Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, it is now 5.27, and I'm gonna call the Planning Commission meeting on Thursday, August 6th, 2026 to order. Taya, could you please call the roll?

Commissioner Pearson.

Present.

Commissioner Mansfield.

Present.

Commissioner Grossman.

Here.

Commissioner De La Cusack.

Here.

Commissioner Batia.

Here.

Vice Chair Lin. Here. Chair Stark.

Here.

We have a quorum.

Okay, thank you. Now, Commissioner Mansfield will help us in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. All who are able, please rise and join us.

Please put your right hand over your heart. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. All right. Now I would like to open public comments for non-agendized items. This will include any item not listed on tonight's agenda. Taya, do we have any public comments on non-agendized items?

If anyone on Zoom wishes to speak, now is the time to raise your hand. We will take speakers in the chamber first. Chair, there are no public comments. All right.

Thank you. Melissa, do we have any introductions?

We do not.

How about staff reports?

There are none.

Would my fellow commissioners have any announcements or reports they'd like to share? How about additions or deletions?

There are none.

All right. So we'll move on to the consent calendar. All the items listed will be enacted by one vote. There'll be no discussion of these items unless members of the Planning Commission request specific items to be removed from the consent calendar for specific separate discussion. Can I open the public comments, please?

If anyone on Zoom wishes to speak, now is the time to raise your hand. We will take speakers in the chamber first. Chair, there are no public comments on this item.

Thank you. Any of my commissioners like to pull the item to discuss? Okay. So then we could have a motion.

Motion to approve, Mr. Chairman.

Second.

Okay. Can we please set up the vote?

Chair, the motion to approve the minutes has passed unanimously.

Thank you. Then we'll move on to item two, and I'll open the public hearing. Melissa, could you please introduce the item?

The item before you tonight is the 2026 update to the Irvine Zoning Ordinance and Multifamily Housing and Mixed-Use Development Objective Design Standards Manual. Presenting this evening is Tiffany Lin, Senior Planner, joined by Nick Maloney, Principal Planner.

Thank you and good evening, members of the Planning Commission. The item again before you this evening is the Zoning Ordinance and Objected Design Standards Manual Update. The purpose of this update is to keep the zoning ordinance current, clear, and user-friendly. The proposed changes ensure conformance with state law, streamline and clarify procedures, and address inconsistencies identified through implementation. The update also includes revisions to outdated references, new regulations where needs have emerged, and changes to align the zoning ordinance with current planning practices. Overall, the goal is to improve the organization, administration and usability of the zoning ordinance. In the following slides, I will go through each of the updates in more detail. Starting with definitions, several existing definitions are proposed to be updated to improve clarity, reflect how these terms are currently being used and regulated, and improve administration. A new definition for low barrier navigation centers is also proposed to be added to comply with state law. In addition, income level references throughout the zoning ordinance are proposed to be updated for consistency with recent changes to the affordable housing implementation chapter of the code. Moving into procedural updates, the bicycle parking administrative relief procedures and standards are proposed to be updated to conform with current more stringent state building standards. The affordable housing implementation procedures chapter is proposed to be updated to reflect current community preference policy requirements. For the coastal zone regulations, clarifying information is proposed to be added regarding applicable requirements. and cottage food operation regulations are proposed to be updated to establish clear revocation requirements consistent with other planning application types. The concept plan chapter is proposed to be updated to reflect accurate reference to zoning districts. The enforcement and revocation procedures are proposed to be revised to clarify the process for revoking director approvals. For conditional use permits, clear criteria are proposed to be established for when a use is considered abandoned to ensure inactive and outdated conditional use permits do not remain active indefinitely. The administrative use permit chapter is proposed to be updated to provide a consistent appeal period for director level reviews. The next group of updates focuses on Donating Districts and Development Standards. The chapter regulating the city's comprehensive zoning map is proposed to be updated to incorporate the map by reference and clarify the applicable requirements. The solid waste enclosure regulations are proposed to be updated to modify the design requirements for trash enclosures. The zoning district land use regulations are proposed to be updated to allow self storage uses in the 5.4 general industrial zone consistent with what was previously permitted in the zone. And for planning area to the zoning district land use regulations and planning area requirements are proposed to be updated to modify development standards and design review procedures and requirements. For planning area 36, the planning area requirements are proposed to be updated to establish parkway and sidewalk width requirements consistent with city standard plan, as well as setback requirements for private courts. The zoning ordinance also includes several technical corrections proposed to provide accurate and consistent references throughout divisions 2, 3, 7, and 9. And finally, the Objective Design Standards Manual is proposed to be updated to add clarifying information regarding applicability, as well as a new pedestrian walkway requirement. In terms of environmental review, the proposed amendments are exempt from further analysis under the common sense exemption. The public hearing notice was published on July 16th and no public comments have been received to date. Overall, the proposed amendments are intended to keep the zoning ordinance current and responsive to changes in state law, evolving planning practices, and needs identified through implementation. Taken together, the proposed updates will provide greater clarity and consistency while making the zoning ordinance easier to administer and use. Staff would like to know a proposed correction to attachment eight of your agenda packet, which addresses enforcement and revocation. The proposed change would eliminate the last sentence of the first paragraph that shows red strikethrough of the sentence that references zoning administrator as a designated body to consider revocations of administrative use permits. The language should be deleted entirely rather than shown as strikethrough because it was inadvertently included in the red line and does not actually represent existing code or language proposed for deletion. With that change, staff does recommend adoption of resolution number 26-4089 recommending city council approval of the zone change and resolution number 26-4090 approving a major modification to the objective design standards manual. This concludes staff's presentation and we are available for any questions.

Thank you for the presentation, Tiffany. Since there's no applicant, we don't have an applicant. So we'll open the public comments on this item.

If anyone on Zoom wishes to speak, now is the time to raise your hand. We will take speakers in the chamber first. Chair, there are no public comments on this item.

Okay, then I will close the public hearing and open it up to my fellow commissioners to ask questions. Vice Chair Lynn.

Thank you chair, and thank you for the presentation, and I know the staff report was rather lengthy and all the attachments are a lot, but thank you for kind of just going over the main points, my first of all. I haven't seen this number of attachments before on this on on on this item, could you just explain the change in process for the planning Commission.

Of course. So in the past, these code updates have been taken before the Planning Commission two to three times a year. Staff has identified that with these frequent updates throughout the course of the year, it makes it difficult to understand what the most up-to-date version of the code is. It makes it difficult for the public to identify what the most current standards are. So therefore, for this year's update, there are

more updates because this is the only update that we're taking this year okay and the the reason mainly was because because we used to have them three times a year or four times a year three times a year typically three times a year and okay um i had a question regarding the cottage food operation I was wondering what triggers, like a referral to enforcement to look into a case. I was wondering, regarding operations, were there certain triggers that you've been seeing in the city?

So the reason for the update for that section is a cottage food operation is a type of home occupation, which essentially allows people to conduct a business within their home, so long as it doesn't impact the existing residential environment. And the home occupation provisions include that enforcement language. And so we're just carrying it over to the cottage food operator chapter.

Okay. If I may also add to that, it's a proactive measure. It's not being driven by any specific reason. It's typical that we include the revocation with other procedures. So this is just for consistency.

Great. Thank you. And then I had a question regarding the setbacks and I don't remember exactly, but I wrote down it was Gateway Village. And it was the separation changing from eight feet to six feet. And I was wondering what prompted that change.

I can speak to that. There is a master plan application in right now, and we're just holistically reviewing the concept plan. And in doing so, we noticed that some of the design standards don't fit what's being proposed. This is an unusual planning area and that the design requirements are in the planning area at this level of detail. And we're trying to get ahead of any potential inconsistencies that could come up as those master plans move forward.

Great. I love the preemptive moves and measures that our city takes. One more question. It was regarding the connectivity, the objective design standards. And I was wondering, so in terms of connectivity, if there are plans over different sites, multiple sites, like multiple property developments, and there are different ownerships, how would that work in terms of working on connectivity? I was just wondering.

The introduction of that requirement allows the city to over time through the redevelopment of these larger project sites that are comprised of multiple properties to establish that connectivity. So this is specifically to address situations where there's one large site and there's multiple properties and through the redevelopment of each property, there's that incorporation of these pedestrian walkways to ensure long-term connectivity for the site.

All under one owner. Separate owner. Separate owner. Sorry, separate owner. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And that's it on my end.

Thanks, Vice Chair. Commissioner Bhatia?

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the staff. I agree with Brenda. It's robust attachments, certainly. I've never encountered that since I started, but I had a question regarding the benefits, public benefits. The definition of significant and specific public benefits is somewhat flexible, and that's how you want to keep it, but I'd like to know how can we have that fine balance between public benefits that are flexible versus predictability for future applicants? So that's not, you know, they have a clear set mind about what they need to expect as far as public benefits.

I think that's a fair comment, but it's not associated with the item before you tonight. So what I'd recommend is that we have a separate conversation, maybe a follow-up to the previous item that you heard on public benefits, and we could discuss that further. And we can also discuss how we might take that up to city council as their purview.

And as far as this item over here,

i had another question here but i may come back to that a little bit later thank you thank you commissioner uh commissioner bill guzak thank you chair um thank you staff for a great presentation to i had a couple questions uh the first one is if staff could shed some light on these changes regarding accessory retail in future developments and how we could make that increase and and where we are today

The main differences between the two accessory retail definitions, the accessory retail definition, the first one that you see on the top left, it was a definition that was adopted as part of the general plan update zone change. And this type of accessory retail is kind of to, I guess, address the proximity village concept within the general plan. And it's limited to 10% or less of the area of the principal use. Whereas the second retail business accessory definition was adopted in 2009. And it is permitted on any site that contains residential that meets a certain density. as well as office and industrial and research development uses.

Separately, we have been doing everything we can to promote accessory retail, especially in our focus areas. Market conditions are such that we're not really seeing that. But with the general plan, we looked at not requiring certain levels of traffic studies or development intensity values if retail fell under a specific square footage threshold. So we're trying, but market conditions are such that retail is struggling everywhere.

I see. Is there anything coming up in the future, like the IVC, for instance, or the spectrum? No.

Nothing I'm aware of.

Got it. And then my last question is about like the boarding, like house, housing. What is the feedback you're getting from stakeholders about this if these changes are made?

It's been favorable regarding the proposed update.

Like from corporations, are they interested in maybe putting this in the near future?

Not necessarily, it's to address a conflict with the current definition where certain housing arrangements are inadvertently classified as a boarding house, which is subject to a conditional use permit or is prohibited in certain zoning designations. So this provides a clarification to that, specifically to the corporate housing as discussed in the definition.

Thank you, that's all I have. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Grossman.

Thank you. Thank you to staff for being proactive. I think that it's commendable as a city that we, we, we do periodically. We look at our, at our codes and continually update them. I recall a couple of weeks ago, we were dealing with the coastal commission and talking about point systems. And I had to do a lot of homework to understand what that was. Cause we were dealing with 20, 30, 40 year old code. So I appreciate that when you guys modernize and update. Okay. I'm just going to go through a few small, small and a couple of big ones. Um, To echo Commissioner de la Cusack on the boarding house, I think that absolutely what you're doing to address any current miscommunication is applicable, is appropriate. I do think that one of the things I'm big on is trying to define things as clearly as possible. We've had many issues come before the commission where is it a school? Is it a learning center? Is it a church? Is it a, and we're trying to define and we have, it always comes down to the director's discretion and or us where we have to try and figure it out. Corporate housing is separate, is a different entity. And I think as we have more headquarters and big companies here, that the concept of corporate housing is going to become a bigger issue. possibility or entity here so I would like to just encourage staff to create a definition of corporate housing that is distinct separate identifies what it is that is different from a boarding house because it is an aborting house but it's also not a short-term rental we don't want for you know essentially an Airbnb being parading around as corporate housing either so defining it I think is a follow-up that I would like to ask um to be considered um Quick question on the Gateway Village building separation. Going from eight feet to six feet, I understand it's driven by design standards. I personally don't have much of an issue with it, but has Orange County Fire Authority, as you looked at that, as you get a little closer, I'm just curious if that has an issue.

They'll have to review the entire master plan and weigh in. So if it were to not work later down the road, we would fix it then, but right now we don't foresee issues.

Okay, fair enough. That's good that we have a... A follow up on opportunity on their great quick question on the self storage issue now, it is, I know that it is a we're being presented as correcting a previous omission and I and I acknowledge that that it is, I guess i'm just want to ask a question to staff to you. it's more of a land use question. Self storage doesn't generate very much employment it's. It's a very large use of space for a very low employment type category. Now it's a needed, it's a valid business use. Do we really want it to be by right? Is it the best use? Have we contemplated whether it's the best use of land versus, especially in some of these areas that are currently being developed in the residential overlay?

No, we haven't contemplated it further. It's not really something that's that we've contemplated as part of this update, but we certainly could, especially as areas in the city evolve.

I have no problem with it today. I think it is an omission and such. I would encourage us to look at the land use element of self-storage spaces. Okay, I really wanna keep going. Where I wanna spend a little bit of time is the minimum density. First of all, I wanna really applaud staff for seeing how things have been developing and pushing forward the removal of financial infeasibility as an independent basis for reducing required minimum density. the preferred profitability of a project should not determine whether affordable housing is up. So I thoroughly support that. As part of the follow-up that as Matt has suggested, I think we need to look at trying to not only codify what is a public benefit, but reaffirming that affordable housing is the preferred public benefit that we're seeking. And That should need to be some level of evidence of why that cannot be delivered. Furthermore, before any public benefit variance could be issued, we need to affirm there are no net loss requirements that would be lost from there. We've had a couple of properties over the last year and a half that had quite a lot of affordable housing built into that range. plot of land and then it was no longer it took quite a big hit to our housing housing so i'd want i would never want to approve any type of public benefit variance if it put us into net loss for example defining and and objective standards related to this would be an admirable effort to go forward given given projects that could be in the future so i want to just say that i'm very much in support of removing this deviation you know for around density but we need to really think about this a lot harder last comment and then I'm going to two more really quick the governing authority of the of the zoning map I just want to have a question maybe maybe a city attorney can help out here just to clarify as we update with GIS maps on online and they're they're by reference into the this ordinance which is the controlling authority, the online map, or I'm not actually sure what to refer to it as, but when there's a gap between the timing of the update on the GIS and is there a governing, which map governs planning? Okay.

I think that's actually going to be a case-by-case determination. I mean, in a perfect universe, those maps would perfectly align, but we know that sometimes that's not the case. So I'm not sure I have a firm answer for you on that.

Okay, fair enough. All right, last question, last topic for me. Adult daycare and the community facilities. I just want to point out 100% support um bringing in not not not not having an issue with conflicts of existing conditional use permits and existing facilities most of these organizations that are covered by this are doing amazing work which we would all fully support adult daycare is an interesting category, and it is governed by state licensing requirements and has its own, again, going back to the idea of defining things as clearly as possible, like corporate housing versus a boarding house. Can we, in a future time, pull out and define adult daycare so that, in an ideal scenario, I believe that the community facility category should not include commercial housing. enterprises. It should be nonprofits, government-run programs, as it was intended to. Again, nothing against this industry. It's a valid, it's providing huge benefit to our community, but it would benefit from its own definition, especially as our society is aging and its need will only become greater. So again, I'll support this, but I would like us to, as a follow-up, to look into clearer definitions. And that's all for me. That was a lot. Sorry. Thank you, Commissioner.

Commissioner Pearson.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Tiffany, Nick, thank you very much for such a voluminous presentation tonight. I actually went through and read all of it. I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but Commissioner Grossman and the rest of the commissioners pretty much stole my thunder. I do have a couple of questions. If you could define for me low barrier navigation centers, I'm having a difficult time understanding what that really means.

The introduction of this definition really is to meet state law. And so the definition of low barrier navigation center, as we understand it, is a low barrier shelter focusing on moving people into permanent housing. And the definition I pulled up right here and the state government code section requires these type of uses to be permitted by right in mixed use and non-residential zones that allow for multifamily uses. So that's why we're introducing this definition today.

Okay. I just wasn't familiar with the actual definition or the terminology. So I appreciate that. As it relates to the bicycle minimum parking established, can that be overcome by a waiver?

No, it cannot. We do have administrative relief provisions for bicycle parking that previously permitted people to waive parking minimum requirements. However, given that these new state law requirements are more stringent, we've updated our administrative relief standards to indicate that a deviation can only be requested for design standards only and not the minimum.

Okay, very good. I appreciate the additional need for a concept plan that's been introduced. I think that's a very good measure. I think that's it.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Mansfield?

There we go. Good evening. Thank you for your presentation. Just a quick question about the short-term versus long-term bicycle parking at the hotels and motels. What is the difference in length of that time? What does a long-term bicycle parking look like at a hotel versus a short-term?

We have our transportation planning manager who could probably speak more to this, but I'll start by generally noting that short-term usually looks like the bike racks that you typically see outside of the entrance of a building, whereas long-term are bicycle spaces that are in enclosed lockable facilities, generally like bike lockers.

Good evening. Sun Sun tweet Maria manager of transportation planning and at least Alyssa kind of hit the nail on the head. Really the short term and long term is to address the different types of people using that bike parking so for visitors that may be visiting. The hotel, those short-term parking spaces are intended to be located near the entrance of the hotel. And then long-term parking for bikes at the hotel would be enclosed within a garage, somehow in a secure space so that those bikes could be safe. It is a little bit strange in you know, to think that long term parking would be required of a hotel motel, but that is something that has been included as part of the municipal building code and. I imagine that there are cases where hotels do have longer term tenants.

Got it. Okay, no worries. I see that it was put in sale in 2025 in the Calgary Entitled 24 Part 11, and then we went into effect this year on January 1st. I was wondering, it is a little strange that we have long-term tenants at a hotel. Okay, and I guess, well, first and foremost, thank you. That's all my questions for you. Thank you. And then my last question is, does approving any of these decisions, and I currently... Does anything remove any decision-making amongst the commission down to a staff level?

It does not.

Fantastic. Thank you. That's all my questions. Thank you, Commissioner. I have a quick question about the boarding house. So my reading of it is if I was a homeowner, I could have one lease to rent out a room in my house, but I could not have two leases to rent out two rooms to two different people, correct?

Correct.

Is that ever an issue that comes up in the city?

Not really.

Okay. And we don't really see it as a problem. Although it probably does exist in places.

It's usually a larger entity that's not operating as roommates. And there are issues because we see a lot of parking, demand, things like that. But generally, if you have four college students, for example, each in their own room, we're not really seeing a problem with that.

Okay. That's all I've got. Thank you. Commissioner Pearson, do you want to speak again? Yes.

I was just going to pair it off of what you just said. In my neighborhood, we did have a home that was owned by an individual that leased out five or six rooms within the house. So it does happen.

Yeah.

And code enforcement came in and shut them down.

All right. System's working.

Commissioner Grossman? One comment. Going back to the hotel, Commissioner Mansfield, I would also suspect that the reason for the long term is the employees of the hotel would need a place as they're riding their bikes to work to be able to store it on a date and don't necessarily want to put it in the front of the hotel. I'm just speculating, but it seems like... Might work for me. One question I forgot to come back to. There's on the five business day appeal for administrative approvals. Again, I, again, support faster finality benefits the applicants. They have more certainty. That makes total sense to me. My question was, is when and how are nearby residents notified? Is it from, because this is administrative, it's often at the director level, the staff decision. So it's not necessarily a posted notice type of a, of a thing, how five days is even 15 days, frankly, is hard to how do you find out about it? So if you did have an issue, you could refer to it or maybe how is it even being done now? I just a little bit confused about that process.

Our director level approvals are published on our website.

Published on the website. OK, so if I'm a nearby resident or, you know, or tenant or How would I know if I wasn't regularly on a daily browsing the website?

By nature, these types of uses are not particularly impactful or controversial. So you would need to be scanning the website to see how it affects your neighboring property. But currently, that's how we notify people.

OK. with all the, that feels inadequate if I were, because I acknowledge that they probably aren't controversial, but if someone was doing something either near my home or near my business, I kind of would like to have an easier way of knowing. So I don't know if there's a way of, you know, whether we're required by law or whether there's a way of notifying, you know, we have other rules where it's like 500 feet, people who live within 500 feet of a location. I don't know, it just feels like five, certainly five days would be hard to figure it out, find it, figure out what to do, and then if you ever had an issue with it, so.

I will note, they also include conditions of approval. So if somebody were to find out about something after the appeal period ended, and there was a problem, we have pretty restrictive conditions that we're imposing on these uses, and we could always handle it via code enforcement if we needed to. And one thing that differentiates administrative use permits from conditional use permits that require a 500 foot notice, for example, is they don't run with the land. They're not transferable to another operator. So a business might have, or one address might have three in one year if they needed to. So if there was a problem with one and that entity went away, there would likely be another one and they could continually watch for changes at that location. Okay. Okay.

okay nothing further thank you commissioner looks like we're all out of uh comments and questions uh entertain a motion chair i'll move to adopt the recommended action we please set up the vote chair the motion has passed unanimously Oh, great. Thank you. So our next planning commission meeting will be held Thursday, August 20th at 5.30 p.m. in the city council chamber. It is now 6.03 and I'll declare the meeting of August 6th, 2026 adjourned.