Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to the city of Hayward Planning Commission meeting for 01/22/2026. We are holding a hybrid meeting with some participants in the council chambers and others who have joined virtually via Zoom. This meeting is being webcast on Comcast TV channel 15 and live streamed on the city's YouTube channel and on the city's website. This meeting is called to order at 07:07PM. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Miss Holland, will you please call roll?

Good evening commissioner good body here commissioner Hammond here commissioner low here commissioner Myers absent Commissioner Stevens?

Present.

Commissioner Yorgov?

Here.

Chair Hardy? Present. We will now open public comments on non agenda items. The public comments section provides an opportunity to address the planning commission on items not listed on the agenda the commission welcomes comments and requested speakers present their remarks in a respectful manner within established time limits and focused on issues which directly affect the city or or are within the jurisdiction of the city as the commission is prohibited by state law from discussing items not listed on the agenda your item will be taken into consideration and may be referred to staff for further action. Speakers shall not use threatening, profane, or abusive language which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of a commission meeting.

The city is committed to maintaining a workplace free of unlawful harassment and is mindful that city staff regularly attend commission meetings. Discriminatory statements or conduct that is hostile, intimidating, oppressive, or abusive are per se disruptive to a meeting and will not be tolerated. I see one speaker for public comments, Kelly A.

This Planning Commission and the city staff are dedicated proponents and supporters of maximal data center construction in the city of Hayward as epitomized by the Eden Landing 77 megawatt data center that you recently approved. This is a piecemealing or partitioning strategy where the council looks at each business one at a time and never considers Excuse the

me, Speaker, is this item about the business friendly project?

No, it is not. It is not on the agenda. It has been on previous agendas, madam. Previous agendas. Is non agendized public comment in the terms of your agenda.

This piecemealing or partitioning strategy is similar to loading straw on a camel's back, where you look at each project one at a time and you don't look at the combined impact of all the projects in the pipeline. For example, PG and E's data center project pipeline shows that Hayward has nine seventy five megawatts of capacity. That's reported in the San Jose Mercury News last month, enough for 700,000 homes, which is more than 14 times the number of housing units in Hayward. Hayward only has about 50,000 households, so this kind of loading up if you actually built nine seventy five MW, that might have an impact on the city. You also have something called the Bay Area of Air Quality Management District, Hayward seems to have forgotten.

It's signed by former supervisor Scott Hagerty of Alameda County, and they dedicated to eliminating diesel emissions. By 2033, Hayward is adding more diesel generators to support that Eden Landing data center. Hayward has such a shortsighted and narrow minded and piecemealing approach to data centers that it is going to impact both your grid, your air quality, and of course your water utilization, too. Thank you.

Thank you. I don't see any other general public comments, so we will close public comments and move on to our action item, which is our nomination and election of officers. So at this time, I invite commissioners to nominate themselves or others for the office of chair. Commissioner Lowe? I nominate Carla Goodbody for chair. Commissioner Lowe, do you accept the nomination? Commissioner Goodbody, do you accept the nomination?

I do, thank you.

Excuse me, Commissioner Chair, we will also need a second for that request.

I'll second that.

Now that we have a second, Commissioner Goodbody, do you accept the nomination?

I do, thank you.

So now we will vote.

Commissioner Hammond, we are missing your vote. If you'd like to vote verbally, I can go ahead and take yours.

I think I'm gonna have to. I can't seem to get it up on my computer here. Yes.

Alright. The motion passes with a vote of six yes, zero no, zero abstentions. Congratulations, commissioner Goodbody. Thank you. Now chair Goodbody. Our next nomination is for the office of vice chair. Do any commissioners want to nominate themselves or others? Commissioner Stevens?

I will nominate Mr. Harman.

Do we have a second?

I'll

second. Commissioner Harman, you accept the nomination?

Yes. Thank you. We will now vote.

The motion passes with a vote of six yeses zero nos and zero abstentions. Congratulations chair Hammond vice chair Hammond. Thank finally, we will vote on the office of secretary. Do any commissioners want to nominate themselves or others? Commissioner Lowe.

I nominate commissioner Myers. Do we have a second? Second. Commissioner Myers is not here to accept nomination so we will have to continue this item to our next meeting. Thank you all.

So I will close this item and we will move on to our work session which is item WS26002 the business friendly Hayward project update. Work session to review proposed municipal code and zoning map revisions related to the business friendly Hayward project and I will turn it over to staff for presentation.

Thank you and good evening planning commission I'm Sachiko Riddle, assistant Planner and tonight Senior Planner Elizabeth Blanton and I will be providing you with an update on the Business Friendly Hayward Project. Tonight's work session is meant for your, to get your feedback on the draft municipal code changes and the proposed new permit types as well as our proposed rezonings and two new strategic land use controls. As a recap, our main project objectives are to streamline permitting for businesses across our commercial and mixed use zoning districts as well as to activate vacant and underutilized storefronts and properties in downtown. 2025 were primarily focused on research and analysis and outreach back. In 2025 we worked on edits to the municipal code and drafting ordinances and regulations for new permit types.

We hope to be back before you in 2026 for final adoption. You'll see on the screen a list of outreach that we have conducted to get information and feedback on how to proceed with the project. Our outreach to decision makers has included a council economic development committee meeting, two planning commission work sessions which includes the one tonight, and two city council work sessions. The second of which is scheduled for next week January 27. Our outreach to the community includes a business owner and community member survey, a meeting with the downtown Hayward Improvement Association, tabling at the Hayward Street parties last summer, a community focus group, and a business owner focus group.

We plan to continue our outreach with a community meeting for property owners of the properties that are potentially going to be rezoned and a community meeting with the business owners in the industrial zoning districts. Later in the presentation we will discuss how we responded to the feedback we received from the community and decision makers during our outreach. But for now I'll pass it over to Elizabeth to give a recap of our analysis and to go over the changes to our current code. Thank you Sachi. There we go.

So during the research and analysis phase of the project we developed a series of background reports. We went over these in detail the last time that we met in August, so I'm not going to do that again here, but I do want to remind you of a few key findings from each of the reports. First, in the best practices report, which again looked at what other nearby cities are doing to activate their commercial districts, This report included recommendations to allow flexible land uses and regulations that can easily adapt to evolving market conditions. Two, it recommended to streamline permitting for small live entertainment activities. And three, it recommended that we promote pop up and temporary uses, especially in vacant spaces.

The analysis of our codes and practices took a deep dive into all parts of the Hayward Muni code that regulate commercial businesses to see where improvements can be made. And in particular, it said that we should, again, simplify permitting processes for temporary uses, outdoor dining, and small scale live entertainment reduce or even eliminate permitting requirements for types of businesses that a community just really likes or that the market demands, shows demand for. And then also to limit the overall number of commercial zoning districts so that our zoning code and our zoning map are easier to navigate. And finally the downtown commercial analysis included a market and demographic analysis of our downtown core that found that our downtown lacks a mix of entertainment, experiential businesses, and local serving retail that would really draw people to Hayward. But however, it did identify that even though we do have some vacant and underutilized spaces, this really offers some opportunities for activation, pop ups, and other improvements.

So the analysis from these three reports together with the feedback that we heard from the community, from businesses, from the council, and then from this body form the basis of the code changes that we'll be reviewing tonight. So let's dive into those. Attachments two through 11 to the staff report walk through the numerous changes to the muni code and zoning map that staff is proposing to achieve the project's goals of making Hayward more business friendly. Rather than exhaustively walking through every revision, which would keep us here all night, we're instead going to give you a high level summary of the main changes. And then we'll be happy to dive into more of the specifics if you have any questions about them during the Q and A.

So first, as shown in Attachments two and three, we took our eight commercial sections of the code and we consolidated them down to one. So this means if you want to open a business in one of our commercial zoning districts, you can now go to one section of the code, look at one table, and easily see where your business would be allowed instead of having to flip back and forth between eight code sections which is what you have to do right now. In addition, we simplified land uses into broader categories into things like office, retail, personal services. So this way when new types of businesses enter the market, staff can flexibly figure out where they best fit within the code rather than being forced to either exclude new types of businesses from our city or frequently have to amend a code that's just too rigid. Secondly, aligned with community preferences that we heard during that outreach and also supported by Planning Commission and Council direction that we received during our last round of workshops, we've relaxed the permitting requirements for a number of different uses.

Notably, this includes reducing the requirements for businesses that are selling or serving beer, wine, or alcoholic cider in most districts from a conditional use permit that of course requires Planning Commission approval to an administrative use permit which only requires staff level approval. Now in places where we really want to encourage breweries, cideries, and wine shops like in the downtown core and at Southland Mall, we recommend removing the use permit requirement entirely and allowing these types of uses by right. Similar to what we allow for like a full service restaurant. Similarly, staff proposes allowing distilleries in the downtown core with approval of administrative use permit and animal care facilities in a wider range of commercial districts also with approval of an AUP. To support our artistic community, tattoo shops are proposed to be allowed by Wright in our downtown core at Southland Mall and in our general commercial zoning district, while requiring an AUP in other commercial and mixed use districts.

And then finally, staff proposes allowing daycare centers, recreational facilities, and cultural facilities and community centers by right in most commercial and mixed use districts, as again, these are highly sought after by our community members as we heard again and again during our outreach. Now given that cultural facilities and community centers are sometimes rented out as event spaces, in consultation with our police department we propose limiting event spaces within these facilities to be rented out until a maximum of 11PM. Any facility that wants to rent out event spaces beyond this time would be considered a banquet hall. That would be required to apply for a conditional use permit no matter where they're located in the city. So we could have a little bit more control over those types of uses.

Now while the vast majority of our proposed revisions are ways to lighten en permitting requirements and streamline processes, there are two uses that we are recommending stricter controls for. The first is massage establishments. Currently, massage establishments require approval of a conditional use permit everywhere in the city except downtown where they're allowed by right. Now recently, Hayward PD has become aware of instances of commercial sex work taking place at both permitted and unpermitted massage businesses within the city. And as a result, the council has established a temporary moratorium on new massage businesses.

So that's currently in place. In response, staff proposes requiring a CUP for massage establishments in the downtown area, just like everywhere else in the city, to ensure that all massage businesses are required to go through that same rigorous CUP process, which would include review by both the Planning Division and the Police Department. When the Business Friendly Hayward project comes back to the Planning Commission and Council for final adoption hearings this spring, along with an updated version of the massage ordinance, we'll be recommending that Council ends the temporary moratorium once these more appropriate land use controls are in place. Now secondly, staff recommends requiring a conditional use permit for data centers and limiting this industrial land use which is typically characterized by large generator yards, significant amounts of diesel, and potentially significant environmental impacts to the general industrial zoning district. As currently defined in our code, data centers qualify as an office use.

And as a result, they're permitted by right in a large number of commercial and industrial zoning districts. Now the two most recent data center projects that have come before the Planning Commission in the past five years have only been required to do so because they've requested building heights that are above 75 feet and they're located on sites that are over 10 acres. So this is triggered major site plan review. Otherwise these projects would have been eligible for staff level review. So by requiring a CUP for data centers that will ensure that in all cases these types of projects are reviewed at a public hearing before the Planning Commission.

And further staff recommends limiting their location to the general industrial zoning district given the large amount of hazardous materials and the potential for environmental impacts associated with this use. Finally, in an effort to simplify the zoning map, staff proposes consolidating three of our smallest commercial zoning districts into larger ones that have similar zoning regulations and development patterns. So shown on this slide, we recommend that the residential Office district, which allows residential and office uses, gets combined with the commercial Office district, which also allows residential and office uses. And we would call this new combined district the Commercial Office Residential District. And then secondly, the Limited Commercial District, which is located in small pockets around town, and the Regional Commercial District, which is only the Costco site on Hesperian, are recommended to be redesignated as general commercial.

This will allow the current uses on those sites to continue, while also allowing options for new uses if those sites ever redevelop in the future. By consolidating the number of zoning districts from eight down to five, we make our zoning code easier to read. We make our zoning map easier to navigate. Which is ultimately helpful to businesses who are just trying to find a place to open up shop. And now I'll turn it back to Sachi to wrap up.

Thank you Elizabeth. We talked to community members and decision makers about specific permit types that our analysis found would help bring people and businesses to Hayward. The three listed on this slide generated the most interest from the planning commission and so we've worked on a framework for those. The first is that we are exploring zoning conformance permits for accessory commercial units. As a reminder accessory commercial units are permits or are businesses that would be operated from the home but unlike a home office these uses would actually generate some foot traffic from the surrounding community.

To start we'd like to allow ACUs in the downtown and Mission Boulevard zoning districts that already allow for detached residential as these seem like the community would benefit best from them. These areas are already busy and generally have a higher population than your standard low density residential neighborhoods. If this pilot is successful then we can later look at expanding it to different neighborhoods in the city of Hayward. We've been very specific about which types of uses would be permitted to operate as an ACU. It includes very low impact uses such as beauty salons, pet grooming, fitness studios and coffee shops with a takeout component only.

Any sort of restaurant or dining in has been excluded from this list of allowed uses as a way to address the Planning Commission's concerns around exacerbating the city's existing challenges around sidewalk bending. Staff is looking for feedback on if the pilot areas for the permit type seem appropriate and if the list of allowed uses should be further expanded or restricted. The planning commission also showed great interest in creating a limited entertainment permit. Currently the city has a cabaret ordinance that looks to regulate more intense uses such as nightclubs but tends to screen out live entertainment as a whole. This new limited entertainment permit would provide an easier and more streamlined path for small live entertainment opportunities such as karaoke or open mic nights.

Staff is looking for feedback to ensure that the types of entertainment allowed with a limited entertainment permit feel correct and to make sure that we aren't missing any uses that you all feel would be appropriate for this permit type as well. And finally, though many zoning districts in the city of Hayward do allow for temporary uses with an approved administrative use permit. This often prevents many small temporary uses from operating due to the cost of the permit and the time for review. Our new temporary use permit process is intended for smaller, low impact activities that operate for a limited period of time. This would include uses such as pop up shops, garden events, outdoor events on private property, and other similar uses.

Applicants would be required to meet an established set of standards which would allow for simple and quick review and a flat processing fee which the planning division would handle. And with that Elizabeth and I will turn it over to the commission for discussion. At this juncture in the project we particularly like to know if the planning commission finds the draft municipal code provisions, new permit types and proposed rezonings appropriate for Hayward? Are the downtown and Mission Boulevard corridor the suitable areas to pilot accessible commercial units excuse me, accessory commercial units in Hayward? And does the commission support the list of proposed uses allowed?

They're listed on the screen for your reference. Does the commission support the types of entertainment uses in the limited entertainment permit program and are there other entertainment activities the commission believes should be allowed through this streamlined permitting process? And finally is the commission supportive of adding event space into our definition of cultural facility and community center allowing event spaces in more zoning districts including the downtown areas through a simpler process as long as these events ended by 11PM. Elizabeth and I are happy to answer any questions that you may have about the project and we look forward to your feedback.

Thank you senior planner Blanton and assistant planner Riddle for your presentation. I will now open the floor for commissioner questions. Commissioner Yorkov?

Thank you, Chair. And a huge thanks to staff for preparing this report. I think this was the last meeting, the first presentation of this before I joined the Planning Commission. I've been looking forward to this since I joined. So just had a few questions ahead of it. I hope they're not too difficult. For the anything involving liquor being sold, a liquor license would still need to be obtained and that would be a separate process from anything we're discussing here.

Correct. So ABC licenses would still be required for any sort of use serving, selling alcohol. That process would still continue regardless of what our city processes or use permits required would be.

Okay great. In terms of the zoning or the areas of the city where a data center would be allowed, is the environmental concern the main reason that the Industrial Park District wasn't recommended by staff?

Yeah, the Industrial Park District, we have three industrial districts within our industrial area. A light industrial, Industrial Park, and general industrial. The Industrial Park District is really envisioned as kind of a business park type environment meant for like biotech uses and things that can kind of transition between industrial uses and office uses kind of flexibly go between those. For example, it has like a much higher landscaping requirement than some of our other industrial uses because it's supposed to have that business park kind of feel to it. So yeah, as a result in staff discussion with our entire planning staff, it felt like given the type of development that industrial kind of a heavier industrial feel that data centers tend to have with their large generator yards, substations, switching yards, that type of thing on-site, it's really more of a heavy industrial use which for our code those tend to live in the general industrial district which is why we felt it was most appropriate to limit it to that area.

That makes sense, thank you. And then for the accessory commercial units, if this pilot were to be successful is there a timeline for when staff would look to roll it out to a larger area?

I'd say no specific timeline. Sometimes it can take a while to see these types of things roll in, especially since this idea is really new. But if it's something that's popular and it's something that council supports and the community supports, it would not be something these are minor, minor little changes to get this rolled out into other parts of the city. So it's something we could do rather easily.

Okay. That's great to hear. I'll save my enthusiasm for that item until comment. As far as retail with the accessory commercial units, does that include food vending that doesn't have space for people to eat? So for example, someone selling jam or honey out of their house.

So currently we do allow for a small grocery store use as an accessory commercial unit. I believe that we've limited it to 500 square feet of space so it's not like an overly large space.

So any sort of food would be covered through there. Okay, great. Yeah and then finally with the live entertainment uses for like small scale stuff, I saw that the code didn't list the explicit uses that the staff report did. Would the intent be to add the specific uses into the code as well?

Yes, we are going back and forth. Again, for this work session I would say, and Sachin correct me if I'm wrong, Our intention was to get the code kind of like to the 90% design drawing phase, you know, and get it kind of before your eyes, before we finalized everything. So the limited entertainment permit section of the code, we were going back and forth with police with to the very last second. So yes, we can certainly add that level of specificity there if we want to really specifically limit it to those uses. And or we could leave it a little bit more flexible if the Planning Commission and or the Council felt that it was appropriate to let staff kind of make a determination of what types of entertainment businesses fell within that category. So we would welcome direction on that tonight.

Great, thank you. And I did have just one more. For the cabaret portion of, I think this falls under the limited time entertainment as well. There's still language in the code referencing a cabaret license that would need to be obtained for anything presenting to a crowd. Would that be maintained or would that be excluded?

So the cabaret ordinance will still stay in effect and it again it'll be for those more intense uses like nightclubs. They will still have to get a cabaret permit. So we are going to change the language in the existing cabaret license to make sure that it's not screening out smaller entertainment uses. So there are changes that will come to the cabaret ordinance but it won't be disbanded entirely.

That's great and that's it for me. Thank you. Thank you.

Commissioner Stevens.

Thank you very much. I just have one question regarding the data center. I notice in the staff report it says limiting their location to the IG zoning district will reduce the potential for impacts to sensitive uses. So I guess just need a little help understanding kind of what are we trying to avoid? I appreciate what you said about the business park and I guess I'm just trying to understand that a little clearer.

Yeah, one of the types of data centers that we've gotten so far in Hayward and again, technology changes over time, but have been reliant on diesel generators. So air quality, for example, emissions is a type of use that we would be sensitive about, that we would want to make sure that residences, schools, things like that are not super close to. Our IG District is very buffered from those types of uses where even our IP district and our IL districts are a little bit closer to residential uses generally.

So let's just say I wanted to build a five megawatt data center which has probably a less intensive land use and probably a less intensive power use. And of course I'm only using power if I lost supply from PG and E. I mean that impact I suspect would be fairly low. So would we be precluding the ability for me to build a very small scale data center, like an inference data center?

Yes. By these regulations, answer to that would be yes. Data centers also have to do regular testing of their generators. So even if they're not using them for emergency purposes, when you do the environmental analysis for them and compare those to BACMed standards for example, most of the emissions that are assumed are based on that emergency testing which does happen.

And so let's say I had a five megawatt data center and I wanted to use fuel cells or other elements that aren't related to that I still would be precluded from building?

Yes by these regulations yes.

And so I read the definition of a data center And let's say in a non IG zoning district I wanted to build a fiber optic regeneration station to reach the data centers that are currently located within Hayward. And so that would be a building that would use power, have backup power. I mean I guess somebody could infer that that would be a computing facility or somehow related to a computing facility. Would that then be precluded or how would we make that decision about a regeneration station that supports the broadband infrastructure that supports the data centers?

I'm not sure. I don't know enough about that type of use. Generally when uses come in, these are the types of decisions we have to make at the planning counter and with our planning manager all the time to say something comes in, it's not specifically listed in the code. So we have to make determination to say, okay is it closer to this type of use? Is it closer to this type of use? Which bucket does it fall in? Or we have what we call an exclusionary zoning code. So if it's not close to any use or we can't really say that it falls neatly into any category or it's close enough to any category, then the decision is it's not allowed at all.

Thank you.

Commissioner Lo.

Thank you and thank you for your presentation. So I wanted to go over some of the questions you asked us And I want to ask you some questions before we get to that part or we get to tell you what we think. So question number three, does the Planning Commission support the types of entertainment uses listed in the limited entertainment permit program? And are there any other entertainment activities commission believes should be allowed? And so what I was wondering is would activities for children be included in that?

Yes, potentially. There's not any specific requirements. When we were talking again in this living document so far about these types of uses, we talked about with the limited entertainment permit having it be I'm not looking at the language in front of me, but being something I don't remember if we said all ages are appropriate for families. But our police department wanted to make sure that there was language in there, that these types of permits were not being issued for things that were like 21 and over only. But they were things that were more appropriate for a wider crowd.

So yes, that is language that I believe is in there in some capacity. But I'd have to look at the exact language to remember exactly what it says. So yes, children or families or folks not just for adults, would say.

And would it include something like a small portable not portable, but yeah, portable amusement park or something like that where they have the little rides like you see at Southland Mall sometimes.

So that kind of use, I believe, would fall more under a temporary use permit because that's something that comes to town, stays up for a little while. And in this case, they believe that this would be more appropriate for an administrative use permit just so that there's more eyes on this kind of permit as there are people like on those rides, there's tents set up, things like that. So instead of it being like someone playing live music or someone selling goods that they made at a shop it's kind of a more intense use that would require a higher level of review.

Thank you. So number four, is the Planning Commission supportive of adding event space into the definition of cultural facility community center, thus allowing event spaces in more zoning districts through a simpler process as long as they end by 11PM. And so I was wondering what was the process, the thought process that went into choosing that time?

That came again from our police department. We talked about the distinguishing between banquet halls and cultural facilities community centers. Because at the end of the day, all of these spaces are rented out for events. They can kind of be used interchangeably in some ways, where a wedding or quinceanera or some sort of a baby shower, these are the types of spaces that people rent out for those. Sometimes that can lead to issues that our police department's having to deal with.

And then oftentimes there's not. So when we were working with our police department to kind of go through these regulations, when we were asking is there any kind of magic as to when there are problems versus when there aren't, our police department said when events are capped and when they end by say 11PM, that's a specific time that came from them, we're really not worried about it. We're not running into issues. We're not having calls for our patrol officers to come out. So we as the police department are okay with having that be something that's much more widely permissible than a space that is holding events later.

So that was the call for that specific time and that specific distinction in the code.

Great. Sorry I just got to find my questions. I have a lot of notes. So on some of the I know we didn't go over every single thing. Like you said, we would have been here all night.

But for some of the uses that would we're switching from a conditional use permit, the suggestion is to switch from that to an administrative use permit, my question is, does when the staff is trying to decide whether or not to grant administrative use permit, does the staff consider things like clustering of the same type of business and the same type of area? Because that is something that I can see the community maybe being concerned about.

Yeah, we have specific findings. It's the same findings that you guys use to make a decision about any kind of use permit. So those are really the things that we focus on. Clustering is not something that's specifically listed in the findings, but there are things about will this use impair the character of this district? Is it going to create any nuisances in this district?

So there are things that can maybe get at the idea of clustering and about community concerns. But just like you guys, have a set of required findings. And if a project meets those findings and we think it's going to safely operate and be able to meet all of our required findings, just like the Planning Commission was, we'll approve it, too. And then if we find that it's not, there's a finding that we don't think it's going to meet, and we, through doing our research and our analysis, we don't think we can make a finding for a project, then we would deny it just like the Commission would. So we kind of go through the same process that you guys do. The only difference is there's 's not a public hearing attached to it. We're doing it as technical staff.

Even though there's not a public process, is there an opportunity for if people were to find out that it's coming, something's coming that they are concerned about for their neighborhood, is there an opportunity for them to be heard?

Yes. So for any use permit process, folks receive a notice. We do postcard notices for all properties within 300 feet residents and businesses before a project. There's an appeal period after so if somebody doesn't agree with our decision they can call it up to a planning commission. If the planning commission feels like they want to hear a project or the council wants to hear a project, there's opportunities to call up a project.

So yes, there's definitely opportunities for the public to bring something to a public hearing even if it's not required by the code. And then also for all of our and Sachi can speak to this as somebody who processes a lot of these, so can Jeremy as somebody who's led our department for our division for quite a long time. For all of our administrative permits, which are the bulk of permits that we process, there's quite a bit of public outreach that happens. There's a lot of folks that we're talking to from the community, neighbors that are concerned about project or just have questions about projects, want to know what's going on, things get posted on neighborhood forums and things, and then people learn about things, and then are reaching out to us to have questions. So public hearings are one way to involve the community and to get input about projects, but we certainly still have touch points with the communities even if we're not having those public hearings.

Thank you very much. That's all the questions I have.

Chair Goodbody.

Thank you. Thank you for this report and your analysis. My first question was about the let me see if I'm still getting used to this thing here. Was there feedback from the police department on the relax permits for alcohol sales in the Bi Rite permits in proposed zones?

So we ran all of that by our police department. Again, like the entire city, we're all a little fiscally limited at the moment. So we didn't want to put any extra work onto their plate. They were fully supportive of that. And again, kind of going to what are we having calls for service for?

Are we worried about the beer and wine uses, the breweries? Their general response was no. Those aren't the types of uses that they're worried about. They didn't have any concerns about those being processed at a lower level, either at the AUP or permitted by Wright. And from the community side, again, the the reason they were excited about these types of uses is because they said, you know, unlike a bar, you know, which we have several of them in town, breweries, ceteries, these are kind of almost seen as more like family friendly uses. So even though it's a place where you can get a beer, it's also a place where you can go with your family. So again one of the reasons why I think PD is not as concerned about having issues at these establishments.

Okay. I'm supportive of relaxed permits for this. So I don't see a problem supporting those, though. I wanted to just jump on what Commissioner Loe was talking about in terms of the saturation and the denial of maybe some permits for businesses that apply because there's been an existing use within 500, 1,000 whatever feet. So I'm wondering if maybe this is a good time to clarify saturation or if there is a way to make it clear what the intent is.

And then my second question related to that is if will it grandfather businesses that were denied, say, beer and wine or alcohol sales because of that restriction, because that they were in close proximity to another business.

I might ask a question back, if that's Okay. So for the saturation question, are we talking specifically about because businesses with alcohol have specific requirements about saturation. Are we talking about businesses in general having too many of the same types of businesses in an area? Or are we talking about alcohol related businesses have too many of those in the same area? Like I know for example like liquor stores, there's requirements about not having too many of those concentrated in the same area. Are you thinking more generally about not having too many of, I don't know, retail that's a example. But too many of like any type of business in the same area.

Yeah, guess more generally, I mean if there's like a like I get the saturation of liquor stores. But I'm talking more if there's a liquor store and then say you know there's a market or maybe like a CVS or like a small Walgreens or something like that that also wants to

sell alcohol. Yeah. So alcohol uses in particular have restrictions about like how many can be sold in or how many can be located in proximity to each other. So that kind of prohibition or limit I should say already exists. And that would stay in place.

If there are other types of businesses that the commission is concerned about having like an oversaturation of or having like too many in close proximity of, generally that's the type of thing that we wouldn't be looking at unless there were specific language in the code. So for example, we have specific language in our code around cannabis dispensaries. We say we can have a maximum of three you know, in our city. So that specific language in our code we can point to to say we can't have any more than that. So unless, you know, we have the specific rules like we do around liquor businesses or the specific rules like we do about cannabis businesses, For other types of businesses we likely wouldn't have that kind of way to limit kind of an over saturation of businesses.

So if there are specific businesses or types of businesses that the commission particularly has concern about, let us know and we can certainly look into what would be appropriate.

Great. And then I know that just in the staff report there was references to desirable businesses, but it kind of didn't expand on that. So is it accurate to assume that the desirable businesses were the ones listed in the other parts of the packet?

Yeah, so I think and Sacha, please correct me if I'm wrong. We used desirable kind of as shorthand for like things we were hearing over and over again from the community to say like, we want recreation, we want breweries, we want daycares, we all need daycares.

Tattoo parlors and Yes, hair

personal services we heard a lot. Those kinds of things were popular, yes.

Okay. In terms of the ACUs, I really see the intent. I really see the innovation. And really trying to reshape and innovate how we build our economic development and we strengthen our economic development engine. I am wondering, though, along the proposed zones of the IC along the mission in downtown corridor, if it makes sense to be doing this now before we have figured out what the loop is going to look like.

I'm trying to think big picture. If there is a person that's providing a yoga class or some sort of exercise class that's just a few blocks from where I live and everyone is going there, it seems that people aren't just going to be walking there. They're going to be driving. They're going to be pulling over, dropping off their kids if it's a daycare. And I'm wondering if we should consider this in the context of what we want the loop to look like. I don't know where we are on that. I know it's a separate conversation, but I just wanted to offer that thought.

I think that it's a little challenging because obviously the loop, you're getting into traffic patterns and how people get from A to B. Sometimes it's influenced by land use decisions, and sometimes it's not. I mean, obviously people are trying to get to wherever they need to go as quickly as they can. And usually that's informed by an app, by your car, or by Apple or whatever, Apple Maps. So I think the intent of the ACU component, as Elizabeth and Satya had pointed out, are really to help expand the economic base, particularly for a lot of the startups that can't afford the mom and pop, they can't afford to lease a retail space.

They can't necessarily afford, but they are looking to, let's say, do like a, maybe they're a piano teacher and they want to have students come to their house, which is something that we've seen pretty commonly. Tutoring would be another one. So it's slightly more flexible than like a home occupation. In other words, you're permitted to do a little bit more of an intensity. But it still is not supposed to function like a full on, full blown commercial outfit like you would see in So Lincoln the expectation related to the street traffic.

And again, these ACUs are intended to be accessory commercial spaces. And so, in an ideal world, you would walk to them if you have one in your neighborhood and you want to grab a cup of coffee and somebody happens to be making coffee or whatever. Are, not going to So, obviously, this is not going to be attractive to a lot of people, but it could be attractive to small entrepreneurs that are just looking to get started, but they don't have the capital to build out or lease out a huge space.

Thank you. And then I had brought this up at previous commission meeting when we were providing feedback on this, our last work session, I guess. And that is the street vendors. Will they be an approved use for these ACUs? And then how do you what does the implementation look like?

So the only making food and being able to walk up and get it used that's permitted right now as we have proposed is a coffee shop. So you could walk up and grab a cup of coffee and you could not stay on the premises and drink the coffee. You couldn't sit down and have a pastry. You'd have to leave. We've intentionally made the uses so that sidewalk vendors would be precluded from this. So there is no restaurant use permitted. There is no dining in permitted. We're aware that this is something the Planning Commission is very concerned about and so we want to make sure that we've written the regulations to make sure there's not like a loophole there.

And in addition this can be something talking about like iterative like ideally you know when we figure out the sidewalk vending and we have that permitting buttoned up and enforcement figured out that could be something that we could add into this program at a future date. But since there was concern from the Planning Commission about, you know, having confusion between what is permitted, what's not permitted, who is operating with a permit, who's operating without a permit. We wanted to have the allowable uses for the ACU program reflect that and just completely remove kind of that food component other than either a small grocery store or like a coffee shop. Jeremy?

I just want to just expand also. Sidewalk vending is only applicable for public sidewalk and public right of way areas. So if you're a sidewalk vendor, you cannot operate from private property because at that point you fall into our zoning code. The state has created streamlined opportunities for sidewalk vending that have limited city's control in being able to prohibit that, which has been the biggest challenge that we've had to date. However, what we're talking about here does allow us to add regulation to be able to monitor and maintain those uses.

And so, the state currently, and they passed several years ago, cottage laws that allow individuals to be able to bake or make things out of their home if you're a caterer. It allows you the opportunity to do that. And that's currently allowed by Wright. So, there's nothing that the city can do about it. Operators have the ability to do that.

There's no permit necessarily that they have to get from the city of Hayward on that, except for maybe a business permit if they're operating like a catering business or something like that. And, there's probably going to be some health department checks or something and requirements that have to be satisfied there. But, sidewalk vending is completely different. It only pertains to areas on the sidewalk and within public right of way. And what we're talking about with these regulations would be specific to private property and whether or not they wanted to, as a part of their home, have an accessory commercial activity that would occur under a very limited sort of framework, they were pointing out.

Would the accessory units also be permitted in church property? I mean that technically isn't a home. Mean

or would that be more like an event like a one time permit like you know sometimes when they have a like a crab feed or a? Yeah, the accessory commercial units are specifically allowed as an accessory use to primary residential. So it would have to be on a property where the primary unit is a residential home, and this is a secondary business that's operating on that same property. So if there is another type of use that's in a residential district, it wouldn't be eligible to have an ACU on that property. What about apartment complexes?

Right now the way that we have written the ACU, it would be for single family detached residential uses. And again, just in the infancy of this program, Access to these types of uses, the way that the draft code is written is saying that you need to be able to access this from the outside without going through like interior hallways and things like that. Sometimes with multi family properties, if you live in an apartment complex, for example, you might have interior hallways and you don't if you are another resident living in that building, you don't necessarily want to feel comfortable having your neighbor run a business where now multiple people have access to your building that you didn't consent to. So at least for our first phase of the project, like our first piloting of the project, we're limiting it to folks that live in detached residential units. And then eventually can expand as we add complexity of the project in the future.

Right. And then in terms of just for the one time, for the pop ups and those items mentioned in the report, I would also maybe expand that a little bit and think about including commercial properties, particularly like some of the hotels that are coming up. I realize that much of it is up to the property owner. But I recently went to a pop up event in San Diego in which there was a Holiday Inn or something right there on Pacific Highway. And the lobby of the hotel was converted into this pop up event that was themed like the Golden Girls.

We like the Golden Girls. Was And a hit. I mean, that place was packed. And it was just like this Holiday Inn. But the bar and just they redid the kitchen to look like the television series.

And so it brought in a lot of foot traffic. And I mean, that's just something to consider approaching as you are in discussions with the hotel ownership and property owners to think of adding that as an eventual pop up space. And then my last comment on the zoning changes for the industrial park, general industrials, that I feel we need more feedback from the industrial business owners on that. And I was hoping that we would have some of that tonight before having to make a recommendation or give feedback on that. I guess what comes to mind is that the city of Hayward has been a leader in sustainability for many, many years.

And it's been recognized in the region. And I would not want to deny a smaller data center or any kind of other innovative sustainability business because of restricting them only to the IP area.

Thanks. Thank you. Commissioner Hammond.

Good evening. Just a quick bookkeeping item. Under definitions banquet hall, the revision states, and is permitted to host events eleven p. M. I think it's missing a word. I can tell, or something. And under home occupation E, after stating the hours, there's an and that ends nowhere.

Thank you.

Sure. So, a question. Who and how do we determine what is a desirable business in the city of Hayward?

So, we relied on all of our outreach for that. So, the community survey that we did, the survey of businesses, looking at the market demand analysis that was done for our downtown to see what the market said that we had demand for. Listening to the Planning Commission, to the Council Economic Development Committee, to the council, that's where we drew or that's kind of how we're loosely defining what the desirable businesses are. What are we hearing from the community that they want to see more of in town? What types of uses are they going to other places, other cities to go to that they would rather come to and patronize those businesses here?

That's kind of how we're defining it.

Okay, thank you. And then how would the new streamlining permit process work?

So we kind of use that as shorthanded in a few different ways. One of the ways of streamlining the permitting process is just removing process. So for example, having a business go through a CUP process to come before the Planning Commission, a form of streamlining would be having them only go through an AUP process That takes off a whole step of having them go through the public hearing process at reduced time, at reduced costs. So that's one form of streamlining. Another form of streamlining is taking something that is a, say, a discretionary permit where the applicant has to put down a deposit and we have to go through staff review of many people and make findings and instead turn that into something with a flat fee, a ministerial process, a zoning conformance permit, as Satya was describing for the ACU.

Something where we just have a checklist, check, check, check, you meet all the requirements, here is your permit, you're approved. That's something that's a lot faster. It's a lot less staff time to process something like that. And as a result, it's less costly and much more efficient for the applicant as well. So there's kind of different types of streamlining that are considered here. But generally it means that a less cumbersome permitting requirements.

Okay. And then will any part of the streamlining permit process jeopardize safety?

Would it jeopardize safety in what sense?

Well, some of the relaxing of the restrictions. Would that cause would there be less of a review by staff

looking at these? There would be less of a review by staff. But part of the reason that we as staff have chosen these uses to have less review is because these are the types of things that get approved every time. These are the types of things that when we talk to our police department about them, they are not having calls for service for these types of uses. They feel comfortable with these types of uses.

And in addition, for these types of projects, we can still in the code have performance standards that are in place, operational standards that are in place, conditions of approval for these projects. So there's still parameters that we can set that these businesses have to operate in without having each one individually have to go through some sort of review process. In addition to some of these businesses that we are lightening requirements for have separate licensing requirements like day cares or alcohol businesses, for example, that they have to go through separate agencies, state or regional agencies. So, you know, we're saying that we're not feeling the need to put additional requirements on top of that since they already have those kind of safe holds in place.

Okay, thank you. And then for the organization and zoning revisions. The land uses and zoning were separate before for a reason, I'm assuming. Do we lose some individual clarity or restrictions by grouping?

We do. I mean, like the code previously, the fact that it had the eight different districts instead of the five, there were slight differences between some of the districts. For example, in the Regional Commercial District, the way it's written now, essentially only a Costco can be there. If Costco ever decided not to be there, a new Costco would need to move in or something very similar to a Costco. It's kind of representative that our code hasn't been updated.

We haven't had a massive overhaul in our code in many, many decades. It's just kind of an older way of writing a code. More modern codes, more modern sections of our code don't tend to have so many different zoning districts. They don't tend to have so many different use categories. So part of the consolidation is just acknowledging that maybe where in the past it felt really important to have this commercial use category be slightly different than this category and have them be really different in kind of today's thinking around planning. You know, these two uses are these two categories are really similar. Let's have them be one that's easier for everybody to understand. It's easier staff to implement. It's easier for the community to use. That's kind of a win for everybody.

So it's a more modern approach to zoning, I would say.

Is it hard to change back if this doesn't work?

It's the same process to change back. We would have to go back through counsel. Counsel ultimately makes the decision about the codes.

So obviously we need to be careful to make the right

decision. Yeah. And we've sent out very detailed letters to all the folks. There's 83 properties total who that would be potentially rezoned kind of explaining here's the project, here's why we're proposing the rezonings, here's what was allowed before, here's what's allowed now. Know We have a community meeting set up where they can join us and we can talk about it.

They have our contact information where they can reach out to us separately. We've done similar rezonings for some other projects that have come through recently and haven't had much pushback. But if we experience pushback from any of the property owners this time, the reason that we're sending out these letters, these notices a few months before the final adoption hearings is so that we can make adjustments so we don't have to go back to the council to do rezoning. We can just get it right the first time.

Okay. And then this might be something we're not even considering tonight, but how are bed and breakfast establishments going to be permitted? And are there any relaxed permit requirements planned?

Yeah, so bed and breakfast establishments, that's an example of something that used to be allowed like in the ROCO zoning district. Again, that's something that was a very specific use type that in kind of our new code category we just call hotels. That's that category now. So hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts, lodging, inns, anything in that category would fit under that hotel category.

Okay, and then what about electric vehicle charging stations?

So that's another one. Previously, because we sometimes, and this is talking about electrical vehicle charging stations as a primary use. So this is not talking about if you have like a parking lot at a Target or something and you want to add electrical vehicle charging stations there. That's fine. That's an accessory use.

We are starting to get questions at the planning counter where somebody comes in and they say, oh, instead of like installing a gas station, we want to install electrical vehicle charging station. Like especially in our industrial era, we've gotten some inquiries about this. And then we're looking at our zoning code and saying, well, we don't really have a zoning use in our table, you know, that allows that. I mean, it's kind of like a gas station, but it's really not because it doesn't have the same kind of concerns, the same number of hazardous materials that a gas station was. So you don't really want to put it through the gas station process, but we don't really have anything in the code that's similar.

So that's why that is added as a line item specifically as kind of a new use that's separate from like the other automobile service station that's a more traditional gas station.

So are these also going to be under relaxed permit requirements?

Yes. So, like, for example, that's like permitted by right, instead of requiring CUPs like gas stations typically do in different zoning districts.

And I guess that means for also for the truck terminals that you have in the definitions?

So, truck terminals are a different type of use. That's the type of use that I think we just cleaned up the definition of a truck terminal, but we didn't change the use requirements for it. But that's kind of sometimes they're called like third party logistics or last mile kind of delivery services. Sometimes you'll have a company where they're doing like all of the different delivery trucks for that business will come to the warehouse and then do the last kind of all the individual deliveries to people's homes. So there's a lot of truck trips happening from that individual facility out.

So since truck terminal doesn't always evoke that in people's minds, again, is kind of a new concept in the last ten, twenty years as delivery has changed with overnight deliveries and things like that. We updated the definition to be a little bit more modern.

Okay. And then moving on to the, for the pilot areas for the ACUs. Where in the downtown area are there sites available to put ACUs?

So there are some zoning districts in the downtown area. And by the downtown area we mean the downtown zoning districts that do have like single family homes, for example. Sachi, I jumped in and interrupted, please. But there are some zoning districts and some places just literally within walking distance from city hall that have little single family homes that could have ACUs. And again, this is usually converted from say a garage or maybe a bedroom in the front of a house that somebody adds a door to. That's kind of what an ACU typically.

So this is gonna happen in a little bit further out of a radius than downtown?

Downtown per the definition of like the downtown specific plane, yeah. So it's not necessarily like B Street downtown. That's kind of what we refer to as our downtown core. But yeah, our downtown district is a little wider than that per like our zoning map.

Correct. And will the ACU still need to go through plan review with the building department, the fire department, the health department?

Yes. So if they're making any sort of structural building changes, still need building permits, still need to get all their standard fire permits, any of those kind of reviews, yes.

Okay. And then how will the city of Hayward monitor if the ACUs are complying as time goes on?

The same way that we monitor everything, which is basically through our code enforcement through Access Hayward system. So that's how we monitor basically all businesses. So if there's a complaint, if somebody is like, my neighbor is operating in a way that I think is not correct, then somebody will submit a complaint and our code enforcement team will go out and investigate that complaint.

Okay. Will this include garage sales similar to a flea market?

No. Garage sales are permitted separately in our code. They're still allowed. I think they're allowed up to four times per year. So that would be different. This would be somebody who really wanted to, as Jeremy said, kind of run something a little bit more intense than a traditional home occupation, something that has a little bit more foot traffic out of their home on a regular basis.

So nothing like a mini thrift store or something?

It could be potentially because retail's allowed. So it could be like a mini thrift store, yeah.

Okay.

But the difference between like that and a garage sale, it wouldn't be out on the driveway. That wouldn't be permitted. That's It would what have that to be run more like a business and not just have all this stuff, me sell it in my driveway. Okay.

And if this includes food, Vasco was talking about, will the health department be involved? And will these require yearly permits and inspections?

Yeah, so the Alameda County health department has separate requirements for different food businesses. So those are in place kind of separate from our permitting requirements. But yes, those are in place for basically any business that serves food.

So they would have to comply with the health department also?

Yes.

Okay. And then during the planning process, guess, they'll be subject to current egress and accessibility requirements, correct?

Yeah, again, the planning process and building process would be based on how significant of changes they needed to make to their home. Some people might already have a setup that allows for this. For example, you might already have a garage that was converted into an ADU that you want to now use as an ACU. That might not require any changes at all, but it's already been reviewed for code compliance, for egress, for all of those things. Whereas somebody else might need to add a door somewhere, or add a new space, an addition, or something to allow for this. And then yes, they would go through all the permitting requirements to make sure that they were up to code.

Okay, very good. Thank you. And then for commission support for types of entertainment listed for the limited entertainment permit program, You mentioned protecting the safeguards. What exactly are the safeguards? In the staff report?

Let me remind my

Sorry. Of course I'm not going find it now.

That's okay I think I found it. Let's see. This permit type is intended to facilitate small scale entertainment activities that are ancillary to primary uses while maintaining appropriate safeguards for surrounding uses?

Yes.

So that's to say, again, for these types of uses, we would have standard conditions of approval, operating standards in place to ensure that, like our noise ordinance isn't violated. There were specific times that events had to end at. There were a maximum number of people that could attend events. Things like that to make sure that there wasn't any kind of nuisance that was experienced by the neighbors of whoever, whichever businesses are operating next to the business that has the limited entertainment permit.

Okay. And can the limited entertainment permits be issued on a yearly basis? Or will this be an event by event?

So they're meant to be more permanent than event by event. They're meant to be something that could be issued on an annual basis or biannually, for example. So it could be something that says, you know, we're gonna have an open mic night every Thursday. So instead of having to come to us every Thursday to fill out their permit, they would just have this permit that could last for the whole year, for two years, or whatever the period would be.

Okay, what exactly is the noise level cap?

I don't have the noise ordinance memorized for downtown, do you?

I believe that it's 70 decibels at the property line. I don't have it right in front of me but I looked at it recently and I think that's what it is.

So is there a time where that could exceed that?

No, Okay. That's the

then I can respond to that. So the NORS ordinance is 70 dBA between seven and nine p. M. And then that gets reduced down to 60 for single family homes in the overnight hours between seven sorry, between nine p. M. And seven a. M.

Okay. So there won't be an opportunity for an event to take place where that can exceed those decibels and those hours?

It's different in different zoning districts. So, yeah. But yes. Kind of my

next It question

depends on where.

It Where in the Downtown Mission Corridor would there be considered a cabaret?

Like what type of events Well, you

guess what locations right now do you consider to be a cabaret in the Downtown Mission Corridor

So in any for example, I think our most recent one was the Dirty Bird Lounge for their downtown, or for their downstairs had to get a cabaret. Jeremy, do you want to talk more about that?

Yeah, we had a couple of, so some of the bars and restaurants in town that they will offer certain special events like they'll do karaoke night or they may do like a live band. But live entertainment, I think, in this form can really expand beyond that. I think what we're talking about is something that it would be more of kind of an ancillary activity to the primary use. So if you have a bar, if you have a brewery, you could potentially do trivia night, which is very common. And technically that's live entertainment.

You're bringing people in and you're announcing questions over a loudspeaker. And so, that would be construed as live entertainment. And so, that was really the intent. But the brewery as the primary use would still be maintained. So, again, this is intended to be a very limited kind of focus to allow for these activities that likely already occur, but they're occurring without the proper protocols and the screening and the security and the review by staff. This would be an opportunity for us to establish a regulated program to ensure that people are operating correctly and doing so without causing nuisances to the adjacent properties.

Okay, am I right where I saw that this would be open to every age?

No, so our limited entertainment permit activities oh yes, open to every age. So if you're a bar, you can't get a limited entertainment permit. You'd have to go through the cabaret ordinance. This is specifically for uses that happen more during the daylight hours or when families are awake. This is not intended to be a loophole for a nightclub or a bar to be able to add additional entertainment.

Okay. And can this be an opportunity for the downtown movie theater to help promote these types of entertainment listed?

Possibly. Are you thinking like the movie theater would have like events or something there as a Yes. Potentially, yeah. That would be the type of business that if that was their primary business was showing movies, that they could have some sort of secondary events or something karaoke with the movie. Don't know. Something like that, yes.

Are there any plans for the movie theater to expand beyond movies?

I am not privy to them, if there are.

Okay. You're saying no? Haven't heard anything either. Well. And then, let me see. I think that's all for my questions. Thank you.

Thank you. And I have just a few questions. Again, appreciation to you all for your staff report and for all the work that you've done since we last met about this in August. I do have some questions related to the process since we last saw you. At that meeting, we talked some about public safety and how that came up in July, I believe, in some of the surveys that you did. Has there been more conversation around perceptions of public safety and how that might be addressed for businesses and for residents and just how that's impacting just business in Hayward?

That's a good question. We have had a number of conversations with our police department. Given the fiscal situation we're in and cuts, there's definitely no immediate opportunity for higher levels of patrol or anything like that. So in our conversations with the police department, it seems like the best way to increase a feeling of safety is to get more people downtown more activity downtown, more eyes on the street, that sort of thing. Which again is, I think, why they have been so open to reducing permitting requirements for some of these types of businesses, especially before 11PM, that are really going to activate the downtown area.

So yes, we've been having more conversations, not in the sense of having more our public safety officers, unfortunately, in the downtown area, but more in the how can we kind of get more folks downtown so that we can create better feelings of safety that way.

Thank you. Another thing that came up was just broader outreach to the community because it sounded like some of those surveys weren't translated. Can you speak to whether that has happened or whether there are plans for that to happen in the coming months?

That's a good question. Since we've met with you all, we have been in a flurry of drafting standards. So we're kind of now at the point where we can hit the road again and share with folks. So the couple of things we have on the books are we've sent out mailers to our property owners and have set up a meeting with our the properties to be rezoned. We also are in the process of scheduling a meeting with our industrial business owners to get their specific feedback, specifically on the data center question, but also on the EV charging, if anyone has thoughts on that.

But the data center is kind of our main change downtown or in that area. Those are the main forms of outreach that we have on our docket left. But we would be interested to hear the commission's suggestions if you would like to give recommendations for additional groups that you think we should tap in with at this point in addition to those that we are already planning on doing some additional targeted outreach to.

Great. I'll save some suggestions for the comments section. My next question has to do with also the accessory units aligned to some of the questions you've already been asked. Just if they were to be really, really popular popular and there's all this new interest in permitting and oversight, what do you anticipate the impact to be on city staff just with all the like, you have you, like, kind of planned for that and thought about I know it wouldn't just be on the planning department but are there have there been calculations like what the actual impact could be if there were a lot of interest in this

I think for the most part the impact would be to planning staff If there were building permits that were needed, again, that kind of folds into our natural process. So the only really new thing would be this planning permit. Planning division staff was cut by 20% in the first round of layoffs that we just experienced. So yes, we definitely have less staff, which is why we're recommending that we take a zoning conformance permit approach for the accessory commercial units. For comparison, we also use zoning conformance permits to approve household pets, which people use for chickens in their backyard.

I reviewed one of those the other day. Satya reviews those frequently in our system. I would say reviewing a permit like that based on once it's set up in our system takes maybe five minutes. So it's pretty quick. It takes a little bit of time to set it up in our permitting system. But once it's in our permitting system, again, it's really as simple as just checking, do you meet the requirements? Where is it located? It's in a good zoning district. Okay, great. Click a button, permit is issued, and it's off. So it's inexpensive for the applicant. It's pretty easy for staff. So it's a pretty low lift for staff, which is why we're recommending this permit type.

If I could just add real quick, and that's similar to the state coming down with streamlining for ADUs. We created a checklist. So yeah, our team had to do some heavy lifting to be in compliance with state law. Once But that checklist is developed and we have our standards pretty clear for the applicant to understand and it's really clear for staff to review, as Elizabeth pointed out, it can be a very quick process. And that's the whole point of this is to make it quick and beneficial to both parties, to the city and to the applicant.

Great. So after the permit is issued, what about all the maintenance of it? Like the checking on whether they're following code and whether they are needing reviews or you're answering the Access Hayward complaints or all of those types of things. Do you anticipate that being a heavy lift?

Again, that's kind of folded into our normal process. At this point, no, we don't anticipate it. If it does become a heavy lift, that's why we kind of recommend rolling this out as a pilot program in specific areas with specific uses. So that way, we can work out the bugs if there are any, see if it's running pretty smoothly, if we're able to manage it with the resources that we have. And if we are, then we can expand it to more areas or expand it to more businesses. And if we're not, if we need to put more controls on the permits, limit it to different types of businesses, limit it to different areas, then we'll have the ability to do that as well. But honestly, we won't know until we put something in place. So we'll just have to see how it goes.

Thank you.

That's it for my questions. And I don't see any other questions from commissioners. So now I will open the floor for public comments on this item. And I believe we only have one public comment in person from Philip Sidles. I'm probably pronouncing your name incorrectly.

Apologize. Thank you. Good evening, chairwoman and ladies and gentlemen of the commission. My name is Philip Seidl speaking on behalf of Prologis. We're a longtime industrial developer and property owner here in the city of Hayward.

For the past forty years, Prologis has supported job growth, generated significant tax revenue, and advanced sustainable industrial development. We support the business friendly Hayward initiative, particularly its focus on strengthening the city's fiscal health and attracting new businesses. With that in mind, we're concerned that the proposed prohibition of data centers in the industrial park zoning area could work unintentionally against those goals. Data centers are increasingly recognized across the Bay Area as a modern form infrastructure that coexists well with other industrial uses, specifically advanced manufacturing, R and D. A great example of this in Hayward is the Heinz Data Center on Clawater and the adjacent Zuchs manufacturing facility.

Hayward's IP zoning area, specifically on the Western side of the city, is where the nexus point of two large transmission lines intersect and is where a large electrical infrastructure yard exists. And that is a specifically prime location for data centers. It's different than another industrial park area on the Eastern side of town, which maybe has a closer adjacency to residences, which I know was a concern raised previously. Limiting data centers to the IG District based on our studies that largely lack that electrical infrastructure could effectively prevent this investment from taking place in the city of Hayward. Data centers will support Hayward's goal of fiscal stability and provide significant benefits, including property tax revenue, impact fees from development, and the utility users tax revenue, which is a tax that the city of Hayward puts on electrical use, which I think could be a very important thing to look at as you're considering this update.

They also facilitate privately funded electrical upgrades to the electrical infrastructure that improve grid reliability and create expanded electrical capacity that's then available to other businesses. Again, think advanced manufacturing, R and D, other businesses like that coming to that nexus point where these data centers are being developed. So rather than a blanket CUP or categorical ban, we believe concerns around compatibility, operations, and community impacts can be addressed through clear performance standards, site plan review, and then the, state CEQA process, an approach successfully used by other Bay Area jurisdictions. For these reasons, we respectfully encourage city staff and commission to consider revisions to the that continue to allow data centers in the IP and IG Zone district and establish objective performance standards that protect compatibility while preserving important fiscal opportunities for the city. We support the business friendly Hayward initiative and share the city's goals of strengthening long term fiscal stability.

ProLogistix wants to continue being part of the solution to bring these new high value investments to the city of Hayward. We look forward to working with your staff and yourselves to work together to get to a update that works for everybody. Thank you.

Thank you. Do not see any other public comments. So I will close public comment on this item and move to commissioner comments. Do any commissioners? Commissioner Loe.

Thank you. I really want to thank you and thank the staff for not only the presentation and for working so hard on this. This is a lot. So we really appreciate all the hard work you've put into it. I really personally appreciate the fact that it seems like every step of the way you've really considered public safety and worked with the Hayward Police Department to make sure that our residents are safe as we're looking through these changes, potentially making these changes.

I think that is a very, very necessary thing to do. And I'm glad that you were already doing it so we didn't have to sort of say, hey, what about talking to the police department? You've already done it, you've included them in every aspect. So I appreciate that and I would encourage you to continue doing that, as well as working closely with the fire department, especially with some of the businesses that we're talking about, just continue to work closely with them to create best practices. The other thing I wanted to say is I'm very pleased with consolidating the proposal to consolidate the commercial code into the one section.

I do think that any time you have a code and I deal with the penal code a lot in my business any time you have a code and you can simplify and make things easier to understand, it can only benefit the community. And that's really, really important to make sure that the community can easily understand what our code says and know what is required of them. It really prevents staff from doing extra work. It prevents people from getting fined and from them having to spend extra time dealing with things. If you can just do something right the first time, it just is more efficient.

So it seems like what you've proposed is more efficient. So I appreciate that. I want to make sure that we are including activities for children. One of the things you asked for, are there other entertainment activities the commission believes should be allowed via the streamlining process? I just wanted to make sure we're including activities for kids like arcades, laser tag, escape rooms, virtual reality game rooms, axe throwing, all those sorts of things that I know my family seeks in other cities all the time because most of those aren't here.

We just did an escape room in Pleasanton. We did virtual reality in San Ramon. It would be really nice to be able to do that in our town, those things in our town. So if we could attract those businesses or something like that, I think the community would respond well. And I think we could also bring people here.

Like I said, if my family is going to Pleasanton, I'm sure other people will come here for those things if we can attract them. I also appreciate the fact that you've thought about, for the event space, the noise levels and making sure that surrounding residents are not adversely affected. We definitely want to have these events. We want to make sure that part of being family friendly or community friendly is being a good neighbor. So I'm in agreement with that and appreciate your thought on that.

Lastly, I do support the proposed uses for the ECUs, the beauty salons, nail salons. The things that you've discussed I think make sense. And just starting out as a pilot program, I really like the idea of a pilot program for something that's such a monumental change so that we can say, oh, well, that didn't work. Let's not do that. Or that worked amazingly. Now let's look at where else we can implement it and it might be successful. So I really like those ideas. And thank you again.

Commissioner Hammond.

Yes. So again, thank you for your report. For the organization and zoning revisions, in general, I'm in favor of consolidating the zoning and land use definitions in categories as presented by staff. For the relaxed permit requirements, in general, I'm in favor of relaxing the permit requirements as presented by staff. And I'm in full support of allowing daycare centers, cultural community centers, and recreational facilities as by right in all commercial and mixed use districts.

I'm in favor of granting the approval of an AUP for animal care facilities. Let me see. I am in favor requiring approval of a CUP for massage parlors. And I am also in favor requiring approval of a CUP for data centers. But I am in favor investigating further the zoning restrictions imposed on the data centers.

For the proposed rezoning, I'm in favor of the rezoning. I believe it's appropriate for the city of Hayward, and I believe that it will help clean up our rezoning map, and hopefully it will help promote the types of businesses that would have been denied under the old map. For ECUs, I'm in favor of allowing ECUs as a pilot in the downtown Emissions Boulevard corridor, as well as all of the proposed uses listed. For the limited entertainment permit program, I support the types of entertainment listed. I would like to see the theater host much more than movies.

And I am in favor of supporting a limited entertainment permit as long as it goes through the planning review and is considered safe. For event space, I'm supportive of adding event space into our definition of cultural facility community center. Although I would like to explore alternative locations or options to hold events past 11:00. And if these events can happen around our public transportation system, then all the better. I believe that the proximity to BART is a great advantage that we have.

And lastly, thank you to the staff for putting this report together. It was a lot of work to review. I'm sure it was a lot of work to put together. There is a lot of information in the report that goes beyond the few feedback questions that staff are requesting from the commission. And I hope that there'll be opportunities in the future to discuss the other items in the report in further detail.

And I am all in favor of streamlining entitlement and permitting process for desirable businesses across the city's commercial and mixed use zoning districts. And want to help to do everything responsibly possible to activate vacant and underutilized properties and storefronts to our downtown, as well as the rest of our city. I think these recommendations from staff are a good start and I hope that they will help bring Hayward up to its business potential and that the city will be able to find the resources to make it happen. Thank you.

Commissioner Yargov.

Thank you. And, yeah, just echoing what my fellow commissioners have said, a massive thank you to staff for all of the hard work you've put into this. I mean, just listening to the way you answered questions, it's clear knowledge of the codes is encyclopedic. Pretty impressed you're able to reference things so quickly. Yeah, to me, the budget crisis is really central to my thinking and I think we need to implement a lot of the streamlining you're suggesting here as soon as possible to make it easier for new businesses to open in Hayward, bringing in the tax revenue that we need to address our budget deficit.

But, I also live and work in Hayward, and I think these proposals will help make our city into a more vibrant and exciting place. It's already awesome. This will just make it better. I echo what Commissioner Lowe said. I really would like to stay in Hayward for a lot of the activities that I'm currently having to seek elsewhere.

But, yeah, overall, I really love the direction that staff's recommendations have taken. I'll go point by point and try to make it as quick as possible considering the time. Consolidating the commercial codes, the rezoning simplifications, I completely agree with my colleagues. I love the direction you've taken, and streamlining is a fantastic step to consolidate our districts and make everything more consistent and more legible to the public. The existence of zoning for effectively single parcels like the Costco is really, I mean, very silly.

And I see no issues with what staff is proposing. In terms of streamlining of permitting, I really support moving from CUPs to AUPs or even by ramp permitting if possible. The Planning Commission's CUP process adds months of delay and additional cost that prevents businesses from opening as quickly as possible. And it's, you know, sometimes necessary, but I think moving away from it in certain situations where we typically always approve is really great. With clear zoning guidance, I trust staff's judgment through the AUP process and by right permitting.

I 100% support making alcohol sales at staff level in most districts and by right downtown and in the Southland Mall. I just want to flag a related item for review and it might be, you know, a little too nuanced, but I know that the Hayward Municipal Code currently requires full service restaurants selling liquor to make 50% of their sales or gross receipts through meals. I think that kind of fits into this, and if there's a way to maybe explore removing that. I know it was revised in 2023, but I think that is another barrier that could prevent new businesses from coming in. And it feels a little arbitrary to me.

I love that you kept bringing up breweries and distilleries because those are really family places where folks often just go to get dinner. I support Bi Rite development in mixed use and commercial for day care centers. I just listed all the stuff you guys recommended. I fully support all the Bi Rite stuff that you have listed. I think 11PM is a reasonable endpoint for a lot of these more general uses, and I find that it might have something to do with the proximity of some of the bars closing downtown.

I can imagine a lot of folks coming out, and, you know, things closing at midnight might lead the police department to have some concerns. But where possible, I would love to, you know, give flexibility to businesses. Yeah, and I also support AUPs for animal care facilities, tattoo shops, distilleries. I love broadening cultural facility terminology. I think it allows more parts of our city to benefit from these community centers, not just keeping them concentrated in the downtown core.

I understand staff concerns about massage parlors and I guess, maybe I should have asked this as a question, but I imagine that the CEP process probably allows for a lot more control over the way that those are approved. So I understand where that's coming from. I do support staff recommendations for data centers going through the CUP process and having their own definition rather than just being lumped in with offices. I do think they provide a great economic opportunity for Hayward. They are the economic infrastructure of the future, but they are a major addition to the city.

So I think CUP is an appropriate level of review, and it would be a little silly to have massage parlors at that level and not data centers. I am very supportive of that bespoke designation, and I hope that we can really dig into the elements that make data centers data centers. Parking is an example. I know that when the last one was reviewed, it's ridiculous to have that much parking required by the code, so having the very minimal parking that staff would need there is great. Yeah, and in terms of the exclusion of IP zoning, I understand where staff are coming from completely with that, but to respond to some of the public comment that we heard, potentially looking at the particular areas of IP that are flagged by data center developers and seeing if we could maybe rezone them to IG to allow for that, if they are really in a place where data centers would function optimally, could maybe be a middle ground for us.

During the meeting, something that came up for me, I love the standardization of Bi Rite Puses and checklists wherever possible. As a developer, pre prepared checklists make things so much easier and allow me to know what to anticipate, so I can imagine it will make things easier for everybody. It's something we're increasingly seeing in housing and I think it would be a real benefit to roll it out to commercial, especially with uses that we see very often. And I love the idea of minimizing work for staff, especially with the reduced staffing, which were unfortunately, the layoffs which I know are really brutal. Think five minutes sounds about right for a chicken approval, and your time is better spent elsewhere.

For ACUs, I actually learned about this idea through your presentation this year. And I mean, I find them just so incredibly exciting. I think they allow for so much flexibility and an amazing entry point for our community and folks in Hayward who are interested in starting a business. I don't think brick and mortar should be the first step for someone that's trialing an idea. 6 figures to try something out and then back away from it is ridiculous.

And so I think just being able to start at home and trial something in a community is awesome, Especially for small things that maybe don't ever need to be expanded. Like if I'm selling jam out of my house, I don't need to have a big business or have retail for that. I think it's really an incubator for the creativity of Hayward's residents. And I really commend staff for sharing this concept and fleshing it out to the extent you have. I do want to say I think limiting ACUs to just the downtown and Mission Boulevard areas is actually something that could really, in my opinion, limit their success.

I think these are downtown areas that already have a lot of density of businesses and services. So the great promise of ACUs is allowing for a gentle increase of mixed uses in predominantly residential neighborhoods. So I think the current proposal for the trial just in those areas might really limit our ability to see their benefit. For example, like a small neighborhood grocery store is much less likely to be successful in the downtown corridor when we already have so many grocery stores. And a small cafe competing with Snappies or Zocalo maybe wouldn't have the same success.

I'm afraid this is kind of an artificial limit. So, yeah, it also honestly allows us to legalize a lot of uses that we're already seeing in the city. I think just driving around and walking around Hayward, I see a lot of folks already vending or doing things like this in their homes that maybe aren't currently permitted. So I think whenever that's happening and it's not currently allowed, that shows that the zoning needs to meet the current uses. So I would actually prefer broad definitions where possible.

I know that we are trying to toe the line of defining what businesses we want, But I think a broader definition allows for flexibility in the future because we really can't predict, you know, what kind of uses in ten, twenty, thirty years' time are going to best fit an ACU. And I was going to bring up food vending, but I really appreciate that the state's cottage food operations law takes care of that. So thanks for bringing that up. I think nail salons are actually a really good example of a use that we see a ton of unpermitted in the city that would just be a really easy and low cost or low barrier ACU use. I would actually like us to broaden beyond just nail salons to other kinds of personal care businesses like maybe facial waxing studios, eyebrow studios.

I think they're a very similar category of business. And I didn't see it specifically listed, so where possible, I think repair uses, like very small at home small scale repair uses could be great. I'm thinking like bike repair out of someone's garage, small electronics repairs, shoe repairs, that kind of thing. Again, I mean, I think as you can tell, I'm just so excited about this idea, and I've been privately talking people's ear off about ACUs, so this is just awesome. I think for the limited entertainment permit, I love the streamlining away of the cabaret ordinance.

It's just crazy to me that in 2026 that is like our one size fits all for so many of these uses. So I think this just clears a path for many Hayward businesses to make the city more vibrant. I would generally like to see like a framing where we exclude businesses we don't want, which I think we do already, like nightclubs, events, you know. Rather than naming a bunch of businesses that could benefit from this, maybe focusing on the things we wouldn't want to see. Again, I think this allows us to be nimble where we don't have to then update the language in the code ten, twenty years from now.

If the city chooses to go with a list of businesses that are allowed, I really like all of the businesses that staff included, or events that staff included, rather. Some other ones that come to mind for me are paint and sip events, you know, hosted by a restaurant with a liquor license, for example, pop up stand up comedy night, musical performances, trivia, that was an awesome suggestion, dancing or music classes, that kind of thing. To me, when I was reading the language of the code, it still seems to imply that any sort of event with a crowd would require a cabaret permit. So I think just making sure that that language is really clear and we really our staff really focuses on just those larger scale nightclub 100 plus people events. Yeah.

And then finally, for the temporary use permit, I fully support everything that you've proposed. I think removing the need for an AUP and the associated cost and timing delays are great. It just makes no sense that it would take five to six months and potentially really high fees to just host a one time event. And under a thirty day review process and a flat fee is just gold for anybody trying to plan an event and allowing them to, plan out and budget and maybe have a timeline for this. I have gone on forever. I really appreciate your patience and your creativity in this. Yeah, thank you, Chair.

Commissioner Stevens.

Thank you. So in general, I'm totally supportive of all four bullets. The one I have a significant issue with is the restriction of the data center to the IG zone. I think that, you know, the whole intent of this was to be business friendly. And as my fellow commissioner here mentioned, the data center and its various iterations of that are the future.

And I'd suggest that while all of these changes and modifications are great, most of these businesses are soft businesses. I mean, yeah they're necessary but they're not earth shattering businesses. They don't change the face of the city, right. The data center and how it operates really is an important thing. Know Hayward's very lucky. It has two data centers. Thank you Prologis for being here tonight. I think that's a strong indication that there's economic forces at work that show that Hayward is a great place. And I think there's two data centers that are here. They're mega data centers.

That is not the scale that all data centers take. I would encourage folks to look in the Bay Area. There's data centers only in San Jose, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Oakland, Emeryville, and Fremont. So data centers aren't this ubiquitous thing that show up all over the Bay Area. I think it's overly restrictive to say that they are an environmental impact.

I think the CUP process is a good way of looking at that. I would encourage this to be rewritten and reevaluated because to limit data centers to the IG district is overly restrictive. And it also doesn't accommodate sort of the future changes of how we may produce power in the future, what these things might look like. I'd also encourage folks to look at there's a new impetus to start decentralizing power generation in the data center. It could potentially be that.

And yes, there is environmental impact associated with all these things. But you know what? Our world wouldn't work without the data center. These things are going to show up throughout world. It would be good to be able to take advantage of some of that economic interest. So I really, really if this is about creating a business friendly Hayward, I would make sure that we invest in really what a real business is for the future. Thank you.

Commissioner Goodbody.

Thank you. I'm going to make this short because I think I'm losing my voice. I also, like Commissioner Stevens, agree with all four bullets and I really appreciate planning staff's work on this. I know that we are asking a lot of you to be encyclopedias of the codes and the proposed changes. And we're also asking you to be at the planning counter.

We're also asking you to interface with all the community groups and not knowing what they're going to throw at you. So I really appreciate all the hats that you are able to wear so well in the work that you do and in the work that you bring to us. I do have an issue with the last bullet, with the data centers. I would really like to see a little more pencil sharpening on that, if you will. Think as a business friendly Hayward, it means that we are supporting everybody from the family or the young entrepreneur that moves to Hayward and is going to school and maybe perhaps wants to make a little money and do someone's nails and hair on the side.

Or to the data centers that will really reshape and really guide our future here in Hayward in the region and beyond. So I would really like to see additional tool sharpening on that. I love the pilots. They remind me, in a lot of medicine, we have this thing called the Morbidity and Mortality Conference, which is when there is like a pilot or something that we're trying or something that goes wrong with a patient or a therapeutic or a technology, everyone sits down from the nurses to the respiratory therapists to the surgeons. And they kind of just talk about what's working and what's not without a he said, she said or pointing fingers or assigning blame or shame to anybody.

It's really about everybody coming together and saying, you know, respiratory therapists, we really would like you to A or B. Know, it's really a beautiful and quite an amazing thing to watch. And so I really like the pilot concept for that because I think it feeds into this innovative culture that we're trying to build and that we have done very well so far. And like Commissioner Yorgoff, I really also appreciate and have been thinking about the budget front and center and any way that we can make efficiencies, any way that we can help the process move along faster and so that more of your time is used actually on codes or speaking to the public or whatever it is that is important that week or that month or whatever in meeting our goals is good for me. Thank you.

Thank you. Just make sure there's no other people. Nope. Alright. So my comments, I have a few. So I'll go through the the bullet points as well first. So I do also agree with all of the draft municipal code revisions, permit types, proposed rezonings I also really appreciate the streamlining you've all done for both the business community and for staff that that's going to be helpful for everyone the AC use I apologize I don't share the same enthusiasm as some of my fellow commissioners. Sorry. Not that I'm against it. I'm not against it.

I just so where I'm struggling with it a bit is that on the very first page of the staff report, one of the reasons that we are doing this is that the goal is to activate vacant and underutilized properties and storefronts. And so I'm not really sure how that is helping. So I really wanna see us fill the storefronts first. And so whatever we can do to generate more revenue for the city by I'm again, thinking of the the budget issues and things that are going on there. The accessory commercial units, maybe in the future, like, I'm not, again, totally against the idea.

I think it is an interesting idea. I do have some concerns about food safety and some of those other things that aren't maybe concern of the planning department versus like the county or something like that. But I'd be willing to consider it especially as part of a pilot program, but I'm just not sure it fits here with what I think is the the bigger purpose here. So I'm not as as supportive of that right now. As far as the types of entertainment uses and the limited entertainment permit program, I think these are all great what you have listed here.

However, I did think back to the meeting in August and, again, what you asked us, and I think other commissioners have mentioned it too, just other entertainment uses. And I thought back to what are other things that I'm doing outside of Hayward. And for my family, a big thing that we're doing is going to see performing arts and fine arts so thinking about the the theater and the theater area like how could those maybe be utilized for bringing in more things like that helping to grow and develop the performing arts community in the city of Hayward That would be really interesting to me to explore. I don't have any suggestions on how we do that, but I think that that would be really exciting if we were able to do that and not just have like one off performances and things like that. Because I definitely would support it if we were able to to have our own ballet or our own symphony or something like that.

Like, totally would be a member or something if I could. The third I mean, the fourth bullet, support of adding event space. Yes. I think the, 11:00 time is is great, so I do support that as well. Other comments, just wanted to acknowledge and appreciate that I felt like you really listened to our ask for a Hayward context and focus from the last meeting too and just wanted to thank you for that.

As far as community feedback, so I think, I hear you that just there hasn't been really time for any of that, and there's been a lot going on. So my ask would just be that when you do any community feedback, just to make sure that whatever you're doing, it's translated into many languages to make sure you're reaching different types of opinions and community members that everyone can feel included and the things that I know that you have done in the past. So just hoping that that can happen for this project as well. As far as the data center question, I we received this letter pretty late today, and so I don't feel like I have a strong enough background knowledge of this issue to take a strong stance on this, but I did want to acknowledge it and acknowledge the gentleman who came and gave us public comment, just that it is an issue that should be explored further, but I also trust city staff and the research that you've done around it. But I do know that there will be further opportunity for both us and city council to continue to look at this.

And so I just want to acknowledge it. And other than that I think that that may be my last comments thank you very much. And I do not see any other commissioner comments and so not seeing any we will move on to our well I will close this item and thank you staff and we will now move on to our commission reports and first up is the oral report on planning and zoning matters commissioners announcements and referrals.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for your year of serving as Chairman. I just have to recognize you and the great work that you've done. So thank you. You've represented our Commission very well. Thank you. And I know Chair Goodbody will do an equally amazing job. So anyway, I did want to just let the commission know that our next meeting is now scheduled for Thursday, February 26. You may be thinking, what's happening to the next meeting, the first meeting in February? Well, happens to fall on Lincoln's birthday. And it's a city recognized holiday, and so we will be canceling that meeting.

As of right now, we have about one, possibly two items for that second meeting in February. And then we will also have one or two items for both meetings in March, including what comes before the Commission every year, which is our general plan annual report to measure progress on

a

lot of our implementation programs. So, with that, I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of your January, and we'll see you next month. Thank you.

Thank you. Do any commissioners have any announcements or referrals? Commissioner Yorgov.

I just want to shout out the city staff that organized today's point in time count. That was a massive undertaking countywide, I think nationwide actually. And, yeah, it was incredibly well run and a huge part to us solving the homelessness crisis. Big shout out.

I just want to thank you all for my past year serving as chair. It has been a pleasure. And thank you all for your support. And congratulations again to Chair Goodbody and Vice Chair Hammond. I'm very excited for you both.

Thank you for your vote of confidence. Look forward to this opportunity.

Great and so with that again our next meeting will be on February 26 and our meeting is adjourned at 09:10PM. Thank you.