Planning - Regular Meeting

All right, we're going to go ahead and start the meeting. I put my phone away. 635, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and the Indication. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord God, we thank you for today, Lord. We look to you for always for wisdom. And so, Lord God, we thank you as we start this meeting, knowing that it will affect many years to come. And so we ask that, Lord God, for our minds to be mindful of the citizens of Hesperia for today and for the future, Lord. And as we move forward in this meeting, not only for wisdom, for understanding and patience, we pray over our first responders, Lord, especially for tomorrow being September 11th, understanding, Lord God, that's an anniversary that so much of our first responders give. And so, Lord God, we pray over them, for them and the citizens of our city of Hesperia that we hold dear. It is in your holy name we pray. Amen. Roll call. Roll call.

Commissioner Houghton?

Here.

Commissioner Burke?

Here.

Chair Abreu?

Here.

Commissioner Amin?

Here.

Vice Chair Steno?

All right, agenda revisions. Do we have any agenda revisions?

I have no revisions, Chair.

Awesome. All right, 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 start the public comment period time at 6.38. Do we have any white cards?

I have no white cards, Chair.

All right. Being no white cards, we close the comment period at 6.38. Thank you, by the way. So with that, moving to consent calendar. Consideration of the Planning Commission draft minutes from the meeting on August 13th, 2026. Do we have a motion?

I'll move to approve the draft minutes from the Planning Commission regular meeting held on August 13th, 2026. I'll second.

Motion passes 4-0.

All right presentation development code update workshop with Placeworks and staff.

Good evening, Planning Commission. Thank you for having us back and for coming back two weeks after our originally scheduled date. It's great to be back in the city of Hesperia and following up really on what is the implementation of the general plan update we worked with the city on and adopted about a year ago, actually. So it's wonderful to be back. As a refresher, my name is Corey Witter. I'm a senior associate with Placeworks, the planning consulting firm working with the city to move this forward. I'm joined tonight by my colleague, Andrew Davidoff, who will introduce himself a little later on and talk us through some of the critical portions of our presentation. So we do have a relatively concise agenda, but by the end, I'm sure your hair will be blown back as we have quite a lot of ground to cover between now and then, but I promise we'll keep it moving along efficiently. Our objective for tonight really is just to introduce the commission and community to the development code update effort. We're gonna briefly touch on a wide variety of topics that we're gonna be addressing throughout this process and specifically shine a spotlight on some of the residential topics we want to address. Again, through this process, but that's kind of the part two of our evening. The discussion portion, again, will focus on those residential topics and really is intended for us to be a listening session. So while we will be highlighting some of the things we've already discussed internally as a project team, this is our opportunity to hear from you, the commissioners, and the community. specifically related to any residential topics that we may have missed on our initial list, or provide any additional detail to some of the items that we've covered, albeit in brief. And to close out, we're gonna talk next steps. Make sure everyone is aware of where we are going, as well as a quick touch on where we have started. Alrighty. So before we begin, I think it's important to set the foundation. The city has, since its incorporation, never comprehensively updated its zoning code. And so that means many of our sections are 30 years old and largely relics of the county's code at the time. And the city has done a commendable job over this past period making it work and making changes kind of surgically as those have needed to be made, specifically making sure that we're We're up to speed with state legislation. Last year, as I mentioned at the intro, the city adopted its new general plan, specifically the land use element, circulation element, and safety, sorry, community health and safety element, which included environmental safety and environmental justice. But really, what applies to us tonight is some of the items from the land use element. There is of course a tie back to the city's housing element, which was certified a handful of years ago, and to maintain our certified status with HCD, There are a few items that, again, acknowledged in the land use element are now passing through to us in the development code update. Of course, between really last year and now, there have, as California likes to do, adopted changes to the state law. So we're going to be making sure that we're incorporating those in the appropriate places and coordinating closely with city council to make sure that we're doing it in the appropriate way. And really, in addition to our administrative updates, from a usability perspective, it's one of staff's primary objectives to make sure that we're bringing our code up to a more modern, user-friendly experience. So that way, not only staff behind the counter, commissioners, the development community, and the broader Hesperia community, residents included, have a better time navigating, interpreting, and applying the municipal code. Really trying to make sure from start to finish, the administration is as seamless as possible for everyone who could be involved. So our effort is gonna take a variety of shapes as we move through the process. Of course we're gonna lean quite heavily on staff's experience since they're the ones who work with the code day in and day out. They are the experts. So we're gonna lean very heavily on them. We're also going to supplement and augment where necessary with information and practices we see in other neighboring communities and maybe even taking some inspiration from communities down the hill where staff have already done quite a bit of due diligence and research following some trends that have happened down the hill that we think may be appropriate to introduce to the city of Hesperia. We're also going to be engaging the community as we are tonight with a handful of other sessions that we'll touch on a little later and also work with development and real estate stakeholders as well as also local businesses and property owners to make sure that we are getting as well-rounded an outreach process as possible. This being our open forum and our stakeholder sessions being more of a roundtable, we've already sent out our first handful of invitations for the residential focus group, and we're going to be following up with a commercial and industrial focus group very shortly. But I'm getting ahead of myself. As we continue through, of course, we're going to come back before this body and the community with questions. probably more than one public review draft. That way, again, as I mentioned, this is mostly a listening session. Once we've had an opportunity to go back and make some changes, bring those changes before the planning commission and community for feedback so that as we work through, there's no questions. When we get to the end, we're not asking you to adopt a document that you haven't seen every single piece of. I say that More figuratively than anything because the code is quite a beast to handle So we're gonna do our best to make sure that we're putting before you the most pertinent information We do not envision this as being a truly soup-to-nuts redo Quite a bit of the code already works and the city is is making it work and so we want to make sure we're retaining the pieces that are functioning properly and really make changes where changes are necessary and This is not a Hesperia code 2.0, it's a nice nip-tuck to make sure that it's just a little bit better than it is today. And then, of course, everyone's favorite, CEQA documentation. We're going to be working this through on an addendum. We're not proposing, again, any changes that are substantial. They're in compliance with the adopted land use element, which also went through on an addendum to the original general plan EIR. So we do not anticipate any issues on that front. Alrighty, so our process started in early June. We had our kickoff meeting, and so far we have made what I would expect to be, or we are exactly where I would expect us to be at this point in time. We've gone back and forth with staff a number of times, making sure that we have daylighted to the best of our ability all of the sections, topics, issues that we wanna cover during the course of this process, which we're gonna run through tonight. And we very recently, just two weeks ago, kind of settled on a draft table of contents, which allows us to start the restructuring and migration process of current code sections, articles, subsections, et cetera, into our new format, again, from a usability perspective. But as we start to do this, it gives us the chance to look section by section, line by line, at every single word in the code. So as we move pretty methodically through the document, we're gonna be touching every single section. Again, we don't anticipate change to many of them. I'm not gonna say most of them, but those that will receive change are gonna come before you so that you're familiar with what's going on. And as I mentioned a few moments ago, we've already started our stakeholder engagement effort. We sent out our invitations to a list of 40 residential real estate development individuals kind of operating in that space in the city of Hesperia, as well as just the broader high desert to get a more focused understanding of kind of their experiences working in the city and again, the high desert. And so over the course of the next three months, I think concluding probably a little bit before December, because that tends to be a tough month for folks, we're going to be meeting two more times with stakeholders of various interest. And so at each of our subsequent meetings with this group, we're going to be coming back with quick report outs, making sure that as we are hearing, learning, understanding new things, the commission and community are brought up to speed with those discussions as well. Okay, moving on to our schedule. As you can see, we're targeting a mid to late 2027 adoption, so probably right around this time. As I mentioned, you can see our engagement is pretty heavily focused through the end of this calendar year. During the holiday season and into the beginning of next year, that really gives us the opportunity to be heads down and working through the sections of code with city staff going back and forth. We'll also be looping in the building and safety divisions and code enforcement, making sure that it's not just planning and counter plan check staff that are familiar with what's being changed, but anyone in the city who interacts with the code is gonna be a stakeholder as well. So even though those stakeholder sessions I have kind of pitched as external looking, we're also looking at ways to engage more heavily with city staff who are gonna be using the code on a more frequent basis. Okay. All right, so now that we've kind of gotten on the same page as what the universe is for our update, I'm actually going to hand over this next portion of the presentation for key issues to Andrew, and I will be back shortly.

Thank you.

Thank you, Corey. Good evening, everyone. Again, my name is Andrew Davidov. I'm an associate at Placeworks. Very happy to be here in Asperia tonight. As Corey mentioned, I'm going to talk a little bit about the key issues that we've identified along with city staff and the zoning code. By no means is this list comprehensive. By no means are we going to talk about every single item. And then it's just a higher level overview. Corey is going to be going into the residential uses. and talk about those items after our talk. So this is everything else. Some of these items we'll be talking about in future community meetings with the Planning Commission, and some of these items we'll be working more directly with city staff on. As part of updating the city's commercial and industrial uses, and this is common throughout every zoning code, we're going to be looking at the allowed, permitted, not permitted uses in the city's current use tables. We're going to be adding, removing, updating, and consolidating uses based on the city's goals and best practices from nearby jurisdictions. We'll also be exploring how we can incentivize desired uses and adjust permit approval requirements based on community goals. Pertaining to wireless facilities, we'll primarily be updating the regulations to comply with federal and state law requirements. And regarding alternative energy standards, we'll be updating the city's regulations for commercial and industrial buildings to reflect current state requirements as well as addressing solar, carport, and battery energy storage systems citywide. We'll be restructuring and organizing the site development standards regarding commercial and industrial uses as well. Specifically, we'll be clarifying and updating outdoor storage, fencing, and trash enclosure standards. And we'll also be adding screening standards for ground-mounted solar facilities and reviewing standards for loading areas. Regarding design guidelines, we'll be adding some objective design standards and updating architectural standards. Some specific feedback that we've talked about with city staff and we've heard is to address the regulation of metal buildings and commercial and industrial zones, and specifically to restrict them in commercial zones and evaluate limitations on metal butler buildings in industrial zoning districts. There is a question that we've talked about with city staff of whether the public land use designation.

Andrew, can you hear me? I apologize for interrupting you, sir. Yeah. I just had a question on the last slide. Yeah. So when we talk about things like metal buildings and Butler buildings and you reference commercial and industrial, if not now, and I don't mean to interrupt your presentation, but perhaps later, if not now, can we discuss why commercial and industrial only is on this list versus residential as well? Can we talk a little bit about that? But again, if not now, later.

Yeah, yeah, we could talk about it now, and I'm also going to maybe lean on Ryan to answer as well. I think from our perspective, that's kind of what we've heard from city staff. If there's openness and interest in restricting them in residential districts, by all means, we're happy to initiate that.

Yeah, again, I apologize for interrupting you, Andrew. But I think part of the question I have, and maybe the Commission has as well, and forgive me for speaking for you, Commission, but when will that conversation occur? In other words, to that point, if we've generally heard that this item, I just happen to pick on this item, and so I don't necessarily mean to draw too much attention to this item specifically. It could be anything that you've mentioned already. But And again, if you have already stated this, and I missed it, I apologize, but when will the dialogue happen? Is it specifically during a workshop that that robust, if it's a robust conversation, will it happen then? Or is it some other means by which the commission can express their voice on this issue or any issue?

Yeah, so it's gonna happen a couple different times. It's actually gonna happen shortly, later in this presentation. So the first part of the presentation tonight, really just kind of a broad overview of some of the new concepts that we'll be introducing as a part of development code. As we get towards the end of the presentation, it's gonna focus more on residential development standards and some of the new areas of the code that we're looking to add in residential development standards. Commercial, I'm sorry, metal buildings will be one of the topics that we'll be talking about later on in this presentation. When we get to those focus groups, it'll also be a topic of conversation for commercial industrial as well as the residential. And then, As we get further down this process, there'll be drafts of the development code update that'll be presented to, it'll be on the city's website for public review. It'll be presented to the planning commission and we'll introduce areas of the code that have been revised. So it'll be a side-by-side red line strikeout version of existing code requirements, new code requirements. And so we're gonna have this presentation again of about discussing what changes we've made to the code. So it's gonna come up quite frequently and it'll come up soon here in a few minutes as well.

Thank you. Uh, 1 item that we've talked about with city staff is regarding whether the public land use designation is a zoning district is base. So, any district or an overlay zoning district, it's a little bit unclear in the code itself from our interpretation as well as from city staff. So we want to investigate that a little bit to clarify that. Very important question. Specifically, there's also subparcels regarding churches and vocational schools that may be impacted from that question as well. So that's going to be something we'll be discussing and exploring. regarding site development regulations for all types of uses across the city. Always one of the most important topics in any zoning code update are parking and loading regulations. We'll be undergoing a review of the current automobile parking requirement ratios for certain industrial and mixed-use developments to reflect current trends, and also I think we'll end up We'll do a more wholesale review of the parking ratio requirements citywide to understand where there's opportunities to improve them as well. We'll also be reviewing tandem parking requirements for residential developments along with bicycle parking and EV parking slash charging station requirements. Regarding fences and walls, we have a specific focus to reorganize and clarify the regulations, which includes height limits and visibility requirements as well as the material standards required for fences and walls. For landscaping screening and lighting standards, we'll be doing a wholesale review of the city's landscaping standards with specific emphasis on plant density requirements and perimeter and parking lot landscaping. And we'll also be reviewing the city's screening and lighting requirements as they relate to outdoor areas and when adjacent to residential uses. pertaining to protected plants. We'll be reviewing the city's regulations on Joshua trees and other protected plants, specifically in relation to current state law requirements. Uh sign regulations will be reviewing some of these regulations that we currently have presented on the screen, specifically given how sensitive signs are pertaining to state law and sorry federal law. We want to make sure that we are fully compliant and we'll be looking at more surgical amendments for consistency with federal law. regarding projections slash encouragement standards into setback areas. We'll be reviewing some best practices to help consolidate and update these regulations. Currently, the table in the zoning code is quite large and extensive, so we want to make it a little bit shorter, tighter, and a little bit more digestible for the reader and user of the code. Given the growth of Hesperia, there's definitely an opportunity to revise the current animal allowances per lot in the city. The city has quite an extensive set of animal regulation requirements. So we'll be doing a wholesale review of them as well as specifically the exotic animals sections and provisions in the code. we'll be seeing whether we can relocate or eliminate some of the provisions based on where they're currently located in the municipal code. As with many jurisdictions, there's a need to better regulate, from our understanding, mobile and sidewalk vending in the city, both for the sake of residents, vendors themselves, and also for owners of brick and mortar stores. specifically, it will be looking at distance standards from other mobile vendors, as well as from brick and mortar stores. And we'll also be updating provisions to ensure they're consistent with state law requirements and regulations. Regarding permits and entitlements, one of the primary pieces of feedback that we've heard from city staff is wanting to review the findings that are required for different permits to make sure they're more objective and clear and easier to understand, both for the city staff, planning commission, city council, and the user themselves. As we update the code fully, we'll be keeping a running list, updating different terms, uses, and definitions in the code. Some of them will just be based on best practices and some of them will also be consistent with state law requirements. We'll also be clarifying standards for non-conforming building structures to outline when reconstruction, expansion, alteration, and discontinuance is required based on what's on the ground today. And then we'll also be meeting with code enforcement throughout this process to understand their challenges of the code for interpreting and implementing. A couple specific things that we've heard through the city staff is the challenge of addressing commercial vehicles parked on residential streets. We'll also be considering and evaluating the city's anti-camping ordinance as well as part of this process. We look forward to talking about more of these topics for in depth in future community meetings. I'll pass it back to Corey to talk about residential uses. Thank you.

All right, thank you, Andrew. Director Acevedo, our opportunity to dive into some of the commercial and industrial topics will be October 8th. That'll be our specific community planning commission session. But as Ryan mentioned, ample opportunity certainly between now and adoption to get into those. But yeah, we should be seeing the metal accessory structures also appear in this section. All right, so Andrew kind of just gave us a rundown of, you know, we kind of said it at the end, global topics. Of course, pretty heavily commercial industrial as well, but also getting into things like permitting and processing procedures. By and large, as I'm sure you were picking up as we were going through them, some of those topics won't necessarily be... necessary in the public discussion, right, public realm. Some of them are pretty in depth and in the weeds. We certainly invite any feedback from the community or the commission on those topics. One of our questions a little later on is, did we miss anything from that more broad list? But now we're gonna transition specifically into some of our residential items, since this is kind of the second focal point of our evening, and then we're gonna have a couple guiding kind of prompts, so to speak, but ultimately we'll open the floor to the commission and community for a larger discussion on any topics, again, that you would like to kind of pull from the presentation or introduce to make sure that it's on our radar and something that we're able to address as we come to the appropriate sections during our content migration. Okay, so diving into it, specifically talking about residential uses kind of as the primary use. We're gonna be looking at existing language pertaining to bed and breakfast establishments and looking at ways to expand and cover all manners of short-term rental. We've heard through our discussions with staff that there are occasionally issues with short-term rentals. Bed and breakfast establishments is the only way it is covered in the code right now. So making sure that we're looking at all potential avenues for short-term tenants. We're also gonna be looking at the definitions and standards for residential care, supportive care, and transitional housing, and making sure that we are updating appropriately to maintain consistency with state law. During the last housing element cycle, many jurisdictions found themselves in water when it came to residential care facilities, specifically the permitting requirements when it comes to group homes from I think it's smaller than six and then seven or larger. That's pretty heavily regulated by the state. So with some wiggle room with limited wiggle room, admittedly, we're gonna be making sure that first and foremost, we're satisfying HCD's requirements, and then where we can, making sure that the city's direction is reflected as well. But again, that is a fairly heavily regulated use case. Okay, moving forward now kind of to our accessory uses. ADUs in recent years have become quite the talk. So we want to make sure that as, again, an appended portion of the city's existing code, we're relocating that language and updating it to match state law, but wanting to put it in a more appropriate location so that anyone seeking an ADU permit isn't stumbling to find it. It's somewhere that they might expect to find it on first pass. kind of related. We're also going to be looking at guest houses and accessory buildings, most specifically kind of the definition of pool houses with some interesting relationships to how detached garages may also be regulated. We've learned from staff that some people will submit applications for guest houses or pool houses, which are not intended to be long term residences, but very clearly the plans show an intent for use as a permanent dwelling. And so that is something the city of course would like to avoid, but also from a health and safety perspective, wanting to make sure that the state is very specific on what constitutes a legal housing unit and its provision of certain facilities. So making sure that from a tenant's rights perspective as well, any occupant long term of that structure has access to safe and sanitary housing. That's from an affordability, sorry. Fair housing perspective that has been a big push from the state in recent years. So making sure not only for the city's community safety perspective, but also liability perspective, making sure that we're consistent with state law. And then as you can see on our last item, additional regulations on metal accessory buildings on residential properties as well. So certainly an item we can dive into tonight. Obviously it crosses topics. So by no means are we limited to talking about it in a residential only capacity tonight. But again, something that we are seeing in all zones across the city. Okay, moving on for our most common residential uses single-family dwellings. We're going to be evaluating updates to architectural design standards for single-family homes as well as looking at ways to differentiate which standards are applicable for infill and tract development. The city recently adopted objective design guidelines for multifamily and mixed-use So for the density bonus program it is going to be making sure that again from a structural perspective We're slotting it into the code where most appropriate and again. We are consistent with state law That is another topic as I'm sure that is of no surprise to you. That is pretty heavily monitored It is oftentimes just referred to as state density bonus as very few jurisdictions go you know, kind of stray from what their guidance is. Okay. And for some of our mixed-use developments, the city, through the land-use element update, recently added the C2 zone as a mixed-use candidate, so to speak. It's not mandatory. Residential is not a required property. project type when a proposal comes through the door. But making sure that we are updating in the zoning language now that residential density ranges align with our adopted general plan. So that was 30 units per acre in C2. The RC zone, which is in the Main Street Freeway Corridor specific plan, was already a mixed use zone at 25 units per acre. That's gonna be increased to 30, commensurate with the land use plan. So again, not a new change, so to speak. Again, consistency with what we have adopted previously. So that's one of our more substantive updates, I guess, so to speak. And then also we're gonna be reviewing development standards and incentives as well. Of course, the recent adoption of the city's objective design standards, it's gonna be important that we are connecting these two items appropriately. The municipal code and the ODS technically is a standalone document. So most of the discussion between the two is gonna be incorporation by reference so while we may not enumerate in the municipal code all of the standards that are applicable to mixed use and multi-family it's going to point to the appropriate sections of the standalone ods document so making sure that communication between the two is working for us okie dokie For plan developments, we're also gonna be looking at ways to streamline, sorry, some of our application and submittal requirements, providing a little additional detail. Yeah, sorry, providing a little additional detail. Okay, my apologies. And then we're also going to be opening, to a more limited degree, Chapter 17, which covers subdivisions. And the Subdivision Map Act, again, is fairly prescriptive in how cities must proceed when reviewing a subdivision application. So we'll mostly be updating the ordinance to ensure that it is consistent with state law. Alrighty. And our final residential topical slide before we move into the discussion is kind of just giving a little snapshot of what we're going to be looking at from a permitted uses table perspective. Andrew kind of touched on this for our commercial and industrial uses as well, but those lists are substantially longer. Interestingly, the city's residential use table is actually pretty brief as it is currently written, which can sometimes lead to confusion or different interpretations. On the left side of our table, you'll see what the city currently has. This is not a totally comprehensive list, just again, a snapshot of some of the more common ones that we see. So single-family dwellings and then a jump immediately to multi-family, or sorry, multiple-family or multi-family dwellings. And so duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, while not explicitly stated, sometimes kind of fall between the cracks on interpretation. So one way that we are potentially remediating this issue is by creating standalone two-family definition, right? That would be your... attached duplex. It's not necessarily a multifamily development in its use, so to speak, but it's also not explicitly single family. It kind of exists in that in between. And there is, of course, discussion to be had for triplex quadplex as well. But for the time being, we're showing multifamily dwelling as explicitly described as containing three or more units in a single structure. Right. So again, just providing a little bit more clarity for some of our most common use types in the community. And then again, kind of getting back to the residential slash supportive care facilities, making sure that we are kind of cleaning up the city's existing nomenclature. aligning it with what is more common and again kind of prescriptive from the state so that way anyone that's coming in and looking to do a facility of or you know really a home of this type doesn't have to try and interpret you know older language before it was really standardized at the state level Okay, so that is our final topical slide. We're gonna be transitioning into our discussion section, sorry, portion at this point. And again, these are kind of primers based on some of the topics we've addressed here. We are looking for any thoughts. It doesn't have to be guidance, so to speak. Really, as I mentioned at the beginning, a listening session for us. So, if even if you don't have a particularly strong opinion, but you have some ideas, or this is, you know, something that has come before the planning commission, you're like, oh, that's that's kind of interesting or of interest to me. We'd love to hear your take on it. This is not the only opportunity for us to have this dialogue. If after the meeting, of course, you are taking a shower and you're like, oh, man, I forgot to mention this. That's where I have a lot of my most brilliant ideas, of course. please feel free to communicate that with staff, right? We want to make sure that the lines of communication are open and we want to hear what you have to say. So we'll dive into it and, oh, sorry, I have messed something up here. And we've got a couple kind of catch-all questions towards the end inviting broader feedback, but we can let these be our guideposts for the beginning and then kind of go from there. So our first one, kind of getting back to some of the standards we talked about differentiating between infill and tract development. Specifically looking at housing tracts at this point, short of specific plans, really Silverwood kind of being the best example of this. Again, short of a specific plan, is there any interest from Planning Commission or broader city or community in considering additional requirements for housing tracts? So that could be requirements for the establishment of an HOA. Really kinda how this comes up in our discussions is a tract is proposed, it's beautiful, years one through 10, and then as the years go on without kind of a centralized maintenance mechanism, it is no longer, after the years, consistent with or up to the city's standards. And there's no funding mechanism in place to make sure that improvements are being made, specifically looking at wet and dry infrastructure more than anything. But this is, This is one topic where we potentially have an opportunity to make some some changes for this kind of subset of housing products. I will invite any thoughts on that I know that's kind of a large question. So i'll.

Well, no jive in so the the public or the street, you know the. Public right away landscape areas currently are and I don't know the proper term so but the has very park and REC district or recreation and park district maintains that on new tracks coming in.

That is correct.

And so is that what we're talking about or more on not on the public side but like within driveways and lawns and that kind of thing as far as when we talk about HOAs and maintaining things like that.

It would be a little bit of both. So one of the questions that we're looking for is should there be a requirement for the ongoing maintenance responsibility for that track through the establishment of an HOA? And one of the things we could look at is at what point should an HOA be required, for instance? Is it 100 lots? Is it 75 lots? And if there really isn't an appetite for that, then we can kind of talk about, are there other things that we should be looking at within that tract that could potentially help with the aesthetics of it? We could have increased requirements for entry signage, for instance, monument signage as you enter a tract. Some of the things we could look at there is what are the requirements for that signage dependent on number of units, number of lots. Open space requirements. One of the other things we could look at as well is dedication of required parkland in lieu of the fees that go to park and rec district. And at what point should we be looking at requirements for the establishment of a certain park, whether it's a pocket park or a larger park than that, and what's the unit count for when that should be required. These are just kind of things that we're kind of contemplating as staff, and we're kind of looking for a little bit of direction, but if you don't have any answers to that tonight, as Corey mentioned, over the course of the next few weeks, next few months, there's a lot of opportunities to provide additional input as well.

Thank you, Ryan. As a clarifier, there currently is no requirement on when it is required to have an HOA or?

That is correct. So right now there'd be no requirement for an HOA for a tract.

Okay. So if they come in with 20,000 houses or whatever, there's no requirement.

No, so if there were 20,000 houses, like similar to Silverwood, it would be processed through a specific plan, which at that point, I think because of the size of it, we'd be certainly asking for an HOA or the maintenance of that. But for something like Mission Crest, for instance, that included 500 lots, or I don't know the exact number, but something like Mission Crest wouldn't have had an HOA. It doesn't have an HOA. Many of the tracks along Escondido, almost all of them, don't have an HOA. As far as I know, I believe there are two or three HOAs throughout the city.

Right, and I think the bigger point to that is that the Recreation Park District handles the public area, but when you have people moving in that... let the landscape go awry, I'll put it that way. It impacts their neighbors while other people are, I understand. Okay, thank you.

Mr. Chair, if I can just ask a complimentary clarifying question, because I'll pull my new card tonight, because a lot of things I'm still learning as well, Mr. Chair, so thank you for indulging me. Ryan, so back to his question, when a tract comes through, is it a lighting and landscape assessment district that is required of the tract, and that's where the HRPD takes over maintenance?

Correct, so they'd be required to annex into a lighting and landscape district through HRPD. That HRPD would be responsible for maintaining the landscaping within the public right-of-way that is not part of a parkway directly in front of that lot. So it would be, for instance, on Escondido, the rear of those lots that back up to Escondido, the landscaping along there, that would be maintained by HRPD. It wouldn't be the responsibility of a homeowner It's not necessarily their property. Once you get into the Mission Crest Tract, when you go around the turn there, HRPD would maintain that landscaping around the turn. Once you go on to that private or local street and you have landscaping within a parkway, that you have a parkway, sidewalk, and then you would have their front yard landscaping. The homeowner would be responsible for that parkway maintenance.

And so one of the questions, well, another way to ask the question is, is the commission interested in applying a privatized HOA rather than a public agency, HRPD, LLAD, forgive all the acronyms, but that's effectively the distinction we're asking of the commission, right? That if you value maintenance of parkway landscaping, for example, Do we want to privatize that or do we want to leave it as is under the HRPD incorporation of the lighting and landscape assessment district? Correct.

Alternatively, we can also look at it as if there really isn't support for HOAs, we could look at added municipal code requirements in terms of enforceability for maintenance, the ongoing maintenance of that. And perhaps that then becomes a city code enforcement responsibility. Keep in mind the staff would be a little bit limited there in terms of enforcing that. oftentimes it is more of a responsive call than a proactive call, and so when there's multiple cars parked on a driveway and the landscaping is dead, unless one of the neighbors calls, code enforcement likely wouldn't be driving down the street, like perhaps an HOA would enforce that.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

Oh, I'm sorry, that was it.

Cory, can you help the commission, or maybe I should just say, can you help me understand The commission's role here is to provide comment for the council's consideration at a future date, right? You talked about next fall, perhaps. And so the commission will have a responsibility to review these items and to make the recommendations. regardless of the cost, right? I think that's an important distinction I want the commission to recognize is that your job through this process is not necessarily to take into account the costs, the development costs of these recommendations. The Planning Commission is tasked with looking at the land use more so, right? And you all, I think, are familiar with that general process. It's going to be the Council's responsibility then to analyze your recommendation and determine whether or not they want to implement some of these changes, right? You may say, hey, we think HOAs are so important, we want triplexes to have HOAs because of the need for privatized, let's say, again, I'm just making an argument here, privatized maintenance. And the council, nine months from now, may go, Planning Commission, you're silly. We would never recommend that. But I don't think that dismisses that that was your recommendation, right? In other words, some of your work will fall on ears of the council and they will go, yep, great idea. And some of your work will fall on the ears of the council and they'll go, we understand the commission's intent there, but quite frankly, we don't believe that the city of Asperia is at that place in time, right? Corey, can you maybe better articulate what I just tried to say?

Yeah, no, I think that's an accurate portrayal. As we, you know, specifically thinking of this example, obviously this is a pretty large question to ask right out of the gate. So as this process unfolds... We jumped in the deep end, huh? Yeah, we were just saying, you know, no floaties, sorry. uh as this process unfolds you know now staff can go back and take this opportunity to look at hey how might this be implemented you know ryan's recommendation of maybe it's through municipal code requirements and code enforcement rather than the strict requirements for an hoa we can put side by side two ways you know two potential paths and then planning commission can make its recommendation right as you mentioned sir uh and then at that point it's it really does fall the final decision on city council's shoulders um so while you are the first body that really has to grapple with these difficult questions uh I don't think the axe falls here so to speak so um getting it what the director is is mentioning is you you don't necessarily bear the full burden for a recommendation that eventually is you know a decision made by by the city council um yeah

And I would also add to Orlando and Corey's comments that there's gonna be multiple opportunities to provide additional comment on this. It's not just tonight. There'll likely be three to four drafts of the overall development code update with red line strike out of the changes that are occurring. It's gonna come before the Planning Commission multiple times. There'll be multiple times to, maybe express no support for that or support for that. Really, I think tonight we're just kind of looking for the broad category of shouldn't one area of the development code be looking at ongoing maintenance responsibilities for existing tracks or new tracks that are coming to the city? And if it's not an issue or if it's not something that necessarily needs to be a focus of the municipal code, that could be a comment. If the ongoing maintenance of those tracks is something that the municipal code maybe should address, what are some ways that that could be addressed, whether it's through HOA's additional requirements in the code or other creative ideas?

Mr. Chair, one final comment, if I may, and again, thank you for indulging me, sir. I promise I won't talk all night. But this is also something that the, well, let me ask this question. Has the commission had a presentation on the city's 2024 strategic plan? Have you all seen the goals and objectives of the city council? As a body, perhaps. Maybe that's something else that, if not part of this process, certainly staff can bring to the commission during, concurrent to during this process. Because I think it's important for the commission to see the goals and objectives that were adopted by the city council in 2024. Some of the things, for example, it reminds me of one of the goals, which is beautification of the city. And there are many more. But perhaps an overview for the Commission of what the Council does deem important and a priority of this Council and the community is important to your consideration as we go through these questions. You may not, on the surface, think beautification is important. but the council does, right? And so I think it's important that these deliberations, this conversation, your final recommendations in some way, shape, or form do align, generally speaking, with the goals and objectives of the city council that are established in 2024 and are ongoing. In fact, I believe Rachel, our city manager, will be bringing forth an update to the council this fall, to the council identifying some of the activities, some of the work that has been accomplished over the last six months, last year in meeting those goals and objectives. It's very important to the council that staff and the community and the city are working towards accomplishing those goals. And I think it would be, we would be, I would be derelict in my duty if I did not share those with you so that, again, as we go through this conversation, we're generally trying to align the goals and objectives of the councils with this effort. So, in fact, the very reason we're doing this comprehensive development code update is because it is a specific goal of the council adopted in 2024. This is the fruit of that labor. So I think we'll work on that. But again, I just want to mention that it'll be helpful, I think, in your deliberations. Corey, back to you, sir. Thank you. No worries. Thank you. I'm going to mute now.

Alrighty. Commission, do we have any thoughts on that? Our second question is in a relatively similar vein, so perhaps we can just open the floor to discussion on both, since it does also apply to beautification of the private realm and responsibilities on the property owner, realistically speaking.

Well, just to start the brainstorming session here, Do we have, I guess where my brain is, do we have an actual issue with infill coming in for housing? Do we want to, instead of, do we really, in the application, have a need to carrot or draw in developers to do infill housing that were, because that would be the desire to fill in where there are voids throughout the city. But additional requirements for beautification, of course, but not at the expense of leaving a bunch of empty lots that are peppered through the city. So I don't know if that's too scrambled.

I'm confused. I'm confused with that. Okay.

So if we have for the infill, Let's say we have a requirement for infill that they're required to adopt a new landscape standard for the infill housing only. Developers would say, well fine, I don't need to do infill housing, I'll just go on the outskirts, and I don't have to comply with that. So you want to, but we do want to have developers, ideally, do infill housing. You know, voids throughout the residential area, so we kind of in some way and aspect want to draw them in to, you know, carrot them in, but we do want to,

The biggest problem I've seen with infill is A lot of these developers are buying garbage lots and then they want us, the city, to make concessions so that they don't have to put out the money to properly excavate over X backfill drainage. There's a number of issues that we've already seen it a couple of times here where they've requested 25, 20 foot setbacks instead of the standard 50 foot setbacks because they don't want They don't want to provide the mechanism to put the house properly where it belongs because there's an issue. They bought a lot that drops off in the back or there's, I know the one, I recall the one up off of Buckthorn had three drainage courses coming into it, which put the impact on the neighboring uh... properties which is going to turn into a civil matter down the road uh... that that's what i see mostly for the infill i don't think there's a big problem with trying to on what you said as far as uh... setting up its own requirements i don't think that that would be the goal at least not for me if uh... if it's an infill if it meets the criteria but when they come in and start asking for concessions then That's where I immediately put up my wall or flags on how this gets done because of the impact it would have to the city itself and or to their neighbors.

Right, because we don't want to give concessions, but we'd like to entice developers to do infill if we can.

Sure, but they have to meet the criteria. Absolutely.

Yeah, like the one you're talking about. Yeah, that was an interesting meeting. Yes.

I think there's a few that get missed like that. Possibly it would be one that may have gotten missed through, you know, I don't want to throw anybody under the bus, but in review, that's where you get those things missed. But, I mean, overall from what I've seen, they do a pretty good job at making sure that mitigation measures for drainage and whatnot is pretty – In my experience, they've been pretty on top of that. But I agree with you. I've seen many where it's kind of like, man, why didn't we do something about that?

Yeah. And a lot of times you'd get the developer that you knew as soon as he came to the table. He had bought a lot that just nobody wanted because they weren't going to put the money into it. And then he wanted to blame the city for not cooperating and or, you know, allowing his conditions to happen. Those were the cheaper lots. Yeah, exactly. I won't name names either, but I know.

The good lots are few and far between. Exactly. To clarify, I think. What everybody needs to understand is there's a difference between the infill builders and the developers, I guess, as you could call it.

Sure.

The infill builders are, I would say, a small group of individuals or general contractors that that's what they focus on is infill lots. And then you have your larger developers, your, you know, the Silverwood, Katie Holmes, you know. Developers like that that are developing tracks and I think Separating those two distinctly is something that should be looked at in my opinion Which we somewhat do now but You know looking at number two, I don't I don't see a reason why You know entertaining some sort of a landscape minimal, you know because the problem is Just pertaining to the infill lots, we're trying to build affordable housing, but yet it's not getting any cheaper to build. Fees, costs, labor, everything is up. But if there was a way to... talking about incentivizing right incentivizing the builder to do a minimal cost landscape in the front to where the aesthetic so it spruces up the neighborhood a little bit because if you drive through the neighborhoods and the infield areas people just can't afford it so on the new construction it might be it might be something to consider I don't know what the number is and I don't know how, you know, maybe there's some sort of a credit on, um, you know, plan review or somewhere in there we're able to manipulate something to where if they do some sort of a minimal landscape, um, and then obviously we'd have to come up with guidelines on what that is. You know, we don't want a bunch of water runoff or whatever. Right. So, um, yeah, I think, I think that's something to look at. Uh, There's probably a bunch more, but the thing with the master plan, I don't know if we're going to end up with too many more master plans out there. We don't have... I think we're running out of real estate, but with the master plan developments, if there's anything maybe smaller than Silverwood, and I know that ship has sailed already, but the lots... created on the outskirts of the development, I think should reflect what they're adjacent to. Because they're interior streets, then you're in a whole nother world. You're in a whole nother area per se. But on the backside of it, you're butting up against. So we have, I don't know, Ryan, you might know how big the lots are, like, you know, butting up against the rural areas of Hesperia or uh, lost floors. Those lots are really small in the development, but the lots on the outside are five acre lots.

Right. So the minimum on the perimeter is 18,000. The internal lots are about five to six.

Yeah. So blending that, I think might, you know, those neighbors, you know, they're on five acre lot and then you have an 18,000 acre lot right next to you. Right. Um, I don't know if that's something that anybody really cares about, but it's something I think about. Number three, these are just like the initial things that jump out to me. You know, you drive up Rock Springs, turns into Roundup. And off to the left, there's like a Deserata, another older Deserata house. And it's bright teal green. I don't know if anybody's seen it. Oh, yeah. But I think if we're going to get into the architecture side of it, I think that we need to have something. You know, I mean, I've seen it on the Mesa, seen it all over in the infield areas. You come across somebody that's got a house that's purple next to everyone that has a common color. I wouldn't want to put a bunch of restrictions on colors, but at the same time, we may be able to identify nuisance colors, I guess. Kind of like, I think we touched on this a while back when it was the containers. You guys remember that? And we had addressed the colors of the containers.

And, um, yeah, right.

Yeah. Yeah. To blend in more. We don't, yeah. I don't think anybody, you know, except for the guy that wants to paint a bright orange, you know? So I don't know. That's something that I would consider. I think so.

Yeah, some additional context for that third question. The city's single-family architectural design guidelines right now are pretty permissive. It is primarily related to sticking to a single architectural theme for a given house, but it is in no way instructing what that theme should be. They're like a blanketed CC&R, right? Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah, so as long as it is, the language right now is probably more a relic of the county's code, if I had to guess. But yeah, it uses very loose language that is up for a lot of interpretation. And of course, for multifamily housing, objective design guidelines are required by the state so that it cannot be a discretionary review process. So there's a little bit more flexibility on the single family side of things, but this obviously does come down to kind of that core question of private property rights versus the city's interest in creating an aesthetically pleasing and beautiful community from a consensus perspective, I guess. Maybe not consensus, but majority perspective. So not an easy question, and I know strong opinions on all sides.

Pertaining to the landscape and the HOAs for tracks, kind of like what Ryan was saying, I don't know what the number would be either, but before I go there, where does the, and excuse me for not knowing this, but where does the money come for HRPD to maintain all the landscaping in the tracks that are put in?

So they establish a CFD, and then ultimately each one of the homes pays an annual tax.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. I remember that now.

Okay. Do we have, from the city standpoint, on that, any follow-up with that? Any... because obviously we're involved with the overall process in the development of the homes. But I know, I think I had the conversation last time we had the meeting with a couple, that there was a number of these uh... tracks that never ever developed the lighting landscaping district fees structure and i didn't know who developed those fees initially because we as a city uh... did not get the information on that and i was called when i was public works uh... the director the impact we were getting the calls for the maintenance on those and then the rec and park said We didn't have an agreement with that. It was never signed. It was never this. So some of those tracks, the outlying areas look terrible and not being maintained and the irrigation was never established. So it's just death, dead grass or just weeds and stuff in those areas. I think when we were talking the section down off of Maple down towards Farmington and stuff and some of those areas. So those were never established so there was no follow through from either the city or Rec and Parks at that time and I don't think it was ever resolved. If I'm that I know of, maybe since, but I really doubt it. So who would have the follow-up, because we're talking about it, but if it's not the HOA being established then, and it is, we can blame Reckon Parks for the follow-up and the maintenance and so forth as it being done, and I know we've gone round and round with, and you mentioned the pocket parks, and some of that stuff, which again, was part of the requirement of the development at the time, but then it was turned over to Rec and Parks, even though most of the pocket parks, a lot of the pocket parks, were in the low flow area that were turned into retention basins. where the equipment during a storm, rainstorm stuff, the park equipment would be underwater and the kids couldn't, you know, the basketball courts, you could swim over to the basketball net maybe, but you couldn't use it. So, you know, and those, again, that was, I'm sure part of the original development agreement and even to the point that some of these we had requested for them to drill for wells in there to establish a secondary source of water as an impact. So I see where we talk about it and with some of the things we strive to do, but it still comes back to who's handling it And is it being followed through in the process after all these years? I would pretty much say probably not. So from that end of it. So just kind of a... you know, a part of what I see that we're talking about it, but is it really gonna happen?

I agree. Mr. Chair, if I may. Who's policing it? You're asking an operational question that I think is due an answer. I'd like to come back to the commission at a later meeting with a little bit more information on how that division of labor exists today. That's a question I'd like to know as well, an answer I'd like to know as well. And so we can, I mean, Ryan's provided a quick overview of the lighting and landscape assessment managed by HRPD, but where is that codified? Is it in our muni code? I can provide an update. I'll do that specifically. I'll provide an update to the commission. So that if we do determine, there's a point here, that if we do determine there is a gap or deficiency in that area of responsibility between us and the HRPD, that if this is the mechanism by which we can fix that, great. Perhaps the commission can address that. If it's not, then that's something else that we can discuss at a staff or a city level about how we go about working with HRPD to improve that. But I hear the question, And if you allow us, we'll do a little bit more homework on that and bring you back to the commission.

Absolutely. So piggybacking on that, because I like the idea of having the tracks have to have a pocket park. So if they are doing a 20-lot track, subdivision, whatever you want to call it, they're going to have 19 or minus retention basin, too. So then they got 18 buildable lots. One's a retention. One's a pocket park. I think it's a great idea. But with Dale, I agree with Dale and that information will help. But let's just say that we decide, and I don't even know if it's a possibility, that that's pulled from the parks and that money, that tax money goes elsewhere. for the parks or whatever that's probably a whole nother conversation but we make we implement the that they have an hoa so who who then holds them accountable because at some point you know 15 houses decide they're not going to pay and now the landscape's not being maintained then who's policing that because i mean i like the idea of policing the HOA? Yeah, who's policing the HOA to make sure that they're upkeeping the landscape, yeah. So, I mean, I like the idea of opening up funds for our parks, for our bigger parks, right? But then how does that all work on the backside if an HOA is running it? Especially for a smaller track, you know?

So typically the HOA would be established through CC&Rs that are recorded, and then there would be other documents as well, but they establish themselves through recorded documents, CC&Rs namely, and it outlines their powers and responsibilities. Typically the HOA is responsible for the enforcement of those CC&Rs. The city's obligation would just be to ensure that that's being implemented.

And so if they don't, then what?

Yeah, I mean, there's a question of what...

I've seen where an HOA goes defunct and it reverts back to the city. But in the language of the original entitlement, that is described. So there's a mechanism. So again, if we lack that, let's discuss that. So that if you are interested in establishing an HOA, we also have a backstop that if it fails, somebody, whether it's us or HRPD, is required to step in and to collect, to levy and to collect those assessment districts for ongoing maintenance and operations. But again, we can do more research on that and bring it back to that.

So if we had, let's just say that happened and we as a city decided that we were gonna take it, right? Then how do we recoup that money if we gotta step in and maintain?

Yeah, I think one of the questions I need to better understand or answers I need to better understand is do we even have that authority? Is that actually the jurisdiction and the responsibility and the authority of HRPD? Or do we have any space to participate in that? That's what I need to better understand. I don't clearly know the division of labor between the two jurisdictions in this specific issue. Yeah.

Good discussion.

It turned into the conversation I wanted to have. Thank you. The question is basically the question. Should the city consider additional requirements for. Housing tracks short answer. Yes. At what level? That's what we're doing right now. Perfect. Yeah, I just see issues. Is there current language right now that the city has with HOAs, and is it strong enough to support the expansion of future HOAs if HOAs are required on 2050, 100s? Does that need to be bolstered before putting the HOA requirement ahead? At what level? Management, that issue came up, the grievance processes possibly. Code enforcement currently could do the job, right? Individuals could keep those areas clean. Big developments, yeah, I could see that becoming a problem in 15 and 20 years. Everybody wants to develop. We have to consider what's the public interest in HOAs. I get a lot of, I look a lot, and there's a lot of people that specifically move to areas that are not HOA on purpose. So that's something to be careful about. When it comes to single family homes, the infill, adding additional requirements to make them look very blocky and cookie cutter I think would be a bad idea. We need to make sure to allow for creativity and artistic design within reason. The goal to beautify the city I think can be met without an HOA through code enforcement and proper oversight of HRP.

Thank you. Sorry I was late. Been a hectic week. So I missed most of your presentation, but I have some thoughts. The city of Asperry is the only city in the high desert that does not require landscape plans for the front of single family dwellings, new development. That might be something the city might want to consider. Atalanta requires them for a single family home, new construction. Apple Valley requires them, and so does Victorville. I would think that if someone buys a home with nice landscaping already in front, a brand new home, then they'd be probably to their benefit to keep those up. I haven't heard anything in the United States, but maybe I'm wrong, but I know in Europe, particularly Germany, People are heavily fined, heavily, heavily fined for not keeping both their front yards and their back yards in order. Fear of clutter and free of garbage. I don't know if the city wants to take that heart of a look or decision in creating some kind of... violation through code enforcement of cleanliness and garbage and clutter and dead landscaping. With regards to the Sperry Recreation and Parks District, they require A full set of landscape plans for all of the offsite to include the drainage easement or basin for any track developments or apartments or homes. They take an exorbitant amount of money from the developer every year so that they can maintain those features offsite landscaping. Onsite landscaping plans is what the city requires. for those developments and the two shall not meet. I have not seen anything in writing that says that the park districts has to notify the city if the developer didn't sign an agreement with them for the offsite maintenance of lighting and landscaping and the basin, drainage basin. So you might want to consider putting some teeth in that area. There are situations where the Parks District has made their own separate agreements differing from their standard annexation agreements with developers. It happened with Bruno's project for the apartments across the street from the Super Target Center. I believe it happened with Randy Davis's apartments on E Avenue. The Parks District and the city, I don't think they communicate very well. There's been a lot of contention. They have authority over this area, which is a shame, because now you have a developer that has to do two sets of landscape plans. That's been my complaint for years. Then nowhere else in Southern California is that required. But in the city of Hesperia, there is. The small, tiny city of Hesperia. If we're talking... and I don't know if this is the time to bring it up, but I would like to see our landscape development guidelines changed. I think we require too many plants, too many trees, too close of spacing, and I'd like to recommend that the city consider a discussion on cutting all of the landscape requirements in half, not only due to saving water, but saving the amount of future landscape maintenance that's required. I'd like to suggest that the Planning Commission and the staff take a site visit to Silverwood Development so that they can clearly see that our landscape requirements are overabundant, and now the maintenance issue is gonna be a big problem, and it's gonna be costly for Silverwood. All those plants and trees that were planted on the parkway leading to the visitor center, They've only been there a couple of years. They've fully overgrown over the sidewalk, onto the street, and some of these plants have thorns. They're not particularly conducive to somebody riding a bicycle or walking and not having a trip hazard or a cut hazard in its way. I can't imagine what their water bill is like for having to water twice the amount of plants than they actually need. If you look at our plant schedule, most of the plants, and we could do further analysis if you want, every plant has a size at maturity. And because most of these plants that are allowed on our plan schedule have the requirement to be spaced too close together, they're continuously being chopped to death and not being able to grow to full size, which would easily accommodate the landscape look that you want in our city rather than what you see today and that is every bush cut into a lollipop not being able to fully grow fully bloom and give the beautiful effect that nature intended it to do same with trees i don't know if you remember although this was in victorville when the first walmart went up on balsam and bear valley and then walmart moved out and you saw that empty box there, but the trees, particularly the Arizona trees that they parked in the parking lot, beautiful umbrella trees, they grew to a size that you couldn't even drive your car under anymore. Amazon came in and cut them all down and took them all out. So I think we need to really look at our landscape ordinance and be a champion in the state of California for bringing the proper landscape requirements to these developments. We're in the desert. Nobody expects to see Orange County up here. But you drive through Silverwood and you have it. It's Disneyland on day one. It's unrealistic. It's a maintenance nuisance and it's over-watering to the point where we don't have any water in the state of California. The whole western part, west of the Rockies is drying up. So now is a great time to look into that. With regards to architectural elements and features for single family design guidelines, I tend to agree with my commissioner that I think it's a stretch to say, you know, brown, beige, light blue, that's about the only thing you have in choice of colors for houses. I'm not necessarily thrilled with, although somehow I don't remember that conversation about colors of storage containers, but I surely remember when a certain council member were around, they allowed these storage units to grow to two or three levels in a single family house. I wouldn't want to be the neighbor of somebody who put it up a garage that was three stories tall. on the back setback line, rear setback line. A lot of that happened in this town and it looks ugly. With regards to housing tracks, I don't see how you can make them any more better. Right now, the planning department has strict guidelines on open space, extra parking, personal storage space, covered or garage space. Most of the people, I don't know, I mean, I'm always amazed when I drive around different cities and even different states that you go through these beautiful neighborhoods and nobody's in the street. No kids are playing. Nobody's walking around. So in my opinion, sometimes The restrictions or the guidelines for big developments are overdone. Too many pocket parks. People don't get out there and use them. They stay in their backyards or they stay at home. Or they go out into the city. So I don't know if we need any more. I think that from an engineering standpoint, the way we require drainage basins to be designed is You drive around the city and you see some of these developments and you see an ugly drainage basin filled with tumbleweeds and garbage that's maybe cleaned out once or every one, two or three years. But yet if engineering says, okay, you don't want to do a drainage basin, you have to do underground storage, water retention. And the way they calculate that, it's overkill. No way is it not much needed.

I don't know what else.

But those are my, did I miss something? An area that I missed that you presented?

No, you came in just on time for the discussion portion. those are my comments thank you thank you so much uh any other comments questions from the commission we have a couple more questions for us to discuss they're a little bit more broad um but again a jumping off point i did want to bring it oh i did want to bring up we talked about metal buildings yes uh the metal building can you help us understand where that comes from because um

As we have this discussion, or these discussions, we have different populations up here. We have affordable housing, which we work to strive for, but we have many of the long-time residents that that enjoy affordable housing. And so as an example, to have a metal building, a quick assembly, come get a permit, put it in your backyard to have a simple garage or something, some of those are some of the things that the current residents can partake in. So being mindful of that is a cost not to hurt our citizens, but can you elaborate on the whole concept of the metal buildings for residential and commercial and such?

So in terms of the metal buildings, one of the things we're looking at is what Sophie kind of alluded to, or I'm sorry, Commissioner Steno alluded to, which is some of the setbacks for the metal buildings and the potential to have increased setbacks for metal buildings versus non-metal buildings. In addition, we're looking at potential whether metal buildings, particularly metal butler buildings should be allowed in commercial zones and in the industrial zones. Oftentimes we would like to see those metal buildings, the metal be an architectural feature of the building but it not be a true metal butler building without any architectural features. In the industrial zones, we'll often ask for certain amenities to those industrial buildings but they're commonly proposed in commercial zones. and our design guidelines discourage metal buildings in the commercial zones, but we'd like to put a little bit more teeth into the development code and explore looking at restricting metal buildings in the commercial zones, not the use of metal itself. The use of metal as an architectural element and feature is something that we would strongly support. but it's the just metal buildings, and if we are using metal buildings, looking at architectural design guidelines for the treatment of those metal buildings so that it's more than just a blank facade with a metal butler building.

Right, and to expand for some that may not know the term butler, butler building we're talking uh a rectangular block that has no architectural feature whatsoever that typically is painted one color uh right it's white gray or tan right and it's uh just a very simple building but that these are coming in and new developments the we're not talking about adjusting any of the non-conforming use or the ones that are already existing we're talking but ideally these butler buildings would come in and look like some of the the Butler buildings that were built in the 80s as an example, and I understand, okay.

Okay, we'll move on to the next slide, just because our discussion has migrated away from those previous three questions, which is exactly what we're here for. we want to go to our next kind of prompting question we can do so it's a slight pivot to short-term rentals it was something we had mentioned as part of the slide deck and perhaps this question is maybe a little too pointed in its wording as shown on screen right now but I think more broadly the question could be asked is is there an appetite for Applying a little bit more oversight to short-term rentals. Currently, the code does not define short-term rental, so there is kind of a gap in how it is administered right now. Bed and breakfast is the nearest term, and I think by all accounts, that definition is pretty different from an Airbnb, you know, when we come to think of a, you know, home you are renting for an extended stay or even a shorter-term stay, of course, in a destination. The bed-and-breakfast definition requires that the home be the primary or, sorry, be occupied by the owner, where, of course, I think most of us who have used Airbnb or VRBO, any of those platforms, generally select homes not occupied by in tandem with the owner so by definition no longer a bed and breakfast really leaning more towards that short-term rental definition um so i think as a as a minimum the code will be addressing short-term rentals i think the broader question for the commission in the community is uh how far would the city like to take oversight and regulation um beyond you know maybe as a starting point what some neighboring jurisdictions have done. And I know that may be a pretty large question if we haven't looked previously at short-term rental regulations in nearby jurisdictions.

Could you guide our conversation a little bit more in that avenue? Because I don't know to help us brainstorm with that question.

Sure. so at recent maybe not as recent but at some of the council meetings approximately about a year ago there were a number of complaints about noise issues and homes being rented out for parties for instance um i believe our law enforcement has been citing a lot a lot of those a lot more frequently and i haven't heard of complaints recently at our city council hearing but But the use of the short-term rentals primarily, whenever it's associated with a short-term rental for any sort of party or noise complaints, that's where it's an issue. And so is there an appetite to, one, limit short-term rentals? Should the city allow them under very strict circumstances? And... or in some jurisdictions, short-term rentals also aren't allowed, and is that something that the commission would want to see?

Hold on. Some cities restrict the areas in which short-term rentals like Airbnbs can happen. They also take tax. So do we do that now?

Currently, we don't. So we would be looking at if they were allowed, it would require certainly a business license. A tax could be something that could be discussed.

Because they are a business. and bed and breakfast are currently assessed at transient occupancy tax, just like a hotel motel.

But not an Airbnb?

Correct, just it falls outside of what is currently defined in the city's code. So short-term rentals as a topic will be addressed. I can say almost without any questioning, it's really to the degree.

Well, I recommend that if all Airbnb registered owners be subject to both the business license and the transient tax. And typically how that works is that whoever they are on board with collects those in taxes and gives them to the cities and the county. County might want a piece of that too. I'm not quite sure how the city's relationship with the county is on that transient tax. That might be something you could look into. I haven't experienced any short-term rental issues. I don't even know if any exist around me, but I don't have many houses around me. um that's an interesting question and i don't know if we were to restrict where in the city we would allow that you know where do you pick you pick district one two three five you know that's kind of discriminatory um some cities also enforce a permit cap right so no more than oh yeah right 100 200 300 you know

How that number is decided is a slightly more extensive effort. But again, after our discussion for all of the topics we've addressed, this gives staff the opportunity and our project team to do some due diligence. So the next time we come before you to discuss these topics again, we have sample language for review that can help inform additional discussion on the topic.

I know of a very small city out of state that only restricts short-term rentals to a limited area within the city, but then I've also heard outside of that area that people rent out their homes. So I'm not sure how you would make all those regulations stick in other words.

Right, to enforce it. Right. But I mean, on top of that, I mean, you even just have not short-term rentals, but you have where, you know, I guess I'll say it, that, you know, you get traditionally you get people that own property. I'll just say it that way. that they have noise disturbances anyways. I have a neighbor down the street that almost every weekend till two or three in the morning and law enforcement's called and they come back again two or three weekends later. So whether it's short-term rental or not, it's still, noise is a big issue. I mean, we can all kind of agree, yeah, 10 o'clock, okay, not so welcome. Three o'clock in the morning, I gotta get up in two hours, dude. So, but yeah, something to think about. This is interesting to kind of think about.

Okay, perfect. At this point, we're pretty much opening the floor to any topics that we may have kind of glossed over during the presentation, or maybe as we were presenting that you noticed were potentially absent from our list. Again, as Andrew mentioned, not totally comprehensive. It was the topic staff have daylighted. In our project team setting, we have reached out to code enforcement to make sure we're reflecting what they have kind of in front of them, but that's an ongoing discussion. So at this point, if there are any other items that are of particular interest to you that may have been brought up recently or are just a topic you're passionate or interested in, we are all ears at this point.

Well, it's a two-sided blade. In the business architectural that we're in, when we bring a project that has to go through planning department for entitlements, in this city in particular, I find it lacking on the engineering side the exact requirements for road development. and grading so for instance to keep it simple because I am simple I'm not the technical person if someone comes in with a site plan and planning is okay with that engineering really doesn't require much in the entitlement phase that Although they give their approval and we go through planning with an approved site plan, we find out at the permitting level, oh, that site layout's not going to work because your grading isn't proper and your drainage isn't proper and those street improvements that were approved are not going to work. You have to move your driveway. You have to move your building. Again, like I say, it's a double-edged knife because we don't want our clients to spend so much money at the entitlement stage, but then I don't want to be faced with an unhappy client to say, once I've had my planning approval, why didn't we know this beforehand? It's because engineering kind of gives a blanket, yeah, that'll work without ever really looking at a preliminary grading plan, WQMP and drainage study, and traffic, street improvements.

Okay, so looking from a more procedural perspective, making sure that there's communication between the necessary departments.

I always think there's a big disconnect between engineering and planning and building. Cities don't, I don't think I've met any one city that has all these departments working cohesively together.

That is absolutely something we can address through this update. Thank you.

There was a topic brought up earlier in the presentation regarding exotic animals. Could you expand on that a little bit more?

Yeah, so some of the agricultural properties, large properties, two acres or more, are allowed currently. some exotic animals through in some cases it's an exotic animal permit that is an administrative review in other cases there are animal allowances that are allowed that sometimes are very drastic in terms of the quantities for instance sometimes properties can qualify for for instance 500 chickens, the chickens are not distinguished between chickens and roosters. So now if there's 500 roosters, that is potentially a big complaint. But that's not distinguished in the animal allowances. There's other types of animals that are also allowed in the heavy agricultural zones that lead more towards the uses that may be a little antiquated. Things like butchering on site within an agricultural zone, livestock raising and things like that in certain properties that maybe one acre that today is largely more rural residential and not so heavy agricultural. But those are some of the animal allowances we're looking at. We also have a zoo in Hesperia that has tigers and bears and all kinds of things that was permitted under the exotic animal permit.

Thank you, so are you looking at changing requirements in the current code to kind of identify what qualifies as an exotic animal so that way you can limit the roosters that are on one acre lots next to people that don't want to live on a farm?

Correct, so it's not necessarily to take away those, it's to just look at the quantities, number one, and two, if it's an exotic animal permit, what is the mechanism for approval? Potentially it's more of a planning commission level approval, potentially, or something that's more robustly noticed, for instance. If someone were to have a tiger on their property, it should probably go through a pretty extensive noticing requirement. Those are things that we'll be looking at in the code, and we'll have side-by-side comparisons of what's currently allowed versus whether this is proposed or this is what we're proposing in the code. You'll see side-by-side comparisons at some point.

They may not be considered exotic, but roosters, goats, things like that that are typically regularly making noise that are allowed on lots that are one acre. If you guys are going to look into some consideration on that, it is. It does change somebody's neighborhood that had peace and quiet in the morning, drinks coffee in the backyard, and now they're listening to a farm next door. So some of those things could be brought up even though they're not exotic. Lot size, consideration of neighbors, things like that with animals that regularly produce noise. And then you said something earlier too about some public engagement being offered in the next steps going forward, stakeholder meetings in the commercial industrial sector and then as well in the residential sector. I believe you described it as a residential focus group. My interest is how is the public gonna be engaged and notified and who is gonna be able to qualify to be in that residential focus group?

So right now, we've kind of limited our scope to specifically with these stakeholder sessions. They're more roundtables with active developers, real estate representatives, brokers, et cetera, people more on the supply side rather than on the consumer general population side. We are primarily leveraging our planning commission workshops and as our open, everyone is welcome to participate. No requirement relationship or affiliation with a professional entity. Really, in any respect, this is for every member of the Hesperia community. Those are supposed to be, sorry, the stakeholder sessions are supposed to be a little bit more targeted. We're asking a little bit more nuanced questions, starting to get into topics like permit processing, looking more from the feasibility perspective, market demand perspective, making sure that as staff are making changes to the code, the development community is aware, and while we're certainly not in the business of making the development community aware, you know, kowtowing to their demands, making sure that there is not a disconnect between what can happen and what should happen versus what will happen. So that is kind of their realm for engagement, so to speak. It's not intended to be a open to the public affair, but as part of each of our outreach components, we are bringing back, you know, report outs on each session. So there's going to be a, you know, brief summary, key takeaways from this meeting, There's gonna be brief summary key takeaways from the next community meeting, and we're gonna have that similar documentation for each of our stakeholder sessions. So while that discussion may not be open to the public, the information that comes out of it certainly is. It will all be available at worst case scenario through a Public Records Act request. So it's gonna be documented, but we certainly wanna make sure that it's available before that, right?

Thank you for the clarification.

Just to add to that as well, we're in the process of creating a webpage right now at the moment as well, which will contain links for where you can submit your questions to, your comments to. It's gonna contain some information. This PowerPoint tonight will be on that webpage. All the future PowerPoints, the drafts of the development code amendment are all gonna be on the webpage. And we're also looking at putting out a survey, similar to what we did for our general plan amendment. When we did the survey, it was pretty well received in terms of the responses that we received. So if I recall, it was around 350 responses we received from the survey. So we'll be doing something very similar, and that'll be advertised on our social media websites as well, so to get the kind of community outreach out.

I appreciate that. Thank you. My final question is just food for thought on the conversation when it comes to short-term usage. The discussion earlier around HOAs and those requirements, right? At what level should an HOA be required? Think about how those... Think about how those two things tie in. Oftentimes short-term uses are focused in recreation, areas that maybe attract development, could attract. I know Silverwood right now is putting amphitheaters and parks and beautiful things that people might want to get into a short-term use just to go participate. So with that short-term usage and those considerations, what regulations in those HOAs eliminate short-term uses, and how would future HOA requirements be sort of crafted to allow that zoned or permitted short-term use in the future?

Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you.

I'd like to go back, I'm sorry, to go back on the permitting side. Sure. So we've also, I've been waiting for City of Eastbury to go online with planned submittals. That hasn't happened yet. Yeah, I keep hearing that. Christmas is coming, too. So one of the problems we run into, it's a little difficult to manage, is the city of Visperia will not accept construction documents for plan check, first time plan check, unless we've submitted our first complete package for plan check to engineering. Why? Well, the reason I was told is because our construction documents get approved a lot sooner than the engineering drawings do. And therefore, we have to keep going back to building and safety, asking for extensions on the approved construction documents in order to allow the enormous amount of time it takes engineering to do plan check. Whose fault that is? Both. City's engineers and the project engineers. The two don't meet very well. So my other complaint is in the permitting side, the only, although the building department has gotten better and so has engineering, instead of just giving you a call that a plan might be approved or corrections waiting to be picked up, we now get an email That's very nice because sometimes we miss calls and you only get one call. That's it. The city never follows up. Hey, I have these corrections sitting here. They've been here for three weeks. No one's come by. I've given you one message. Here's my second message. Seems to be a high turnover in building and safety department. Every time I come in, I see a new person. Kind of strange. Trying to think of what else on the permitting side. Edison requires for larger developments that you start your engineering application with them early, yet the cities and the counties don't address, well, the county's a little better than the cities, signing an address until you've submitted plans to building and safety, which means you have to wait until you've gone through planning. Well, in the architectural world, you have to apply to Edison at the same time that you start applying to the city planning department, because Edison takes an enormous amount of time. So waiting for an address assignment when we spent two years in planning to get an address assignment so that we can file our first application with Edison is highly inefficient. Let's see what else. I think from the permitting side, I might have more input. I can send that to you and save it for the next meeting. But there are some deficiencies in the permitting process. The fact that you do not know what your full fees are until you submit a full set of engineering drawings and construction documents is misleading, or not misleading, it's inefficient because developers would like to know what their costs are going to be earlier than later so once we go through planning with a site plan we know the size of the building we know the preliminary floor plan layout but we don't have mechanical electrical and plumbing drawings in place but we sure know how many urinals and sinks and fountains and kitchen hookups you have from the preliminary floor plans, yet I can't get any kind of estimate for development fees or permit fees or any other fees it would take to go through the permitting process to get a permit in hand. Again, until the full set of construction documents and full set of engineering drawings are prepared. The best answer I get from the city is a link to the fees. That's a large document which takes you through so many fees that it is incomprehensible that the city would expect anyone outside of the city to be able to match to a particular project's needs. So we guesstimate. You know, I tell people, you're interested in a commercial project, you better come with two to $300,000 to the table just to get through planning. And to go through building and safety, you better add another couple hundred thousand more. Are you in the ballgame? Do you still want to develop? And then you see a lot of people, their eyes get really big and then they have no idea. They have no idea. Because they can't get a clear picture from the beginning.

If I may, Mr chair, just briefly address that, because as the new director, that is actually something that has been a concern to me in terms of just providing a more robust early. Development impact fee or fee estimate. We actually have had a series of meetings internally. to better define, well, to better process fee estimates. And so we're getting better at it. We'll continue to get better at it. I welcome those comments more so from an organizational or operational perspective. And to that point, I was going to ask you, as you shared your comments with Corey and Ryan, please also CC me. Because some of these things I think we can pick off. Right so it doesn't necessarily maybe it does. It doesn't necessarily have to go through this process. We don't have to wait the 1218 months for a comprehensive development code update. To get better at fee estimates, for example, right? So, um, I hear I hear you, Madam Vice chair. I appreciate the comment. Uh, we are doing better. I am a big fan, especially from wearing my economic development hat for many, many years. That I want our applicants to have as much information as possible up front so that they can make an informed business decision. Not only if they're going to select Hesperia, but importantly, what site they're going to select, how they're going to build their building, and et cetera, et cetera. And so, yeah, that's an important consideration for us as well.

Well, you know, it leans also to another benefit to the city possibly, and that is the cost of processing applications through the city are really not terrible. City of Atalanta, you go with a commercial project, you're looking at three or four times the cost for the same applications that the city has. I have a client in Atalanta who spent... over half a million dollars and still hasn't been able to pull a permit. I had one four years ago who built a gas station in, what do they call it? They call it the second Burbank over there off the 14. He spent over $450,000 before he could turn a shovel on a gas station project. And that was four or five years ago. it might entice developers a little bit if they had friendly, user-friendly way of knowing exactly how much it's going to cost to come into the city to develop. And they might find out, hey, it's pretty affordable.

And our fee estimates include not just the impact fees, but all of the permit fees, including sewer fees, including some of the other fees.

Well, and plus you can always put your caveat because- It's an estimate, and you have to say, these fees might change at any time.

So it's today's. Yeah, today's price.

Right, okay. Well, I'd be glad to sit on a subcommittee for that to help.

To kind of echo.

Yeah, I agree with that. It's very, very, not to cut you off, Ryan, I'm sorry. It is very, very, very difficult to figure out what the fees are. She's in the business. We've dealt with it for years. I know a lot of other people have too. going on there and trying to figure it out you just give up it's nearly impossible to figure it out they're there they're there and if you had the time the resource to figure it out um so i would agree with that and then streamlining the the permitting process i'm not exactly sure how um, Orlando and I have talked about it quite a bit, um, short of standing behind the counter in there and like seeing how the process goes. I'm not sure, you know, you drop a set of plans off and you don't know when they get started on them for one. So you drop a set of plans off. It could be a week or two, maybe. And I, I don't ever want to complain about anything or bring any of this stuff up without a solution, so I don't really know yet. But just for that particular one, it could be as easy as whatever planner picks that up and pulls it off the shelf, he sends an email. Okay, now we know that we're on the clock. Great.

We actually, and again, I know we're a little off topic, but it's informative to the conversation. We are in the Tyler What is an enterprise software? Through the Tyler process. We're in the implementation phase. We're doing validation right now just to kind of give you a behind the scenes look at what we're trying to accomplish. We hope to go live with Tyler late 26, early 27. It will have those bells and whistles that it will be more informative and communicative with the applicant. Mayor Mrakas, And, and that again is actually another goal of the Council it's a part of the goals and and objectives of the strategic plan to improve. Mayor Mrakas, Technology to better assist our residents and our customers at the counter and so. Mayor Mrakas, we're seeing that live and in action and maybe at the next meeting, we can provide a little bit more information so that you all understand. how we are trying to improve our processes and be better efficient and be better communicative with our applicants. We can provide an update on that as well.

Yeah.

Sorry, Ryan.

Well, if you stick a lot of these questions, if I were to stick the city's current fee schedule into an AI program and ask it questions, It's very informative. Of course, then I'd have to go over like two or three different AI platforms to make sure that I'm getting the right answer. But what we're asking people to do, AI can do like this. So if you feed it the right information.

I was just going to add that, well, a couple of these topics might not be directly related to the development code update. We're not going to be able to fix the fee schedule in the development code update. It is still pertinent, as Orlando mentioned, and the overarching goal of this development code update is to improve the process, improve the efficiency, but to make it more user-friendly for customers. So things like the user fee schedule, we certainly welcome those comments, and we'll work on those.

Okay. Any additional comments, questions, topics that we did not address tonight that should be on our radars as we move forward? Not necessarily for prolonged discussion, but even if it's a fleeting thought, we'll take note and come prepared to discuss it at a future session.

Just to, real short, to kind of bounce off of Commissioner Amon talking about animals, because we, you know, here in the high desert, we have, again, we have the older, you know, the residents have been here a long time that are used to, and lots that have had goats and so on in the more agricultural areas, and then development moves in. and then there's kind of a little bit of a disparity, so that might be something also to consider, you know, how to make that mesh with the current residents so that they're not all of a sudden having to get rid of their animals, some kind of a informative to them, but I agree, if you're in a development, because as far as I know, and I could be wrong, but I know where I live, the code is clear, like what kind of animals you're allowed, because I live on a half acre lot, so it kind of is a good breakdown, But is it not that way where it's a good breakdown throughout Asperia?

It currently does. It's just in some of those breakdowns, it's the allowances that are currently allowed. As I mentioned, it's the chickens, the roosters. It's the provision to have 1,000 doves on a property, for instance. Some of those are a little antiquated, perhaps, things that we'll be looking at. But obviously, your input on all of that is going to be important.

Right. Okay. All right. Thank you.

That's all I had. I remember years ago when we did that, you had this room overfilled. Just be prepared. I'm aware.

Okay. Yeah, because, I mean, the same goes for the guy that has the animals, right? Like, he moved here for that reason. Absolutely. There's a lot of that. But, I mean, I agree, like, if there's not a provision in there for – The roosters are more of the annoyance than the hens, I would say.

Absolutely.

But yeah, I think if there's not language in there, it's just like the color of the houses. If there's not some language in there, then that's what you're going to get.

But there is language in some of it, is there not, from, I'm going back when I bought up here, and I can remember when I bought the property, the little lady that handled it for Al Arnold, Amy Maybe, neat little lady, but she scolded me immediately, I was just joking about putting some pigs on my property, and she scolded me, it's not permitted, So I don't think, because mine was only, it was a half acre, but it was only the 18,000, whatever they call that half acre, wasn't the true 21 plus stuff. And I guess it was a stipulation when I bought the property. I could put pigs on there, but just kind of, so I thought there was some righting. Of course, that was under county, so I don't know if there was anything adopted or transferred in that, because I had a horse and I had two goats, I didn't have a pig, but I did have some rabbits at the one time, so.

Does a half acre still allow one horse, or am I wrong on that?

I'm sorry, what?

Does a half acre still allow one horse?

19,000 square foot lots and larger would allow for a horse.

There you go. And 20,000 allows for two. Okay. So 19 is one, 20,000 is two. Correct.

Okay, that's what I vaguely recalled, so.

And one of these workshops will also have a side-by-side, not even a side-by-side, but a table of what's currently allowed, and so we'll be having a discussion like this in one of our future workshops as well.

I know it's late, but I do have another question, because I think it's going to the heart of what the Commission is asking. Corey and Ryan, can you talk about as we grapple with these issues, as the Commission grapples with these issues, the difference between legal non-conforming uses and proposed changes to the code, how do we navigate that, right? Because it sounds to me like some of the concern may be, and again, if I speak incorrectly, correct me, we may not want to touch some of these long-established uses existing. But for future development, perhaps we are interested in limiting certain uses, certain allowances. Can you talk a little bit about that, Corey or Ryan?

In terms of those non-conforming uses, that's actually a chapter in and of itself that will be cleaned up in our development code just to make it a little bit more clear. Some of the language that's in there now I think was actually taken from the original county code. It's a little confusing and one would probably have to be an attorney to fully understand some of it. So we just want to clean that up. But the second part to the question, in terms of grandfathering in, typically when you change the code and if someone already had something that's allowed today and if it were to change in the future and it becomes more restrictive and it wouldn't be allowed in the future, they would be grandfathered in and so they'd be able to maintain that, whatever that non-conforming provision was. until the use of that property typically changes. So if they sold the property, then the future property owners wouldn't get the same provision.

And so I hope that's helpful for the commission too, because you're not going to necessarily be undoing what people have long done. You would be potentially limiting or restricting what future people will do, right? And so you entered into the space, you bought this home, you learned as, I don't want to say Dale, Commissioner Dale, demonstrated about buying your home, knowing sort of the limitations or the... the allowances in that area or in that zoning designation. So you made a buyer's determination whether or not you wanted to move there, right? So I think that's important for the commission to consider. You're not gonna take necessarily We may, but we may not necessarily take roosters from people's yards, right? We're not in a communist country, right? So we're not going into people's yards and taking. But we could establish new standards for new uses that we would perhaps think is necessary.

Well, that's a slippery slope when it comes to animal ordinance because you're saying you change it, but people who have – let's say you change it to – and this is just an example. You allow two horses on a 20,000-square-foot lot. Now you're going to say, oh, that's only one. But if you have two, you can keep them. How are you going to enforce that? That doesn't make sense to me. I would also caution you that if you're going to change the quantity of a certain animal, you're going to be met with a lot of opposition because rising food costs and, you know, if people are allowed to have some animals that they need for, you know, producing eggs or, you know, making milk or producing cheese or even raising for meat, you know, to change that. No, I don't know if I'd want to touch all of that, but maybe you can bring forward what you're questioning is archaic.

Just to clarify, the intent's not to reduce things like horses or necessarily goats, more common animals. That's not the intent. It's the rare sections that allow for either what one could believe, what might be a very excessive quantity. As I mentioned, 500 chickens on a property may be a lot for some. Also, it's some of the exotic animal provisions that have very limited requirements for the permitting for that?

Yeah. Well, like I say, I would be curious. I would like to see those portions that you think need a review. Yeah. Because it's a pretty large ordinance.

It is. The intent is not to go from four horses to three or something like that. We're not really even looking at that. It's the very large, large quantities or those exotic animals.

How many chickens are allowed on a half acre lot?

It really depends on the zoning, but in some cases it could be, you said a half acre?

Yeah, like a just standard infield lot in the areas that we have.

Call it a 21,000 square foot lot. In some cases it could be, I believe, like in the neighborhood of, depending on the zoning, 50 to 100.

And that's the thing I want to emphasize, too, is Ryan says it depends on the zoning, right? So I think what we simply want to do is match the uses or the allowances with the land use. It may not make sense to have 500 of anything on a half acre lot, but perhaps larger quantities. And I mean, the code already allows for a scaling as lots increase. I think what we're just looking at is to just make sure that it's in alignment with land uses as well.

I don't know about anybody else, but I have a difficult time when I scroll online and look at the code zoning and the charts. One of the things that's, It's very difficult to find all the information in one place. Let's say I'm looking for what's allowed in R1, R2, or C1, C2, and I'm all of a sudden flipping through a chart where they have across the columns all the zones, and then your uses along the rows, and then as I'm flipping the screen, I lose control. Okay, which one was R1, R3? Because it's only represented once on the first line.

And Madam Vice Chair, Corey, can you go back to one of the early slides where we talked about the readability and improving that very issue? That's part of the goals and the objectives of this exercise.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I was late. No, no, that's okay.

That's okay. It's an important question, and so we want to make sure that you know that we're working on that. Corey?

Yeah, absolutely. So the final bullet four under the first comprehensive update larger title is really making sure that as we – are addressing each of these topical sections. We are migrating the existing language into its new location and making adjustments as necessary for legibility, for usability, so that even looking at tables for many of our sections and other figures that are descriptive, making sure that as you do flip from page to page or even consolidating, because in many cases, I think the tables are more verbose than they need to be. We can actually be more concise and tighten up through our definitions, making sure that it doesn't take three scrolls to get to the use you want.

And also, instead of just seeing the reference to a particular code when you're reading... A municipal code, when you're reading the development code, when you reference that municipal code, give me the link. Yes. So I can go directly to it. Now, otherwise, it's very, very cumbersome. Yes. To work you, okay.

All right, well, I'm glad you had that discussion. Part of the logistical challenge of updating development code comprehensively is that there's so much interconnectivity. There is. That as we, you know, we can have the first three chapters ready for review, but the links are dead. because it's pointing to the sixth chapter and just we haven't had literally the time to get there yet. So that's part of the challenge of a comprehensive review. So we're going to do our best to provide information as it is ready for review with the understanding that it is going to be a not insignificant task towards the end of this process where we are looking at all of these things in totality.

It's true. It's true. Where you make one new rule, you should take away 100 old ones. I agree.

Yeah, are you talking about the legislature? It'll be fun. But this was also mentioned before you arrived with each chapter or article that we are revising. There will be a summary sheet or a few sheets, most likely making sure that you are aware of the key, most notable changes. Again, we do not anticipate. extensive revision to every single section. We've mentioned 35 topics that are kind of at the top of our board right now, and so a lot of the rest is restructuring more than anything and then making it more concise.

Thank you. I'll look through your presentation. I apologize, I was late. Oh, that's okay.

Traffic was crazy today. All right. That is, I guess, going once.

Going twice?

Okay, we'll say sold. Thank you very much. In the past, we have, during the general plan, I know we did our formal comment period at the beginning of our session, but we ran the general plan meetings a little more flow, you know, go with the flow. I defer to the chair on reopening a potential public comment portion. I'm getting some glares. Um, but yeah, so I, you know, I want to invite our audience members if after watching this, they, they have any additional thoughts based also on, on commission comment, but I, again, refer to the dais.

All right. So legal as I, as I speak. So we'd like to reopen the public comment period. So I know that we had the public comment period. Do they need to fill out a white card to come up? We only have two members of the public here.

No, they don't need to fill out a white card. I would just remind the commission that you shouldn't respond or engage on any items that are brought up during public comment and that if it's something that comes before the commission at a later meeting to discuss, that you're welcome to discuss it at that later meeting.

Do they have a time limit of three minutes?

Yes.

Okay. So members of the public, you're welcome to come up and discuss. You do have a three-minute time period. And unfortunately, it's a legal matter that we have to adhere to the three minutes. Thank you. You're live. Am I live? Nope. I'm just going to talk kind of loud as much as possible.

Thank you for addressing the animal regulations issue. changed over the years, I know because I do check the zoning myself. A lot of people thank you, you know, basically because it is a They go, oh, check, here's the link for this, and you know, check for this. And it's very confusing. A lot of people don't know what they're checking. So as far as animals go, the question is, what's going to happen when there's properties that are over, you know, like if they have a horrendous amount of chickens or roosters, what's going to happen to those animals? Are they going to be impounded by animal control and euthanized? I can tell you for a fact they don't get rescued very often. home their animals. A lot of them do on social media, but what's going to happen to the animals if they do come up where they're over the limit? Are they going to be taken from them? Are they going to be given a chance to be home then? So that's something that hopefully that will be taken into consideration. That's definitely, that is a concern for me, being a member of the community, and I do tell people Thank you. Anyone else from the public like to speak? Can we get a name? The mic does not appear to be on in air.

Thank you, Levani.

In just two zones, the regional commercial, which is part of the main street freeway corridor specific plan, under the... Prior to the adoption of the new land use element, it was already at 25, so five increase. And for the commercial two C2 zone, it is now adding the capacity, sorry, the ability to do residential, where it previously did not. But that is the highest density in the city, and it's limited just to those two. Correct.

Yes, I think up to...

Yes, relatively speaking, yes. I think the height limit for C2 right now is 35 feet, which would be a maximum of three stories.

Yeah. It's essentially height.

Did everything turn off? No, just you. Sorry.

30 units an acre would be high density for sure. It allows for mixed use in a couple of the commercial corridors. That was already adopted last year. That was more of a mandate from the state. That was a requirement as a part of the housing element. The intent of this development code update is not to change any of those densities or to increase densities anywhere. It's just to talk about what's permitted in those zones, but we're not talking about the number of units that's already established in the general plan.

It was addressed through the general plan update, which included last year, the zoning analyze. that through this specific process but it was evaluated part of our sequa addendum so those documents are available if you'd like to review more extensively on the city's website under the planning division page but it was evaluated at the time it was considered for adoption so it has been it has been covered yeah

30 seconds.

We wouldn't be able to answer that. I don't know. Not without doing further research. Like what is the maximum water capacity we have for maximum number of units? I don't know.

We would invite you to look at our general plan. The city's general plan describes a 30, 50 year build out of the city. And in that, there's information on that. The general plan takes into account long-term water use as well.

Thank you very much. All right, so I think that's the end for public, so I'll go ahead and close the public comment period at 8.54. The second one.

Sorry, I do have one last slide. We have alluded to upcoming outreach, but I've got some dates for everybody just so we can get them on our calendars. members of the public. This information will also be available online and the city will be posting additional notifications to social media and through its normal notification channels. But we will be back before the commission twice in October. The first one on October 8th to discuss commercial and industrial land uses, so a bit more of a deep dive, similar to how we got into residential tonight. We're going to be welcoming more comment on the commercial and industrial topics, specifically with a few additional guiding questions. And then it seems like what could be a very popular meeting on the 22nd, getting into permitting and processing. We're also going to be joined by another member of the Placeworks team, Mark Teague. He's the principal in charge of this project and was also involved with the general plan update and is a zoning extraordinaire. You may have already met him at a planning commissioner's meeting. He does quite a few of those sessions. So when you see him walk in, you might recognize him. but he'll be joining us specifically for that session. We also have ongoing stakeholder meetings with some of our focus groups, as we mentioned. October 1st, we're meeting with the residential development community, and we are currently finalizing the date and time for our mid-October session with commercial and industrial development community, followed up in mid-November by working with the Chamber of Commerce and local businesses. And so that is just kind of the slate through the end of this calendar year, but we do anticipate having additional sessions as topics arise. I know there's a lot for our project team to discuss coming out of this meeting, how we can strategize to best make use of the meeting budget allowance we have as part of our project. So making sure we're getting back before you and the community multiple times before anything goes to a decision. And that is all we have for you tonight. Thank you.

Thank you so much, really appreciate all that dialogue coordination of this, what do you call it, herding cats. Appreciate it greatly, Corey. All right, so gonna go ahead and move on to planning division reports. Ryan Leonard.

I don't have any updates tonight. Just thank you to Placeworks, Corey, Andrew. Great job on the presentation tonight. And we look forward to future upcoming workshops similar to tonight. And we'll have one at our next Planning Commission meeting as well.

All right. Attorney report.

No specific report from me. I would reiterate that if any of the commissioners have questions, especially legal questions with respect to any of the components with the development code update or anything generally going before the city, please let me know, and I'd be happy to look into anything that you'd like me to.

Thank you so much. All right, director report.

Thank you. I think I've spoken plenty, but I do want to just remind the Commission as well, as Robert just alluded to, if you have any questions or comments. and you think we can do things better, reach out to me, and I'm happy to take those into consideration as well. Again, it doesn't have to wait for the comprehensive development code update to unveil. We can pick off some of these things that we've talked about tonight, but ongoing, if you have questions or concerns about the development process, the entitlement process, the permit process, fees, anything related to my department, I'm happy to help. And if I can't help you, I'll point you in the right direction. So please use me as a resource. That's all I have. Thank you.

All right, planning commissioners.

I'm good.

Also, I'm good. Thank you so much, staff. Great report. Place works. Excellent job as always.

I'm good as well.

I hope the weather breaks soon and we see some fall-like weather.

So I do want to tackle a couple items. I wanted to thank members of the public that actually attended. It's unfortunate that these these workshops are low have low attendance um something like this um it impacts the city greatly and and so we welcome your guys's input but also too i just kind of encourage as the city reaches out to the public on social media that for each one of us here to grab our own social media and re-advertise to get more of the uh the key players here to be listening and to brainstorm i think commissioner Steno did a fabulous job because as she deals with the city way more that some feedback was, was great. Um, also to, uh, Hesperides is coming up on the 19th. So part of the community, please, uh, you know, if you're available to attend as part of the community, um, I know I, we, our family has been going to Hesperides for years and I know the park district's got some, stuff going on, but it's still a supporting of the public, and of the Hesperia, so I just encourage everyone coming out September 19th. And I, too, I want to say thank you, Placeworks. That's a lot of information, so Corey and Andrew, thank you so much. And so I wanted to say something. I know that you guys are working on your software, but the benefit... So I don't deal with City of Esparia much, but I do deal with the Division of State Architect, and to have that key information, State Architect has provided that for many, many years, and it is wonderful to know where your plans are. Just go to a website on Tracker, pull it up, okay, it's so-and-so's hands, or getting surprised, it's done, and you just missed that phone call, or you missed an email that, oh, it's right here. And to have that, it's powerful to anyone. Granted, I do believe DSA should revamp to something a little more modern, but it works and it is public. And then lastly, as I kind of close, reminding us that what tomorrow is is September 11th. And yes, it's been over 20 years, but it kind of reaches into after September 11th, our country bonded together going through a lot Uh, and, and today we see a lot of division and so where we can to encourage, uh, unity where unity can happen. Um, and also to, to, to bring in members of the public as a, as a commission. Um, I just, just reflecting on how much our emergency responders responded and still do today. So I just kinda, it's a kind of a scrambled effort to just kind of say that to be remind us, we're all Americans that are working desperately to have a better country. And that's part of this point of the municipal code update is to make a better Hesperia. And so with that being said, just, you know, be safe out there, drive safe. There's a lot of crazy people. But with that being said, I'm going to adjourn this meeting at, we'll, let's say meeting is adjourned to our next regular meeting, October 8th, 2026, 630, these chambers. Meeting adjourned.

Do you remember where you were at September 11th?