Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'm gonna call the order of the Planning Commission meeting for the City Of Hanford. It is January 27, 05:30PM. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Nelson?

Present.

Commissioner Curtis?

Here.

Commissioner Norris?

Here.

Vice Chair Douglas?

Here.

Chair Ham? Here. Vice, alternate Commissioner Merritts is absent.

Alright. Would you please rise for the invocation and remain standing for the flag salute? Tonight, the invocation be led by pastor Bud Haskell from Grace Bible Church.

Shall we pray? Father in heaven, I thank you for the blessings of this day. Been a great day, and we love the sunshine that we've received. We thank you for all that you've done in our lives. I thank you for the commission that is in front of us tonight. I just ask your blessing upon them, guide them. As you say in Proverbs sixteen nine, the heart of a man plans his way, but the lord directs his steps. We ask for your direction tonight. Guide them in what is the best way for our city, and I thank you for what you're gonna do in in all these things in the the matters tonight. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. Commissioner Douglas, please. Please be seated. Next item is public comment. And this is a time for citizens to comment on subject matters, on the agenda and that are within the jurisdiction of the commission.

This is also the public's opportunity to request an item from the consent calendar be pulled for discussion purposes or to comment on any item on the agenda. Comments related to public hearing items will be heard at the time the item is discussed. A maximum of three minutes is allowed for each speaker. And please begin your comments by stating your name and providing your city of residence. Would anyone like to come forward for public comment? Seeing none. The next item that is on the agenda is consent calendar. However, there's nothing on there. So we will move on to the next item that is listed on our agenda. That is a public hearing.

And we only have one item and it is for vesting tentative tract map number nine forty seven amendment number one. And it is a request by applicant Steven Mesias to amend the previously approved tentative tract with a 14 single family resident lots and an 11,594 square foot open space lot. And they're gonna change that into a 17 lot single family residence subdivision on a 3.62 acre parcel in the RL5 low density residential zone district. The amendment proposes to remove the former open space lot, which will increase the residential lot count from 14 to 17 and utilizes the provisions of Section 17.10.100 to allow three lots under 5,000 square feet. And the location is the project is located on the southern end of the intersection of Harrison Avenue and Grangeville Boulevard, assessor parcel number 014Dash171Dash067.

I'll now open the public hearing and request the staff report.

Thank you, chair and commissioners. So tentative Track 947 was approved by the planning commission in May Board of to make decision decision Boulevard at Harrison Avenue as outlined in yellow on the screen. To The property is designated as low density residential by the general plan, which intends to develop single family residential and allows a density range between two and ten units per gross acre. The project as amended proposes a density of 4.7 units per gross acre. The property is zoned RL5 in accordance with general plan.

The project was evaluated for conformance with Section seventeen ten of the Hanford Municipal Code. Generally, parcels are 5,000 square feet or above except where the provisions of Section seventeen ten one hundred are utilized, which allows lot sizes between three thousand six hundred and four thousand nine hundred ninety nine. An evaluation appears in the staff report verifying compliance with requirements of the R L 5 Zone district, for lot size, lot dimension, dwelling units per lot, and setbacks. And the evaluation goes into both the general requirements and those pertaining to the small lots. And additional small lot provision requirements, include that no more than 150 lots are within the subdivision below the 5,000 square foot lot size, that streets are constructed to city standard, that all structures are constructed on-site, that the very that various floor plans and elevations are provided, that the primary frontage faces the public street, that the frontage provides a primary entrance and one window, that garages are required and no carports are permitted, that a patio or courtyard be provided or I'm sorry, a porch rather, and a courtyard be or a courtyard be provided, and there is a two foot stagger between lots.

There's also a requirement that the garage frontage not exceed 50%. City staff is in the process of proposing municipal code amendment to increase the garage percentage allowance since on a 40 foot wide lot, 10 feet is lost to setbacks, five feet on either side. Therefore, a 35 foot house cannot accommodate a two car garage, which is typically 20 feet without exceeding the 50, percent garage width limitation. As a result, a condition of approval of the project includes that if building permits are submitted prior to the garage width requirement being increased or eliminated, the applicant would need to apply for a planned unit development in order to, permit the deviation. This slide shows the originally proposed tentative track with 14 lots.

Here is the amended track. And just for reference, this lot, this lot, and this lot are below the 5,000 square foot lot size. This one is above 5,000, but does seek the, reduced setbacks allowed in seventeen ten one hundred, so it's noted on the screen as well. This tentative track contains 17 single family residential lots. The minimum lot size provided is 4,415 square feet and the maximum is 9,367.

The average lot size is 5,524 square feet. Access to the site is primarily located on Grangeville with the secondary access on Bass Street. Utilities will connect to existing lines within Grangeville Boulevard and adequate capacity is available for water, sewer and storm. The project was determined to be categorically exempt from further environmental review in accordance with Section 15,332 in fill development of the California Environmental Quality Act guidelines. And a memo was distributed to the Planning Commission, which provides screening criteria for both level of service and vehicles miles traveled, VMT analysis, and the memo serves to support the use of the categorical exemption and the contemplation of traffic impacts for the project.

The project was evaluated and the required findings for approval have been made in accordance with section sixteen zero four zero one zero of the Hanford subdivision ordinance and section six six four seven four of the subdivision map act. Resolution twenty sixteen o one was prepared for the project and it addresses conditions of approval related to easements, dedications, street improvements, abandonment requirements for the, any exist any existing wells on-site, utilities, CFD formation requirements, and impact fees. And with that, staff recommends that the Planning Commission adopt a resolution twenty twenty six zero one approving tentative track nine forty seven amendment one. I'll invite any questions you may have of staff.

Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from the commission? I have an item. Can you bring up page 36 of these?

What is it that it shows? I'm sorry. It's in

the middle of the tentative subdivision map comments.

I can't bring it up on the screen, but if you

Okay. Well, anyway, it has to do with the usable open space.

Okay.

Section seventeen point one zero point one five zero.

I'm I'm sorry. And it was page what of

36.

36. Sorry. My laptop

The reason I noticed is it's in red.

Okay. Okay.

It mentions a part that's changed in red. It says Parcels 3614, And 15. Each lot shall provide for a usable open space area of a minimum of 300 feet, and it should be 300 square feet.

Oh, okay. Thank you.

And then the line above also should also be square feet, not just feet.

Okay, thank you. We'll get that changed within the resolution.

That's all I wrote.

Okay.

There's nothing else from the commission. I will now open the floor for public comment. Anybody wishing to speak in favor of the project, please come forward.

Evening commissioners. Steven Mesias, 131 East Kern Tulare, California. The project applicant. Just wanted to get up here and say thank you to Gabby and the staff here for all their help. They've been really great to work with and really help us through this process and help us navigate everything.

This map was approved back in October or November originally and it came before you guys and I wasn't able to attend that meeting but Blake, my partner here was. So we thank you guys for that. Your guys' trust in that project. We we kinda hit the road after that meeting, and we found a developer to purchase this piece of property from us. And he asked if we could get a couple more lots out of this, and that's the reason why we're bringing this before before you guys.

We think the project does fit with an existing neighborhood. It's pretty consistent with the existing surrounding uses and and we think it's a great project. We're here for any other questions if you guys have any. The developer here is is also in in attendance tonight. So if guys got any questions, please let us know. Thank you again. Thank you. Any questions or comments?

Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak in favor of the project, please come forward. I'll switch sides now. Anybody who's wishing to speak in opposition to the project, come forward. Please state your name and the city of residence. Yes. All the way to the microphone, please.

Object to this thing. It's crowded against the back fences there or the side fences and having the the road go through. We've lived there for over forty years, and you make that street go through, you're gonna have, I feel a lot of traffic issues, and I'm just wondering if a gated commute a a gate could be put up for them to use instead of just having free pass through there. We have children that play out there, and it's gonna create a danger zone for us and then to crowd more houses in there. We're not that we're we have space between our houses where we live and to crowd more.

That's that's just not a good idea. I don't feel because you're living. This is a country piece of property right there and it's been nice having that field, but I understand, you know, this has been in the works for what, over fifty years, but I just want to let you all know, I oppose it. I don't approve of it.

Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak in opposition to the project? Okay. Hearing none, I'll go ahead and close the public comment part of the hearing and bring it back to the commission for any further discussion or resolution. Anybody else have any comments?

I'm sorry, just from a staff perspective, I would like to address Bass Street going through that, when the track was originally proposed, I believe it it was in the seventies. There was a a dedication. That street was intended to go through Bass Street was, so, that is a requirement that it does go through and that Bass actually finished out.

Believe the main idea or main reason for this public hearing is just to increase the number of lots, the other part has already been previously approved.

That is. That

is correct. That's the only really the item we're looking for is the increase in.

Correct.

Anything else? If not, I will entertain a motion. It's been moved and seconded to adopt resolution twenty twenty six dash zero one, approving vesting tentative track map number nine forty seven amendment number one. Roll call vote, please.

Vice chair Douglas.

Yes.

Commissioner Norris.

Yes.

Commissioner Nelson?

Yes.

Commissioner Curtis?

Yes. Chair Han? Yes. Ordered. The item has passed. Now go ahead and close the public hearing. It's the only item that we have on the agenda for tonight. And so the next item is Director's comments.

Nothing major from me. I just want to remind the Commissioner, let the Commission know that we are going to take the input that we received regarding the objective standards that we received from you all, and when we take it to the City Council, likely next month, we're going incorporate those sort of recommendations you all made. So we appreciate the comments that you made, and we'll make sure the Council hears them as well. I just wanted to comment on that. That's it for me.

Anything from the Commission? Okay, I have something. I have a question on how the interview process is going for the replacement of our commissioners up here.

Yeah, I'll provide an update. So we had the council elected to set up a subcommittee to do interviews. We received, I can let you know, we received 12 applications for the spots. Interviews were held last night with the subcommittee. The intent is for the scoring to be completed very soon, with the idea that the finalist will go before counsel for a final interview and they're going to narrow down that even further. So starting with 12, that list is gonna get smaller, that group is going to go before council and then council will select from that group to fill those vacancies.

Does it look like that might happen before our next meeting?

I believe so. So right now, the staff report has been written and submitted for the next council meeting to select the planning commissioner. So the intent would be the first meeting in February for council to make a final selection on that and then we would be meeting the next week potentially and at that time we would have those commissioners and we would also appoint Chair and Vice Chair and things like that at that meeting with the new commissioners in place.

Has the alternate position officially been vacated?

Yes, it has been. So we are looking for there would be three potential open positions at this time.

And then, the other item is, has the city provided a budget items to provide training to be able to send our new commissioners legal cities or whatever?

Yes, did have a conversation regarding that. I think the intent is for that training to be provided for new commissioners. So the idea is to set aside that money for anyone who might be new to the commission.