right of way to the city so that there is a complete 36 foot wide street and parkway. The variance would reduce the landscape setback from five feet to two feet. The applicant is proposing Spanish architecture. The buildings are made up of a neutral color palette, decorative ironwork, arches, donor veneer, decorative Spanish tile awnings, and s tile roof. Here we have the renderings.

The applicant is required to provide a minimum of five amenities, and they are providing at least 11 amenities throughout the site. To name a few, there will be an indoor gym, indoor yoga area, a club room, pool and spa, cabanas, fire pits, and a tot lot. And, some more amenities as you can see on the screen and then I've highlighted where they are located on the site. Based on the information in the staff report and subject to the attached findings and conditions of approval, staff recommends that the Planning Commission adopt Resolution PC twenty twenty six-twenty '1 adopt the ISM and D mitigation measures and direct staff to file a notice of determination as well as approve tentative map 20 four-three, variance 20 five-one one, and design review 24 dash zero zero one five. This concludes my presentation.

Staff and the applicants and consultants are available if you have any questions. Alright. Thank you very much, Alexia. Does the commission have any questions they would like to ask staff?

Alright. If there are no questions from the commission, is would the applicant please step to the microphone up here and state your name and whether you accept any additions of approval? Yeah. Right up here at this microphone.

Good evening, chair, commissioners. My name is Jake Souder. I'm with Diversified Pacific. We're the applicant for this project. I wanted to start by thanking staff for all their hard work on this project, particularly Alexia.

She's been great to work with on this, so so thank you very much. In regards to the conditions, we review the conditions and accept all of them. And in terms of the project, we're something we're super excited about. I think Alexia did a great job walking through all the different components amenities that the project has to offer. And yeah, so myself and our sequel preparers is here to answer any questions you guys might have.

All right. Do any

of the questions for the applicant from commissioners? Just more of a comment. I reviewed the project. It's a beautiful project. Just want to say thank you for bringing it to the city of Fontana. We always look at these and Spanish style is city. But this is more like a modern Spanish. It's especially with the amenities that you're providing. Just appreciate it bringing it forth. Thank you. You.

I just had one quick question. So are these going to be like some of those are they going to be separately sold units? Or are these like a rental property, like homecoming? Just kind of curious what the

Right. Good question. Right now, they're anticipated to be for rent. We're processing a condo map with it, which basically gives the project the ability down the road to sell them individually, if we process that condo map. But right now, the intention is for them to be for rent.

Okay. And, lastly, beautiful project.

Love when you guys encompass like a whole community there with all the amenities you guys have offered considering you didn't have to offer all that. You have a very beautiful project. And Commissioner Quito also has a comment. Yeah, was just curious if you guys do end up doing the condominium, I assume that there's going be an HOA. How does how is it going to be structured with the EV parking as far as like billing to the tenants or billing to individual owners if you sell some, keep some, how's that going to work?

In terms of how the HOA would work, it would work it'd be a little bit it'd be similar to your two story condos, things like that, where the common area, the exterior of the building, things like that will be maintained by the HOA. And I believe the EV stalls would be there would be some sort of mechanism for the HOA would manage those EV stalls. I'm not sure the specific mechanics to do So, as of the EV stalls right now, they're going to be owned by the property owner, not like a leased EV stalls. We haven't figured that out entirely yet. There's a potential for both.

I I I don't want to say one way or the other what what the project would do, but there's there's a potential for it to be either or. Sure. Okay, great. Well, thank you so much. As my fellow commissioners have stated, think it's a great project. I'm happy to see this design looks amazing. So you guys did a really good job on this and very happy to see this come to Fontana. Thank

you. Alright, with that being all the questions from the commission, city clerk are there any

We we oppose this setback waiver or adjustment, but for a couple of reasons. But what I have also done for the public record, we have just submitted a letter with these comments as well. So for city attorney and city manager to the clerks at email, we ask that the clerks forward it to the appropriate parties. That has not been done previously to for some of our communication. One of the biggest challenges is this it's a beautiful project.

It's a great community that they're commute that they're developing. The setback doesn't seem like a big deal except for it completely creates a new bougie community within a community that already exists. And so the setback basically limits the possibility for shade, possibility it it basically shuts off the folks off Barbie to a wall, essentially, or it may be a pretty wall, but it's gonna be a gated community that is completely shut off. Haven't, this is not the developer's fault. Fontana does not have a progressive policy on development of how to do infill development that actually brings new homes into the existing community for walkability, accessibility.

All the great amenities are not available to the neighbors whose views are now going to be blocked probably by multilevel units, you know, right alongside those homes, a gigantic project taking eight acres away from the community and and basically closing off that residential The variant standard matters. It there is a federal requirement, a recommendation of at least at least five feet. Fontana barely covers that, and now we're asking for even less of variance. And additionally, the one big challenge also is, again, the legitimacy of this planning commission as your terms have expired and the city council and clerk have not posted for the vacancies as required within twenty days, nor have we seen an application process for the planning commissioners as well. So we appreciate your time today, your consideration for this this probably already approved back deal project.

And we do ask that there's confirmation that the letter, communication has been received. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Bobby Joe. Missus Chabria, thank you. Alright. So

Sheriff, I may ask the clerk the following question. Has the city received the correspondence that has been referenced by the speaker?

We would we show no receipt of that correspondence.

Okay. Thank you. With that in mind, I'm afraid it wasn't timely submitted, at least to our knowledge. And therefore, it can't be considered at this point by the Planning Commission. If there is an appeal of any decision by the Planning Commission to the council, it's recommended that the, speaker timely submit whatever comments the speaker might have to the city and the city council well in advance of the council appeal if there is one. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. Moving forward. This public hearing is now closed. Is there any other fur further discussion by the commission or may I have a motion? I'd like

to make motion to approve master case number 24Dash0040. Second.

Alright. We got a motion by Vice Chair Quintana and a second by Commissioner Quito. Let's place our votes.

Three in favor, motion passes.

All right. Well, that's the last of our items for us to be moving forward with, and now we're gonna be moving into our workshop. So next is our workshop on housing legislation and policy. Cecilie Seshingoine's associate planner will provide the planning commission with an overview of recent housing legislation. You should just sit up here where you we can hear you probably. If you're that's fine. Right? Legal? We're fine with having her sit up here? Okay.

Commissioners, and members of the public. I'm Cecily Session Goins, and I'm here to provide just a quick kind of overview, workshop of some of the housing legislation that, staff works with that comes into play with the residential projects, here in our city. So just to give you, an overview of the agenda for the it's okay. For the for the workshop, just so you can kinda see the the large umbrella of things that we'll cover, we'll go through really quickly ADUs and JADUs, urban lot splits and two unit developments, often referred to as SB nine, as well as projects with 10 or fewer units or lots, and residential and mixed use development in commercial zones. We'll touch on, the new CEQA exemptions, that the state has passed, as well as, density bonuses, and then resolution and ordinance vesting and down zoning, also referred to as SB three thirty.

And then we'll round it off with, the objective design standards. So you probably have heard a lot about ADUs, JADUs. You've probably seen a lot just in the real world as well as, sometimes, included in projects here before you. As you probably know, this type of development, residential development is regulated by the state of California. So it does limit a lot of the local control on, what must be allowed or what standards must be, applied to ADUs and JADUs.

We are required to review and permit them by right, which means, unfortunately, you as the planning commission don't have jurisdiction over ADUs and JADUs. Even if you see see them included in projects that come before you, sometimes you'll see it with multifamily or or even single family, you'll see that included. Especially with the multifamily because a lot of times they're incorporated into the buildings, But, unfortunately, you don't get a say on those, but, I'm sure you've seen them. So, some of the examples of limits on local control, that the state has imposed are, certain setbacks, building heights, and then architectural design where we only can, apply objective design standards, and we'll touch on that as you saw, on the summary at the end of the presentation. Just as an overview for what types of ADUs and JADUs must be allowed.

For single family, you kinda can get the whole package. You can get a JADU, which is converted from existing living space in a single family home or an attached garage. JADUs are smaller. They're 500 square feet or less and can, share sanitation facilities with the main house or can have their own. So you can do that as well as a conversion ADU, converting additional living space or a detached or attached accessory structure into an ADU, and then a new construction smaller ADU of 800 square feet or more or or less.

Excuse me. So you can really on a single family property, you can get the full package. You could do a larger ADU and a JADU together as well, up to 1,200 square feet here in our jurisdiction. And then multifamily, that's kind of, was introduced a few years ago and has kinda taken off as far as the numbers you can do. If you can do a 25% of the number of units as conversion of existing non habitable space, you can also do two detached ADUs when constructed with the actual units.

If there's existing units on the site, you can do a maximum of eight, which is pretty intense. As long as those units those ADUs don't outnumber the number of units on the site. And those they have to be detached from the units, but they can be attached to each other. So that just is kinda giving you a picture of, like, the things that we're seeing as staff, that usually are not coming before you. Maybe sometimes you see it, like I said, incorporated with multifamily.

But as staff, we see a lot of ADUs every year. It is constantly increasing as we do our reporting for the state each year. We can see the trends where the number of ADUs being constructed and applied for, are steadily increasing. So to go to s b nine, and then s b four fifty, which then kinda later clarified s b nine, it's a two pronged kind of thing where, you may hear it, referred to as urban lot splits. So that's the small lot subdivisions on single family residential parcels, where the resulting lots need to be close in size, no less than a forty sixty split.

And then the second arm duplexes, as they call it, or we call them two unit developments here in our zoning and development code, where you can end up with two primary dwellings, on the lot. So it's not just the normal primary and the ADUs. You could end up with two primaries, and sometimes that's, you know, people's preference on what they wanna build, as well as any allowable ADUs or JADUs under state law. For those, we also have limited local control. So things like architectural standards that are specific to s p nine, we can't use those anymore.

When when s p nine first became a thing, we had, standards that were specifically for s p nine. And then through s p four fifty, we were told, you you can only use what is applicable to the zone. So that's what we are doing now. There are some setbacks and then minimal minimum allowable, unit size. We have to allow at least 800 square feet for each unit.

So with that, we do see quite a bit of the of those types of subdivisions and then the two unit developments. The subdivisions are processed miniscerially, so we don't have to bring those before public hearing, not even director's hearing. So that is is what we're seeing in for staff, that's coming across our desk as ministerial review and approval. Just to give you an example of one that was done, this is on Laurel Avenue, and it is kind of a flag lot, configuration, if you will. Those previously were not, allowed in the city under our development standards, but we're required to allow them.

One of the things that we do have local control over is the width of street frontage that must be, provided. So as you can see here, they have 30 feet of street frontage for the, Lot Number 2 that's in coral or orange. Our minimum is 22, so that means that they can have a driveway. That's a place for their trash cans to go, on trash day, that sort of thing. So this one, just to give you an example, this one ended up as about a forty five fifty five split, with, Parcel 1 being about just over 14,000 square feet and Parcel 2 just under 20,000.

So that's an example of a lot split that those tend to be picking up as well, and we're so staff is processing those on a kind of daily basis, weekly basis.

Sisley, are are we able do you want us to ask questions, like, after each slide or just write them down and ask you after?

Whatever your preference.

I just had a quick question. So on SB 450 and SB 9, can those units actually be sold off as separate single family homes after? Or is that

I believe that they have to just like with ADUs, we could elect to allow them to be sold separately, but they are just two primaries on the single family lot. Okay.

So to clarify it, it has to go with the parcel. Right? If if we don't allow for the lot split, the whatever's on that parcel sells as a single parcel.

Right. So the and the lot if you do the lot split, basically, you end up with two lots, and you could do the two primaries on each lot. And then if you you could do, like, a JADU and a ADU. So, now if you do a lot split though, there are limits, on how many units you can end up with on each lot. If you you can choose to do both arms of of SB 9, I'm gonna split my lot. I'm gonna build two primary dwellings on each one. You could do either or. You can just I'm gonna split it, and that's what it is. Once you split through S B 9, though, you can't split it again that way. So that's something to keep in mind.

Minimum lot sizes are pretty small. And then but once you split it, you can't split it again. And then there are some bills that will come later in this presentation where there are limits. Like, you can use this bill, but it can't be on a lot that was created through SB nine. So there's all these caveats in there that we're constantly navigating around just to make sure that we fully understand.

But none of these are gonna be anything that comes before us. Right? SB nine or

So far, yeah. Nothing that would it wouldn't be coming before you. But I think, you know, for the purpose of understanding some of the things happening kind of behind the scenes, we thought this would be a good opportunity to just kinda give you this info as an overview. So moving on to SB twelve twenty three and SB six eighty four. So these are for these bills, it allows for 10 lots or fewer to be created miniscerially, or 10 units or fewer to be constructed.

SB twelve twenty three is for single family and has its own set of requirements. Six eighty four is for multifamily. I believe we started with six eighty four, and then the legislature caught up single family to it. So as you can see, there's some maximum sizes of, existing sites. So for single family, it's the five acres, multifamily, acre and a half, whether or not you need a vacant site.

So, for single family where you're gonna use this bill, you have to have a vacant site, and, that means that there can't be anything on the site that, is habitable, no permanent structure. It can't have unless it's something that was abandoned and uninhabitable. And things on the site such as housing subject to recorded covenants, rent control, housing that was occupied by tenants within the past five years is not considered as something that's vacant. So that's something to kind of keep in mind where that we're having to evaluate, kinda like a checklist. Also, the site has to be substantially surrounded by developed parcels, and or urban land uses.

So we have to kind of take a look at what's already out there, how how has it developed in the past. This is one of those where it can't be done on a parcel that was established via S B 9. So you can't take that, you know, little lot split and then, you know, start adding units to it. And they do require, and this is by the bill, a maximum new unit size of 1,750 square feet. I'd like to think that that that limit was put there to hopefully keep units a little bit on the more affordable side, but not really sure of the actual motive there for that.

And we have limited local control in this as well. We only can, apply objective design standards. There's some parking and setback limits, that sort of thing. So these are bills that, are not have not been used so much just yet, but we do have interest and we do have some applications in on those. So, you know, normally, you would see, like, a map for like, if you did a subdivision for six lots, let's say, it would come before you for a track map. Well, that's discretionary action. So now it's coming before us and not in a hearing manner, as a ministerial review. And so it's basically something that cannot be conditioned. So they have to meet all of the requirements. There's not, like, conditions of approval, things to meet later.

It's you either meet it or you don't, which is similar to the s b nine process as well. This is just kind of expanding it. So, you know, we have our checklist that we go down, and if it doesn't meet it, you know, we can't approve it. There's no conditioning it for later. And then s b six and a b twenty eleven have been around for a while.

I don't believe we've had any applications for them. It allows residential and mixed use development commercial and retail zones. So, there are some different requirements for applicable zones and also, the approval process is a little different. Under a b twenty eleven, there's mixed income housing and a 100% affordable housing where you can use it, and you can be approved ministerially. There's no income requirement for s b six, and there is not a ministerial route.

So that just means that that those types of projects could come before you. There are size limits as well as site locations and zones that are individual to the bills. One of requirements is the prevailing wage requirement that's placed on them. And it makes it a little, I think, more challenging as far as meeting that requirement, paying a certain percentage of the workers for construction a prevailing wage, and that was placed on the as a requirement by the legislature. So it's usually gonna be higher density projects, and then it's meant to kind of spark mixed use type of development housing on the more commercial cores and that sort of thing.

And then for CEQA exemptions, a b one thirty and s b one thirty one are, new CEQA exemptions newer CEQA exemptions. You may be familiar with, like, the infill exemption that you you'll see on smaller projects where the site is smaller than five acres, and then there are some other checkpoints that you have to meet. This of expands that to the 20 acre requirement or limit. So for larger projects can be exempt. It does include expedited approval times and review times.

So it's it is expanding that to kind of exempt more things. However, there are some requirements for meeting that exemption, and it some projects will narrowly miss. So SB one thirty one covers the narrowly missed, projects that the ones that fail to qualify for a b one thirty, and it limits the sequel review to environmental effects caused by the disqualifying condition of whatever it it gets disqualified disqualified for under a b one thirty. So those are some opportunities to kind of limit the more extensive studies for those more infill but larger projects. Density Density bonus, you may or may not be, familiar with, but it allows a developer to increase the density above what's the maximum in the code, if they provide, certain numbers of affordable units as a percentage of the total number.

And it includes density bonus law includes a provision that requires local governments to, grant qualifying projects, incentives, concessions, concessions, which ensure help to ensure project financial feasibility. So bring cost down, and then waivers, which are development standards that would maybe physically preclude the development of a project, they can request waivers from certain development standards.

So on the incentives and concessions, is that, I mean, direct funding from the city or as far as, like, is that, like, costs that they incur through the through the process where we have to discount our fees to help them? Is that can you explain that a little bit? So for the incentives and concessions, it's usually gonna be them asking for to to

maybe deviate from maybe some of the requirements that would help bring cost down. For example, a project that I'm processing right now, one of the incentives that they or concessions, excuse me, that they are requesting is instead of doing block walls between all of the backyards, doing vinyl fencing instead because then that will help them bring the cost down since block walls are so much more expensive than vinyl. And so that's one that they're

asking for. So the incentives and concessions aren't basic aren't aren't coming out of the city's pocket. It's it's things that we can do or approve to help them reduce their costs.

Right. That's generally how that how that works. Got it. And then so there's a limit on the number of incentives and concessions that they can provide and it's or that they can request, and that's dependent on the percentage of units, that that are gonna be affordable and at what affordability, level that they're gonna be at. So I just to give an example, I don't wanna make the slides too, you know, complicated, too meaty.

So just as an example, and we have some, like, documents that, like, STAG puts out that are usually really helpful. But if if a project has, like, 5% of the units are held for very low income households, then they can receive one incentive versus if they if a project has 10% of low income, held for low income, then it would be one. So it kind of is on a sliding scale, if you will. The more units they set aside and the lower the income level, the more of the incentives and concessions that they can request.

And how many levels is there now? It's what is it? Low income, very low, substantially? I mean, what are they now?

I think for this purpose, it's just the very low, low, moderate, and then, there's senior housing also qualifies for a certain number as well. So, this is just for the eligibility and amounts of for density bonus. So, just to kinda give you a range and not to get too, you know, overdone with with the the numbers. But for projects that hold between 515% of the units for very low, they can get an increase in density, of 20 to 50%. So that's kind of the range in there.

And then senior housing, don't they don't have to be held, as affordable, but they do have to be deed restricted for seniors, and they can receive a 20% increase in the density. So it's the increase over what would normally normally be allowed in the zone. So, we're seeing more interest in density bonus here recently. I'm not sure which of you was on the commission when the Chase project, Chase And Citrus, near Citrus And Baseline, when that got approved. But that's one of the ones that, they're single family homes that are for rent, and they held some units affordable.

There's a project here in downtown that was approved many years ago, and then there are a few that are in process right now. I have one, and a couple of the other planners have some too. So for while, we weren't seeing them, you know, much at all, and now there seems to be more interest in providing those affordable units, which we need all that we can get. So and then SB three thirty, I think there was some interest here in just kinda understanding SB three thirty a little bit more. It has multiple arms as well, similar to SB nine.

The two big pieces are vesting rights. So with SB three thirty, developers can lock in resolutions and ordinances such as development standards, fees, that sort of thing, as well as policies. It locked them in place to when their preliminary application was deemed complete, which is usually early in the process. An s b three thirty application will come in. We have to take a look at it within thirty days.

If it's deemed complete, then that date that it was submitted locks it in, and any fee increases after that, they are not subject to. I believe well, I know it affects our development impact fees, our application fees, any sort of development standard changes. All of that gets locked in. So there's a coordination internal amongst, like, planning, building, engineering, all of us to kind of make sure that we're charging the correct fees because sometimes it's going back, you know, a year or two years, and making sure that whatever is frozen is what we put into place. And then the other arm is no net loss.

You may see it referred to as that or down zoning restrictions. So it prohibits the down zoning of residential property, like down zoning as far as density or even just going from residential to commercial or industrial or anything like that unless property, elsewhere in the city is concurrently up zoned. So it's if you have something just as an example, you have something that is r one, it's five units to the acre, and there's an acre. So that's five units. You gotta figure out where you're gonna put that capacity by way of up zoning elsewhere in the city.

So, and that's based on what the zoning was in place on 01/01/2018. So, sometimes we have to kinda look through our historic records of, you know, has it changed since then, that sort of thing if someone's asking for a rezone. So that's those are the two arms of SB three thirty that we deal with the most. Last but not least, objective design standards. So, obviously, through a lot of these slides, you've heard me mention objective design standards. What are they? Quantifiable. They're measurable. They're verifiable standards, so there's not, any subjectivity in it. It's more so, numbers like measurements.

It's do you meet it or do you not? It's less about compatibility, being harmonious, being complementary to, things that I could look at and you could look at, and we come up with different answers. That's the subjective design standards. And the state is looking to take the subject subjectivity out of residential development and make it very predictable and objective. So it's applicable these standards types of standards, we have some in our code now.

For example, for ADUs, Us, there's an ADUs of objective design standards. There are plenty of things that are objective in our code, but, coming soon before you and then the city council will be the full set of objective architectural design standards where it's, you know, it's not saying, like, just have a little more movement in the face of the building. It's saying you will set the building back a certain amount of space for every number of feet of linear feet or, you know, the roofline has to be done a certain way that's very prescriptive. So those will be coming before you soon or putting the finishing touches on it, taking out all the subjectivity that we can. And so it's been a lot of us kinda working backwards.

What do we wanna see, in buildings, and how do we write a standard that's gonna get us there? So it's been a long time in the works, but it should be coming before you here shortly in the next couple months. Is that gonna be just for ADUs, or is that for all residentials and everything across the board? It's gonna be for residential across the board. For anything that requires, like, a ministerial review, it's gonna be for those types of projects.

Anything that the state says, we only can use objective standards, that's what we're gonna use. So, like I was saying, we kinda start from the end we started from the end, the finished product, and tried to figure out standards to get us there. We also took into consideration what you as the commission have given us as feedback and really tried to be in touch with what we know you wanna see as quality architecture in the city, quality design, and then wrote rules to get us there. How does how does bonus destiny affect us at that point when we're when they can get concessions and they can ask for because I mean, when we went to our

our conference, it was like they said, like a lot of it, like once once you start getting over 30% of bonus density, it's like you're given the house and the kitchen sink and it's like all setbacks and general plan are out the window. It's like, is that really where it's going come to work? Either way, even if we have an objective plan, are developers gonna be able to come in and say, well, I'm gonna do bonus density and just do what they want?

Well, density bonus applications are not super common. They're more common than they were, you know, in my when I first started here. But I think you do get to a point point with with, density bonus where there's a lot that we're required to at least evaluate if their claims of needing it for financial purposes. We, you know, we have to go through the proper steps for that, but there's a lot that there is relief from just to be able to kind of incentivize that affordable housing. But in most cases, it's not an incentive concession waiver.

You know, that's just really coming down to density bonus. And like I said, it's a small percentage, a very small percentage of what we're seeing so far. The rest of the projects that we're doing with the, you know, residential and commercial and that sort of thing or even, the SB nine, we're not required to make those sorts of sort of allowances. And it's more so just making sure that the developer going into it as they're sitting down to make sure things pencil and that they know, you know, their time is money. They wanna know how long something's gonna take, how many rounds of review.

It's making the product the prod process, excuse me, predictable, and reliable. And that's the bottom that's the bottom line for wanting to do the objective design standards or needing to do them for the state. So the concessionary items, if is the developer required to show how it is going to financially benefit them to give them that concession? Or do we just take their work forward? Like how does if they say, Okay, we want a three foot setback instead of a five foot setback, and that's one of the concessions, are they then required to show, Okay, we're giving you this this concession, but how is it gonna financially benefit you, or they just get to pick whatever they want?

There are times when we can ask for documentation of certain things, and then sometimes it's more so, you know, you're asking for this as a waiver, which waivers don't have a financial component to it. It's just more so saying, will the will the project be physically able to be built? You know, is is there something holding us back from physically being able to hit this density? So that's less financial and more so just saying, does it can it be done exactly?

I do have one more question because with this coming up and and we were talking about density bonus. So how are how does it work with, say, like this project that we just had before us today where it may be condos, but it may be rented. So if for some reason somebody came in with that specific kind of project, right, and they said, we wanna use bonus density and they get all the waivers and concessions for that project based on the amount of entity. And then after they say they wanna sell the units, do they have to sell the units at at discount as well if whether they're renting them or selling them, they have to either rent them at discount or sell them at discount. Correct?

Yes. Okay.

So it would still lock it in for households of a certain income level, and those income levels are established, I believe, by the state or by the feds. I'm not, completely certain, but, they would still need to rent or sell to the right income level. There are, affordable housing agreements that they that have to be signed and, I believe, recorded and that sort of thing. So that goes through its own process. Our housing department works directly us on that as well.

So, there are, like, sub agreements in there, I think, for the purchase agreement and that sort of thing to make sure that these stay, locked down, you know, for the the term that's required. And so there is is a term on that. So if they say it's ten years, then they have to remain affordable for that ten years. Then after that, they're free to do what they want. Right. And I believe it's fifty five years. Oh. If I'm not mistaken.

So much for my ten year example,

but plus or minus. Yeah. For at least fifty five years. By a recorded document. So, yeah, it's it's locked down for for our lifetime, I guess.

Forty five years for owner occupied and fifty five rental. Yeah. Some of

us will still be alive in fifty five years, I hope.

Hey, I'm only 20. Okay. Okay. That's okay. I'm in my forties, so that's a different story.

Did anyone any other questions or anything from the commission? No? You're good. Well, thank you for allowing me to come before you and provide you with this information, and it was my my pleasure to to be here this evening. Well, we appreciate appreciate you coming out and giving us a little bit of knowledge and and, appreciate your expertise and being able to, answer the questions that we had. So thank look forward to

more of these workshops. Absolutely. Thank you, guys. Thanks. So I just have one request. On this presentation

that you shared, will you be able to email us those slides? Yes. We should be able to send that out to you guys. Perfect. Thank you.

Alright.

Moving forward. Thank you so much, Cecilia. We are moving to our amazing next fill in director for the day to hear his amazing comments. So do we have any director communications? Do we have any planning planning manager?

Detain Detain Planning Commission. Other than that, I have no further comments. Alright. Well, thank

you very much. Moving next on to our commissioner comments. Can I get, commissioner Keto to go ahead and start off? I just wanna thank the city staff. You guys do a really amazing job of of making our life easy up here. Cecilie, thank you for your presentation, and putting up with us and all of our questions and educating us. I think it's great education for us and, we definitely appreciate it. So you guys just do such a great job. We're so thankful for you guys. I'm thankful to the city council for trusting us with with the city and and helping to move Fontana forward. Super excited to see what the next five, ten, fifteen, twenty years brings here in Fontana. So thank you and everybody have a blessed night.

Vice Chair Quintana. Yeah, I

just want to thank staff also for the presentations and the workshop. Thank you so much. It's a lot of value in in that information. Also wanted to say, you know, we had one project come to us today. It's a beautiful project. It's really going to revitalize that that lot and you know, just bring more housing opportunities to the city and so thank you staff for working on that beautiful project with the developer. Excited to see that thing get started and as always, it's a it's an honor to serve on this commission and I appreciate doing so. So, thank you.

Alright. I just want to again echo the comments of my counterparts and just say staff, like always, you guys do an amazing job. You guys continue to keep us informed, give us information that's required so that we can make informative decisions. I wanna tilt my hat to our IT department today because I know we had lot of challenges, but you guys were able to work through it. So appreciate all your guys' hard work.

And, you know, moving forward, I I just I'm excited to see the direction Fontana is going, and I look forward to being able to be part of this commission as long as I'm able to because it just the opportunity to be able to know that I'm part of what is improving this city is is not only a blessing to me, but it's it gives me great pride to see what I can do to be effective in this community. So thank you all very much. I hope everybody has a blessed week and. With that being said, we'll move forward to our adjournment. Our adjournment to the next regular Planning Commission meeting on 06/02/2026 at 6PM in the Stillworker Auditorium at eight four three seven Sierra Avenue, Fontana, California.

This meeting is adjourned.