Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you. . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. So,

Good evening. It's September 2nd, Wednesday. This is the Planning Commission meeting, 6 o'clock. So I'd like to start the meeting with a salute to the flag. Ready?

Salute.

I'd like to salute the flag.

we do the roll call please commissioner holt president president sorry commissioner giles here commissioner calandra Here. Commissioner Shergill.

Present.

Commissioner Diaz. Here. Vice Chair Leyde.

Present.

Chair Bray. Here.

I'll read the procedures now. I see that I did the Pledge of Allegiance out of order. This meeting is being conducted in person electronically. For each matter considered by the commission there will be first a staff presentation followed by a presentation from the project applicant. Testimony from the supporters of the project will then be taken followed by testimony from those in opposition. The applicant will have a right to a final rebuttal presentation prior to the closing of the public hearing. In accordance with Section 13 of Article 2 of the Planning Commission Rules and Regulations governing the length of public debate, all public testimony from those in support and opposition of the project will be limited to three minutes per person. The three lights on the podium next to the microphone will indicate the amount of time remaining for the speaker. The green light will be turned on when the speaker begins. The yellow light will come on with a soft bell ring when one minute is remaining. The speaker should be completing their, uh-oh, completing their testimony by the time the red light comes on with the final bill indicating time has expired. All in-person public testimony must be presented to the commission at the podium. Any testimony that references race, religion, ethnicity, economic status, national origin, or any other classification protected under state or federal law in a derogatory manner shall be deemed irrelevant and will not be considered by the commission in making its land use determinations. If you challenge these land use determinations in court, you may be limited to raising only those issues you or someone else raised in oral or written testimony or before the close of the hearing. So we'll start today's meeting with the approval of the agenda. Are there any changes?

Good evening, Chair Bray, members of the Planning Commission. I'm Israel Trejo with the Planning and Development Department. No changes to the agenda. Thank you. Thank you.

Do any commissioners have a change for the agenda? If not, can we have a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Second. Okay. We had a motion to approve by Commissioner Diaz, seconded by Commissioner Lide. So if you're in favor, say aye. Aye. If you're opposed, signify by saying nay. Aye. Okay, motion passes. We'll move on to the consent calendar now.

Chair, there are no items on the consent calendar.

Okay, yeah, thank you. No items on the consent calendar. I didn't know if I mixed that up. So we'll move on. Are there any reports by commissioners?

I don't have any reports. I just want to throw a shout out to that gentleman over there. I see him all the time. So, man, thank you for joining us. I always see him just watching us. So, thank you.

That would be my famous husband, David Denham. So... He really likes it. So, hey... We'll move on to continued matters. So item 8A, ID 261176 has been continued to September 16th. And we have new matters, our workshops. 8A is a workshop on the development code. So would the staff like to present?

Yeah, so I'd like to invite Phil Segrist and Israel Trejo, our wonderful planning managers, to come up tonight. We did this workshop three years ago. Really, the development code is a very large document. If it was printed, it's about four inches thick. And because as the planning commission, it's your responsibility to know what is in that in that code and how to interpret it so that when we bring items before you, you have the ability to make determinations. So we thought it was time to do a refresher, and so turning it over to Phil.

Good evening, Chair Bray, commissioners, Philip Segrist, Planning and Development Department. As Director Clark mentioned, we'll be giving a presentation or a workshop over the development code, and this will be kind of high level, just break apart the different sections of the code. It's broken up through several parts. And within those parts, there's different articles and sections. And again, just kind of high-level overview of what those are, what those entail. And so I'll be giving the first half of the presentation and then hand it over to Israel. Okay, so some of the goals for the workshop are to understand what the development code is and why does it exist. Also, the goal is to learn the six-part structure of the development code, identify the planning authorities and their roles that are established within the code, and understand how to locate applicable standards for a project that you might be reviewing. Also know how the code relates to the general plan and specific plans. and understand how the commission uses the code to make decisions and findings. So what is the development code and why does it exist? So the development code, it's chapter 15 of the Fresno Municipal Code. So while it might be very big, it's kind of one small section of the entire Fresno Municipal Code. It's just chapter 15 of, don't remember how many total chapters are in the Fresno Municipal Code, but in planning, in our current planning, that's really where we live and what we work with is chapter 15, what we refer to as the development code. So it's the primary regulatory document that governs land use, zoning, permits, development standards that apply within the city of Fresno. And so development generally occurs in compliance with the general plan, specific plans, the development code and applicable city law. And so the development code really provides a clear definition, provides clear definitions, also addresses contemporary issues such as maybe food walks, sidewalk vendors, now smoke shops. It also enables quicker approvals for compliant projects. such as zone clearances. We'll maybe go into those later. It also provides strong protections for legal nonconforming uses in buildings. And the code, as plain as it gets, it really implements the general plan at the project level. So how is the development code used? So the code, it contains five types of regulations that control land use and development of property. And those... those five types of regulations are use regulations development standards land divisions administrative regulations and general terms and use classifications and so the the use regulations those regulations specify which uses are permitted conditionally permitted or outright prohibited throughout based on the dependent based on the zoning that a property might be subject to And the development standards, those are regulations that control height, density, setbacks, parking, et cetera. And then the land divisions, that's also referred to as subdivision regulations, which I think Rob will be giving a presentation related to that. Those are regulations that control the division of land, the parcel maps, the track maps that might come to Planning Commission. And then the administrative regulations, Those contain detailed procedures for the administration of the code, how applications are processed and reviewed, and then we have our general terms and use classifications. That's in part five of the development code. It's definitions for terms, words, uses, and then our general use classifications that are, again, general and include descriptions of different uses that are called out in the development code. And so how the development code is laid out, it's divided into generally six, actually into six parts. Part one is the general provisions that includes purpose, applicability, as well as general rules for, just general rules for the code. Part two is the base and overlay districts. That's kind of what we think of as zone districts and use regulations that gets into the setbacks, the heights, et cetera. Part three are the regulations that apply to some or all districts. You know, that could be parking, landscaping, fencing, and signs. And then part four is the land divisions, as I mentioned, the subdivision maps. And then part five is the administration and permits. And then part six is general terms and definitions. And so Article 1, which is the introductory provisions, that establishes the title, the authority of the development code, provides an overview of the code's purpose. It also establishes the code structure, which went over previously. Article 2, the rules and construction language, that provides precision in the interpretation of the development code and how certain words or phrases are defined. And article two apply throughout the development code. So it really kind of guides how do we calculate fractions and round numbers. And then article, oh sorry, skipped ahead. Article three is the rules of measurement. that explains how various measurements are referred to in the code, how they're calculated. Again, fractions, distances, height, floor area, density, it tells you how do we actually measure that so we can be consistent. And article four is non-conforming uses, structures and site features, and lots. And so the purpose of that section is to permit the continued utility and viability of uses and structures or site features and lots that were created lawfully prior to the establishment of the development code, but don't currently conform to the current provisions. Let's go on to article four, the non-conforming uses, structures, site features, lots, what I just mentioned. So again, the purpose of that article is to permit continued utility and viability of uses that are established on sites that were established legally but don't currently conform to the code. So you might have a property that was established with a certain use 20 years ago, it was established legally, they went through the review process, got a development permit or a conditional use permit, pauses in the operation of that, then that use would otherwise be discontinued and it can no longer continue. But if it continues to operate, it can continue to operate in perpetuity.

And I'm just going to jump in there real quick because one of the commissioners at our last meeting asked about that.

And so it is very... Go to a district, council district advisory committee. You will see the summary of what happened on the staff report. All right, next section is, so don't have time, again, to go over all of these applications. I'm sure that you've heard many of them. Some are pretty common, you know, variants, conditionings permit. Those are pretty common applications. These applications can take anywhere from a few minutes, like the zone clearances Phil mentioned earlier, can take just a matter of five minutes to process at our front counter. Essentially, zone clearances are used to confirm that a particular use is allowed in a particular zone district. Other applications that you see on this board here can take a year or more to process, including large master plan developments, large commercial centers where there's an extensive environmental... Last but not least is our general terms and definitions. So what I like to call this is basically our dictionary and our encyclopedia of our development code. It's definitely not an afterthought. We use it every day. Let's say someone comes in, and it's very simple, and it can be complex. So let's say, for example, someone wants to come in and build on the residential property. I want to build an accessory structure, and I want to do industrial welding in a residential property in the accessory structure. So the accessory structure would be allowed, but potentially a use may not be allowed. So that's when we'd go into that general terms and definition to see within that umbrella what's allowed within an accessory structure. It goes over many different things that are in our code. What's lot coverage? What's the front lot line? What's the side lot line? So there are many different things that are covered within the general terms and definitions. It's definitely a very important part of our development code. And that concludes my portion of the presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Does anyone have a question? I do. I just have a couple of, I think, easy ones. First of all... The Business Journal was reporting that there will, that there potentially might be, based on what Mayor Dyer and Council Member Richardson said, something coming before us about, something coming before the city about data centers. Would something like that come to us as well as the City Council?

Correct, so that's a text amendment. So that would be amending the Development Code or Chapter 15 of the Fresno Municipal Code. And a text amendment would actually go to each of the district committees, would have a recommendation or have feedback that we would bring to the Planning Commission. We would take that to the Airport Land Use Commission. We would come to the Planning Commission before you make a recommendation To the City Council. So yes, they're actually a handful of text amendments that'll be coming forward in the last year You you've adopted quite a few the residential and office text amendment our what we called hot one or our Housing Text amendments where we're bringing forward changes that are either consistent with our state law and or our requirements through our housing element. So on a regular basis, we'll do that. So the council can initiate a text amendment. You can as a body can initiate a text amendment and I can initiate a text amendment. So normally at our spot, when we have decision making, we're calling them your placemats, right? But those are the planning authorities. And it tells you whether an item is ministerial, discretionary, whether you're a recommending body or a deciding body, whether it's come to you as an appeal or not. So that's one of those. Text amendment would be all the way through the process to the city council. Yep.

Excellent, my second question that's similar is the new smoke shop regulations that have already been enacted but are now being implemented. I know part of that involves a CUP process. Will those CUPS come before that or is that gonna be done at your level?

Conditional use permits are approved at the planning director level unless they are appealed.

Excellent, and then my last question was just for really clarity Israel. I think I know what this means, but it kind of hurt it in a way that maybe I misunderstood it. So it is the developer's responsibility to put in utilities, for lack of a better word, for, I forget, they're two different, the smaller, but then for a larger parcel, It's not that they're off the hook for paying for those, correct? Explain that a little bit more.

So yes, correct. So if the parcel, so this is just a parcel map with no development. So if the parcel is between zero and four acres, all the improvements are required. So there's no debate. All those improvements are required. Now if the parcel that's being created, again, no development, if the parcel is between four and ten acres, it's discretionary up to the director of the public works department. And then over 10 acres, no improvements are required.

Okay. And the thought there is that it's a big enough piece of the pie that a developer is going to come in and will probably want to be able to figure out exactly where the pipes go and all that type of thing. Is that kind of the thought?

Yeah, that's correct. So when a development actually comes in, you know, typically 10 acres would be a large shopping center. They would construct those improvements. Yeah.

Cool. I just wanted to make sure I understood it. Doesn't mean that the city has to pay for it down the road.

No, definitely not. All right.

I have a question about Fresno, with all the new developments, there are community parks. That's a new thing. Anybody who's developing, they got to build community parks. There are some big developments. They have multiple community parks. sometimes those community parks are not well maintained. Does city maintain them or do they have a special fund? And if they're not being maintained, where can the community reach out? Whom should they call to get that situated or cleaned? Because there is a special fee that these people are paying for those parks.

Correct, yes, and so I think I can, we definitely need the CFD workshop, but so those parks that you're mentioning, those pocket parks, those are dedicated to the city, and they would be maintained within that CFD. But as far as the schedule, I'm not aware of that, but we can get back to you on that.

Perfect. And then the other thing is, I know whenever, I know we have had a training on the approvals or denials. There are some rules that we look at. Do we have those, do we have that worksheet?

Findings, your findings. So each time an item comes before you, that specific, the findings for that specific type of approval will be part of your packet. So in the administration and permit section, which is part five, that Israel went over, each one of those types of uses. So if you go to conditional use, which is Article 53, it explains how it works. And then it's 155306 is the required findings. So each section and each type of permit will have required findings that you can look up in the code.

Do we have a cheat sheet? Do you have a cheat sheet?

We could absolutely create a findings cheat sheet. I have no problem. We'll make you another placemat.

Thank you.

All righty.

All right. Thank you. Thanks.

And now back by popular demand, Mr. Rob Holt.

And then before getting into my presentation, just one clarifying point to Director Clark's statement on CUPs being under director authority. There is one specific CUP that is under planning commission authority, and that is when a developer proposes multi-unit residential on single-unit zoned property. That does have to come forward to the planning commission, so you're not confused when you see that. We do have a few that probably will come your way in the near future, so. So my name is Rob Holt, Supervising Planner, City of Fresno. Good to see some of you again. This is the subdivision maps workshop specific to how subdivisions are designed. Essentially what you see when we bring a subdivision to you is already been through all this process through what planning reviews and make sure it's consistent with so that when it comes to you it's completely or it should be completely consistent with code. This is to get into the nuts and bolts of what we review so you understand how subdivisions work, why open space is required sometimes and not, and so on. So the overview is going to go through the subdivision map process and design, the expiration and revisions, and we'll end it with a Q&A. So the process and design, the different types of maps available in our code and in law are parcel maps, which are defined as four or fewer proposed parcels. When it comes to residential parcel maps, that is the review authority is under the director, so it would not come to you unless appealed. But there are allowances for non-residentially zoned parcel maps. such as commercial and industrial properties, more often with subdivisions for shopping centers that do allow more than four parcels as long as we have access to the street across all parcels. So, now then there's tentative and final maps. It's a two-step process. It starts with the tentative map, which is something the Planning Commission is the review authority for, and that is when you have five or more parcels, and typically it comes as residential. And tentative maps are drawn for just design and improvements and the existing surrounding conditions. Final maps come after the Planning Commission has approved the tentative map, and that goes with Public Works, and that gets through council, not commission, and then ultimately recorded with the county. So when you approve a tentative map, those lots are not created until that final map records. So there's a two-step process. And the final map will have much, much more detailed plans civil-wise than a tentative map would, although our tentative maps are very specific. very detailed. And then there's vesting maps, which can apply to parcel maps, tentative maps. What it essentially does, it confers a vested right to proceed with development in substantial compliance with ordinances, policies, and standards in effect at time, At the time the vesting map is approved or conditionally approved, really it's when we accept it. What this means is, an example, recently the West Area Neighborhood Specific Plan was adopted. If a map had come in, was submitted, accepted before that plan was adopted, and it steered from the requirements of that plan, because it was done prior to that plan being adopted, it has a vesting right to be done with whatever was planned for on that property. So if that property prior to that plan being adopted was RS4 and it turned to RM3, which is multi-unit residential after, it could still come with the vested right of being consistent with the ordinance policies being RS4. So that's all that means for vesting maps. Give me one second, I apologize. So density, density is calculated using the total number of lots divided by what we call net acreage. So normally you would look at a property online somewhere and you'll see the acreage and it's probably the gross acreage or the total acreage of the property. What net acreage does is it reduces that gross acreage by subtracting the dedications for major streets and dedicated areas of land for large transmission lines, as well as remainder parcels. We'll get into remainder parcels in a bit. But essentially, if you have a property where you have those large transmission lines, you can think maybe of Northwest Fresno, near Herndon and Hayes area, where there's these large lines, and these lines, these transmission lines, those are easements on property that you can't build on. You cannot do anything with. So we're not counting it towards your density because it's not fair. You can't build on it. As well as dedications for major streets, there's areas of subdivisions along major streets. Those are the more collectors, arterials, where part of the property is in the center line of that street. No one knows that. And when you dedicate that land, it goes away. You can't build on it, right? You can't build in the street. So we removed that from the net acreage. So that's what density is based on. And what is noted in the code is it can be 0.5 less than the minimum density. So our RS-5 zone district allows between a minimum of five dwelling units per acre and a max of 12. And so that minimum of a five, you're allowed to go down to four and a half, and you can round that up. We can count four and a half as five in our code. You just can't round down from maximum. If you're at 12.01, you can't round that down. So you need to reduce your lots to get into that 12 range. So for example, properties 20 gross acres, but 15 net acres in the RS-5 district. The RS-5 allows between five and 12 dwelling units per acre. So you would do 15, which is your net acres, times the five acres per, dwelling acres per unit. I'm sorry, dwelling units per acre. And then 15 acres times 12, and you have your density. So a developer could come in and develop between 75 and 180 dwelling units, and it would be consistent with the density requirements. There are requirements for lot size, depth, and width. We have to make sure that the depth, width, and lot size per each zone district is correct. It's not just your standard lot, corner lot. There are some lots that have specific depths if they abut a major street, if they're near freeways, things like that, highways. They usually have a lot longer depth because it's usually more noise-based and you want to get away from that. There is an exception to go under the minimum allowance where 25% of the lots proposed can be up to 20% smaller in that area with their depth. And it still does not require any additional permits like a variance or plan development. They can, they're allowed to do that per the code. On the flip side, lots that exceed the maximum requirement are allowed so long as the density complies. So when you see that map and you see, hey, RS5 only says 6,500 square feet's the max, and I see this 10,000 square foot property, that tends to happen in subdivisions, and it's allowed for as long as that density overall complies. And I'm not going to go too much into this. Just wanted to show this is what our table looks like when we get a map that comes in. Our planners, this is the first thing they look at. The majority of what this commission will see is kind of highlighted in gray there on the right, RS4 and RS5. And this just goes over, again, what I already talked about, the lot size, the lot depth and width. You can see the different types of lots that we have to make sure if it's a curved lot that's 30 feet minimum. So we look at all those things. So remainder properties, I just mentioned that previously. A remainder parcel is a parcel that, it's a portion of land that's being subdivided that is not going to be subdivided for purpose of sale, lease, or financing. So it actually does not count towards density. It's one of those other things that does not count towards density. And frontage improvements usually are not required unless there's some mechanism or mechanism where it's necessary to improve it because of health and safety. For one example, which I'm gonna show you, is safe routes to schools. If that's a requirement, even though you're not doing anything with this property, you still gotta improve it because of the safety of the children in the area. And when this happens, usually it is because you see it a lot on rural residential properties, large, long, thin properties, or big properties with just a house on the front or way in the back. They just want to live off this little land that they have left, and they want to sell off the rest. They don't have anything to do with it, they're done. So that happened with this case. This was a map that came to you within the last couple of years out there on McKinley and Armstrong at the northwest corner. That same situation, the person along Armstrong on the east there with the red boundary, that's a house. This was all a vacant property with the house in the front. So they just wanted to live off the rest of their life on that land and sell off the rest to the developer. and so they did they dedicated as a remainder although we did require improvements along both frontages today this is what this looks like and is currently still being built out so it is moving forward something to see live that you guys have approved it's kind of cool so chapter 15 article 41 this is the article that governs subdivision design standards the this is how we make sure whatever is laid out is is compliant with code and how a subdivision is designed And so in starting with subdivision blocks, it's required to be between 200 and 600 feet long until you need to get a new block developed. And the only way we can deviate is if there's alignment of existing streets on adjacent properties that justify it. So if the block was 1,000 feet long onto the east or whatever, that's the only way we'd be able to justify getting above or below that length. Kind of standard on lots, but side lot lines required at right angles to the street. Basically, if you're along a street, you shouldn't have kind of curved property lines unless you're at a cul-de-sac or something like that. It should all just be angled lot lines. And then we do require frontage of all lots to a public street unless they're private streets or they have access to a Paseo. And then going to go into double frontage lots here, but basically double frontage lots are lots that have a street in front and in back of them. Generally, you'll see it along major streets where they won't have access to the major street. It'll be a wall, and on the other side is the local street, and that's the front, right? So... So again, double frontage lots, we do require access to be relinquished along the major street, meaning you cannot access it with your vehicle the back of your lot. With that, there is an automatic minimum requirement of a 10-foot landscaped area, and that shall be provided with a six-foot wall. Now there are instances that I'll go over soon. Um, should an operative plan require a greater landscape area that wall shall be placed at the rear of the landscape setback. So if there's a community plan or a specific plan that says arterials in this location shall require a 20 foot setback that would supersede the 10 foot requirement and we would apply it there. Beyond those two things, a greater landscape may be required to ensure visibility is maintained for adjacent properties, including driveway and garage locations, fences, trees, et cetera. Something that the commission is able to do as the review authority is you can even do a greater landscape area than what we require based on what those operative statement or plans require it could be something where today uh that's required uh the requirements 10 feet and the properties to the east have a 30 foot setback because it was some community plan from the 50s that no longer has been is active and is repealed you may want to say because of the area it would be uh in more harmony and add visual interest to be 30 feet instead of the required 10. That's something you have the ability to do. And just to kind of throw off some of those community plans, these are all the ones that we have active currently. So the Roosevelt Community Plan has a 15-foot landscape boulevard for arterials and collectors south of Belmont and east of Chestnut. So if we have a map within that area, we check this and say, hey, you have 10 feet, you need 15. And then again, Bullard, Woodward Park, West Area, they all have their different styles. So let's get into actual practicality. What does this mean? Words are just words. I like to show what it means. So here's an example of a double frontage lot along a major street. This is at the southeast corner of Belmont and Armstrong, a map that was done probably in the last five years. And so here it was built. It was the Roseville community plan. So they had a 15 foot requirement in the subdivision map picture. You can see the green area. That's the green area there in the street. That's that area that is shown. So there's the 15 foot landscape setback. There is a requirement for corner lots where they side onto a local street, meaning you're entering off of the major street into the subdivision. So major to local. When the street side of a corner lot sides onto a local, but it intersects with a major, they need to have at least 10 feet and do a wall on the street side yard. So here you can see they have the 10 feet on the sides of the entrances with the wall. And then additionally, within the subdivision, outside of the major street, so now you're in the neighborhood, there is a requirement also for corner lots. When the street side faces the front of a knot across the street, we either require a five foot landscape easement with a wall. If they don't want to do that, they can do a four foot park strip and they wouldn't need a wall, they would just need a fence. So it's up to them to decide, but they need to show something. And so this is that case here where the blue is kind of pointing where the wall is across the street from those neighbors.

OK.

So connectivity and street design. Local streets are your standard within your subdivision. low level, low mile per hour roads. So it's your minimum right-of-way and roadway widths, and that's based on public works standards. Connector streets I'll get into. They're a little confusing to describe, but I think the pictures will help. They are streets. They are also local streets. I call them glorified local streets. Your standard local is about 50 feet wide. These are usually about 56 feet with added shade trees and things like that. It's kind of a A base road. So what it does is it's supposed to connect those major streets through the center of the quarter sections going east-west and going north-south. And then there's major streets, which is in our circulation element. We have collectors, arterials, super arterials, expressways. So for connector streets, this is an example of a perfect scenario of how it worked out. I think this is Gettysburg, Fresno first, and I forgot, I think Ashland. And so that north-south street is a perfect north-south all the way through, and then you go east-west, and it's connecting those major streets, but also allowing you to get into the neighborhoods on each quadrant. So you're not always just coming off of a major street where you have to slow down and potentially cause a car wreck, right? So there's that, and then there's situations where, due to existing circumstances, it's not gonna be perfect. And so it's our job to make sure that at least it's provided if available, and sometimes that's not even available. There's nothing you can do about it. But in this situation, we did a map, and where it's going from east to west, you can see that the way the subdivisions were developed around it It's impossible to go straight through. Otherwise, you'd have to take away houses. We're not doing that. And there's a ponding basin as well that kind of causes an issue. So they did their best to... So there's a map to the east that's already done. And then that kind of line I drew in the blue, that's what that line is up there in that subdivision that was approved. So they did their best to bring that, I think it's Florence, all the way over. And then eventually you can see to the west, there's that subdivision that brings that. So when the one to the west comes in, we'll have to figure out how to connect those two. So... Connections to adjacent areas. So where the subdivision adjoins unsubdivided land, Stub End Street shall be extended to those unsubdivided lands to provide access in the event of its future subdivision. The Stub Street is to be designed as a temporary turnaround. That's not always the case, but that's generally the case. But it's not applicable to planned developments for gated subdivisions. So kind of what this shows, here's kind of both scenarios in one map. On the right you can see that this was a map that was approved and you see that to the east there's an existing subdivision with that Stub Street. So we connected it from the major street east into the Stub Street so that now we have connectivity to get out to that western major street. And then also there's property to the north that has similar zoning that is either rural residential or undeveloped. And if there's a possibility to do that, we're going to require that they connect to that so that in the future to the north can do exactly what we just did to the east. When that comes and develops, we're going to capture that connection. But let's say someone comes in and wants to do a private street community and gate it off and you'll have no development. Well, that's the temporary turnaround. Now you have a cul-de-sac where If that case happened, they would be able to at least go in and turn around or fire truck or trash pickup can go in and turn around. So that's what that is. You can see a live action one onto the west there. That's the Tim turnaround. There's eventually hopefully future development to the east, but that's what it looks like in real time. Okay, so EVAs, emergency vehicle access. So every subdivision, for the most part, there's some leeway, but it requires a minimum of two points of access, and that's a fire requirement. So the fire can go in and then turn around and get out without having to back out into a street. I'll show you examples of those, but those are usually required. And that can come in form of just a little lot that's only for a gate, and it only gives access to those fire or police personnel. And then pedestrian access to major streets. So any subdivision adjacent to a major street, a pedestrian path which has sidewalks or trails to the major street shall be spaced no more than 600 feet apart. What we do count as pedestrian paths is a vehicular entrance. If it's going to have sidewalk, you can walk on it, so that would count. So here's an example of an EVA. You probably see them all around town through subdivisions, usually gated communities, where the fire truck will come in and out. Maybe there isn't a second point of access other than the primary entrance, so then they alleviated that with this example here. This is an example of the 600 foot. So on the right there, in the subdivision map, you see the blue entrances are the public entrances. And between each other, there's more than 600 feet. So the applicant did a paseo to allow for connectivity for pedestrians to get out of the subdivision that wouldn't be all the way in and have to walk all the way around. So that's the purpose for the 600 feet. Trails. So homes should front onto a trail or other communal area unless there's topographical conditions that justify variation. The homes would face a major street, or the review authority determines that there are no feasible alternatives. So homes fronting onto a trail... I'll kind of show you. This was how trails were done when they're not along major streets, when they're along canals that have to go across private property, and they're dedicated for public use, right? So this is how they used to be done in the past. We didn't have that code that says they shell front onto a trail, and we got this result. You know, the trail looks nice, but the practicality of use, there's no eyes on it. Nobody can see what's going on. If you were to ride that at night, I mean, it's so deep and long, you're halfway through, no one's going to see you. No one's going to know what's going on back there. It's unsafe. And so that's why this code was developed. And so what happens is now when we look for it, this was a map that proposed that same kind of concept where the homes backed onto the trail. So we said, no, put a street so that homes can view the trail and there's visibility. Now this next thing isn't this map, but that's just showing you the trail is the green, the homes are fronting it, looking at the trail. And that's what it can result in looking like. So now you have a street, you have your trail, eyes on the trail, feel a lot more safer. Open space requirements. So open space is required when a subdivision has more than 50 parcels. If it has 50 or less, they are not required to propose any open space, but they do still have to pay in lieu fees. Once you hit that 51st parcel net threshold, you are at, so basically what I'll get at is it's a lot of math, but What it boils down to, it's .001884 acres per dwelling unit. And that stems from our Parks Master Plan based on a .6 acre per thousand resident calculation. So for a pocket park, to give you an example, the minimum, bare minimum, 51 lots, you're looking at about a 4,100 square foot open space area. 150, you're looking at 12,000. 300 lots, you're looking at 24,000. So that's the requirement for that. And then there's... It shall front, if their park space is required, it shall front to at least 50% a street, an external trail, internal lit trail, or sidewalk. And then they should generally, homes should generally face or side the park. And then the location, it says that park sites shall be centrally located. There is some wiggle room on this. The purpose and intent is to not put the only park space for the subdivision in some corner of the area. It's supposed to be centrally located for all residents. Now that can stray a little bit. There's some wiggle room there, but generally we want it close to the center of the subdivision. All right, I think all the fun stuff's done, so let's get into expirations. So, interesting on this, just to update, so tentative maps currently, whether it's a parcel, whether it's vesting, whether it's a track map, they expire two years from their approval date. So when it gets through here, they have two years to get a final map. There is an update, and although it's not signed by Governor Newsom yet, as of last week to the day, there's a new Senate Bill 1169 that made it through Assembly. and Senate, 39 votes to nothing, so unanimous approval. It's likely to go through, hopefully. But that will update the two-year expiration to eight years, which is significant. It's a big deal. So if Governor Newsom were to sign that, it would be enacted in January 1 of next year. But as of now and until then, it is two years. And then there are discretionary extensions that developers can utilize at one or two year increments so they can say, hey, the market's not right right now. We need additional time. Can we get a one year or two year extension? That has to come to you for approval. But they can get up to six years using one or two at a time. And then there's some other legislative extensions depending on older maps that have been around for a while. And then there's also a phased map. So you may approve a large subdivision, let's say 300 plus lots. It is unlikely that developer is going to have the money to be able to do all of those improvements, everything right out of the gate. So what they do is when they go to final, their first map for final, maybe 100 of those lots, and that's phase one. And then once that gets approved, they have two more years to get the next phase going, so on and so forth, until it's all done. And each map will have its own, each final map will have its own number. So you're gonna see a lot of tentative map numbers. The first phase is always whatever the tentative was, but the second phase, third phase, they have different map numbers. And then getting into the revisions. So Israel touched on this earlier. Minor revisions are director level decision. They wouldn't come back to you. It's if lot size, shape, and dimensions are all in substantial compliance. The number of lots isn't reduced. Number of lots unit sites, there's none added. The amount of open space is not reduced. So if they increased open space that wouldn't come to you, that'd be a minor revision. Pedestrian connectivity to schools is not reduced. Pretty minor changes. For a major revision, that would come back to you, but it would be more of a director report. So it's just our director informing you of what is coming forward to you. This happened, I wanna say within the last half year where we did that. It's an amendment that is consistent with the intent of the original approval. There's no violations of the code. So if they do an increase of lots, which is also when it comes through, it doesn't go against density. It has to comply with all those things. And they get to do additional lots based on the size of their subdivision. So if they have 25 lots or less, they can do no more than two, so on and so forth. If they wanted it to exceed all of that, that's a new map, brand new map. Yeah, although that tentative map is still approved. They can still move forward with the original. And then these are the findings, which I'm sure we'll find a cheat sheet for. I don't know if I want to read all of them off, but basically it's just to comply with code, the general plan, the subdivision map act, make sure the site's physically suitable for the development, the density, it's likely not to cause substantial environmental damage or health problems. Basically if the commission makes only one of these findings, any of them, then we have to recommend denial of the map. And with that, that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

I have a question about, you know, the sidewalk, the landscaping, you know, the corner lots?

Mm-hmm.

Sometimes developers, they do the advertisement saying, oh, it's a 10,000 square footage lot, but technically the property owner, they're losing a lot of the land, right? So who owns that land?

Are you talking about the remainder property?

Yes, like on the corner lot where there's landscaping.

Can you go back to the presentation?

It's on slide 15 and 16. Yeah, something like that. So who is responsible for that part, like outside of the wall? Is that homeowners?

So who's required to maintain that area?

Correct.

City. That'll be part of the CFD.

I see, okay. And then technically who owns that? Does the city owns it?

Yeah, it would be deeded to the city.

I see, okay.

It would be deeded in fee to the city for public landscape and irrigation purposes.

Got it, thank you.

Yeah. Sorry, yeah, you will see those on maps. They're called outlots. Outlots are something that area is being dedicated for a specific reason or purpose. It could be anything. It could be for public open space for parks. It could be for in a gated community if they have open space. It could be for private purposes, private utilities, private open space, parking, just depends what it is. Anything else? Thank you.

Thank you. I apologize for having to get up. So do we have a report by the secretary?

No, I'd just like to say thank you to my team for the hard work that they put together these workshops for you. And we'll just continue. You got to see a little snippet of kind of the high-level rules. If you want more detail on any of the rules that we talked about tonight, please let our staff know. You can let Jada or Ashley or Israel or Phil know, and we would be happy to bring back a workshop on a more specific topic. Maybe that's on parking. Maybe that's on signs, right? And we'd be happy to do that.

Thank you. Through the chair, real quick. If The money ferry comes to your department, Director Clark, and you can get us hard copies of the development code. I would like that. I know the money ferry may not arrive, I don't mind carrying around a 10 pounds.

And we are looking into that pricing to see what it would cost to reprint them. We did it a number of years ago, but it hasn't been done recently. So yes, I like a hard copy. Mine is probably six years old. And so the rules aren't exactly right when I read from it, but it is nice to have a hard copy.

Thank you. Are there any unscheduled oral communications? Seeing none, I'll adjourn the meeting.