Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call the planning commission meeting of 06/25/2025 to order. Please join me in

this lead to the flag.

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.

Roll call please.

Yes sir. Commissioner Huber. Here. Commissioner Brothers. Here. Commissioner Vu. Commissioner Ascona. Vice chair Lopez. Here. Chair Langer. Here. We have a quorum, sir.

Thank you. Are there any supplemental communications today?

Yes, sir. We have some, communication from the public, that's available to you as well as the public and there was a minor change to the recommended a resolution of approval.

Thank you. Zoom participants wishing to address the planning commission can indicate through the chat feature which item you would like to speak on and click on the raise hand icon to let the administrator know you wish to speak. Anyone in the audience wishing to speak must fill out and submit a blue speaker card. I believe those are in the back when you walk in. The planning commission can take no action on this date unless the item is agendized.

Anyone wishing to speak on items not on tonight's agenda may do so during public comments. Speakers on items scheduled for public hearing or nonpublic hearing items will be invited to speak when those items are heard. All public comments are allowed up to three minutes to speak. So we'll move to our consent calendar. First, we have the meeting minutes from our 06/11/2025 meeting. Do I have a motion?

A motion to approve.

I'll second.

Great. I have a have a motion from vice chair Lopez and a second from commissioner Huber. Please vote.

Motion passes four zero.

Alright. Now on to our public hearing. Before we start, I must note that it is customary for commissioners to visit applicant sites. Unless any commissioner has further disclosure statements at this time, it may be stated that no contact was made during the visit with the applicant, his or her agent, or neighbors of the proposed project. Mister

chairman, I did attend one of the early neighborhood meetings.

Any others?

Yeah. I also attended the open house and two presentations, one that was made to the Fountain Valley Community Foundation Volunteer group, and one that was made to the Fountain Valley Rotary. Thank you.

Okay. So on to our public hearing, Euclid And Hile residential project, 16300 Euclid Street, precise plan five seventy nine, conditional use permit 1930, tentative parcel map 2024 Dash 143 and addendum to the certified Fountain Valley general plan final program Petition submitted by EPD solutions on behalf of Euclid and Heil FV owner LLC to construct a residential community to consist of three zero four four rent market apartments, eighty three four rent affordable apartments, 82 of those affordable in one manager unit, a 183 for sale townhomes, and 36 for sale triplexes totaling 606 units on the 18 o nine acre lot located at 16300 Euclid Street at the Northeast Corner of Euclid Street and Heil Avenue. I will now open the public hearing and invite staff to speak. Thank you.

Thank you, mister chair. Planning Commission tonight for your consideration is a proposal for a residential community located at 16300 Euclid Street. The entitlements being processed for this project are precise plan five seventy nine, which is a site plan review of the project. This approves the layout of the buildings, landscaping, parking, etcetera. A conditional use permit for the allowance of a multifamily dwellings in the r four zone and a tender parcel map for the subdivision of the property into three lots.

Before I get into the project, here's a little history on how we got here. The Fountain Valley housing element was approved in October 2022. Within the housing element, there were nine opportunity sites identified to help reach the regional housing needs allocation assessment allocation of 4,839 units for the city of Fountain Valley. The state HCD or housing community development department creates regional housing targets that must be met to guarantee housing availability. These housing targets are known as the regional housing needs assessment or RENA.

SCAG assigns each city a fair share of housing housing units, ensuring enough homes are available for people of low income, very low very low, low, moderate, and above moderate income. And like I said, the City Of Front Valley was allocated 4,839 units for the planning period 2021 through 2029. The general plan land use designation for the property was established when the general plan update was approved in November 2023 to high density residential, and then the site was rezoned to r four high density multiple dwelling the next next month of December 2023. The R 4 zone allows up to 30 dwelling units per acre. The site was a former strawberry field.

Operations ended in 2021. The applicant submitted the project to the city in January 2024, and the planning commission held a study session last month in May 2025. This is an aerial photo of the entire city showing the location of the project. Here's a closer aerial vicinity map of the project showing Mile Square Park to the West. To the North is Monroe Elementary School.

To the South, Northcutt Elementary School. To the East, Los Amigos High School. And to the North, not shown on this on this slide, but to the North and actually in the city of Santa Ana, on New Hope and McFadden is, fits at intermediate junior high, which is the school that children in this project we go to. So the project information. Project includes 606 units made up of 304 market rate apartments on your screen circled or highlighted in purple.

83 senior affordable apartments, 183 townhomes located kind of in the middle of the project, and then 36 triplex units on the north and east border of the project. The whole project site is 18.09 acres in size, 3.38 3.31 acres dedicated to the market rate apartments, point seven eight acres for the senior affordable apartments, and 14 acres for the townhomes and triplexes. So the market rate apartments, like I said, there's 304 units broken down to 98 junior one bedroom units, hundred twenty four one bedroom units, and eighty two two bedroom units. The building is a five story wrap apartment building located at the southwest corner of the property. There's a five and a half level parking structure located in the middle of the of the building with 456 parking spaces.

The height of the building, five 56 feet 10 inches. The building incorporates a contemporary architectural design. And there'll be three individually programmed courtyards for the Marquerade apartments, a pool oasis courtyard, a game courtyard, and an entertainment courtyard, each with their own aspects within within that area. And then there will be a co coworking space and fitness room dedicated for this project. Again, this is the location of the Market Rate Apartments.

Entrance two entrances were provided to Market Rate Apartments off of Heil through the southern portion into the parking structure here as well as the northern portion through the senior apartments and into the parking structure for the market rate apartments here. Here's some proposed floor plans for the market rate apartments. One bedroom units are on the top part of the page. Two bedroom units on the bottom part of the page. These are the elevations of the market rate and senior apartments.

Highlighted in red is what you would see for the market rate apartments. So on the park side, looking at the building, which is at the top of your screen, you would see all you would see are the market rate apartments, the east elevation. So looking at it from the other side of the building, market rate apartments are in red. The senior apartments are over here on the side. The south elevation facing Hyll Avenue, you would only see the market rate apartments.

And then the north elevation, the mark market rate apartments would be on the right side. Here's some perspective views of the market rate apartments. The top two taken from the corner of Euclid And Heil. Bottom left taken from Miles Per Hour Park. And the bottom right taken from Heil Avenue looking Northwest at the project.

The senior affordable apartments, there'll be 83 units and 82 there'll be 82 affordable units and one manager unit. 71 units will be one bedroom units and 12 there'll be twelve two bedroom units. The building will be four residential stories on top of a ground level podium parking structure. The north northeast corner of the market rate apartments. The project will be located on the Northeast corner of the market rate apartments on its own property.

There'll be 63 spaces with reciprocal access to the market rate apartments parking structure and to the townhome triplex property. The height of the building will 58 feet 10 inches. It will also incorporate a contemporary architectural design matching the market rate apartments. There'll be a courtyard community space for the senior apartments, then ancillary ancillary areas and additional residential services provided for the for the seniors. Again, this is the location of the senior project.

The top two floor plans on the screen are the one bedroom units for the senior project, and then the one on the bottom is a two bedroom unit for the senior project. For the senior project, it will only be visible from the east elevation and north elevation as shown on your screen here circled in red. But as you can see, it architecturally just matches the rest of the building from the outside. You can't really see a difference. The project will have a 183 townhome units broken down into a hundred and sixty four three bedroom units and nineteen four bedroom units.

Each of the buildings will be three stories tall. There'll be a seven plex version of the townhomes, a five plex version building of the townhomes, a three plex. It'll be located in the central portion of the project. Each unit will have a two car garage, and there'll be three sixty six garage spaces and a 126 surface parking spaces allocated for this part of the project. The height of each building will be 32 feet with a four foot parapet.

It also will incorporate a contemporary architectural design with stucco horizontal siding, metal awnings, balcony railings, bronze colored vinyl windows. And the project will include a community pool and pocket park. So this is the location of the townhomes on the project. Main entrance off of Heil right here. Going straight back, there'll be a community pool right in the middle, and then a pocket park over here on the west side of the project.

There'll also be another entrance off of Heil, the Southeast corner of the project. This will be plan one for the townhome projects or yeah. For the townhome project. Each of these plans have a two car garage on the Bottom Floor, kitchen, dining room, the living room area on the 2nd Floor, and the bedrooms on the Top Floor. So on plan one, that's the case with an office on the 1st Floor.

Plan two, the same thing with an office on the 1st Floor. Plan three incorporates a bedroom on that 1st Floor as well. So that that unit will actually have four bedrooms. This is the proposed elevations for the townhome portion of the project, again, incorporating a contemporary design. There'll be horizontal siding incorporated in the project, stucco exteriors, painted metal awnings.

Here's some perspective views of the townhomes, the top one being the main entrance off of Heil looking into the project. This is a interior street of the project and then the community pool area on the bottom right. The triplex portion of the project incorporates 36 units. There'll be twelve four bedroom units and twenty four five bedroom units incorporated in the project. Each of these residences will be two stories.

They'll be located along the north and east border east border of the project site. Each unit will have a two car garage. So there'll be 72 garage spaces and then a 120 126 surface parking spaces that'll be shared with the triplexes and the townhomes. The height height of each unit will be 27 feet two inches. They will all incorporate a 25 foot rear rear yard, same as the r one zone to the north and east as well as the south of the project site.

There'll be a transitional modern and coastal modern architectural style with black vinyl windows. And as I stated before, there'll be community pool and pocket park for this project that is shared with the townhomes. This is the location of the townhome I'm sorry, the triplex portion of the project along the north and east sides of the entire project area. This is the 1st Floor floor plan for each building. So each building has three units connected to each other, and that's evident on the 1st Floor where the entry and the workspace of of these units are connected, along each along each unit.

However, on the 2nd Floor, there's a break, between each unit, so it gives the effect of a single family home even though it's connected on the 1st Floor. Here's some elevations. One of the elevations, an example of, one of the elevations for this part of the project. Like I said before, there's a there's a transitional modern elevation or version of the project as well as a coastal modern. This happens to be the coastal modern version of the project.

Side and rear elevations as well. Each unit will have tile roofs, stucco exterior. Some of them will have horizontal cement siding as well as stucco exteriors. And here's a perspective view of one of the streets. The project will incorporate there's a minimum requirement of 15% landscaping in the municipal code.

The market rate apartments will provide 24.6 landscaping on their portion of the project. The senior apartments will incorporate 15.3% and the townhomes and triplex portion of the project will provide 15.8% of of their lot in landscaping. The triplex units along the north and east side will also provide a privacy screening to help promote privacy between the project and the residential units to the north and east. Like I said before, each triplex unit will have a 25 foot rear yard. But within that 25 foot area, they'll have a 15 foot rear yard area and then a fence and then a 10 foot separation between them and the single family homes to the north and east.

And that 10 foot separation will be HOA maintained with landscaping and ficus trees. They'll be planted. When they're planted, they'll be seven to eight feet tall, and then at full material maturity, they'll be 20 feet tall. And then the townhome units, all the other units that are three stories tall or taller will comply with the code requirement of a 100 foot setback to r one single family homes to the Northeast as well as to the South. The project will provide 1,083 parking stalls throughout the entire project.

The market rate apartments will provide 456 parking stalls, the senior apartment 63, and the townhomes and triplex units 564 stalls with two car garages and a 126 service parking spaces. The state density bonus law requires a minimum of eight seventeen or eight eighteen parking stalls, and they're exceeding those parking requirements by two sixty five parking spaces. The project is proposed to be built with 82 deed restricted low income units, which is 15% of the base density. The applicant is therefore permitted to request a density bonus pursuant to state density bonus law. They're allowed to request one concession and unlimited waivers.

So they have requested one concession to the private open space requirement for the market rate in senior apartments. And then waivers and reductions to our code, including height the height of the market rate in senior apartments, site coverage for the market rate in senior apartments, the maximum number of units per 1,435 square feet, That affordable units to be are to be built on a stand alone building, setbacks for the market rate in senior apartments, reduction of the minimum bedroom size, a reduction requiring the affordable units be at least 85% of the market rate unit square footage, and a reduction to the bedroom count ratio for senior apartments. Per state density bonus law, the city must grant a waiver reduction of development standards that preclude the construction of the project entitled to the benefits under state density bonus law unless the city finds what the waivers could have a specific adverse effect upon health, safety, or the physical environment, which cannot be mitigated, that they would have a adverse impact on any property listed in California Register of Historical Resources or that the waiver would be contrary to state or federal law. The proposed waivers for this project would not result in a direct physical impact on the environment due to a conflict with the regulation adopted for the purpose of avoiding or mitigating an environmental effect.

It would not have an adverse impact on the property listed in the California Register of Historical Resources, and they would not be contrary to state or federal law. The environmental review for this project was processed through an addendum to the general plan EIR. An addendum to a certified EIR is appropriate where some changes are necessary to the previously certified EIR, but none of the conditions described in CEQA section one five one six two, such as substantial changes or or new information, call for the preparation of a subsequent EIR have occurred. The addendum shows that the project would have a less than significant impact. No changes or new information requiring the preparation of an EIR or an M and D with the application of the mitigation from the general plan update EIR.

The project would be required to meet certain mitigation measures from the general plan EIR, including mitigation to air quality, cultural resources, geology and soils, noise, and tribal cultural resources. At this time, I'd like to invite our public works staff to come up and talk about traffic impacts for the project.

Good evening, mister chair and commissioners. My name is Kyle Kanoki. I'm a senior engineer in public works. Before I get into the actual traffic impact analysis, I wanna talk a little bit about the process. Before this project was even submitted, the the city knew this was coming and had unofficial conversations with the developer to identify what exactly our concerns were and what would be required for submittals, including water capacity studies, sewer capacity study, and traffic study to name a few.

Once the project was submitted regarding traffic, we did a scoping agreement, which we wherein we worked with the developer and identified exactly what components were gonna be necessary in the traffic assessment. Through that, once the scoping agreement is completed and is satisfies the city, we have the developer applicant submit the actual traffic study, and that goes through multiple reviews by city staff, and we actually had a third party on call consultant, traffic consultant review as well. So all that to say, this is not a a very light process. It's, in fact, a very detailed and review heavy process. With that, I'll get into the findings of the study.

So for the traffic impact analysis, this project was screened from the VMT analysis. What that means is the city has a traffic

Give me one second. You have a question from

I'm sorry. Before you start getting into what these numbers mean, can you define the difference between the VMT, the vehicle miles traveled metric, and the LOS or the level of service metric just so that everyone in the room has an understanding of what those are and how they're distinguished from one another. Because then when we look at you know, what a low VMT is, we can kind of understand this is how this measurement is being taken. So could you perhaps just define what those two metrics are and what they are measuring.

Yeah. I'd like to invite our city engineer up too.

Can you ask him to speak up, please?

Turn the mic up. Yeah.

Thank you, commissioner Hubernur. And good question, and I think this would be more appropriate for the traffic engineer from the developer to walk through.

Good evening, commission. Alex So with Urban Crossroads. I performed a VMT screening analysis for this project. So to answer your question, in 2020, the state changed their traffic impact for CEQUA, changing it from level of service, which measures delay of travel to vehicles miles traveled, which is actual on road miles for for projects. The VMT measures it's a function of project trips versus trip length multiplied together to generate the VMT.

Whereas LOS and Charlene here can from our firm can explain what the level of service delay is and how it differs.

So level of service as Alex indicated, Charlene sell by the way with Urban Crossroads. Level of service isn't part of CEQUA anymore, but a lot of agencies like the city of Fountain Valley requires level of service to still be addressed in order to demonstrate compliance with city policies that are outlined in the general plan. So things like maintaining a certain acceptable level of service or operation delays at city intersections, that is what the level of service looks at. And that's traditionally what everyone thinks of when they think of traffic and and projects and trips and all that. So it it is very different from vehicle miles traveled.

Thank you.

Planning members of the Planning Commission. So hopefully that provided some clarity on the details. One thing to note as well is a few years ago, the city adopted a a formal traffic study policy and guideline that allows certain criteria to either move forward and require a a VMT assessment as well as screening out. But whether there's a VMT required as part of the environmental process or not, the city will reserve the right to require a for lack of a better term, a traditional traffic study where level of service is assessed based on intersections that are believed to be potentially impacted by the project, and that's what we did. I hope that clarifies.

Yes. Thank you.

And just to add on to the VMT for for a project to be screened out of VMT, the city has identified zones within the city based on the county's forecasting VMT model that are either below average or above average VMT. This prod for a project to be screened out, it has to be both below the average VMT and also be consistent with the land use that's identified in the general plan. This project met both those conditions, and so that's why it was screened out. To continue on, 10 intersections were analyzed for level of service. All of the intersections performed above the minimum level of service d except for New Hope and Warner New Hope Street and Warner Avenue, which operates at a level of service e, but both in the existing scenario, so right now, and in the future.

Through the study, it was found that the project would only add less than 1% delay to the intersection. So it was it was not it did not trigger a intersection improvement. Moving on, they the applicant completed traffic signal warrants at both of the enter both of the entrances to the for sale portion off Hile. Neither of those entrances warranted a signal. For trip generation, there were 3,228 daily trips.

In the AM peak hour, 236 trips, 65 inbound, a 171 outbound. And in the PM peak hour, 264 trips, a 155 inbound, and a 109 outbound. This is this shows the entrances to the project site. So you have Driveway 2 up in the Northwest Corner. You have Driveway 1 along Kyle to the, multifamily parking garage.

The entrance Street A and Street B, Driveway 1 into the multifamily parking garage will be will operate as a ride in, left in, and a ride out only. Driveway 2 off of Euclid Street would be a ride in and ride out only. Hile Avenue at Street A would be a ride in, left in, right out, left out. And Hial Avenue at Street B would be a right in, left in, and a right out only. And then there are gates on the parking garage, both on the north and the south side.

Those those gates will be remain open from 6AM to 10PM and would be down the operational for the residents, between the hours of 10PM to 6AM. And there is an internal gate off of, the Hile entrance, but it is a 142 feet away from the, actual entrance on Heil. So that that concludes the the findings of the study.

So just wanna summarize everything for you before before I close out. The environmental review for the project was processed through an addendum to the general plan EIR. The project complies with the general plan land use land use designation and zoning with the concessions and waivers that they've applied for. The entitlements that the applicant has applied for are a precise plan, a conditional use permit and tentative parcel map. There'll be 82 deed restricted low income senior units included in the project.

The applicant has applied for one concession for waivers and for waiver reductions to our codes. There'll be 1,083 parking stalls provided. Again, this is two sixty five parking stalls more than the minimum requirements for the state density bonus law. And as Kyle and Temo were just saying, there are 10 in nearby intersection intersections analyzed with no intersection improvements necessary with this project. So with that, Steph's recommendation for this project is to adopt resolution twenty five ten, approving an addendum to the certified Fountain Valley General Plan final EIR and adopt Resolution No.

20 five-eleven, approving precise plan five seventy nine conditional use permit nineteen thirty and tender parcel map 2024Dash143. That concludes my report. The applicant is here tonight and has a presentation for you as well. Should we do that now? Or

Let's take questions from staff before we have the applicant come up. I'm sorry questions from the commissioners. Do we have questions from the commissioners? Yes.

So I have big ask. Can you go back to your history slide?

Might take a while,

sorry. Yes,

you should have put it at the end.

Planners love presentations.

There you go. So is it possible to speak a little bit more in-depth on the history of this? Because I think that the residents need to know how we got to this point. Because a lot of it seems like a lot of people think that we've been making hasty decisions and and just building, but this is a process that started back in 2018 and it has been open. We have been transparent, but apparently no one seems to remember that.

And I know that we did have the GPAC that we created to create these nine opportunity sites. And I think that's important that people need to know that these sites were picked specifically for certain structures, whether it's single family homes, a six story building, five story building. We're on the hook for what, 4,800 units? Yes, sir. So I think if we can go just a little more in-depth in it so they understand how we got to this to this point, if that's possible.

Yeah. And I I apologize. I started the history portion of this at at the housing element adoption and general plan, but you're right. There's quite a bit more that happened before that. In 2018, the general plan advisory committee was formulated, which includes members of the planning commission, city council, members of the public to to help us shape the general plan that finally got adopted in 2022.

But I was just looking this up that in the year 2018 and 2019, we had three community meetings. In 2021, we had one, two, three, four, seven, it looks like, community meetings. In 2022, we had a joint meeting with the city council and the planning commission. There was another meeting in 2023 for the adoption of the EIR. So it's over the course of several years, we've looked at the adoption of this general plan, which this project complies with and and trying to figure out sites to locate these these units that we have to plan for in our city.

Yep. Thank you. Just to add a little bit more flavor and like to welcome the public here, and my apologies again for that entertaining. Beginning to the meeting, I think we hopefully have it under control now. So, yeah, this has been going on since, 2018. We had a old general plan. We wanted to set a vision for the city's future up to 2045. That general plan does take a long time, and the housing element, the former housing element ended in 2021. The new one started. And so the city decided to roll everything up into one giant general plan update including the housing element.

So once we finally got the reallocation which came late this cycle, we began planning for the future housing of the city. And just to give everybody a flavor, so I had looked back early on in the process. I wasn't here for the beginning of that arena process with the city. Was working for another city at the time. But the early presentation from our consultant that has done our previous housing elements as well anticipated that we would get about 400 units for our arena cycle, meaning that we would have to plan for that eight year period about 400 units.

Well, because of political decisions and whatnot, the SCAG, the Southern California Association of Governments, gave us 4,839 units. Orange County was was a big loser in this arena cycle. We did sue. We lost that lawsuit. We didn't think it was fair.

We didn't think it was appropriate for that many units to be, allocated to Fountain Valley during that time. Other cities around us, one of them has 20,000 So it was a big burden, this housing element cycle. So the GPAC, City Council Planning Commission was tasked with finding properties that we could rezone and allow for that many units. It doesn't mean that all those units are gonna be built, but we have to plan for that many units. And so we began that, process that ended in 2023 when we adopted the housing element and general plan.

We also did the rezones at the same time and many faces are familiar now because you're a part of that process. You received a notice for the rezones and you attended that meeting. And I know a lot of you were concerned about it at that time because you foresaw a meeting like this. So then the once the general plan and housing element were adopted, the applicant came in January of of twenty four and submitted their application. One of the things we asked them to do was have a robust public outreach process.

My understanding is I went to the first meeting as well, but my understanding is that they've been meeting with the community, and also service organizations and other groups, this last year and a half. We've been processing that application. We've been working through transportation issues and CEQUA and making sure the addendum is properly done. And everything was sort of set for a study session that we held on May 28. We went over the project of the Planning Commission.

Normally, Planning Commission will get a project, usually a smaller project. They'll get it on the agenda on a Friday, and they'll vote on a Wednesday. But we didn't want to give them just that small amount of time to review a project of this size and scope. And so we had a study session in a public setting like this that was televised, open to the public so that we could present the project and also invite the public to participate in that as well and ask questions. So we did that and, then we scheduled the public, hearing for today and, sent out notices citywide.

So the notice, state noticing requirement is that we send a notice to residents 300 feet around, the subject property. We have an enhanced policy of a thousand feet for all projects. And for a project of this size and scope, we sent a notice to everybody in the city, to every address. And so that kind of gives you a little bit more than just a brief update, but hopefully that provides some background on the process.

I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Commissioners, other questions? I have a couple more questions here. So can you talk about you mentioned parking and you said that the project has more parking than required by the state density bonus laws, is that

right? Correct.

Yeah. So but that's probably less than we would normally require in the city? Correct?

Correct. Yes, So it

can you explain why we can't just stick to what we normally what our what the municipal code has? Why is this project special and gets to have less parking than we normally require?

With this project, they've allocated 15% of the units for affordable housing. And once they do that, they are allowed to park the project per state density bonus law as well as request concessions and waivers. So they have, you know, part of their application, they requested the the inclusions of the state density bonus parking standards, which we've included with this project. But at the same time, we've worked with the developer to kind of push them to provide more parking in certain areas, and and they've gone along with that as well as, you know, they I think they know that they need more parking than the minimum requirements of state density bonus law. So, that's where they've come out with 265 spaces more than the minimum required for the state density bonus law.

So let me

If I may just ask, I've been fielding a lot of questions on state density bonus law recently as well. So that's in it's a section of state code. It's pretty robust again. What it originally was for was to allow developers to go above the base density. So say you have a zone that allows 20 or 30 units per acre.

There's a sliding scale for the the more affordable units you provide, the more above the base density that you can go. That was the the general gist of why that section came into being. And then over the years, they added additional requirements or burdens on city to lessen parking requirements, which is what you see here. This is just the base. If you are within a transit high transit area, you can go even below that, this requirement.

And there's there's another section that allows you to eliminate parking requirements in total if you meet certain criteria. And then you have the waivers and concessions as well. So that's where it's it lies in state code. They are triggering state density bonus law. And so that's how we got to this point.

So just so I'm clear, the state state law trumps our municipal code on as long as they put in

the affordable units? Correct. Does the presentation state that you must approve those waivers and concessions and those parking requirement, those parking standards as part of state density bonus law, Trump city standards.

Okay. So that was my next question was about the waivers and concessions. So what are the limits on what they can do for waivers and concessions?

So they they get one concession, but anything can be a concession or a waiver. So you get one concession, you get unlimited waivers. And basically, the the the reasoning the state has for it is that they don't want anything to prevent affordable housing. So they don't want the city to put up restrictive development standards that would prohibit the, affordable housing from being built. And so that was the general reason why we have it.

They used to have to show more evidence that it was those waivers and concessions are required for the project. Over the years, that's been tamped down as well to what you saw in the presentation of the general, you know, public safety welfare type issues and whatnot. So, again, the state is Trump's city requirements and is requiring us to allow for this.

Okay. So just even going back one question, the state's making us do a process to add a bunch of new housing units for over 4,800 housing units. We zone for all that to plan for that under certain circumstances, but then the developer comes in to actually do the project and they can do even more and then go have less parking than we would require and have variances essentially compared to the municipal code because they had the affordable housing element?

That's correct. And as state Steven stated in this circumstance into the I think everybody would admit even the state would admit that the one size fits all doesn't really fit. And so you have developers who know that, yes, they could they're using the the state minimums, but, really, that's not gonna they're gonna have issues leasing out the space if they were just to meet the state minimum requirements because here in Southern California, everybody seems to have a vehicle. So they they provide additional parking in addition to what that state minimum is, but it certainly doesn't get to the level that we normally would require for projects. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman. So everyone knows a one thing that factors into the number of parking spaces, as was mentioned, was a transit station. That's a bus stop. So

follow-up question. Is it fair to say that the city has been doing its best to strike a balance between what is being mandated by the state in the density bonus law and what our municipal code mandates so that we can at least put some pressure on the applicant to say, yes, the state says you must do this, but in order to get closer to what our city standards are, you know, has that conversation happened and is that how we arrived to where we are in the process?

Yes. Exactly. So we've had that conversation for over a year and I'm I'm sure the developer wasn't happy with us at times. When I when this housing element was adopted, you know, I made the commitment to the community to really focus on parking and design and amenities and other items to really make sure that while the state is requiring us to plan for these units that it's done in a way that's closer to the Fountain Valley Way. This property wouldn't have been zoned.

It was pre zoned for r one. It wouldn't have been zoned, with this density had not, we had these 4,839 units to plan for. And so really is trying to get as close as possible to what our community is all about. And so that's why you see on two edges, you have single family homes that look very similar to the homes that are around them that are existing. So we've done our best to try to make it kind of conform to the community, although we can't get there exactly because of the waivers of concessions that can be applied. But parking is one of those where we pushed for additional parking at every turn.

So would it be fair to say had this parcel remained zoned as r one, would it be possible at all to develop anything affordable on it?

It may have been possible, but the number of units. So part of that 4,839 units is about 45% of those have to be in the very low and low income category range. So even if we were to build 5,000 units, but we fall short of those very low and low units, then we have to go find additional properties to zone for very low and low. And that becomes we just keep chasing our tail at that point trying to get 45% of those 400,839 units because that's what the state really cares about too is those are very low units. They probably could have done some. They would have met that 15% requirement, but that would have been a very low number off of a very low density at that point.

Any other questions before we bring up the applicant? All right. I'd like to invite the applicant up to speak if they'd like to their presentation. While we wait, you could introduce yourself, please.

Great. Thank you, chair commissioners. My name is Blair Ruffner with Shop Off Realty Investments.

See, now is when we needed the music. Right.

There we go. Great.

Thank you. Again, Blair Ruffner with Shop Off Realty Investments. Thanks so much for having us here this evening to at our project. Our tagline for our project is where generations grow. We're providing a diversity of housing products for rent, senior affordable housing, and also for sale product. In fact, 77% of the coverage of the site is actually for sale housing. So Shop Off Realty Investments, it's been business for thirty two years. Bill and Cindy Shop Off founded it. We our expertise is entitlements and value propositions. We have numerous projects in Orange County.

You may know Magnolia Coast site in Huntington Beach, California, Sierra Apartments in Whittier, California, Uptown Newport, just down the street from our office in Newport Beach, we actually gave the city a tour of that a few months back. It's a class a multifamily building. So on to our project. This is three and a half years in the making. It's, you know, it's been a great collaboration with the city, the community, listening, and and improving upon our site plan.

This is a partnership with Lennar Homes of California. They're gonna be handling, constructing, and then selling all of the 219 townhomes and triplexes. Shop Off Realty Investments will be constructing and operating and developing the 304 market rate units, which is on the bottom left corner of the site. And then our affordable partner is National Core for the senior affordable 55 plus age restricted low income units. A lot of things went into this land planning for this site, and we are very strategic about it.

We wanted to place the density away from the neighbors as much as possible. We did it on the Southwest Corner of Euclid And Heil. It's gonna provide great line of sight view corridors for our future residents in the Mile Mile Square Regional Park, which we think is gonna be a great asset for this project. In addition, it provides setback from those neighbors on the South Side Of Heil Avenue. So we've got about a 105 feet plus of setback there. In addition, on the edge condition of our project, we have two story triplexes. They really are gonna look and feel like single family homes. They've got 25 foot deep backyards. They're gonna have a privacy hedge. They really fit the scale of the homes behind them, so we wanna be sensitive to that as well.

We've got a community pool that Steven mentioned. We've got a pocket park with a tot lot as well. Multifamily building will be luxury class a, you know, great amenities, clubhouse, resort style pool, yoga, fitness center, amenitized courtyards. We are we also are overparked by 25%. We've got a 83 stalls here, 265 more stalls that we need.

Our future school aged residents will go to Garden Grove School District. I've been told that they could also choice in the Fountain Valley School District as well. And with declining enrollment in Fountain Valley and Garden Grove, I think that'll solve a big problem and keep them in business. So here's a top down view of the for sale community, the pool, and the pocket park and some imagery for that. And here we have the multifamily building at the corner of Euclid And Heil. This is a very prominent corner and intersection. We really wanted to maximize the design impact of this. We're going above and beyond on this. It's not just a stucco box. It's got enhanced materials here.

We're doing 32% glass, double storefront height windows, black luxury vinyl windows. We've got 11% metal trim and metal eyebrows that'll wrap around the building to give it a cohesive look. You know, Omar actually kept us a task on this. He said at one point, I wanna see more. So we we came back and we gave him this.

So we're also looking at lush landscaping around the property and we're also looking at integrating a community water feature in the in the landing area as well. So this is a straight on view of the multifamily building for Miles Square Square Regional Park. Notice that we worked on the articulation and jogging in the building to break up the massing of of the architecture. There's three different courtyards with insets to allow natural light to penetrate and also allow great views into Miles Square Regional Park. A really great streetscape, we think.

This is a top down view of the multifamily pool that I mentioned, clubhouse, fitness center, and one of the game courtyards. Here we have a rendering of the three story townhomes. All of these townhomes and the triplexes will have dedicated two car garages, which will really help the parking situation. Contemporary design here, we've got five different floor plans, about 1,800 square feet to 2,200 square feet in square footage size. This is a rendering of the for sale community pool.

We'll have a pool house, a outdoor showers, cabanas, chaise lounges, spa area as well, really great space for the residents to entertain. And here we have a rendering of the two story triplexes along the edge. We've got 36 of those. These are gonna look and really live and feel like single family detached homes. As Steven mentioned, they're only attached by the entry foyer area, so you won't have any noise impacts.

Again, you know, we have that 25 foot generous setback from the neighbors in the back. We've got a Ficus privacy hedge in the back with a root ball barrier, by the way, so the roots won't get out of hand there. That's something we had to look into. Project timeline wise, won't get into the weeds on this, but we did acquire the the site in December 2021 from the Miller family. It was previously operated as a strawberry farm.

City went through their process. We submitted our entitlement application in January 2024, went through numerous plan checks. We're here before you today to seek approval for this project. And if successful, we will be looking to grade, do rough grading of the site at the end of this year and the 2026. From there, it's gonna be about a three year process, different phasing periods.

We look to start developing the multifamily and the senior affordable buildings probably in April 2026. We think that'll be a two year time frame. And then Lennar is gonna build their townhomes and triplexes triplexes between 2026 with final delivery in 2029. The townhomes will be broken up into different production phases of 18 phases, and then the triplexes will have six production phases. Community outreach.

We've been all about community outreach on this project. We've been ingrained with the community. We really kicked off efforts in January 2022 for this project. We, you know, we did a presentation for Community Foundation, Kiwanis, Rotary Club, Chamber of Commerce. Valuable member and really, really enjoy spending time with with the members of the Chamber of Commerce.

We had a open house in February '24 at the rec center, over 80 to a 100 attendees for that. We followed that up with a virtual open house in October 2024 with about 25 to 30 attendees. Got valuable feedback to improve the project from that. We also met with adjacent neighbors in 2024. We created a website, euclidandhyal.com, a brochure in two different languages, English and Vietnamese, that we distributed to neighbors and and the city as well.

And then you guys should have a packet for the 36 plus events that we sponsor over the past three and a half years. It's been extremely active and really enjoyed our time, and we really look forward to continuing that that fostering of relationships here in the city. Benefiting the community, significant job creation. Over 2,800 jobs created, 240,000,000 of labor income, 500,000,000 of total economic output, significant, you know, opportunity for residents to live where they work. We're gonna be actually expanding Heil Avenue from two lanes to four lanes.

We're gonna be putting in dedicated left hand turn lanes, medians with trees, also, you know, for beautification, but also for screening. But one of the things is in California, we really need housing. We're deficient by 2,500,000 homes here in California. And in fact, in Fountain Valley, 82% of the homes were built before 1980. So we really wanna bring new homes, breathe breathe fresh air into the community, bring energy efficient homes, new smart home technology, EV chargers, all all the newest latest technology.

Fiscal benefits, project annually will create about a million dollars in property taxes and then one time development impact fees including

the

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