Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Hey, it's a little bit late this evening, but it is quarter after seven. I'm going to call the meeting of the city after planning commission to order. First item on the agenda is roll call.

Commissioner McElwain.

Here.

Commissioner Gill.

Here.

Chair Hamm.

Here, we do have a quorum. Next item I'm going to move on to is the flag salute. Please join me in the flag salute. Ready, begin. Please be seated. Next item on the agenda is public comment. This is a time for citizens to comment on subject matters not 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 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. Maximum of three minutes is allowed for each speaker. Please begin your comments by stating your name and providing your city of residence. Would anyone like to speak on the public comment?

Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the commission, Mark Kyrus, Mayor of City of Hanford. I'm honored to be here tonight. Thank you for your time earlier this evening with our joint meeting. I appreciate that. I also want to welcome Commissioner McElwain and Commissioner Gill to the dais and being part of the Planning Commission. It's good to see you, and I think you're going to be great assets as we move forward. I just want to take a quick minute tonight, and I'm going to probably repeat this at our council meeting next week, and I promise I'll try to keep this within two and a half minutes. As you know, and I bring this up to the Planning Commission, but we've been working with HCD for the last number of months, if not years, to get our revised draft housing element completed. And on May 8th, we received a letter from HCD basically telling us that, um, our submission has been approved. Um, and, uh, I just want to say that there's no small part in that getting accomplished. But there's someone here tonight, and I want to read a portion of the letter that HCD provided, not only to myself as the mayor, but I believe his staff as well. And it's the last paragraph, and it's pretty short. And it says, HCD appreciates the collaboration and diligence of the housing element update team, which would prepare the housing element as part of the multi-jurisdictional housing element process. ATD particularly commends the efforts of Gabrielle Meyers whose responsiveness and perseverance has provided a tremendous public service and I could go on to read the rest of it, but I think the key point here is and Miss my missus Meyers is here tonight and I don't get to see her on a regular basis but as part of the council and as part of as a citizen of I know the hard work that she put in to get this housing element completed. There was kind of a mess early going on, trying to figure out how we were going to meet this. And I know, you know, Mrs. Myers, I'm not going to... Probably like this, you know, but at the end of the night, I think we need to show appreciation for the hard work that staff does. It's not just her, and I know she will say that up front, but I do know she carried the burden of this project. And we have our community development director here tonight, Mr. Waters, and, you know, him and her and the staff needs to be commended. And so I just wanted to take a moment to recognize them, and especially Gabrielle for her hard work and dedication to this city. You know, when people ask me all the time, you know, they ask me about Gabrielle, and my easiest answer is, and I say it all the time, is she's a rock star, and she really is. We as a city are extremely fortunate to have her part of our staff. She's been a great asset, not only to myself and the council, but everybody. We rely on her expertise and her input a lot. We don't always make the right decision, but thank you, Gabrielle, for your hard work. Thank you for getting us over the hurdle. I know it's been quite a challenge, but as part of the council, we extremely appreciate your efforts. So thank you. Mr. Chair, thank you for your time. Commissioners, enjoy your meeting.

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Seeing nobody else out in the audience, then we'll move on to the next item, which is the consent calendar. And the consent calendar items are considered routine and will be enacted in one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these matters unless a request is made, and then the item will be removed from the consent calendar to be discussed and voted upon by separate motion. We only have one item on the consent calendar, and that is the approval of the minutes of March 10th. Chair would entertain a motion.

I approve.

I second.

Thank you. Okay, it's been moved and seconded to approve one item on the consent calendar, which is approval of March 10th. Roll call vote, please.

Commissioner Gill.

Yes.

Commissioner McElwain. Yes. And Chair Hamm.

Yes. So ordered. The next item on the agenda is a public hearing, and it is for the general plan amendment number 2026-01. And it's a request to recommend approval of a general plan amendment to replace the adopted 2016-2024 housing element with a 24- 2030 to six cycle housing element and authorized city staff to submit the six cycle housing element to the California Department of Housing and Community Development for certification Open the public hearing and request a staff report Thank you chair and commissioners before I get started I'd like to thank the mayor for his kind words but as he pointed out I would acknowledge that this was a collaborative effort and

Thanks to Jason for letting me vent frequently. And Madison, our assistant planner, put together several maps for us. And then we've had a county coordination effort that we've been just a really great working group, as well as Paul McDougall, our HCD coordinator. And he has really made this a digestible process. helped staff understand the requirements of the state. So with that, the city has been in the process to update the housing element since I think it was around 2022. So we're very excited to be at this point today recommending that the planning commission recommend approval of the housing element to the city council. The housing element is mandated by section 6558. of the California Government Code. State housing element law requires that each city and county identify and analyze existing and projected housing needs within their jurisdiction and prepare goals, policies, program, and quantified objectives to further the development, improvement, and preservation of housing. To that end, state law requires that the housing element identify adequate sites to facilitate and encourage development maintenance, and improvements of housing and households for all economic levels, including persons with special needs. Remove, as legally feasible and appropriate, governmental constraints to the production, maintenance, and improvement of housing for persons of all income levels. Assist in the development of adequate housing to meet needs of low and moderate income households. Conserve and improve the condition of housing in neighborhoods, including existing affordable housing. Promote equal housing opportunities for all persons, regardless of race, religion, sex, marital status, ancestry, national origin, color, familial status, or disability. And preserve lower income publicly assisted housing developments within each community. And in California, it's typical for each city or county to prepare its own general plan and housing element. However, in Kings County, Avenal, Corcoran, and Hanford, as well as the county, have chosen to collectively prepare a joint multi-jurisdictional housing element with administrative support from Kings County. And while this is unusual, the collaborative approach to the housing element has a number of advantages, including coordinated regional strategies that offer potential to be more effective in addressing housing needs within the region, Allowing shared resources which can result in significant cost savings to the jurisdictions. Collaborative engagement opportunities with stakeholders and to create more sustainable and interconnected communities within the county. As well as establishment of shared regional policies such as farm worker housing. So within this presentation I will cover a housing element overview. Housing element contents, 2024-2032 regional housing needs allocation, RENA, land inventory and residential capacity, public outreach efforts, goals, policies, and programs, as well as CEQA compliance and then planning commission's recommendation. The housing element is a required element of the general plan. There is a state-mandated update schedule for an eight-year planning period, and our sixth Cycle covers 2024 through 32. As most of you know, the city was issued a notice of violation by HCD since we did not have a compliant housing element as the 2016 through 2024 cycle has concluded. The multi-jurisdictional group has been working very closely, especially lately, with HCD to get this document to satisfy the statutory requirements. And this version was submitted to HCD for formal review on May 4th, and the city received a conditional certification from HCD for compliance with state law, and that letter was distributed to the Planning Commission. The target city council adoption is May 19th, and following city council's hopeful approval, the resolutions will be submitted to HCD for certification. The housing element includes a plan for accommodating the city's fair share of the regional housing needs. It is a plan to meet existing and projected housing needs of all economic segments of the community, as well as address new state law and assembly bills. Looks like my titles aren't showing up. The housing element contents include an introduction and planning context and participation summary, housing needs assessments including population and housing characteristics, employment trends, housing characteristics and conditions, special needs groups, and analysis of at-risk housing. Chapter 3 covers resources and opportunities, land resources, financial and administrative resources, housing densities, and growth. Chapter 4 is a constraints analysis, analyzing governmental, non-governmental, and environmental constraints. And chapter five is the housing plan, which includes goals and policies. And then chapter six is a glossary. Appendices A includes an evaluation of the prior housing element programs. Appendix B is an inventory of the vacant and non-vacant land. Appendix C is the public participation summary. And Appendix D is the fair housing analysis. The multi-jurisdictional effort implemented various forms of outreach, including a housing needs survey questionnaire, which went out in November of 2023, a public workshop, a joint study group in November, also in November of 2023. The first draft was presented to the Planning Commission and City Council on August 27th, 2024, and September 17th, 2024. And then from there, that first draft was submitted to HCD. It was made available for a 30-day public review period. Subsequent drafts were advertised for seven-day periods, and the multi-jurisdictional effort offered a housing stakeholders meeting on April 16th of this year. And then there was a notice of public hearing before the Planning Commission for a minimum of 20 days and a notice of public hearing for City Council. The 2024 through 2032 Regional Housing Needs Allocation, RENA, is a number of units that the county as a whole is assigned through HCD. RENA is a number of units that the county needs to plan for and demonstrate ability to accommodate within the planning cycle. The RENA is not a mandate to build. It is a planning target. The RHNA is assigned by HCD, and then from there, the allocation was distributed based on population percentage by KCAG as part of the regional housing needs determination. Once again, every city and county must plan to accommodate its fair share of the regional housing needs. Of the 9,428 units allocated to Kings County, Hanford was assigned 5,547 units which equates to 59% of the RHNA allocation. From there, the RHNA was allocated by income category. Hanford's RHNA targets are 650, or I'm sorry, 685 extremely low units, 1,369 very low units, 993 low units, 1,066 moderate units, and 2,119 above moderate units. The land inventory is a parcel-by-parcel analysis of each vacant and some non-vacant sites. And a non-vacant site example would be a large lot that might have a shed on it or a dilapidated structure and has potential for rebuild opportunity. It also takes into account some pending projects anticipated to develop within the planning period, as well as ADUs. And the city's Appendix B land inventory demonstrates the ability to accommodate 2,428 low-income units, 1,164 moderate-income units, and 4,120 above-moderate units. Lower-income units utilize sites designated as MXC, MXN, and RH because of their high-density residential potential. Moderate income units utilize sites designated as RM or OR because of their medium density potential. And above moderate units utilize the sites that are designated as RL5, RL8, and RL12, which are low density single family sites. And this map shows the vacant sites by income level. The land inventory assumes that density equals affordability. So above moderate units include single-family development on the left. Attached and low-rise multifamily make up the moderate income category, where high density, such as apartments, make up the low-income category. And ADUs were also assigned as low-income opportunities. Within the housing element, following an analysis of what the city faces as barriers to development of housing or a concentration of above moderate income within a certain area or other housing issues, housing programs are developed to address these issues. Housing programs appear in Chapter 5. I will give a description of the program, but I won't read into it unless there's any questions. Feel free to stop me along the way. Program one, code compliance. Two, housing rehabilitation program implementation. Preservation of at-risk affordable housing. Adequate sites monitoring. Density bonus program, and this would just be continuing to publicize and implement the density bonus program that we already have within our ordinance. Plan unit developments. Objective standards, adopt objective standards to encourage small lot development to ensure a diverse housing stock for residents seeking smaller lots. Eight, home suite home and first-time home buyer programs. Nine, section eight rental assistance program, affordable housing promotion, farm worker housing, emergency... Let's see... affordable housing promotion, farm worker housing, emergency shelters, housing for persons with disabilities, promote equal housing opportunities. And number 14 continues and includes goals and policies as well as programs for affirmatively furthering fair housing. And that includes strategies for housing mobility and new opportunities in relatively high opportunity areas. place-based strategies towards community revitalization, and displacement risk. Fifteen, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote affordable housing by facilitating mixed-use, higher densities, and infill development near transit stops, existing community centers, and downtown. Sixteen, update and amend the General Plan and Zoning Ordinance in compliance with state law. And then under this category, there's... from A through O of various sections of the municipal code that need to be updated in order to be compliant with state law, as well as a deadline to do so. 17, adequate infrastructure for affordable housing. 18, review and update site inventory to meet RENA targets. 19, housing, No net loss program and replacement housing, and this is developing an evaluation procedure to implement government code section 65863 and comply with state law regarding replacement housing. 20, ADU outreach meetings and incentives. 21, development of extremely low income housing. 22, single room occupancy housing. 23 prior sites in site inventory. And 24, the regional collaboration of housing opportunities. 25, homeless and unhoused needs. I think that concludes the housing programs that the city is implementing through the housing element. So as far as the environmental, The adoption of the 2024-2032 Kings County Multi-Jurisdictional Housing Element Update as a general plan amendment is exempt from CEQA pursuant to section 15061-3 of the guidelines. And this section states that a project is exempt from CEQA if the activity is covered by the general rule that CEQA applies only to projects which have potential for causing a significant effect on the environment. where it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment. The activity is not subject to CEQA. Changes proposed by the housing element update are technical changes concerning general plan policy for the implementation of housing policy, and there is no possibility that these changes will have a significant effect on the environment by the act of adopting the housing element. In addition, any developments will be required to undergo individual environmental review determination, and those will either be ministerial, categorically exempt, or subject to individual CEQA review. And none of the special circumstances of Section 153002 apply. And a notice of exemption has been prepared for the multi-jurisdictional effort and will be filed following city councils. So with that, staff recommends that the Planning Commission adopt Resolution 202607, which will find that the approval of General Plan Amendment 202601 is exempt from CEQA pursuant to Section 15061B3 of the guidelines, find that the 2024-2032 housing element is consistent with and will implement the policies for the 2035 General Plan. find that the 2024-2032 housing element substantially complies with the requirements of Government Code Section 65580, and recommend approval to the City Council of General Plan Amendment 202601, and adopt the housing element for incorporation into the 2035 General Plan. And staff recommends, or the... Recommended motion is that I move to adopt Planning Commission Resolution 2607. And with that, I'll invite any questions that anybody has.

Are there any questions for staff? I have more of an education, but the appendix for the city of Hanford was on page 763 as the beginning of it. I just want to see if we could get some education on the numbers that are on the maps. For instance, on page 781, there is a map that shows the racial demographics, and I'm not real concerned about that. I'm more concerned, or I'd like to see if you could explain to us what the numbers are in the blocks. I believe they're census numbers.

Yep, those are census.

Can you explain what that is so we can get a better understanding of what this is?

Census tracts are established by the Department of Finance and break areas into census blocks, and they really know the criteria for it.

Usually population-based. I think tracts are supposed to be around 4,000 residents. That's why you get some big tracts because not a lot of people. Smaller tracts are usually located in urban areas because you have more people.

So does the tract have the same number of people, and it's just how much room it takes to create that?

That's exactly it. And they tried to get close, and again, off the top of my head, I think the number is 4,000 to 8,000, that range.

That helps a lot. Yeah. That's all I really had on everything I looked at. So we've had comments from the commission, so we need to open the floor for comment. I see nobody out there, so I guess we don't really have any public input, so I'll return it back to the commission for a decision. So is that the only item that we have up there?

Yes, that is the only recommended motion.

Okay, would one of the commissioners please read that so we can vote on this?

So I move to adopt Planning Commission Resolution number 202607.

I second.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt Planning Commission Resolution number 2026-07. Roll call vote, please.

Commissioner Gill? Yes. Commissioner McElwain? Yes. Your hand.

Yes. Thank you. I'll close. On our agenda tonight. I believe the next item is Director's comment.

This is where I usually update you about the housing element, but you got a full presentation, so I don't have anything to add for tonight.

Was there a follow-up on that item I asked about that? Any more information about that food card or whatever it is on the Irwin Street sign? You said that Parks has control over that?

Yes, they do. So they issue, if it's in Civic Park, then they work through an application with the Parks Department. Our municipal code allows for them, assuming the Parks Department is okay with it, and then obviously county health requirements are met.

Anything else from the commissioners? We're good. Getting out of here. Meeting adjourned.