Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Roll call, please. Present. Commissioner, present. Commissioner Gilbert. Commissioner Espan, present. Commissioner Gonzalez, present. One absent, two vacancies. Okay. Do we have any requests uh to speak on anything not on the agenda? No, sir. Okay. Uh, do we get a chance to review the planning commission meeting minutes from August 20th? I move we accept them. Okay. Second. All in favor? I. Okay. Any oppose? All right. On to our first item.

Good evening, commissioners. Uh tonight's uh item is a proposed uh clothing recycling bin at 240 West Baseline Road. The master case numbers is uh 2024-0040 with conditional development permit number 2024-000020 and environmental assessment review number 25-00006. Uh the applicant is Tex Green. This is the same applicant that came about four weeks ago. Yeah.

The same type of bin, same uh same function, um same uh type of plant. They request to install two clothing recycling bins. each are approximately 4x4 by 6 and a half at 240 West Baseline Road in the commercial shopping center C1A zone. This uh location is up uh on the north side of Baseline between Willow and Riverside. There's the uh Taco Bell and the Walmart shopping center there. And this will be uh just north of the Taco Bell. And here's a little better uh diagram of where it'll be. This is what the bins look like and their dimen on the left and their dimensions are on the right. And the people just come and uh they donate their clothing and shoes in the bin. Planning Commission or I'm sorry, planning department recommend staff recommends that the planning commission find environmental assessment review number 25-00006 is categorically exempt pursuant to section number 15311 and to approve conditional development permanent MIT number 2024- 0020. 20. And if you have any questions, please let us know. And and uh Ivan has returned. I I'd use his last name, but I'm sorry. I know I'll I'll ruin it.

Okay. All right. I have new questions, but new question. We'll open up the public. Any request to speak? No, sir. Okay. here. We'll have we'll have you speak here in a minute, but are you aware are there any uh state laws that are requiring these businesses to put these in parking lots? Is there is there something legally requiring an owner of like a shopping center to place these in there? Not a requirement that I'm aware of. No, I did do some research and they recommended more of regulation as compared to requirements. Okay. And do we have any such city regulations on these things? We don't. We we we do have a they fall under the recycling section.

Okay. Of the municipal code in section 18. Um so there is some they'd be considered a small recycling. Okay. Are in the regulations is there any limitations of how many are around or how many how close they are from each other that sort of thing? No sir. Okay. All right. more questions for the applications. I have one. Yes. Yes, sir. I asked you the same question last time or I mentioned the same thing. You're going to check them about five days a week, right? Yes. To make sure that everything's clean. Okay. Have you had any We'll have you come up now. You want You want to talk to the applicant, Frank? Okay. Yeah. Come on up to the podium, please.

Sorry about that, Frank. Go ahead. Uh so, yes, the the same agreement is in place. We will visit this uh five days a week. Uh to be fair, I expect we might start visiting this location every day, so seven days a week because we expect it to be particularly strong. It's close to a Walmart, lots of traffic. Um so five days a week for certain. Perhaps we might up it to to every single day. Okay. Have you had any problems with these uh donation uh setups? I mean, people ripping them off or destroying them, causing problems.

There are I mean, we, as I mentioned last time, we have over 2,000 bins around the US. There are definitely a couple of examples when it has happened through the years. Okay. However, it's fairly unlikely and actually hard to do it. They're made of metal and pretty hard to break unless you Yeah. try with with a special vigor. How how often do you come by and check them or or empty them so that there's not a lot of stuff laying all around them daily? So in this case in this case daily and every time we visit the bins we would we are required to clean whatever is in the adjacent area and if they need either repairs or it's usually removing graffiti although this doesn't happen that often either we would clean the graffiti as well.

I'm trying to understand the business plan for something like this. So what is the business arrangement you have with the owner of the property? Uh so I can I can summarize the business plan in a couple of minutes. Uh so we place the bins on commercial properties. We pay the properties rent. So that's their interest apart from the okay well ecological upside. Uh we collect the clothes and we usually resell them to thrift store chains. I see. And that's our benefit from it. You say you sell them to different thrift stores? Um yeah. Our clients are usually major thrifts or jeans. Okay. So, a lot of people donate to them, huh? Uh, well, we'd like to think so. Most people I know donate want a receipt for taxes. Uh, yeah, we we do we do provide this upon request.

Oh, you do? Okay. There is a mechanism for that. So, we as I mentioned last time, we partner with two main charities. One of them based like focused on drug prevention. Another one based on urban foresting projects. Okay. Not only urban you just plant trees everywhere in different countries and in the US. Yeah. But a pair of shoes. So we can provide such receipts upon request. It is if you're a high income owner. Okay. Um yeah I mean I can only speak about us. So last year we collected 40 million pounds uh in the US. Um I know the average person in the US apparently throws away about 80 pounds of clothes per year. Uh well we can do the math how many people donated but of course that's just well rough estimates. Okay. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. My question for staff then, can can we, if it's possible, I don't know if it's too hard to do now, but can we start tracking how many of these are we're allowing in the city when they're where they're located? You know, kind of we do. We're I'm just envisioning gold resale stores and that, you know, how we're trying to get a handle on those. I just want to make sure we're not putting 2,000 more in the city. That's what I'm concerned because um that's my thoughts on it. Well, I'd like to add to that is that I'm concerned because I don't want to see a car wash at every corner. Yeah. Or a taco stand at every corner. I'd like to see a little bit more diversity, you know, as far as businesses and establishments.

These aren't attractive is where I'm getting at. And that's why I just and and I'm not just great business model. I want everyone to and you have every right to do that. Submit your application. But I just want to make sure these don't get out of hand. Yes, re we should be able to come up with something. Maybe we can come and then we can look second request. Um look at the other two Rs to see what they do. Redlands and Rancho. See if they have a rag of what they look like. I like to try to follow those cities more than other cities. Okay. Yeah. You can come on up, please, sir. Please.

And excuse me, real quick. Just so you're aware of the conditions in this project are the same as they were in the project four weeks ago as far as 5 days a week being uh monitored and maintained and okay. No problem. And um you have something to add.

Yeah. I just wanted to suggest something regarding your question how to track bins. Uh so I'm sure there are multiple companies that engage in this sort of business in the US. Um, I have reasons to believe we're one of the better ones and a few other major players are united in the smart association. Um, it's about a 100-year-old association that focuses on textile recycling. Um, if you search smart, you can find the list of its members. Okay.

Um, and generally good contacts there that can provide you well, I'm sure the companies there would be happy to answer where they have bins in the area as we would be. Uh, and one more point about the requirement to place such bins. Uh, of course there is no such legal requirement for for for supermarkets for instance. However, last year California passed its bill 707. It's focused on textile recycling and it envisions um, well, let's call it quotas for textile collection and recycling in all of California and also I think it's on a county basis based on population. Okay.

So you might see more such bins appearing or at least the requirement to to place such bins everywhere. Yeah, that's why I'm talking with stack because I want to get in front of it if we can. It's like, you know, like markets have to take recycles and they and they don't want to do it. So, they end up all these recycle things in their parking lots and all those different things. So, it's just and on the side of the street, too. Yeah. So, that's just a concern. I'm just looking I I believe that this law would actually force smaller, less legitimate players out of the game because um like the purpose of the law is to to organize all these collection and recycling efforts. Yeah. And if you're illegitimate, you wouldn't well qualify for entering this program. But just something I wanted to add. Thank you.

Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate it. Um, any more questions? I have one more, but this is for staff. Um, typically we in the past we usually say a recommendation and a resolution. This is different. What's what's the deal? It says it recommended the uh find the environmental um RRA a e a and the exempt and then the approve the conditional development. Usually you say a resolution or you include resolution and if we adopt the resolution

as part of the approval process it might just be stated differently. There is a resolution included in your packet um which has the conditions of approval. To that point, I I would recommend that the commission when you make the motion to approve to to approve the resolution approve the resolution approving the conditional development permit um just as one motion. I I can see your concern is that supposed to be adopting a resolution. All of a sudden it's different. Good catch there, Frank. I read the thing. I know you do. That's a good catch. I try. I may not understand all of it, but I try. Right. Uh any other questions?

We we can do it as it's written. Correct. Okay. That's all I want. Move to close the public hearing. Second. All in favor? I. All right. No. No exclusions. Move to find the environmental asset review number 25-00006. is categorically exempt pursu pursuant to section number 15311 and to approval of conditional development permit number 2024-000020

Mr. shared just to clarify that's to on the second item is to approve the resolution approving the conditional development permit etc etc that's more acceptable to me thank you is that correct okay okay do we need to restate it or you've mentioned that immigrine is find good I think that's good enough yes okay do I have a second second all in favor I no oppose thank you sir thank you okay Community Development Director comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, buddy. Okay. Yes, ma'am.

Um Okay. So, at the next meeting, which will be September 17th, we will be swearing in some new commissioners. Um, those of you that are not rejoining us, uh, we will still need you here, I think, to do some outgoing stuff and be we'll be recognizing you for your service on the commission. So, um, we will have agenda items as far as I know for that meeting um, as well. So, we'll be it'll be a little bit of a packed agenda, but we'll ask for existing commission to attend and then we'll also be swearing in the new commissioners. the city clerk will be here um to do all of her stuff along with city attorney will be um I think there's just a whole bunch of things from what I understand from the clerk's office that'll have to be okay done with her. So

it'll be the first meeting. Yeah. Huh. And that's on the 17th. On the 17th. So our next meeting. Yes. Sure. I got in my calendar real quick before we go off that topic. Yep. It's already there. Okay. Good. And um that is that's all I have this evening. Okay. Another question for staff on the agenda. I I had mentioned this because I thought this was a and next next month or next meeting it'll be a bit different but I had said suggested why don't we include more than one item per meeting

and the I thought it was agreed upon but nothing was order nothing was so we're back to one item. So we what we do is we we bring items for it as they're ready. So if there's an item that's ready to go, even if it's just one item, we understand sometimes it's not the most convenient to have everybody show up, but we also don't want to delay a project done necessarily. So a lot of times waiting two weeks or four weeks is a big difference for an applicant um in their ability to get moving. You know, they need their entitlements done. So, um, as staff, we like to have as many items on the agenda as we possibly can, but, um, a lot of times it is just one item that's ready, but we do like to bring it forward to make sure that we keep things moving. Not a problem. Understand?

Not a problem. Um, yeah, we're all retired except me. I'll be soon. I'll be joining soon. Okay. Uh, anything else, Frank? You got anybody? No, that's it. Dale, move to adjourn. Okay. Well, you have anything? No. Move to adjourn. Okay. Second or second. All right. We're done. Okay. Thank just to make it that was a record