Planning - Regular Meeting

Ready to go? Just nod your head or whatever when we can start. Oh, we're good? Okay. Alright. Please rise for the, the pledge of allegiance. Yeah. Or wait, I apologize. So the time now is 06:31 and let's go ahead and start the planning commission. Let's start for the pledge of allegiance and the invocation.

Ready? Begin.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord God, we thank you in this day. We thank you for all the provisions you give us, Lord. We pray, Lord God, over our service members that they're overseas and fighting, and we just ask for protection, giving them peace amongst chaos. We also pray, Lord God, over our emergency responders that work tirelessly serving the community and many times putting themselves in harm's way. We ask that you join us in this meeting tonight, Lord, for wisdom as we go through all kinds of information, Lord, that we can benefit our community that we care for. We pray for our citizens of Asperia. Lord, it's in your holy name we pray. Amen. Roll call.

Chair Roger Abreo.

Here.

Vice Chair Sophie Stino.

Here.

Commissioner Del Burke?

Here.

Commissioner Earl Hodgson?

Here. Here.

Commissioner Timothy Almond?

Here.

Do we have any agenda revisions or announcements?

I have no revisions to the agenda.

Awesome. Alright. Public comments. Any person wishing to address the Planning Commission should complete a white card and hand it to the clerk. Comments are to be limited to three minutes and should concern only those topics within the jurisdiction of the Planning Commission. Any person who would like to comment upon an agenda item should reserve their comments until the public hearing or public comment period is called for that item. Please remember that the Planning Commission is prohibited from considering or taking any action on any issue not previously noticed in the agenda. We now open the public comment period at 06:33. Do we have any white cards?

I have no white cards, Chair.

All right. We'll go ahead and close our public comment period at 06:33, seeing that we have no white cards. Consent calendar. So consideration of the Planning Commission draft minutes from November 13. Do we have a recommendation?

Chair, I'd like to amend the minutes just I think it was a typographical error in my comments. At the last meeting, I expressed my uncontinued support for the current landscape ordinance. I'd like to review that and

make it more water conservative than it is today.

Thank you for that. Any other amendments or changes?

No other changes. So with those changes I recommend approval of the minutes.

Do we have a second?

Is able to vote? No? Okay. I'll take a verbal, please. Commissioner Hudson?

Yay.

Commissioner Burke?

Yes.

Chair Abreu?

Yes.

Commissioner Ahman?

Yes.

Vice Chair Sino? Yes. Thank you. Motion passes.

All right.

Annual report or status and implementation of the general plan.

Right. Thank you. So I don't have a PowerPoint for tonight. This is gonna be an informational item. Okay. And I'm gonna kinda go over some of our stats here in just a minute. But before I get there, state law requires that every city or county prepare and submit an annual report on the status and implementation of the city's general plan. Overall, this report is required to be presented to the Planning Commission and then ultimately to the City Council and it's required to be submitted directly to the state housing community development department and also the state office or governor's office of land use and climate innovation. Overall, this report serves a couple of different purposes. First, it provides an overview of our implementation of the city's general plan.

And then, one of the other things it tracks is the overall development activity and the city's progress towards achieving its housing element goals and policies and satisfying its RINA obligations. As some of you recall, in 2023 the housing element was approved and the city has a regional housing needs allocation of 8,155 units. And so, this report provides a summary of a lot of the residential development activity that occurred during the 2025 calendar year. And so, now I'm going to kind of highlight some of the key accomplishments during 2025. So, one of the first accomplishments and one of the major accomplishments that we had was really the heavy lifting of the Planning Commission.

And that was the adoption of the focus general plan update in which we amended the city's land use, circulation and open space elements. That was a required component in the city's housing element and ultimately the focus general plan update allows for mixed use development and higher density development opportunities across the city. That was a mandated requirement in the city's housing element, but completion of that was a major achieved a major goal in the city's housing element. Another major milestone was adoption of the objective design standards. So the objective design standards established clear measurable development standards for new multifamily and mixed use developments.

Once again, that was a required component of the housing element and we were able to satisfy that requirement in 2025. And then in terms of development activity, last year was a fairly robust year in terms of development activity. We issued permits for five zero five new single family homes and 23 ADU permits. That resulted in a total of five twenty eight new permits for single family or for residential dwelling units. These housing units contribute towards the city meeting its Rina obligations and satisfying its housing element goals.

During 2025, we processed a total of 55 new development applications. Those 55 development applications, some of them have multiple entitlement applications. So collectively, that was a total of 74 new entitlement applications that we processed during 2025. Of those applications, 31 were approved, 18 were deemed incomplete. When I say deemed incomplete, that just means that they are still working towards getting approval of their entitlement that carried over into 2026 calendar year.

And then three of those applications were withdrawn. Of the 55 entitlement applications, 26 were for commercial entitlements, eight were for industrial entitlements, four were for multifamily developments, and two were for single family tract homes. During 2025, we approved entitlements for two ninety one new multifamily units and we entitled 38 new single family lots or entitled new tracks that had 38 single family lots. With regards to the industrial activity, the Planning Commission is well aware that over the past couple of years we've seen a big wave of industrial growth here in the city. During 2025, we didn't see as many entitlement applications come before the Planning Commission.

However, we did process three entitlement applications that resulted in four new industrial buildings that totaled just over 720,000 square feet. Construction also continued on the 2,500,000 square foot Amazon facility along with an approximately 409,000 square foot warehouse facility that's on the North Side Of Poplar Street. Collectively, we currently have approximately 4,200,000 square feet that is approved entitlement for industrial square footage. We have 3,500,000 square feet of industrial square footage that is actively in entitlement right now. And these projects all lead to the creation of more job opportunities here in the city and satisfy a number of different goals and policies that are in the city's land use element.

During 2025, we made significant progress on new infrastructure opportunities as well. One that I'll highlight is the continued progress of Ranchero Road widening. So new lanes were added to Rancho Road. Right now, we currently are working on the Rancho Road bridge widening. But ultimately, that's a major thoroughfare that goes to the city.

And when it's completed, it will allow for improved circulation and access through the city that will achieve a lot of the circulation element goals and policies. And then, I haven't even touched upon yet the continued implementation and progress of the Silverwood development. And the Silverwood development, we gave an update to the Planning Commission, I believe at our last meeting or the meeting before that, where they came in with a minor amendment for a new tract. And we had some pictures and slides and kind of show the continued progress of that. But collectively that Silverwood development, it leads to a number of new housing opportunities over a wide range of income categories.

But beyond that, it adds new park opportunities, trails, open space areas. And all of those once again satisfied number of land use element goals, open space element goals, new park opportunities which go a long way towards the city satisfying its general plan goals and policies. And so with that, that's kind of a highlight of some of the development activity that was just during the 2025 calendar year. Tonight's, this item is just an informational item to the Planning Commission tonight. This will be presented to the City Council at the next City Council hearing and then after that it'll be submitted to the state.

And so with that I'm available for any questions if you have any. You can ask questions at the end of the meeting too if you would like.

Yeah. Couple of general comments. I really like the document. It's well thought out, well laid out, and I appreciate all the efforts that went into it. I do have a couple of comments, though.

So if you bear with me on page seven, the table of contents is just a formatting error. I'd like to see the page numbers end up aligned. Get rid of some of those dots and that should take care of that. On page number 15 or 11 of the report, under homeless and special needs assistance program since everything is justified, I'd like to see that paragraph justified on the right. Then on page 25 of the document, under goal number two, first paragraph, it says a primary community has ample, well maintained, and equitable distributed spaces that support active living.

A primary implementation strategy is the collection of development impact fees from new projects which the city then provides to the the Sperry Recreation Park. I think you want to maybe say that the city provides a portion of two or do all our diff fees go to

Yeah. Yeah. You're right. It's a portion of. It's a

So just just so we don't get held by the park district on, woah, you said. And then that that was all my comments. Just minor. Thank you again. That was a a great great document.

Those are great comments. I appreciate it. Thank you. Sure.

Well, will say this though. One last thing is I think it was a very well laid out document. I think it's a little repetitive, but I justified that in my mind that you repeated those items in order to bring them to the forefront as successes and efforts that we're doing. I don't like repetitiveness in documents. It's but I could see why you did it.

So I have a question regarding where the agenda says to motion. If this is informational, we're not doing a motion, are we?

No. As I mentioned, this is going to be presented to the City Council. This is an informational item for tonight.

Perfect. So no motion. Thank you. I I thought so.

Oh, one last thing. That's alright. I forgot. I I didn't take good notes. I just put tabs. So I see in the document, it's so well written, little repetitive for my taste. But I saw nowhere where fees were mentioned. I thought that was a little odd. I don't know if fees just continually grow up and you don't wanna bring attention to that. As being in the field, think maybe the reason we don't get so many ADU applications is because the fees associated with the full size ADU are very pricey.

And although the Seamus Barrier has some of the lowest fee schedules compared to neighboring cities like Atlanta, I just thought that it was odd.

Are you kind of referring to development impact fees the Yeah. Permit

Development impact fees for ADEs are high, Very high.

Okay.

So, I mean and I guess in a government document like that, it really doesn't matter because government likes to fee us to death. But I just thought it was if there was anything of mention that put it in a good light, I guess it would have been put in the document.

Yes. So I mean ultimately the infrastructure improvements that are being done that are resulted the fees that are collected is kind of what you're looking for there.

That's

a good start. Thank you.

All right. Anyone else before we move on to public hearing? All right. Thank you, Ryan.

Thank you.

All right. Public hearing, conditional use permit, CP24-twelve. Commission recognizes Melanie Henry. Oh. Hi, Melanie. Hello.

Good evening, commissioners and attendees. Tonight's item includes a conditional use permit to construct a 5,915 square foot convenience store with alcohol sales for off-site consumption, a fueling station with 10 pumps, and a nineteen sixty eight square foot automated drive through car wash. As seen here, the subject site is approximately 2.3 acres of vacant land located on the Northwest corner of Phelan Road and Highway 395. Direct adjacent properties are vacant as well, but multiple industrial developments are within close proximity of this project site, such as the Amazon warehouse to the West. As seen on the general plan land use map, the property is located in the neighborhood commercial zone of the Main Street and Freeway Corridor specific plan.

This zoning designation permits the development of a convenience store. However, a fuel station and car wash are permittable upon the approval of a conditional use permit. This is the site plan that is proposed for the project. Access to the site will be granted from a right in, right out driveway approach onto 395 which will be located at the northeast corner of the site and another write in write out driveway approach at the proposed onto Phelan Road at the southwest portion of the site. The site plan also includes the proposed 5,915 square foot convenience store in the center of the site, a 4,080 square foot fueling station with 10 pumps along Highway 395, and a nineteen sixty eight square foot automated drive thru car wash tucked away at the rear northwest corner of the property.

These are the colored elevations of the convenience store. The exterior of the building incorporates a combination of stucco and tile in addition to a brick wainscope. The building also includes changes in the wall and roof planes and tower elements to highlight the entry. As you can see, the exterior of the car wash building includes similar features and materials creating a seamless appearance throughout the development. Moving on, the project also includes the proposal for alcohol sales for off-site consumption.

In October 2017, an ordinance passed requiring city council approval for such applications when the establishment is less than 12,000 square feet in floor area, which is why tonight's resolution proposes that the project be forwarded to counsel with the recommendation for approval. Additionally, the applicant will file an application for a type 20 off sale beer and wine license with the California Department of Alcohol and Beverage Control. The site falls within Census 100.09 which authorizes to have three licenses for off sale consumption. Currently, the census map identifies four active licenses exceeding the limit and requiring that the city make a finding of public convenience and necessity. The Planning Commission consider can consider the broader service area when evaluating alcohol license concentration.

Although four licenses exist in the census, two are located outside of city limits over four miles away while the other two primarily serve freeway traffic about a mile away from this site. Because this project is located along Highway 395, it serves a different traffic corridor, and it would not significantly increase local concentration and may be found to meet public convenience and necessity. Lastly, approval of this project requires adoption of an initial study mitigated negative declaration, also known as an ISMND, which I'm going to refer to for the rest of this presentation, which is pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act. The ISMND was prepared for the project and concluded that the project will not have any significant negative impact on the environment upon implementation of the recommended mitigation measures. The environmental document was released for public review earlier this year from January 20 to 02/18/2026.

During the review period, five comment letters were received summarizing concerns with traffic impacts, biological resources, and local drainage. Pursuant to CEQA, responses to these comments were not required for an ISMND. However, staff recognized the concerns and worked with the developer and consultant to address them by revising the CEQA document accordingly as well as incorporating additional conditions of approval now requiring the approval of a traffic study along with Caltrans approval and required permits, compliance with Mojave Air Quality District Performance Standards, and approval of a final hydrology report not only by the city's engineering division but by the Department of Water Resources. In summary, the project conforms to the policies of the city's general plan as well as meet standards of the development code and the main street and freeway corridor specific plan. Approval of the sale of beer and wine is appropriate but will require council approval which will provide public convenience and necessity while meeting consumer demands.

With that, I conclude my presentation. Mark and I are available for any questions.

Wonderful. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions?

I have a question regarding the connection of the sewer line. It says it's going to connect to an existing force main.

Thank you. So the Amazon project has put in a gravity, which will fall north into the lift station and then that's going to be forced. So this project will connect the lateral will connect to the gravity flow to the station.

So it's going to have its own force main on-site or to facilitate jumping into the gravity? Or is it going to be gravity to the

I don't recall that. Is there a pump? Is little there pump? There we go. There is an on-site pump house.

There is an on-site lift station to pump it to the gravity feed line from Amazon in the West going West. Okay. And the pump site on-site will be the responsibility of the owner? Yes. So okay. But there's an easement, I'm taking it for the force main?

Yes. Okay.

All right. Thank you.

What's the size of that line coming out of the gas station or that or the on-site lift station?

Usually, it's a four. He's saying four inches. Our standard is six inches for commercial, so we'll discuss that.

Right. That is the standard.

There you go. So he's saying pump at four and then gravity at a six. At

the six. Okay.

So grind at the lift station, the grinder, it's going to be four and then it goes to six, Correct? Is that is that what I'm hearing?

That that that yeah. Four at the pump up to where it dumps into the gravity would be six inch at that point.

And then it's six inch for that distance all the way to the line that the Amazon is connected to, and then from there, it goes to the lift station, correct?

It should be four across the site, and then it will connect to the gravity. Will we upsize it at the right of way to six and then dump it into the gravity, which is, I believe, eight inches?

So basically at the PL then?

Correct. We'll upsize to six.

Now you're going to just as obviously on-site question is, are you going be using a grinder at the facility as well with the lift station? I'm only making the recommendation that you use a grinder because too many times with the failure is always at that location and it's due to rags or something like that. And the simplicity for the few extra couple of thousand dollars of putting a grinder in saves the property owner tons and tons of headaches. So just a comment on that, that I would consider putting a grinder in there to facilitate getting to make sure that stuff's good going up, not plugging up. Just a comment. Okay.

Anyone else? Sophie, do have anything?

Just a couple of comments on the driveway along 395. I see is at 3.5% slope because that's a that's a tremendous hill. Are you bringing the site level down to meet that?

Yes. This site will be cut. It

will be cut. So there's more cut than fill?

Yes.

Okay. So therefore, the gravity or whatever, the pumping up of the Okay. And then just on the description of the proposal, convenience store with off sale of alcohol, off-site sale, so that's on every page. And then given the big storm we had on Christmas Eve, I think they considered that a two hundred or was it a two fifty year storm?

My understanding is it was much greater than that.

We're still requiring everyone to meet one hundred years from?

That is correct.

But I know Phelan took a big hit. And then so in signing on the CEQA, if we adopt and approve tonight, the ISMND, Mary Cruz, you're still the secretary? I thought congratulations were in order for you. So I don't know if that's correct or not. That's not sound up to me.

And then of course under the conditions, page one of 13, again a C store with off sale. I want to change that to off-site sale. And then my last comment was I believe there are Joshua trees on this site and some of those might be western, so I don't see any reference in the conditions to an ITP.

I believe it's in the mitigation measures of the ISMND.

Right. Okay. So and I do see that they have to. And those are all my comments. Very well done. Good job. Thank you.

So I have a question. It will require a traffic study or a traffic study has not been conducted yet?

Actually yes, it will require a TIA and it's in the process of being wrapped up.

Okay. So maybe we'll get more information about it. I'm just confused about how one would enter the service station if they were heading east on Main Street or Phelan Road in that side.

Well, we do have the traffic engineer with us tonight, if you'd like to ask him some questions.

It's just kind of thinking about if people trying to cut through even if the lines are painted solid yellow, people do it. And that's a really busy area with heavy trucks, so that can be Correct.

Yes. That needs

to be focused and mitigated.

Yes. We did think about that.

Okay.

Evening, commission. I'm Paul Herman. I work for Farrand Pierce. We're traffic consultants. I'm a licensed traffic engineer. We were on your general plan update team doing your circulation element. I currently serve on your on call for traffic engineering as well, but tonight, I'm helping represent the applicant. And so we did look at the access and the considerations of the basically, we're measuring safety versus convenience, especially on the Phelan, which is high speed. And so the recommendation was to make that right in, right out. And if you do if you are going eastbound, we are recommending that you can make a u-turn at that intersection.

That would be the way to access the the site. There's also other safety measures to prevent people from going over the painted lines on Phelan. We're recommending some raised posts to delineate that so that it prevents people from making that, maneuver. We've We're well aware of what we call cowboys out there that don't like to listen to the painted lines. So that was our consideration.

So if I could ask the raised posts, as you call them, are those the temporary plastic ones that people run over?

These are going to be rubberized curb that you've used elsewhere in the city. That was the preference of the Public Works Department.

This will be similar to Escondido, it looks like, where they can't pull in the driveway to the East of Walmart. They have to do the U-turn at the signal. And of course, on Highway 395, you're going to have a island to separate that. So there is no way to get across there from So on 390 on Phelan Road, would have again, it would be some type of deterrent, but it would I think similar to Escondido and Main Street.

Yes. I believe that's the right location, right? Yes. That is correct, yes.

Okay. And

there's only a write in on Highway 395, right? No left out?

No left out, right in and right out.

Right in, right out, yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, guys. Thank you.

That's a very high speed wanna mention both ways, all four, you know, north, south, east, west. Well, and with the grade coming east, grade drops like a rock to the light. Are they ever gonna widen 395 at that point? They they've been talking about it forever, Caltrans. Guess not.

Uh-oh. Yeah. There's some information on that. We know

Caltrans moves at a snail's pace, but the plan is to widen it. And so all of the plans take into consideration the future widening. Oh,

interesting. One day, right? Yes.

Supposedly. Yeah.

Are you dedicating right of way as part of this project? Is that what you just said?

Good

evening council. My name is Chet Van Horn. I'm the civil engineer. I work for Alliance and that team over there. No dedication needed on the Caltrans side. We are dedicating, I think, eight feet on the Phelan side. So Caltrans is they've had a widening approved there for some time at our corner, but they like Paul was saying, the SBCTA transit authority is widening that whole corridor through there. So our project, we've coordinated with them. And whoever goes first gets to do the widening. So it'll probably be us in our local area here. But yes, we've planned for that.

Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions before we move it to open to public comment? Alright. So, let's see here. What time is it we're dealing with? 07:04. Alright. So, chair opens up to public hearing.

Time at 07:04. Invites the applicant or their representative to comment. I know we've talked to you back and forth, so I don't know if there's anything else that wants to be said about our project, and we thank you for your patience and help. So do you want to talk about your project before we take public comments, which I don't see anyone here, but anyone want to talk about the project?

Good day, everyone. My name is Milena. I'm here representing the developers and owners. And on behalf of our client, AU Energy, I don't really have a lot to say about the project. I think Leilani and Mark had it all, but I have a little bit of a background here if you guys want to know a little bit on the project as well.

So we actually bought the property back in June 2020 when the previous entitlements were still active. So there there were some permits active on this site already for another gas station. And we were, like, the third or fourth developers to work on this site from our understanding. And our plan was to start construction right away on behalf of the previous tenant and operator known as U. S.

Petroleum. But COVID hit, and we had increased increasing project costs and delays. So eventually, the tenant and operator decided not to move forward with the project. And then in early twenty twenty four, we found another tenant and operator, AU Energy, who is currently applying for this project, for the property, but the entitlements were no longer active. So, they had expired, proceeding so we had to proceed with a new COP submittal, for the new proposal with a slightly modified site plan.

The idea is basically the same, just the c store c store and market increased by a thousand square feet, and we we increased the car wash from 60 to 85 long tunnel reduced one fuel pump from six to five, so 12 to 10 fueling positions. So that was basically the the change from the previous active permits, COP permit to this new one. But that's all I had for you today. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Commission invites those members of the public to comment upon this item to address the commission. Do we have any white cards?

I have no white cards, chair.

Alright, wonderful. With that being said, we'll go ahead and close the public hearing portion. Since we have no white cards. Discussion. Do we have anything to discuss? Is

there a projected start date once you get approval?

They

said early twenty twenty seven, depending on the engineering, civils, and building plan approvals.

Alright. Well, I think the facility is needed. I just I kind of cite the same thing that I think we're all thinking is traffic is a little hectic in the area but I do know that it would definitely benefit the community having it there and it's a good looking facility. So I think it's a good use. Beyond that, do we want to go ahead and anyone want to do a motion? And the question is, do we motion to adopt or motion to for recommendation for the city council to for approval. How do how is that?

Yes. It would be a a motion to adopt. Motion to adopt.

I'm

sorry. I misspoke. A recommendation to the city council.

Right.

Right.

Because this Right. Is

Adopt the resolution to make the recommendation to the city council.

There you go. I couldn't pull that off. Thank you. Alright. Do we have a motion?

I'd make the motion, but I think I'd screw it up now. I'll make a motion to adopt resolution number PC2025Dash20 recommending to the council? Correct. For conditional use permit CUP twenty four zero zero zero one two and adopting mitigated negative declaration.

Okay, we'll do a verbal again, please. Commissioner Burke, Commissioner Burke, please?

Yes.

Commissioner Hudson?

Yes.

Commissioner Abreu? Chair Abreu?

Yes.

Vice Chair Sino? Yes. Commissioner Amin?

Yes.

Thank you. Motion passes five zero.

All right, playing division reports.

Oh, I'm sorry chair. The agenda says a motion needed to approve the draft, no, the annual report and status for the general

Right, that was what we discussed. It does, it was just informational.

It's not needed?

No, it wasn't needed. It was just the report. So

you'll, okay, yeah.

Change it on our end. Thank you, Vice Chair.

Good luck with your project.

So planning division reports, Ryan Leonard, is we have a update or ERC comments, major project updates, all the fun stuff?

Yeah. I think Orlando is going to provide some development updates over the past couple of months in just a second here. But I do just want to talk briefly about our upcoming meeting for next month or next Planning Commission meeting. So in two weeks from tonight, we'll have three items that we'll be presenting to you. And there will be a new warehouse facility, an automotive repair facility on Bear Valley Road, and then also a I'll call it 150,000 square foot retail building that will be presented to the Planning Commission next month. So you should see those two those three items in the next two weeks. And we look forward to seeing you in the next couple of weeks. And then I'll pass it to Orlando, who's going to give an update on a couple of the development projects we have going on.

Evening, Planning Commission. Pleasure to be with you. This is only my second meeting in four point five months, and so it's like breaking off the rust a little bit. If I may, I want to go back to the last project just briefly and remind the commission on any

of the

project coordinator team who's left that the mention of traffic is a significant concern to the city as well, so much so that we're still pending the TIA, the Traffic Impact Analysis. And so that may come back with additional mitigation measurements required by Caltrans. And so I believe it's fair to say what we see today is a baseline. There may be more enhancements and mitigations required of the project from Caltrans. So I just wanted to touch on that.

It's been several months since we last met. And so if you don't mind, I'd like to just briefly review some of the projects that have either broken ground or been issued permits over the last several months just to bring the Commission up to speed a little bit. So I'll just fly through these. You're welcome to ask any questions. I may not have all the details in front of me, but I'll try to give you information today that you can go home with. Rio Stone at Eucalyptus And Boxwood, a 30,000 square foot commercial building was approved, correct? I don't have the detail on that. I believe it was entitled.

It was entitled a while ago.

It was maybe they started construction. I should have had that information. I apologize. Also, there was approval of a 150,000 square foot industrial building on East Side Of Caliente, South Of Joshua Street. Silverwood broke ground on their community pool.

We're really excited about that, as is Silverwood. As you may have known, they've stated that as their buyers or prospective buyers come into the community, they're always asking about that. And so they wanted to get that project up and running a little earlier than they had originally scheduled. So that's under construction today. And then a 400,000 square foot tilt up warehouse building was approved at 10400 Amargosa.

Actually, that was groundbreaking. They started work on that. And then a couple of other projects that were recently approved, a fuel station I'm sorry, oil change store at 15621 Main Street. Burlington Cofactory tenant improvements were approved. And that Mother Clucker Nashville hot chicken restaurant opened. You may not be familiar with it. It's fantastic. I recommend you visit it, 13 And Thousand 88 Main Street. That actually is a Hesperia family. They've run a food truck for a number of years.

They finally wanted to open brick and mortar located at the Chevron at Ambrogosa? And Mountain Main Street. And so if you haven't had a chance, I encourage you to go. It is hot, but it is Nashville. Hot chicken, a great place to go. And again, another local family opening up a business here in our community. And then we issued a CU no, CUP, that was permit activity, childcare. Sorry, I'm just running through these real briefly for you. We issued a rough grading permit for Lennar Homes at 17915 North Of Mojave Street, and that's 60 lots. And then we issued a grading permit for legacy homes tracked, 17436, and that's 18 lots.

And then oh, I see. We issued a grading permit for Covington for the 400,000 square foot concrete tilt up warehouse at 10400 Amargosa. And then just to bring you up to speed on the number of single family residential unit permits we've issued this calendar year no, I'm sorry, this fiscal year, from July 1 to present, two seventy nine new SFR permits, including 69 infill lots and 88 track lots. So I hope to provide that maybe a little bit more comprehensive or cohesive the next time, but I'll try to do that on a regular basis just to bring you all to speed on the activity that we're processing at the staff level or that or permits that have been issued since we've last spoken to you. And that's all I have, Mr.

Chair. Our

city attorney is back, and we're happy he's here. I can repeat myself twice. So, good to have you and do you have any updates?

No legal updates for me but I'm happy to be back and and happy to see you all and and be back here at the Planning Commission.

Yeah, same. Alright, Planning Commission comments.

Appreciate the due diligence and having to deal with all that paper trail to get to the state. That's takes up a lot of time. I can see that just in the few times I've got involved with it way back when. So I can appreciate your endeavors there. So and besides that, go Dodgers.

That's a lot of work to put that together for the state. I don't know if I'd wanna be behind that. So I don't even know how to explain the gratitude for you and the staff for putting all that together. It's pretty it's pretty big deal. I I've been thinking a lot.

I think, I don't wanna talk a lot here, but I also wanna get something out. I think everyone knows how passionate I am about the city. And there's the temperature out there is still pretty high, And I don't know if this is the place or time. You cut me off if it's not because I I don't wanna talk about business that shouldn't be talked about at this time. However, the temperature is still pretty high out there with residents in regard to the flooding that we had.

I'm sure everybody hears about it. Mhmm. I just, and I sat in DRC, and Mark and I kinda talked about, you know, the there was one residence in particular about her her property being impacted, and it's nothing that the city has done. The problem is is most most people out there don't understand that. However, there's I I still think that there might be a way, and I'm not sure where to start, but there might be a way that we can when residents come, maybe we spend a little bit more time.

And I'm not saying that we didn't. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying because you guys get hammered all the time. I'm sure about it lately, right, since December. But if there was a way that we could come alongside of some of these residents because I'm out there all the time, as you know, and I see a lot of it.

And some of these people are really impacted by it. And if it's nothing more than delivering dirt to their yards, for instance, I was on a I was on a street about two weeks, maybe three after that big flood, and from it took out the whole corner of the property. And from the their fence to the edge of pavement, it was a gigantic hole. You could park a loader in it, a dump truck. And when I went by, there was about four, maybe five public works guys working, and they were filling that in.

Well, they went up to the fence line, and that was it. Fences caved in. It's just as big of a hole, if not bigger, inside the yard, cutting the corner of their property off. So I just pulled over and I asked him. I said, so, you know, are we gonna maybe bring some dirt? I mean, we got dirt all over. I'm passing on my way into town copious amounts of dirt by Sparrow Lakes that was that they had to get out of there. And I just thought, we have dirt everywhere right now. Maybe call your boss and just ask if we could just at least deliver dirt, knock on their door, and just say, hey. We're gonna at least get you the dirt.

I don't know. Like I said, I don't know where to start. I just know that there I feel I feel like there's little things that we could do to help lower the temperature, if that makes sense. So they basically brushed totally brushed me off, and I was kinda I was kinda put back by that a little bit because that was the mow I said, hey. Just call your boss. Get him on the phone. Take a picture of it. Send it to him and ask him if you could just deliver a couple more loads of dirt, knock on their door, and say, hey. We can't can't help you with putting it in your yard, but here's some dirt for you. So, anyways, I just think then like that lady the other day, you know, I understand her concern.

And, again, that's nothing nothing really that we can do a whole lot with other than maybe spend a little more time talking or maybe do a drive by and take a look at it. Maybe there is something that at least we can offer assistance or, you know, some ideas or point her in the right direction of who to talk to to to on the private side to help fix her yard. So I think I don't know if anybody else is getting hit up about that, but I get hit up all the time. So, anyway, that's all

I got. Alright.

Yes. Again, thank you, for all the work that you guys did for that document. I I know just earlier today, there was the governor put out a naughty list of places, cities, and counties that are not in compliance, and we were not on it. So yeah. Well done.

So that's good news, and thank you for the hard work to to to do detailed work like that. Again, just to kinda hit what Earl's talking about, since the the storms, you know, everybody it's it's the talk of the town. It's the talk of Facebook if you're on Facebook. Right? So I drive around a lot. It's part of my daily job. I go all over the place. And I see areas that are you know, they can they're it's triage. You can get to this later. Right?

But there are some areas that are vital. It's really important. To point one out specifically, as you're going up Peach through the golf course, heading up the curve of the hill, the right side is eroded so deep that if any car had a tire issue on that curve and tried to pull into that, they're gonna be high centered. It's gonna be the car's gonna be destroyed. So that's probably pretty important to hit.

I went and drove every single school in two days in Hesperia, every single school I visited. So I got to see a lot of it. It takes time to survey it, know where it's at, maybe the public adding comment to say, hey, this is a really bad place. I've I've reached out a couple of times to some of our staff and pointed out issues. So that going to what Earl is saying about giving feedback to reassure people like we know, we care and we're planning to get to that, That would probably go a long way.

It's hot. Heat's coming. So everybody, I hope they've got ice and water on their trucks. I'm a stickler for keeping cool water for people that are at work. And, also, I've been spending some time up at Barstow. For anybody that doesn't know, Barstow Community College just graduated their first veteran electrical entry program. We were up there with the president's lunch today, and it's good to see the city collaborating with the school, collaborating with their elected officials and representatives, bringing everybody together. It really felt like the threads are all tied really tight up there. So I think that's an important thing to focus on and I think they're doing a good job. That's all I've got.

Well, I know it was a heck of a storm. We fared well. I noticed that some of those retention basins in Silverwood are still not emptied out, but the perkin in that area is terrible because of the caliche. I was wondering if anybody knew anything about what's going on. Is there a track that was approved recently at the end of Danbury, South of Ranchero because there's a big fence up and there was a big clearing of pretty much all the bushes and I only had a couple of Joshua's.

Yeah. It was it's on the so right where Danbury dead ends and turns onto Ryland on the Southwest Corner. There's been a big clearing in there, a big chain link fence that went up for as far as the eye could see.

Off top of my head, know there's a number of tracks in around that area, specific South

West Corner.

We'd have to look at an aerial to and kind of look at the But that's certainly something we can look into.

And then I mosey down Ranchero West to go look at the progress of the bridge, the new bridge at the aqueduct and pretty impressive. Let's see what else. Well, I'm glad to see everyone again. It's been since before Thanksgiving. And keep taking a a look regularly at Silverwood Progress and see so many more people moving in and enjoying that community and and everything you wrote in your document about the little pop up parks in the middle of the tracks is true.

They're going in. They look beautiful. So I just hope the market, the housing market gets better and the economy so that things will continue moving and look forward to working with you all again this year. Thank you.

Yeah, I echo one who does put documents together for the state. It was well put together. And, yeah, it is the word grueling is not the right word. There's a lot of patience. Biting your tongue too. So I wanna say tell the staff absolutely did a

good

job. So the only thing I want to bring up, just generally talking, is everyone drives safe out there. There's a lot of between Deep Creek and then into Apple Valley, there's road bridges being installed also on Ranchero. So there's a lot of main thoroughfares under construction. But it's exciting, exciting to see that, you know, the the foresight to see that our our communities are growing and will grow and continue to grow. It's just that, you know, I guess it's my call to have everyone be careful because I've seen plenty of accidents in some of these, bridges and so forth that it was kind of surprising to see when people are just not used to so many key walls so close in. But other than that, I just wanted to say good to see you all.

Go. Was one more thing I wanted to mention. So we like all the commissioners go around and see what's going on after the flood. We went ahead and drove again several times, but this last time, to Asperia Lake and noticed that it's still closed, but there's no signage. So I called the parks district and I said, what are the plans?

And they're waiting like we are. I mean, I assume as a city for FEMA funding for emergency dollars. But I did recommend to them that I think they should put a sign up so at least the public knows and something that there's not even a temporary closed sign. So it was a little disturbing and and they said they'd pass that on to management. Hopefully the the lake will open up soon again. But there are people who go by and stand at the fence and throw bread at the ducks and the geese. So alright. Thank you. Sorry.

Yeah. No no worries at all. Alright. So with that being said, this meeting is adjourned to our next regular meeting, which will be April 9. So in two weeks. So 04/09/2026 at 06:30, these chambers. Meeting adjourned.