Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

in progress. Good evening. I'd like to call the regular meeting for the Loi Planning Commission for May 13, 2026 to order. If you could please have the role. Commissioner Deal here. Commissioner Eddie is not present. Vice Chair Singh here. Chair Hicks here. Commissioner Well here. Commissioner McNichol is not present. Commissioner Leiden here. We do have a quorum. We'll move on to the minutes from March 25th, 2026. I'll move to approve. I'll second. Have a first and a second. We can have a vote, please. Commissioner Deal.

Yes. Vice Chair Singh. Yes, Chair Hicks. Yes, Commissioner Will. Yes, Commissioner Leiden. Yes. Passes 5. Thank you. We're going to go to comments by the public on non-aggenda items.

Okay, we will move on to public hearings. Why the public is here. uh request for the planning commission to adopt a resolution recommending city council adopt the downtown specific plan pursuant to the California government code section 65450 environmental review for down for the downtown specific plan relies on an addendum to the certified 2025 focus general plan update subsequent environmental impact report prepared pursuant to SQL guidelines sections 15162 and 15164 Yes. Good evening, Chair Hicks and planning commissioners. Uh Cynthia Marsh, interim community development director. As you mentioned, tonight before you is the downtown specific plan adoption item. Uh we kicked off this process uh nearly a couple of years ago. So um tonight our consultant is with us to um prepare uh who prepared the presentation. We'll be giving the presentation to you. Uh so I will turn it over to Jamie Williams with RRM Design Group. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, chair and commissioners. Thank you so much for having me this evening. Uh, as city said, I'm Jamie Williams with RRM Design Group and I am looking forward to doing an overview of the plan for your this evening. Uh, the project started as Cindy said a couple years ago and we had a very robust team. Um, RRM is a multid-disciplinary firm. We have urban planners, architects, engineers, and landscape architects all within our firm. And then the group that helped us out were transportation planners, historic consultants, economists, the railroad um strategists as well as um environmental consultants.

the specific plan area in essentially from Lockford and the Southball Complex uh south to Loi Avenue and then Pleasant Avenue to the west and Washington to the east. It's a comprehensive planning document and policy document which we'll get into that sets the tone for the future. Just a overview of the existing town. You can see the railroad tracks bifurcate. This left frame shows the vacant property adjacent to the railroad uh main street as well as the more vibrant uh selection on the right which is school street. This is another view looking uh at Elm Street looking north. Our charge was set by the city council early on and the request or action was to develop a plan that would accomplish these goals. Expanding opportunities for downtown living, preserving the historic character, ensuring accessibility for multimodal transportation and public safety, promoting the use of public facilities, expanding the downtown mixeduse zone, and adopting policies for revitalization. We took that to heart. And before we get into how we did that, I want to just set the stage for what a specific plan is. So, every city in California is required to have a general plan and the general plan has a long-term establishes a long-term vision for the city. With underneath that umbrella is the zoning code and that sets regulations and allowable uses and development standards for private development. It has to conform with the general plan.

Similarly, a specific plan is almost like a mini zoning code and master plan for a specific area. Um, it's a tool that's unique to California and it allows us to really focus in on a particular geographic area to establish a vision for both the public, excuse me, my mic's cutting out, for both the public and the private uh realm. It works in tandem with the zoning code or it can supersede the zoning code in some cases. It is not a specific project or development. It is not like here's the new school going in. It's just setting the vision. The specific plan is divided up into 10 chapters. It's these many of these chapters are mandated by the state code. Uh so we look at infrastructure, we look at land uses, um we establish that vision, all those things that are in conformance with the code. It was a pleasure working with the community throughout this project. This was a very extensive communitydriven uh plan. We kicked it off very early with the council um and had a couple of study sessions. We had we launched a dedicated page on the website. We conducted a number of stakeholder interviews and we contacted over 400 subscribers to a mailing list at every step along the way. In addition, we had an awesome steering committee and we met several times with all of these members who represented different interests throughout the community and they attended at least seven meetings with us to help

shepherd and guide the future of the specific plan effort. In addition, we hosted community workshop uh and open houses and a multi-day sharet which was on Main Street in a building. We set up shop in three large bays and rooms and people were welcome to come at any time and visit and participate, provide feedback, take a survey, um work with the designers to put their opinions in as far as certain design attributes. Um during that time we also met with a number of f focus groups. These are a few of them. And as a result, the foundation for this specific plan was born. So you can see here a graphic of a preliminary concept for Hail Park that was established. um some voting on different elements and that resulted in the vision that's established within the specific plan document that is that downtown Loi should be connected, safe, vibrant, and inclusive, blending historic character with modern amenities and offering housing, public spaces, and experiences that draw people to live, work, and gather. I'm going to go through a number of the recommendations and ideas that are con within the specific plan um that came out of that process. things like establishing an enhanced branding and identity program to incentivize and promote the need for a downtown hotel

and redevelop Main Street, provide opportunities for additional housing and enhancing alleyways. Here's some imagery u of what that vision could look like from branding, wayfinding, and placemaking. Other ideas that were provided and rose to the top was providing year-round um twinkle lights, including p public restrooms, providing opportunities for additional dining and parkletits, additional plazas and seating areas, and increased landscaping and public art throughout downtown. the downtown already has a nice established streetscape um improvement and furnishings pallet. So, the specific plan recommends increasing that in filling in the gaps and potentially as the east side develops using that same palette but maybe using a color like purple or something else to give it a unique character. The plan also digs deep into mobility and connectivity. There are recommendations on improving bikes, peds, and auto connectivity. Um exploring a quiet zone, which is something that um would allow the as the trains go through there to be a quiet time. So they wouldn't have to do their horns throughout as it as they do today. You it kind of is very disruptive if um they were to move forward with a quiet zone. There's a lot of things that go into that increase safety procedures. You have to do a lot

of coordination and work with um Union Pacific which um was investigated and is a recommendation of the plan. Other things that came out of community engagement were to promote increasing additional events and festivals as well as having shops incentivizing shops to stay open longer. This graphic shows the pedestrian improvements. The solid lines are what's there today and the dash lines are areas where you would provide additional amenities or d additional pedestrian connections in the form of could be enhanced alleyways or pedestrian prominads. One of the comments that we heard is that sometimes the parking structure uh appears to be a bit far. And just to put this into comparison, this is the Costco shopping center. And if you look at the ring, the white ring, that's a quarter mile radius. And it's essentially walking from the entrance to Costco to the to the corner where I think there's a Burger King. This is an existing alleyway and it would be an example of how you could take that alley and improve it with lighting, um, pedestrian walk identified pedestrian walkable space, public art, trash cans, um, and the like. Another recommendation of the plan is to continue to enhance your already prevalent PO system. So this is an area where you would take

an existing alley and convert it into pedestrianonly PO um again with furnishings and lighting and amenities. The plan also takes a look at the bicycle network and recommends the dash lines are where future bicycle improvements could be provided. Um, noticeably the blue line is on Locust and that is a potential for a future bike boulevard. The vehicle connectivity is also important. Everybody's coming to downtown. So identifying how and where people move through downtown was a part of the the plan as well. I want to walk through some ideas for a future Main Street. Main Street exists today and it is um it's um not a consistent ride ofway. There isn't a sidewalk on the west side. And so this recommendation would be to take Main Street through the whole extent of the specific plan area and improve it providing sidewalks on both sides, parallel parking on both sides, as well as a landscape buffer and a multi-use bicycle lane. This is it today. And this is what it could look like in the future. You can see here with the labeling that there's additional sidewalks and street

furnishings and paving in the center of the intersection, outdoor dining. Um, and really creating that setting the stage for future redevelopment and that that framework or that backbound to a nicer expanded area of downtown. We did engage as I said uh you rail pros who is an expert in collaboration and analysis for rail lines particularly Union Pacific. They went through and did an assessment of the existing conditions. Um they have helped evaluate and coordinate potential land acquis future land acquisitions um as well as exploring the viability of that quiet zone that I mentioned previously. So the city does not own the parcels that are shown on the left hand side in blue and that graphic on the left. Um you can see where the transit station is. The black line is the rail line and then the parcels identified in blue are currently owned by Union Pacific. So we walked through a couple of scenarios of what that future might look like with different ownership options. If the Union Pacific maintains ownership of the vacant parcels, you could still go through and create the unified main street approach which would benefit both the east side and the areas on the north and the south of that of those parcels. It it would require a minor um bit of acquisition to make it a unified ride ofway.

If that scenario was to be kept, it the city could engage in something that's temporary on the ground of the Union Pacific. Something this these graphics show in Modesto there's sort of a a food truck hub. Everybody comes there. They have launched the food trucks are there. But since there's no permanent structures, um they have created a relationship with Union Pacific that allows that to be an activated space. that's interesting um without having to acquire ownership or release the um easement that this that Union Pacific has. So that's option. It's kind of the the the lowest hanging fruit, but that would still make it nice. This is a plan view of what that could look like. Um the second option or concept would be this Union Pacific often requires a 100 foot ride of way from the rail line. They don't want anything to happen that's permanent within that. So in this case, the city could acquire a portion of the of the property, develop it for the commercial mixeduse development with the parking behind so that again you're maintaining that that required easement and then in the best case scenario or the most um exciting opportunity I would say the you could buy those three parcels and then a scenario where there's There's diagonal parking buildings on both sides of the street as well as parking behind for residential units and a multi-unit um a multi-use path that would be for parks park bicycles, I'm sorry, bicycles and pedestrians uh to get from one end of of the corridor to the other.

These are just a couple of illustrations of if over time full redevelopment happened what that could look like. The last concept that we put together was taking the opportunity to really link Hail Park in a more meaningful way with the existing downtown. And this graphic shows the alley that's connected there with some possible improvements, treelined, um, sort of festival kiosks and farmers market, temporary farmers market or you have a very successful farmers market. So it could be it could be anything to sort of enliven that space and connect to hail. And then this is a graphic if hail was to be um, kind of revamped and modernized. So there's a co. So initially the specific plan also has an implementation plan and it really sets the stage for what could happen over the next 20 years. And these are just a few items that are more of the earlier um earlier things that could happen if the city has the right resources or funding or some of the things we're starting on already. So um creating going after grants so that you can the the number one thing about having a specific plan in place is that it really positions you much better to go out and get future funding. Um for grants. Objective design standards. You have this your code already has very good design guidelines, but um OB objective design standards would help you regulate in a more

um objective way future multifamily and residential um development. um continuing that coordination with the railway. Um developing a historic preservation ordinance, exploring a PEBID, which is the property business improvement district, um which is a way to kind of keep funding uh going into the downtown um and exploring a more detailed look at the main street concepts. These are just some of the items. And with that, that concludes my presentation. Thank you very much. Um, are there any comments from the commission or questions of staff at this time?

Uh, yeah, it's very detailed study anyway. So, get a chance to just glance through a few things and listening to the presentation. Thank you. You guys must be to different maybe meetings go through all that right so many years but um few questions I mean you guys just purely focus uh quarter mile radius uh only downtown nothing to connect with the disadvantaged communities on the east side as far as when you guys discuss the vision of maybe the vision or you guys started hey this is our vision this is we're purely to connected to the downtown area is going to be any connectivity as far as the mobility and you know other just a general question so I don't know if you ever look at it or not that's number one question

yes so uh I think in the uh slide if we show back um the plan itself only addresses the area within the generally downtown mixeduse zone um Um so if you're looking at the connectivity you can see the arrows would continue over but the plan does not include specific designs for those uh you know roadways but um we are looking at those connections um we do have uh some small on call contracts um with both RRM and be pierce and we're examining where we could potentially apply for grants both within the plane area but also those connections as you mentioned uh also this the area from The railroad tracks to the east um between Loi Avenue and Lockford is generally the city's designated disadvantaged community um which is uh detailed in the city's environmental justice element and housing element. And so those maps uh were looked at and have a little bit of an overlap here. But uh fortunately being those that those are disadvantaged uh communities designated by the state that allows us to apply for grants uh in those specific areas uh such as transformative climate communities grants or uh ATP and those sort of grants.

The second big question is Union Pacific road very tough to I mean you guys mentioned as you know u acquisition of their right away normally it's about 150 ft that's what the whole corridor is like where we build the churches. You cannot even touch it. You got to put fence, cannot put anything. So you guys mentioned that is 100 ft. So you're going to try to do some improvements. Is there any discussion with the big folks sitting in the east coast or mid coast? Those guys are pretty tough. Correct. We have talked

as far as what you mentioned in the in your Pacific plan. I mean is there any do they do I agree with your vision or what you guys are proposing here to develop along that corridor or

we are in discussions with them uh as um part of this process we will be um performing surveys to determine uh what the value of those properties are and we are also running um background uh title reports um which will queue us up to find funding sources uh but we we need the details as well as those title reports uh go back a hundred years or so like they're they're very old. So um we are actually um uh taking part in that research right now.

Okay. So that's okay. Um so looks like uh that improvement is based on the complete street concept few things you guys medium raise island and the bicycles and parking and all that. I've seen a lot of downtown like in Colorado and you I mean name it you can go to Oregon there's a there's new concept coming food calling for example is nice when you sit and eat next to it so look like those are looks pretty impressive so if you end up have having you know the discussion the railroad might be you can improve that corridor so that's the only area you guys thinking about to improve along that corridor or specifically you guys going to come around the itself for other local roles to city city.

Yeah. The uh first target of the um TCC transformative climate communities uh grant application would focus on main street improvements uh because as Jamie mentioned there are several blocks with zero sidewalks uh at all. So um those would be our first uh area of focus uh to apply for grants. And again because they're in a disadvantaged uh community uh designated by the state um there's a lot of grants available for that type of thing. So looks like is is pretty impressive but where the funding is going to my reading is a general funds is that a city general fund you guys planning to use in the future like next 20 years or if you're going to get the grant is a state grant or federal is any discussion part of that where the funding is coming from

probably a lot of those sources layered as these things uh typically occur um there are federal funding sources state uh and sources from for example um measure k funs or sj J COG uh funding through SJRC. So we're we're looking at everything every layer possible. Um so uh we're looking at um you know do grants apply uh to hardscape or you know streetscape or trees specifically? Um TCC um fortunately transformative climate communities is uh funded through uh cap and trade funding and that's still a strong funding source in the state of California. Some of the other grants such as ATP have been reduced in recent years. So we're looking at everything and layering them and uh you know if we can get a couple blocks done at a time or we can do the whole corridor. Uh we're looking at uh just what the funding sources are. So uh RM is uh we'll be working in the coming weeks on those uh surveys and um working with fear and peers on dialing in some of the um different design work and also uh the title reports. So that will kind of determine uh you know where we'll be able to uh do some work and focus.

Okay. So you guys mentioned also additional restrooms in the downtown for as far as the unsheltered communities normally take over on those. So what is the plan to you guys thought about where you guys going to put what location or is going to be locked or maintained? Just like throwing that you know we have seen a lot of those downtown area they ended up you know putting a locks nobody can use it. just that general question just you know

that level of detail for location of restrooms was not um discussed at this point that would be more in the implementation measures um I know it was a suggestion at the community meetings a lot of folks mentioned they would like to have restrooms but uh we haven't determined you know where those would be located that's all I have thank you yeah I if you'll help me understand obviously this is just for the specific plan right now. But when it comes to the implementation measures, assuming this is approved, when the city applies or when an applicant applies for those grants, does the project then come back to planning commission or at that point?

Generally, no. Um so the um this would approve the plan itself and those would then become CIP projects that are managed by the public works department. So so long as this falls within the parameters of the plan. That's Yeah. Yeah. For Yeah. For public uh on the public rightway. Thank you.

Did you want to if I could just add Sorry, if I could just add any project that's private development project consistent with the plan would still come through the normal approval process up to the planning commission uh unless it was at the staff level approvable as an example project. But the private CIP projects go to planning commission or the city council rather.

Yeah. I have a question. Um you're trying to I mean Hill Park's going to be part of the downtown plan. So renovation rellandscaping the whole ballax. May I ask what happened to Zupo Field and the Great Bowl? Why they weren't included in that? Because we got softball diamonds that will be renovated. Um And we always talk about we need to get more sporting activities in Loi and generate revenue for these activities. Why is Zupo Field and the Great Bull not included in the downtown specific plan when the other uh soft are

Sure. this area um was uh going through kind of in tandem when we started this a separate study um that um you may have heard about the sports study that was sponsored by visit Loi I believe at the time um so it was adjacent to it just wasn't consciously not uh wrapped into the plan area because it was going through the separate uh study uh that was adjacent to the plan. So the that was specific to encouraging uh sporting uses. So when we were looking at you know you know you've got to draw the line somewhere where the end the map ends. So uh we overlaid this with the downtown mix zoning district. So uh this map would be overlaid uh with that zoning district.

Thank you.

Anybody else have any questions right now? Right. Then I'd like to open it to the public portion and if anybody from the public would like to come up would like to keep comments to a five minute minimum maximum. Sorry, maximum. Not a five minute minimum. That'd be a long time. If you would like to state your name, you're more than welcome. Good evening, commissioners. My name is David Claxton. I'm the president of the downtown business alliance. We work closely with the chamber, visit Loi, and the city to support and promote all businesses in our historic downtown district. I sit on the steering committee for the downtown specific plan project. Our committee has been involved in the process from the RFP creation through the drafting of the specific plan and the community review process. I have reviewed the documents throughout the process and shared the contents with the DBA board. Several of our board members have participated in the various community outreach meetings. With everyone's input and thoughtful consideration, the specific plan lays out a pretty clear vision of what the project area could look and feel like over the next two decades. We believe the plan is a good blueprint for guiding the planning, redevelopment, and expansion of Lodi's historic downtown over the next 20 years. We recommend that the commission after its own review and consideration of public input recommends to the city council to adopt the plan in its current final draft. We also believe that in order to ensure that this document becomes a

workingsp specific plan as it was intended that the steering committee or some other appointed ad hoc committee be established to ensure that the city staff, the commission and the council are held accountable for moving the plan forward in a timely manner, staying focused on both the short and long range milestones set forth in the plan. For all the hard work put in by everybody, it would be a shame that this plan ended up sitting on a shelf somewhere collecting dust. We want to thank everyone who has worked on this project over the past two years and look forward to implementation of the various plan strategies. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you very much. Somebody, anybody else like to come up and speak? Hello, Michael Collins, local uh businessman down here in downtown. I have some projects I'm working on. First of all, I am I'm excited that we do have a a downtown uh specific plan going. Look forward to seeing how it can uh develop. We do need to get some things going in downtown. Want to address a couple things. uh the quiet zones. I'm 100% behind that development. One of the things I wanted to bring out here is because I've I've done a little research on the quiet zones and I know how expensive they are. I I've seen that Loi we we've given some street access to St. An's also have promised some over to the WOW. One of the costs that would drive a lot of this down would be considering taking locust and elm and and stopping those as thorough affairs. That would save a lot of money within this project. So I'd like you guys to do a little research and considering considering on that. Um so I do think that would be a fantastic plan. That's just very very loud when those things go through. Uh, one of the other concerns I do have that I didn't hear addressed. I don't know, maybe it was. The parking garage, the perception of the parking garage is very bad. People feel it's a very unsafe area. It's not wellkept and and and we do have a lot of homeless people over there that it does cause a lot of people from parking over there because they feel nervous about what's going on. So, I'd like to I'd like to see sort of that be addressed from a safety perception that could go back to the pid idea. I know we've we've been talking about the pid. We have actually have that in process right now to put a pid in where

we would create some safety patrols and some other stuff. So, I'd really like to see uh you guys pushing the P bid forward. It's uh going to take a lot of the services off of the city of Loi in conjunction with the last report of the funds that we don't have to spend on on some of this stuff that I think the PBID can do some really good resources for. Two other things. Um probably the only person in the room that's ever dealt with Union Pacific too.

All right. Well, I bought two properties from him. Did you get any All right, I I'm ahead of you, Mike. So, um, as someone who's dealt with them, I I've tried to buy three pieces from them. I bought two of them. One took me five years, one took me four years. It's not an easy process, and they were worthless pieces to them. Getting that is going to be very difficult. I I would love to see that happen, but we really got to start, you know, they they don't keep it up. So, we got to put a little pressure on them about maintenance and really tell them on what what that means to downtown Loi because that would be a gem for for for making that happen. But, you know, one of the things I look at and I'm a developer, too. I do a lot of lot of things I've built. And one of the things I when I look at at developing stuff, I have a property on Sacramento Street. We're not building Main Street until Sacramento Street starts flowing. We really, and I didn't hear a lot of stuff. I don't know what what what you guys have planned in Sacramento Street. It's one thing we really got to address a little bit more because Sacramento Street's not that far of a build away because there's still stuff on there. We really got to put a little emphasis on getting Sacramento Street. I think when you when you guys deal with developers, there's not going to be a lot of interest on Main Street. But if they see Sacramento Street going, you're going to see Main Street become a priority. It's three blocks. You're not going to walk through a I got I have property in Sacramento Street. It's trashy. the whole block is it's not nice. It does need some help over there. So, that would be one. And on the bike lanes thing that you were talking about, um I'm on the citizens committee for COG. We have a lot of funds available for bike lanes right now for a bunch of cities. LOI's one of them. It's a lot of money. We have till 2028 to use those funds. So, you got to get the stuff in over there on the request. So, that's

all I have. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments.

Good evening. I'm Mike Keruba. Um, you know, the plans I I think Mike's right. I think Sacramento School is in decline. We have a new restaurant. That's great. But from where it was at its high point, it's in decline. The winery business is not what it was. We can expect some closures there. There has been more. We've got still a lot of thrift stop uh thrift stores on Sacramento on Sacramento and on School Street. And I know the focus it's overly ambitious in my view to I see the opportunities which would be attractive from someone not uh who measures results in drawings. But in terms of measuring results and actually doing things, I think uh we skip the street. Um what We've got a pool. I'm on the park and rec commission as many of you know. We got a pool that's closed. Okay. I was there yesterday. Now we're going to get a handout from the foundation to put a patch, but we got three $400,000 that we need to fix the pool. Otherwise, it's going to fall on the kids downstairs. So, to me, there's an element of cruelty when I see all these pretty pictures because this is absolutely going to go on. This is going to be a binder. and it's going to go on a shelf and I'm I'm not sure who would fool in here because now I think you should adopt the recommendation that meets all the guidelines and you're not responsible for that's that's the folks that meet on Wednesday night but and I know they can try to get some monies for maybe some sidewalks and things but uh as an example another Parker Rex example the deened family gave uh the property that we know as deened park in early 80s there was a sign that said coming soon light at sportsfield There was a plan, a very nice plan done. We since I've been on the commission, we've had to do another plan. We've got two plans just on deed. Does anyone

actually think we're not going to be having another plan here? So, there was a lot of money spent on this. I'd love to be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I want to be wrong, but when I look around the city, uh we could have used money fixing some things, some potholes and some other things, maybe open the pool. And um I of I think the staff did a great job in outreach and I I not you're going to be asked where's all the grant money Cindy where's all the grant money there be a lot of pressure on these folks it's not easy to come by so I hope we're lucky but I'm not optimistic and I really think we missed the mark by not focusing more on on Sacramento Street and actually um even school street as most of the second stories are un still unactivated and I think those are conditions that exist because of what's going on around the city it's discretionary income that allows people to come down uh and spend the money downtown. And I don't think we've done very well on that. So, um I'm concerned that this is we have an aquatics plan from the uh early 80s, too, that is in city hall. We've had a lot of these things and I just don't see uh I don't know if we feel good being aspirational, but I'm concerned that's all this is going to end up being. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Does anybody else want to come up and speak? Chairperson Hicks and members of the commission. I'm Amy Star. I'm a member of the steering committee and as an aside, I have over four and a half decades with working in various capacities with downtown Loi planning. And I can say with certainty and clarity that this plan and the effort behind it is building well on all previous efforts and it is certainly the most comprehensive thus far and it lays the groundwork for change. It does not have to sit on the shelf but it should evolve as the area grows and evolves. And I think it's important that it goes beyond beautifification and it's a sound visionary policy document in concert with the general plan and even equally important with the economic development plan that has been come brought forward. I'm particularly heartened that the plan incorporates the historical core of the city east of the tracks and it does not shy away from the railroad. And I've had a few dealings with the railroad and they're formidable, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. And I urge you to adopt the resolution and to recommend adoption of the plan by the city council. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Would anybody else like to come up

peer pressure just for you guys? I like being aspirational. I know. I love the pretty pictures.

And I think without a plan, we do nothing. Right. And without standards and have a common vision, we don't have anything to work towards. And I agree, we need a lot of work on Sacramento and we need a lot of work on school street and we need a lot of work on parks. So we can say we need all that work, so let's do nothing. Or we can say, yeah, let's actually attack these problems one after another. Personally, I think all of us would benefit from quiet zone. If we do nothing else and we just get a quiet zone, that downtown would be tremendously improved, right? Everybody benefits from that. So, I think collectively we should all drive that forward. Just take that on for ourselves and just drive it. And it takes money, but there are grants specifically dedicated for quiet zones. So, we keep looking at, well, it's going to cost me a million dollars to put in a new sensing system so that I have double gates, blah, blah, blah. Let's just do it. Let's go after those grants. Let's collect money from you guys who are very rich,

right? And I'm gonna I'm gonna pass a hat before you walk out of here for Quiet Zones, and I would expect you guys to kick in. So, there's my two bits. Aren't you glad you asked me to come up? Thank you. Thank you. It looks like everybody has commented. We don't have any. No, no one's on Zoom.

More peer more peer pressure. I'm Mike Smith. Um, I've been in the building at four North Main Street for over 40 years. Um, so I've I've seen downtown and I can remember when uh when I first came to town and came to work here um riding my bike um through downtown Loi on a Saturday and there was nobody there. It was quiet. There was nobody on Sacramento Street. There was nobody on School Street. Soon after that, there was the downtown um plan to fix up School Street. So, I did we did have a a plan and that was implemented and that really bounced, you know, School Street into what it is now. And, you know, it was amazing transformation from what I can remember when I first came to town. Um I would love this quiet zone. Yeah, these guys have been in my office and when the train comes by, you just shake your head and Yeah, you can't do much. Um, I can show you. Yeah, my computer screen shaking as the train comes by. Um, which the quiet zone won't change it much. And the Amtrak, man, they their whistle is about five times louder than a regular BNSF train. So, um, that would be great to have that. Um my my business is really destination. So as far as having foot traffic and stuff, you know, I I almost enjoy nothing being down there because there's plenty of places to park, you know, in front of my office. Um uh we have and I can thank the city for recently um and really I think is when the city bought the flop houses down the street. Um it has and

it's really cleaned up a lot as far as the homeless in in our immediate area. They're being kind of pushed off to the parks and stuff like that. So we're not having as much issues. You know, there were times when Yeah. I'd come to work and there'd be someone camped out in front of my office. And so that has really been, you know, held down. Um but it is Yeah. I would love the railroad. I I see them maybe once a year will come through and do any maintenance at all in that area and they'll bring a couple of guys out. They'll chainsaw off a couple of the trees. They'll go around and pick up some of the garbage, but I can tell you go out in that area, there's been garbage out there for 5, 10 years that they've never touched. Um so there's very little maintenance. When we get a homeless person in there, I know um there's some issues with that's southern Pacific property. Um but we do get load PD will come through and and convince people to move along, but uh sometimes it takes a while. I don't see any participation from the railroad. Um which right now the weeds are getting high. Um last couple years there's always been a fire out there. You tell all my employees better move your car now. It's coming through. Um you know, then they get out there and put the fire out. But um I am 100%, you know, energized about this project. Um we did see the successful project down on School Street. Um and it would be great. You know, it would probably benefit me more than anybody here, you know, you know, for my location on Main Street. So, thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Sure. So, I wanted to take a minute and kind of share the other half of the story, if you will. And I am in total agreement, if you will, with what everybody has said here. And what I did not read to you is some of the the nuts and bolts concerns that we all of us still have regarding the plan. Okay. The fact that the plan area is completely bicted by the rail rail property. And the reality is that as good as Cindy and her staff and rail pros are, it's probably 10 years out before we really see anything developed on those rail properties, whether it's through, you know, a partial lease and that sort of use or, you know, outright purchasing it. And one of our contentions throughout this whole thing is that we need to be looking at how to make this plan successful despite the rail property. Okay. What can we do? What's in that plan? The lowhanging fruit that we can do to improve the downtown area and the area on the east side of the rail railroad tracks. Even if we don't get to do anything with the tracks, we're already taking a stab at this stuff. We're already there's uh pid action going on. The DBA is already working on enhancing additional artwork and stuff downtown. We're looking at what we can do to start to look at improvements over on Sacramento Street. Okay. Hail Park, the plan that was so nicely done in on this for Hail Park can still be done

despite the rail property. And so there is a way to navigate through this plan without, you know, going back and beating it to death trying to solve the problems before you approve the plan. And so that's why I've recommended that we look at having a you know an ongoing ad hoc committee of some sort for those of us who are truly vested in the success of downtown Loi so that we can meet on a quarterly basis or semianual basis and say hey city where are you at on these improvements or getting the grant funding or uh you know coming up with the new design standards or whatever it is And there are a lot of us out here who are willing to take on those tasks and and help do that. But the first step is to get the plan adopted. Okay. So, thank you.

Thank you very much. Shouldn't turn off my mic. I still have to talk. Um, does anybody else want to say anything? I think we had really good comments. So, thank you for that. I'm going to close public portion, bring it back to the commission for comments, questions, motions, something. I would just like to thank everybody in the public for coming out and um expressing their opinions. Um it's a big job for sure and um I look forward to working with everybody to push it forward. Thank you. I'll make a motion.

I move that the planning commission adopt a resolution recommending that the city council adopt the downtown specific plan finding that the plan is consistent with the general plan pursuant to California government code section 65450 at SEAC and has been reviewed in accordance with SQA. A second. We have a first and second. Uh, can we take the vote, please? Commissioner Deal, yes. Vice Chair Sting, yes. Chair Hicks, yes. Commissioner Whale, yes. Commissioner Leiden, yes. Passes 5-0.

Thank you. Congratulations. I liked all of your comments, so I hope that you can continue to bring them to the city council because I think your committee idea is is a good one to kind of keep things focused. So, thank you for your time tonight. With that, we're going to move on to planning matters and followup items. I just wanted to thank uh RRM and all of our sub consultants that have done a great job and um the work will continue. Um there are items that we're continuing to work on with the implementation plan. Uh, I also wanted to mention that at our last steering committee meeting for the downtown plan, we did discuss having regular meetings such as quarterly. We're still trying to kind of determine how those would look. Um, but it sounds like a lot of the folks on the steering committee are interested in continuing to be on that committee. So, those discussions are taking place. Um, I also wanted to mention that um the city manager will be hosting a uh study session with council soon to follow up on their prior study session about their strategic goals and uh focus and priority areas. Um the next session uh will um relate to growth in the city and uh annexations around the sphere of influence and I believe that's anticipated to be uh in the next uh few weeks in the possibly the first week of June um depending on when the clerk can uh find time on everyone's calendars. Uh so that's coming down uh the pipeline and then uh we didn't have uh any other items uh on our next meeting. Right. Let me double check with Jessica. I forgot. I forgot to bring my calendar with me.

We will have a meeting in two weeks. We do. We do have an item. Oh, we have a parcels subdivision. No. Uh we have a an amendment to the municipal code. Oh, that's right. Food the food truck ordinance. Uh count at council's direction. uh they have asked uh staff to amend the food truck ordinance related to mobile vendors to remove the cap on the quantity of food trucks uh in the city and then we are tweaking the standards and adjusting those uh a little bit and that'll be coming uh to you in the next couple weeks. Thank you. Thank you.

I'm going to take that that we went through announcements and correspondence and actions of the city council. So we'll go to actions of the spark committee. Gary, have you had any meetings? We have no meetings. Uh last meeting was March 11th of 26 and we've not had a meeting since. No meeting since. So nothing to report. Thank you. And then uh any other planning commissioners have any comments on agenda? Don't speak up. Okay. I would like to adjourn the meeting. Thank you for coming.