Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. There we go. Good evening. I would like to call the August 18, 2026 Planning Commission meeting to order. Please note this meeting is being hosted through the live stream on the City website and by teleconference via Zoom. I'd like to remind the Planning Commissioners to have their microphones turned on in position so that the audience can hear. Director Monique, may we have roll call, please?

Commissioner Viramontes?

Here.

Commissioner Hill?

Here.

Vice Chair Wirth?

Here.

Chair Beamsterfer?

Here. Commissioner Viramontes, can we do invocation of laxative, please?

Invocation first. Dear Lord, thank you for allowing us to wake up every day and enjoy our lives. Please give us the strength to make the correct decisions here tonight.

Amen.

Agenda item number four is public comment periods for items not on the agenda. Are there any members present that would like to make a comment on an item not on the agenda?

Yes, Chair. We have Ann Smith.

Okay. Ms. Smith, can we have you approach the podium?

My name is Ann Smith, I live in the city of Hammett, and the non-agenda item I want to speak about is homeowners association. There is a homeowners development on occasion near Kirby, and it's operating illegally. Some of the residents have gone to the state and the state doesn't do anything. Some of them, they've also gone to the district attorney and the district attorney doesn't do anything and they've gone to the city and the city really can't do anything And the person who told me about this doesn't know I'm speaking on it, but what's basically happening is that the owner of the condo is selling or other people are selling condos and the escrow documents are illegal because it's saying that there's an active HOA, and there isn't. And the owners don't have any kind of recourse because nobody will do diddly poop. So that's a complaint I have. That's the non-agenda item. These poor people are stuck with property that they can't sell. Thank you for letting me share that.

Thank you, Ann. Any other public comment?

No, Chair.

Okay. All right. Now we're going to move on to the approval minutes. Okay. We're going to move on to the approval of our minutes. Does the Commission have any comments or corrections?

No. I'll move to approve meeting minutes for July 21, 2026.

And I second that motion.

Can I ask the commission to please speak directly in the mic so I can hear you, please?

You betcha.

Thank you.

And that passes. We will now move on to 6A for receiving file for the Mesa Grande. Am I on the right? Can I have a different script, because this is?

Sorry, Chair. Item 6A is for a receiving file for Code Compliance Manager briefing on the role and responsibilities of the Code Compliance Division.

Hello, good evening. My name is Sarah Kelly. I'm the code compliance manager for the city of Hemet. I wanted to take a little bit of time to do some basic education on code compliance and what we do on a daily basis, what our roles and responsibilities are within the city and how that plays into the way the rest of the city functions. I'm going to explain how code enforcement cases move from somebody filing a report to their conclusion or resolution. I'm going to talk about how we balance education, voluntary compliance, and due process along with enforcement. And then I just also want to highlight how code compliance supports neighborhood quality, public safety, economic development, and community investment. Types of things that we enforce, residential, some types of things could be property maintenance, overgrown vegetation, which is one that we deal with quite a bit, junk, trash, and debris, unpermitted structures, vacant properties. That's just to list a few. There's a bit more that we do. Commercial, just basic site maintenance, signs, banners, outdoor storage, vending, and business compliance. We do land use and zoning, so we can enforce on unpermitted uses, non-conforming uses, and development-related compliance. And then community nuisance, so any public nuisance which is very vague, I know, but in the Hemet Municipal Code, things are highlighted. There's abandoned vehicles, and that's on private property. Any abandoned vehicle on the right-of-way would be forwarded to police department. We deal with illegal dumping, blight, and deteriorated conditions. I DO WANT TO MENTION THAT A LOT OF THESE THINGS THAT WE DEAL WITH, YOU CAN'T REALLY SEE THE WORK THAT WE'RE DOING BEHIND THE SCENES. IT'S NOT REALLY AS YOU'RE GOING TO SEE IN OUR BEFORE AND AFTER PHOTOS. SOME OF THESE THINGS, THE CHANGE WILL HAPPEN AND THE PUBLIC DOESN'T SEE IT RIGHT AWAY. SO IT SEEMS AS IF WE'RE DOING NOTHING. HOW A CASE CAN BEGIN, SO I DO ENCOURAGE OUR COMMUNITY ON A DAILY BASIS TO USE SEE CLICK FIX. It is our online portal where somebody can submit a complaint, and city officials go in and can route that to the proper department. So, if it's something that goes to police department, public works, code enforcement, things can go to the city manager from there. So, I highly encourage cClickFix. Very easy to use. We also have an email address for code enforcement. It's codestaff at hemetca.gov. And then we have a phone number that we take calls on during regular operating business hours, and that number is listed here, 951-765-2339. Those are all great ways to file complaints. With that, we get complaints from the community. We get complaints from city officials. We get complaints from businesses, HOAs, you name it, people from in the city, outside of the city. All of that helps drive us to make the city better and look better. Our officers also do proactive patrols throughout the city. So while they are out doing their inspections, if they see something, they will take note of it and we will start a case on it. It's not always, you know, driving around and looking at every single property for a violation. If something is egregious, we will make sure that it gets taken care of. With that being said, we still encourage the community to submit complaints to us so that we can get those taken care of. We also take referrals from planning, building and safety, fire, police, public works, engineering, any other city departments. And then As far as how cases can begin, we also have special programs that we run in the city. So we have our vacant property registration program. So with that, we have vacant property owners register their properties, and this triggers an inspection once a month from a code enforcement officer. They will go out and look for things like graffiti, broken windows. any trash and debris, overgrown vegetation, and at that point we have contact with that property owner or property management to get that resolved. So that program helps with that. Our abandoned vehicle, program, which is a state-run grant that we have in the city. And with that, we can tow abandoned vehicles off of people's properties. We have assistance with doing that so that they don't have to pay for it. We do focus a lot on the commercial corridor down on Florida. That's the main downtown. So we focus a lot on graffiti there, trash, and then we work with police department a lot to clean up homeless camps and things in that area. I made a table of our process. It doesn't always work in this way. Nothing is black and white. There is a million different ways that things can go. But basically, we get a concern. We'll open a case and start an investigation. From there, our officers will be scheduled for an inspection. They will go out, try and identify the violation, and then at that time, they're going to try and educate the property owner or a tenant or whoever it may be at that property. They'll issue a notice and give them an opportunity to comply. Our goal at the end of the day is voluntary compliance, so however we can help property owners come into compliance is our main goal. We'll set a reinspection date. There's various timelines just depending on the type of case, but generally anywhere from 20 to 30 days. We just want to see progress. We do work with people if they work with us. And then after that reinspection, it's either they're coming into compliance or we're moving on to other legal avenues or citations to try and get compliance. This process takes time. So like I said, some people see this house that is a major issue and they want it fixed now. But unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. We have to follow a legal process, due process. We have to offer that property owner time and proper noticing. We've had some cases that can take years to resolve. I know that's discouraging to hear, but some make it through the legal process and it takes quite a bit of time. So the main goal for us is we want to educate the public. So we're constantly educating vendors, business owners, just community members, residents of the city. We want to also educate residents who don't have code violations so that if they see something, they can let us know and we can take care of it. We always want to engage with the community. We want to work with the property owner or the responsible party to understand what's going on and offer them ways to fix it. That assistance can come in ways of providing dumpsters. We did that over this last weekend. We provided a roll-off dumpster to a property owner in need. We worked through a process to get that, but we were able to help them. The property's clean. You'll see some before and afters in a little bit. We always go and verify that those corrections have been made and the property is clean. We want the reporting party to be happy, the property owner to be happy, and the city to be free of blight. Things that you don't see that code enforcement does, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes. So we do a lot of permit research, property owner research, zoning and municipal code research. We want to make sure we know that what is going on there is a violation. We do several site inspections. We take photographs, measurements. We document everything. We communicate with the owner and tenants. We send out a lot of notices, a lot of correspondence, and we have a ton of case management. A lot of times that can mean a code enforcement officer sitting at a desk for a couple hours at the end of the day. We coordinate a lot with planning, building and safety, fire, police, public works, engineering. Legal is very much involved in code enforcement and we have other partners as well. And then we have other things behind the scenes like citations, hearings, abatement coordination, and then follow-up inspections. I talked a little bit about proactive patrols, so officers going out and documenting if they see something egregious. We want to identify those problems before they grow. So, if we see a homeless camp starting on a property, we want to get to it quick so that it doesn't become a bigger problem that's harder to solve. We want to target reoccurring areas. We have some motels in the main corridor that we've been targeting pretty hard, and we've been able to get some numbers down there and get some problems solved. And then overall, we just want to improve neighborhoods and that commercial corridor. This helps to provide neighborhood stability. We want to maintain properties. We always get people calling saying that they want to sell their house and they're concerned that this house next door is going to cause a problem for that, so we want to make sure that those neighborhoods are stable and safe. We want to protect public health and safety, one of the main goals of code enforcement. That's addressing hazardous and nuisance conditions before they get worse. Economic development, so we want to support an attractive, functional, and commercial city and we want to invite businesses to come in as well and that's how it ties into planning and all these other departments and then I always talk about consistency and fairness so what's good for one is good for all so if we offer a free program to one person we're going to offer it to another one we're going to make sure that we set a high standard so if we enforce something on one property we will equally enforce it on another so that nobody feels targeted Here's those before and after pictures I was talking about. Sometimes these are things you don't see or you don't pay attention to, but we got a call on July 3rd, and you can't see the date on the after photo, but it was only a week later that this one was cleaned up. This was a backyard that was cleaned up by our community risk reduction cadets. They helped out this property owner to clear all this dead vegetation in her backyard. I believe this next weekend we're going to try and do some assistance with mending this fence and getting her taken care of. More photos of that yard. Took two days to complete a cleanup just in that backyard and one full roll-off dumpster. And there were 18 youth, so they were moving pretty quick. We take care of graffiti rather quickly. This was, I believe, a day or two later after the graffiti was reported. So get this reported to us so we can take care of it quickly. Here's another yard that just needed a little bit of attention. Wasn't horrible, but we were able to go out and now it's pretty and makes the neighborhood look a little bit better. Another yard. I know a lot of these are yard maintenance, but those are the ones we can see. Those are the visual ones. Graffiti is visual, but some of the cases that are land use related, you may not see us working for resolution. These ones are very visual. So that's another property that got cleaned. I think that's the last one. All right. Any questions?

All right. Thank you for our presentation. Commissioners, any questions for staff?

Yeah. Yeah, thank you for that presentation. With like the lawn care cleanup, you guys aren't concerned about individuals taking advantage of that? Are you doing it for free?

No, we're not necessarily offering lawn care cleanup. So right now we do have a program that's running with code enforcement through the county, and it's our community risk reduction cadets. We have them for eight weeks, so we do use them when we have, say, an elderly person or somebody who can't get it done. We do help them. That program's coming to an end in two weeks, but we've done... as much as we can up until this point. We try and provide services if we can, if we have anything available, but otherwise we try and offer other solutions.

Okay, let's say that program wasn't going on. Would that, one of those houses, would they get like a ticket or like a fee?

Eventually, yes. So if they didn't call us and let us know there was some kind of hardship going on or something and they just ignored the notices or we couldn't get a hold of somebody, it would move into the way of citations and then would end up getting sent to legal for an abatement.

Okay.

And what do you think the turnover is between, like, let's say a citation and then the property owner actually getting it done, or are they just adding up citations?

Ms. We have a good mix of both. Citations really do get attention for some, but then there's others. A lot of business owners will ignore citations. It's a little harder to go after collections on a business than a person. So, it does depend, but we do get a lot of attention with a citation. Mr.

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

Mr. Ms. Kelly, thank you for that. So, how many officers do you have working?

I have four officers working.

Okay. So it's you and those four officers total? Yes. Doing this? Wow. Pretty good. What would you say is the average response time?

A lot of the time my officers can get out same day or next day. They're pretty quick. They get a lot of cases done in a day. They're very efficient. So if we have somebody that calls and there's a concern, especially substandard building conditions, living conditions, we try to get out to those the same day, if not the next day.

Okay.

And we have six-day-a-week coverage. So Sunday is the only day we don't have coverage right now.

So do you get involved with homeless encampments? If someone takes a C-Click fix of a homeless encampment, does that go to you?

It would first go to the police department, and they would deal with the human aspect of it and the people. And if there's, after their resolution, if there's mess left behind, that's when we start working with the property owner. And we do also try and get a hold of the property owner regardless to see how we can secure that property to stop it from happening again.

Oh, interesting. Okay.

Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you for this presentation. It's really neat to see the different approaches that you have depending upon kind of addressing the need on a case-by-case basis. I think that's a message that needs to get out to the community. You know, code enforcement kind of has a, negative connotation often, and to let the public know the broader extent of the value that you provide, sorry, is really cool. I was also wondering on the staffing. So there's a full-time five-person group, including yourself. So there's other programs through the county and other that provide additional resources. Is that an ongoing thing that's available to the city? Is that something that we go after? How does that work? Is it something that we pursue? Can we get more of that?

Yeah, so that's kind of my job as the manager is to keep an eye on that stuff. So I do go out in the field and work with the team as much as I can, but I am also keeping an eye on grants and things like that. So the county does have a tire grant, so they do a lot of tire shops and help out with tire cleanups. I know that we have a grant through through another tire company where we get enough, or sorry, through the state where we get enough funding to go and remove tires from properties. The vehicle abatement is year-round. We get that every year. We get a certain stipend of money to tow cars. Um, I'm constantly looking for stuff. So these cadets came in through the fire department when code enforcement was under fire and we held onto them when we moved over, it worked out for us. Um, and so I am working with the district five supervisor to continue that somehow. Um, and so we're always looking for, for ways that we can help out. Um, I've worked with CRNR to get dumpsters, whatever it may be. We. We try and figure out what we can. I know we have contacts at Lowe's for paint, for graffiti. I mean, there's various things. We just try and make contacts wherever we can, and then applying for grants is big.

Yeah, that's such a great way to do it. It gets more ownership across our community. People are more invested in it. It kind of helps have a better perception when the City of Hemet officials are going out, when you are going there with youth. giving them work experience and what a great what a greater program what a great way to do that and any kind of support that the commission or council can do to help get more resources to how to help you would if there's anything that we can do definitely would like to um one final question just kind of out of curiosity what would you say is like the top one or two types of violations or things that you deal with in the city of Hemet and do you see that change? Do you see a trend?

There's different trends, different types of year. So it's summer. It's hot right now. We have a lot of substandard living conditions going on with people not having access to air conditioning or people that have not installed air conditioning properly. So now they have flooding going on. So different times of year bring different issues. We're going to have heat issues in the winter. Junk, trash and debris is huge year round. Weeds Springtime, so April through, right now they're all dying, so now it all looks like dead vegetation everywhere. So, it really does vary per the time of the year, but we deal year-round with junk, trash, and debris, inoperable vehicles. Substandard can be year-round. Mr.

Unfortunately, there's no shortage of work.

Ms. No, not right now.

Mr. Thank you very much.

I have a few questions to ask. When it comes to complaint-driven and proactively driven, what would you say the percentage is?

Complaint-driven is much higher, so we always want to take those complaints from C-ClickFix, our email, phone calls, and handle those. Proactive more so is when we're done with those inspections and they're driving back or if they're out at one property and they see an egregious property next door. So proactive isn't a constant thing. We're not out looking for them all the time. I do hope to get to that point. where we can operate that way, but right now we have enough complaints to keep us busy on a daily basis.

Okay. And when it comes to when you find someone and they don't pay the bill, is that turned into a lien on the property if they don't pay the bill? How does the city address that?

Yeah, so it can turn into something called a notice of pendency, which essentially clouds the title. So if they ever tried to sell, refinance, or do anything like that, they wouldn't be able to escape the city getting their funds first and getting that property fixed. Or they can't escape selling it to somebody unknowingly, so it would come up in escrow. And then with our citations, Data Ticket does, the company we work with, Data Ticket, does collections, so they'll go after people for the citation amounts.

okay um when it comes to shopping centers because i know we've had a lot of pictures of residential here but when it comes to shopping centers and especially the particular ones that have multiple owners and that shopping center is running down has weed problems got graffiti wherever it may be how is the city addressing those two particular issues when it could be one owner it could be two owners could be an entire shopping center And in that situation, how do we find and what happens if they don't pay or, you know, in that kind of situation?

so i can only speak for the last year and a half that i've been here but we've been trying our best to create relationships with these business owners these shopping center owners so that we can give them a call or their representative to get it handled quickly there are some repeat offenders and what we've done is is we've done meetings at city hall city managers present whoever wants to be present normally a community development director we'll have a meeting we'll figure out what the disconnect is what's happening and how we can help them and things that we can suggest to them to make it better. So we had a shopping center that we suggested, hey, you should remove or move this bench. This is becoming a problem. Or this trash can, if you're going to have it here, you need to have a bigger one because it's overspilling all the time or have someone dump it more. So we try and offer solutions for the issues that we're having, but we're always going to have those repeat offenders. We just do our best to maintain communication with those owners.

Okay.

And I know we have a new system last week that just launched, so one of the questions I have, I know we can't really necessarily mix criminal versus code violations, but what if a particular property has a criminal history And somebody's reporting that and you guys go out to address it. Is there a system that kind of flags it to let you know that this could be a high risk for you guys to be, for your job and endangerment for you to be showing up and do you call him a PD or you just come up with two people instead of one? How do you handle something like that?

So I very much pride myself in training my staff and making sure that they're safe and getting home safe to their families. With that being said, we communicate a lot with the police department. We meet with them at least once a week to find out what's going on in the community. The officers that are working in this city, three of them have been here for over 20 years each. And they know this community. They know which houses are a problem. And now getting back to the system, if we've been to that property before and had an issue while we were there, we would put a little flag on there. It would have a little red bar on the top with an alert If we went there and didn't have an issue, there wouldn't necessarily be an alert put in the system. If the police department told us something was going on, we could go in there and put something in. But that's where that communication is important. And we are always on the police radio. So if the staff are feeling like something's not going well, they call them. They are there almost immediately for us. We have a very good relationship with them and vice versa. When they need us, we show up even after hours. So I think that working relationship is important. And then just training the officers to know when they feel something's off to just leave. And we'll go back later with everybody and make sure that they're safe.

I don't have any other questions. Commissioner, any more questions for staff? Thank you very much. And we'll go ahead and open up public hearing. Is there a receiving file? Okay, I don't have my script, but anybody, is there anybody, a member?

Yes, Chair. We have two members of the public who'd like to speak on this agenda item. Our first is Ann Smith. She has donated time from Tina Martin. Tina, are you in the room? Thank you. So Ms. Ann Smith has six minutes to speak on this agenda item, following Matt McPherson, who has three minutes.

I want to thank Ms. Kelly for the presentation. I've never met you before, and that was a great presentation. And I'll probably have a conversation with you. My name is Ann Smith. I live in the city of Hammett. I have a problem with code enforcement, and I'll tell you what it is. I personally think that there is some selective enforcement going on. I referred to a non-agenda item before about the HOA and this condominium complex. The owner of that complex has done a lot of unpermitted work. And I find it strange, and I know you're shorthanded. I know that. I understand that. And I also know you've only been here for a year and some time, so none of this is directed at you personally. that code showed up even though they had been told repeatedly by i don't want to mention the person's name because he doesn't know i'm doing this and he'll probably kill me um they showed up after the um unpermitted work is done i don't know if the work you know he changed the configuration of some of the quote apartments or whatever so that's number one number two AND NOBODY MAY HAVE AN ANSWER TO THIS. THE CITY OF HAMMUT GOT AN ORDER FOR THE GIBBLE BUILDING TO BE DISMANTLED, SHUT DOWN, CUT DOWN, WHATEVER. AND THAT HAPPENED IN 2025. AND I WANT TO KNOW WHY IT'S STILL STANDING THERE. That's just part of the problem. I hate to do this to Simon Chu because he's not here to defend himself. It's not personal attack on him, I don't think. I understand that some of this stuff is in legal process right now, and it may not be possible. to address some of these things, but it's lack of transparency on the city's part, not necessarily on code's part, but it's part of code enforcement because the Gibble building and many other buildings owned by Mr. Chu have been found deficient, have been found unsafe. They've discovered unpermitted work. There's a lot of stuff going on. I don't know how he gets away with it, but he does. I have one other comment, and I don't know if this is related. The other comment has to do with parking, and this is kind of a funny situation because Mr. Chu, whose tenants adore him because he gives them so much latitude, has rented out buildings to retail businesses on Harvard. Well, there's no parking on Harvard except in a private lot. I don't know, not a lot, so I can't address it. However, I do know that people do try to park and they get towed. And I don't know if anything can be done about that. And that's the end of that. I also just quickly, regarding the Ramona project, I hope you will give them the three years. except possibly the water which i was just advised about but i'm concerned about the infrastructure um oh i still have two more minutes okay um i'm concerned about the fact that even when building gets When the developers get ready to start working on it, I'm concerned about the fact that the city may not have the infrastructure to support it. And I didn't even look at the water issue, but that's another huge issue. So, I mean, I do want to see them get the three-year extension because I think it'll be a great project along with some others that we have going. And I didn't even need the six moments. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ann. Matt McPherson.

Good evening, Commission. My name is Matt McPherson, downtown business owner, property owner as well. Since tonight's presentation is about the role and responsibilities of code compliance, I have a simple question. Is code compliance required to enforce the municipal code equally for everyone? Because my family's experience in downtown Hemet suggests otherwise. We spent about seven, $8,000 obtaining an AUP for our farmer's market. Even after that, code enforcement required us to remove a $5,000 shipping container from our property because it was allegedly not permitted. We complied, yet today I can still see shipping containers used for storage on other commercial properties throughout Hemet. So which is it? Are they prohibited or are they not? And the impact on our farmer's market went further. We had food trucks generating up to $3,000 a day, bringing customers and energy into downtown Hemet. Then code enforcement officer Lionel Martinez showed up and just made up some code and chased my trucks away and said if they returned, he'd not just find them, he'd seize their vehicles and their equipment. So they never came back. So what is a, I believe that enforcement was improper. But what makes this even more concerning is what happened next. After our food trucks were removed, Public Works and Code Enforcement participated in another food truck event just across the street from us. So the city shut down food trucks illegally. They acknowledged. Lionel, I guess, got fired as a result. So... They shut down my established market, then supported a competing event nearby. And they're still, yet, after a year, can't produce a TUP, an encroachment permit, insurance indemnifying the city, which I've been required to do on a couple dozen events. So it's very frustrating to see this selective enforcement. Lionel Martinez was later placed on leave and ultimately fired. He then released a video calling himself a City of Hemet whistleblower. A whistleblower exposes misconduct. So I have to ask, who was he blowing the whistle on and who was supervising his conduct while he was in that role? Because removing one employee does not explain the impact on the businesses affected by his decisions. At 225 East Florida Avenue, the city's water department, confirmed the water was shut off and a backflow device was required before service could be restored. When I asked how a business could operate without water, I was told that was a question for code. So I'm asking code tonight. How has a commercial business been allowed to operate there for more than a year without running water? Now you can guess who the owner of the building is. Then there is a downtown deli. Based on information I've obtained, they operated for seven years with no conditional use permit, certificate of occupancy. The EMWD stuff was just waived and signed off. How was that business allowed to operate for years without required permits and a certificate of occupancy? What happened after that incident was reported?

Thank you, ma'am. Any other public comments?

No, Chair.

Okay, with that, we'll go ahead and close that. And any other questions, Commissioner, before we receive and file? No. Okay, with that being on record, we'll go ahead and receive and file that. Moving on to discussion action item, the final draft for the City of Hemet Roadway Comprehensive Safety Action Plan.

Good evening, Chair and Commissioners. My name is Jalene Farris. I'm the Interim Public Works Director, City Engineer, and this will be a presentation on the proposed final draft of the City of Hemet Roadway Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, and I will come up here and read the recommendation after our consultant does a presentation for you guys. This is it?

Okay.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Sasha Ivanovich. I'm with the consultant who led the Comprehensive Safety Action Plan. I'll be here to deliver this presentation. So this presentation will go into these various subtopics. I believe our project manager, Monique Chen, presented to you previously in the middle stages of the project. So some of this material that you might see in this presentation will be a refresher from that content. First, I'll start with the project background. A comprehensive safety action plan is a plan that's, excuse me, let me back up, the bipartisan infrastructure law, which established the Safe Streets and Roads for All program, SS4A, with $5 billion of funds appropriated for safety projects. The passage of this bill I'm sorry. Let me back up here. Comprehensive Safety Action Plan is a part of the Safe Streets and Roads for All program. And it is the bipartisan infrastructure law is the funding which made this plan possible and also The comprehensive safety action plan is a necessary condition in order to be eligible for the grants program, which allows for the funding of projects for implementation. As a part of this plan, we worked with a project task force and we collaborated on a vision statement, which you see here, a helmet where everyone can travel safely, whether by walking, bicycling, driving, or taking transit without risk or fear of serious injury or loss of life. This vision statement was anchored by five Project goals, which you see here, these appear in the comprehensive safety action plan. Over the course of the project, we completed these necessary requirements, which are a part of the SS4A checklist for a comprehensive safety action plan. That includes leadership, commitment, goal setting. That's basically the establishment of a goal to eliminate or reduce severe and fatal collisions. The May Hemet City Council passed a resolution which accomplished that. These other components include the establishment of a task force to collaborate on the project, public engagement, safety analysis, equity considerations, project selection, and then monitoring. So this project initiated last summer in 2025 and this slide shows you where in over the course of the project schedule the various milestones were achieved. Right now we're nearing the end of summer 2026. The draft plan is complete and now we're in the stages of obtaining the approvals from Planning Commission and eventually City Council. As a part of the public engagement for this plan, the project team held three public workshops, the most recent of which was actually a pop-up presence at National Night Out. This was about two weeks ago. That was the third event. The other two were actual more traditional workshop styles. And then we also held four pop-up events in the summer and fall of 2025 where we went to standing community events and held a booth and drew in visitors to solicit input on the project and also to inform the public about what the project or what the plan is. This report contains a safety analysis, and this is, of course, one of the required components, and this is a little bit of background data on that. We analyzed collision over a five-year period from 2020 to 2024. That's five years. About 10% of those collisions were pedestrian involved, 5% of those were bicyclist involved. The remaining were vehicular only collisions. This chart here shows Where within the roadway, those collisions happen by those different mode categories. As you can see here, vehicular only and bicyclist, about 65% of those collisions for each of those, when each of those modes are involved, occur at intersection environments. For pedestrians, it's a bit more evenly split, as you see here, 50-50, or almost 50-50. This slide here shows a little bit about the severity by different modes involved, and what's noteworthy here is pedestrians in particular are highly vulnerable to severe and fatal injuries. This, despite only having about 10% of the collisions in the data that we examined, By absolute numbers, there were actually more fatal fatalities to pedestrians than fatal collisions that were vehicular only. When you look at this by share of each of those collisions, about 15% or so of pedestrian-involved collisions result in fatality. That's compared to about 1.5% of a rate when it's vehicular only. So quite a large discrepancy there. During the safety analysis, this existing conditions work culminated in the identification of a high injury network. We used a methodology that's widely used in comprehensive safety action plans and other safety studies to identify these streets. And as you can see here, it covers many of the major streets in Hemet, and these streets would eventually become project areas in this study. We also looked at leading violation causes by, or excuse me, we looked at The most common collision types so like broadside rear end and head-on for instance those were the three most common vehicular only types of collisions and we also examined pedestrian involved and bicyclist involved collisions looking at the most common violation causes and Where what types of road environments they occurred and that was also part of the safety analysis, and so you can see here this data shows what are basically hotspot environments for different collisions by. type and by violation cause. This was also done, this was done, the previous slide showed intersection environments. This shows the same thing but for mid block environments and you can see at the very top, shows the different environments that were examined. So you have roadway size by number of through lanes and then you also have posted speed limit. After the safety analysis, we looked into countermeasures. We referenced many of the US Department of Transportation leading publications, which identify safety countermeasures out there and also provide design guidance and assessments of their effectiveness. So we looked at a variety of USDOT countermeasure resources in addition to the Caltrans local roadway safety manual. We also looked at Um, the previous, uh, Hemet safety, uh, systemic safety analysis report. And, um, we also collaborated or, uh, kept in communication with Riverside County who was doing their own, uh, safety action plan at the same time. In the report, one of the chapters provides an overview of the countermeasures that were selected. In one of the report appendices, this information, which is kind of provided a bit more high level in the report, goes into a bit more technical detail in the appendices. And you can see this is just a sampling, of course. There's about 60 or so countermeasures. that are in this appendix, and they describe the countermeasures, what types of crashes they address, what the crash reduction effectiveness is, and other pieces of information, as you can see here. After the countermeasures were identified, we developed projects for this plan. And our process for identifying project areas considered these factors. First of all, we wanted to ensure the entire high injury network that was identified in the safety analysis received coverage as having project areas in this plan. We also wanted to ensure that there was consistency with mobility recommendations identified in the general plan. For instance, the planned roadway classifications and the bicycle network. We wanted to incorporate other planned projects that have been identified by the city where legwork has been done, but the projects have not been implemented yet. Some other considerations, we also, we wanted to examine all the locations in the city where there was a severe fatal and see if there was a countermeasure that could have prevented that. So part of that process was going into the attributes of those instances, seeing the types of collisions, what the movements preceding the collision were and what violations occurred to determine if one of these countermeasures that we identified could be placed here that would have prevented it. And then also we wanted to ensure that the project areas had some large size and substance to them. So those considerations went into the project identification. As you can see here, this map shows All the projects that were identified in the plan, 42 of those projects are corridor-based, and five of them are systemic-based. And the systemic-based recommendations are recommendations to be made at signalized intersections. Actually, some of these forthcoming slides will go into that in more detail, so I'll just proceed. We prioritize these projects using these criteria. high injury network score, so that high injury network methodology that was described earlier is actually a quantitative exercise, and so points for each road segment were basically calculated from applying the methodology. Injury collision history, or if the location of the project area was one of those aforementioned systemic hotspot environments, that was another criterion. Adjacency to schools, equity need, and then history with vulnerable user collisions, so that would be pedestrian involved or bicyclist involved collisions. If those numbers were high, then they also received points for that. We also considered input that we received in the engagement process and from the task force as well as staff input. That resulted in a ranking of the 47 projects. The top 20 of the projects in this table, basically the left side of this slide, are the high-priority projects. And in this plan, each of these high-priority projects received a project sheet, which contains a bunch of information, project descriptions, maps, cross sections, and plan view exhibits, as well as costing things that would be helpful for the pursuit of grant funding and so forth. And then, as you can see, there's also medium and long-range projects. Those were the projects that did not score in the high priority. And then also recommendations along state routes that would Those recommendations were things that we identified as what would be good to have on these streets, but we didn't want them to compete with the streets that are actually city controlled. And so they're separate identified and those can be worked out with Caltrans. So here's the locations that were high priority projects. There's a couple sample project sheets that are in these slides. One is for the Sanderson Mustang project, and then the other one is for Koston. These projects are showcased here because we also, Hemet is also pursuing grants for these projects at the same time. So the systemic safety projects, these were among the high priority projects. Some examples of these, these are basically all the city controlled intersections, signalized intersections in the city. So the way these recommendations were determined were through inventory of what's present at the signalized intersections. So one of the first systemic recommendations that we had is for high visibility crosswalks and advanced stop bars to be placed at all approaches where there's crossings at these intersections. This is actually one where very few, if any, of the city controlled signals have today. I believe Florida has those, but Anyways, there's 52 locations with this recommendation. The next is upgrading signal hardware. So there is about 10 signalized intersections in the city that based on inventory do not have upgraded signal hardware. What that means is It's a couple of things. One, it's a changing of the traffic signal lenses to be of a LED type that's a bit more, has better visibility. And then it's also the replacement of the traffic signal backplate with reflective yellow material. You might have seen those around the city. There's still a handful of intersections that don't have that. So that's also one of the recommendations. This recommendation here is to install protected left turn phases. If there's a signalized intersection which has left turn pockets, that doesn't already have protected left turn phases. If you're not familiar with protected left turn phase, when a left turn has the ability to turn left without conflicting movements also having the ability to go. So the most obvious way to determine a protected left turn location is if it has the green arrow as opposed to the solid green where you turn left. There is nine signalized locations, excuse me, eight signalized locations in the city which had left turn pockets but did not have protected left turn phases. So that's this recommendation. Another recommendation is for uh protected permission permissive flashing yellow left turn signals this recommendation was made at six signals around the city which are currently protected permissive signals what that signal type is it's the kind that has five bulbs if you if you might have seen those around the city It's a signal approach that includes a protected left turn phase, but then after a certain amount of time elapses, it goes to a solid green. Left turns are still permitted, only if the conflicting movements are clear. So with this recommendation, The plan is recommending that those left turn signal heads be converted to this type of signal, which flashes yellow, a yellow left turn arrow, when you've reached that permissive phase where it's when there's conflicting movements. This type of treatment has been found from countermeasure research to be an effective countermeasure for a lot of the crashes that happen when there's a permissive left turn. So now a couple of these project sheets we'll share from the plan that are high priority projects. The first one is Mustang Way in Sanderson. As a part of this plan, we supported Hemet in helping them pursue an SS4A grant at the very beginning of this presentation when speaking of the bipartisan infrastructure law. uh the ss4a money that's available some of it is available for doing plans and that's what funded this plan some of it is available for pursuing implementation grants and in order to do that you have to have the plan and so that was that was a part of uh this project work was assisting Hemant in getting that implementation grant turned in. As a part of this project, we Some enhanced bicycle facilities were recommended on Sanderson. Class 4, which is a type of separated bicycle facility with vertical separation, was recommended along Sanderson from Stetson to Dominicone. Also included in the recommendations was a lead pedestrian interval right next to West Valley High School at the signal of Sanderson and Mustang. This kind of treatment is a safety countermeasure for pedestrians and enables them a head start when crossing the street and makes them more visible. uh when traffic attempts certain maneuvers that might conflict with the pedestrian phase like turning right on red and so forth and then it also includes a pedestrian hybrid beacon at the location of morgan hill and mustang way currently this is a four-lane street that has signage it's right in front of the high school it has signage indicating there's a crosswalk but there's not really anything that's that's more than that indicating to motorists that there's it's heavily used for pedestrians because it's right next to the school so the pedestrian hybrid beacon is is a mast arm signal that would be suspended over the street that has flashing red uh lights that alternate and um when it's activated by someone intending to cross the street so it's it's not quite like a traffic signal but it's it's uh provides a better sense of uh alert to motorists the project sheets included the previous page which had a description and a map but then it also included corridor maps of the entire extent of the project, along with recommendations for, excuse me, along with icons pointing out where these recommendations are. So as you can see here, this shows pedestrian hybrid beacon there on Morgan Hill. That's that one icon there, Morgan Hill and Mustang, on the top panel. And it includes the other recommendations as well, which also include speed feedback signage and high visibility crosswalks on the side streets, and then also raised medians where there's currently striped medians. The this project in one of the appendices includes full engineering scale drawings of the recommendations. This shows you a sample of what those recommendations look like. The other high priority project here that we're showcasing is Coston Avenue. This is one where Hemet pursued ATP grant funding for bike lanes along this corridor. This high priority project includes those bike lanes, but it also includes other safety recommendations like lighting and sidewalks as well. So anyways, yeah, here's that corridor exhibit. And then here's a sample of what the striping would look like. Also, as a part of this plan, we did school mobility assessments for 16 public schools that are in Hemet. And what this consisted of, these are the schools, by the way. What these consisted of were basically existing conditions assessments. So we had staff go out into the field and inventory the environments around these schools, the transportation environments, and identify what the conditions are, what the deficiencies are, observing the traffic behavior during drop-off and pickup,

Thank you.

when conditions can get hectic and there's a lot of traffic converging on the school. And as a part of these observations, these ultimately fed into additional recommendations besides those that were in the Comprehensive Safety Action Plan, just in the vicinity, the walking vicinity around the schools. So each of the 16 schools received a mini report that had had all of those components like shown here in these slides. And those previous slides were some of the existing condition slides and now And now here, okay, and then also collisions were a part of those assessments. And then here you have the recommendations. So at the end of each of these school mobility assessments, you'll see a map like here with all these icons and number labels and those correspond. to recommendations on that map. And that's the entire presentation. Thank you. And I'll take any questions if there are any.

Thank you very much for our presentation. Commissioners, any questions?

Yeah, just a couple of questions. Thank you for that. It's Sasha, correct?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, pretty in-depth PowerPoint there. My two questions are, so it says, what do you mean by full coverage on the staff report? It just says full coverage for high injury network.

Yes. Okay, so the high injury network was one of the slides on this presentation that was a subset of all the roads in Hemet that by measure of this analysis are considered the high injury network. And that amounted to approximately 38 or so miles of the city's roadway. And I think as a measure of what that percentage is of the city's roads, it's probably about 10% or something like that. Now, full coverage of the high injury network meant, at least in the context that you're asking about, meant that we wanted to ensure that our project areas, so the 47 projects cover every mile of anything that was captured as a part of the high injury network.

Okay. I get you now. Thank you for that. And then another one, it's kind of weird. What is a school that offers or 75% of the student body is eligible for free or reduced lunches have to do with funding?

Yeah, that is a grant criteria on the ATP grant, which is one of the typical transportation grants. It is a measure of equity need that uh... counts towards that criteria and so in in the transportation planning sphere when we do uh... plans like this and we're we're thinking about recommendations that can get grant funding uh... we do take into account different measures of equity now is it highly related to transportation need, not so much. It's more of an indicator of a neighborhood's, if you think about the school being, the student body and the school being what the economic conditions of the neighborhood are, I would say that's why it's used as an approximator.

Gotcha, okay. Yeah, thank you for that clarification. Thank you for the presentation. Sure. I have no other questions.

Yeah, Sasha, thank you for that. Can you give me your last name again and maybe spell it?

Oh, yes. It's Jovanovich, and it's spelled J-O-V as in Victor, A-N-O-V as in Victor, I-C.

Thank you. The one thing that stood out to me is the fatal pedestrians number.

Yes.

And I don't know how many it was, but it was in the high 20s, I think, or somewhere in there. Yeah. And do we know how many of those are children versus adults?

I don't have that number off the top of my head, but that victim data, it is a part of the collision data attributes. So that could be, we could find out what that is, but I don't have a breakdown by age.

Okay.

Handy right now.

I mean, if you had that number, then my next question after that would be, if there were any children involved in those numbers, is that around the schools. And I'm glad to see that at the end of your presentation, you started to look at the school system and starting to tighten up those safety concerns. So appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, I would say it's likely that there are youth as a part of that number. I just don't want to say it because I don't have the number in front of me, but it's very likely, yes.

Thank you for that presentation. The key tasks are all tied to the state funding and the requirements of this plan, right?

That's correct. Yeah, it's actually federal. It's a US FHWA-related program. And yes, the draft plan does accomplish all of the required components that are necessary to be considered done properly by the guidance of FHWA. And the first appendix in the report is a self-certification checklist that indicates the parts of the plan that meet those objectives.

So there's 20 recommended projects or high priority projects and there was some cost estimates for two of them. Do we have cost estimates for the rest of them and like what's the total?

Yes. Another appendix, there's I don't know how many, about eight or nine appendices in this report. One of them does include cost estimates for the remaining high priority projects. And actually in the project sheet, so that's that three, four page exhibit that we showed you a couple samples of, the costs of the corridor projects are The overall cost estimate is at the top of the first page of it. If you're interested in the cost detail, you would want to look at the appendix for that to see what the different elements of the project cost.

What is that? Off the top of your head, what's the 20 project total cost?

I do not have that number off the top of my head. Suffice it to say it's probably a lot.

Yes. And so I'm assuming that part of the plan is setting us up for future grants. Correct. That's correct. yes do those top ones the ones that we already went through the the design on on on mustang do you know is that something that is in the pipeline to get completed is funding already secured for that so um the the ss4a grant which is the first project the mustang sanderson grant that was that was completed and submitted already uh

We are awaiting results on if the grant will get fulfilled. And I don't have an answer on the ATP grant, but perhaps Jalene?

That's fine. It's going to be a big lift, obviously, no matter what. And so that whole process for how we actually implement these things is going to be, that seems like a huge, huge effort.

Yeah, understood. The corridor projects definitely have high price tags on them. The signalized intersection projects, though many of those can be done, those are kind of envisioned more as low-hanging fruit. type projects, and those ones also are very effective on treating some of the problems, some of the safety issues at signals. But yes, understood.

One final question. AT LEAST MY TIME ON THE COMMISSION AND THEN ALSO JUST AS RECENT AS OUR LAST COUNCIL MEETING, THERE WAS SOME DISCUSSION AND FEEDBACK ON THE LACK OF SMART INTERSECTIONS, SMART SIGNALING IN THE CITY. I KNOW PERSONALLY I'VE SEEN A COUPLE ACCIDENTS JUST SIMPLY BECAUSE PEOPLE GET REALLY, REALLY FRUSTRATED ABOUT BEING STOPPED AT A RED LIGHT WHEN THERE'S NO REASON TO BE STOPPED AND THEN THEY GO. That was a priority project that the commission talked about last year, I think. And it was my understanding that this was gonna be potentially a mechanism by which to incorporate looking at that But I didn't see anything in any of the preferred projects on having smart signals and supporting the safe, efficient travel of traffic with what we currently have. Was that not looked at as part of this study?

So the countermeasures chapter and appendix, which is the complete toolbox, does have a set of signal-specific countermeasures, and some of those include things that are more advanced technology signal treatments like you're describing. They were not a part of any of the specific recommendations. We were looking more so at conventional approaches.

I would hope that we can, that that issue can be addressed in some way. It seems like a relatively, I mean, everything is simple from here, but it seems like a low-hanging fruit to try to improve the way we manage the flow of traffic. And I would hope that at some point, city staff can come back and we can have at least some movement and some update on that part of it. I understand for this particular plan and the requirements, it maybe didn't meet the criteria necessarily, but it is something that continually gets public input and feedback, even council member input and feedback. I forget which one of our council members last week talked about it, but hopefully that's something that we can be responsive to what the public is saying, what the commission is saying, and what the council is saying. And it's unfortunate that it's not included as any of the recommended projects. That would definitely be one that I think would be an important one to include. But thank you for that presentation. A lot of information to try to wrap into a PowerPoint. So I applaud you on the attempt there.

Thank you.

As we know, I know the report ended in December 2024, your studies, and I know in the last 12 months we have a surge of e-bikes driving around here that's causing all kinds of new accidents. I imagine these numbers will change if we were to look at now with the e-bikes. That's correct. My question is different between pedestrian, bike, and vehicle. If somebody were in your numbers that you're coming up with, if somebody was to walk, let's say, by in and out, because it's a common area that we have problems, if somebody was pushing somebody in a wheelchair and a car comes and hits them and they both get injured, that counts as two or does that count as one?

So back to that slide which had the data, there was 1,960 injury collisions in that five-year period. Those are instances of collisions. If there are multiple parties involved in that, so like if two pedestrians were hit or whatever, that's a separate count. That's more of a victim or party count. The data that was in the presentation that you saw is just instances of collisions.

Okay, so like in a vehicle, the fatal one, if there were two people in the car, you would count it as one or you would count it as two?

In the data that you saw in this presentation, it would be counted as one because it's vehicle collisions, not number of victims.

And then the other question I have is the two grant areas you're focusing on is primarily around schools. Are we reaching out to school districts to see if they can help with some of the funding? Because it's only benefiting the school as well as the city, but it's focused on the school area for safety. Have we talked to the school districts about that?

Yes. Not me directly, but another member of our team involved with leading the school mobility assessments did reach out to and communicate with the schools. That's always a part of these school assessments when they are a part of mobility studies that we do. We want to make sure that there's school involvement and cooperation, especially since we have staff going around the schools. Now, I don't have an answer to what their degree of cooperation uh was uh with our outreach but we didn't develop these uh assessments uh without contact with the schools and then do we i didn't see anywhere on there but do we have like an annual target a reduction every year what what is like year one so um yes so the vision first of all um the the city's um resolution which was passed in may that's that's kind of like a vision zero statement obviously it's it's aspirational is to eliminate all collisions by I can't remember the exact year that was listed on there. So there is an aspirational element to that Vision Zero Statement that was passed as the resolution. As far as progress and monitoring and how to go about that, Chapter 8 of the report provides some suggested approaches towards benchmarking that. And basically, I would say the kind of overarching recommendation from that chapter is to refresh collision analysis on an annual basis and see which direction it trends. Obviously, getting to zero collisions does not just happen overnight. It's it's going to be it's going to it takes incremental progress. And so, yes, the report does provide some some monitoring recommendations and and some suggestions towards how to go about doing that. OK.

Any other, Commissioner Hill, you have a question?

Yeah, I have a go back. You keep talking about, I see this term countermeasures a lot. Is that the same thing as mitigation, would you say?

The term countermeasures that's been used is referring specifically to a treatment, an intervention in the road to make things safer. Basically, anything that's in the countermeasure toolbox is one of those interventions. It could be something like sidewalks. It could be lighting. It could be something for the traffic signals. It could be installing median. Any of those things are what are referred to as countermeasures in the report.

Thank you.

Any other questions? All right. Well, thank you very much for our presentation.

Thank you. And the questions and answers.

And with that, it's an action item. So we just, do we need to make a motion to recommend the City Council to? Okay. Anybody want to make a motion for that?

Well, I'd like to, one of the things is just some comments and recommendations. It's not going to be included in this report, but I do want to just reinforce that there is a desire and a need and request continually coming from the public and from council and commission to look at synchronizing and making our signals smarter and I would have liked to have seen that as a higher priority project in this report and I hope that Through this process, we can maybe elevate that, at least identify that as one of the next steps to advance in whatever form or fashion that is most appropriate. With that, So that was the item two as far as provide comments. But I'll make a motion to determine that the CSAP is exempt from CEQA. We provided our comments, and I recommend that the city council adopt the final draft plan possibly with those comments incorporated.

And I second that motion.

Okay, that passes. Thank you very much. Thank you. And now we're going to move on to 8a for extension of time. We have a presentation from staff followed by bliss. I guess we have a last minute email the staff will read to us as well.

Can you hear me just fine? Good evening, chair, vice chair, commissioners, and staff, and members of the public. My name is Nathan Morin. I'm assistant planner here at the City of Edmonton Community Development in the planning division, and tonight I will be presenting to you the extension of time number 26-003 for the tentative track map number 38309. MAP 21-005, and Administrative Adjustment 22-003 for the Ramona Creek Specific Plan Phase 1 of Master Track 36510. The applicant for this project is Richland Ventures Incorporated. We do have a member of the team named Mr. Derek Barber present on Zoom tonight with us as well. The property owner is WSI Poppy Ridge LLC and WSI Desert Properties LLC as tenants in common. The project location of this site is east of Warren Road, south of Rose Road, west of Meyer Street, and north of Florida Avenue. And it also falls between the north and south sides of Devonshire Avenue. And these are the APNs associated with this project. So a little bit of background about this project. On March 21st, 2023, the Planning Commission approved the tentative track map as well as the administrative adjustment for the Ramona Creek specific plan, Phase 1 of the Master Track 36510. The entitlement was set to expire on March 21st of 2025. However, per Assembly Bill 2729, This was granted an automatic 18-month extension of time until September 21st of this year. The applicant was notified through a letter from staff that there was an eligibility for this project. And at that said time, when the project was to become expired, they did reach out to the city. And again, this is a section of time, but for a three-year extension of time. So the request the tent of track map expires concurrently with the administrative adjustment after 24 months unless construction has began. Again, this was approved march 21 or 2023 but was extended from the Assembly bill 2729 and on June 4 of this year, the applicant reached out to city requesting the extension. Per the Planning Commission's authority pursuant to Section 66452.6 of the Subdivision Map Act and Section 70-133 of the Hemet Municipal Code, the city can extend and approve up to six years. However, if it is processed concurrently with another application, such as the administrative adjustment, then it is expired based upon that application, the administrative adjustment. PURSUANT TO HEMET MUNICIPAL COAST SECTION 90-45.7, ADMINISTRATIVE ADJUSTMENT SHALL EXPIRE AFTER 24 MONTHS UNLESS CONSTRUCTION HAS BEGAN. AND THE PLANNING COMMISSION HAS THE AUTHORITY FINAL UNLESS APPEAL TO THE CITY COUNCIL. SO A LITTLE BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE VERMONTER CREEK PHASE 1. is there are four planning areas, Planning Areas 7, 8, 9, and 10. There's a total of 360 lots, 114 detached cluster lots in Planning Areas 7 and 8, which are in the darker brown area below Devonshire Avenue. And then there's 219 single-family lots in Planning Areas 9 and 10 in the area above to the north of Devonshire Avenue. With this, it also includes extensive roadway and interior street dedications to meet the needs of this development. The administrative adjustment was a 10% reduction in total square footage per lot. It went from 6,000 square feet to 5,400 square feet, and this is specific to lots 9 and 10 to the north of Devonshire. And this was a Senate Bill 330 project per condition 6, so the 2022 development impact fees are locked in for this project. CoB, Jay Sugnetta, He or She. : shown is the tentative track map, this is their lot fit analysis in the red is again planning areas nine and 10 which are the 5400 square foot lots reduced with the administrative adjustment and the planning area seven and eight are the cluster lot developments at 2600 square feet. Here is just an example of their open space master plan. Part of this development includes a nice area of open space trails, mixed use trails for biking, walking, running, as well as a recreation corridor that runs diagonally along a drainage channel. This is going to be like sports fields, some tot lots, places for the community to enjoy outdoor space. The reasons for the extension request is that development costs of the first phase of this project are still a challenge for the applicant. And the Riverside County Flood Control and Water Conservation District still needs the funding to complete this project, as well as for the applicant, the home sale activity is down 28% year to date from last year in the city. This was publicly noticed in the newspaper on August 8th, which was sufficient time for the requirements of a 10-day minimum. And then this was also mailed to the surrounding owners and residents within a 500-foot radius. Per CEQA, this project is exempt from CEQA based on the provisions of CEQA guideline section 15162, and that this project is consistent with the previously approved environmental impact reports that was adopted by resolution number 4576 on June 10th by the city council. I notice a determination was filed on June 12th in accordance with CEQA requirements, and there has been no legal challenge to this project to date. So it is respectfully recommended that the Planning Commission determine that the proposed project is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to public resources code section 15162 per the previously certified environmental impact report under resolution number 4576 on June 10th of 2014. to adopt the attached planning commission resolution approving a three-year extension time for the tentative track map as well as the administrative adjustment, and to direct staff to file a notice of exemption with the state clearinghouse and county clerk. And that's my presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Nathan, for that presentation.

Mr. Chair, members of the Commission, prior to opening up the public hearing, I just wanted to make sure that everybody did, in fact, receive a written document that was proposed, I think, by the developer. So just for the record, we do show that that is a part of the administrative record this evening.

Thank you very much. And Nathan, just before we open up for commissioners to ask questions, the applicant is stating that he received the new conditions approximately yesterday at 3.45 p.m. Yeah, that was an error on my part.

I didn't notify him a few days prior. I received the conditions of approval the day before the publishing and was a little short on time and just, it was my bad. I just didn't notify the applicant of the new conditions.

And can you elaborate more on what that change of condition is?

I could probably refer that over to Jolene, but they're public works engineering conditions. Okay.

Good evening. So one of the conditions was coordination with ALUC. That one, that actually can be removed because this isn't a legislative action and so at this time they don't need to go back to ALUC and consult with that. So that can be removed. I clarified that this morning with the community development director. The other condition is adding on the requirement for construction for the West Hemet Master Drainage Plan Line C storm drain. The project at the time when it was entitled was currently being constructed as a CIP through Riverside County Flood Control The applicant was going to build the basin that was shown on there, also known as the Devonshire Basin, and Riverside County Flood Control was going to construct the storm drain that discharges into that basin. The applicant has stated they are not building that basin at this time, and that is an adequate outlet that is needed for that storm drain. Therefore, that storm drain is not being built by Flood Control anymore. The funds have been reallocated to another CIP, and therefore, the applicant is now responsible for building that storm drain.

So the applicant does not want to build it, so he thinks the city should pay for that then?

So back in 2021, we were actually doing a tri-party agreement with the city, the applicant and flood control in which he would receive diff credits or not diff credits, ADP credits from flood control for building his portion and then flood control would build the storm drain. We then attempted to do a CIP request with flood control in which flood control funding was received. We're actually currently in design with that storm drain right now, but because of the developer's lack of desire or to build the downstream outlet that we need, we are no longer paying for that right now, that construction.

All right, commissioners, questions for staff?

So what happens if the storm basin doesn't get built?

Well, the project can't be built without the basin or the storm drain because of all the flooding there. So this storm drain connects from Seattle Basin right now that currently doesn't have an outlet and then would discharge into the basin on site.

Gotcha. Okay. No more further questions, right?

I was not surprised to see this email. I didn't see anything about changes of conditions in the staff report, but I did skim through all the COAs, and I noticed several new conditions. Is that normal for an EOT request?

So whenever an EOT comes in, it opens up for conditions. There's no, it's basically like they're coming back to you for approval. Again, it opens up every department of the city to recondition.

City Council Chambers, yeah I just it, it, it would have. City Council Chambers, In the future, it'd be nice to if there's changes of conditions that were being requested to review and approve it would be nice to have that within this the staff report and not have to go through all of the CEO ways to read through that. City Council Chambers, noted Thank you. And I think, I mean just, I don't know. You and I have talked a little bit about this flood control and some other, and I think that City Council Chambers, I think that there's probably larger larger issues at hand relative to getting prioritization from flood control, I know. City Council Chambers, we're dealing with them right now in San Jacinto we're requesting prioritization of certain tip projects and that and that there's a there's a direct result of. City Council Chambers, The. City Council Chambers, The priority that flood control puts on their master plan facilities relative to the ability of cities to condition development and to support development and thing that i'm concerned about is the reason for that stated for the extension of time. City Council Chambers, And I understand flood flood control is a very critical piece, but this is a very large. City Council Chambers, prominent area within the city with a with a potentially a very nice development and and and benefit to the city, both from commercial commercial revenue public benefit housing. And it seems that there's two things that I have concern with. Number one is that the applicant was not given enough time to review and to to work with the city on understanding what that means relative to the overall cost of the project, understanding that there's some background to that whole system in the Seattle Basin. But we should have the transparency and the ability to have those conversations prior to having to come before public hearing, number one. And number two, I would like to, in the future, I'd like to have, if we're being asked to approve additional conditions of approval, that that be incorporated into the presentation and the staff report. just skimming through this this email that we just received And I guess we can wait for public hearing and hear from the applicant as to what the request actually is. I'm not sure exactly. It's either it looks like either asking for a continuance of the item or asking that those conditions be removed. I'm assuming based on this that the applicant is not completely agreeable to those conditions. And so I'm interested to hear from the applicant and to determine whether or not make a recommendation for continuance or removal. I guess my question for staff is if those conditions were removed, what's the alternatives for the city relative to either working with flood control, prioritizing their CIP to get some of these regional facilities completed.

So let me clarify. We did receive funding from flood control for this project for the Line C storm drain. The issue was that the developer had to build the basin that it discharged in. So we already have that in the CIP for flood control. We went out for RFP. We're currently in design right now. And then in January of, so in 2023, I was at, or let's see, November of 2024, I asked the applicant when they would be starting the plans for the Devonshire Basin and be submitting, and they stated that they would start in Q1 of next year, which was January through March. And then by January of 2025, they stated they would not be building the basin. So that's why the funding was moved out of that project. We had the funding for that to pay for that storm drain, but because we wouldn't have an adequate outlet, we couldn't just discharge to nowhere. So we reallocated the funding because we couldn't build it.

Is the basin that is to discharge to you, that's on the applicant's property?

Correct.

And would that, I mean, typically wouldn't that be done kind of at the same time that you're doing mass grading and you're actually starting construction?

Or you could construct the basin, yes, but that was the understanding that we had that he was gonna do the basin. and then the flood control was gonna do the storm drain and they would be constructed roughly at the same time so that they could be functional and then turned over to flood control for the storm drain and the city for the basin once we accepted it.

Would you agree that's a pretty big cost up front prior to selling homes, right?

Well, and the developer could get ADP credits from Riverside County Flood Control.

What's the ADP?

Oh, area drainage. It's area drainage fees or area drainage plan fees. So every project has to pay fees to flood control for the area drainage plan that they're in. And so you can get credits from that. So this project will have to pay ADP fees so it would get credits for those fees for building MDP facilities or master drainage plan facilities.

Do those credits, do those, are those fees similar to our fees when they, are they tied to occupancy or building permits or things like that where like you're further along in the process when you realize?

Usually, yeah, that's the case.

So the developer would have to front the cost of the basin with an understanding that at some point when the project goes to construction, there would be an opportunity for credits, but wouldn't realize those, he would have to front the money first.

Yeah, which is typical of most infrastructure. Any type of streets that you get TUMF credits or DIF credits, it's always at the back end. They usually pay the upfront cost for it.

Yeah, it's kind of that fine line of getting them moving so they start selling homes so we can start getting the investments and the infrastructure that the community needs. But putting that at the right timing from a funding perspective is a challenge. All right, thank you for that. Absolutely. So, this is the final extension of time.

I understand that they had with the AB 2729, they had an additional 18 months on top of the three years last time. So, they had plenty of time. And so, in that four years of the last extension of time with the 18 months, if just a scenario, if they were to do the basin then, My issue is they're given four years, and up to this date, they've done absolutely nothing, correct?

Well, up to this point in time, they've had no extension of times formally from the city, only from Assembly Bill 2729. So this would be their first request for extension of time. Oh, I thought it was their final.

Okay. So they can do another extension of time.

So they can do up to three years, and they're requesting the full three years. Okay.

So... What is different about this basin versus the one that they originally agreed to?

I think that's the same basin.

They just don't want to pay for it. Correct. Okay. Any other questions before we have the applicant talk? Yep. All right. With that, we're going to go and open up public hearing and ask for the applicant. You are unmuted applicant. You can speak. What's what's his name?

Eric apologies, I'm not on. on video planning to be on video but and apologies I couldn't be there in person um I was thinking this was kind of a run-of-the-mill extension request and um unfortunately just uh couldn't be there tonight but um so you know Richland remains fully this approved community within the Ramona Creek master plan I don't know that all the statements that staff made are accurate um I'm not gonna really uh try to um Yeah, set the record straight here. I just would say, I think, you know, based on my knowledge is, I, I would hope we're asking a couple questions here. You know, what has changed since the original approval that makes these new conditions necessary today? Are these conditions required by law or are they discretionary recommendations? is there a specific health or safety concern that each condition is intended to address and if there's been no material change in circumstances why should additional conditions be imposed on an already approved housing project at this extension stage so you know we respectfully request approval extension as requested under the previously approved conditions unless there's a clear basis and findings for those newly added conditions and can be demonstrated um i'm happy to answer any other questions uh the statement that we're not willing to build the basin i don't believe is accurate uh like i think the commission was indicating it is a master planned facility within the uh city and flood controls master plan of drainage. It's not a basin that just, I'll say, is part of our development. It is a regional basin. So there needs to be a regional solution to this. The discussions have been as this project can't bear that burden alone, and hence why we were working on a tri-party agreement. So I can go into more details on that, but honestly, I would have guessed or thought that staff would have reached out. We requested this extension back on June 4th. There's been months of time between today and that time to have a discussion on this, and nobody even reached out to us. So I feel I'm apologetic that I'm not there tonight based on the significance of this. I wish I was. And I'd be happy to answer any other questions or have further discussion. I appreciate for the time.

Derek, would you prefer a continuous to give you time to talk to staff?

I don't know what my options are, and I haven't really had a lot of time to think about this. Again, I was assuming it was just going to be the same conditions. As Nathan mentioned, we're vested under SB 330. There has to be, I believe, pretty clear findings and a basis to adopt new conditions, so I would hope uh the commission and staff are exhausting you know all that um work you know and leading up to this it seemed we had sufficient time so to do this at the last minute to us i don't know adopt the extension and we can still work with staff on getting this project built we own the land there's no point in us sitting on the land you know having our map expire uh is just you know bad bad for everybody um so We'd love to get the extension, keep the conditions, and there's just problems to solve. That's every development. And we're committed to do that. We work on these things every day. Unfortunately, this is just a tougher egg to crack.

Commissioner, do you have any questions for the applicant?

Yeah. So what would your plan be if we do decide to leave the condition in?

My plan is to continue to work with the city to try and find funding, build the project as conditioned. There's multiple phases of the Ramona Creek specific plan, which we also own. Everything within that big box that Nathan showed you, we've got to figure out a way to do it and make it great. We like master plan communities. That's why we originally entitled the property as such. um you know nothing changes based on tonight had you just granted the extension we'd be you know moving forward and kind of uh the typical fashion we do to try and develop these communities there's unfortunately you know just um a lot of things that need to fall into place and um you know progress that needs to be made

Got you. And as Julie mentioned, you'll get credits for it anyway. I get that the time wasn't sufficient to like think about this basin. But you know, if if if the city is requiring the base and be built before The project can continue, and then you don't want to build the base, and that kind of, you know, it's just going to be 3 years of doing nothing again.

Again, I didn't say I didn't want to build the base, and I think the complexity of building the base, and it needs a city. flood control solution in order to build it. The designs are still underway for the upstream solutions. The city had funding, redirected funding. It's been confusing to us that there just hasn't been necessarily a full commitment from the city on how to solve the kind of development and funding problems. We work with a lot of the surrounding cities, and this is always a joint effort to go champion for these things, building bridges, building storm drains. Nothing's built all in one swoop. It's usually there's stages to this and phases to this. appreciate the help we could get from the city if that was possible. I know Council Member Krupa has, you know, pushed for these solutions in this area for many years. And, you know, I think she's always been one to be champing for this specific project.

Okay, thank you. Thank you for that.

Mr. Barber, this is Commissioner Hill. So it sounds like you're willing to fund the basin project. Where's the disconnect? The city is saying you're not willing to do it, and you're saying that you will do it, but you want to have continued conversations with staff. What is the issue here? Why would they say that you're not willing to do it?

The basin is not just like I said, and not just a basin for us in a typical development, we would build a base and to control our increased runoff. And that is the purpose of the base and to treat that runoff. This base and specifically solves the cities. basically entire upward drainage shed, and it's thousands of acres, not just our Ramona Creek specific plan. So I think there's been a disconnect with staff's expectation of that this project would kind of, I would say, take that full burden on. And there is a way to do that, but it can't be just borne by the project. There's not enough fee credits or permits in order to make that uh feasible if that makes sense the the basin is you know solving you know 10 000 units of uh drainage not just our specific plan and you were not aware of this from the get-go I mean, the basin existed in this property as part of flood control's master plan before the specific plan existed. I think the city worked collaboratively to avoid it being, I'll say, a flood control basin and have it something that could be a feature to the community. So we're fully aware of it. I think the characterization of whether we're not going to build it, the funding is not It's a deeper discussion that I don't know that all the kind of background has been shared on.

Okay. So what assurance do we have? What assurance do I have and the Commission have if we grant you this extension for three years that you will work with the City to resolve this and move this forward? I realize, you know, you own the land. You want to get this thing moving. What assurance do we have?

The conditions as they are will still obligate us to end up building, I'll say the basin and the specific plan itself. My concern was we got these at the last minute. We literally got them. I didn't even know about them until I was reading the staff report yesterday, as Nathan mentioned, you know, it was a whoops, but it's really hard to come before, you know, the commission and, you know, Figure out all the answers to this, what does it mean, what are the implications, what are protections there's there's. You know it's it's difficult in a less than 24 hour period to make those decisions, you know.

Okay, so are there any specific conditions that you would like to see straight.

I still just don't see the need to add any new conditions. The same staff was around and the same tentative map. There haven't been any changes to the tentative map. I believe the conditions as they are are still going to develop everything the city had hoped for and that we hope for. If there's more there that I don't know of, You know, then maybe that's the discussion. And like I said, I think there needs to be pretty clear basis and findings in order to add these conditions in the first place.

Okay, so your issue is with all the new conditions that have been imposed.

Yes. And again, I don't know that I'm totally opposed to them. I just, I only got 24 hours to kind of digest them and I'm hesitant to figure out what to do here. I'm not an attorney and obviously these are bigger decisions.

Okay. All right. I think I understand where you're coming from. Thank you so much. No, thank you, commissioner.

Chair, we just wanted to clarify that it's not all the conditions that are being modified. It's simply conditions 106, 107, Those are new conditions. We can strike 106. 107 is still in question and then perhaps to look at some of the associated conditions. Anything in red in your conditions, that's a new text that's highlighted in red for you. Those are what's changed in the conditions.

It's on page 415 of the PDF, which is 415 out of 421. Condition 106, because of the Airport Land Use Commission, we thought that that would be, I'm just trying to clarify for the record for staff, that that could be stricken. 107 is still a health and safety condition related to storm drain and flood. So... And then there's 110, which is mitigation for runoff consistent with storm drain criteria. and then 111G, again, to add for the master drainage plan. So what I'm understanding, and maybe staff could clarify as well, without these conditions, there would not be proper mitigation for storm drain and flood. That's my understanding.

Flood protection for the project site, yes. And so the reason that this is being added now and was not added originally is because we were in the process of building the system together with the applicant. The city has been very collaborative with the applicant. As I said, we were starting a tri-party agreement in 2021. In 2022, decided to separate the project so that the city would go after CIP funding for the storm drain. the developer would build the basin on his own outside of that and potentially get ADP credits. When I started with the city in 2023, I started working on that agreement with flood control. I had, I don't know if it was monthly or biweekly meetings with the applicant regarding all of their development and everything. We were on track to construct them at the same time. And so when the map was approved in 2023, there was already a viable path forward to construct the storm drain and the basin. And so it was the... They didn't need, that storm drain didn't need to be included in the conditions of approval. It was already included in a CIP with Riverside County Flood Control. At this time, that is no longer the case. It is no longer being constructed as part of the CIP due to the applicant informing me, and I do have an email here where I clarified before I had the funds reallocated out of the CIP for Riverside County Flood Control. I sent a follow-up email on June 26, 2025, and just wanted to follow up to confirm that Richland will not be constructing the Devonshire Basin at this time, and therefore not providing an adequate outlet from the Line C system. And I said we were preparing for the next fiscal year CIP request, and we'll be requesting the construction funds for this system be reallocated. So prior to that request, I just wanted to confirm Richland's position, and they responded stating, correct, we are not constructing the Devonshire Basin at this time. and therefore the funds were, and we have not coordinated, I don't think, since that time, but before that time, the city and the applicant and flood control were coordinating for years on this.

Okay, but the applicant, you're still, your mic's still open since we're on a public hearing. Would you like to say something, Derek?

Thank you, Jalene. That is partially accurate. There were lots of other discussions about how the funding could take place. The upstream portion was set to get constructed by the city, and for some reason they're still in the design of that that has not been constructed. championed to try and get pieces of this master plan built. And it still has yet to make, you know, as much progress as we were hoping for. So there are pieces of this that need to get constructed as well as this kind of master plan basin. Again, we have a covers this entire project and it's not a question that the basin doesn't get built it's for this map specifically how the storm drain is handled uh there is a kind of bigger solution that needs to take place in order to get uh everything to you know pencil and be feasible and it didn't seem like for some reason staff was interested in trying to work on that solution any longer

Okay, with that, we're going to go ahead and close public hearing. Discussions.

Yeah. This is really tough. I mean, it sounds like we're at an impasse here.

mean i don't know jolene you said the funds were reallocated so because there was no money's gone downstream outlet to because we couldn't build a storm drain to discharge into nowhere there has to be somewhere for the storm drain to go and that was the devonshire basin so we can't construct the upstream portion if we can't discharge into the basin is where are we going to put the storm ring because it's literally like 12 14 feet below ground at that point and so we We can't just construct a little hole and end a storm drain there, if that makes sense, right? So if you're going to vision that. So that was our issue.

So the funding is gone?

It's been moved. It didn't leave the city. It has moved to another CIP that we are actually going to construct.

And that's moving forward?

Correct.

so what's the purpose of this three-year extension i don't see any purpose of it i mean the funding's not there the applicant obviously is in disagreement of what the city's doing here he's resident to approve the conditions the new conditions even though they're they're good conditions for safety drainage and for the community I don't know what's, how's this gonna get resolved? I don't see a path forward unless I'm missing something.

I think to your point, you can't have a storm drain that discharges to nothing, but it lends itself to, it's a system. and it's a system of multiple components. I have kind of two concerns with this generally. One is, the lack of time that the applicant had to review this and to discuss with staff. I think that, in and of itself, is enough for, at the very least, a continuance to continue those discussions. unfortunately very aware of the challenges with flood control we're dealing with them throughout our our service area relative to those big high dollar regional systems working on line e right now in san encino that is affecting some of my company's properties and and they're just they're very high dollar long-term types of projects and the concern that i have here is that we're And I understand the reasoning, but putting this as a COA tied to the ability to issue a building permit or grading permit is basically putting the responsibility of a regional solution to the city onto a single project, understanding that there's a responsibility from that project to contribute to the regional solution, what concerns me is that I think that's not necessarily the right means to force the hand. I think there needs to be further discussion on how to partner with the developer and put together a plan to get these things built that meets the city's needs, gets us away from discharging the Seattle Basin onto other property. That's a risk for the city right now. Obviously, that whole system needs to get built, but I just have a concern of hamstringing the development moving forward specifically to building a regional facility, that the only funding mechanism that they would get is through the credits through flood control. I think that there needs to be more comprehensive funding strategy There's no reason for us to build a storm channel if it's not going to discharge to anywhere. I would also say there's no reason for him to build a basin prior to getting out there and doing grading and doing, and starting actually getting to a point where they can start getting revenue and recovering some of those costs. They don't get the credits until they're issuing CFOs. So it's kind of like the cart before the horse a little bit. And so I just, I would, I think it's, good project in a very prominent location in the city and I think it's worth putting in the extra effort and kind of forcing maybe using this EOT request as kind of forcing some conversations on getting that three-party agreement back together whatever needs to needs to happen but being able to try to avoid linking it to building permits and grading permits and find a solution that works for both supporting the developer to hopefully get this thing built in the city, as well as supporting the city's funding and CIP to get our regional issues addressed.

We would love to have a tri-party agreement. Absolutely.

So I guess, I mean, my general thought is that i would suggest that we continue this item uh and have an opportunity for staff and the developer to um go through this and maybe come back with something that doesn't that is a better better better solution for both the city and the developer did you want to say something

Marie Papp, Deputy Director of Community Development. A couple of things I'd like to add for clarification. For starters, we would like to apologize to the applicant for not providing the draft conditions of approval sooner. However, the Planning Commission agenda was published on Friday. THAT WAS FOUR DAYS PRIOR TO THE HEARING, SO THE APPLICANT DID HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO AT LEAST REVIEW THOSE. WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT, THOUGH, THAT WERE YOU INCLINED TO APPROVE THE EXTENSION OF TIME TODAY OR AT ANOTHER SUBSEQUENT HEARING AFTER IT BEING CONTINUED? THIS IS JUST AN EXTENSION OF TIME OF THE TENATIVE TRACK MAP. PRIOR TO ANY KIND OF CONSTRUCTION, THEY WOULD HAVE TO COME BACK WITH A FINAL MAP, AND THAT WOULD HAVE TO BE APPROVED BY THE PLANNING COMMISSION AND CITY COUNCIL, AND THAT WOULD BE RECORDED, AND AFTER RECORDATION, then they could begin construction. In the interim period, once the tentative map is approved, there is some modest amount of grading activity that could potentially occur. There could be clearing and grubbing and possibly some rough grading of roadway segments and other infrastructure improvements, but you wouldn't see wholesale grading of the entire site. That couldn't happen until after the final map was approved. So, these conditions that are before you this evening that have been added to the staff report that we're requesting for inclusion would certainly be required to be added to the final map. So, what we're respectfully requesting is that these be added now. because it adds a sense of urgency to perhaps put together that tri-party agreement in the interim period between now and recordation of the final map.

I still think that it's worthwhile to continue to have a conversation with the applicant based on this email and based on not having adequate time.

When it comes to notifying the applicant of a coming meeting, so tonight's meeting, we get our agenda last week. So does that applicant know that this meeting, he's having a meeting tonight? prior to when we get the agenda? Mr.

Yes, because we have to notice for public hearing at least 10 days in advance. Typically, our timeframe is 14 days in advance to get it to the press enterprise and also to be able to mail it out physically so that the recipients of those notices receive them through snail mail at least 10 days prior to the public hearing. So, yes, the applicant would be apprised of the hearing date. Normally, we would make them aware of the draft conditions of approval. Oftentimes, the conditions of approval are revised prior to publication. In this case, while those particular few added conditions of approval at the end of the resolution or the attachment to the resolution that contained those conditions was not provided prior, it was the applicant had knowledge that those or requirements for the Line C master plan that has been in existence, I believe, since 1984?

If there are, I mean, this, I think what the applicant was, or at least communicated that there was, the expectation was it was an EOT process. And these are, there are only a few, changed COAs, but they seem to be pretty significant relative to the affordability and the cost of the project. And it seems like on something that significant, there should be discussions prior to notice of public hearing or publishing the report just to have that conversation that, yeah, there's just a few COAs, these aren't just small ones, they're significant. And so it just, it seems like that should have, we should have had some dialogue prior to publishing the report with these additional COAs.

What is, I know you mentioned urgency, what is our deadline? to approve this. If we were to do a continuance, say, as an example, and allow you guys to talk to the applicant and what the Commission knows now, based on the productivity of the applicant on the site, and it comes back to us, what is the deadline date that we need to get this approved? Mr.

In terms of public hearing, there would be no deadline. The applicant has timely submitted their request for an extension of time. If we wanted to continue a date certain, then we would have no need to re-notice. If you were to determine to take it off calendar, we would just have to re-notice the public hearing through the newspaper and through the normal mailing procedure. But there's no firm deadline in terms of how soon we would have to bring it back because they applied for the extension of time prior to the map expiring.

Is there, having the experience that you've had on this over the last couple years, with Do you, and I'll also open this up to Mr. Barber, but do you think that there's an amount of time that, considering kind of the urgency and the city's position, which I certainly understand, is there an amount of time that you think would be appropriate to continue this, to allow for those conversations, to maybe bring back that three-party agreement, or how much time would be needed to... flush that out.

So to bring back that three-party agreement would take a significant amount of time. I don't know that at this time, since flood control had already allocated the 4 point something million to construct the storm drain, and then now has reallocated it. I don't even know that it would probably have to be ADP credits at this point, since they had already given it. And then because they couldn't get the adequate outlet has been moved. I don't know how they would feel about trying that again, considering the basin didn't get built in the time that it was supposed to be for them under that agreement. But we can definitely discuss that or have some kind of condition that references that if the applicant is willing to. But at this point, I think that it's going to be ADP credits. I don't think that the flood control will fund the storm drain at this time. They already did that. And without seeing the good faith effort from the applicant to construct the basin, you know but i'm definitely willing to go to the table i mean if you say two weeks or four weeks whichever whichever date you give me i will work with the applicant contact them schedule meetings and and discuss this do we have to open up public hearing to get there yeah you just don't close it right we're just going to open up the public

Right. In order to continue, it would just be a motion to continue a date certain. You do not need to reopen the public hearing to do that.

Well, no, to hear from the applicant right now, because Chair already closed the public hearing.

Oh, then you would need to reopen the public hearing if you wanted to hear further from the applicant. Okay.

Well, with that, we're going to go ahead and reopen. For the applicant, Derek, would you like to say something?

No, thank you. Commissioners and staff for giving it the additional thought and timing wise. Yeah, it's a tough 1. I would hope. I see the opportunity for maybe a revised condition that, you know, once we've worked with staff on this again, this kind of. Blindsided us a little bit, you know, we were working on this very diligently. And when it didn't seem like staff and the city were as interested in solving this problem, we figured we'd try to go gather more support. So we've been doing that in that time. To say it hasn't been moving forward, I think, is not giving it the full credit. But 60 days to go see if we can maybe put together a revised condition. i think that could work i also have the thoughts of maybe a workshop on this where we can figure out you know how we bring kind of all the parties to the table and put together a solution i know the funding is important and you know it would take a couple different groups to make it a priority it was a priority and then for some reason not a priority so those are all things i'm interested in figuring out

Well, I think it's clear that it's a priority for us as well. And so you're saying, Derek, are you saying 60 days?

I'm being conservative there. I'd hope we could find something sooner. But if you want to go date certain, maybe that gives staff enough time to, you know, we can work through what, you know, even just maybe this condition is fine. We just need time to understand it again. And just kind of caught us off guard.

So that would be October 20th, the meeting of October 20th, is that correct? If the commission wanted to do to a date certain, approximately 60 days, but that's the irregular commission meeting, October 20th.

Well, I would, do I have to close?

You have to close public hearing now. Sorry.

City Council Chambers, I I would move that we continue this item to October 20 and give. City Council Chambers, An opportunity for staff and the applicant to. City Council Chambers, get together and see if there's a.

I THINK YOU HAVE TO LEAVE THE PUBLIC HEARING OPEN TO CONTINUE IT.

IT WOULD TECHNICALLY. I KNOW WE CLOSED IT IN TERMS OF TESTIMONY, BUT, YEAH, IT WOULD TECHNICALLY REMAIN OPEN.

BECAUSE OF THE CONTINUING TRUCTURE.

WE GOT IT.

SOMEONE'S GOT IT. WE NEED LIKE A PARLIAMENTARIAN OR SOMETHING.

THAT WOULD BE ME.

But I would move that we extend this or that we continue this to October 20th. And I think a workshop, I think it would be important for the developer to, uh illustrate that they're bringing the skin to the game if you will and um and that that you know that that we as a city also are cognizant of the sequence of events relative to the cost that would be incurred relative to construction phasing and when those credits would be available and when the when the when the revenue from from cfos are are are also available but That would be my motion.

I second that.

We're running on continues. Do we need to? It's open. Okay.

And that passes. All right. Sorry about that. I mean, I don't have the chair script here, so let me go look at this.

Do you have a hybrid?

All right. So now we are going to move on to city attorney reports.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the Commission. I don't have that much because I'm pinch hitting for Layla. But interestingly, I do see when I was working a little bit on some of this map issue, SB 1169 seems to be moving through the Senate and the House and We don't know exactly what it's going to do because it's just in draft form, but there is a bill that is looking to extend some of the maps. So just FYI. This was very, very quick because this all happened today, but I saw it while I was doing some research. We will let you know if and what happens, but there's something moving through the system. What was that?

Extending maps?

It's regarding extension of maps, SB 1169. It's not in the law. It's not a law yet, but as I was doing some of the research and talking with the city engineer a little bit earlier today, it came up, and I was not prepared to have anything, but hey, it came up.

What is this, redistricting? Yeah.

what was that extension of maps on what i don't get so uh tentative map extensions uh from 24 months to 36 months and proposes to do a few other things which everything's in draft form um so we will see what happens okay thank you longer time frame okay community community community development reports director monique

Thank you, Chair. I have a couple of updates for you. Since the launch of the Tyler permitting system, we have been working through with the building and safety division. The building staff has been wonderful in triaging this new rollout. on our City of Hemet Community Development page. If you go to the Community Development page, you will see for those who are in need of applying for permits, there are instructions on how to do so, as well as registering through the online portal, which is a new requirement now. The city staff is unable to apply for or add building permits manually. It must be done and applied through the app that we have for Tyler. And those links are on our city's website on the community development page as well as the community development building and safeties page as well. So that's available. Operators are standing by in the Community Development Department and Building and Safety Division to answer calls, to help navigate through the portal system to all of our customers. We know that this is a time that we appreciate everyone's patience. Right now, we currently have 32 new permits submitted through the portal that were last day checked. I know we've issued quite a few, but we're triaging as the new system is being migrated. or checking all the bugs for ensuring that the fees are correct and that the workflow is working. And this is the really fun time that we have to make sure that the system is operating correctly. So we thank you for everyone for the patience on that. And also for those who were in permitting previously under our legacy permit track it, we are still phasing that out. So if they have a track it permit, We're trying to phase those out if they had a plan check that was in progress or that was there was a building permit that was issued. We're still working through the legacy permit software right now for inspection. So we're trying to phase this and we're working together as a team to make sure that that happens. Also, I wanted to make an announcement. One of our esteemed associate planners, Jordan Walton, it pains me to say that he is leaving the city of Hemet to go to another community in Ventura County. And this is his last planning commission meeting this evening, so we want to wish Jordan Walton, our associate planner, farewell and best wishes in his endeavors.

We're going to miss you, Jordan.

I mean, I don't know why we're applauding.

It's a nervous clap.

That was a nervous clap.

New chapters are always fun.

Thank you.

Okay, future agenda items.

Okay, future agenda items include a conditional use permit for UNOCAL 76 type 21 ABC license. Zoning code amendment is coming forward as a, I believe a workshop and a zoning code amendment presentation. for industrial development standards in accordance with AB 98. As you may be aware, there is a moratorium that is set to expire in December and we must come back with compliance for AB 98. So be aware that that will be coming to the Planning Commission for a public hearing and for consideration. WE ALSO HAVE 2025 BUILDING CODE CYCLE UPDATES COMING FORWARD IN ACCORDANCE WITH AB306 FOR RESIDENTIAL CONSTRUCTION. WE HAVE A TRACK MAP COMING FORWARD FOR VALLE DE LOS TRESORITOS, TRACK MAP 38979. as well as the pro housing designation program, which we're still working through the technical assistance at this time. And there's a few things that they still need from us before they clear us to move forward with the application process. In addition to that, we do have code cycle updates for the fire code. Our new building official, our chief building official is here, has onboarded as of Monday, so we're happy to have him here and he'll be helpful with the code updates. Also, we will be presenting to you fairly soon the pre-approved ADU plan, presentation and a rollout of how that might work through our city's website and promoting new ADUs construction through pre-approved plans. We have a conditional use permit for the fig tree, a former Cogliaro nursery site, and a zoning code amendment for public noticing requirements.

Okie dokie. Thank you so much for that. And 90 planning commissioner's reports.

Commissioner Villamontes.

I have nothing to report except even though October 20th meeting sounds fun and exciting, I will not be here that day.

It is my anniversary and we have a little vacation planned.

Thank you.

Commissioner Hill.

I know that a couple months ago, a couple three months ago, I complained about CR&R. Glad to report that they have consistently picked up our trash in our neighborhood, and cross your fingers that it continues. So I don't know what happened there, but whatever happened there from staff and whatever, it's working, and I'm very pleased with the progress that CR&R is making. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice Chair Wirth.

So EMWD just went live two weeks ago with the Tyler as well. And I'm wondering, Jordan, if there's any correlation between your departure and your involvement with developing. Okay, just want to make sure. THE ONLY THING THAT I'D LIKE TO ADD IS FOR A FUTURE AGENDA ITEM, WE TALKED A LITTLE BIT ABOUT IT AT OUR LAST MEETING. I WOULD LIKE AN UPDATE FROM STAFF ON THE ANNEXATION PROCESS OR EFFORT, SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF WHAT WAS BEING PROPOSED AND THE REASONING AS TO WHY IT IS NO LONGER BEING PROPOSED OR JUST WHERE THE WHOLE EFFORT IS. And that's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Chair Beamsterfer.

The City Council meeting last week was in support of the Mesa Grande. And we also have a contract with CAL FIRE for a wildland protection agreement. I believe with three or four locations, basically it's like a subscription we're paying. And instead of paying the original or full cost, the subscription kind of covers us in these particular areas. If there's a fire, CAL FIRE can come in and be able to help the city. The city did not approve the over $50,000 holiday decorations for Christmas just because we are on a tight budget, but they did suggest an idea that I like, and that's trying to get local businesses involved and decorate the front of the businesses along Florida Avenue and kind of bring the spirit up a little bit during the holidays. City Council also welcomed a new youth council. And with that being said, that chair over there has been empty since December in 2025. So we're definitely looking forward to getting a fifth planning commissioner in here. And that's it. With nothing else to report, the next meeting will be adjourned until September 1st, 2026 at 6 p.m.