City Council - Regular Meeting

So we're back. We're back.

Yeah.

Okay. Apologize for that. We, we have certain requirements that we have to follow and we should be we're up and running and good to go.

YES, MAYOR, AND JUST FOR CLARITY ON THE RECORDED VIDEO, WE ARE GOING TO ASK THE SPEAKER TO GO BACK TWO OR THREE SLIDES TO MAKE SURE THAT WE FULLY CAPTURE THE PRESENTATION.

OKAY.

THANK YOU. JUST BACKED UP A LITTLE BIT JUST BACKED UP A LITTLE BIT AND APOLOGIZE FOR THE REPEAT AND APOLOGIZE FOR THE REPEAT BUT FOR THOSE IN THE AUDIENCE BUT FOR THOSE IN THE AUDIENCE BUT JUST AS A REMINDER OR TO RETURN JUST AS A REMINDER OR TO RETURN BACK TO THIS THE CURRENT ZONING BACK TO THIS THE CURRENT ZONING THERE IS CURRENT ZONING IN PLACE THERE IS CURRENT ZONING IN PLACE THAT HAS GATEWAY SPECIFIC PLAN THAT HAS GATEWAY SPECIFIC PLAN MIXED USE AND REGIONAL COMMERCIAL MIXED USE AND REGIONAL COMMERCIAL THAT QUANTIFIES UP TO ABOUT 1300 THAT QUANTIFIES UP TO ABOUT 1300 RESIDENTIAL UNITS AND 4.4 MILLION RESIDENTIAL UNITS AND The total trips associated with the current zoning that's in place is about 99,100 trips. That's in daily level. And for the trips here that we're talking about, again, this is for the zoning that the OASIS plan is considering changing. We heard in a prior presentation that the current zoning is not the zoning that is appropriate for the current market and interests. And so the proposed plan that was presented previously by Brian This is again the specific plan that is at a land use level. That is what's being considered by the council this evening. And again, from a bubble standpoint, it does have a number of uses that are identified here in planning areas. When you break that down to the kind of general buckets of uses, Those are shown on the screen here of about 1.8 million square feet of residential, or sorry, of light industrial, 3,240 units of residential mix of residential types that include multifamily attached and detached housing. Also the retail uses that were mentioned earlier, there's everything from retail to medical to office to others that would be allowed in this area, and that's identified also on the screen. And I did mention at this point that also because of a comment that got some reaction from the community and the audience about the significant unavoidable impacts that are associated with the or identified in the EIR for this project. Those are the air quality and greenhouse gas emissions associated with the project. That those same type of impacts that are significant and unavoidable also occur at a project as small as about 500 residential units alone. And so even at that scale, it could cause similar level of significant unavoidable impacts that are identified in EIRs and require mitigation similar to this project as well. Now, when you look at those uses that are associated with the project, the light industrial, the residential retail uses, the total trips associated with the specific plan for the Oasis specific plan, I should say, is 31,505 daily trips. that's again at the aggregate level, and I'll, on the next screen, to Council Member Ortiz's question, break it down in a moment. Before I do, I just wanted to show the screen here with the breakdown of the uses and the improvements, including the 8th Street. Again, the intention with this plan is, I think Council Member Gautran mentioned or asked about and dove into some of the questions, Intention with this plan was to allocate or to locate light industrial in a planning sense, the best location where industrial should occur, which is as close to freeways as possible. Uses such as those, they want to get on the freeways to distribute to different areas where they're receiving goods or delivering goods. When you place those against the freeway, as close to freeways as possible, that means less travel on city streets where there's other types of uses that might be in conflict. This is an example of a good planning exercise where you do put light industrial against the freeway. The A Street, again, connects directly to Monroe where there are planned improvements that we heard about earlier. And that green line shows you're directly getting onto freeways to allow the trucks to distribute. The breakdown, and I apologize if this is small for some of the audience, but I'll just mention a couple of the breakdowns here of the trips that were associated with the 31,000 that I mentioned earlier. So there are some specifics here that I won't get too much into detail. We can go into those more if that's of interest later on. But associated with the trips here, daily trips, again, 31,000, 505. When you look at the truck traffic that Council Member Ortiz asked a question about there is 1,720 total trips that are associated with the trucks, and that is a factor of passenger car equivalents. That is not the number of trucks. So when you look at trucks, in a traffic standpoint, you factor those up to account for the slowness of trucks when they're out on the streets and the length of them. And so when you look at the total number of trucks, that's 343. That's in that circled red on the right side of the screen. And so that's the total number of trucks that are associated with the total industrial use there. Again, broken down to trips. And again, that passenger car equivalent, that's 1720. That amounts to about 5.5%, a little under that, of the total trips associated with the project. So the 1720, about 5.5% of the project. So relatively small number comparatively, but it is something that we still analyze and understand as part of a project like this. Moving on to... Sorry, do you have that for the other scenarios that you presented? For the general plan and the zoning? So the general plan doesn't get into that level of granularity. They do, you do look at total trips in general and you look at the mix of uses. So for the general plan, there was about a 20% total industrial use associated with those designations. So that's more at the industrial level. It's about 20% of those uses that I mentioned earlier was planned for industrial. So that's about the level that they get into in the general plan, but not much more than that. Thank you. Sure. Now, just wanted to recognize some of the differences that are occurring between the general plan and the proposed OASIS specific plan. Again, the general plan, we had 147,700 trips. That's a 79% reduction to the OASIS specific plan of 31,505, so in total, Again, the general plan is considering and allowing for something much greater, 116,000 fewer trips in the project, but 116,000 greater that's allowed in the general plan, but significantly less is planned. And the reason is we're not building up to the general plan is that the market and the plan today does not support or the area does not support that level of growth and density and intensity. planning at a lower intensity, lower intensity housing, but still quality housing, the housing that's needed today. We heard desire for housing from the audience previously or from a speaker before. This provides the housing that is needed today, including affordable housing. Now, when you translate that to air quality and greenhouse gas, When you look at the trips and the impacts of the general plan today, that's in total about 15,753 pounds of air pollution emissions. The project results in a 88% reduction from what is planned in the general plan. So when you look at, if you built out the general plan today, it'd have a significantly greater amount of air quality emissions. All of the pollutants are identified below, including the relative differences between the two of the general plan and the specific plan, mounting to about 90, the high 80s to 90%. REDUCTION COMPARED TO WHAT WAS ANALYZED IN THE GENERAL PLAN. ANALYZED IN THE GENERAL PLAN. SORRY, WAS THAT NUMBER SORRY, WAS THAT NUMBER PRESENTED TO OUR PLANNING We didn't have this slide. This was something that we heard as a lot of concerns from the community when we were presenting and some of the concerns that were brought up from the Planning Commission. So we wanted to make sure it's more evident and presented in this. The EIR itself was available to the Planning Commission, including the analysis that supports these numbers.

The analysis for that comparison is from the EIR?

So I think you're asking, did the EIR show the differences between the two? The air quality analysis doesn't always show the differences. We did identify the differences in traffic, but I didn't have this specific slide presented to the Planning Commission.

The EIR, from what I saw, compared two different situations, both had 1.8 million square feet of warehousing in them. I understand what you're asking. It didn't have this. And so... I THINK WE WOULD WANT TO HAVE THE BACKGROUND CALCULATIONS, BECAUSE THIS IS A REALLY BOLD CLAIM, 88% REDUCTION.

I WANT TO MENTION, YOU MENTIONED THE 1.8, WHAT YOU WERE DESCRIBING, THE EIR, TWO SCENARIOS OF THE PROJECT. more intense project and a less intense project all of the traffic and air quality impacts and the analysis that i'm presenting are the worst case scenario the higher impact the greater uh the larger project uh to answer your question right there so that was that's definitely in the er eir we presented it to the planning commission this information what this is is about the existing general plan AND THE EXISTING GENERAL PLAN IMPACTS THAT ARE OCCURRING. IMPACTS THAT ARE OCCURRING. SO THAT IS IN YOUR GENERAL PLAN SO THAT IS IN YOUR GENERAL PLAN EIR. EIR. IT IDENTIFIES THESE IMPACTS AND IT IDENTIFIES THESE IMPACTS AND WE'VE LOOKED AT THAT INFORMATION WE'VE LOOKED AT THAT INFORMATION AND COMPARED IT TO WHAT'S IN OUR AND COMPARED IT TO WHAT'S IN OUR PROJECT EIR. PROJECT EIR.

SO ALL THESE ARE PUBLIC SO ALL THESE ARE PUBLIC INFORMATION DOCUMENTS THAT WE'RE INFORMATION DOCUMENTS THAT WE'RE USING TO GENERATE THIS USING TO GENERATE THIS INFORMATION. INFORMATION.

OKAY. OKAY. AND WHEN WAS THIS GIVEN TO I BELIEVE WE PRESENTED THIS IN THE LAST WEEKS OR TWO, BUT THIS IS AGAIN INFORMATION THAT'S IN THE EXISTING PUBLIC INFORMATION THAT'S IN THE CITY'S RECORDS AND WE PULLED IT TO JUST SHOW THE COMPARISON JUST AS ANOTHER INDICATION AND ALSO WE'RE LISTENING TO WHAT WE HEARD AT THE PLANNING COMMISSION FROM THE COMMUNITY AND THE COMMISSION ITSELF. And then greenhouse gas, again, similar. Again, information that's available, what we pulled from the general plan, used in our general plan, in our OASIS EIR. And I think the important thing is all this is showing a significant decrease. And it's not something that I think is a small amount. This is material. And the difference is significant because you look at the, when you go back to what I was showing before, that it's all associated with the potential development. POTENTIAL DEVELOPMENT IS CLEAR, THE GENERAL PLAN ALLOWS SIGNIFICANTLY GREATER UNITS OR I SHOULD SAY NOT EVEN UNITS BUT BUILD OUT OF NON-RESIDENTIAL USES AND THAT'S WHAT WE HAVE CONSIDERED IN THIS ANALYSIS. SO WITH THAT, I AM GOING TO INVITE JOHN BACK UP TO DISCUSS COMMUNITY AND CITY BENEFITS.

So I'd like to talk about the benefits for the city economically and also the community benefits that this project specifically outlines. So let's talk about jobs, construction jobs. 2,150 jobs will be created from the construction. That's over a five-year period. Sorry? Why is it moving forward? It's moving forward. I'm hitting the reverse button. I understand that. Okay. Let's start over. Jobs it's going to create. This is what's important to the city, is getting employment. This is a goal the city has highlighted time and again. We've got jobs that are going to be created during the construction phase, but then we're going to have permanent jobs, what is outlined, 1,272 permanent jobs when this is done. Plus, we're going to be focused on hiring local Indio residents. What kind of jobs are we talking about? are industries that are forming that are quality industries, where someone can get a living wage, where someone then can turn around and afford to buy one of the houses that we're talking about here in the project. These are like clean energy, advanced manufacturing, technology and innovation, ag tech, life science, biotech. These are the kind of jobs that we want to see in the city. Industrial job growth is coming. The question is, so Riverside is forecast to have 51% growth in industrial job growth. The question really is, will Indio benefit? Will those jobs come here locally? Will the city then benefit from the tax base? Or will your local residents have to commute outside and not be able to just work within the city? This project pays the city back. The estimated project fees during construction, $613 million. One-time fees, impact fees to the city and for schools, $20 to $43 million. After it opens, you're going to have recurring revenue, net revenue, after any kind of expenses, over $850,000 annually. And the annual economic impact is in the $150 million range. Significant. Now let's talk about community benefits specifically. We will be donating three acres for a new IID substation. Power is a big deal in the Valley. We all know that. The city's been very forward-looking to get ahead of it. But still, we only have enough power at the outset to do the little bit of commercial. To do the industrial and do the residential, we'll have to build an IID substation. We will be having our fair share of that cost borne when that happens. Avenue 42, we've already talked about this. We're dedicating land for this and we're going to be building our side to a second lane and also a bike lane. We'll also be upgrading the storm drains from 24 to 36 inch, which is another million dollar benefit to the city and improving the infrastructure. Public safety, super important. Right now there's no permanent presence in North Indio. We're dedicating 1,500 square feet to the police department so they can have a permanent presence in North Indio, to have that public safety presence. Parkland, we're donating three acres to the city for parkland, needed parkland, probably a value of about a million dollars that's gonna go and benefits again the whole community. Healthcare, healthcare, there's no healthcare also on the north side except one little small urgent care. We're talking to all these groups and it's our goal and our pledge to do our best to get one of these into the project. And again, our commitment is to hire locally. And that's what we're going to, every year, host a local hiring fair. Finally is the Monroe interchange and the improvements So this is a big deal. And as you can see, it's going to go from about a 40 foot width to over 100 foot width. It's a big project that is sorely needed. The city that Brian's already outlined is going to have to commit to almost $14 million of that. Well, we have to fund $3.5 million as part of this deal. So if this gets adopted, we'll be writing a check immediately for half of that amount, with the other to come at milestones. And with that, I'd like to hand it over to Sean Matzler to talk about a case study that's very salient.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council. Sean Matzler, I'm land use attorney for the project. I'm sensitive to everybody's time tonight, so I just want to very briefly describe what I think is a similar project so you don't have to imagine what this might look like. In 2014, I entitled a 200-acre, nearly 200-acre master plan in the city of Eastvale for a group called Goodman. Goodman's one of the world's largest REITs. Like OASIS, the centerpiece of Goodman was a specific plan and a development agreement. Also like OASIS, the Goodman specific plan included a high degree of flexibility for future uses and those future uses had to come back before the city for ultimate approval. Although the specific plan development agreement were approved in 2014, the final pieces of the development are only now coming online. So it took over 10 years to bring that project to fruition. The purpose of highlighting this project to you in particular because of its similarity to the Oasis project. As you can see on this slide, the Goodwin project covered 190 acres adjacent to the 15 freeway and was surrounded on two sides by residential development. The project itself included 2.6 million square feet of industrial and office uses, as well as 650,000 square feet of retail uses. There was skepticism from the community during the entitlement process about how this would be compatible with the then existing residential. Fast forward to the present day, and the parties would agree, and especially the city would agree, that this project has been an enormous success. The project includes large retailers like Costco and In-N-Out, industrial and logistics tenants like Volkswagen, and a number of small office and light industrial tenants. It generates thousands of local jobs, and public records show that 70% of general fund revenue in the city is derived from sales and use tax, much of which comes from this single project. Single family home prices adjacent to this property have more than doubled since the project was entitled. The homes that you see in this picture now sell for almost $900,000. My last slide, as you will see in this brief video, here we go. The success of the Goodman project is based largely on how the site plan transitions from industrial, adjacent to the 15, to less intense retail and light office as you move away from the freeway, and ultimately to residential off-site. Like this collection of uses and the way it sort of moves away in intensity as you move away from the 15 freeway, it mirrors what we have here at Oasis. Thank you.

So I'd like to talk about the specific plan and the changes that we made since Planning Commission. We heard a lot of the complaints, a lot from Shadow Hills, talking about certain elements that they didn't like. And we made significant changes. We lowered the height of the buildings by over a third, from 100 feet to 65 feet. We increased the setback from the freeway by 250% to 35 feet. We're increasing the landscaping from 10% of the land of the area to 15%, a 50% increase. And we're also bringing in more mature trees, going from 24 inch to 36. That's not insignificant. We're also enhancing the design. We know, and I wouldn't want a monolithic building myself, but we're enhancing the design with different articulation, colors, materials, to make it attractive. Additionally, we expanded the definition of what light industrial is to make it more flexible for emerging industries that the city of India would welcome to have it in their city. These are the type of uses that we're talking about. And with that, I'd like to hand this over to Bob Marra, who put together a white paper on this project.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, and City Council members. I'm Bob Marra with GPS, Greater Palm Springs Market Intel. My role tonight is different from the presenters that you've seen so far, and I won't repeat what they've done, I promise. I'm here to tell you what the independent data and analysis that I did tells us in five different key points here. So let me get this up here. And so you have, there's a 55 page, report that's on the record that I prepared that I hope you've seen and also a six page synopsis of the key findings of that. So the Planning Commission on May 27th said that that they decided not to recommend the plan because the benefits were not sufficient in their minds to you know in terms of certain elements of the industrial entitlement and so My analysis was built in large part on that industrial side, which we just saw some slides on, and in part to complete the public record overall. And so you have the report. You got a chance to see that. And I wanted to let you know that the analysis that you saw relied on many independent primary sources of information, such as California Department of Finance, Demographic Research Unit, the United States Census, COSTAR, Pure Labor Statistics, Riverside County, Office of Economic Development, CVAG, Crexie Intel, and so on. And so finding one here is Indio has the people, but you don't have the jobs yet. Okay, so 92,500 people, right? Your permanent population is the largest in the valley, almost by double the nearest city. But what you don't have yet is the jobs. There are 22,500 jobs that are based in Indio. And so you have 22% of the population, 12% of the jobs. And so what happens here is what we're seeing is a lot of people are just heading west every day. So about 40,000 of the people that are in the workforce that are Indio residents are driving to work at the resort cities on the western part of the region. Finding two is that modern employment space, industrial space, is truly scarce. And so the entire Coachella Valley holds 17.6 million square feet of industrial space, and it's essentially full. I talked to brokers. I did the research. We have 5.9% vacancy in the region, and it's even tighter in Indio. It's like 8.5% in the Inland Empire. manufacturing vacancy is about 2.6%. So you ask the brokers in town, the agents and the brokers that are on the ground doing the work, trying to lease space, they're saying this economy can't grow without more industrial space because it's essentially full. Those are small percentages. And so what exists in the region also, there's a challenge with that, is the median size is about 8,000 square feet and it was built in 1996. So we've got a dearth of industrial space. We need more and the economy is capped by it. So this plan with 1.8 million square feet is about 10th of what exists in the region right now. And the city gets to review every building that comes in the future, as you've heard. And so let's note that where the Valley's proposed industrial pipeline is, we've got some industrial in the pipeline, but it's over at the far northwestern side of the Valley. So that means more drives, by Indio residents in the workforce to go west to fulfill any industrial jobs if you don't have industrial jobs here in the city. Finding three is, you know, I'm saying housing is, the housing need is arithmetic. It's not an argument here. And so the average detached home in Indio now sells for $615,000 detached, right? Single family home. And that takes about $160,000 to $185,000 a year household income for someone to be able to buy, plus a pretty hefty down payment, okay? And so you know these things. And so we just wanted to point it out in relation to this. And so the median household income for Indio, the median is $76,500. So that door is closed for detached single-family homes for most of your residents. For the median priced the median income, they can't buy a detached house here. They just can't do it. And so the average attached home in Indio is about $292,000. And that needs an income of about $75,000 to $90,000 to be able to either buy it or rent it. And that is doable, right? And so that is something that the project adds. And so it's at a format that still matches up with the median price. And so to add 3,240 units of capacity with, you know, some of the deed restricted 80 to 120% area of median income restrictions is good for the workforce here and help keep people in Indio, Indio residents stay in Indio, younger people in the workforce more likely to be able to buy something or rent something in Indio or anywhere in the valley for that matter. And it's also a good part of hitting your RNA number of 7,812 units. You all know about that. And so this would knock down a lot of that at the same time. So this really shouldn't be considered optional extra capacity. This is really needed, and you know that. So finding four of the white paper is coming soon. Okay, so this is something that's not really been part of the debate so far here, but I'm bringing it out there because North Indio's aging is already approved. The care capacity to serve it has not been approved yet. What I mean by that is that Indio holds, there's about 7,455 plus age-restricted gated community residents or households in the city, much of it in North Indio. So if you add the 1,500 desert retreat homes, you've got a huge confluence of people aging in place in the city that are going to need health care. And so there has been a commitment to add a health care component or provide health care capacity here because we have a documented shortage of like 236 doctors already in the valley, and we're making it more of a shortage by adding more and more age-restricted, aging in place residents. And so I think that's an important thing that having the opportunity of having healthcare for Indio residents, especially this large concentration in North Indio is needed. You really need that capacity and that should be welcomed in that area, especially given who's there. And in light of all this too, another thing to think about is just look at this population and the situation here and what the 3,240 homes worth of people could bring to Indio, because I know that many of you are involved in multiple organizations outside of the city, and so you know that we have disenrollment in our school districts. We're losing students, okay? The population is not growing very much in the Coachella Valley, and even Indio has been flat for the last several years, and so we need people to, the city needs people to live and work in the city, and then you'll have more students as well, because it's having bad ramifications on the school districts. They're making some scary decisions here coming up soon as they're losing students. We've lost 4,500 students in the last four years alone in the school district. So that's a big deal. Excuse me, sir, I got a question. Yes, please.

Since you mentioned schools, has there been any engagement of Desert Sands Unified School District on this project?

Well, that's not my role. I can't speak for the group. Yes, they'll address that. Yeah, good question. And then the fiscal number. As an independent consultant, I reviewed the analysis that was presented, and I think it's standard by every means, and in many ways I think it's conservative, and it counts the full cost of the city's providing services for the project. It excludes the one-time fees, and the result is about the $861,000 per year net for the city when it's built out. And so I think it's a great thing for the general fund. And so again, let's take a step back to the region. The employers that Indio wants and needs are choosing, that want to choose this valley, have some alternatives. And what they're doing a lot lately is they're going to Goodyear and Buckeye, Arizona. They're going to Southern Nevada because those places are offering sites with entitlements pretty much pre-baked and utilities and everything. And so To have someone here in town trying to do something like that who wants to be here, who bought that land, is a great opportunity for us. And so the other part is, well, there's competition within as well. Like the Classic Club specific plan calls for some housing units there, and it calls for an incredibly rich array of resort where it did have a lot of industrials. It can go back and change that plan and add some industrial. So you can compete with the next door neighbors too. And so if this project doesn't go here at Oasis, there's nowhere else in Indio it can go in terms of these industrial jobs. There's nowhere else in Indio that's available. So it'll have to go somewhere else. West Valley, outside the area. So I'm just saying it's a great opportunity. to have that and to lock that down. And so judged as a complete economic platform rather than by its most controversial component, this plan meets the test of the Commission's vote that's posed. The independent evidence supports that this is a great project and an awesome thing for the city. Thank you.

Thanks, Bob. Well, I'd like to wrap this up. Thank you for all your patience. So we listened for the last four years. We've talked to a lot of people. We've talked to council. We've talked to staff. We've talked to business leaders. We've heard the community. We've incorporated all of this. And I think what you've just heard is that there is a need for jobs. It's not just housing. I have two sons that I would love it if they could afford to live close by. And the housing that we're building here is the kind of housing that first time home buyers can afford. We've already established that the proposed plan decreases the amount of traffic versus what's currently there. It's less greenhouse gases than what would currently be allowed. We listened to your concerns about the industrial. We made significant revisions to the specific plan for those purposes. This plan has a whole host of financial commitments and community benefits. This plan meets the goals of the city of Indio. Each one of these came from your economic development. And each one we check the box on. Note that this is just a roadmap and a vision for a better tomorrow. You still have to approve any significant developments within this plan. And this plan will take years to develop. We're talking probably 10 years. So just in summary, this plan is very thoughtfully designed to provide India with places for business, good paying jobs, entry level housing, public safety, city revenue, opportunities to go to the doctor, to eat, go play, all in a walkable format. Council, I'd like you to envision this site 10 years from today. Will it still be a barren, sandy lot? Or will it be a vibrant, mixed-use destination where our kids and grandkids can find good-paying jobs and housing they can afford, all in an environment where they can walk and bike to shop, eat and play? With that, I'd like to just say, we request that you adopt this plan. And we thank you for your time. And thank you, staff, for your time. Are there any questions?

Turn this on here. Thank you. It was very comprehensive, although I think we probably all have a few questions. Thank you, Council Member, for some of the questions you asked. Do you have any questions for the applicant at this point?

Before I open the public hearing. I'd like to go back to the school district question. What was the engagement with the school district?

Mayor Pro Tem, Jeremy Kraut, again, EPD. So as part of the EIR process, the school district was, there was outreach to the school district to understand capacity and ability to serve students that would be planned for the site. I don't think we addressed the school fees that are obviously a part of this project, but those amount to the millions, but I do, we do have the numbers that are, they did identify the capacity about 20, significantly more than what our students planned for the site would include. So the student population for the site would be about 2,060 students, and they have a significantly greater capacity than that. So that was confirmed with discussions with the school district as part of the project.

Yeah, I'm trying to understand. I get it, 2,600 students.

2,060 students is the, what was? 2,060, oh, I'm sorry. Yes, for the project. For the project itself.

Now, how does that break down? I mean, because there's, different age groups, right? So elementary schools, high schools, how would that affect our schools?

Yeah, I could pull it up in the EIR here, but it does break down by high school and then in elementary, et cetera. So that's all disclosed in the EIR. That was provided as estimates to the school district as part of the EIR process. They provided confirmation of the ability to serve those students. In addition, of course, the fees that go towards schools is significant as part of the project because each home and the uses there do require a school fee that's paid towards that, which would upgrade facilities and other improvements on the site.

You talk about that missing middle housing. So this is not gonna be just, this is not gonna be apartments, but what is your model for building affordable housing that will have families and these kids?

Sure, yeah. And so the total allocation for housing, the general plan accommodates for 3,200. We need to accommodate that in the plan. And then the plan, as the project would build out, there'd be different planning groups within the planning areas of residential having a mix of housing. And so there is a 5% requirement that's been built in, that's been offered and included as part of the project. So that's affordable. That is built into the project itself as a requirement. IN ADDITION BECAUSE OF THE IN ADDITION BECAUSE OF THE DENSITIES THAT ARE BUILT INTO THE DENSITIES THAT ARE BUILT INTO THE LAND USE PLAN THAT WOULD LAND USE PLAN THAT WOULD NATURALLY LEAD TO SOME MORE NATURALLY LEAD TO SOME MORE ATTAINABLE OR AFFORDABLE ATTAINABLE OR AFFORDABLE HOMES BECAUSE OF JUST THE DENSITY HOMES BECAUSE OF JUST THE DENSITY ITSELF SO HAVING APARTMENT ITSELF SO HAVING APARTMENT STYLE ABILITY AS WELL AS ATTACHED STYLE ABILITY AS WELL AS ATTACHED HOUSING THAT WOULD BE TOWNHOME HOUSING THAT WOULD BE TOWNHOME CONDO STYLE HOUSING AS WELL AND CONDO STYLE HOUSING AS WELL AND THOSE ARE NAT

on the funding you're talking about other than the one-time fees that are paid to the city and not to school districts that you say it's 861,000 what is that breakdown what is that I mean obviously that's not property taxes or anything else what is the 861,000 yeah I I will I'd be remiss to say I'm an expert in that I did I do believe it reads us that is the positive revenue towards the general fund every year but I would love to have

THE CITY'S GENERAL FUND OF $860,000. $860,000. THAT IS BASED ON THE SALES TAX, THAT IS BASED ON THE SALES TAX, PROPERTY TAX, AND OTHER REVENUE PROPERTY TAX, AND OTHER REVENUE FROM THE PROJECTS THAT WOULD LEAD TO FROM THE PROJECTS THAT WOULD LEAD TO AN ONGOING REVENUE FOR THE CITY'S AN ONGOING REVENUE FOR THE CITY'S GENERAL FUND OF $860,000. GENERAL FUND OF $860,000. SO THAT'S AS A RESULT OF THE SO THAT'S AS A RESULT OF THE PROJECT THAT WOULD LEAD TO THAT PROJECT THAT WOULD LEAD TO THAT POSITIVE REVENUE TOWARDS THE CITY'S POSITIVE REVENUE TOWARDS THE CITY'S GENERAL FUND WH I hope a project that big makes him more than $861,000. That's just net. So considering all costs, that is a net amount, and that's an ongoing. So when you multiply that by years, it is a significant amount. Now, that is, again, annual, separate from all the fees that you mentioned. There is millions and millions that is going towards these improvements that we talked about that would otherwise not occur. Thank you.

Any other questions? Go right ahead.

Maybe for staff, you know, we talked about, you know, the pickleball courts, hospitals, restaurants. Is that currently allowed in that development?

Well, there are sports uses that would be allowed. I mean, if you're looking for pickleball courts, that wouldn't be actually listed in there, but there are entertainment and sports type uses.

In the current zoning?

Under regional commercial, I could look it up, but most likely that's usually where that type of use would go is in a commercial zone, so most likely. And hospitals, would that be allowed at the moment? I can double check while we're speaking. I can look it up.

Okay. You know, are we waiting for some information, I guess? There's assumptions. This is a huge project. It's gonna take a while to build out. It is going to be, there will be economic evolutions in that process. So I guess what I would like to see and what I'm used to seeing on large projects are assumptions. I come from a large project. background, and there are always assumptions. If this, then this, right? Nobody has a crystal ball, but when you are presenting things like the current zoning, the daily trip is 99,000, and then it drops to 31,000. I mean, there's assumptions that you're making to get to those numbers, and that includes economic issues, that includes timing, that includes a lot of things, and I guess that would be one of the things I would like to see. That's impactful, but how do we get there? How does a project get there, and what are the assumptions for making, and that's just one of the examples, and a lot of the information and the numbers, they were impressive, there's no doubt about it, but there's gotta be some assumptions. 10 years is a long time. You have a build-out, you have an economic slowdown, that changes everything, that stops everything, and that evolves. You talk about condos, I would love to see condos. However, everywhere we go and every developer we talk to says, you know, condos, it's just, they're very hard to build. They don't make money. There's just a whole bunch of reasons why. And so I guess I'm gonna go back to that word assumptions again. What are the assumptions for us to have so that we get from, as a for instance, some of these large numbers, 99,000 to 31,000?

Well, Mayor Holmes, let me just first state that the numbers that we saw came from the EIR, the maximum build-out scenario, and then scenario number two. So that's what we had to base it on. And Councilmember Miller, the numbers that were generated, that was from the economic study that we had to do, OK? Your question is much more salient. What's going to happen in reality? Right? First of all, we have to get the Monroe Interchange done. Then we have to get the IAD station built. Right? And then we have to look at what is valid at that point in time. Because we can't build the residential and the industrial until those things are done. So that's based on what is, at that point in time, the markets. What's active in the market. And you'll have to approve... At that point in time, you'll come back and you'll have another bite at the apple to approve of whatever is going to go forward. So I can't tell you with any certainty or specificity on what that will look like. The likelihood that we build 3,240 homes here is remote. It's probably going to be a lot less dense than that. There's also an equivalency standard that we didn't talk about, but it's part of this whole plan, that we can exchange some of the units to increase the commercial, which there's a high likelihood. The city has expressed an interest in having a hotel. We could also do that as well. But this is an envelope, it's a plan, a vision, and we don't have the specifics because we don't know specifically what it's going to do. The whole idea of this plan is to give you flexibility to be able to do other things in the future, us and you. So I understand your question, and I wish I could answer it, but we don't know exactly what's going to be developed at this point.

I'll just add, Mayor, just in terms of the assumptions, each of those, so the trips that we had on the screen, those are based on plans that are in place today, and they have trips that are factors that we have to use as part of our analysis. So those are all baked into plans, approved projects, and our proposed project, which led to the changes or the differences that we were showing on the screen. So those are all assumptions that are in approved or documented files within the city.

Yep, it's coming. I'm just making sure you guys, I see questions on people's faces, but thank you. I will open the public hearing and that may generate more thoughts. Okay, I'm going to now open the public hearing. And I'm going to call Paul Mazalasky.

Mayor, Council, I know it's late, but I hope you all were paying close attention to some of that because, Mayor, I think you hit on the biggest thing is the assumptions made. What we've heard from them is they don't even know what they're doing yet. They don't have a plan. They want you to approve a concept of a plan and then say, oh, well, we'll come back and do later. Well, you can't have that 150 some million dollar revenue if you're building pickleball courts and you're building a hospital, you're building medical office buildings on that property. They say, oh, we can't even do it till we do the bridge over Monroe. Think about those trucks coming in off 15, getting off, because they all have to come in and use, access that industrial from there, piling up on the exit ramp and all the cars coming from them because they have to come from there. Or all the trucks coming from the west that get stuck on that bridge and all the traffic problems you're going to have there. Yeah, they went and talked to a bunch of people. They went and talked to Shadow Hills. I was at three of their meetings, the Shadow Hills, the one they had over at the College of the Desert. There was not one person who thought favorably of this. That diagram they showed with the post-it notes, What happened at Chattos Hills? They only needed one note, one big note that said no because of the impact it's gonna have on everybody on that side trying to get to anything on the south side because they're gonna close off Monroe. It sounds like, and it makes better sense for this council to wait and let them come back with an actual proposal rather than tie yourselves in and then feel bound to try to make this project work. Let them come with a proposal that will actually work and not tie up traffic, make the air quality, which is bad enough here, even worse. They're not ready for this project. They're in a hurry to try to lock you in. Don't let them lock you in with promises that don't even make sense in their proposal, because they're either building that distribution center, which is what's talked about in those plans, because that's what they're building. They're not building pickleball courts. It isn't time for this project yet. I know this city needs money, I know it needs jobs, but there's too many Too many questions with this project. It's too unwieldy. It's not built for that area. It's just a bad idea. Don't lock yourselves in now. Make them come back with a better proposal.

Okay, the next request to speak, it comes from Carmen with a Q. And I just want to remind everyone that we have a three-minute, a three-minute, which you did very well at staying within, but we do have a three-minute requirement. Please.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Tonight I've heard this Council speak about desert conservation, community resources, and improving the quality of life of the community members you serve. We also heard the next month is Wellness Month in India. Well, wellness includes the environment we live in, the air our children breathe, and the quality of life in our neighborhoods. So I ask, how do we reconcile those priorities with this massive project? I'm not against progress. I'm just asking for responsible development. North India is home to seniors and retirees, but also to many young families. And please remember the families who aren't here tonight, because parents are making dinner, helping with homework, driving their children to soccer practice. Their absence doesn't mean that they don't care. However, they will still live with the decision that this room is going to make here tonight. So when we talk about traffic, noise, air quality, congestion, roadway safety, we're talking about our children, our seniors, and our neighbors. We will live with the trucks, we will live with the noise, and we will breathe that air. So I guess the question tonight is, yes to the health care, yes to a hospital, yes to another school. We understand India is growing, but we have the opportunity to decide what kind of city we want India to become. So economic development matters, absolutely. India has grown. I'm born and raised here in India. But the question is, what do we build that is going to benefit the India community? Thank you.

Next request to speak is Chris Glasner. And after that, it'll be Jonathan Becerra.

Hello, Mayor Holmes and esteemed members. I appreciate everything that's gone forth today. There's a little minor thing that I, well, it's not minor, what am I saying? This was sent out to a lot of people in the area, and I appreciate the notice, but what I want to mention is that if this was such a hot topic that was sent to so many people in the neighborhood, how come it wasn't brought forward in the agenda? It could have been brought forward, to my understanding, it could have been brought forward by you, Mayor, sooner. so that we weren't having to go till 11 o'clock at night. The people could be here, like you stated, families could have been here to let you know it's not just the people in Sun City, Shadow Hills, or the other people in the surrounding area. It's a lot of families that are not here because the time didn't permit. If it had been brought forward, you saw so many people here earlier, but a lot of people have left because they couldn't take this late hour. I applaud all of you for being here and taking this late hours, but this was ridiculous. It could have been brought forward. Is that correct? I mean, is it my understanding?

It is not up to us to answer questions from the public. We are here to listen. I appreciate that.

Okay, that's reasonable. I do understand from a past city council member in another city here in California that it is the mayor's responsibility that you could bring it forward. So I would respectfully ask you to bring it forward at another time when we discuss this again because there's so much opposition to it. I really feel that you council members are going to respect the people of Indio and the surrounding people that this is going to be a blight on the city of Indio. We are such a city of Festivals and fun and things like that to bring something like a warehouse off the 10 freeway So directly impacts everybody it's going to this is going to be like the city of indo B Will be recognized as oh that city with a warehouse right off. Oh, it's horrible. That would be horrid anyhow I'm just totally against it as in its current state it needs to be reimagined Fair enough. Thank you so much

Jonathan is Jerry, Jerry, Conrose.

Good evening Madam Mayor, thank you Council for the time. I'll try to make this brief as possible. My name is Jonathan Pissarro, I'm a local Indio resident organizing in the city of Indio. I think you guys should vote to deny this project. I think we have heard a lot of numbers but not have, we've had more questions come from the presentation from the developers than answers and I think the community is kind of saw that firsthand. I think You can say a lot of stats, but having an industrial warehouse, having new buildings is not going to create less traffic. that that's just not reality. There will be more traffic when you put more people in more buildings and more places there. So I don't understand the disingenuous nature of the developer to present cherry-picked numbers to compare to their numbers that would imply that we were somehow getting a better deal on traffic, a better deal on emissions. We're not. This will cause more emissions, this will cause more traffic that we are not prepared for currently, and we should develop our infrastructure before this kind of development should be allowed. We should not tie our housing, tie our power infrastructure to mega developments. We're seeing across Southern California and organizers I work with, they consistently regret letting marigold warehouses into their cities. I'm talking people in DHS, Marino Valley, like this isn't a decision that comes without regret. and that comes without consequence from the voters. I am telling you right now, this is a bad decision to approve this development. And it's not just based on the impassioned tenor of my voice. This is based on facts that other people on the ground are witnessing. This is a bad idea. The less than a million dollars in net positive to our general fund isn't worth the permanent long-term damage this will have to our community, to our environment, to our quality of life, to our kids' futures. And to approve this would put us on the hook for that negative future for more than 20 years. And we wouldn't be able to do anything about it. That is crazy. That is so insane to me that the people in this room who have worked so hard to make the lives of everyone in the city better would just throw our future to a developer who has shown tonight that they do not care beyond what they are complained to about and what they can get away with by cherry picking numbers. It is not fair. We should not approve this project. We should vote to deny it. And that is what I'm asking you to do tonight. Thank you.

Jerry is Jay Wegman. After you.

Thank you madam mayor and pro tem and council. My name is Jerry Conrad. I'm the former board president of Sun City Shadow Hills and I just got a few comments to make. Essentially we're not against the idea of development. We're against the idea of warehouses. That's all. End of story. Full stop. Now tonight, essentially, I've heard a lot of lipstick being put on this pig. And it really just bothers me. And it should bother you, too. And I was going to title my speech tonight, Where Houses Are the New Data Center. And I think it's more appropriate than you realize, because what do data centers have in common with warehouses? They offer money in terms of revenue and jobs, and that's it, because everything else they do is really negative for the city. In this case, Glenn, we've talked about this before. They're going to offer $861,000 a year in net proceeds to the city, and we're going to build a warehouse that's going to be a giant, like on something on Highway 60. It is a monster. You might as well change the brand of the city of Indio from the city of festivals to the city of warehouses. Warehouses not only form jobs, they do make jobs, I have to admit that, but temporary, the five years or whatever the build-out is. There is a revenue growth, I understand that, but if you don't have the warehouses, if you have pickleball, medical, if you have all these other things that we would actually use, we can appreciate that, but not diesel trucks and what they provide, because the pollution is unmitigatable. And that's the key. And I don't want to hear about, well, it's common because they can have 500 homes that'll do it. What kind of BS is that? Think about that. They're going to have all these trucks, hundreds of trucks every day. That's just unconscionable that you have residents, people like me, young kids in your district just east of this development, they're going to be dealing with this for years and years and years. This is not a winner for Indio. This really isn't. This is not us. Now, on a little more personal note, Glenn, we've known each other for a few years. I really do like you, and you're the longest serving member. You listen to the residents, you listen to all your district, you listen to the city in general, and I do appreciate that. This location for the warehouses is not a good fit for both the local residents and our city. Ben, we've known each other a few years too, and you are the newest member, and do not let this be your first major decision that the vast majority of residents do not approve of, please. Oscar Ortiz, I've just met you a week or two ago. Excuse me, but you have. I understand, but I'm saying nice things to you people now. Give me a moment, please.

You should be addressing the entire council, actually, not us individually.

Hi, my name is Jay Wagman. I've been at Shadow Hills for 11 years. I'm also a realtor with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services. So I have some sense of real estate in that particular area. I'd like to, first of all, thank you all, members of the council and mayor. I wrote you an email just recently describing what I'm going to talk a little bit about today. What I haven't heard is a couple things. One is I was at the Planning Commission and it was the opposite of what they talked about around environment. They said they couldn't mitigate it. It would increase environmental hazards around this particular community. Now they're saying it will not. The Planning Commission did this before the big giant fire at East Boyle Heights. It was a 500,000 square foot warehouse, similar to the one they want to build, which is 1.8 million square feet. The fire forced 20,000 people to evacuate for two weeks. The fire burnt for two weeks. It created air pollution throughout the whole area. Think about that. If there is an accident, what will happen? And then they want to build residential right next to it? Those people will die if there's something like that. So this is not the thing we need. If you go to Calabasas, you go to Westlake, they had the same issue. They reversed it. They had industrial. They changed it to commercial, and they built two absolutely fantastic developments by Rick Caruso that had grocery stores, pharmacy, wonderful restaurants right off the freeway, and their revenue is fantastic to the city. So think about it. Our property values will go down. Your tax revenue will go down from property values. So Vote no. The Planning Commission did a great job. Mike Slater did a great job at describing all the hazards that this would cause. So listen to the Planning Commission and vote no. Thank you.

Maggie Hamilton, I know I'm looking for her. I know her, but she's not here. There she is. I just want to remind everyone, please try to stay as close as you can to the three-minute requirement.

I hope mine is short and sweet. Good evening, Mayor and rest of City Council. I'm just thinking about that. 1.8 million square feet is a lot of industrial space. Will it be a mega warehouse or other warehouses? Just the diesel truck emissions alone, a known carcinogen, will create more health problems, truly. And a mega warehouse or warehouses, 1.8 million square feet of industrial space even, will create an urban heat island effect, right? With trucks belching emissions all day long. The truck traffic on the I-10 is already heavy, if you hadn't noticed. This will make it even worse for people who have to commute from Indio to the west end of the valley. And for anyone thinking that this warehouse or warehouses will bring more jobs, the warehouse industry is racing to employ robots, not people. Indio is looking so good these days. It's on its way up. Don't ruin it with this development. Thank you.

Thank you. Kevin Ford.

North Indio and thank you Mayor, thank you Mayor Pro Tem and the City Council. I'm not gonna repeat what others have already said, but just to say so, just a reminder, why would a company be so aggressive right now at trying to get this approved with a project that has no scope and asking for 1.8 million square feet when the projects that they've done or the buildings that they may have managed in the past DOESN'T SPEAK TO THE TYPE OF OCCUPANT THAT MIGHT GO INTO THAT KIND OF A FACILITY. entitlement, getting an entitlement and a new rezoning for their project creates value. And that value can be sold with or without a tenant or a plan. So some of the types of facilities, and Jay mentioned it a little while ago, Cold storage is a potential. It's a common logistics type warehouse. Lithium ion batteries, medical supplies, and other general supplies that get distributed through a logistics center like that. Those are also the highest fire risks that that a warehouse could have. Each one of those types of facilities also would have different type of traffic or different types of trucks. So without understanding who's occupying the facility, we don't know how many trucks there would be or how many jobs there would be. And I also agree that our home values will decline. But thank you for listening to us and sticking around for getting through it on the agenda with all of us here. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your time and your comments. Thank you. City staff or city manager, if we can, is there a way to answer this? I hear reference to diesel. But I don't think, I think there was a recent legislation within a couple years, because every truck I see is clean idle. I don't see diesel anymore. And I wondered if we could answer that or help me understand that or clarify that. I think whether it's now or in the future, I would appreciate that.

I'm going to, if it's regarding a legislative item, I'm going to defer it to the attorney. Okay.

Okay, terrific, and while he's looking it up, I'll go on to the next one. Deborah Miner.

Sorry, get old.

Please, you didn't hear my bedtime reminder on my phone. Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the City Council. I am Deborah Gminer. And in the past, I've spoken as a representative of Sun City Shadow Hills. I'm here today on my own because my Jersey attitude may come out and they didn't want that. Frankly, there's only one reason to approve a project such as Oasis Money. To approve OASIS, the city council must make a legal finding that the benefits of the project outweigh the adverse impact of it, in particular, the significant and unmitigatable impact of air pollution and greenhouse gases on the surrounding community. In other words, you must reject the public health in favor of financial benefit to the city. It is impossible to overemphasize the adverse impact of the project will have on the health and wellbeing of the community, adults, seniors, and in particular, children. I also really want to point out that Sun City Shadow Hills and the surrounding immediate community has had the benefit of a fair amount of communication with BH Properties. We've had meetings with them. We've communicated our concerns. To the best of my knowledge, they have never met with your community Mayor Pro Tem Freeman, never. To the best of my knowledge, they have never met with your community, Mayor Holmes, and yet you abut those areas where the impact will be greatest. The wind blows from west to east many days throughout the year, and your community, Mayor Holmes, is directly east of this project. So it's likely that the kids that live in your community and the older families and residents will be directly impacted. Likewise, the Jackson neighborhood. I went to several of the restaurants and the small businesses along Monroe and asked them if they had been told anything about this project, and I was told no. So those people, and particularly people of color in those communities who are at greatest risk for air pollution-related disease, I don't think know anything about this project. I've been told, well, they should read the newspaper or be better informed. But it is the responsibility of the community to help people understand the impact of a large-scale project like this. And I don't believe that your communities do understand that. The staff report makes it clear that the goal of OASIS project is to obtain entitlements that will last up to 30 years to allow BH properties, or as was pointed out, its successors, to build up to 1.8 million square feet of warehouse space for both storage and distribution services. This will... require thousands of cars and trucks, including 18-wheel vehicles, to enter and leave the property each month on a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day... I'm sorry. May I address it...

The speaker is Joanne Marianne. Am I pronouncing that right? Yes.

Mayor, give us a few minutes, please.

Okay, hang on. We seem to be having technical difficulties. So we're down with everything? Okay, well, you know.

Yeah.

Well, yeah. I think they can probably see that. We have to, because of the law that we wrote. Okay, everyone, we're up, we're on, we're lit, whatever term you want to use. We're broadcasting, so we are good to go. We're missing Oscar and Steven, so we've got to hang on for Council Member Ortiz and our City Attorney. Would you like mine? Go right ahead. We gotta get that thing turned on. How do we turn that on? How do we make it green? There we go.

Seven minutes, seconds. Good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to address you regarding this project. My name is Joanne Marianne, and I'm a resident of Four Seasons at Terra Lago. This is my first opportunity to come and meet you all. I wanted to just step back a minute. I moved to Indio via New York City. near Miami and here. And just step back and say what Indio was when I moved here, what it presented to me. I think there's a big credit that Indio has been working too hard to create a beautification throughout the city. The potential of adding a huge industrial building or building splat in the middle of our community doesn't make sense to even the beautification goals. In fact, it retracts from it. I like to say, what does Indio stand for? The city of festivals or a huge industrial building in traffic? One point of Indio's mission is to improve the quality of life. I don't want to live near a huge industrial building near my home, and I don't want to drive residents out of Indio because of it. One of my big subjects is congestion and living off of Gulf Center Parkway. Today, if you're coming east and getting off Gulf Center Parkway, at certain times, just our volume alone backs up onto the highway. So you can only imagine what this mess could create. And if you think that only Monroe needs to be expanded, I think it's short-sighted to think that Jackson as well as Gulf Center Parkway and the other direction needs to be expanded. Of course, we have a new complex opening shortly. Green space, it's ridiculous amount. It's ridiculous. The school buses are not talked about. And the backup, I did say the backup ramps. And just sitting back here thinking about beautification, You all just lit up. Beautification, what I moved here for, I'm not living in an industrial environment. As far as available stores in North India, we still have open and vacant stores in strip malls. And why are we not focusing on bringing good companies into those supermarkets or whatever we need? So that's my particular position is this is a really bad idea and it is the cart horse scenario when we are way ahead of where we should be. Thank you.

Thank you. I would like to take a moment and ask a question of staff in terms of explaining the process. which is to say, you know, we sort of start at one level and conceptually, and we talk, we discuss, and the process then grows and builds from there. And I think we have a recent example with what's going on with with the Indigo Mall. Can you provide us with that outline, please, for everyone?

Certainly, Mayor. I can maybe speak to you at a high level, and if you need more detail, I can defer to Mr. Halverson, but what's before you is a specific plan, and so what's being proposed is changing some of the land uses to allow residential, to allow you know, some industrial, and then to allow that retail. So just like the project that was right before this, you know, that plan was approved, but then they had to come back, and as was previously presented, they had to show that this is what we're now constructing. We're constructing three drive-throughs and a bank. So this would be a similar process IF HYPOTHETICALLY THIS WAS APPROVED TODAY, BH PROPERTIES WOULD HAVE TO COME BACK WITH SPECIFIC PROJECTS. SO IF FOR THE APARTMENTS, YOU KNOW, THEY HAVE THEIR RESIDENTIAL ZONE APPROVED UP TO 3200 BUT THEN THEY WOULD HAVE TO COME BACK AND SAY WE'RE ACTUALLY BUILDING OR I'M SORRY, MULTI-FAMILY UP TO 3200 BUT THEY COULD COME BACK AND SAY SPECIFICALLY, YOU KNOW, WE'RE BUILDING THIS MANY APARTMENTS OR TOWN HOMES OR WHATEVER IN THAT AREA. And it could be phased over multiple projects, just like the last project at the Indio Fashion Mall, that was phase two that you guys just saw. So at a very high level, that's what this is right now. It's that zoning map and that specific plan, those changes, and also the development agreement as they've outlined with those community benefits and obligations that they would have with that approval.

And so really it's also talking about land use. So it could be a 1.8 million square foot warehouse. It could be a half a million square foot warehouse. It could be 500 housing or it could be 200 or it could be 800. But the concept is that on this piece of property, what we're discussing, these are the potential or the possibilities, perhaps even the vision.

That's correct. It could be, and some of those things can be built over time. You saw an example where, you know, there was two large buildings. Then you saw an example where there's multiple buildings in that light industrial area. Another example might be just to the west of this where you have Walmarts built, right? And then there was nothing next to Walmart. ON THAT WEST SIDE FOR A LONG TIME AND THEN MOST RECENTLY LAST COUPLE YEARS YOU SAW RAISING CANES COME IN, IN AND OUT COME IN, SOON MOVED ALL COME IN. SO THOSE APPROVALS WERE APPROVED WAY BACK IN THE 90s AS PART OF A SPECIFIC PLAN AND TOOK TIME TO BUILD UP OVER TIME.

OKAY. THANK YOU. AND I GUESS THANK YOU FOR THAT BECAUSE I THINK WE ALL NEEDED TO KNOW THAT AND THAT WALMART IS A REALLY GREAT EXAMPLE OF THAT PIECE OF PROPERTY. I THINK I HAD JUST COME ON, COME HERE, COME ON BOARD. or come to the desert when Walmart, when we did the ribbon cutting for Walmart, and that had just been in the works for years and years and years and years, and there were a whole lot of things involved with that. Thank you. Yes.

In the current zoning, how much warehouse space is currently allowed? I'm gonna defer to Mr. Halverson on that, sure.

Yeah, so I mentioned earlier in my presentation that there's a specific plan called the Clinton Business Park. So that one was anywhere from 300,000 to 400,000 square feet of industrial space that was slated for just that small portion there. I think it was roughly like 22 to 30 acres, something like that. So, yeah, there is an area that they could do industrial in that area.

You said 300,000 to 400,000 square feet.

THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 SQUARE FEET. THREE TO 400 and it would go to the Planning Commission and you would see a refined design like floor plans and site plans and full elevations and it would also go through additional public participation where people could come just like tonight and give their input and their feedback on that project. So this is just one step in several step process.

Okay, thank you for that. And so that $1.8 million in warehouse seems like a daunting number. City Manager, do we have any warehouse type facilities anywhere else in the city?

NOT OF THAT SIZE. NOT OF THAT SIZE. NOT OF THAT SIZE. NOT OF THAT SIZE. OTHER FACILITIES IN THE OTHER FACILITIES IN THE CITY ARE MORE LIKE 40,000 CITY ARE MORE LIKE 40,000 SQUARE FEET. SQUARE FEET. LIKE A BUZZ BOX WHICH IS RIGHT LIKE A BUZZ BOX WHICH IS RIGHT OFF THE TEN FREEWAY OFF OF OFF THE TEN FREEWAY OFF OF JACKSON. JACKSON. THAT'S LIKE 37,000 SQUARE FEET. THAT'S LIKE 37,000 SQUARE FEET. ANOTHER LARGER FACILITY OFF OF ANOTHER LARGER FACILITY OFF OF HIGHWAY 111 IS THE MATHIS HIGHWAY 111 IS THE MATHIS BROTHERS. BROTHERS. ALL THEIR BUILDINGS TOGETHER. ALL THEIR BUILDINGS TOGETHER. IT'S A CAMPUS THERE.

Is it Fern, Mostow? Is it Fern or Fira? I like to try to get it right, I apologize.

Close enough, it's Fira Mostow. What I hear is just kind of sounds like a lot of smoke and mirrors. You've heard about pollution. You've heard about greenhouse gas. They've already said they can't mitigate it. So what they're really saying is that we're going to put a lot of houses around these warehouses, and you're going to be breathing this crap, and there's nothing we can do about it. The same thing is true of your community and your community, the community's east. When that wind blows, that pollution is gonna go right there. The warehouse, the majority hunk of this project is a 1.8 million square foot warehouse. I haven't heard anything about a tenant. Right now in Southern California, I looked it up, there are 55 million square feet of empty warehouse space currently. They have, I don't hear them talking about a dedicated tenant. It would be lovely if they could get an Ikea. Yes, it would be lovely if we could have a Trader Joe's in our backyard. But you have to meet their requirements. And so far, I haven't heard them even begin to talk about who's going to occupy that warehouse. Are we going to have just a big empty building that turns into a nuisance? that you see as you come down the 10. Indio's looking beautiful these days. We're the city of festivals. We've modernized and improved our downtown. It looks great now. We've put the College of the Desert is there. And now you want to put in a huge empty, could wind up being a huge empty building. All right, I looked at this, their so-called plans. Electrical substation. IID announced a year ago that they would not provide electricity to any new building. These people have to do that if they want to have any kind of building. It's not like they're giving you a big present. Public safety. They've reserved a site for the police station. They're not building you a police station. You're building yourself a police station. They talked about three acres of parkland. I don't see where they're going to develop the park. They're just handing you the land. Healthcare commitment. There's no commitment of a hospital. We in North India are an island. We have to go across the 10 to get to any major medical facilities. When those trucks... come across and block two lanes of traffic when you've got an ambulance there, you could have very serious consequences. I would love to see a hospital, but I haven't seen them commit to putting one. Essentially, what we're seeing is a lot of, well, we think we can do this, and we think we can do that, and maybe we would like to do this. But I have not yet seen any definite proposal for anything. And I think we need to look at that before you make any decision. Thank you.

Thank you, council members. I'm Bill Collins. I'm a resident of, excuse me, Four Seasons, Taralago. And so I gotta be frank. One thing I'm a little bit disappointed about is I was under the impression that the city staff should be impartial and just provide the facts, but at the planning commission and again tonight, it seems like they're doing more to advocate on behalf of this project. And the Planning Commission carefully considered this project and voted 3-2 to recommend denial. This decision should carry significant weight. The Commission heard the concerns of residents and reviewed the environmental consequences of a project that could bring thousands of housing units and approximately 1.8 million square feet of industrial development to our community. but what concerns me most is the environmental record not the planning commission not one person from city staff not one person from the developer denied that there would be environmental issues and that they could not be mitigated they simply talked about tax benefits goals of jobs, not actual jobs. It's our goals to get these many jobs. And so there's a lot of doublespeak tonight coming from, as far as I'm concerned, coming from the part of the developer, their marketing people, all those involved in it. So the EIR acknowledged that some air quality impacts would remain significant and unavoidable. This is not a minor issue, means that after the proposed mitigation measures, there are still impacts. that cannot be reduced to less than significant levels. So a simple question for the council, the environmental analysis tells us the significant air quality impact cannot be fully mitigated Why are you moving forward or even consider moving forward with this project? You just spent millions of dollars on an athletic park that's about a mile from this facility, and those individuals, those children, those adults using that park, they're going to be impacted by worsening air pollution. Those warehouses that are being built on the Interstate 10 corridor, we're downwind from them. So any problems they generate, we're going to feel the effects because of the Western UN. And then there's the...

And after Alison, it's Kate Schwartz.

Yep, hello again. Thank you for staying out this late. So to start off, as a community member that is within the direct sphere of influence, I live within a mile of this project. I'm here in front of you again this time to urge you all to reject this OASIS project appeal. I agree with the City of Indio Planning Commission recommendation to deny the project. I think they did a lot of work and spent a lot of time to make that recommendation. And I think that it should be respected. And I do not want an industrial project that includes a 1.8 million square foot warehouse within less than a mile from my neighborhood, Jackson Elementary, the sports park, and so many other neighborhoods and communities. There's years of research from the Inland Empire neighbors about the negative impacts of warehouses in the region. And these cities have started denying warehouse projects over the past few years for these exact reasons. There's evidence that neighborhoods in close proximity to warehouses experience higher rates of asthma and other respiratory conditions. My neighborhood and most neighborhoods on the south side of the freeway are already in the 15th percentile or higher. for pollution burden, especially diesel particulate matter that this project would exacerbate as acknowledged by the project's own EIR that stated there are significant unavoidable impacts to air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. Like in addition to this, after today's presentation I have QUITE A FEW QUESTIONS, BUT ESPECIALLY ABOUT THE VALIDITY OF SOME OF THE COMPARATIVE DATA BETWEEN THE GENERAL PLAN AND DEVELOPERS' PROJECTIONS. I HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE NUMBER OF ACTUAL JOBS THAT ARE EXPECTED TO FALL WITHIN THE 70K PLUS RANGE VERSUS LIKE MINIMUM OR LOW WAGE JOBS. NONE OF THIS WAS PROVIDED. I HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT A PROJECT THIS LARGE AND WITH SUCH SERIOUS IMPACTS THAT WILL ONLY NET $861,000. AND, YOU KNOW, AMONG OTHERS, And so over the past few months I've been here to speak out against these large-scale projects that would develop thousands of acres of deserts for golf courses, luxury hotels, and now today warehouses. I don't oppose these projects because I'm anti-growth. AS SOMEONE BEFORE ME SAID, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IS IMPORTANT, BUT I'M HERE BECAUSE I OPPOSE UNSUSTAINABLE PROJECTS THAT WOULD PUT MY COMMUNITY AT FURTHER HARM, AND I UNDERSTAND THAT THE PROSPECTS OF JOB AND TAX REVENUE IS VERY ALLURING, WHICH HAS BEEN A HUGE TALKING POINT FOR DEVELOPERS, BUT IS THE CITY'S REVENUE WORTH MORE THAN THE HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF THE PEOPLE OF INDIO? YOUR DECISION TODAY WILL TELL US EXACTLY YOUR STANCE ON THIS QUESTION, AND I STRONGLY URGE YOU ALL TO MAKE THE ONLY CHOICE THAT is in our best interest by saying no to the Oasis project. Thanks.

Not here. Michael Slater? There he is, yes.

And then Mayor, just to remind you, we do have two public comments on Zoom.

Thank you. Please, right after Michael Slater, we can hit those. Yes.

All right. Mayor and council members, tonight, almost this morning, I am speaking as a concerned resident who loves Indio and believes in its future and want to show that it's worth standing up for. First, I want to start with saying thank you. We are all continuously impressed with the growth that has taken place over the last 10 years. our new sports park, this wonderful city hall, and the housing taking shape in downtown. These all represent hard work and meaningful investment. I want to thank everyone who helped make that possible, and we see the growth and we appreciate it. Those accomplishments show what is possible when we believe in Indio. They give us reasons to feel hopeful and reasons to expect more. That is why I'm asking you to reject the Oasis project as proposed. You have all spoken proudly about where Indio is going. Tonight, I ask you to hold this project to that standard of that pride. When I think about Indio, I think about families putting down roots, small businesses built through years of sacrifice, our vibrant culture, our diverse neighborhoods, and the views of the beautiful mountains that frame our amazing valley that we call home. We are the city of festivals, and people from all over the world come to experience the music, food, coffee, culture, and energy of our wonderful city. But the measure of our city's success is more than how many people come here to celebrate. It is the quality of the life we create for the people who call Indio home. The families raising children here, the small businesses investing here, and the residents counting on you to protect the city's future. We clearly do not want large warehouses and truck traffic to become the defining image of our city's gateway. We want development that strengthens our identity and creates opportunities our families can build their futures around. Before you vote, I ask you to ask yourselves, is this the future you would want in your own neighborhoods? Have residents' concerns about traffic, air quality, and the quality of life been answered to a standard that you would accept for your own family and your own neighborhoods? To the standard that you would want to wake up near or drive by every day? I understand that these decisions are difficult, but we, the residents, will live with the consequences long after tonight's presentations are over. Please give our concerns the weight that they deserve and understand this, our participation does not end when these microphones turn off. We will keep showing up. We will keep organizing and voting for leaders who listen to its residents. We will encourage our neighbors to do the same. Tonight's decision will be a part of that judgment. The seats on the dais belong to the people of Indio. Each person entrusted with one has a responsibility to the community that they were elected to represent. You have the opportunity tonight to show that our voices matter and that your vision for Indio is worthy of the people who call it home. India was too valuable, too beautiful, and too full of possibility to settle for a project like this. Please give us a decision we can all be proud of and vote no on the Oasis project. Thank you.

The Zoom, the two Zoom calls.

Are you ready for the Zoom? Yes. Okay. Carly Steele, if you are there, please unmute yourself, and you have three minutes.

Hello. Can you all hear me? Yes.

You can now.

Amazing. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Carly Steele. I'm from the law firm Lazo Drury. I'm here tonight on behalf of Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility, also known as SAFER. SAFER is a 503c nonprofit organization. healthy living and working environments, and Safer respectfully requests that the City Council not approve the project for two main reasons. First, the Council should follow the recommendation of the Planning Commission and deny the project because its benefits do not outweigh its significant impacts, especially the impacts of allowing 1.8 million square feet of new industrial development. Second, even if the Council does not follow the Planning Commission's recommendation, the project should still not be approved at this time due to deficiencies in the Environmental Impact Report, which do not meet the requirements of the Environmental Quality Act. Sorry, the California Environmental Quality Act. When it comes to balancing impacts and benefits, the EIR concluded that the project would result in significant and unavoidable impacts to air quality and greenhouse gases. Under CEQA, if the Council would want to approve a project with significant and unavoidable impacts like these, they would need to adopt a statement of overriding consideration to explicitly state on the record that you're willing to proceed with this project despite the environmental damage that it will cause. The Planning Commission thoroughly considered that issue and could not find that the benefits of 1.8 million square foot of industrial development to Indio would outweigh the impacts. The Council should follow the recommendation and deny the project. However, if the Council is inclined to consider approving the project, the Council should not do so tonight but instead direct the staff to revise the EIR and bring it into compliance with CEQA. Numerous comments have been submitted to the city from organizations other than safer, including care California golden state environmental justice alliance and the California department of fish and wildlife raising numerous issues with the ir. including inadequate analysis of impacts to transportation, noise, hazards, and biological resources. In addition to those comments, SAFER submitted written comment to the council last week that included a review of the project by our expert ecologist, Dr. Sean Smallwood. He found that the EIR failed to adequately address and disclose the impacts to biological resources for multiple reasons, including underestimating the number of species that will be impacted by the project, failing to account for the project's impacts on wildlife movement and habitat loss, and failing to analyze the impacts to wildlife that will be injured or killed by the project generated traffic, by collisions with windows, and by predation by house cats from the project's residential uses. These impacts must be included and analyzed in a revised EIR prior to approval of the project. For those reasons, SAFER respectfully requests that the council deny the project or otherwise direct staff to revise the EIR. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for your time. Second one.

And that is the only comment, Mayor, thank you.

That is the only comment, okay. The next request to speak is Megan Scarborough-Eckel. Who's next? Hang on a second, let me get you, you gotta go live. Is there a button?

There we go. It's on. Good evening, Madam Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, members of the council, city staff, and members of the public. My name is Megan Scarborough-Eckel, and I serve as a planning commissioner for the city of Indio and as the clerk of the board for the Coachella Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District. Initially, I planned to speak about the negative impacts the OASIS project would have on the district. my district, and our ability to protect the public health and the quality of life of residents around the Coachella Valley, as our district is located off of Monroe and Oleander. However, after listening to BH Properties' presentation telling us Indio needs these warehouse jobs, but what do they know what we need? And are residents of Indio and our youth only good enough for warehouse jobs? I have seen many developers like them that have done their damage, come and gone, while those like myself who were born and raised here have dealt with those consequences. My generation can recall when terms like ghetto and dangerous were used to describe the city of Indio because of former council members like Jean Gilbert and Mike Wilson that failed us. This council sitting here today in front of me is part of the reason why Indio is currently experiencing a renaissance. I implore you to continue the good work that you're doing and don't fail the next generation of residents. Thank you.

Thank you. Next request to speak is Ash.

My name is Ash. It's 11.31 p.m. and there's still plenty of people in this room. Just goes to show how important this decision is for the community. My family lives very close to the project site, east of the project. I also wanted to make a comment that I don't really understand why the council has been having some discussions during the public hearing because ultimately those questions and those answers won't change the fact that we don't want industrial development This project is no oasis. The list of uses that would be permitted on the industrial site are incredibly alarming and aren't really clearly defined, from electronics manufacturing, a drone logistics hub, and aerospace manufacturing, to name a few. Each of these permitted uses would have varying harms and if approved, it would be 0.8 miles away from an elementary school and so close to so many residential communities and then adjacent to apartments. I can't think of a single person that would pay to live next to warehouses. Because these concerning uses are permitted, they would not have to go back to the commission or have further environmental review. And that includes the 14 additional uses that developers added after the planning commission denied this project. I'm deeply concerned about the harms this project will absolutely cause to the environment, quality of life, and public health, even if those warehouses on this site are smaller. 1,720 daily truck trips, that is unfathomable. The developers are saying 500 housing units would also create air quality impacts. Well, that's a false equivalence, a joke, especially with the enormity of this project and the kind of uses it would allow. This is illogical and unsustainable. We're seeing climate catastrophes grow in intensity and frequency and approaching closer and closer. Jobs, homes, parks, and commercial businesses, all of these things advertised as benefits for this project are worthless when our environment will be harmed and our future will not be promised to the youth. As a youth who works with the youth, I can say my generation is scared. I'm horrified because it is hard to imagine the future, let alone what the world will look like in the next year. We already have hot summers with rising temperatures. Our water sources are rapidly drying, including the Colorado River. Our mountains have less and less snow each winter. The project will worsen these existing conditions. The site is not barren sand. Our desert is not barren sand. Deny this project, it will be a detriment to the environment, public safety, health, and general welfare. The way you vote today will be made known.

The next request to speak is Cecilia.

Hello, my name is Cecilia and I'm a resident here in Indio. I'm here to voice my opposition against the Oasis Warehouse project and my expectation is for the council to vote against it tonight. There's been many examples and I just want to mention that one of the case studies that they brought during their presentation for Eastvale is in the Inland Empire next to communities like Fontana, Rio Alto, who are all suffering from the consequences of warehouses. This is very... Funny to me that they would present this case study as a successful example of this type of warehouse when just a quick Google search, I found so many articles of residents fighting against the effects of warehouses. I'm going to read some articles that I found really quickly. This is from NBC News. Treated like sacrifices, families breathe toxic fumes from California warehouses hub. The industry is booming, but the cost is seen through people's asthma, people's cancer, and the lack of good jobs. The lack of good jobs, meaning the warehouse jobs. I also found another Fulfillment center warehouse job on Goodman Road, Eastville, California. They're starting to pay their employees at $18. That's not a livable wage. Another study from an article from the University of California, Davis. Over 300 California warehouses sit within 1,000 feet of schools. Residents and lawmakers are fighting back. So this is literally just really quick Google searches that I made sitting down. And it was because of the case study that we're trying to present here as a success story. There's so much evidence to prove that warehouses are not good for the public, for the environment, public health, period. Nobody wants to live in front of a warehouse. Nobody wants to live in front of a warehouse. I promise you that. If people do end up buying those houses, they'll probably treat them as Airbnbs because who's going to want to live there year round? And let me see what else they wrote here. It's also interesting that a lot of the promises that they're making are to bring in like hospitals. When a lot of the families are going to be attending these hospital visits or doctor's visits, they're probably going to be treating respiratory illnesses. So it's like you're poisoning the communities that you're trying to provide health services to. So that's another huge contradiction. And yeah, that's all that I have to say.

Thank you, thank you for your comments. Alex E. Thank you.

I, like Megan, also work at Coachella Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District, and since she chose to speak on some different topics, I will focus on that. Our district was in some of those images that were shown on the map as the crow flies were probably the closest property to the industrial, proposed industrial part. And that is where I spend 40 hours a week. And then I live about a mile south of there. So 99% of my time here is going to be within a mile, mile and a half of this proposed industrial complex. I already hear the train. I already hear noise from the 10. There's light pollution. I don't The traffic is already bad. I have to point out that on those images they showed saying where they showed the cars all over 42 with the worst case scenario compared to the three cars on for 42 with their best case scenario, it doesn't even look like that right now. There's never three cars on the road there. So I just, this is just appalling to me and the fact that you, you're just throwing your hands up in the air saying, just outright, we did an environmental review and we can't help the fact that it's going to cause pollution. It makes me feel like what's the point of this whole process that everybody's taking so seriously in this room? What is the point when the outcome is, well, we did the environmental review. We can't help these things, but you guys should do it anyway. because that's just how life is. So I'm not going to stand for it. I want to go down knowing that I said that's not okay. And I live too close to this. I work too close to this. And the truck traffic, the truck noise, and going back to our public health that we protect at Mosquito and Vector Control, We send technicians out in the field five days a week. They need to get on and off the 10 every day. It already takes time out of their schedule during the day to serve the public, serve the community, to kill mosquitoes and keep us safe from virus. So it will slow us down. We won't be able to serve the community as well. And that goes for the whole Coachella Valley. So thank you.

Okay, Council, this is the end of the comments. Mayor? At this moment, yes.

I'd like to, for the record, our office received 105 comments via email in opposition and six in support. And these comments are posted on the website. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Yep, but I need you to grab a form as well.

Hello, Mayor. My name is Sid, Mayor Pro Term and council members. Thank you guys for hearing me. I came here to speak out against the flock and just be a person against that. But then I stayed because I saw where I live right on that map. And I was like, what's this? And all of it is brand new to me. I'm seeing it all for the first time tonight. I frequent that Walmart, that road, everything around that area. I've been living there for about 10 years. So all these great things that are being told, I haven't heard anything about it. So I don't know how hard they're trying to let everyone that's living in that area know what's actually going to be happening there. Thank you for listening to me. Have a good night.

Thank you. Public hearing is closed. Council, what is your pleasure? And I do have one non-agenda I haven't forgotten.

First, I just want to say thank you to our partners at BH Properties for working with us over the past couple of years to bring a good project here. I've now had the chance to hear from nearby residents, our community online, our planning commission, our council members, and I know almost everyone I've spoken to about this project, the major... CONCERN IS AN INCREASE IN AIR QUALITY ISSUES AND TRAFFIC ISSUES THAT WOULD COME FROM THE CHANGE IN ZONING TO A MORE INDUSTRIAL TYPE OF DEVELOPMENT DUE TO THE SIZE OF THE WAREHOUSE SPACE IN THIS PLAN. BUT AFTER ALL THESE MEETINGS, TOWN HALLS, PLANNING COMMISSION DENIAL, WE'RE STILL AT PRACTICALLY THE SAME PROJECT. THERE'S STILL NO SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN WAREHOUSE SPACE BESIDES BRINGING IT DOWN IN HEIGHT. to a size that is already a legal requirement under the current zoning. And so I think the message from our community has been clear. The message from our planning commission was clear that it's too heavy of an impact to be placed next to a residential neighborhoods. And our communities would like to see this project reduce the amount of warehouse space to better fit the needs of the surrounding community. Can I see a raise of hands of how many people are concerned with the warehouse space? And that's where we haven't seen a change so far in this plan. And the second issue I have is with the environmental impact report. We only have those two options in that report with the 1.8 million square feet or the other one with also 1.8 million square feet. And this doesn't allow us to provide a good comparison for our council or our residents that shows what the difference of the impact would be from the current zoning compared to the proposed industrial zoning. We've had the very worst case scenarios, right? But let's compare it to other projects that we have around the city that are of similar size, right? Commercial spaces, neighborhoods. I think that apples to apples comparison is something that could better convey what the actual impacts of this is gonna be for our residents. But we haven't had enough time to do that. Because as we mentioned earlier, the numbers that were presented today of the 88% greenhouse gas reduction, we just got two days ago. We haven't had enough time to take that and go be able to confirm those numbers or see what the validity of those calculations is. And so I think I would suggest that we, if they would like to move forward with this kind of project, bring back something with the reduced amount of warehouse space, this is just way too high. We can see it in the concerns from our residents. And we also need to do on our end, I believe, we need more time to be able to present what the difference in impact is gonna be for these residents, right? If you were to develop this as a commercial space or as an industrial space, we need those clear comparisons so that our community can make that a good decision and so that our council can make a responsible decision there. So that's what I have so far.

Thank you. Council Member Miller.

And thank you, Madam Mayor. I concur with Oscar quite a bit of it, but I'm not really ready to throw the bath, the baby out with bathwater. I think there could be some opportunities to change some stuff, but I do agree with Oscar. I don't think that all the numbers and the facts that were given to us, you got 1,230 pages worth of items that we've had two days to really get a handle on. And I agree that there's some of the numbers just don't add up. The $861,000 to me is not a lot of money when you start talking about the impacts of what it might have. But I'm also worthy of what's going to be able to be there and what it's going to look like in the long run and what that whole area does. But we have residents that are worried about the impacts of it, and the numbers there to me just don't add up. So I agree with Oscar that I think we need to look at what those impacts are, get the feedback from how they've come up with their numbers to make sure that we're able to justify and verify them. But honestly, people, when you have any kind of project, the arena, it's going to have a negative impact. There's no way you can tell me that putting all those cars and all that stuff there that was nothing there is not going to have some kind of impact. It's always going to have a negative impact. It just depends on what we approve and what we like. A lot of people don't complain about the arena, but it does. There's a lot of cars, a lot of areas stopped waiting there. But we all love the Firebirds. We love the concerts and that. So we look the other way on it. There's always going to be a negative impact anytime you add any kind of cars, but what kind of impact depends on what kind of vehicles go through there and what kind of traffics. The warehouse is going to have a major more effect to it. So I think the numbers need to be verified before we go forward, but I'm not willing to throw it out until we have more information on what we're looking at to see what we can do to salvage that area. Something's going to be built there. Let's see if we can come up with a conclusion that will help everybody on it.

That's right.

Council Member Guthrie. Well, first of all, I, not the council, want to apologize for the length to all of you for whatever that's worth. It's not because Glen told me to say that. It's not because of Ms. Elaine or Wayman or Oscar. This is just me. I'm just Ben. I'm a council member elected by the people. I have to listen to everybody. The developers and their representatives met with me. I gave them my viewpoints. They took them. has been adjusted, but not all. I've heard it from everybody else as well. The residents that have spoken up, we have to have a balance. I spent 40 years mitigating people not getting along. I take that same value today. And everything that was just quoted by Oscar and everything that was just quoted by Glenn, I agree with them. I've yet to hear the rest of the members of the council. But I think that, I know something's gonna be built there someday. I said that when I met with about 400 members of the Sun City group, because I figured it was important to do that. I know something will be built there. What will be built is how it affects our quality of life for our community. We are one of nine cities, but this is Indio. I want to be a good neighbor to my surrounding cities here. My biggest compassion is the east end of the valley, for many reasons. The east end of the valley means a lot to me. Andio's a big piece of that pie. I think that we just need to work out some of the things that have been brought up here by the other council members. And that's where my vision's at right now.

Thank you, well said. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you to everyone for standing this evening and almost this morning. My goal is to go to midnight, so I'm gonna talk for 10 minutes.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm after you, hang on.

And thank you for BH for uh, you know working with us on this project, you know, I believe in growth and I didn't hear anyone tonight say that they didn't believe in growth but responsible growth and I think that's our job You know as elected officials to not only forecast for the short-term future, but 20 30 40 years down the line That's why we do have our general plan. That's why we have our planning commission so we could do that but it does involve the community and it does involve our business world and I still have questions about this you know transportation you know we have 50 to 90,000 vehicles that travel the I-10 corridor every day and that that contributes to our air pollution so it is a concern when we can't mitigate air pollution in it within this project I can tell you how we can mitigate it, and a lot of folks here probably can tell you how we mitigate it, is that we have to massage this project, bring it back, and not focus on light industrial. And that's just the bottom line of it, and I'll tell you why. Desert Hot Springs has a Amazon warehouse. Beaumont has an Amazon warehouse. They're both approximately 600,000 square feet apiece, and they take about 70 semis every day. This project is approved, what would be approved for more or asking for more in that plan. This is 1.8 million square feet. It's bigger than both of those put together. And also, I mean, for folks who can't rationalize how big that is, that's about 30 football fields. That's huge. And so I don't think the I think we could do more work to bring a better, more deserving project back for the city. We talked about some community benefits. Thank you. I appreciate the community benefits, the impact fees for schools, open green space, health care facilities. But they will butt in into light industrial. So I don't know if that's really a community benefit. And so the other thing I have is, you know, 5% affordable. I appreciate that. I appreciate that effort. I'd like to see more affordable because it was mentioned earlier that our folks are traveling to the other side of the valley. Yes, they are. They're living here, but they're working over there, right? And so but they're traveling there because we need more affordable. So I like to see more affordable with this project. And also when we talk about traffic and transportation, it will have a negative impact no matter what we bring. And so we have to understand that as well. And that's why we're here. That's why we have to continue to work with the community. Any growth we have will have some kind of impact. But we have to also understand that that impact can affect our whole valley and our whole economy and our whole quality of life. Perfect example, last night, I don't know if you guys watched the news or if you were in traffic the last couple nights, we had an Amazon truck catch on fire on the I-10 and stopped all the traffic. I was in it, right? You could stand on the freeway and watch how many Amazon trucks go by. That's the world we live in. Someone said earlier that warehouses are the new data centers. Not necessarily. They're kind of the new mall because of online orders and things like that. So is there a need for some of these warehouses? Maybe, but we don't want it in the city. I think it takes away from our aesthetics of the desert. I think we're not built out for that. So that is my... I know a lot of this was said. I'd like to see more focus on public transportation because we know there's going to be an impact with vehicles, so I'd like to see more engagement with Sunline Transit. I think that's it, yeah. I mean, the trade-off is not good enough and we need to engage again with Desert Sands Unified School District. I read in the EIR that Desert Sands implied that there's a capacity in their schools. So it was mentioned that infrastructure, I think the city, made an error years back when we were hungry for growth, right? And we built houses before we built infrastructure. That's why we have issues with the Monroe interchange, the Jackson interchange. And we just got the 44 lower crossing, but now we're playing catch up and I don't want to do that. So I want to focus on infrastructure, focus on some new schools, and then we can start talking about major projects, but not 1.8 million square feet of light industrial.

I think everybody makes some valid points, and I think that 1.8 of industrial is just daunting. It's daunting to all of us. I have a somewhat different view in smaller spaces. Employees, scientists, and accounting people, and finance people, and business development people say, I need another 100,000, a couple hundred thousand square feet, and he's going to move into a warehouse. a couple of hundred thousand square feet is not 1.8 and that's kind of the impacts of that are daunting. I know, you know, it's a beautiful piece of property. I know that there's at least something close to the perfect project that can go there. We need to just work a little, continue to work on this. One of the concerns is when I hear all impacts can be mitigated except for air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. I hear what you're saying and whenever you start disturbing dirt and you start building stuff that is bound to happen at some level but I don't think that, I think there needs to be more information behind that and helping us understand that and understand how we mitigate that. You know, if not that 1.8 and we were to put all homes, what would that look like? Not saying I want to by any means, but I think there's more assumptions that need to be dictated more information that needs to be provided. Some of the current zoning 99,000 daily trips always says 31,505. I understand what you keep saying. Well, you know, you got that from our EIR. I've got an audience full of people that does not put the EIR under their pillow at night and commit it to memory. So help us understand what that means, what the reality is, and not take the extremes. I also do not want to give up on this project. As I said before, it's a beautiful piece of property. I think there's endless opportunity there. It just may not be for that size of a warehouse. So let's just continue my suggestion to council.

Well, I mean, I don't know if anyone has any further. I mean, we were presenting options earlier of pass or denial, but that's not the only option. I think we can continue this, come back, continue to work with the community, continue to work with the planning council, however we do it to get this right. This is, I mean, On eight years of being on council, this is by far the biggest project I would ever vote on. And I wanna make sure that we get this right. I'm pretty sure the council does as well. So I would make a motion to continue this item to further date to be determined.

Question there. Steven, if there's a significant change to this project, it has to go back to the planning commission, right?

IF THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE THAT WAS NOT CONSIDERED BY THE PLANNING COMMISSION, SO THERE WERE ALTERNATIVES THAT WERE INCLUDED IN THE PACKET, BUT IF THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE TO IT THAT WAS NOT CONSIDERED, YES, UNDER OUR CODE IT WOULD BE APPROPRIATE TO SEND IT BACK TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION.

SEEING AS AT LEAST WHAT I HEAR EVERYBODY SAYING IS THE REDUCTION IN INDUSTRIAL SPACE, A reduction, a significant reduction in industrial space would have to go back to the Planning Commission.

SO WHEN I THINK ABOUT A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE WE'RE LOOKING AT GREATER IMPACTS SO FOR EXAMPLE WHEN WE ANALYZED THE REDUCTION IN THE HEIGHT THAT IS A REDUCTION FROM THE PREVIOUS PROPOSAL SO OUR RECOMMENDATION WOULD NOT BE THAT YOU HAVE TO SEND THAT BACK TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION OF COURSE THE COUNCIL CAN EXERCISE ITS DISCRETION IF IT WANTS TO BUT IF WE'RE LOOKING AT NEW USES THAT WERE NOT ANALYZED If we're looking at more intensity in any of the standards, then that would be the type of thing that would be appropriate to send back to the Planning Commission as required under the code.

On your motion, would you like it to continue it here or go back to the plan?

I'd like to continue it here because our goal is to mitigate the land use from light industrial. So I don't think that would need to go back to Planning Commission. I think that would come back to us to make that determination. I concur. I think you should come back to us. I agree.

I'll second. Yeah, and I think as long as staff understands where we're going with this to make sure that those answers to our questions are looked at it, thought it through, and then bring it back, because if not, we're going to do the same thing over again. So it really needs to be looked at. And what's viable for our B&H partners, and we're sorry, but we really need some answers to some of the questions.

All right, so I have a motion and a second to continue this. We'll work with city manager and staff to determine when that can come back. Let's go ahead and vote. Okay, and the vote is to continue the discussion moving forward. I have. Wait a minute. You know what, you guys? Hey, everyone. We have one more request to speak. And this man has sat through this. So can you guys hang for another three minutes and let Mr. Barry Fisher speak? Yes.

Good morning.

Good morning.

My name is Barry Fisher. and I have lived in India for a little over 10 years now. For 40 years, I worked as a forensic scientist for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department crime laboratory. For 20 years, I served as crime laboratory director. I've written and lectured extensively on forensic science. I've also testified before the United States Senate on forensic science matters. I share that background with you for one reason. I've spent much of my career watching technology transform law enforcement and I learned an important lesson. Technology is powerful. That is why it needs strong safeguards. DNA is a good example. It has helped identify criminals who might have otherwise never been caught. It has also helped to exonerate innocent people. License plate readers, to return to something we discussed earlier, can provide similar benefits. They can help locate stolen vehicles, find missing persons, identify vehicles connected with serious crimes, and give investigators leads they might not otherwise have. These benefits are real. They matter. But there's another question that we must ask. Not just does this technology help law enforcement also, what safeguards ensure that it is used properly? Who may search the system? For what purpose? How long is the information kept? Who may it be shared with? Is it regularly audited? And if someone misuses the system, will that misuse be detected? And what will the consequences be? I recognize that the Indianapolis Police Department already has policies addressing many of these concerns. That's important. But policies governing powerful technologies simply cannot be adapted and placed on a shelf. They have to require continuing oversight. During my career, I learned that technology itself is neither good nor bad. What matters is how we control its use. This does not have to be a choice between effective policing and individual privacy. We should be able to have both. Give our officers modern tools and protect the community at the same time. And we need rules, limited access, appropriate data retention, meaningful audits, accountability. Ultimately, this is a matter of trust. People need confidence.

Mr. Fisher. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Mr. Slater, after this, no more requests to speak. Just saying. We're closed for business.

Negative time.

You're good. We can hear you.

Okay, you can hear me? Okay. I'll be quick. Hello again, Council and Mayor. I wanted to ask if... Just to be mindful of people's time, when an agenda item such as this OASIS project, council member Wayman mentioned that this is one of the largest items to come before the council in eight years. And I feel saddened that this is the representation that we have for this type of project. So I want to ask that when it comes back to council, if it can be a special meeting held earlier in the day so that we're not having senior citizens or no one present. I would like to see more representation from our community and better notice of it. Thank you.

No, we just can't pack big items. No, there's no more than two big ones if they come.

We have to do that. But it's hard to. Okay, sorry, thank you.