Planning Commission / Landmarks Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'm calling this meeting of the Fulton Planning Commission to order. Today is Wednesday, June 24th, 2026. The time is 631. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Commissioner Fleener. Here. Commissioner Tudor.

Here.

Commissioner Wayne absent. Vice Chair Dino.

Here.

Chair Valadez.

Here. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I 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.

We will now take public comments on items not appearing on tonight's agenda, but within the commission's jurisdiction. Each speaker has three minutes. Please state your name and city of residence for the record. Do we have any public comments on... All in the chambers? Nope. Do we have any comments on Zoom?

No speakers.

Seeing no speakers, public comment now is closed. There's no consent calendar for tonight's meeting. Next is Commissioner's communication disclosures regarding tonight's agenda items. Commissioners, do you have any disclosures to report? No. Right. Nope. Thank you. We'll now move to item number one under regular business. Presentation by Fire Chief Lozier regarding to hazardous materials and community safety in response to concerns related to the chemical leak incident that occurred in Garden Grove. Chief Lozier please proceed.

Chief Lozier Good evening everyone. Thank you for allowing me to speak and give you just a little bit of background. Very small background on the incident that occurred and then some background as far as enforcement inspection and the regulation of hazardous materials within our within our city. And also I guess more importantly how we're prepared and how we respond. So on May Thursday May 21st at around 3 3 20 there was a vapor release of methyl methacrylate from the GK and aerospace facility on Western Avenue in Garden Grove. evacuations were put into effect. This container was a very dynamic situation. What you saw on the news and how it was delivered by the incident commanders, what you saw on their face as far as the raw emotion was intentional. The problem that they were facing really at that time was were two bad outcomes. One was it was going to be a catastrophic leak. Another could have been a catastrophic explosion. And the best outcome would be that which we ended up which was it solidified and the temperature dropped. There was neither the explosion nor the leak and they were able to begin mitigating it and rendering it safe and the community safe. But going through that process and the iterations that happened over the next several days of that holiday weekend got all got the specific community of Garden Grove along with all the surrounding communities very anxious concerned Fullerton is no different we were nine miles from where that incident was occurring. And so right away, our EOC leadership group was circled up by our emergency manager, Christy Batiste, and to make sure that we were ready for anything that could come our way. By way of that could have happened a couple different scenarios. If there was a release of fumes of the actual hazardous material, depending on the winds, that plume could have come our way. We would have had people that were affected. If there was a blast the blast wouldn't have necessarily affected our citizens here but they definitely would have that would have affected more evacuations and our local hospital St Jude would have been affected as well depending on the number of patients. Now the Orange County Fire Authority did a great job of working with their community as far as evacuating their community. But 40,000 people, that is an extreme heavy lift to move those people out on a Thursday afternoon. School is still in session. People are getting ready to leave to come home from their business, their work days. You had a lot of dynamics that were in play that they had to contend with. It gives us, from a far-off view, a little bit of the type of incident We could possibly have to contend with here in the city of Fullerton so all that to say When we look at when we look at something like this and I have forgotten the questions from from across different sectors Within the community as well. Do we have hazardous materials within the city of Fullerton? The answer is yes We're a complex city of nearly 23 square miles. We have residential. We have an airport we have a trained a very one of the busiest train spurs in the in Southern California. We have industry we have manufacturing we have the the the freeway system all things that as. planning commission you know about um so yes we do have those how are those how are those regulated out of those out of those uh out of the all the businesses we have in the city of fullerton we have approximately 520 businesses that can that store used for manufacturing used for distribution 520 businesses that have a disclosed hazardous material that resides within the city of Fullerton. And so the next question would be one other piece there out of those five hundred and twenty there are six of them that have chemicals that are similar to the one that was being held in Garden Grove both by the the type and also by the quantity. So as far as who who enforces and who. Who handles the hazardous materials. That is actually done by the Orange County Health Care Agency under their environmental division. So whenever there is a. There are certain amounts that facilities have to report to them. It's either 55 gallons of a hazardous liquid. It is 500 plus pounds of a hazardous solid. Or it's 200 cubic feet of a hazardous gas if a business has any of any or all of those. Those types of a product they must disclose those through the orange county health care agency what the health care agency does they handle all the inspections for the hazardous material reporting so reporting. what and how much they have the actual storage emergency response plans and employee training all of which if you think about it would be necessary if you worked in a facility that had all of this you wanted to know if it was stored properly if the people that were working there had the proper training that in case there was some sort of emergency related to that hazardous material there was a plan in place and they had trained on it uh... and then secondarily to that what is the response needed to mitigate that chemical of in whatever form it may be in so that as all that is all handled by the orange county health care agency what the fire department does the fire department works in collaboration with the county uh... and we do the fire life safety inspections so when my inspectors go to these facilities they verify that the ability for fire engines and ambulances to get into the business were able to get out that their fire systems or suppression systems sprinkler systems uh... have been tested and are in place and meet the need for whatever that chemical maybe where it's being stored uh... and at any time we can always ask for anything that looks out of the ordinary when they are doing their inspection at the facility So two distinct lanes that we work in, the oversight to the Orange County Health Care Agency is the EPA. The local EPA is Cal EPA. So they provide the high level state oversight to the county as far as the enforcement of whatever chemicals they may have. So as far as a response. So if you think if there is if there is a response such as that was that happened that occurred in Garden Grove a fire unit would respond. One of the other pieces that that my inspectors also verify is that the placarding on the exterior of a building is correlates to whatever is being stored in the building and how that ties into is if there is an incident at that same business and our fire engine responds to that they will look up on the side of the building and see that placard that will give them dirt a couple different directions one how what kind of material is in there you'll have an idea of the amount and then what action they need to take and how quickly they need to take it. So they arrive on scene, they quickly meet with a representative, evacuations if necessary, determine medical needs, and then they call for the appropriate resources. If this is an incident that is expanding, such as going on there, we would call out our hazardous materials team. Now the city of Fullerton Fire Department, we do not have that resource. That is a very technical specialty under the fire department. And so we participate in a joint powers authority or a JPA called Acmera. And we participate with several other cities in Orange County. And we basically pool our monies to support two full service hazardous materials teams. One out of Huntington Beach, one out of Anaheim. Whenever there is a response, we get two units. One is a primary, one is a backup. That JPA funds the equipment, the training, and any equipment that's associated with that. The cities pick up the cost of the personnel. So the training, as you can imagine, to be a hazardous materials specialist is very intense. It is constantly ongoing. And they are the subject matter experts as it relates to deeming a material safe, volatile, What actions next next steps should be for bringing this bringing that incident to closure. So that's how we respond to an incident. How we're prepared for these incidents is a big deal. It starts off, as I mentioned, with our emergency operations committee and our leadership. That's our executive team, which also includes our city manager and our emergency manager, Christy Batiste. um how that relates to it we have our local hazard mitigation plan uh that was just passed recently uh at our last council meeting and what we go through that was an update to a plan that was uh completed five years ago that outlines all the the different hazards that we have within the city hazardous materials happens to be one of those hazards um our very high severity areas is another hazard um Earthquakes is a hazard we must be able to contend with. And it also lines out different measures that we were able to take to be prepared for that and what our mitigation process would be for any of these issues. And this includes hazardous materials. So as far as being prepared, having a plan, having a place if we needed to do evacuations, having a communication forum, which we have that as well, and I'd like to encourage everybody who is listening and also for our commissioners here to... that to anybody you come in contact with is to sign up with Alert OC. It is a very secure program that we encourage all of our citizens to sign up for and we can send emergency information out either by cell phone or by hard line. text message or email. And other than that we will we will utilize social media the best we can. But the idea is to communicate with our our citizens as quickly and accurately as possible. When you have a situation like that. And the implementation or I guess the integration of social media. it can very quickly go down a path that may not be accurate and may not be the most current information. And so it's very important for us as the city and the first responders to get in front of the public as soon as possible and start presenting what the information is as we know it and Follow up with it in a timely manner to keep the keep the public informed of what the next steps are Otherwise it kind of goes off and grows legs on its own outside of that that that pipeline so Just to kind of circle back, so the Orange County Health Care Agency Environmental Division, they are the enforcement leg of hazardous materials within the city of Fullerton. The city of Fullerton Fire Department handles fire and life safety inspections of those same facilities. We have about 520 of those within the city. Six of those contain amounts and hazards similar to that was in Garden Grove. We do have a robust preparedness plan and we do obviously have a very robust response plan when it comes to hazardous materials. I'll add one last thing is with those six those six companies And with my department, I do have a lot of newer firefighters, a lot of new personnel. But on an annual basis, we make it out to three of those businesses to do an orientation, to meet up with their staff, for our members to put eyes on what the facility is, what the dangers are there, or I guess the... the chemicals that are being housed there and how the response would definitely lie out. So every two years we make it to all six of those. One thing I didn't mention and I apologize for that is we do inspect these 520 businesses are inspected annually. So every year there are eyes that are put on those 520 businesses both by my personnel and by county personnel. So as far as planning, I guess related to the Planning Commission, that really is the purview of the city and the planning department within the city as far as making sure it meets the requirements of locations taken into consideration, places of assembly, schools, residential areas. And I would say that's all in probably Mr. Schaffer's purview as far as answering more detailed questions on that. But I'm available for any questions that you may have for me. I hope that gives you a little background on where we sit as a city and how that incident played out.

Chief, thank you very much. I'll open up the public hearing, and we'll now take public comments on this item from chambers. Seeing no comments in public chambers, do we have any on Zoom?

No Zoom speakers. Okay.

Commissioners, do we have any questions for Chief?

Yes, I have a few. I'm not sure whether you would answer or whether, Chris, you would answer. But I'm wondering, you said you had kind of a prevention plan. And I'm thinking, I'm not sure if in Garden Grove they fully anticipated that it would require those evacuations. And maybe they did. I don't know. But is our prevention plan take it all the way out to that possibility? And what would...

what and who and how people would be directed to be basically to have to vacate sure we do we do have so initially when an incident occurs whether it's due to a wildfire an earthquake hazardous material we do have a an evacuation center that we would activate Depending on the location, of course, we may have to be flexible. So that's the important part of our emergency managers to make sure that she has the partnerships. locally allow us to be flexible the flexibility is within our schools within our college systems uh... but as a city our community centers is identified as our initial evacuation area if by chance it is going to go next step longer term then we modify that to a true shelter and the shelter has to provide, has to have several different aspects to it. Bathrooms, we need to provide, you know, you're gonna provide food. There has to be oversight with people as well as animals. And so we can convert, and the staff has been trained to do so at our community center. But with a number of people, that's where we have to work on and lean on our community partners. And so those communications with our school districts and with our colleges have occurred, and we are all in lockstep to use those if the need is there. That's what had to happen in Garden Grove. Some of our community emergency response team members, our CERT members, were able to go to one of the schools and help with their shelter, help with their setup, and facilitate the intake of people that had been evacuated. long-winded answer to your question. Yes, we are prepared to do that. We also just passed last council meeting our evacuation annex. The evacuation annex specifically lines out zones tied to our very high fire severity zones. Evacuations are handled by our law enforcement, so our police department. So this evacuation annex plan was put together by our emergency manager, our police department, and validated by our traffic division. So we do have that in place and identified, but again, all depends where the where it happens when we had the earthquake back in 20 I think 2011 the La Habra earthquake it happened obviously up in the northwest part of town and so it very well could have affected BNSF or rail transit here at the time we could have had some sort of situation down in the west side of town Which may have negated using the community center as our evacuation zone So sometimes we have to be flexible on that based upon where the location of the incident occurs I've got a question also

did was it was anything learned from what happened in garden grove to two prongs of this one is that could have done better to prevent what happened and did we do anything did we discover anything that caused us to change our plan for fullerton so in answer to your first question uh... none of that information has been released it's still under investigation side

Don't know what exactly caused it. I've heard, probably the same as everybody here, faulty valves that were, that did not operate, both primary and secondary. But I haven't, that hasn't been validated, and I don't know what that information is beyond that's, like I said, that's been validated. The second part to your question, Which was, I just lost what it was.

Was there anything we, the city of Fullerton, learned from that that we either have or will be going back to our plans and changing them?

So we took, as we were watching it unfold, we did circle back up and make sure, that's part of our process, make sure a lot of the information that I'm passing on to you is occurring, the inspections, the normalcy by which they occur. And we feel very confident that where we're at as far as our preparedness our response our enforcement and the way we're working with our with our partners and our businesses is is spot on. It's it's accurate it's up to date and current. So we're always looking for different ways we can can make it better. And as we go through our inspections this year, you know, anything that comes back, we'll make those adjustments. But one piece that's really important to me and to our first responders is making sure we get into those businesses and put eyes on the facility and the chemicals that they're holding.

Thank you.

Commissioner Fleener, any questions? Vice Chair?

Thank you for coming in chief. I think one of the I think one of the questions that I think Commissioner Tudor touched upon was Can it happen in Fulton and and and it sounds like we are prepared but I think one of the things too is that With those six but not the 520 but the six that If it were to happen Is there anything that we can do from a planning perspective? I mean between possibly increased code enforcement, limiting the amount of businesses from an economic development perspective. Is there anything that we can do as a city to help prevent that from happening in the future?

I think it's a bit of a balancing act. We want to work with our businesses that are within the city and make sure that they are safe and they are productive and successful in the business that they're doing. But we also have a commitment to our community that surrounds them. And so we do want to make sure that they are properly operating. So as far as could it happen, You know it could happen anywhere I think that's the whole case with enforcement and inspection is that. That those are being done and they're being done properly and they're being done timely. And. As far as going more to that if people are interested in seeing where these businesses are at you can go to the Orange County health care agency Web site under the environmental division. and you can search by address. But is there anything else we can do from a planning side. I don't want to say no but I feel like we're we're doing everything that is that is available to do. And I think it's it's now everybody has a very heightened sense of awareness of what's going on because of that incident. That incident as everybody has probably heard there's been numerous other large scale incidents there was the Kimberly Clark facility that that went up in Ontario there was a large warehouse that went up in Tracy. The Tracy incident had. Medical supplies packaged it was a distribution center, but it had a large amount of Chemicals that were released when those were burning And then most recently is up in Boyle Heights On that facility there which of which is a refrigerated food storage logistics warehouse We do have one of our fire ladder trucks that's up there assisting Los Angeles City Fire Department with that operation But it has a different it's not necessarily the the contents of the building that are of trouble. It's actually the building itself that is somewhat the issue that they're contending with. So that's where the regulation and your fire prevention division, your fire marshal, your planning department, the important work that's done here to make sure that the school The square peg fits in the square hole and not vice versa so that the right business is where it needs to be and the right mechanisms are in place to keep it safe.

Not placing blame on the county, but I know that our code enforcement is kind of stretched and even with some of our legal businesses that they've been... I would say, yeah, it sounds like our code enforcement is pretty stretched. So knowing that OC Healthcare Agency, I'm not necessarily placing the onus on them, but is there, I mean, would it be more code enforcement? I mean, additional staff? How can we kind of contribute to helping this?

Yeah, code enforcement from the building division, they are definitely very stretched As a fire department my fire prevention inspectors we are we're down at least two inspectors from where we were at 10 12 years ago And there's been more businesses brought to the city, you know, thankfully that's that's great But it does take a lot of work our fire engines do go out and do the basic inspections the business inspections That's part of what they do as well. But even with the increased call volume that they go on It becomes more and more challenging So I'd say we're we're doing the best with what we have but we can always do better with a few more hands.

I completely empathize because I've been on a couple of those ride alongs and it's it's a lot of work to enforce our municipal codes.

It is and it's not only the inspection but then it's also the administrative piece on the back end. input all the information and if there are any violations to document that and follow up with that so it is a it is more than just going out and putting eyes on a business and thank you chief how many inspectors do we have looking at the situation for the city So we have three three inspectors we have three inspectors and one plans examiner who is also our assistant fire marshal.

And when these large incidents happen is there a general strategy of looking at them and seeing how we can deal with them. Like for example with what's happening currently at Boyle Heights. As it relates to like to use these as an opportunity to learn whenever the situation you mentioned several large incidents that have occurred.

throughout the country or the state yes no I get what you're saying yes we circled up the fire prevention division right now we have our fire marshal our deputy chief fire marshal that position is is vacant so we circled up our inspectors at our assistant fire marshal and have had discussions on on these incidents additional thing and trying to hear from their perspective what they're seeing out in the field and just validating that taking the extra step to look here or to check on this and mostly so that I can report back to anybody that asked me that they're doing the job that they're they they're supposed to be doing and what they're seeing out in the field. So.

I imagine you must deal with a lot of different scenarios so what I've briefly read about what's happening at the cold storage facility it's the foam that's burning right and so. Obviously you're training for all these different examples but it must be that you must have hundreds or thousands of scenarios I guess that you're working

correct and that's you know that that particular one on warehouse fires for the fire department for the most part we we try to be very aggressive get in there use the firewall that's in there to keep it compartmentalized as much as possible but depending on whatever is inside the building the fire load sometimes that gets overrun and so we have to you know we go into a defensive mode defensive strategy and just try to hold the fire to the building of origin uh... in this case in boyle heights that would have been fine but the building itself is a yeti cooler so you have all the phone that's insulated the fruit itself is about six feet of foam so on top of that you had all the array of solar panels there is fire that creep down in amongst that six feet and made its way into the interior of the building um and into the interior of the building they have a rack system that really goes from floor to ceiling um their high pile storage was was correct but still they're locked into the ceiling and the floor of those um those that rack system so when the fire gets into that large facility one there is no visibility to it's very difficult to get hose streams and water into that into that area so they've used a couple different things you may have seen the water dropping helicopters that's not a typical tactic that we use in urban firefighting but in this case when you're dealing with hundreds of thousands of square foot area It made sense, and it did the job initially, but they needed to get deeper into that as they went into the operation of this, and that's why they brought in a larger helicopter, so much so that it drops 3,000 gallons of water on the roof of this building, trying to get a purchase point so they can get hose lines into it. It happened, they were able to do that, not to the effect that they anticipated. So right now they have, they brought in, or two days ago they brought in high flow water cannons from Texas, ones that are used in the oil fields that put out 8,000 gallons of water a minute. to penetrate the purchase they've made on the sides of the buildings and they are making. They are making progress now. The smoke is starting to dissipate and dim down. So the next piece is going to be moving the millions of gallons of millions of pounds of food product out of there. So they have a long recovery with that area. And still trying to bring it to some sort of a closure.

Well, you definitely removed my concern about you're using this as a learning opportunity because obviously you know what's going on at that facility. What was another interesting thing that I saw was that they've hired private contractors with the helicopters to dump the water. Is that something that if something similar happens at Voltron you're prepared to work with?

course we're fortunate to have fullerton airport here and we do have uh some large water dropping helicopters that are available to us so and they are housed out of here especially during the wildland season and during some of the fires we've had especially on the northwest part of town in west coyote hills area uh... the riser fire the castlewood fire they were just they were there in an instant so that is very good for us and when we have incident when the fire department has incidents a lot of times there isn't a playbook for what we have to solve and so we do have to come up with unique solutions and do things that we may not have done before to bring it to a quick resolution. Always take into consideration saving life saving property and then saving the environment in that order. So that's what happened at that facility and that's why he had the initial evacuations people out of there. And in both, thankfully enough, in all those incidents that I mentioned, Ontario, Tracy, L.A., Garden Grove, we have had no casualties, no deaths related to that, and very, very minimal injuries as it relates to the response to that. So at the end of the day, that's what we're thankful for. But then the property piece and the economic impact to all of those is is very detrimental in some cases regionally uh... with uh... emily clark uh... logistics area the tracy logistics and now this logistical area out of uh... los angeles so uh... it is to our best interest to try to get these businesses if the incident closed down help them with remediation and work on getting them stood back up as quickly as possible because those are Those are impacts to the local community and the local workforce as well.

Another question I have is concerning the information that the OC Health Agency has on specific businesses. So you mentioned that we can research that information if we like online, right? It's just a lot of basic data of what hazardous materials they have? Correct. Okay. Another question concerning the air quality of, like, using the Garden Grove as an example, if the winds were headed to Fullerton, how would that information be processed? Like, initially, who says that the air quality is worsening? Would that be AQMD or...

correct that would be uh... we work with a kundi uh... and when i incident like that was going on it a kundi was at the table uh... they were also doing uh... plume modeling uh... based on the predicted weather patterns that were going to occur at all stages of that incident And that would determine how far the product may be carried, along with the scientists and the facility management as part of their response plan. That all overlays to give the best information to our first responders to provide the direction to our community. We want to be direct with the community. We want them to know where we're at. And we always will err on the side of a little bit more than a little bit less. We can always protract. Or we can always retract. But it's important to make the box a little bit bigger. And as we get more information or as the incident evolves, we can always retract and make it smaller. And that's really how we operate to keep our number one priority. life life safety at the forefront.

So if the plume was headed to Fulton for example what would be the process to inform residents. You mentioned alert O.C. other news I guess locally. What other processes do you have.

So alert O.C. our social media our Web site and then we would have we would work with our law enforcement partners and wherever it was determined that would be an actual need for evacuations they would start going door-to-door based upon what that prediction line was at the same time if there was if there was a leak and it was going that way and I was in communication with the incident commander for the garden Grove incident we would also be there as a an agency representative um and probably step in to give the specific direction to our community no different than with anaheim um with the city of orange both who have all three of us have independent fire departments uh cyprus and stan they were also uh it may have been impacted they are also covered by orange county fire authority uh

Concerning your inspections, how often do they check the fire suppression equipment, like a sprinkler system? Do they actually check, or is this just a visual check, or do they actually test the system?

The system, I believe, has to be checked every five years. There are certain, they check, the inspectors do check the viability of those. When they're doing their interior check, make sure that there is nothing that is impeding their use. There's been no paint over the sprinkler heads. So that is annually where they're checking on those and then the as far as the actual System check it's every five years unless there's been any change done to the facility as far as tenant improvements And also would warrant it to to be sooner Leslie What would you say your top five or top three concerns that you have for like hazardous situations that might happen in the city of Fullerton?

Not that I want to scare the residents but just to be aware.

And there's no need for our residents to be concerned. I think the biggest thing is for residents just to be to be engaged be informed and have access to that. And that's that's every that's every citizen that's here and we have to consider language barriers. We have to consider impairments. We have to consider different social and economic areas of our city. that may not have the time or the means to. To get this information and so we it is our responsibility to try to identify that and to. Facilitate get in that information on as quickly as possible so information at this day and age and the proper information. To me is one of the most important pieces the response obviously is paramount to to bringing that to as quick closure as possible in providing the direction. But I'd say the the the information disseminating the information the proper information quickly is one of our is a challenge and something that is going to take a little bit of time to try to get it down to every single citizen that could be in a potential path whether it is an earthquake a hazardous material a wildland fire. Yeah.

I guess one last question and then I'll look at the other, I'll ask the commissioners if you have any more. Especially from the Eend fire, the one thing I was shocked by is how much hazardous materials people have at their homes, right? Is there any process of telling people or identifying residents of Fulton, like, you have these things to try to recycle them as soon as possible if you're not using them, like lead batteries to, I mean, I guess, what are your concerns were from the fires that we've learned from Eend?

One thing that was identified is the amount of lithium ion batteries that are in everything, whether they're in our phones, they're in the cars we drive, they're in the battery storage units that are due to our solar panels. They're everywhere and I'd say that's one of the they produce a heavy metal that gets in the air and when our firefighters are out there fighting these urban slash wildland fires they're not in their normal breathing apparatus they're not in their heavy turnouts they're in lightweight gear they typically don't have anything on their. covering their face because they're doing exterior firefighting and they're doing a lot of it for a long period of time so the intention with that is to do that type of work when you go into a structure fire it's in a certain area you're doing work you're encapsulated in your gear you come out you get relief you sit on the side you're good to go but in that type of environment completely different so what they're breathing in and what you know a lot of people are breathing in was just A lot of bad stuff. And my house is probably no different than a lot of people. We have a lot of things that if If you take a few minutes to go through your garage, go through things that you don't need and properly recycle them, dispose of them through the county, we do have a place, the closest place for us here is off of Blue Gum. That is a hazardous material disposal center. And that could be accessed through the Orange County Health care agency as well a list of those disposal areas just take make it part of your make it part of your spring cleaning and try to get rid of those old paint cans old chemicals that you may have stored up from a remodel that you did or a project you were doing with your car if you can eliminate those get them properly disposed of that definitely helps out not only the individual homestead but also the neighborhoods

Thank you for that great advice. Commissioners, any other more questions? Vice Chair?

Thank you for mentioning Blue Gum.

I use it regularly.

Actually, this is a Chris question, so that's why I waited until the end. In terms of our process when it comes to planning, what safeguards do we have? For example, if there were another development that were to come up that was a warehouse that had hazardous materials like What safeguards do we have in terms of the process in applications? Because until the chief may be aware, I didn't realize there were 520, potentially six, that all had chemicals. And I haven't heard you mention any in the time that I've sat on planning commission, any that had that potential.

Yeah, so thanks for bringing that up. So we have three opportunities to catch things like this. The first time is when somebody comes in to build a brand new structure. They submit plans. We route them out to different departments, to all the departments, fire, PD, public works. Everybody gets to look at those plans to see what's being included in the new structure. based off what we were here at that time that we can provide comments about you know where things are placed if they need to be house differently removed somewhere else a second opportunities when there's a t i uh... same thing happens plans are submitted Plans are routed to the different departments fire pd uh fire pulley um i'm sorry not pd fire building public works and those different staff members would evaluate each of the um drawings to determine if there's anything needs to be addressed and then lastly is when somebody comes in for a business license they would submit their paperwork that would be reviewed, and they have to indicate whether they have hazardous materials in sight. But we kind of look at it in a larger scope. We also include AQMD. There's a form that's filled out that gets submitted to AQMD to determine if there's any materials that would off-gas or create some kind of aerial issue. And then we have our water quality that's reviewed. So there's a form that's filled out to determine if there's any NPDES issues that need to be addressed. And then lastly, Orange County Healthcare Agency. So we do involve those agencies in our reviews and get their feedback. So we're kind of the generalists and we format to the other specials that would actually have the knowledge and the ability to address those issues. Thank you guys.

That was my only question Yes, I have one more question if something like what happened in Garden Grove happened and We as residents were aware and wanted to find information What would be our best source to keep to keep? Rapidly aware what's happening is it is it someone in Fullerton is that the is it the health the Orange County Health Care Agency a QMD and

Are you talking about as it relates to an occurring incident?

Yeah.

It is going to be the fire department's social media, the city of Fullerton's social media, and that's Instagram, Facebook, and X, and the police department. We all work together, so we all share information. But that information... Depending on what the emergency is, we'll come for one or all of those. But typically, if the fire department has something that's going on, we will share it with the city's website. So they're both pushing on information equally. The police department has a large following on their social media. So we also try to work together with them as well to capture as many people as possible.

Okay.

Seeing no more questions for the chief for the staff the public hearing is not closed Any other concerns or discussions there's a lot of information to process chief. Thank you for your presentation. Thank you We will now move to item number two under regular business Review and discussion of the city's general plan and state requirements related to long-range planning and physical development including environmental justice element requirements staff your report

Yes, thanks honorable chair and commissioners The purpose of today's presentation is basically just to give you more exposure to the general plan and environmental justice element Realizing that some of you are new to the Planning Commission and maybe didn't get this background Training or education in the past. So really the purpose is just to give you exposure to it We're not going to get into the weeds on any of these things Just to kind of give you like the basic nuts and bolts of this so The general plan per California code government section 65300. Every city in the state is required to prepare and have its legislative body adopt a comprehensive long-term general plan for the physical development of the city in any land outside of its boundaries that is relevant to its planning. This plan serves as a local government's blueprint for future growth and land use. One thing I do want to note is that the state really doesn't specify how often we have to update this document, but general practice, it's every 10 to 20 years, give or take. So there are some mandatory elements within the general plan. There are seven mandatory elements, and they include land use, land use outlines the proposed distribution and location of land uses such as housing, business, industry, open space, education, public buildings, waste disposal facilities, greenways, and other public private uses. It sets standards for population density and building intensity, identifies flood-prone areas, and designates such things as timberland production areas. It also considers the impacts of new growth on military readiness activities. Second one is the circulation element. This addresses transportation networks, including roads, streets, sidewalks, bike lanes, and public transit to ensure safe, efficient, and accessible movement for all users. A third is the housing element, which you really recently had your. Your eyeballs on, so this sets policy and standards for housing supply, affordability and quality, including strategies to address housing needs and prevent displacement. Noise element controls and mitigates noise pollution from various sources, including transportation industry and construction. Safety element addresses physical safety, including fire protection, emergency services and hazard mitigation as well as frame. Crime prevention and community safety. Open space, uh, preserves and manages the open space for recreation, scenic beauty. And environmental benefits, including parks, trails and greenways. Conservation protects natural resources, vegetation and environmental quality, including endangered species habitat. Water resources and topography. And as you can see on the slide, we have an eighth element, which is environmental justice, which I will talk about more in depth in a second. Drilling down a little bit further, each of the elements is required to cover this basic information. So each one has an introduction. It describes existing conditions. And then it articulates the goals and policies and actions that that particular element will address. So as I previously mentioned, some of the elements have recurring timelines where they're supposed to be updated. So as I mentioned, the general plan was last updated in May of 2012. uh... it does not have a required update time but were we're getting you know a little bit further into this so we're at what uh... fourteen years now so it's about time we're gonna have to start looking at maybe uh... updating this this document and then we have the housing element which we completed last year uh... it has an eight year cycle However, we were late into the cycle getting and done so the next update would be due October of 2029 so that's You know three years away Safety element that was just recently updated as of April 2025 that is to be updated every eight years Open space element we completed that last month There's no update requirement stated currently Conservation element we did that in conjunction with the open space element same thing. It was last last month and And I'm gonna skip down Land use element no updates specified noise element. No updates specified Environmental justice that is something we're gonna have to do now And there's a new plan called an electrification plan that is called out in state law We have to do that between January 20 27 in January of 2030 And then lastly, we have the local hazard mitigation plan that was updated just recently as of last council meeting and the emergency operations and evacuation plans that was also updated. So we've done a lot of updates recently, but we still have a few more to do. So, going specifically into the environmental justice element. As you can see there's a definition environmental justice means a fair treatment of people of all races cultures and incomes in the development adaptation I'm sorry adoption implementation and enforcement of environmental laws regulations and policies. So. Environmental justice is mandated by these four laws that are stated on the screen SB 1000 SB 18 SB 115 SB 535 So SB 1000 was adopted in 2016 and It is part of the government code section 65 302 H which is also known as planning for Healthy Communities Act and And then most recently in twenty twenty one SP eighteen was passed that expanded the scope of the of this to address climate resilience and social equity. So the environmental element. Environmental justice element is designed to identify and address disproportionate environmental burdens. in uh... the acs which are disadvantaged communities such as exposure to air and water pollution hazardous waste sites incline related hazards it's also to prioritize health supporting resources like nutritious food safe housing public services and recreational opportunities it's to ensure meaningful community engagement implying decisions affect these communities and to reduce health risk from environmental exposures including asthma, respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and neurological conditions. So the tool that's used to determine a disadvantaged community is defined by CalEPA using the CalEnviroScreen 4.0, which is a science-based tool that identifies census tracts with the highest combined burdens of pollution exposure and population vulnerability. The city's consultants have identified the census tracts that fall under this criteria, which are identified on the right side of the screen. I'm going to show you a map in a second. It'll show where those tracks are located. So as I previously mentioned, the CalEnviroScreen 4.0 indicators include the following items. Ozone, PM 2.5, which is a particular matter, 2.5, diesel particulate matter, drinking water contaminants, impacts from traffic and facilities affecting air and water quality, issues affecting sensitive populations and other indicators. We're not going to delve into the specifics today, but I just want to present this to you because we'll be getting into more details when we actually Jump into the environmental justice element in a few weeks So as I previously stated the Cal environment Cal EnviroScreen 4.0 is identified on the right side of the screen and the affected tracks are shown in red and orange and So as you can guess, these relate to our more industrial areas. So we have the southeast district where we have all the factories, the railroad corridors, the freeways. And then on the far north side along Imperial Highway and Harbor, we have those industrial zoned areas. So you can see those colors, those shadings reflect that.

Chris, is there a reason why Cal State Flourishing is orange?

I believe because it's a close see It's not too far from the freeways and the railroad tracks. That's That's what I understand okay, thank you sure So This is basically the presentation I was going to give you today, just to kind of give you like a brain teaser, a little primer. But we do have a draft element that's been prepared. It is on the city's website. It's shown on the link at the bottom of the screen. We are going to conduct a public workshop. We have it scheduled for July 16th at 630, which will be held at the Hunt Branch Library at 201 South Basque Avenue. uh... we will have our consultants there and will have some opportunities for uh... folks to provide input uh... well different different activities will have translators there as well to uh... to uh... translate anything that needs to be translated to spanish and korean uh... and then lastly once we've gone through that process we're going to schedule this item for planning commission hearing which is in the summer early fall So the date's not locked in yet, but it's coming down the pike. So that is my presentation, and I'd be happy to answer any of your questions at this time.

Are we going to go ahead and open up to the public first? Sure, absolutely. We will take public comments from chambers. Are there any comments? Seeing none, are there any public comments on Zoom?

No speakers.

See no speakers now. Are there any questions for Mr. Schaffer? To my right, any questions? Do you have any questions, Vice Chair?

Yeah. Let me just... So in terms of all the seven elements, this would be the last that we're going over except for maybe the general plan in the future?

Right. We're looking at maybe doing a general plan update in two or three years. We're kind of playing it out right now. We're trying to prioritize what's due sooner and get that done first. But yeah, we're maybe in the next three years, maybe a little bit longer.

In terms of the housing element, I guess, how do I phrase this?

we okay we're okay yeah it's funny we're already talking about the seventh cycle which is the next one that starts in 2029 so as you recall the arena was the big sticking point for the city our arena number was thirteen thousand two hundred nine units per my discussions with the OC cog the arena discussion is gonna start in August and we're going to find out how that's going to play out. We have no idea how it's going to be allocated. We're getting some additional, well, we're getting some initial surveys to respond to and to see how we want to address the arena next time.

In terms of the environmental justice in the draft, what are some ways that that map could be addressed in terms of the draft plan? Or what are some of the, like, how do you address the imbalance?

Well, it's a policy document. We really want the people that live in those districts to attend the meeting and actually let us know what their concerns are. It's going to be dictated by what we hear from the public. I don't really have a really solid answer for you at this time. We're still kind of moving through this. This is the first time we've done it. So the city that's really good at environmental justice is Santa Ana. they've got it nailed down. We've I've been to two or three other presentations and they have a good group of two or three planners that work in this constantly so trying to just emulate what they've done.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF Yeah kind of going back to my question about Cal State Fullerton it's like how do you you can't really move a freeway from in terms of that just to address just to address that particular orange area.

Yeah, you know, I'll bring this up with our consultant. We have a consulting firm, Kinleyhorn, that's, we have two or three planners that are working for us. I'll bring it up and see how they want to address that.

Got it. Thank you, that's it for me.

My question, I knew I had something. So, I asked you before the meeting whether or not infrastructure was included. You said yes. Some of the things I've noticed in the city is that we have bad streets everywhere but it does seem to me like. They're in general worse in the southern part of the city. Right. I've also heard I haven't verified this myself but I've heard from several people that they see a marked difference between the schools in the southern Fullerton and northern. Is that included in that or if not where would that be included.

The school districts are handled separately there. They don't fall under the city's purview. And their boundaries don't, of course, fall into the city's boundaries either at times. We can try to provide recommendations and suggestions to them, but they're really outside the city's control. I mean, we meet with them, but they basically report to the state of California, and we're limited to what we can do with them. Okay. Okay.

So I'd like to piggyback on that question on what are the metrics that you're possibly not to delve too deep into it that you're looking into for this environmental justice element?

Yeah, I mean, it's...

I've seen some, like, they talk about traffic safety or access to healthy food, right, air quality, park access, sidewalk completion, which I don't think that's an issue as much here, but... could be street roads, obviously, tree canopy coverage. Are there some other ones that you'll possibly look at?

Yeah. Demographics, racial, ethnic, minority, population, median family income, high social vulnerability, limited public facility access, limited park access, limited transit access, limited supermarket access. Those are some of the items that need to be addressed in the element.

And this is considered a new element, then? It is.

This will be brand new. This is a first time. This will be the eighth? Right.

And then the electrification will be the ninth, I guess?

It's actually not an element. It's just a state requirement. So we have these requirements that I kind of lumped together. But some are part of the general plan. Some are outside of it.

And I'm assuming that they're not funded in any way by the state.

They are not.

OK. I understand it's a totally, it's a completely important information that our residents need. I guess my last question would be how, I guess you'll continue this conversation later, but concerning the disadvantaged communities, how are they defined? Is that a federal definition? Or I could look into it later, I guess.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to defer that to our consultant. Okay.

That's all based off the federal census strikes. Yeah. Okay. Any more questions? Commissioners?

Yeah. I thought of one while you were talking. Well, it came and went. Sorry. I don't remember what it was now.

I'll see no more questions. The public hearing is now closed. Commissioners, any more you want to discuss any further?

You know, I just want to mention that we're in the beginning of this. So if you have questions, write them down because we're going to be going at this. You know, you guys are going to have a couple more shots of this thing. So I do recommend that you look at the document on the city's web page and then, you know, Jot your questions down and then either shoot them to me or to Yann who's our project manager and we'll get them to our consultants and we'll get responses either before the meeting or during the meeting. Okay.

Okay my question was about the elect the electrification which is the new thing that's not an element.

Right.

So now I know that the elements are written at a kind of a high level policy level and then there are more detailed things that happen every year. And some of them are monitored, others you need to report on. I don't think they all have to be reported on. What's the case with the electrification? And is it for city buildings and infrastructure only or is it for residents as well?

So it's for every city, and I forgot what the threshold was. I think it's over 50,000 population. It looks at whether the grid is sufficient to support the population and future population. It looks at charging stations for vehicles, just different aspects of electricity. I mean, honestly, With new construction, a lot of houses are going away from gas, and they're just going 100% electric. So is the local infrastructure going to be able to support it? If not, how are we going to meet that requirement? So it's going to be a multifaceted project, and we haven't even started it yet. But the state says we have to do it and get it done by 2030. Vice Chair?

Thank you. So to check on to Commissioner Tudor's question then, when we do talk about electrification, I would be kind of interested to find out, like, I mean, are they requiring a certain amount of charging stations or, I mean, do they get to that specific? Because I know that that's kind of been out there for a while, especially with SoCo and the idea of having charging stations in the city was, I think,

It's just looking at this distribution of them. Are we going to be able to support the state's goals of reducing our emissions and having, you know, going from gas engines and gas vehicles to electric vehicles? And if we don't have enough charging stations, how are we going to be able to provide those in the future? So that's just a small piece of it.

Got it. Final question for me was, in terms of your plan for engagement, because I know that, obviously, this is going to come up over the next couple of months within the community. Are you looking at multiple community meetings, a schedule? Obviously, you are putting it on the website. And it's going to probably be a couple of meetings before it comes back to us.

Yeah, so we're gonna try to get the word out there anyway possible through our city website through the city social media Don't really we can't really do a mailing for this. So we're have to use alternate means maybe Reach out to some of the stakeholders that we know and have them spread the word Thank you

Thank you, Mr. Schaffer. This is just receive and file, I believe? Correct, yeah. Okay. So I guess we'll move on to the commission and staff communications. Commissioners, do you have any further questions for Mr. Schaffer on other items? No? Just one quick question. There was, at a federal level, they were trying to pass what was called the 21st Century Road to Housing Act. familiar with it at all you know what I saw the headlines today but I didn't read I didn't read into it so I don't know what that's what that act is trying to do or what it what it entails I don't have an answer for that well what I heard it was bipartisan and unfortunately from what I understand Trump was getting involved but I guess I was trying to make it cheaper for developers to build more housing but I guess I'm more interested in What your mindset is, how do you process that information when new laws come in from the state or on the federal level where Folter can take advantage of it? This is more kind of inside baseball. How does you and your staff look at that?

The biggest thing the first thing we do is we reach out to our good friend Baron and Lisa at the city attorney's office and get you know, they're very good about providing summaries because a lot of these laws are written and very hard to read. And so the attorneys, they're able to read these things and translate them into English so we can understand what they're saying. And then, you know, if we have the ability to spread the word, then we do. Like sometimes the laws are good and we can use them to the advantage of the developers and say, hey, there's this SB whatever. You might try to use this to get whatever you want to get built. But You know, there's just so many right now. It's hard to keep our arms around all of them that are coming out.

And in that discussion, has there been any developers, like, even looking at SB 79, for example?

The one that's been picking up lately is SB 9. We're getting more. I mean, ADUs have been picking up like crazy, and that's like six or ten ADU laws. But SB 9 has been picking up. And then we've been talking to churches about SB 6, I believe. Mm-hmm. And so, but like I said, SB 9 is the one that I've noticed we've got an uptick on applications for that. I mean, it's not a lot, it's maybe like five or six, but I mean, two years ago we had like zero, so. Vice Chair?

Sure. I didn't ask this question before the meeting, but Chris, anything about the Fox Theater applying for a Mills Act?

Currently, no. I've not heard that.

Okay, and then any updates as far as the target property?

That is still in limbo. I think I mentioned last time that the issue with the Target site is Target is the major leaseholder, and they can pretty much control what the property owner can do with their own property. And we had a proposed mixed-use project that was going to move forward there, and then Target kind of put the kibosh on it. So there's no movement on it.

Any good news from your office?

Yeah, I hired a new planner. Oh, great. Congratulations. We have a new planner. His name is Francisco. He's our counter tech, and he started last week. He's outstanding. He previously worked for the cities of Norwalk and Baldwin Park, so he comes with experience, and he's a great guy.

And before I forget any any updates on the on the ADU plans. And has anyone taken advantage of them yet.

We're we're almost done with them. We're so we're on the final drawings done yet but we're getting close. Hopefully we'll have them ready for public use by the end of summer. Thank you. Commissioner Tritt.

Yes, I have a question. You mentioned churches, and I have a question because I know that's been talked about for a while, but I haven't heard of any progress being made. Are we have churches showing interest in putting like ADUs or tiny houses on their property or... Housing homeless at all or what is it? What's what's happening with churches?

We have two projects that we're reviewing right now And I can't remember which churches they are ones on Orangethorpe and actually I think they're both on Orangethorpe And we're in the initial review of those two projects we had another couple that kind of fizzled out I remember grace was saying something about that too.

They were interested or was that senior housing I believe I

I'm not familiar with that one, but we do have two projects in the chute right now that we're reviewing Are they are they tiny houses or what are they? They're just standard construction standard multi-family I think one's about 50 units and the other one's probably like 25 units like apartments Now would those all be like low-income or I That's the intent of the developers is to include some affordable units. Okay.

Has there been any the past city council meeting issues that have will be coming up in any future planning commission agenda items?

Well, We are proposing to take the tobacco Item to City Council on August 18th that one's been Delayed for a little bit, but it's scheduled for the August 18th a meeting and then we do have the alcohol sales item But that's not been scheduled yet, so I guess this comes to agenda forecast.

What do you foresee I?

Well, I mean, actually, let me just jump into it right now. So for city council, as you probably heard, the Hermosa project was, the decision was overturned. So the project was approved in a 3-2 vote. So that project is able to move forward, which, to the relief of the staff, because now we're not getting sued by three different entities.

I'm sorry to interrupt. How's that traffic study going to work? They really didn't discuss it at the city council meeting.

It's just going to identify what issues need to be installed to mitigate any traffic issues.

So how do they enforce that mitigation?

It's just staff. We're going to say, you know, if they say we need to synchronize the signals or put in streetlights or something, then we'll condition the property owner to do that or the developer to do that.

And if the developer decides... I don't want to do it. What happens in that scenario?

It depends. It depends. It depends on what it is.

I'm sorry to interrupt.

No, no, it's fine. I do want to mention that the July 7th City Council meeting has been canceled. And the July 21st City Council meeting, we're going to be taking the lower Golden Hill preservation zone to that meeting. And then I already talked about the August 18th meeting with the tobacco. And then for planning commission, we have no items for the July 8th meeting, so therefore we're going to cancel that meeting. And then our next planning commission meeting will be July 22nd.

Thank you very much. Sure. If there's no further business, left or right? No. This meeting is adjourned.

All right.