Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Waited long enough for public comment the only person who was in the audience for public comment is left So you do not will not have public comment chose on the agenda is consent calendar And we do not have anything on the consent calendar to vote on so we'll move on And so first item of business tonight will be public hearing and it's going to be his own text amendment numbers zero zero thirteen dash twenty six request to amend title fifteen buildings and construction of the hatred municipal code by adding chapter fifteen point five seven in order to implement a new expedited electric vehicle charging station permitting ordinance and to create a streamlined evie charging station permitting process accordance with assemblies bills 1236 and 970 i'll now open the public hearing and request a staff report thank you chair commissioners

As of January 1, 2023, all California cities and counties are required to comply with Assembly Bill 1236 and Assembly Bill 970. Zoning Text Amendment 0013-26 would streamline electric vehicle charging station permits under AB 1236 and AB 970. Electric vehicle charging stations, which qualify for expedited permit processing pursuant to government code section 658 50.7 shall be subject to the administrative permitting procedures set forth in the city's electric vehicle charging station permit expediting ordinance. Utilizing AB 1236 and AB 970 checklist for permitting electric vehicle service stations for residential and non residential staff integrated the checklist items into 2 separate applications, residential and non residential to be accessed by the applicant through city of hampered citizen self service portal. This portal is the existing system used by applicants for the permit application process. The new checklist and permitting timeline will bring Hanford into compliance with AB 1236 and AB 970. It was determined that the ordinance needed to be adopted in order to comply with AB 1236 and AB 970. The zone text amendment also establishes criteria that outline the new streamlined application process through the adopted checklist. The adoption of Section 15.57 of the Hanford Municipal Code is consistent with the policies of the General Plan, Policy T95, as it promotes and encourages the installation of EV charging stations and streamlines the permitting process. With that, I'll invite any questions the Planning Commission has for staff at this time.

Thank you. Also, before we get on with questions, I want to note that we received a three page reprint of chapter 15.57 by email this afternoon. So hopefully everybody got to see it. I believe it's because of some typos.

And address that. Yes, there was a repeated sentence in one of the sections. So that repeated sentence was removed. With that staff will or the Planning Commission rather will have to adopt an amended Or the changes that correct.

All right. We'll try to remember to do that Okay. Are there any questions of staff?

I do

So the staff report says that compliance to AB 1236 and AB 970 was required as of January 1st, 2023. Is the City of Hanford out of compliance now? And if so, are there penalties associated with that?

Sorry.

Yeah, so, yeah, currently we're not in compliance. We're also not unique in that we're not compliant. So we have some representative from the state of California reached out and indicated, hey, you're one of several cities or counties that needs to adopt this. And we said, absolutely, we'll get on it right away. And so that's why we're here today. But there haven't been any penalties. The only risk that we could run is... If someone came to us and wanted to move forward with the charging station and it was incompatible with our zoning ordinance, we would have an issue because we hadn't adopted the latest version that you have before you today.

Next question. Is the fee schedule going to change for expedited permitting?

No changes have been proposed to the schedule.

Any other questions? I have a question for clarification. On page 5 of the report that we received in paragraph B of 15.57.060, it says the building official shall administratively approve the application. Is there clarification as to who the building official will be? Is it the person out in the van doing the field work, or does it go to the office, or who's the building official?

We're fortunate today that we have the building official with us. It's Mitch. So building official is an official title of an employee with the city, and Mitch holds that title.

Okay, so everything will go through him as of today anyway?

That's correct for this, yeah.

Okay. And then any design standards are going to be outside this document, right? This is just the application, and any official standards will be through a different document? Is that correct?

Yes, I think there's some limitation, though, on the type of standards we can apply. The idea being that we're supposed to streamline this, and so imposing additional requirements is prohibited with some limitations. I mean, we had a conversation with the state, and they kind of indicated what their expectation is there. But I don't know if I missed anything, guys, on the design requirements.

So, this basically, like, it says, so 1236 1st came out and then 970 came out 970 actually. So this is streamline. 970 says, let's actually. Tell you what streamline is and that gave the date so we call it the 520 or the 1040. we have 5 days to accept the application or give 1st comment. And then we have 10 days to issue the permit based on how many EV chargers will be there. um so the standards are the codes that we go by as long as they meet that checklist we will be able to go through and basically get this thing done and and issued within 20 to 30 days so and again sometimes what happens is the big cities are the ones that cause these laws to to get to come forward because they take forever to do stuff and so they just set the rules for everybody so

I notice this also applies to both residential and commercial. On a commercial project, will there be any limitation to the number of charging stations that will be approved at any one time? Specifically, like some of the hotels right now, almost every stall has an EV charging port, and so that would be a very large scale. Are you going to have any limitation as to the numbers of charging ports at any one location?

yeah they broke it down well the way they look at it is what sets the number for like let's say hotels basically every place it comes out of the not to bore you it's the cal green code that basically says where and how many you have to have um the way they streamline this is they look at it just two ways it's either Was it 25 or 26 and less? And then above 26. So they just made it very simple. Very few places ever will be 26 or higher. I mean, that's a lot. That's a huge. Possibly if another Costco came in with 300 or 400 parking stalls, then you'd have that many EV chargers under the new 2025 code that we're under. So we're going to see almost every single one of them under the 26 and under. Yeah.

Okay, I don't have any more questions. We don't have any in the audience, but I have to do this. And I'll open the floor for public input. First, those in favor of the project. Seeing none, I'll switch over to anybody opposed to the project. Seeing none, I'll close the public input portion of the public hearing and bring it back to the Commission for any further discussion or motion. Remember, we need to have an amendment to accept the change. CHAIR WOULD ENTERTAIN A MOTION IF THERE'S NO FURTHER QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS.

I RECOMMEND ADOPT RESOLUTION NUMBER 2026-14 RECOMMENDING APPROVAL OF ZONE TEXT AMENDMENT NUMBER

Second we need also men to this too. I'll go ahead if that's everybody first, okay I'll clarify the motion it should say I recommend the adoption of resolution number 20 26 14 recommending the approval of zone text amendment number 0 0 1 3 2 6 along with accepting the record the amendment or the reprinting of chapter 15 point 5 7 Commissioner Sparza?

Yes.

Commissioner Gill? Yes. Commissioner McElwain?

Yes.

Vice Chair Nelson?

Yes. Mr. Hamm? Yes. That's a order and approved. We'll close the public hearing. That was easy. Okay, let's see. Next on the agenda will be Director's Comments.

Just one item from me. It's a bit of a sneak preview of the next commission meeting we have. So we will be potentially entertaining a conditional use permit for a cannabis business because that's a unique sort of thing. And I know for a lot of you, it'll be the first time that you've entertained a CUP for that. We'll provide a presentation prior to that a little bit to talk about what our ordinance is, why we do what we do, those type of things. So I just wanted to let you know ahead of time that the items can be a little different because it's kind of a bit more complicated and not one that we do very often. So I just wanted to let you all know to expect that at our next meeting.

So, clarification, there was an approved cannabis facility across the street from the bus center, but I believe that has fallen through. Correct. This is not going to be an additional one. It may be more of a replacement of that.

That's exactly. It's the third license, and this would be the conditional use permit for the facility itself. But, yeah, not an additional one, just a replacement of that one that you just mentioned.

Thank you. All right, that was it. I have a question. Is there a standard timeline for receiving the agenda packet? If it's ready, can it be shared ahead of time?

So we usually, as soon as it's wrapped up, we turn it around. So that's why you give it the, you know, shortly before. So we're usually on a tight timeline. So we'll, you know, submit it as soon as we're done with it. Unfortunately, I know that only gives you a couple of days sometimes. But, yeah.

I received mine on Friday. Yeah. We have plenty. At least I did. That's been pretty much the norm.

Yeah, we typically do them on Fridays. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's possible that we have members of public, so I think it's important to be informed about the process, right? How do we go from someone submitting a license to getting a CUP and what our ordinance says? So provide some context to it so that the commission is aware of.

Any other items from the commission? I will not be available on the next meeting date. I will be out of the country. So the chair position will be vacant. I hope the vice chair will be here, but I would suggest that maybe we have a little bit of a briefing just in case our vice chair cannot make it so that we can still have a meeting. I'm not sure how you want to do that, but I think it's necessary.

Sure. I think given, yeah, when we hold the meeting, we'll make sure that procedurally everything is made clear, and we'll work with one of the commissioners to make sure the meeting can be run effectively.

Anything else?

No?

Wow. 14 minutes. If there's nothing else, meeting adjourned.

Thank you.