Planning Commission / Landmarks Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'd like to call the July 22nd meeting of the floor 10 Planning Commission to order Janet would you call the roll?

Commissioner Fleener is absent Commissioner Tudor here Commissioner Wayne here Vice chair Dino here and chair Valadez is absent.

All right If you could join me in the Pledge of Allegiance Ready, begin. I'd now like to open this meeting up to public comments. Just as a reminder, you have three minutes and it has to be within the subject matter jurisdiction of the commission. Janet, do we have any speakers?

No hands raised.

All right, I'll go ahead and, last call, go ahead and close public comment. And bring it back to the commission. And now we're in line for our consent calendar. And our minutes from June 10th. Do we have a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second. Janet?

Commissioner Tudor?

Yes.

Commissioner Wayne?

Aye.

Vice Chair Dino?

Aye. That passes 3-0. And we're now in line for communication disclosure from the commissioners. Seeing none, we're moving on quickly.

We're now on to regular business.

We have a presentation on the new Brown Act rules, I believe, by Lucinda.

Thank you, Vice Chair. I was talking to your city attorney, your attorney. What are you for this, the city attorney, deputy city attorney? Barron. On the way in, I think I scared him. I don't think he realized he didn't have to make this presentation. But feel free to chime in if you have any sage advice on this as it's been in effect for all of What is today the 22nd all 22 days so most of it so good evening. I am Lucinda Williams. I'm your city clerk You may or may not have heard that there are some new Brown Act rules that went into effect Most of them July 1st. I just making the the roadshow to all the committees to let you know the rules So I don't have to come find you all individually so on the next slide I Just a quick recap of what the Brown Act does it is the California open meeting law It says that the business of the public must occur at a notice public meeting and the public has the right to participate in deliberations The next slide just highlights that it applies to Agenda requirements you have to have an agenda posted for your meeting that you have to allow for public comment and just a reminder that any Deliberation that might occur at the quorum of you outside of a notice meeting is considered an illegal meeting There's we've gone into more detail on those and other trainings and that's not the focus of the new bill But you ever want to get into the weeds on the Brown Act ad nauseum happy to do it you probably tell me enough and walk away because I things only a clerk and maybe your attorney can love so Senate Bill 707 was adopted last legislative cycle became effective parts of it January 1st parts of it July 1st of this year you'll remember that since the pandemic there are all these different rules about when committee members can participate remotely when the how the public can possibly participate remotely If you had a just cause reason or if you had an emergency scenario such as you got ill on the day of your meeting but you still wanted to call in, you could do that under the old rules. 707 kind of took all those kind of rules that were set on the fly since COVID and put them into a more unified place in the government code. And now the rules will be in effect through 2030 by then we may have a whole new set of technology on how to do these meetings But for now, these are the rules until then the next slide it just says that 707 expands public access This was the scariest part of the bill for most people in the city clerk world Because a lot of cities did not continue with the the remote zoom access to meetings and this bill went into effect Just a month or two after this time last year so September ish So all these cities had less than a year to gear up to get their council chambers back up to speed to do remote participation I got to sit back in all those meetings and just relax for a change because we were already doing that. So that part was nice for us. That box was already checked. As I mentioned, it modernizes the teleconferencing rules. And there's another bit on that last slide. It's okay, Chris, leave it here. That talks about language access. There's a bill into play right now that might strip all the language access in here that becomes effective immediately. So I'm not going to get into the details of something that might be gone after being only in effect for a month or two. So it would be mostly on our end to worry about that. That's not really a committee member concern for that one. Just quick background. There was a whole bunch of calculus on what agencies actually were affected by the bill. Some smaller cities that might also be in smaller counties don't have to do this yet, but they will eventually. But we definitely qualified based on our population. There was a whole bunch of crazy clerk calculus, legislative calculus about when a special district qualified that even I couldn't figure out after reading it through a couple times. So I just It's there. We're not a special district. We know we qualify. An eligible legislative body is city council. So that is not you guys, but you are, as we note on the next slide, you are an eligible subsidiary body, an ESB, which is all the boards and commissions that are formed by the council slash legislative body subject to Brown Act regulations. In SB 707 language. There are some things that apply to just the City Council level There are some that apply to everybody including Commission's committees So at some point if you get confused about what applies where it's understandable. There's a lot of what who goes where? Just ask if you have questions or if you get to be blissfully not not worrying about this I'm a little envious but don't worry about it. We'll keep you out of trouble. So as I mentioned before July 1st, several things went into effect. I'm sure you remember my email right around July 1st when I said, here's the Brown Act. It's okay if you don't remember it. But I did email a copy of the Brown Act to all of our legislative body members to comply with the bill. As I mentioned, it updated the remote participation rules. for for the people sitting at the dais and also heard me talk a little bit and probably Baron also about the rules for social media and Not accidentally creating a that was a double negative. Sorry and how that could be could accidentally create an illegal meeting a meeting as if You are all reading a kind of sound old Facebook. We'll go to Facebook the old people's app and if you're already in a Facebook post and happen to do is some sort of business that's coming before your commission and more than a quorum of you all decided just to give it a thumbs up and like that post, it could potentially be construed as a illegal meeting because you all gave a thumbs up, which in the eyes of this law would indicate that you all support the item in some manner. So. I don't know who's going to have the time to go through and see who liked what and who made a comment when there's hundreds of comments on a, on a post, but that's what the rule says. So. I think the story takeaway there is just stay off social media. Your life will be better. Also, then phase two came into effect July 1st, and this is the one that requires a full two-way public access with the public to be able to call in. Check, we've already done that. It does now have a technology disruption policy that we decided will apply, council decided will apply to all legislative bodies just in the interest of full transparency. There's something wrong with if it's on the Zoom user end, then like they can't figure out how to turn on their microphone. That's a them problem. No offense to them. That's a them problem. But if there's something wrong with the Wi-Fi here or for some reason Zoom isn't opening on this computer that we run it on, you can't log in, some disruption on the city side, that means people can't participate remotely, then it's an us problem. And when that happens, when someone becomes aware of it, the clerk or the chair, whoever becomes aware of it, will have to let the chair know if the chair isn't the one that first becomes aware of it or whoever's presiding officer that night. You'll have to recess your meeting. Staff will have to take efforts to try to remedy the disruption. If you figure it out pretty quickly, you'll just reconvene your meeting and keep going. You have to recess for up to an hour under the bill. And the clerk, Clerk has to, secretary has to, it's in the rules of procedure, has to document what steps were taken to restore service. And there's a call-out procedure and there's stuff. Don't worry. We have a procedure for you guys to follow. If after that hour you cannot... get the service reinstated it's it's not the end of the world but you do need to reconvene the meeting make a finding and vote as a commission that the need to continue the meeting outweighs the need to allow remote participation and then you can continue your meeting you just won't take zoom comments within that hour time i also think that the thinking is of this legislation that someone has ample time to try to get themselves two chambers assuming they weren't too far away and could come in make their comments in person if they needed to also. Again I still have this language access and outreach bit on this slide because it's in effect at the moment but it may not be. But there's some rules about what whether things need to be translated and if you have to post translated agendas things like that. So like I said. Phase 1 was January 1. It did the Brown Act, the social media. There were also, it was kind of common sense about making accommodation for ADA with remote participation, but it wasn't spelled out in the law. So it added clear language that one of you at the dais needed some sort of ADA accommodation that would be best accommodated by participating remotely. That's perfectly acceptable now, and you don't have to do the extra noticing requirements or anything like that. Also kind of would have been kind of common sense, but it's nice that they spelled it out now that there's already a process for removing in-person disrupted participants from If you have someone that's really rowdy, you give them a warning or two, and then you can ask them to leave. Your attorney will guide you through the process if and when you get to that point. It was just kind of assumed that would also apply to someone who's being unruly on the remote side of things, but just to make it very clear, that language is now in the bill about how you can boot out someone who's being unruly online. Again, there's a whole process to follow. You have your attorney here to advise you on that. And there's a thing about department head compensation reporting that has to happen at council meetings, but you don't have to worry about that here. Again, we talked about the consolidation of all the ways you can participate remotely. If you need to call in and participate remotely, Let Janet know and we'll figure out what part of the Brown Act you need to do that under and how to properly notice it and get you into the meeting. So don't commit it to memory anything more than call us if you need to do that. There are still caps on the number of times you can do that, but they're a little bit higher now and a little more generous. And you still have to do the disclosure. Like, I mean, I'm here and there's no one disclosed that there's someone over the age of 18 in the room with you. So. That was it yes for January then again we mentioned phase two The two-way access there are some web page mandates now to work to explain how to the public they can Participate in your meetings a big part of the bill also wants to encourage more participation in the meetings the translations Language access again this might go away, but just in case it becomes a trivia question somewhere the rule is that Any group reporting that they speak a language other than English as their native language and within that group anyone who has reported per the census that they speak English less than well if it's less more than 20 percent we would have had to provide languages in that. Agendas in that language. Sorry, we don't we don't meet that threshold surprisingly I thought maybe you had a language or two that would so 20% is pretty high within that subgroup So we don't have any mandated language requirements right now So for you like I said that the just cause rules for participation apply to you the remote participation will be there Make sure that remote participation information is on your agenda. You now have a remote Participation disruption policy and the other handout I gave you were just the updated rules of procedure Which do not have a slide so Chris can relax for a minute. Think about what he's got to say next the real quick updates here were just some references that say I Senate Bill 707 applies and all the regulations apply. We updated that decorum section a little bit. One committee had a meeting where both the chair and vice chair were unavailable and they weren't quite sure what to do about who was going to run the meeting. It just says you vote amongst yourselves for a presiding officer for that evening. So that process is in here. Not only do I have to say, sorry, you have more rules to follow, you also have another training you're going to need to take. If it's a two-hour at-home training, it will be to comply with SB 827, which is financial training, which is a new one that everybody gets to take. So now you get to do three, the financial, the ethics, and the harassment prevention. So I'm going to have you do them online now, so no pizza either. Sorry. If you complete them all on time, maybe I'll send you a coupon. We'll see. We'll see how the budget goes. And I think that was, yeah, that was the other update in here. The other bit in the back, again, is just a reference that the broadcast complies with 707. So I never have the fun stuff to bring you guys, but I love it if you guys listen enough and have a question. I saw a hand raised.

I desperately need to know about this department head compensation thing even though it doesn't apply specifically to us.

When department heads get a change in compensation it now has to be reported out in a specific way and reported on the agenda to council. It can't be on consent I think is what it said. It's not my department I know it's in there but I didn't commit it to memory. So I think it just has to be done during regular business.

So it can't be closed session, like how labor negotiations are considered closed?

The negotiations occur in closed session, but before the contract can be approved, it has to be reported in open session. And this has been the law. This was the law regarding to city managers, but now it's being expanded to apply to department heads as well. Yeah, on regular business. Just for transparency.

Yeah, not on consent calendar anymore.

All right, I'd like a last question. So listen, I did have one or two When it comes to social media, I know that that was a conversation that we had had when I first being a commissioner in terms of Would we be able to get would commissioners be able to get a city email because because because of reporting and obviously the freedom of requests have been a lot

Recently, yeah, I can I can ask again as the last time we checked I think they cited it was for a hundred another batch of a hundred plus emails. It was surprisingly expensive So I think that was the the issue before so I don't remember the number off the top my head But I was surprised it would cost that much for our licenses. I

And then I remember you mentioned something when I ran in 22 talking about the rules regarding social media interaction on your personal Facebook page versus official versus campaign. And were there any changes that came up this time?

This is so much easier when I have the attorney here, too. But no changes as far as that goes. I caught him while he was chewing. Sorry.

SB 707 does not address that. So that remains the same.

OK, because I know that in one case, well, our former assembly person, she has like four emails, four different pages that she runs, like one campaign, one public as the assembly person, and then like two or three personal. So I was just wondering if that rule changed at all, which, OK.

There might be different rules for state.

Officers but probably generally not but sometimes there's the nuance between local and state officials and then when it comes to translation if that if the language access rule goes away and then does that mean that the city doesn't have to provide translation?

We don't qualify right now anyway for the translated agendas under the bill. We still do this up here as a courtesy. I should have also added it might go away this year and it might come back even later. more comprehensively um next year i think that's a polite way of saying it um so we'll see what the the next bill because part of the argument with the bill that was adopted last year and on the july 1st effectiveness was that it didn't do enough from some of the language advocates so we'll see i think they're negotiating maybe taking this out and doing something even more comprehensive and we'll see what that looks like so it could come back even even bigger and brighter yeah okay

So as an example, if someone needed language access during a meeting, either a participant or someone up on the dais, then can they still request translation?

They can request it. Language is not a disability. So language is not required under ADA, which a lot of people, it's easy to get those kind of mixed together because captions are up here along with the translation. But it's kind of city policy, whether it's provided. And the nice thing is with this, we can only do one language at a time right now. But we can do just about any language I think that's out there. If you ever look at the list, if you're on a Zoom that has translations activated, there's a lot of languages in there.

Got it. All right. I think... Obviously, I have extended questions, but I don't want to prolong this. I'll definitely reach out for some of my other questions offline.

Yeah. And we also, the nice thing is with our website, it's Google Translate, but most of our documents can be run through Google Translate right on the website anyway. So it's kind of there already.

Oh, and I did remember. Were there any other changes that we made that we weren't already doing?

as far as 707. The biggest part is really just that technology disruption policy. So granted, a lot of times, if it's not working, we end up stopping anyway. It just is codified now that how long you have to wait before you can resume your meeting.

Got it. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Have a good meeting.

If I could ask one question. I noticed this has been happening more recently. People will play music instead of talking on the Zoom. Is that considered a disruption because it's not or they get their full three minutes to play a song?

That's their First Amendment to do their three minutes. At some point, we're going to wonder if someone left us on hold or if they meant to play music when it's on Zoom. So we may get three minutes of elevator music, but.

Oh, that actually, Chris reminded me of another point. What about how to verify if it's an AI voice or not?

You really can't and I think there's an argument that people will start making that It's my First Amendment right to want my AI to speak on my behalf. So That's kind of I've seen some bills floating around about that trying to say you can not allow AI but I'm not sure how you easily had determined that either so I

Because I know if, let's say, you call in on Zoom, like I did last night, that depending on how you log into Zoom, either phone or computer, you don't have the option of putting in your name, but obviously your caller ID or even your Zoom ID. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, depending on how you logged in. So I would assume with AI, if they're calling in, they would need to register.

No, it's no registration. Oh, registration.

I forgot registration is optional.

Yeah, people don't have to say who they are to want to speak. So that means they don't get their name in the minutes. Got it. Yeah.

All right. Any other questions? All right. Thank you, Lucinda.

You're my people. You got nerdy about this with me. Thank you. That was fun.

All right. Do we need to take a question, or that would be received in file?

It's just receiving file.

All right We'll go it do we need to vote on receiving fall? Okay. All right. Thank you We'll go ahead and move on to the next part of the agenda Regular business item number three and the environment environmental justice element study session. Sorry

Good evening honorable chair and commissioners. This is an item. We've been working on for nine months And it's a required element of the general plan So we've been working this concurrently with the open space element, but we broke them out separately to make it more digestible to do one at a time at this point and We're pretty excited about it. This is the first time we've adopted an environmental justice element. So I'm going to turn it over to Yan and she's going to dazzle you with her knowledge of environmental justice.

Good evening Vice Chair and members of the Planning Commission. Thank you for attending this evening's study session on the City of Fullerton's environmental justice element. Over the next 20 minutes, I'll walk through what state law requires and the Senate Bill 1000, how disadvantaged communities are identified, and the work staff and our consultant team, Michael Baker International, have done so far, including the draft goals and policies we would like your input on tonight. Next slide, please. Before we dive in, I want to be clear about tonight's purpose. This is a study session. It's for information and discussion only. We're not asking the commission to take formal action or cast a vote tonight. Our goals for this session are fourfold. First, to build a shared understanding of what environmental justice means and why state law requires cities to address it. Second, to walk through Senate Bill 1000 and how it applies specifically to Fullerton's general plan. And third, to introduce the tools like CalEnviroScreen that we use to identify disadvantaged communities. And finally, to preview the community engagement and policy work completed to date and open the floor for your questions and input. So, what exactly is environmental justice? When we started the process, people came to our pop-up booth and the first question they asked was, what is environmental justice? Here is the official answer. California Government Code Section 65040.12 defines it as the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of people of all races, cultures, incomes, and national origins with respect to the development, adoption, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies. In practice, that means three things. No group, regardless of race, ethnicity, or income, should bear a disproportionate share of pollution or environmental harm. Communities most affected by environmental decisions should have a meaningful voice in making them, and access to clean air, water, and healthy neighborhoods should be treated as a right, not a privilege. In plain English or everyday terms, environmental justice means everyone deserves clean air and water and a safe place to live, no matter their race, income, or neighborhood, and a real say in decisions that affect their community. Next slide, please. Why environmental justice matters in planning? Land use decisions haven't always been applied equally. Historically, zoning, freeway placement, and industrial siting have concentrated pollution and hazards in specific neighborhoods, often low-income communities and communities of color. This plays out in three ways. First, disproportionate exposure. Some neighborhoods experience higher concentrations of air pollution. industrial uses, and traffic related hazards than others. Second, compounded health risk. When pollution burden combines with socioeconomic and health vulnerabilities like asthma, cardiovascular disease, or low birth weight, the harm compounds. And the third, limited voice in decisions. The communities most affected by land use and environmental decisions have historically had the least influence over them. This is exactly the imbalance environmental justice planning is designed to correct. Next slide, please. Let's talk about the law itself. Senate Bill 1000 applies when a city or county adopts or revises two or more general plan elements concurrently on or after January 1, 2018, and the jurisdiction contains one or more identified disadvantaged communities. Fullerton meets both conditions, which is why we are here tonight. Cities have two options for compliance. Adopt a standalone environmental justice element or integrate EJ goals, policies, and objectives throughout existing general plan elements, land use, housing, circulation, safety, and so on. Fullerton chose the standalone element approach. You can also see Senate Bill 1000 didn't emerge in isolation. It sits within a broader timeline of state environmental justice legislation, from the 2008 Sustainable Communities and the Climate Protection Act, through Senate Bill 379's climate adaptation requirements, to Assembly Bill 617's Community Air Quality Protection Program, and AB 317. 1550 and Senate Bill 535 which direct cap and trade funding to disadvantaged communities. So the disadvantaged community designation isn't just a planning label. It can be potentially tied into real funding opportunities for Fullerton. Next slide, please. Fullerton is satisfying the Senate Bill 1000's two elements concurrently triggered by processing the environmental justice element alongside an update to the open space and the conservation element. The environmental justice element assesses and maps environmental inequities, health risks, and pollution in disadvantaged communities Identifies gaps in current policies and overlaps with other elements. Develops goals and policies that meet state requirements and includes both an implementation strategy and a SQL compliance. The open space and conservation element update runs in parallel, modernizing the inventories data and maps of parks and open space citywide. staff is pleased to report that the open space and conservation element was already adopted in June 2026. So tonight's focus is on bringing the environmental justice element to the same finish line. State law, government code section 65302H1 is specific about what topics EJ policies must address. Policies need to tackle the unique or compounded health risks facing disadvantaged communities across eight areas. pollution exposure, public facilities, food access, safe and sanitary homes, physical activity, other unique risks, civic engagement, and prioritized investment. These aren't just check boxes. They map directly onto the draft goals you will see later in this presentation. And they are the framework our team used to structure Fullerton's environmental justice element. Next slide, please. What is a disadvantaged community? A key question underlying all of this is how do we define a disadvantaged community? Senate Bill 1000 allows a jurisdiction to use one or more of three methods. The first method, the CalEnviroScreen score, a census tract that scores in the top 25% statewide on CalEnviroScreen's cumulative pollution and vulnerability score. Second, low income plus pollution burden, an area with household incomes at or below 80% of the statewide median, or HCDs, state income limits, that's also disproportionately affected by pollution or hazards. And third, local knowledge and data, community-specific information like local health surveys, air monitoring, or code enforcement records that reveal burdens that that generic statewide models might miss fullerton's analysis draws primarily on the first method which is the industry standard method and the score also incorporates incorporates much of the underlying data using method 2. next CalEnviroScreen is the state's primary screening tool developed by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and CalEPA. It combines two categories of indicators into a single percentile score. The first is pollution burden, things like air quality, drinking water contaminants, pesticide use, toxic releases, proximity to hazardous facilities, and traffic density. The second is the population characteristics. poverty, unemployment, low birth weight, asthma, and cardiovascular emergency room visits, educational attainment, and linguistic isolation. The key takeaway is that census tracts that score in the top 25% statewide are designated disadvantaged communities. They become illegible for state investment and require dedicated EJ policy attention in the general plan. We are using the CalEnviroScreen 4.0 for this analysis, though the tool is updated periodically and the current version should be confirmed going forward. Next slide, please. Here's what it looks like when we map it onto Fullerton. These three maps show CalEnviroScreen 4.0 results by census tracked across the city, pollution burden on the left, population characteristics in the middle, and the composite score on the right. You can see the pattern is not random. Pollution burden and population vulnerability both trend higher in the northern tip and the southwestern and southeastern portions of the city. And that pattern carries through the composite score. These maps form the data foundation for identifying which parts of Fullerton need focused EJ policy attention. Next slide, please. In addition to CalEnviroScreen, we layered in two other data sources. On the left is the Senate Bill 535 Disadvantaged Communities Map. These are census tracts formally identified as disadvantaged by CalEPA under Senate Bill 535, shown here in red across several tracts in the city's map. southwestern, southeastern, and northern area. On the right is the CDC's Social Vulnerability Index by Census Tract, which captures a broader set of social vulnerability factors. The medium to high and the high vulnerability areas shown in the darker blue-purple tones again cluster in the same portions of Fullerton, reinforcing what we saw in the Cal-Invero screen data. Next slide, please. So putting all of this together, nine impacted census tracts were formally designated disadvantaged communities using CalEPA's 2022 disadvantaged community criteria. These tracts are 001404, 001801, 001802, 011403, 011502, 011601, 0 1 1 6 0 2 0 6 0 8 6 7 0 1 and 0 8 6 8 0 2 the designation criteria included sensor tracks in the highest 25% of a calorie matter screen 4.0 scores as well as tracks identified as disadvantaged under the original 2017 Senate bill 535 designation regardless of their current score This is important. This designation is fixed, and it serves as a required basis for the environmental justice element. Supplemental indicators, things like limited park access, transit access, or supermarket access, shown in the icons on this map, help describe lived conditions in these areas, but they do not change which tracks are legally impacted communities. Geographically, these impacted communities concentrate in three areas, the northern industrial corridor, the southwest communities, and the southeastern communities. Next slide, please. It's worth taking a moment to look at the historical background of Fullerton and to understand why these particular areas carry elevated pollution and vulnerability scores today. Fullerton's environmental justice conditions are rooted in a layered history. The Tongva and Ashman peoples inhabited this at this region for thousands of years before European contact. Spanish mission settlement in 1776 and the rental era that followed in 1837 reshaped land used through ranching and displacement. George and Edward Emmerich founded Fullerton in 1887, launching a citrus, rail, and oil-based economy. The economic foundation had lasting consequences. 20th century freeway and rail siting concentrated industrial uses near working class neighborhoods. Citrus farming, oil extraction, and industrial growth left lasting soil and groundwater impacts. Impacts that help explain today's elevated cow environment screen scores in these same areas. and housing policy compounded the pattern. While Fullerton was not directly mapped by the 1930s hope, redlining maps, similar discriminatory zoning practices likely shaped an even investment across the city. The 1968 Fair Housing Act banned housing discrimination outright but disparities in housing patterns persist today. In short, this history of industrial siting in rural corridors and housing policy continues to shape the impacted communities we identified in the existing conditions analysis. Next slide, please. Based on this analysis and the required policy topics, our EJ team has drafted eight goals for the environmental justice element. Goal one, air, noise, and odor. Protects residents, especially in disadvantaged communities from disproportionate exposure through cleaner land use patterns, reduce vehicle emissions and natural buffers. Goal two, water quality, minimizes pollution and ensures compliance with state and federal standards. Goal three, climate resilience, reduces vulnerability to climate change and commutative pollution burdens. Goal 4, public facilities, ensures equitable access to high-quality infrastructure. Goal 5, parks and active transport, expands access to parks and active transportation in impacted communities. Goal 6, a healthy food access, supports local food systems and addresses food desert issues. Goal 7, safe transportation. and sanitary homes, enforces habitability standards, and remediates environmental hazards. And the goal eight, civic engagement, strengthens community voices in environmental and land use decisions through meaningful participation and accessible equitable representation. These eight goals map directly back to the required policy topics areas we reviewed earlier. And we are looking for your input on them tonight. Next slide, please. It's also helpful to look at how other California cities have approached this. The city of Placentia adopted a health, wellness, and environmental justice element that used local Get Healthy survey data, including obesity rates 10% above the county average, to shape policy with engagement that included city hall open houses and multilingual materials. National City was one of the first cities in California to adopt a standalone environmental justice element, addressing industrial land use conflicts near residential neighborhoods. And on the cautionary side, Huntington Park adopted a 2030 general plan that failed to meet any Senate Bill 1000 requirement. That resulted in a 2021 settlement with the California Attorney General and the city didn't return to compliance until 2022. This underscores why getting this element right the first time matters. Next slide, please. Let's talk about how once adopted, the environmental justice element will intersect with community's decisions in commission decisions in several ways. This matters directly to the work we all do. First, SQL review. Each element policies can inform the scope of environmental review and mitigation for projects near disadvantaged communities. Second, project conditions. Finding on pollution burden or health risk may support additional conditions of approval. such as buffers, air filtration, or truck routing. Third, entitlement consistency. Discretionary approvals must be consistent with the general plan, which will also include these EJ goals and policies once adopted. Fourth, where growth is directed. EJ analysis can inform which areas are prioritized or approached more cautiously for new density or intensified uses. Next slide, please. We have been gathering public input throughout this process to date we have one of mega correction here we have received eight responses and The themes are fairly consistent support for additional tree planting shade and the green infrastructure to reduce heat and improve walkability support for expanding parks open space trails and habitat preservation requests to address noise pollution at Coyote Hills golf course interest in renewable energy, including solar and energy storage for affordable housing communities, suggestions to incorporate waste reduction and resource conservation into environmental planning, concerns about maintaining and funding core infrastructure like roads, utilities, and public services, and concerns about traffic congestion, high density housing, and neighborhood quality of life. These comments are helping shape the final draft, and we will continue to take input as the element moves toward adoption. And that brings us to tonight's discussion. Staff has five questions we would like the commission's input on. Question number one, what local conditions or neighborhoods should staff prioritize when confirming disadvantaged community status? Or in other words, which parts of Fullerton should staff take a closer look at when figuring out if they count as disadvantaged? Question number two, how should EJ findings inform other in progress or upcoming planning efforts such as the housing element or the downtown focus area? Question number three, do you have any input on the drafted goals and policies? Question number four, and this comes directly from tribal consultation. We are interested in understanding how tribal perspectives and indigenous knowledge may be incorporated into the environmental justice element, particularly around cultural resources protection, environmental health and land stewardship, and meaningful tribal engagement going forward. And five, does the commission have any additional comments or areas of emphasis you would like reflected in the element as it nears finalization? And thank you, staff and consultant team. I'm happy to answer your questions.

Thank you. Do we have any clarification questions for staff before I throw it open to public comment? All right, seeing none, I'll go ahead and open up the public hearing. Is it a public hearing? Mr. Attorney? So we don't have to, or do we have to?

Informative, and if there's any questions or feedback, we can...

Okay. So seeing no immediate questions, I did have clarification. So when it comes to those five questions, would you like us to, how would you like us to answer if we do?

It's open-ended. Feel free to discuss.

I should say, while it's not a public hearing, you should ask for public comment, however.

Okay. So, yeah, let me go ahead and officially ask for public comment. Is there any public comment on the presentation? Seeing none in chambers, anyone on Zoom?

No one on Zoom.

All right. I'll go ahead and close public comment and bring it back to staff. So yes, please continue.

Yes. These questions are just to help facilitate discussion. We are looking for your input. It's an open end discussion.

Got it. OK. So we don't necessarily have to cut if we don't have a comment on all five elements. Got it. OK. So anyone want to get started. Please. Commissioner.

Yeah, I have I just took several notes while I was looking at the presentation. I know this is just receiving file but You asked about which areas we think is more important I think the decision are for multiple reasons not just because they're In to be lower income I also think as you look at it, that's where they have in general were streets Less trees less parks. So I think that should be a good And I also Had some questions about some specific Policies that I didn't see maybe they're in there and I missed them. So just just for completeness I wanted to ask whether they were in there One I noticed that it was mentioned that we have a couple of areas that have our food deserts, but I didn't see any policy addressing that

We do, yeah. There's one on specifically, let me find the goal for you. So what you're seeing, are you speaking to the presentation? Because that is just the goals and then the actual document itself has a list of policies within each of those goals.

Unless I was looking in the wrong section, I'm talking about what you sent us. I noticed that on the On the section that talked about food, you know talked about community gardens and things like that, but I looked at it They're only like four policies I think and none of them addressed Who deserts?

Yeah, so policy P 6.3. Is that in the packet? Okay It talks about healthy food healthy food through land use and it says to evaluate healthy eating equity and And to avoid concentration of fast-food establishment and to find convenience and convenience stores and find ways to distribute food Through veteran food deserts and impacted communities Okay, so it could be we could add additional ones or then After again, this also has an action plan. That's an internal document with the city. That's meant to be revisited and developed so these policies are the Top of the sphere or tip of the sphere and then it continues to drill down but that one in particular is that that food desert Recommendation.

Okay. Well good. It's there. I just want to make sure and I know we're just seeing the high level here sure another one that I May also be very well be in there, but I didn't see especially since someone made a comment about it. That was the noise Mm-hmm And I don't know whether our current noise or, you know, our noise policies would address the issue that the person brought up of the golf course noise.

Yeah, so two thoughts, and then I can maybe let Chris and Ian weigh in. So we do have something related in the first goal, Policy 1.6. It speaks to specific truck and bus route regulations at a high level. The comment that came through is a specific property. So this document wouldn't address one specific property. And that's something that the city would review on an individual basis per the code requirements.

Just to follow up this actual case is an ongoing code enforcement and planning action. And so the person that submitted this this comment he's just trying to find any avenue to address his concerns. We're working on it but it's it's a complex issue. but it's not really tied to this action. But for the sake of openness and clarity, we included it, but it really doesn't pertain to this.

Okay. And another question I had, I was wondering since this is pointing out areas that have specific problems, does that affect in any way how we engage with CEQA for those areas?

This in particular, no, this won't adjust how you pursue CEQA elements. Or I'm sorry, pursue CEQA within any document that requires it. But this can be a supplemental tool to then also revisit and utilize for anything that you're reviewing as part of CEQA.

OK. And then just a question I always want to know on all of these elements is,

the accountability is and whether it comes back to not just the state but also to the public in Fullerton so I think there's a couple different answers and I can start and then hand it over I think one of the biggest ones is that there is a lot of grant funding tied to this as well if you do have one of these elements and you do have disadvantaged communities so I think that's another strong reason to have this in addition to their you know the requirement but it's something that the city can hold themselves accountable to see if there's opportunities for there's out those opportunities for grants And then it's also the action plan that I mentioned is something that can be reviewed annually You can also look at the data to see how that changes year-over-year By Cal and virus gain to see if things have changed if there's ways to update this so I think it's one of those opportunities the city can Determine what's the best way to implement or what are those different checkpoints to continue to evaluate?

On the accountability, I know in some of these things you have to report back to the state on some of the elements, maybe all the elements, I'm not sure. Do we also have an opportunity as the public on an annual basis to get a report on what goals, what we met with in each goal?

So every year, Plain Apartments submits the annual progress report, and it goes to both HCD, Housing Community Development, and OPR, and I forgot what their new name is.

LCI. LCI.

LCI. So we do submit that, and it's actually presented to council, and then it's submitted before April 1st of every year. So it's... Well, the APR is actually on the agenda, and it goes in front of the council. But the city, or not the city, but the state's actually getting more aggressive in enforcing that the cities are actually following their different elements that they said they were going to accomplish whatever their policy actions are and as Chair Dino sent to me the other day I think there's like four or five cities being sued because they're not following through on their in this case their housing element so We're not one right?

No, we're not.

We're not one of them.

I would just add that because this element will be one of the general plan elements, so in terms of general plan consistency, it has its legal teeth. For example, if there is discretionary review items like DOPs and variances and specific plan amendments, they need findings consistent with EJ goals and policies, not just the land uses and circulation elements. They have to be consistent with all the elements.

Then I just have one question mainly because of my own interest You know I have solar in my house and I I always think about the poor people that live in apartments that Most most apartments don't have solar Is is Fullerton moving in any way in that direction and is that covered in any verbiage in this document?

It's actually a state requirement. We have to do what's now called an electrification plan. It's a new state requirement that came out, I think it was last year. So it's actually something we're going to have to generate, which looks at current grid capacity, future capacity needs, and then solar and then charging stations. So it's actually a plan we have to work on in the near future. On the flip side, if you're building like an ADU, the state says you have to provide solar. So I'm actually going through the process myself. I'm building an ADU at my house, and I had to put solar on my roof. So there's some methods to get it to happen. But it's a long process, you know, to get everybody into compliance. But it's happening.

OK. All right.

Thank you.

That's it for me. I was going to use your time to formulate a couple of questions of my own.

Chris, can you go ahead and bring up the list of questions just so that I can kind of refresh my memory?

Sure.

Thank you. So while he's doing that, and I have you both up there, to tack on to what Commissioner Tudor was talking about, So when it comes to how all the different elements kind of play in together, then for example, if we make a recommendation that we'd like to see the food desert kind of reflected in the outreach, or the types of businesses that contribute. For example, obviously, if most of our zones are in South Fullerton, then obviously it's highly industrial. And those industrial businesses affect health, affect affordability, affect everything. and if there's a way to convey that to not only not only residents but also to the city as a whole is that we understand like the percentages like one grocery store or food food option per thousand and We know that we know that this is a need versus let's say downtown might be We have one bar for every thousand people like or 100 or whatever whatever that stat is I'm just stretching a little bit but it so I And how all of that kind of adds into the overall, I don't want to say environmental justice, because maybe that's not the right way of phrasing it, but how that all adds into the overall health of a given area. I mean, I live on the east side near Cal State Fullerton. And food desert, we're kind of OK. But in terms of the concentration of businesses, obviously. This is on the east side aren't necessarily what's happening in the south side or downtown or the west side and I think one of the things that I feel I feel like The residents would like to see from staff is how that's really broken down in terms of infrastructure spending when it comes to the roads. Because obviously, there have been a lot of accidents over the last year, from there being a food desert to I know one of the concerns that came up in District 4 during the last election was they lost like two or three of their grocery stores. And those grocery stores were never replaced. And I know that that's definitely affected their numbers even though there's still a retail space that was never it was never filled I think I think the 99-cent story need to become me like a Halloween City As one example so when you're talking about environmental justice My thought is also adds into access to jobs the different the types of this the types of businesses because one thing we heard last night during the council meeting was if Cannabis was to ever pass in the city as an example Would we really? Would they be highly concentrated because of our zoning laws and I know that that was a concern because When it was originally discussed, the placement was all in a certain district. And if we're willing to modify our zoning laws in the future, and I'm saying it will happen, then how does that get distributed evenly throughout the city? And where do those businesses necessarily make sense? Like going back to the example of, are there too many bars in downtown? And are we looking at developing an economic environment where there are different types of businesses, not just bars for the sake of there being bars, because that's what the market is calling for, as an example. I think how the findings should inform other planning efforts, I mean, I can see where you could go onto the website and there would be a percentage update that anyone can see that We've made this level of progress on our housing element. We're this far with our environmental justice element. We're this far with our other safety element, whatever. Because once we have those plans in place, obviously, residents like myself would be asking, how are we doing? And if I don't go to a council meeting, I can just go to the website and say, oh, hey, here's the housing element. And this is our progress towards our housing goals. This is what's being done currently Mentioning ad use that we've made standardized plans available. We've made these progress these we've made it easier to let's say build an ad you in the city This our current status on social short-term rentals is there's a moratorium if it's reopened because some closed like those questions so that It's easier for folks within the community to say oh I can get the information here. I It's great that we were doing a lot of these things like the ad youth thing like not many people know that That we're standardizing the plans for making it easier to actually build one But I would I mean what I know that if I'm not a planning commission, probably not And and how that affects Just overall in terms of engagement because obviously some cities are better at engagement than others that I almost feel like If we make it easier to engage, then they'll want to show up to a town hall. They'll want to give their feedback or input and give them as many opportunities to submit their feedback because I've seen where the city hosts meetings, but no one shows up. I think with the budget, it was like a dozen or maybe, I would say, based on the pictures, maybe a couple dozen people out of a city of 150,000. Yeah. Enough said. Overall, I think that the goals and policies are great. And our city does very well when it comes to planning and stating those goals. But a lot of it's communication and what's being communicated versus not. And if I hadn't read the Orange County Register, Wouldn't have known that we're not being sued because our housing element is compliant just as simple like that's the reason why I forwarded that to Chris and I Wasn't reading the newspaper. I still think that We're we're We're we're targeted by the attorney general's office Grant granted. We're not and thankfully we're not and But at the same time, I wouldn't know that based on if I were a general member of the public, not a chair of the Planning Commission. I wouldn't have known. And I think in developing this element, I don't think anybody could disagree with any of the goals or policies. But at the same time, I think how we get the message out there matters and how we tell that to our fellow neighbors. Nothing really on the tribe side other than maybe discussing the respect for cultural background with Fullerton Heritage and Cal State Fullerton and any historical folks that have direct input, because I don't. But I do want to make sure that we're respectful of that. And I think for number five, how an environmental justice element would affect zoning across the board. Because clearly, we have a general plan. It hasn't been updated. yet or completely and one of one of my biggest issues kind of goes back to how are we telling them what we're doing and how do we receive that input and how do we integrate that input so if it means rezoning or informing planning commission about some of our upcoming decisions when it comes to development and and affordability, affordability, affordability. Because at the end of the day, we can approve a project, but whether or not it's affordable for residents of Fullerton is an issue. And to tack onto that, what can we do to encourage businesses to locate themselves in Fullerton? It's one thing to have a community development director. It's great to have staff. But if we don't have that staff or we're bringing in the wrong kind of businesses, then it also becomes a challenge. And I feel very passionate about that because losing two grocery stores in the same neighborhood definitely was an issue last year. And I knew that because I was knocking on doors. Trying to think if there's anything else in the immediate. Oh, and how our infrastructure costs inform or how those conditions inform our cost as a city. I know this stat because I was on NREC, but it costs x number of dollars to improve a road. It costs x number of dollars to maintain the full budget breakdown. I'm informed, but I don't know it myself. How can we explain it to our neighbors? I mean, and we know that they're asking the questions, oh, why aren't our roads getting fixed? Why aren't we budgeting for, I mean, why are we, maybe this would be a question for you guys, but I'll kind of put it out there. Why do we need a staffing level of one police officer for every 1,000? which I know came up last night, too. So I know that's maybe not in your purview, but I think these are a lot of the questions that people have in their mind in going into giving input in a process like this. Because, yes, they're concerned about what it costs them to put food on the table, what it costs for their rent, what it costs for their utilities. At the same time, Are they thinking about their health? Are we making sure that that's part of the mindset? Is it they're concerned with the type of businesses in the community? Do they have to drive across town just to go to an affordable grocery store? And they're feeling like they have input within their city. I could go on, and I know I spoke for a while, but those are just my initial thoughts, and I'm definitely open to any additional questions from my fellow commissioners or clarification.

Sure.

Sure, sure. Sure. Sure, go ahead.

I appreciate you bringing up the communication issue because we do have and I know that you place Notifications in several areas and have public meetings, but I also hear people telling me that they didn't know about things So if there's anything that can be done to improve the communications Especially I think on reporting results would be greatly appreciated by the city and But I wanted to go back. I know you talked higher level. I want to go back to some specifics on number two How should how should environmental justice findings inform other in progress planning efforts? I just think it would be good if sometimes we get our developers to, you know, fix a problem we have. Sometimes, you know, straighten out the streets, you know, that kind of thing. Put in, plant in some trees. So maybe, especially with the environmental justice element in hand, we can look, take that look at it when we do that. Make sure that, especially in those areas where, for instance, we know we don't have nearly enough trees, ask our developers to help by adding trees.

And to tack on what Commissioner Tudor said, I think that would be helpful when it comes to actual planning. Sometimes, not always. When the developers come to us, it's almost, I don't want to say a done deal, but staff has already negotiated. We were informed of what has been negotiated but a lot of times we don't have any input once it gets to us Either it's administrative or what have you I mean, and I know that's been part of the process. I think that in our planning goals and maybe have a clear indication that there is a need for X number of groceries in a certain area. Or affordability and rent are at certain levels in different areas within the city. And maybe we need to negotiate harder for a percentage of affordability in new development. Those are, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think those are the kind of things that I'd like to see as a resident, like rent and typical utilities. And I know the realtors would love that, that typical rent or property tax is this much in this area. This is home values. This is not only, for example, in Zillow, we're not only rating the schools, we're rating how far you have to walk to go to a grocery store, as an example. Or this is the typical of monthly utility bill for us for a house a house of 1200 square feet as an example or some sort of calculator so that when people Necessarily want to move to Fullerton or develop in Fullerton. They know These are the tip. These are the atypical costs. I mean obviously every project should be taking they are taking differently, but at least If someone wants to put up an ad you they can frequently ask questions page and These are the preliminary steps, contact planning, plan check, or whatever. Or this is how you open a business. Granted, a lot of that's out there and people know, but not everyone knows. These are the number of parks in your immediate neighborhood. These are typical property taxes. You kind of get the idea. Like, this is what you should be paying for rent. These are your rights as a renter. Like, none of that I've ever seen on the website. So if somebody never shows up for council meeting or any city meeting, they can fill out a form. These are your comments. These are your questions. And you get back to hear from someone from community development or planning or engineers or public works. I mean, much like the app, but actually kind of increasing the scope and reach. If you want to send an email to your council member or the council, this is how you do it. I know that's not your area necessarily, but It adds into the level of input we get from our neighbors. Because it's just three of us tonight. There's a total of five of us. And will we go to your next input meeting? Some will, some won't. And some of them have already spoken a lot tonight. But at the same time, it's increasing those opportunities so that there's less confusion within the city. I mean, nothing on the goals or the, for me, it's more of the methodology to make it easier to give that input like you have tonight. And you've listened. Thank you.

Anything else, Commissioner?

All right. All right. Thank you very much, staff. We appreciate it. And since it's a receiving file, we'll go ahead and receive and file it. Thank you. And good luck.

Thank you.

We're now on to the next part of the agenda the Staff King Commission communications interview City Council actions Chris Yeah, so I'm sure I'm sure you heard about last night's City Council meeting and

City Council chose to go with option C, which is the most fiscally conservative choice, which was to freeze positions that are unfilled and not further dig into the reserves. As such we're gonna have to Address how we are using our consultants, so we're looking at that right now Second item that was I'm sure you heard was not move forward was the request for a half cent sales tax Which would have been used specifically to fix roads and infrastructure? So that was that was a non-starter so that one did not pass so If you heard the presentation, there is budget for street maintenance and street repairs, but per the city engineer, it's not enough. So we'll just continue on as we continue. Moving to the Planning Commission items we have so this item before you that you just heard was a Receiving file the actual final document will be coming to you on August 12 which would be a Public hearing and a motion to adopt the environmental justice element with a recommendation for the City Council to approve it So that's on the 12th And then we're filling out the rest of the calendar for the rest of the year. So nothing to really report at this time. That's all I have.

Could you give a couple of bars on what happened with Hermosa? Because I think we haven't met since then.

Yeah. Hermosa, we actually received a notice of intent to, I don't know what the exact legal term is. What's it? I'm sorry. Notice of intent to sue. The neighbors around the subject site, I guess they call themselves the Friends of Hermosa Association. They hired an attorney who served us yesterday. Yesterday was the last day to do so because of the 35-day appeal period for our CEQA actions. The strange thing about it is it's the same attorney that sent us a letter a few years ago when we were not compliant with the housing element. So we're looking at that right now. Our city attorney's office is going through that request or intent notice that we received. So more to follow. We'll see how that plays out.

Got it. Got it. And definitely ironic. Any updates on the current projects that are in the pipeline that there's been any movement? Let's see. Atlas. I'm trying to think. Prevecho. Any possible new businesses coming from community development?

We are making good headway with Atlas Fullerton. They're gonna read a pour the third level the deck for the parking structure So they're they're making great progress on that. We've been working with them They've been having some issues with tracking dirt into the streets. But other than that, I mean we've worked that out So they're they're moving moving and grooving Provecho that one's no longer being sought the app the owners not looking at building gas station.

He's done with that But so but they're gonna I guess since he's not gonna build then I guess they're gonna keep the property as is I

We don't have any other information. We've not talked to, I forgot the gentleman's name. We haven't talked to him in a while. And he's not presented us with any new plans. So it's, you know, as far as I'm concerned, it's pretty much a non-issue at this time.

Speaking about groceries, any interest in Stater Brothers or 99 Cent Store or the Harley store?

Our economic development manager, James, is working with potential uses for those sites, but nothing's really solidified yet.

No, no grocery interest, I'm guessing.

James has been working with Trader Joe's, but they have really special requirements Size requirements, distance requirements, and nothing really fits their need. So that hasn't played out.

What about the east side target?

No movement on that at all.

Did they even submit a plan, or did they have a plan in place?

They had three plans, and they've all fizzled out because the... the lease the major leaseholder target. They. They're pretty much able to dictate what goes on over there.

DIRECTOR BURKEVICH Got it. Okay. This okay so this was an Oscar question in terms of future agenda. DIRECTOR HARRIS Can I ask another. DIRECTOR BURKEVICH Oh sure go.

DIRECTOR HARRIS project question. Any movement at all on the on the hotel slash residence it was going to be built at the. at the transportation center?

The director is actually looking at the points of, the different points within the development agreement and we're looking to see what our options are for that.

Oh yeah, thank you. Agenda forecast.

Just the like I said we're we're taking the final adoption of the environmental justice element to you on the 12th of August so that'll be actually a notice public hearing item. And then we're we're lining up some other items but they're not really I don't have that fidelity yet.

What's been the progress on the eight on putting the ADU plans in place.

We're almost done. So what's being done at this time is staff is plan checking the pre-approved ADU plans. So before we make them available for the public, we need to plan check them and make sure that what was submitted to us by our consultant meets building code. So that's happening right now. So we're looking at probably mid-August when we're able to put them out for public use.

Then final question because Oscar asked me to I Know he'd agenda is a discussion around afford housing affordability and when that could possibly be on our calendar I

Probably need a little more details. Do you know what he's asking for specifically?

I think you wanted just I think he wanted to talk about a study session in regard to afford it in regard to Overall affordability not just housing but economic like basically part of the discussion we were having with staff Food deserts economic affordability of rent housing affordability In general, I mean, I can have him email you.

Yeah, I need to kind of narrow it down because that's pretty broad. I mean, I could go in any direction. But, yeah, if he can, yeah, I'll reach out to him. Okay, and then my last question is are we done with the elements after environmental justice or is there anything else that's coming up so the seventh cycle of the housing element is due to be has to be done by October of 2028 So we're what two and a half years away or less So we have to start thinking about ramping up for that again and It's kind of kind of a bummer because it seems like we just finished that but cycle 7 The arena is going to be established Starting in August. There's just there's going to be some activity around the arena what the arena is going to be for every city, so Yeah more to follow I Know this is not a great measure, but congratulations on not getting sued you

I know that shouldn't be the measure, but when I saw that article, I was just like, I'm happy that we're not on the list. Not a problem. All right. Thank you guys for the agenda forecast. Any other communications or comments from

I don't know if it makes sense to do this or not or but during that last Preservation zone meeting that we had that one of the things that kind of came up a lot was Can I remodel my house? know if it's in a preservation zone and how much extra and and i think there was a little bit um a little bit of uh ambiguity on how that how that specifically works um is is that something that we could uh just have an agenda item on and kind of you know if you're in a historic then if you x y and z and that's how you would remodel your home or sure whatever absolutely yeah okay thank you

I do have just quickly, I want to let you know that I will not be here at the next meeting. I'm going to be in Wisconsin.

And last thing for me, congratulations, Jeff, on not getting sued. And good job on 4th of July. For a lower cost option, from all the feedback that I've gotten, people really liked at least that we did something. Now whether or not it'll be fireworks in the future or drone, that's up to council to decide, but I heard it went well. Also a lot of great feedback when it came to the World Cup event and the watch parties and the hope is maybe we can do more of that that brings the community together versus dividing us and Yeah, I wish everyone a good rest of July and beginning of August. And with that, seeing no other requests for comment, we'll go to adjourn this meeting of the Floor Team Planning Commission at 7.55.