Powers Financing Authority - Regular Meeting

Alright. Welcome to council four council district four project review committee meeting agenda for Tuesday, 05/19/2026, 05:30PM. Do we have anyone on the Zoom joining us by Zoom? Nope. Nope. Okay. Alright. Committee members that are present, we'll if you can have a

roll call to roll call.

Vice chair Senegal?

Present.

Committee member Saleh? Committee member Padilla? Here. Committee member Addington? Committee

member Goodman? Here.

Thank you for that. And before we dive into the agenda for today, we do acknowledge our flag, and so we'll stand and Alright. I pledge allegiance

to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God and indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all.

All right.

So agenda for today,

committee members that

have a chance to review the agenda. And if I can get a motion to approve the meeting agenda, I

did, and I motion.

Second. So I have a all in favor, aye. And then opposed? Alright. So meeting agenda is approved. Attached is the draft minutes for April 21. Have you had a chance to review those meeting previous meeting minutes?

Just

Any corrections, edits, discussion? Hearing none, if I can get a motion to approve the draft meeting as submitted. I motion. Second. Alright. All in favor? Aye. Alright. Any opposed? Alright.

Draft minutes for 04/21/2026 have been approved. We do have some projects before us. A text amendment p two six zero one three two six proposed to amend the Fresno municipal code. I have project manager miss Gilbert, is that you?

Yeah. That is not me. Okay. Good evening. I am Ashley Atkinson, assistant director for planning and development. I don't think I've had a chance to meet most of you before. So I'm happy to be here today on behalf of Adrian, Asadore, and Gilbert who is not available tonight. So I know that you have this memo in front of you. I will try to translate the proposed text amendment into a little bit more plain language for your understanding. This is an item presented just for your review and really questions.

We're happy to take any comments and feedback that you have, but we are not necessarily asking for a recommendation because this is something we're required to do for a couple of reasons. So I'll get into that. So first, California state law requires all cities in California to adopt a document called a housing element. You might be familiar with it, but I'll just go over the basics. It's a part of our general plan, basically a chapter of the general plan.

It's renewed as required by law every eight years. One of the things that it does is establish a list of sites where we think housing will develop and and where it is zoned for housing, and that's called the housing element sites inventory. So we have to designate enough sites within the city that are already zoned for housing, where housing could be built today to meet a certain amount of capacity. It's called the regional housing needs allocation. That's a number the state gives us.

We call it the arena. You might have heard of that. So so, basically, we we have this document. Right now, the cycle we're in, the eight years is 2023 to 2031. We adopted our housing element at the end of twenty twenty four, and it was certified by the state.

So what we're working on now is implementing all of the programs in the housing element. One of the things that we said we would do in in our housing element is is make an amendment to our development code to comply with the state law, and that is the amendment that's in front of you today. Basically, the state law says that if there is a site that we designated in that site's inventory that I was just telling you about, and it doesn't develop with housing for for one to two housing element cycles, meaning we said that we think housing is gonna develop here and and that hasn't happened in the last eight to sixteen years, then the state is interested in seeing us streamline permission for housing to develop on that site, especially if it's affordable housing. So the state law requires us to approve a housing project ministerially, meaning without any discretionary review by staff or elected officials. If the project has at least 20% affordable units and it was included in one or two of those previous housing elements.

So I know that's that's kind of complicated, but basically, the gist of it is that if we if we said this site is gonna develop and it didn't do that in the last eight years or the last sixteen years, they wanna see an approval streamlined for that site if it has 20% affordable housing units. And and that is state law. They have asked us and we committed to updating our local code to reflect that state law. And so that's what we are putting into place with this amendment. It does affect about a 180 sites around the city.

They're they're all scattered around, so we don't have a map of them. It wouldn't really be legible if we tried to show you where they all were. But again, these are all places where housing is allowed today. It's just stating that that if someone comes and proposes a development on that site with 20 affordable units that we then approve it through a ministerial process, which is essentially just making sure it meets all the requirements of the code and then it can be approved. So that's really it, and I'm happy to take any questions. We are taking this to planning commission on June 3 and city council, I believe, on June 18.

I have a question. Sure. Thank you for that information and and advice. Out of the 180, how many of them are actually District 4? Do you know any

I I don't actually have it by district. We could get back to you with that information, but they are, you know, they are all over the city.

So Right. Well, I mean, we're specifically District 4, so I would think that, you know, just to go out of the 180. And those 180 have been through the cycle at least twice or just once? So the it's

I didn't specifically state that, but it is a if if the site is not vacant and it was in one prior cycle or if it was vacant and it was in two or more prior cycles. So there's a distinction based on whether it's vacant or not vacant.

Thank you.

And is the drawback that a developer just hasn't approached this particular area to build on? Or is it more of a community rejecting some of these projects in their backyard type sort of approach, or what will be the reason why, like, so many lots? I mean, when we think about the the high need for housing. Mhmm.

Why why so many have not been developed? Is that?

Yeah. Is it cost? It's it

it it there's a lot of factors. So I think what we're finding, generally speaking, at at the current moment, the cost is a factor even when a site is vacant and and it's already zoned for housing. This applies to multifamily housing, of course, that the cost to build, to buy the land, to get a loan, the cost of interest, the cost of construction is too high relative to the rents that that they could get. So there's a a barrier that way. That was less true eight years ago and, you know, maybe even less true sixteen years ago.

But, you know, we have done a lot to to update our zoning to allow for housing, so that's not really the barrier anymore. I think the real barrier today is is the cost and and just the interest from the from the builders in the area.

So right now, you're talking about areas that are already vacant lots?

Or So there it's a combination of vacant and non vacant. Okay. But but, again, all of these all of these sites are already zoned for multifamily housing today. So nothing is changing about the zoning. We're just changing the way we would approve a project if somebody came and said, I want to build 20 units on that site and four of those units are going to be affordable, reserved for low income households, then we would say, great.

Thank you. Here's a a streamlined ministerial approval. We just check to make sure that your project complies with all the standards of our code, and then, there's no decision to be made, that's discretionary. It's just approved.

Okay. The reason I ask, I live in a neighborhood that many, many years ago was projected that we would be bought out for high rise apartments, and that's near Sean 41. So I was just wondering if I'm gonna be bought out soon.

Well, it's it's always your your choice to sell your property or not if somebody makes an offer. I I would, you know, have to check what exactly the the zoning allows for, you know, right where where you are. But, you know, some neighborhoods did get a change in zoning about ten years ago back in 2017 when when we redid the the general plan and and changed some zoning to allow for more housing and especially on the the corridors like Shaw.

Okay. Do developers see this 180 vacant lots with this?

But Can can they see it? It is public information. The the the sites that are in our sites inventory, yes, which is a lot more than one eighty. There's there's thousands of sites, I think, in that in that inventory. That is something that a developer could look at and say, this is a site where where it's already designated for housing and and warehousing, you know, could could be proposed. Yeah. They they could use that as a tool.

Does planning push those on a higher list to to turn that property around? And then not seeing any with any stretches.

We the it's we're really neutral on that because it's still up to the property owner what they choose to do with their property. This is what the state wants to see by requiring us to do this is that the city is not is not prohibiting housing by keeping the capacity, the zoning capacity so low that it's not possible. But it's still up to the private market to ultimately develop it unless, you know, we're we're paying for it ourselves, which we don't do very much.

Now does that also transfer to hotels to be able to qualify for that type of zoning?

No. It would not it would not apply to a hotel.

Got it. Thank

Thank you. You. Well, I like it. I mean, there's even if we vote against it, it's still gonna go through. Right? Like, it's

still Well, if if we don't approve it, we have to answer to the state.

So Right. Right. Right. And I hope it entices more developers to come to our our area, and it would be nice to know how many are specifically in District 4 so that we could get out of town developers to increase our housing for that area.

Sure. I'll make a note to follow-up on that. And, Thomas, I know you're just sitting in today. Right? But we'll have is it Juan?

Oh, it's Juan. This is my

Oh oh, you're oh, this is your computer. Mhmm. Okay. I got confused. Sorry. It's okay. Juan was going to sit in for you. Anyway, Thomas will follow-up. We can get that information back to you.

And in

that case, then I make a motion to approve.

I second. I mean, she's a Oh.

I mean, you can. You're welcome to make a recommendation.

Well, I mean

pass the feedback along.

Every time I see an empty lot, I think, there's good spots. There's good spots.

We've seen a final developer. But they should give him an incentive to come and develop on this. Yes.

And I think it's also as I see cities like Chicago who are now putting a lot of their vacant lots out to the public to be able to, you know, develop on them, it will be a great opportunity for citizen regular citizens to even just be in the know about, you know, these opportunities and where they can maximize some of their resources and and, you know, just understanding that, okay. The you know, just basically promoting that these opportunities exist. Sometimes you just don't know what you don't know. Yeah. I mean, even like when we think about, like, city owned properties, you have, you know, a whole database of city owned properties, but yet we don't like, how do we support the city within their own goals of, like, economic development?

Right. Well, that that's actually another program in the housing element. So there's 37 programs. They're all related to either building new housing or, you know, supporting special needs in housing, you know, doing outreach. So one of them is using city surplus sites and having a strategy for that city owned land that we don't need, we actually are required to offer it for housing first before we do anything else with it. And so another program is is a strategy for that that requires us to put out certain percent of our sites every year for it's available for development for housing. There's a lot of good stuff in there.

Yeah. Thank you. Is

that a motion and a vote?

A motion and a second.

And then

Okay. So we motioned. She second.

Yeah. So all in favor? Aye. Alright. So motion passed. Thank you. Thank you. I'll let

Thomas take it from here, but

just thank Thank so much. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Let's see here. We now have a conditional use permit, a number of P26Dash01006 submitted by Milton Blanco of Fresno Indoor Soccer. Okay. If you can come to the table here and and present your project. How are you today?

I'm doing well. Thank you for having us.

And are you Milton Guadalupe?

Yeah. I'm Milton, and this is Alyssa.

Okay. Thank you.

I I just wanna start off by saying thank you for having us. I I don't really know we're gonna present like this. They just kinda said, hey. If they have questions, I have questions for you. Okay? So are you just looking to see what we're we're looking to do? Why we're wanting to be a lesson?

Yeah. Share your vision.

Okay. I just wanna start by saying a little bit about myself. I grew up Southeast and West Fresno. I went to college. My mom died when I was one. My actually, my mom left when I was one. My dad died when I was nine and I lived in in multiple homes. A lot of people helped me. Through their help, I was able to go to college and even I got to play professional soccer for fifteen years. And so

I received a lot of

help and the soccer community is my family. I like to give back as much as possible. And so that's the reason that I decided to take over Fresno Indoor. We've renovated it. There's a lot of people that we help even in that that community. We do a lot of stuff for we just gave a price for I believe it was 2,000 to $2,500 to someone from that community there. We're planning on doing backpack giveaways. We're doing turkey giveaways. We do a lot of stuff for that community. And the reason we do want to get a beer license is so that with the money that we do raise, we plan on getting back as much as much as possible.

Is there anything else you wanna add about

Is it just for the beer license? Is it just for Yeah. How it's gonna Well, we are gonna make some renovations. We've turned in some blueprints and we've used to turn into the the CEP. And so there will be an area where I mean, we've got I believe, on there, we have an area where only the beer license or only the beer will be sold from there. We're gonna keep it away from some kids. We're gonna make sure that we have sick security. We're gonna make sure that there's only certain hours that that we're able to sell. And then I know we've we've received some comments. And so we're gonna adjust and go ahead and and make those adjustments that are needed.

You're on a senior and Shaw?

Senior and Shaw right there behind the Macy's. Right there by I think there's a a Wendy's and Yeah. Taco Bell. Right there. Taco Bell right there. Yeah. And we've notified everyone. I mean, the obviously, we've done the proper steps to notify everyone that needs to know around that area.

How often do you have these games?

The way you'd be serving the alcohols at, like, every day or weekends? There's games Monday through Sunday. There's kids like, today, there's there's five kids games, and there's prob I I believe seven adult games because we have two fields there. Okay.

I know the area well because I went to Hoover High and Fresno State, so I know the area well. I'm just trying to envision it in my mind. So your traffic is gonna be traveling Cedar and Shaw mostly, not so much Barstow.

Well, we are gonna we're not I mean, I I don't want people to go there to get drunk.

Right. But you wanna have to offer it. I understand that. Wanna be

able to offer it. I want people to come and have a good time. And you guys anytime you guys wanna stop by, you can see how we've created a family environment

there. Okay. I'm just what are the hours of operation again?

As I mean, people can rent the field outs from anytime that they want in the morning, but the leaks start, I believe, at 05:30 to and then sometimes they end around 10:30.

Okay. It's a high DUI area

For sure.

On its own. Yeah. And I sitting watching the prac comedians and the soccer community getting banned from the parties because of alcohol Yeah. And fighting. It's just I don't think that they're like, well, how are you gonna secure the the do you guys have security? Yeah. You know, it says that you're gonna have specific areas. Yeah. Have Like, you had experience in serving alcohol at these events before?

So I've so like I said, I played professionally fifteen years and so I've traveled a lot. I've seen a lot of events, how they how you can manage the alcohol sales. And I go back to what you're saying about Sunday league where they've been banned. I mean, it gets out of control of people arguing with each other. Sometimes there's like I don't think there's even alcohol involved. It's just people just going out there to fight each other. At our facility, if you even look at someone the wrong way, you are banned for six months. And so we don't we don't play with that. So you

have strict policies and Very,

very strict. I don't I don't play with that. Yeah. Know, I love growing up there. The the person that was there before me helped me a lot. He helped me prepare for free. Every now and then, he knew I had food sometimes. He gave me chips. He'll get I don't how do the sodas. And so the first thing I said that when when we come here, there's not gonna be none of that. And and you'll see the kids come, they run around. Even ourselves sometimes we give away snacks just because we want everyone there having a good time. Yeah. But we will have security and we will have an area where the alcohol can only be sold there. And then there is gonna be times where we say, hey, you know, no kids allowed just so we can have, like, the the World Cups coming out and we can have an opioid party and stuff like that. But for me and kids, hey, you know, I mess around with that. But or each other. We take care of each other.

I don't have any anything to add. I mean, I know the the location itself, you know, self contained. I mean, it it's it's it's a staple for, you know, for the community that frequents your spot. And so seeing that it's a beer license, I mean, adults drink beer. And there's, you know, there's a multitude

multitude of of bars, bars, so we're we can't stop them. So

And that's why we decided not to get Alcohol.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

That's why we decided because we don't want you to get there. We did not want we could've went gone that route, and I said, you know what? I don't even want to go that route. I don't even want to take risk or it lead to a place where people don't wanna go to. So

do you have to have a liquor license for beer or wine? I don't think you do, do you?

So you could do beer and then you could do beer and wine.

Without Without the the liquor. Liquor license. Okay.

And we're doing just beer. Just beer.

What kind of beer? I mean, yeah. I'm I'm just curious, like, in your basic grocery store beer

or craft or or Right now, it's just gonna be the basic. We've done studies of of what that area or what the soccer community Sure. Their top three beers for every, you know, like, Mexican, for for Caucasian, for everything. And so Yeah. We're gonna see what makes the most sense.

And did you survey your members to see how they felt about alcohol around the youth sport?

So there are some people that travel all the way to Marseille because in Visalia, they already have a they do craft there. So there's some people that go there just because they wanna play, they wanna have a a beer with each other. So there's some people from our facility that go there just to have a beer. And so as I think as long as we keep it safe, if we don't let things get out of control, I don't think there's ever gonna be an issue. Now if we get it's big. People start getting reckless. People start getting drunk, fighting, then even the kids are not gonna parents are not gonna want their kids there. Right.

I have no objections. Thank you. I mean, you know, if people have a beer or two Yeah. I say, I don't like beer. I just don't.

I personally don't drink. I haven't drink it for fifteen years.

I occasionally I'm I'm one of those occasional I call myself a celebratory drinker. Okay. We're at a wedding champagne. Alright. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. But I have no objection to other people are taking in it as long as Thank you.

So do I hear a motion to approve? Yes. So do I make

a motion? I make a motion to approve. Alright.

Conditional use permit. Motion on the floor. Do I have a second? Okay. I second it.

Thank you.

And any any any opposed? All in favor? Aye. All right. Motion passed. Thank

you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Good luck.

Good evening.

Alright. So moving on to administrative matters. Any announcements or updates? Committee or Thomas, anything we need to know? I really know this one.

I emailed a couple of people about net file forms. And I just make sure because I think there's, like, two parts to it. So just make sure you got the second part, and then I also At

1AM, you work hard.

Right? Did you get I think I

got that email at 1AM.

Oh, that's probably from the system.

Okay. What is the system? Okay.

Yeah. And because it's, like like I try to check-in, but then if it doesn't get done, then it's gonna be like the clerk and the human resources people. Yeah. A lot of people check because it goes too far along. There could be fines and issues. So you just get that done when you have an opportunity.

I get it.

And then Thank you. Thank you. And then, I think for the new members, I know you guys might have the ethics training too. That's got a farther off duty, but we're trying to stay ahead of those. Thank you. Keeps from getting all the emails. I'm all good,

I think. I did the ethics training. Right? Two hours.

I'd I'd have to double check again.

Yeah. I think I did on the first day. Boom. The hardest part was filling out the I have nothing to declare.

Oh, that was cute. Alright. Any any there's more?

Oh, so there's there's the two forms. There's, like, it's, like, the form 700. There's, an RDA form, which I think is just asking you know

In conflicts. Conflicts in a

certain in certain areas. And then then there's also this ethics training where it's like

You had two hours. You had to do at least two hours. Yeah. I did that, like, when it

was day. Yeah. That's a training.

I just wanna make sure that I've got all my, you know, i's dotted and t's crossed.

Okay. Any any other administrative matters? No. Any unscheduled communications? Hearing none, I our next meeting is scheduled for June 16 at 05:30PM, pending availability of any projects. And if we don't have anything else, I will call this meeting adjourned at 05:59PM.

Thank you. You. Okay. So then okay.