Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'm gonna call the meeting of the Hanford City Planning Commission to order. It is September 23, 05:30PM. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Curtis?

Here.

Commissioner Norris?

Here.

Vice chair Douglas?

Here.

Chair Ham?

Here.

For the record, alternate commissioner Mayors and commissioner Nelson are absent.

Alright. Would you please stand for the invocation and flag salute? Invocation tonight will be led by pastor Abel Aguilar from the New Hope.

Invitation. Someone else oh. Thank you, Lord, because you're with us today. We ask you to give the commissioners wisdom as they make decisions for the city in this territory that they will boldly say yes and boldly say no. We ask you to be with them even in their going and their go and they're coming. We ask you today. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

Lights will be led by Commissioner Curtis. Please be seated. Next item on the agenda is public comment. And this is the 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 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. Maximum of three minutes is allowed for each speaker. And please begin your comments by stating your name and providing your city of residence. There are people in the audience tonight, so I'm guessing that we will not have any comments. So we'll move on. Next item on the agenda is consent calendar. We have two items. Consent calendar items are considered routine and will be enacted in one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these matters unless the request is made and then the item will be removed from the consent calendar to be discussed and voted upon by a separate motion. We have two items.

Item A is the community development approval on June. And the other item is community development approval of the September.

Minutes Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that we approve both of them the approval for 06/10/2025 and the approval of 09/09/2025

I'll second.

Moved and seconded to approve the consent calendar. Roll call vote, please.

Commissioner Curtis.

Yes.

Vice chair Douglas. Yes. Commissioner Norris.

Yes.

Chair Ham?

Yes. Approved. Okay, tonight we only have one public hearing. Going to be new development zone text amendment number twenty twenty five-thirteen, and it's a request to amend table seventeen point zero eight point zero three zero commercial office and industrial use table and 17.96.020 land use definitions in order to allow banks or credit unions in the community neighborhood community, regional community, mixed downtown, mixed community and mixed neighborhood zone district. Staff report.

I'll open the call up here. Right. Thank you commission.

Wanted to kind of talk about the, it should be not community, but commercial, typo on that one right there. But wanted to kind of talk about our current regulations and with proposal tonight that's before the commission. So under our current regulations, a main branch of a bank or a credit union must be located within the MXD zone, which is effectively the downtown. Secondary branches are permitted with the neighborhood commercial MXD, MXC, some mixed use, MXN zoning districts. So what the proposed change here would be is an amendment to the municipal code that would allow all banks and credit unions to locate within the CN, CR, MXD, MXC, and MXN zoning districts.

So the proposed amended changes to that table and to where they would be allowed are shown here on the screen and also included in your staff report. You can see that we are removing the secondary branch category and just having a single category. We're treating all banks and credit unions the same regardless if it's a first, second, third, fourth branch. We just view them equally. The other change of note is allowing them within the regional commercial zone CR.

So previously, banks, regardless if it was a first or second branch, weren't permitted within the regional commercial zone, this would allow that additional zone as well. The reason for the proposed change is that under the current municipal court, current ordinance, the restriction has created challenges due to the limited availability of space. The MXD zone, we are not adding more space to the MXD zone. It is the downtown, it is tied to the downtown. That presents challenges for new banks that want to come in, because then they're limited to a handful of locations.

Banks have very specific criteria what they're looking for as far as places they can locate, and limiting it just to the MXD zone has created some difficulties. We've had, in my case at least, I've had at least two separate banks that want to locate in town and have had difficulties finding locations because there's only a single zone they can be looking in. The lack of available sites, again, has limited opportunities for banking services and access that individuals might have to the bank. As far as consistency with the general plan is concerned, regarding these changes, there's two policies that are referenced. Policy E5, business growth and retention program, indicates that we should develop and support a business growth and retention program that promotes, encourages, and assists existing businesses in Hanford.

E11 indicates that we should strengthen the reputation of Hanford City government as one that is service oriented and business friendly. This change intends to accomplish both these things, allow for businesses to locate and also allow for business growth. Staff recommendation is approval of this item. With that, happy to answer any further questions that may exist regarding the proposed change here.

Thank you. Any questions or comments from the commission? I've got some questions about clarification. I understand this is probably mainly for a new bank that wishes to come into the community. However, we have several banks in the downtown area. And if they wanted to create another location for themselves, would that not be really a branch or secondary branch as far as their nomenclature would be concerned?

Yeah, for their nomenclature, it would be. But from the city's perspective, we're trying to simplify and not differentiate between the two, right? That regardless if it's your first, second, third, whatever branch it might be, that we define those zones. So yeah, from their perspective, it might be a second branch, but as far as allowances where they may locate it, with this proposal, it wouldn't matter.

Another question is, in some communities there are locations inside like a Walmart or Target and they just have a little open area where they have probably some sellers and maybe an ATM. Does that meet the definition of a bank or do you have to be full service where you also will have loans? I think from our perspective,

the ATM would be treated differently as far as a bank providing full service. If it was a full service bank within an existing some type of commercial use, I would assume it would just have to conform to the zoning there. I can't think of an exception off the top of my head. Outside the ATM, ATMs

are treated

differently. But if it's a full service bank, my assumption, unless there's something I'm missing in municipal code, would have to conform to the zoning requirements.

Okay, so I'm just trying to get clarification. If a new bank were to be created then it would have to probably be more or less a standalone building, standalone structure rather than be inside another facility. Is that how we're going to define bank?

No, I think what I'm referencing is even if it was in another facility, it would have to still conform with the zoning. So it would have to be within a building that is allowed within one of these types of zones.

So anything like in a target or whatever?

Yeah, would make sure that the underlying zoning was consistent with the proposed bank.

Okay, this is a public hearing, open the floor for public comment. And seeing nobody out there, I would imagine we would have a meeting on the site. So seeing that, I will close the public comment and return session back to the commission.

I'll make a motion. Thank you. Recommend the Docking Resolution twenty twenty five-twenty six recommending approval of zone text amendment number twenty twenty five-thirteen. City Council. Second.

It's been moved and seconded to recommend the adoption of resolution twenty twenty five-twenty six recommending approval of the text amendment number 2025Dash13 to the city council. Roll call vote please.

Vice chair Douglas?

Yes.

Commissioner Norris? Yes. Commissioner Curtis?

Yes.

Chair Ham?

Yes. Ordered in the public hearing. Nothing else on the agenda for as far as public hearing. We'll move on to Director. Just

one comment for today. We do have an environmental justice element community meeting tomorrow. If the commission recalls, we had that joint session. It's been some time ago with the city council regarding the environmental justice element for the general plan. Continuing doing outreach, the consulting firm is doing some outreach in the community.

The meeting will be held at the KCAO's office on eleventh, I think 1130 North 11th Avenue. It's a community meeting, 6PM tomorrow. Commissioner's more than welcome to attend. We've done advertising and tried to make sure people can attend, but commissioners are also very welcome to attend if you'd like. And that's it for me. Okay.

The commissioner's items of interest. I did receive an email from the city clerk that I've been reappointed for, I think probably one of the other commissioners I received. Yeah, I

think it was Commissioner Nelson as well was reappointed.

And a question. We do sometimes look at the housing element and that plan. Do we ever look at the airport master plan?

I

assume the adoption of the airport master plan, I don't know if it went through the planning commission or not. I would have to see what the original approvals were associated with it and what the review process is. Off the top of my head, I don't know what the approvals looked like originally.

Alright. I there's nothing else. We are going to adjourn the meeting. Twelve minute meeting. Hey. Thirteen minute.