Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening and welcome to the planning commission meeting of Monday, January 26th, 2026. I now call the meeting to order. Uh it's now time for the pledge of allegiance and we'll have Commissioner Rojos lead us this evening. Place your right hand over your heart. Ready? Begin to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you. Anna, will you please do the voice roll call? Chair Harland here.

Vice Chair Zick here. Commissioner Rohos here. Commissioner Kleak here. Commissioner Andrade here. Commissioner Dixon is absent. Commissioner Martinez here.

Okay. We have no announcements or presentations this evening, which takes us to public comments for matters uh not listed on the agenda. Uh these are u items that are within our jurisdiction. I'll open up public comment. If you'd like to participate, uh please come and speak at either podium or if you're participating by Zoom or by phone, use the raise hand option for Zoom. And if you're joining by phone, please press star 9. Um let me get the podium set up. All right, Miss Smell, welcome. Happy New Year.

Happy New Year. So, my name is Wendy Simo. hear about the gym at 14017th Street. Um you I know you guys did something because they don't open their door now. Um if they do, it's barely barely cracked, you know. Um but um the last week and a half um something's happened. I mean, I came in I was going to be here last last meeting and thank you guys for what you did, but now they're full throttle back to where they were. 5:15 in the morning is what time I got woke up this morning. And it's not quiet inside my house because whenever your body gets exposed to as much base as this gym produces on a daily basis. Um, it does stuff. It causes depression, causes your hair to fall out, causes anxiety, you know, and so now I'm allergic to everything. So I have to sleep with an air purifier next to me and it's not quiet, you know. And 5:15 in the morning, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Just anything they want. So, um, you guys are like, why don't you go talk to the gym owner, right? Why? Why hasn't this lady went and talked to the gym owner? Well, now my neighbors know about the gym owner because they'll tell you if you don't like it, you can move. So, is this the way that you let all your businesses talk to your communities? If you don't like the noise pollution that we cause at 5:30, 5:15, 4:50, whatever time we want to start. Um, if you don't like it, you can get out. You can move. You want people moving out of your city because of a business, do you? Do you? I do want to thank you for whatever you have done because the last 6 months or 6 weeks to two months has been very quiet. But whatever you guys had done is now nothing. And we all know that this gym is lawless. We've seen their cup, which is a big pile of junk junk. And um there's no city ordinances. You guys are the ones that that make those, right? So um there's definitely something that you guys can do for your citizens. You know,

a business should not be telling your citizens to move. This business bullies us. Who's the most outspoken person against the gym? Me. It'd be me. I'm the one that's been coming and complaining for a few years now. Right. Right. So, their little annual event that they have outside with the chicks screaming on the microphone. Do you know what weekend they picked out of the 52 of the year to have it on? It's my birthday weekend. Yeah. So tell me that this gym is not bullying us. You tell me. Tell me how it is because you know they are and you got to do something to stop it because business should not tell your citizens to move. And they shouldn't be bullying your citizens and just completely as much noise pollution as they want anytime they want. Doom for hours. You know, this gym operates all day long and our community has to deal with it. And there's more people pissed off than just me now. You know, there's a lot more people pissed off than just me now. So, if you guys could stop the business and, you know, tell them to stop telling your citizens to move if they don't like the noise pollution that they're causing. And, uh, if you have ever had to sleep with a pair of headphones, it's not very comfortable at 5:30 in the morning. Have a great day.

All right. Thank you. Anybody else in chambers wish to speak? Okay, seeing none, Anna, do we have anybody on Zoom or by phone? No, we do not, Mr. Chairman. Okay, I will close public comments, now it's time for planning commissioner comments and suggestions, and I will start to my left this evening. Commissioner Martinez.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, uh, I wanted to announce the Vernal pool walk at Fairview Park. uh the city and uh Endemic Environmental are going to have a walk around our Vernal pools. Uh please check it out. It's Saturday, January 31st, 9:00 am at Fairview Park. Uh please uh email cmre info@ coastmmesca.gov if you have any other questions and uh make sure to sign up using the RSVP. Uh and then I just wanted to quickly uh ask staff for an update on our pre-approved ADU program. I know our website mentioned that it would be available in the early part of 2025. I checked December 31st hoping, really hoping that we got it in uh with uh in 2025. Uh but uh hopefully it can be done in the early part of this year and I'm looking forward to the update. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh Commissioner Andrade.

Yes. Um, first off, I wanted to um do a huge shout out and appreciation to city staff for providing some essential resources and information to a to a local community aid effort that has taken place in our community in response to the ICE rates happening in our community within our district. Um, it's been really empowering and supportive to know that your city, our city is backing up its residents, whether that's access to legal aid, funds if needed, access to free food, and just general information. And so having it all nicely packaged and branded with the city of Costa Mesa on it has been truly truly powerful and just a great reminder that our community deserve to be here and we thrive with immigrant communities across Costa Mesa. Um so I invite you all the audience everyone that's online as well watching please check out on Instagram. This is one time, right? I encourage you to take out your cell phone and um check out on Instagram CM Community Aid. You're going to find opportunities um as local residents to support volunteer your time. Help us bag some beans and rice that are being distributed to families that are currently living under fear of leaving their homes and it's directly impacting their financial stability, also the safety of our children to get to school. Um so great opportunities to volunteer and give back to the community that gives so much to us all. Um there's an opportunity to donate. I know time is limited for many. So if you can donate and give a monthly recurring contribution that is going to be immensely immensely powerful and again huge appreciation for the city to not only provide those informationational

informationational resources but also doing it in bilingual. So, um, and finally, I'll also add an opportunity opportunity. Um the county um is currently launching its point in time count. It's a bianual count that the county is responsible for doing to evaluate and assess what is the current status of homelessness across our county. Um, so actually tomorrow or yes, tomorrow starting at 6 o'clock in the morning here in Costa Mesa and 700 pm in Costa Mesa, we're going to do the community is volunteering as surveyors to go out into the community, provide hygiene kit for one of our unhoused neighbors and really collect information. This is a great opportunity to get direct insight um and connect with our neighbors that are currently living on our streets in this cold and bitter winter. Um but if you cannot join today, there will be opportunity up until the 29th. So it's a very easy website is the point in time count everyone. Yeah, the point in time count it's run by the county. Easy way to volunteer, give back. If you don't want to go out and survey, you could also just set up the stations and break down stations as well. So, a great and powerful way to give back to the unhoused population here in our community. That's all.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Kleipek. I'm just excited to be back for our first meeting of the year and I'm happy to see so many folks in the audience and I'm looking forward to all the work ahead of us this year. Thank you, Commissioner Rohouse. I have nothing. Thank you. Okay, Vice Chair Ze.

Thank you, sir. Uh, happy new year, everyone. You know, I find it very difficult to listen to Miss Samoa every meeting talk about a problem which has such a simple solution that somehow we cannot seem to implement. And it is frustrating to me that I don't see evidence of any effort by the city to solve this problem. The cup for this business says nothing about noise. It was back in 1992. Maybe we didn't care. Maybe we weren't that sophisticated. New cups for businesses might be like this have statements about noise in the cup and they reference a city ordinance. We have a challenge with the noise ordinance in the city in that it basically sets an upper limit for volume. The decibel level doesn't say anything about frequencies. Doesn't refer to booming bass. doesn't anything about high-pitched whining, nothing like that, just volume. And if you've ever experienced high pitch or low point volume issues, you know, they can be bothersome. Just closing the back door of this business solves a problem. Somehow we cannot bring ourselves to reach an agreement with the property owner to close the back door. I don't understand

that. I don't understand how we can't modify the cup in such a way as to require that. I don't understand that. I've not seen any written communication to the property owner asking them for consideration for this simple act. Close the back door of your gym. I don't understand this. So, if the city manager or any of the directors in the city are listening and are interested in trying to solve this problem and want to meet with the property owner, I'd be more than happy to go with you. And if you do nothing, you'll hear a speech like this again right after Miss Samoa tells us about her problems.

All right. Thank you. Well, welcome back everybody. Hope uh everyone enjoyed the holiday season. Um to Miss Samo, who I've seen and heard several times over the years, I agree with the the vice chair, it seems like this should be solvable. Um by all means, come to the planning commission whenever you want um and give us an update. I'm glad things had uh improved at least for a short time. Uh but I also encourage you go to the city council, talk to your elected representatives, get them involved. Um and uh you will have um ample opportunities to work with staff and those officials to try and solve what I agree should be a solvable problem. Um those are all for my comments. Takes us to consent calendar. We have one item on our consent calendar. Uh all matters listed on the consent calendar considered to be routine and will be acted upon in one motion. There's no separate discussion unless an item has been pulled. Uh, Anna, has anything been pulled tonight?

No, there has not been, Mr. Chairman. Okay. Uh, do we have a motion on the minutes of December 8th, 2025? Move to approve. Moved by Commissioner Martinez, seconded by Vice Chair Zik. Let's call for the question. That motion carries 6. Great. We have two public hearing items tonight. Anna, would you please read the title for public hearing item number one?

Public hearing item number one, conditional use permit PC-25-000014 to convert two existing twostory office buildings into a church, Grace Fellowship Church facility at 3146 and 3152 Red Hill Avenue. Please note we have not received public comments on this item. This is a call for any exparte communications. Commissioners, any exparte communications? Um, no communications, but I visited the site.

Okay. All right. Um, vice chair, can I trouble you to turn off your mic while we have that? Thank you. Uh, okay. I'll turn it over to Mr. Roando for the staff presentation.

Thank you, chairman. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Jeffrey Armando, assistant planner with the economic and development services department. And the item before you tonight is a conditional use permit application for the Grace Fellowship Church in which the applicant requests to operate a church facility. The project site is uh consists of two parcels, 3146 and 3152 Red Hill Avenue, which is the site you see boxed in red within the aerial photo you see there. and is located on the south side of Red Hill Avenue, midblock between Polarino Avenue and Baker Street. The site is zoned CL, which stands for Commercial Limited. And adjacent to the rear of the property is an existing business park known as the John Wayne Executive Guild. Adjacent to the sides of the property are existing office buildings and across Red Hill Avenue are existing industrial uses. The existing site consists of two properties at approximately 1.3 acres each in size with a total of 177 service parking spaces. And the site photo on the right reflects a front elevation view capturing the entrances of both buildings with 3146 Red Hill being the building on the right and 3152 Red Hill being the building on the left on the photo. As seen, both properties are developed with a standalone two-story office building and the proposal would involve the Grace Fellowship Church to occupy both buildings to operate a church facility. As part of the proposal, there will be interior remodeling work and a minor addition to both buildings to accommodate the church's needs. And looking at the first floor plan of both buildings, the main sanctuary will be located within the 3146 Red Hill building. Uh the sanctuary is

approximately 6100 square f feet in size and would contain non-fixed seating. In that building, there will also be a lobby area, bathrooms, storage rooms, an office, and a mother's room. The 3152 red Hill building right across would consist of classrooms, storage rooms, a kitchen, an assembly area, and a multi-purpose room. As highlighted in blue, an existing portion of the building would be converted into a covered outdoor play area by removing existing windows, which additional photos of the site will be shown on a later slide. Furthermore, both buildings would involve an addition to accommodate an elevator and equipment room as highlighted in yellow. Onto the second floor plan, further highlighted in yellow identifies the new elevator and a new storage room which would be added for both buildings. On 3146 Red Hill, there will be a common area for coffee bar, administrative offices, multi-purpose rooms, library, bathrooms, kitchen, and storage rooms. And on 3152 Red Hill building on the second floor, there's also a common area with a coffee bar, Bible study rooms, assembly rooms, storage rooms, and bathrooms. Now, here is a visual act visual example of the proposed elevator and equipment and storage room additions. Um, as seen highlighted in yellow, the additions are located near the entry areas for both buildings and would represent a slight bump out on the front elevation. The outdoor play area would be located on the southern corner of the 3152 Red Hill building and it would involve removing a total of four windows to open up the existing enclosed area. The site photos as shown on this slide highlight the windows that would be removed. So, two windows on the southeast and

southwest elevations would be removed to create the open area. The Grace Fellowship Church operations would include church services to be provided on Saturdays from 400 pm to 8:00 p.m. and Sundays from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. The church's intention is to utilize the main sanctuary in 3146 Red Hill for the church services while utilizing the other building to supervise and conduct Bible studies for children. On the weekdays from 7:00 am to 11 pm the church will the buildings will be used for office hours and group gatherings for Bible studies and other religious activities. Um the church would not um have any daycare services or a school uh to be proposed. Uh conditions of approval have been implemented to regulate the proposed use include conditions such as uh no daycare services or schools shall be provided at the site without city approval. Uh outdoor activity areas are only permitted when the activity area does not encroach into required setback. parking circulation or interior landscaped areas and also no signage shall be installed until a sign permits issued by the city's economic and development services department. Pursuant to um the municipal code, there are three types of public notification have been completed no less than 10 days prior to tonight's hearing. Um public notice was mailed to all property owners and occupants within a 500 foot radius of the project site. public notice was also posted on the street frontage of the project site and the notice was also posted published on the daily pilot newspaper. With that said, staff recommends that the plan commission adopt the resolution to find that the project is categorically exempt from SQA and to approve conditional use permit 25-0014 subject to conditions of approval. This concludes my presentation. I'm available

to answer any questions you may have and the applicant Anthony Msaro is also intends to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Roondo. Uh, commissioners, any questions of staff? Go. Uh, Commissioner Martinez.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, first for public works, if we can go to slide three for a visual. Uh the entrance to the site is uh basically a a slip lane or a or a channelized um turn lane. Does this conform to current public works regulations regarding site access? Commissioner Martinez, uh, with respect to what you're seeing there, uh, it may have been per standard back in the day when it was first designed. Uh, currently I can't speak to how current standards would would approach to this, but uh, in all likelihood when when this was first designed back in the day, I and I don't know when it was designed. It would have been, uh, per standard at the time. Is this something that can be updated today to current standards? Well, staff can can go back and reassess and that could be something that within the realm of possibility uh with the standards have to be reviewed again in terms of the geometry with respect to it, the site distance and other concerns as well. So, but that's something that uh staff can go back and re and and look into. Okay. Um, if we can go to slide seven. So, this is about the covered play area. Is is the idea that it's um outdoors because we're just removing the windows. Um, and does does that involve also like fencing because there's landscape right in front of it or

um is it just going to be just open and into uh landscape? Yeah, according to the applicant, the idea is to remove those windows to create an open area um covered. Um I would have to defer to the applicant on how he would address the entry to those uh outdoor areas.

Okay. Um and uh slide nine for a visual on condition of approval number four. Um what are our current zoning code regulations regarding daycarees or schools on the CL zone? Essentially, what I'm asking is who would city be in this condition of approval based on what's in our zoning code. Now, for daycare services, according to our code, requires a conditional use permit in the CL zone. Um, just give me one moment for the schools and then primary schools would require also a C cup CU on the CLZM. So essentially for this condition without city approval means without uh a CUP or an updated CUP and it would come back to the planning commission and not uh staff.

Correct. If the applicant requests for one of those services they would have to apply for a CU. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Okay, Vice Chair Zik.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Roando. I would like to follow up first on Commissioner Martinez's question about this uh outdoor activity area. And I guess I'm a little curious why we're calling it an outdoor activity area when it is interior to the building. Where why are we using that terminology? The idea is to call it outdoor due to it not being fully enclosed with the removal of the windows. So that was the approach um um staff's direction.

Okay. Um let me deviate to a slightly different question. Um, if the church wanted to have an outdoor an activity in the parking lot, a bake sale, carnival, something like that, uh, would they be required to come to the city for an event permit? Or could they just take up parking and create a uh, outdoor carnival if they wanted? A special event permit would be required to

Okay. part of that special event permit, they'd have to show you what it was they were intending to do so you could validate that there's adequate parking, that there's safety protocols in place, whatever you think would be reasonable to go along with that event. That's correct.

Okay. So on this uh condition of approval number five, what I'm a little unclear about is the way it's worded and it says that outdoor activity areas are only permitted and again we're referring to the interior of the building in an area where we've removed windows. That's the area we're talking about. and it says are only permitted when the activity area does not encroach into required street setback parking and circulation or interior landscaped areas. Well, it seems pretty clear that those conditions are in fact met that this area does not encroach into the street setback or parking or circulation. So why wouldn't this condition be written to say that this quote unquote outdoor activity area shall be exclusive to this interior area of the building where the windows were removed. Commissioner Ze, thank you for that question. The outdoor activity areas noted in condition five are for any additional this condition wasn't crafted specifically for the enclosed or covered outdoor area for the daycare facilities or the children's care facilities. It's for um any additional and it's a it's noted in the code that way but I think um we can further specify or clarify that in the condition. That's a good catch.

Okay. I think it should be and uh if the intent was for this to somehow capture other unanticipated uses um that was the reason for my question about an event permit because that's exactly what is the purpose of that. So thank you for that and that uh is my question.

All right, Commissioner Andrade. Just a clarifying question um on the point on um conditions of approval number four. I just want to make sure it's not conflicting with what the applicant submitted on page 43, which is the proposed schedule because it lists child care almost every day. So, I just want to make sure that we're not negating um approval of it or is there an additional paperwork the applicant should consider? Yeah, in discussion with the applicant, the intent for those services is to for like when it's Bible studies or any activities um they would use certain areas in the building for um care of the children like if the adults have like a certain um activity then children will be taken care of and supervised. It's not it's not intent for a separate daycare operation. It's it's all related to the church

and and the applicant has clarified the ages that are specified um to staff as well as the intent to not have it be an independent operating type of daycare. It's supposed to be sort of supplementary to other services provided on the site to existing activities. Yeah.

Okay. Great. Thank you for that. Um, and then I wanted to ask about um what is the the current status of the businesses that are labeled in these at these addresses? Are they closed down? Just wanted to inquire about have they shut is the building pretty much empty and no no other business was operating. I just want to just check on displacement. I currently don't have the knowledge of the existing conditions of the the building. That's something staff will have to take a look into. Um

the applicant may be better suited to answer that question and what the intent and timeline is to take over the facility. When I drove by, I didn't actually go into the building, but I just saw a whole bunch of businesses named outside in the in the front of the building. So just wanted to make sure that you know was it empty or in you know it's an opportunity for them to expand whatever just wanted to check on displacement. Thanks. All right vice chair Z you have another question. Yeah that kind of raised a question. So did anybody from staff actually visit the site as part of the processing of this C?

Yes. Uh staff has conducted a site visit. So, are are you aware of whether or not there's an existing occupancy in these buildings from that visit? Uh, yes. Um, just from observance from the site visit. Okay. So, you're simply just not sure what's happening with those businesses that are in the buildings, which is I guess the way the question had been asked. Okay. Thank you.

Right. Any further questions, commissioners? Okay, I will open the public hearing and ask the applicant or the applicant's representative to come to the podium and please uh state your name and then the two questions. Have you read the conditions of approval and do you agree to them? Yes. Um Anthony Misaro. from the architect applicant and I have read the conditions of approval and they are acceptable. Okay, floor is yours.

Um I don't have any I think um staff did a good job presenting the overall project and so we don't have a specific presentation. We are here to answer questions specifically on the outdoor area. It was, you know, maybe a better label would be non-conditioned space because it's merely within the footprint of the building and we're removing the the storefront and it creates an unconditioned so the kids can be out there. So, it's really because there's no place on the site where the kids could be running around. They were talking about little kids and so an an opportunity while the parents are at church and the um they're watching the kids, they do Bible study, they do worship and they send them out to play. So, it's really an outdoor well, it's an un it's an enclosed a covered porch um activity area. So, maybe outdoor would maybe isn't the the best description, but that that was really the intent. And as far as the classrooms and the children, we run into this. I do a lot of entitlements for churches and we we we'll specify them classroom and then people see classroom and I've had conversations with fire department as well and you see classrooms and you immediately think school. What's interesting is the building code. I know this is planning but building code has a special provision in the code. So this is an church which is an A3 occupancy. And specifically within the A3, they they go out of their way to mention classrooms that are associated for religious activity are considered part of the A3. They're not an E. So the code makes a distinction. And the real distinction is they're not kids sitting in school for six hours. the parents basically the parents come to church and they drop their kids off and so while the parents are worshiping for an hour and a half the kids are being trained religiously and so that's really the essence so when you see classroom that always tends to get the and and we've I had multiple conversations with staff and fire to assure them no we're not starting a school we're not starting a

daycare and then I think um we have a representative you were asking about the the tenants I I I think if you want to come up there would be unless you have other specific questions for the architect as other than the tenant question.

Yeah, let's let's have vice chair Z go ahead while you're up here. Because you're an architect, I'm curious why you've elected to remove windows to create this interior unconditioned space rather than try to have some sort of um opening windows to bring in fresh air and still maintain the possibility of having to be conditioned space.

Right. Well, the fortunately for the church, usually they're fighting for area. This the nature of this facility and the the kind of the proportions of the assembly area and the classrooms. We've had the they've have the luxury of not needing of additional assembly room or additional classrooms. So, they were looking for an area that was non-conditioned where the kids could run around and there's not really room. It's it's interesting they're they they're getting that area because there's room extra room in the building, but there's not any extra room to have kids to run around in the site. So the the the two buildings are adjacent to each other. There's like a 25 ft by 100 foot courtyard maybe. So there's really no place to play. So that's, you know, we talked through it and they felt like that was a good idea. There's a church, I don't know if you've been to um Rock Harbor that's on, um Airway that we did 15 years ago. We did the same thing. in the corner of the building. They wanted a covered outdoor porch lobby. So, we just literally cut holes in the wall within the footprint of the building simply because these industrial buildings there's just not a lot of land to work with.

So, will this space be ventilated at all beyond the removal of the windows or is that the extent of the ventilation for the space? Um, we haven't worked I we could put fans, but it's it's four corners open, so it's basically a covered porch that has two two sides wide pretty much wide open. Thank you. Okay, any other questions of Mr. Msaro? M. Commissioner Martinez.

Thank you. Um, just to stick on this uh covered playground. I mean, if we can go back to slide seven just for the visual. Um, is is the idea that I I mean right now there's like landscape in front of uh all four of these windows. Um, would it be open access? Someone from outdoor could walk in through there or would there be landscape that's essentially preventing that from happening? or is there going to be like a I don't know like a toddler gate that uh stops children from going out uh into the courtyard um instead of these windows?

Yeah, we've talked about that. I we're kind of leaning towards especially from a security standpoint, possibly some kind of closable gates, but for sure we would have it, especially if there were kids, we're not going to have them go straight into the parking lot. So we haven't worked that quite that out on the landscape but there was a sense of figuring out what you know between protection of we either do that with something a fence or they do they think more in terms of a security gate just to lock it to keep somebody from roaming because again it's an open porch so somebody could roam in there at night and so again using the Rock Harbor church as an example that church has been there since 2005 20 years now they had t they used to have TVs hanging out there nobody ever in in 20 years, no one ever broke in or tried to do anything. But so we we have this so we're balancing right now discussing with the church safety versus security and obviously safety with the children's going to come first.

All right. Uh thank you. Okay. Okay. Other questions of the applicant? I think you wanted to bring up your colleague. Yeah. Question about the tenants. Is that right, Commissioner Andrade?

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission. My name is Sean Shuard. I'm a member of the Grace Fellowship Church and helped negotiate with the current uh property owner of the Bianke family how to work with the existing tenants. So, Commissioner Andrad's question is uh Germaine. In the 3152 building, there's currently uh three month-to-month tenants. uh they have all agreed to move out and have found uh relocation uh opportunities well prior to our uh start date which which probably be in May of uh this year. There are seven tenants uh currently in the 3146 building. Uh we and the uh current landlord work together with all of them on the first floor, all five of them to either introduce them to real estate brokers andor contribute to relocation funds. They will all be moving out by the end of the first quarter of 26. Uh we also offered any and all of them uh including the two upstairs at 3146 the opportunity to stay for 3 years on the second floor of 3146. Only the two that are existing there have taken us up on it so far. There may be one tenant downstairs at 3146 who will move up into some vacant space 3146 uh again for a period of up to 3 years. So, uh, we work with all the tenants to make sure they found a new home, that they had they could stay on the property if they wanted to, and that there was some contributions to the relocations, uh, for them.

Any other questions? I have one quick one, Mr. Schuard. What's the current size of the congregation? I will defer to my colleagues on that. Is approximately 700. Regular attendance, he says, is 700 in two services. Yes. Okay. Right. All right. Thank you. Please have a seat. We'll now open the public comments. If you'd like to speak on this item, please come to either podium. And if you're joining by Zoom, use the raise hand option or by phone, please press star nine. Anybody in chambers wish to speak? Seeing none, Anna, anybody on Zoom or phone? No, there's not, Mr. Chairman.

Okay, I'll close public comment portion of the public hearing. Uh, commissioners, any final questions of staff for the applicant? Okay. May I have a motion? I move that the planning commission adopt a resolution to find that the project is exempt from the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to section 15301 class one existing facilities and approve conditional use permit PCUP 250014 based on findings of fact and subject to conditions of approval. Okay, we have a motion by Commissioner Martinez, a second by Commissioner Andrade. Uh, Commissioner Martinez, would you like to speak to your motion? Nope. Okay. Commissioner Andrade, any comments? Okay.

All right. Let's call for the question. Oh, sorry. Commissioner, Vice Chair Ze, Commissioner Martinez, were you interested in um addressing the language of condition approval number five? Can you repeat what your request was? I think that's when I was looking at their site plan.

Um, well, the first thing I would like is instead of referring to an outdoor activity area that we refer to a nonconditioned interior activity area. So, I'd want that uh change. And um and and that basically would be the extent of the um that a non-conditioned interior activity area is permitted. Period. No language about parking, street circulation, none of that because it's irrelevant.

So So you would remove all of condition five and add in that new language. Yeah, it would say a non-conditioned interior play area is permitted. And then any other outdoor events would be covered by special event permit regulations. We could say that. We wouldn't need to, but I'd be fine with that. I I don't think we need to say that. And I would agree to your friendly amendment. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Does the second agree to that? Yes. Okay. Now, let's call for the question. That motion carries 6.

Great. That decision is final unless appealed to the city council within 7 days. Anna, will you please read the title for public hearing item number two? Public hearing item number two, three-year time extension for ZA-22-08, which allowed a major amendment to the Avenue of the Arts Hotel Master Plan PA-16-50 at 3350 Avenue of the Arts. Please note, we have not received public comments on this item. This is a call for any exparte communications. Commissioner, any exparte communications? Commissioner Martinez

on January 20th. I met with the applicant on the site. Okay. Commissioner Andrade as well on Friday. I met on the site with two representatives. Okay. Commissioner Cleipek, I met on site on the 20th as well. And Commissioner Roas, I met with them on site on Thursday. Okay, Mr. Joerger, floor is yours for staff presentation.

All right. Thank you. Uh, good evening, Chair Harland and Commission. Uh my name is Chris Jagger, senior planner with the city of Costa Mesa. Um the project before you tonight, it is a three-year time extension for the previously approved master plan for the Avenue of the Arts Hotel. Um the currently approved master plan includes 388 hotel rooms, um 249 permanent parking spaces with 78 additional spaces available through valet. um a maximum height of 115 feet uh and a 2.10 F. Uh the most recent approval for the project uh came from the zoning administrator back in November 2023. Um and that was the ZA2208. Um before then there have been a series of amendments um which have gotten the uh master plan to the point where it is currently approved. Um since the project was originally approved as a master plan um in front of the planning commission um that is why the planning commission is uh uh requested to review the extension tonight. Um so the applicants have submitted an letter which was included in the staff report. Uh they are requesting three-year extension on the permit. Um they've cited unforeseen economic circumstances as a reasoning for the um extended approval. Um, and if this is approved by the planning commission tonight, uh, the project would be vested until November 2028. Uh, once building permits are pulled, it is permanently vested. Um, the project is approved. It, um, that, uh, complies with the general plan. Uh, it would provide a, uh, high quality visitor serving amenity and commercial services to the surrounding area. Um, the high-quality lodging would attract visitors to the city. Uh and this is in proximity to other visitor oriented land uses uh in the surrounding area including the uh Orange County

Museum of Art uh and the Seagerstrom Center for Arts. Um and uh would also conform with the policy which promotes timely processing um by not requiring a new application for the already approved project. Uh the project did originally have a EIR uh which was adopted um and it did have uh various addendums processed as well. Um the extended approval would not have any result um that would um any new significant environmental effects um other than what's already been studied. Um so there would be no changes to the mitigations or the environmental report as uh it's been approved. Um staff recommends that the commission adopt a resolution to approve the three-year extension um and to also determine that pursuant to secret guidelines that the previously certified EIR adequately addresses the environmental impacts proposed on the project. Um I'm available for questions. Uh the applicant team is also here uh if you have any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Joerger. Uh commissioners, any questions of staff? None. Okay. Uh, I will open the public hearing and ask whether the applicant or applicant's representative is present if they'd like to come down to the podium. If you mind staying, state your name for the record. And also, have you read the conditions approval and do you agree to them?

Yes. Uh, thank you, Chairman Harland, and um all of the fellow commissioners that are here this evening. My name is Paul Sanford. I have read the conditions uh and we are more than happy to comply with them. We've had a wonderful uh sort of experience with the city over the last revisions we made and um some of the developments that have happened in the theater arts neighborhood and such with different buildings that have been built, the change from the towers uh to 580 Anton which has done lovely. We helped uh that group build and also Houseion House and all along with the museum. So we're very happy to be here and happy to comply.

Great. Uh, commissioners, any questions of the applicant? Commissioner Martinez? Yeah, I just I just have the one question and it's you are asking for a three-year time extension. How confident are you that in three years time you won't be back here again asking for another time extension?

That's an excellent question, Commissioner Martinez. Um, we didn't think we'd be here uh at this point. We all know that we've been through record interest rates. Uh, the Hotel California, well, the West Coast hotel and travel, what we call leisure travel has really fallen off tremendously. It's it's well known uh throughout and um then we had the tariffs that hit us with uncertain prices. Most of these projects we plan and build two to three years out. Um and we go through cycles and we we didn't anticipate the in tremendously interest rates and it wasn't even with us willing were we willing to pay those high interest rates because the loans generally are on five to sevenyear cycles. There was just no financing available. Literally hospitality was shut down. Um that along with the uncertainty of tariffs, most of our goods are made overseas that are customdone and the luxury properties. Uh we're proud of the fact that um Avenue of the Arts was state-of-the-art when we when we built that project out, the team here, Claire and Mino and that were fantastic and it reset the mode and the ADRs in um Costa Mesa and we feel we need to do that again. We need to go to hype for we feel uh this theater arts district has proven itself. We feel Costa Mesa's proven itself. Irvine Spectrum has nothing to compare with the quality of buildings we have here. Even the new properties Leto House and such that um RD Olsson has built are lovely. They're efficient, but they're not the elaborate level of what we're putting in here. So, to answer your question, we think we're at the end of the high interest rate period. Um we're looking forward to money to loosen up. We are very successful developers in Orange County only award-winning. a brand is biting at the bit. Um, so I I I I don't think we could stand to go through this again, Commissioner, with all honesty.

Um, but I can't promise anything, but it's looking very good. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Sanford. Thank you. It's my pleasure. Appreciate your time. I'll uh open the public comments portion. If uh anybody would like to come speak, please come to either podium. I don't see anybody in chambers. Uh Anna, do we have anybody on Zoom or by phone? No, we do not, Mr. Chairman. Okay, I will close the public comments portion of the meeting uh public hearing. Uh commissioners, any further questions of staff?

No. Okay. Uh may I have a motion? I move that the planning commission adopt a resolution approving a three-year extension of time for ZA2208 which allowed a major amendment to the Avenue of the Arts Hotel Master Plan PA1650 and determine that pursuant to SQA guideline section 15168C, no subsequent or supplemental EI is required and the previously certified ER adequately addresses the environmental impacts of the proposed project. Second the grace. Yes. Okay. Would you like to speak to your motion?

Uh, please don't take offense, but I hope to not see you in three years time. You stole my line, David. Yeah. And I would just add to that, you know, this this looks like a wonderful project. Um, I I I wasn't in the commission when this was first approved, but really excited um for a beautiful project to come up in our city and and like you said, your commitment to to staying here. Thank you. Any other comments, commissioners? Commissioner Roas,

I'd just like to thank the applicant for taking the time, explaining it thoroughly. You're very well prepared. I really appreciate this project. I think it's wonderful. I think what you guys are doing is phenomenal and I look forward to seeing your continued efforts in our city. Thank you. I've seen this project a few times on this day. I am very I won't say happy that we're at this point. Um I'm I'm looking forward to some progress. I know this is going to be an important uh and remarkable addition to South Coast metro area uh which obviously is critical for our economic health here in Costa Mesa. I look forward to the uh uh resort hospitality industry coming back soon. Um uh it's a again critical part of our economy here and like I said this is an exciting project for us. So I'll be supporting the motion. Let's call for the question. That motion carries 6.

That decision is final unless it's appealed to the city council within 7 days. Let let's why don't we take a quick break since Commissioner Andrade seems to have already gotten ahead of us. So, uh, five five minutes. All right, we are back on the record and we have uh old business. Anna, would you please read the title for old business item number one? Old business item number one, conditional use permit PA-21-34. Condition of approval number 31, sixth month review, 420 flower factory. Please note, we have not received public comments or we have received public comments on this item.

All right, I will turn it over to Mr. Romano again. Floor is yours, sir. Thank you, chairman. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Jeffrey Arando, assistant planner at the economic development service department. The item tonight is a six-month review for the existing cannabis business named 420 Flower Factory located at 2332 Newport Boulevard. For background, on November 28, 2022, the planning commission voted to approve conditional use permit PA-21-34 for the operation of a retail cannabis storefront business called 420 Flower Factory. As part of the approval, the planning commission had added general conditional approval number 31, which required that after 6 months of operation, the plan commission shall review the CU at a public hearing. Furthermore, the business was issued their cannabis business permit on April 18, 2025. And on this slide, the photo on the right is a photo of the business um viewed at the angle from the front. The project site is located at 2332 Newport Boulevard, highlighted in yellow in the aerial you see there, which is located on the southeast side of Newport Boulevard, midblock between East Wilson Street and 23rd Street. The project site consists of a 2,000 foot building with nine surface parking stalls and a bike rack. Um the subject property is zone C1 which stands for local business district and surrounded by similarly zoned C1 properties located southwest and northeast from the property along Newport Boulevard. Across the street is the 55 freeway and to the rear of the property are R2MD which stands for multifamily residential medium density um zone properties buffered by an existing alleyway.

The approval of the CUP included sight specific conditions such as the vehicle gate in the rear shall remain closed and locked restricting customers from entering or exiting the property through the alley. Um, one parking stall shall be labeled for employees and vendors only, which the stall was located at the rear of the site. Uh waste dispos disposal to the exterior's trash enclosure shall be limited between the hours of 8 a.m. to 8:00 pm. Um there's also a condition about a parking attendant shall be required to monitor the exterior including the parking lot. And lastly, the conditional permit shall be reviewed at a public hearing after six months of operation. Um the photos on the right are a couple photos taken by staff with a view of the rear of the property. An evaluation of the business. Uh staff has visit visited the site and has examined that the rear vehicle gate has remained closed from circulation. Um it was also observed that there is no parking shortages on site and also there was a parking attendant that was observed on site moni monitoring the parking area. In further evaluation, the Costa Mesa Police Department had provided a log calls for service associated with the property and between the effective date of this the business permit issuance on April 2025 to the end of 2025. It was determined that there was no substantial number of calls for service other than an audible alarm system which was remedied by the business. There have been no noise complaints since its operations. Also, no code case violations have been logged within the time period. And lastly, staff believes that the business has operated in good faith without issues of neighborhood compatibility with the conditions opposed imposed and does not believe that any modifications to conditions of approval are required at this time. This concludes SAS presentation. I'm also I'm also available to answer any questions you may have and representative for the business Chris Glue is also in attendance to answer any

questions. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Morando. Uh commissioners, any questions of staff? All right, seeing none, I will open the public comments. If you'd like to speak on this item, please approach the podium. If you're on Zoom, use the raise hand option or by phone, please press star 9. If anybody would like to come, applicants, more than welcome to, but you're under no obligation. Good evening, commissioners. Christopher Glue, I have the pleasure of representing Flower Factory. staff's done all the heavy lifting on this so far. So, I just hear if you have any questions, comments, concerns, I'd be happy to address.

Okay, commissioners, any questions? No. Okay. Thank you. You're free to go. All right. Anna, do we have anybody on phone or Zoom? No, we do not, Mr. Chairman. Okay. I will close the public comment portion. Um, commissioners, any further questions? Okay. Would someone like to make a motion? Move to receive and file.

I'll second that. Um, any comments on your motion? I think just generally, not specific to this application, but on the efficacy of six-month reviews, uh I don't know if we've had any actionable items at previous six-month reviews that we've had. So, I I I just want to know like are these worth it to have in the future? Um, and maybe that's not a question for staff to like answer and consider, but maybe it's directly for planning commissioners, but I just want to throw that out there. Thank you. Okay, Vice Chair Zick,

since I've sat through um I think all of the cups for retail cannabis, there have been people who have um added this as a condition of approval as they did with Flower Factory. Um and to your question, I don't think they're effective at all. Um, I think they reflect an a certain amount of um uncertainty by the people who voted to approve them, thinking that if we um saw them again in six months and if there were problems that we could somehow do something. And boy, we would be challenged to do something if uh something new popped up that we didn't like but wasn't documented as a condition. So to your question, I don't think they're effective. I'm glad the applicant and his team showed up. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Okay. Any other comments? Let's call for the question then. That motion carries 6. We have uh our last item tonight. Um new business item number one. Anna, would you please read the title for that? New business item number one, overview of the amendments to the zoning code to reszone six cycle 2021 to 2029 housing element sites. implement specific housing element programs to encourage and facilitate housing development per state requirements and amendments to the North Costa Mesa specific plan for consistency with the housing element sites resoning PCTY-25-00008. Please note we have not received public comments on this item. Okay, give you guys a second to get settled. And Miss Halligan, whenever you're ready, floor is yours. Thank you so much. Um, good evening, chair and commissioners. I'm Michelle Halligan, senior planner with the economic and development services department. I'm joined by Anna McIll, advanced planning manager, Melinda Dy, principal planner, and Kathy Tang Saias and Elizabeth Dixon from DUTEK. Tonight's study session covers implementation of several housing element programs, including the draft resoning of housing element sites. We'll provide a brief overview, walk through the proposed amendments to the zoning

map, the zoning code, and the north coast of Mesa specific plan, and then take questions. Neighborhoods where we all belong is the city's effort to implement the housing element programs, address housing needs, and obtain certification from the California Department of Housing and Community Development, HCD. It also implements Measure K, which after its approval in 20 uh two, let's see, 2022, allows the city to reszone housing element sites and other Measure K sites to create housing opportunities without a citywide vote. In August 2025, HCD um clarified that Costa Mesa's housing element only met statutory requirements if the resoning is completed in a timely manner. They urged the city to expedite the resoning and since then um we've been working with HCD to apply a new SQA or California environmental quality act exemption to the housing element resonings. Um this is known as SB131. As a result of housing element resonings being exempt from SQUA neighborhoods where we all belong now has two paths. Path one is the expedited reszoning of housing element sites, a north coast to measing code updates. And path two is on the original schedule, including additional public outreach, um, objective design standards, studying some other opportunities, um, an environmental impact report, and the reasonzoning of non-housing element measure K sites. With that context, only the draft amendments to the zoning map tonight um are for housing element sites. So in path one, housing element sites would be reszoned to the mixeduse overlay district or mood. Recent case

law requires development on housing element sites to include uh residential uses. So the city worked with HCD to amend the mood accordingly. On these sites, the mood functions as base zoning. It requires at least 50% residential use at a minimum density of 20 units per acre. So if the case law um is overturned or if new legislation is adopted or passed, the housing element section could also be amended accordingly to provide some more flexibility. So housing element sites are distributed throughout the city. Um so details can be really hard to see at this scale. Um the map legend shows the mood, specific plans, and urban plans. Um the mood is shown as a dot pattern. And I just wanted to note that sunsetting the urban plans, as we've discussed with the planning commission in December, um it would actually occur in path two on that original project timeline. So three close-ups illustrate the reszoning. Um, image J image A is just an example of the mood dot pattern applied to sites in the North Costa Mesa specific plan. Image B shows the mood applied near Harbor and Victoria and image C shows the mood applied along West 19th Street. Um, I'm happy to report that the city is developing a dynamic online mapping tool um that will allow the public and property owners and developers to see what development is being proposed and where and in real time they'll get to access to general plan information, housing element site information, um, measure K and so on. So, it's a really exciting opportunity to give the community just more access to information about these sites. Okay, the next topic is the draft zoning code amendments. These amendments are intended to

implement housing element programs, align the city's uh zoning code with state law, and remove barriers to housing development. Staff prepared these drafts in collaboration with HCD, and we're continuing our conversation with um HCD. Key changes include updating definitions, streamlining planning application processing, removing master plan requirements for mixeduse projects, updating the land use matrix, and a new mood section specific to housing element sites. Additional draft amendments reduce um residential parking requirements per state law and guidance. um update motel conversion termination of tenency standards and revise um standards for emergency shelters. We've also prepared a draft amendment to the north coast of Mesa specific plan. So this is a very targeted amendment just for housing element sites within the north coast to Mesa specific plan. The mood standards would apply to those sites as base zoning which is consistent with all the other housing element sites. um two figures and tables would also be updated in the specific plan for consistency. So the next steps include receiving planning commission and public input tonight. Um we plan to return to the planning commission with um these amendments for recommendation on February 9th. And then in March um we'll be conducting our like path two public outreach where we'll talk more about the measure K sites and more about broad objective design standards. And also in March the city council is expected to consider the path one resoning. And that's just for the resoning of the housing element sites, the zoning map amendment and the north coast of Mesa specific plan amendments that we went over tonight. Um after that we will

continue with our consultants to work on path two which includes the draft environmental impact report, draft objective design standards and prepare additional amendments for later public review. So this concludes staff's presentation. Um we're available to answer your questions. All right. Thank you Miss Halligan. Uh commissioners questions of staff. Vice Chair Zik. Sure. Thank you. Let me start with uh page 12. That might be an easy place to start. Your slide deck. Oh, slide 12. Okay, let's go back.

Is that the correct slide? Yeah. Okay, great. So, the draft the first bullet draft amendment summary remove additional parking for bedroom additions. What do you mean by that and what's the rationale for that? Um, thank you, Commissioner Zick. So, uh, our current code requires additional parking for single family development for certain bedroom additions if you're doing more than four bedrooms. Um, but there's a recent state law that no longer allows us to do that. So, we're just coming into conformance with state regulations.

Lovely. Okay. Okay. Appreciate that. Um, so the focus right now is the reszoning of housing element sites. You said that, correct? That is correct. And the reason why we're doing that resoning is because HCD requires that as a prerequisite to certification of a of our housing element update. Correct. Yes, that is correct.

Okay. Measure K um had as its objective removing the citywide vote on projects and would allow council to approve projects without them being on the ballot for citywide vote. So, I'm wondering why would we be looking at reszoning any Measure K site? Why wouldn't we wait until some developer came along and said, "You know what? I'd like to do a project on this this site, propose it to council, council rubber stamps it or does what they do and it's approved."

Why would we be reszoning a measure K site?

That's a great question. Um, and it's something we've thought about a lot here, especially as we've been challenged to kind of rethink our approach. Um, one of the things that we can do through this neighborhoods where we all belong effort is an environmental impact report to provide SQA clearance for a a lot of different projects in the future. Or if they want to do something a little bit different from what we studied, they could um create like an addendum to that EI and tear off of it. So there's a lot of cost and time savings for developers there. um in which they can put the more time and um and funding into their projects. Um we also want to look um at a bigger picture of of our development potential. We know we've got another arena cycle starting. Um I just attended meetings with the county. We're already talking draft numbers and so studying this potential resoning of Measure K sites gives us a lot of information that we're going to need to be well prepared. so that we are on time and on schedule um in our next arena cycle.

So, let me take that answer you gave me. Let me put some different words to it and you tell me if I got this right. We are not going to be reszoning any Measure K site prior to a developer bringing a project forward for those sites. We might have cleared an EIR. We might have done some other homework, but we're not going to reszone the sites in advance. That's what I heard you say. Oh, Vice Chair Zick, I'm sorry. I should have been more clear. So, yeah,

when we do the SQA work, our goal is to study the potential impacts and then have some sort of an implementation plan. So, there would be a reasonzoning. might be a true overlay where it's just completely additive, an option that a property owner could choose to use or they could use their underlying zoning, but we would want some sort of a mechanism that allows or encourages new housing.

Okay. Um All right. And in those uh plans to reszone measure K sites, there would be no, this is a question, there would be no requirement by the landowner to include residential as part of any new development on that site. So if it's currently commercial, retail, industrial, and you and it's measure K and you come along and you reszone it, you're not forcing them to have to build residential if they redevelop their site and want to keep it commercial.

Yeah, vice chair, that's correct for measure K sites. It is a different story for our housing elements. Oh, I understand that. Thank you. Um, somewhere in your presentation you had the phrase uh where you were talking about removing barriers. Do you recall where that was removing barriers to um I believe it was on the slide about why we're doing draft zoning code amendments at this time.

Regulatory barriers. Okay. Um, and this isn't to mean that we're we're removing any protections of current property owners. You're just talking about removing um for for example, the the recent decision that said that small lot developments no longer get public hearing, no longer give notifications even to next door neighbors. It's just a ministerial approval. um till the trucks show up, you might not even know what's happening. Uh that's removing a barrier, but that's also removing a protection, I think, for a homeowner. You don't mean that kind of action here where things get through the process and the public is somehow cut out. That's not a barrier you're talking about removing, are you?

You uh Yes, that is that is one of the barriers that um we're proposing to remove. cutting the public out of the process. So it is HCD views our entitlement process, additional noticing requirements, additional hearing as potential regulatory barriers for housing projects. The more time in entitlement process, the more cost it is for developers. And so they see removing those barriers as incentives for building housing. Um, so that's part of the changes that you'll see in our planning application process for projects that provide housing and additional streamlining for projects that provide um deeper levels of affordable housing.

No more questions. Okay. Uh, Commissioner Andrade.

Um, a quick question just clarifying question on table on page four of the report. Um it's on title 13 chapter 3 planning applications attachment two exhibit D on that table. Um and I could you maybe give me an example of the kind of projects that would be streamlined in the development review process. Is it exactly what we were just talking with? Yeah, I'm happy to jump in on that, Commissioner Andrade. So, um, we kind of created two different paths. The streamline development and then the development review. So, development review would be a housing element site that proposes housing and that would be a planning level review. They would submit to the planning division. It would be an entitlement, but it would be staff level and we're viewing it against objective standards. The streamline development review is for those um byight housing projects. Those are housing element sites that provide at least 20% low income and so they would submit directly to the building division as a ministerial permit. It still gets routed to the planning division so we can check those objective standards but it's an like an additional review incentive for those projects that provide 20% low.

Got it. Thank you. It was just helpful to understand which ones what type of projects. Um, and how does this all work when um new property along um measure K sites are become available? Does that change anything as to you would qualify as a housing element opportunity or just uh you know part of the general process of

Yes. So these application processes are for housing element sites. So um you know in future if an applicant wanted to be added to our um sites inventory um that could be done it would have its own process and then they would be they would have these applicable review processes. Measure K sites that are not housing element sites that's still up for outreach and discussion and decision. So it could be that those measure K sites have a similar review process have a different review process. Um, we don't know yet and we hope to answer ask some of those questions to the public in March.

And I'm thinking specifically, um, along Harvard Boulevard and Fair, the Mitsubishi retailer looks like it just closed down. I see that that's in housing case. So, that would be part of kind of a evaluation where the city would reach out to explore should there do are they interested in changing their

Yeah. And we're we're continually having discussions with um interested applicants. Um there are applicants who are interested in becoming housing element sites. So um we field those meetings and discussions quite often and talk through some of the um benefits, the pros and cons, the different kind of review process, some of the requirements that they would have so they can think about whether or not they would like to make that request to the city.

Okay. And and and so piggybacking off of what you just shared, I think it's it at some point in the process, are we going to hear about that? Like what is the community's feel, right? All these business landlords and business owners along the corridor like what is their perception? Are we going to hear from them like what is their feedback or what are their interests kind of leaning in on? I would love to hear from the business community I guess perspective like what are your thoughts on all this is that somewhere along the process

or yeah I mean for for non-housing element sites yes we're going to continue to conduct that outreach for housing element sites that was you know obviously done as part of the housing element process. We've since the Roondo Beach case reached out to them and have had, you know, are answering questions, having continued conversations about what the case actually might mean for their property. Um, developers who develop housing are pretty excited about being on the housing element sites inventory because of that streamlined process, more certainty and approval than if they weren't on the housing element site. So, um there's a lot of benefits that might um you know, make them want to go on the site's inventory, but for the other measure K sites, it's additive, right? They can continue to um propose a commercial project if they want. They can do a mixeduse project. They can do a housing project. So, um they're they have voiced excitement about being a measure kite so that they can have those potential opportunities.

Thank you,

Commissioner Martinez. Thank you. Um, okay. So, first I want to start off very general and very broad and then I'll go into the draft proposal that we have tonight. Um, so basically as I understand it, one of the main reasons we're doing this is for the HCD certification since we are not currently certified. So I wanted to ask if this proposal is adopted, do we get HCD certification? So, we are continuing to meet with HCD's technical staff. They are reviewing, they have reviewed our mixeduse um zoning ordinance overlay. Um they have also review are in process of reviewing our zoning code amendments. So, we feel confident that they know exactly what we're proposing, that we're addressing their concerns in real time as we're moving forward through this process. Now, you know, it's not over till it's over. So, I can't give you a for certain answer to that question, but we'll definitely feel a lot more confident submitting our certification um knowing that they've been giving us technical guidance and we've been in conversation as this process has been ongoing.

Okay. And then if I could I add on to that just very uh quickly. Um going back to the um the May 2023 letter that we received from HCD which indicated that the city's housing element at that time was in substantial compliance and that the reszone needed to be completed in order for uh the city's housing element to be eligible for certification. And I think we're really using that letter as the beacon on the approach and then you know subsequently adding on to the um increased urgency due to the past deadline. Right? So but having that letter state that very specifically gives us indication that as we progress and finish this approach that that will be the major component remaining for certification.

All right. And then the follow on to that is uh the Fairview Developmental Center which if if we if we don't have that done we miss our targets for very low income, low-inccome and moderate income in Reena. So do we not need to have the FDC specific plan done in order to get HCD certified or do we need the FDC specific plan done in order to get HCD certification? The FDC site has its own state legislation associated with it. So, we're proceeding along the timelines that are outlined there, which is the end of 2026. Um, so we're if the city council when we bring it to them hopefully in March adopts this, we will submit for certification at that point um without the FDC site being complete.

Okay. Um so in this uh proposal we have a few different development standards for housing element sites. Are these the standards that we will end up applying to our measure K sites?

Commissioner Martinez. Um the standards today that are in the new uh mood section would apply to our housing element sites. Um, but there are things like the updated definitions, those are citywide. You know, updates to our land use matrix are citywide. Um, the items related to motel conversions and things like that, those live citywide with those specific issues. Um, when it comes to parking, um, we did have some state law to comply with that was about parking for single family home room additions. That is beyond the housing limit sites. um as well as some parking updates for multifamily housing. Um we worked with HCD and they a um they wanted us to slightly reduce our open you know uncovered parking and guest parking and that would apply citywide beyond the housing element sites.

Okay. Um, and related specifically to some of the standards for mood sites, would those standards is that is that going to be the same or the framework that we base our measure K standards on?

If you're asking about height and setbacks and those types of standards, um, it depends what we hear during outreach. So you might see some similarities, there may be some differences. Um, one of the biggest questions that we're going to ask is really about density and that appropriate level of density that the community is giving us feedback on is probably going to dictate some of those standards. Remember, we're still working on objective standards that are going to be applicable citywide. So outside of height and setbacks, which may differ on the measure case sites than they do on the housing element sites, there's still going to be additional objective type standards that are going to be applicable to any multif family projects. Um so you know those could in include things like personal storage for strollers and things, storage for bicycles, you know, um different design standards for window placements or articulation in the building. And that would be across all projects.

Yeah. I I think what I'm thinking about is um if we have a different set of standards for our measure K sites and our housing element sites which are all next to each other and between each other and and all of that. So, I I I guess I'm wondering once we do our um neighborhoods where we all belong and the outreach and we see what we want those standards to be for the measure K sites, would we then also consider coming back to this uh proposal for our housing element sites and amend those to match uh the measure K proposals? Um probably not because we need to meet the you know we need to meet the development standards that are appropriate to enable the sorry the development standards have to be able to enable the height uh the density right so like if your density is up to 90 dwellings to the acre it lends itself to a certain height setbacks to be able to actually achieve 90 dwelling acre on the site I think what you're asking though is there is there going to be some consistency and the answer generally is going to be yes because we're going to have some conversations with the community about different neighborhoods and areas and where maybe it's more appropriate to have higher density and maybe where it's more appropriate to have lower density. And that will then, you know, lead into some of those decisions that have already been done on the housing element sites will be done on the measure K sites too depending on neighborhoods. And so those development standards will, you know, will relate to whatever that density that's decided.

Okay. Does that help? Yeah. Can I just jump in along those lines? So what is the time period between when this first phase finishes to touch just the housing element sty including the limited objective design standards and then the second phase which is the measure K sites how much time in between those

yeah so we are going out with round two of outreach and I'll let Kathy kind of talk a little bit more about what we're going to see in that round of outreach um in March. So the the discussions are kind of happening concurrently. Um the city council is going to hopefully review the mixeduse overlay for the housing sites in March. It'll be right after all the outreach has happened so they can at least start to see the boards the questions that we're asking the community some of that stuff before they consider the housing element sites so we can make sure that we have you know some overlap in those decisions.

Okay. I mean I just as a editorial I I share Commissioner Martinez's concern about having some consistency especially when you have a measure K site right next to a housing element site and there may be some differences when we talk about neighborhoods nobody's going to kind of understand that distinction. So okay sorry I didn't mean to interrupt. No good. Please, if any other one if any other commissioners have a question uh based on mine. Um and if I may through the chair, um did you did you want our consultant to talk a little bit about some of the questions that um are going to be asked during the second round of outreach? Is that of interest? Why don't we let commissioner finish and then we'll certainly want to hear from Kathy.

Yeah. Um remind at the end for that because I have uh a list. Um okay so EIR for our measure K site it was mentioned that we're still including our housing element sites in that EIR and I wanted to ask one why and two would would that then make the mitigation measures of the EIR higher because we're including something that has already been exempted. Um, thanks, Commissioner. Um, we are using a brand new SQA exemption. So, um, you know, we've we've debated it. We've talked with HCD. We've talked with the city attorney's office, and we've talked to other cities, and we're comfortable moving forward with it, but we think it's a really wise idea to go ahead and get a cumulative look at all of the potential impacts of the housing element reasoning plus the potential of um creating this sort of mixeduse overlay on measure K sites. and that will design mitigation measures that aren't really appropriate for this cumulative impact and perhaps they could be um greater mitigation measures than we would normally need but it's appropriate for Costa Mesa to have the information since this is such a large scale project.

Okay. Um now specific questions on the uh proposal. So, first is a change in uh the name of the administrative adjustment to major modification. Was that just to have major minor modification? That is correct, Commissioner.

Okay. Um in that case my my just comment is um I don't know if we need to alphabetize the list um in the uh in that section um for 1328. Uh, so what I think you already went over this, but I I wanted to see if we can get a little bit more specifics. Difference between streamline development review and development review since the final review authority are both the same. Would they have different uh processing time, different fees? Uh, if you can go over that maybe again. Sorry.

Yeah, no problem. So um streamline development review is for housing element sites that are by right. So they provide at least 50% housing and they provide at least 20% of those units to to low income. Um those would submit directly to the building department. There is a plan check review. So it gets routed to planning for review. So no entitlement fee, just a building permit fee. So there's a little bit of a differentiation there on fees. And then typically it's a little bit more of a streamlined process because it's not going through a a planning division review. So no no like staff report, no review, no director um approval at the end of it. It is just done at staff level through plan check.

And then development review and then development review is housing element sites. So um they might not provide more than 50% house sorry they provide more than 50% housing but they might not provide 20% low and then they would get submitted to the planning division. There would be a planning entitlement fee associated with it for the time. It would go through the objective standard review and then it would be issued by the director the the decision.

Okay. So I think that's a very small change but it's good to have um that in there. I think streamlined also included um onestory residential now. Um that was I think added into streamlined. Uh so very good. Um that's just small things. Okay. Uh mood development standards. Let's see if I can find the correct page number. starts on 225. Thank you. That's the I'll go to I think 229.

All right. If I can have my first slide, I have I have a question that requires a visual. Okay. What slide would that be? One. It'll be Yes. Okay. Got his own

here. Here's our um housing element. It's a page from our site's analysis. Um you can you can see that let's take 2706 Harbor Boulevard. Our uh if you take the sum of the very low low moderate and above moderate units that are proposed at that site, you get 49 units which is above the number of net units in that is in the housing element. Um, if you take that sum and you divide it by the acreage, you get a density that is greater than the dens than what is in the density column in our sites analysis. And that is the case for 17 different housing element sites. So my question is um here we're saying that if in the housing element it's identified at 50 units per acre then that is the density that is required. If in our housing element we say that they are permitted that that the sum of the units is higher than what the density allows. What do we do? What is what is um what is our allowance like would would we allow them to go to the 49 units even though it's greater than 50 units per acre. So while while you ponder that, let me just throw out the ideas. Is the the the underlying assumption for the development capacity on these sites with the low very low moderate that there's a density bonus that's going to be used.

They just rounded up probably. Yeah, if I could cl sorry if I could just clarify Commissioner Martinez's question. They're above density because you round up on units. That's all. That's why they're only slightly over 50 because if you got a partial unit, you round up, right? That's it. That's why it's over 50. So that's why you would be permitted to do that because the you the rules are you round up on residential units. Is that say more? Okay. Just wanted to clarify. No. C

could you explain that further? I I I'm not I'm not getting your point. So the question is when you for example on unique ID 45 when you divide 49 into.97 acres you get 50.515 which is more than 50 and the question is whether that development would be allowed to be over 50 dwelling units per acre if it would be allowed to build the 49 units Cuz right now if they wanted to build 49 units that is greater than 50 units per acre. Correct. Correct.

So would they be allowed to do that because it's over the the maximum density? Yes. Because at 97 acres by 50 dwelling units to the acre you get 48.5 units. and you round up the half unit to make 49. So that's anytime there's a partial unit unit you round up. Okay. So why in our housing element does the number of net units say 48?

Okay. So that's really the question. Okay. So for staffed I think that's the question for is so that is the question. Okay. Now we get it.

Okay. So I for all of these sites it's it's just been uh rounding up um there there I mean there's 17 different sites where it's the case that the sum of very low low moderate and above moderate does not equal the number of net units. That's could be rounding down instead of up. But I guess I want to make sure that um they will be able to build up to the number of the the sum of the number of the of the units.

Yeah. And on on some of those sites, it was about realistic capacity. So it looked at potential easements or different areas on the site that can't be builded upon. Typically, you assume like somewhere between 80 and 90% can be built. So usually your assumption for a housing element shouldn't be at 100%. But those sites would be allowed to build up to the density prescribed in the housing element. And in some cases, they might go above using state density bonus law.

Okay. All right. There's one towards the bottom of the sites analysis where um instead of being like 50.5 or like 50 point something the the density column said 90 and if you take the density from the sum of the units it was 92 dwelling units per acre which might be even higher uh than what is allowed. So I'd like um just to double check on on that. I can send the spreadsheet where I did all the math. Okay. Um, second question is on uh our parking standards that we're proposing. So, if you can go to my slide number two. All right. This is a map of Costa Mesa that uh the underlying one is what was provided to us in the staff report and the very slight orange circles are areas where state law has preempted the imposition of minimum parking requirements uh based on AB 2097 and subsequent laws. Uh you can see that most sites that are in our housing element are exempt from minimum parking requirements except for a few north of the 405 some uh a north harbor and like one on placenta. Um, given that and given the fact that HCD has seen other parking requirements such as the ones that we're proposing to amend as barriers to housing, why are we proposing parking requirements as part of the mood?

Thank you for that question, Commissioner Martinez. So, um the sites that are within those AB 2097 um areas wouldn't be subject to that parking requirement. Um but at any time our legislators can change that law. So, we are prepared with our standards if that law should change or um if the locations of those bus stops moved. Um, so we've got those basic standards in place and HCD has reviewed them with us and they found them to be acceptable during our technical assistance uh process.

Okay. Well, I find them to be unacceptable. Okay. Mood setbacks. Why do we have uh why these numbers specifically? Why 10 feet and why 20 ft? Thanks for the question, Commissioner Martinez. U my name is Kathy Tengai. I'm the consultant um on the project team. Uh so we we explored a few strategies for setbacks. Um the ones that we ended up with ended up being I think the most flexible in terms of usage given just the variety of conditions that we have across the city, across different neighborhoods, across different corridors. Um, and 10 feet felt uh pretty standard across other conditions that we've seen in in multif family and mixeduse projects in the city. Um, I think sometimes we were seeing anywhere um from uh 10 feet all the way up to 20 feet, but for the most part, most projects that were that have been built in the past maybe five, 10, 15 years fell within that range. Um that is not to say though that um for the nonousing element sites, the measure K sites that we could explore another strategy, meaning setbacks that are uh more tailored to the street that you're on or the neighborhood that you're in. Um we we can explore that. But for the housing element sites, we felt it was most appropriate to keep it as simple as possible. uh given that housing element sites are sort of sprinkled across many different parts of the city.

Okay.

Um I'd just like to take a moment to add to it that when we did our phase one of outreach, we consistently heard from the public from all different neighborhoods across Costa Mesa that they were really earnestly wanting more tree canopy along their sidewalks and more um bike storage and things like that where some of our setbacks are opportunities where that could happen. Um because we did look at quite a few ranges in setbacks, but we thought well we keep hearing that they want some open spaces, some shared open spaces and to kind of activate the street. So anywhere from 10 to 20 we would be giving the development community options.

Okay, I will save my comments for after public comment. um height. Um I I guess that'll just be a comment afterwards. Uh open space, same question. Where did these numbers come from?

So for open space, we looked at a few different numbers. Um the ones that you see before you um are also the ones that we're proposing for non-housing element sites. So the rest of the measure K sites as well. And those are based on a couple of things. They're based on what your current code today um allows both in the existing mixeduse overlay district uh your existing residential incentive overlay district and also your existing R3 district. So we looked at what just to compare and contrast what the existing uh zoning code provisions are for multif family housing in the city. And the second thing that this is grounded in is uh community feedback. So as Michelle mentioned, one of the things that we heard from the public is that they want to see more open space, whether that be private, so private to an individual resident and and a dwelling unit or common to uh to a whole project or building. Um, so we we tweaked we we did a little back and forth in the math and again based on those two things, these were the numbers that felt appropriate for right now.

Okay. Um, those are my questions and I'll have comments later. Thank you. Okay. Any other commissioners have questions of staff? Okay. Seeing none, I will uh open public comments. If anyone in chambers would like to come to a podium to speak on this, please make your way down here now. All right, last call. Okay, Anna, do we have anybody on Zoom or by phone?

Yes, we do. Jenna and Nico, you may provide your public comment.

Hi, my name is Nico. Um I'm just calling in to fact if there's any chance to also make edit to the accessibility of the city in the housing elements higher school increase traffic in the area and so I'm talking about things like other sorts of public trans. Sorry, I think we were having a little difficulty hearing you. Getting a little feedback. You've got some time. So, if you'd like to reiterate that, we're happy to hear you. Hey, is it

okay? You know, we will give you uh time. Hold on. We've got a little technical difficulty. So, we'll make sure you're back in the queue.

Cynthia McDonald, you may provide your public comment.

Um, the feedback is on the city end. Uh, it's happened on every meeting recently. So, um, good evening, commissioners. The proposed residing amendments raise serious concerns and the agenda report makes it clear this is only the beginning of major land use changes and dramatic upzoning in Costa Mesa. Beyond tonight's actions, the city is already planning further amendments to the mood, the Newport Boulevard specific plan, new citywide design standards, and additional zoning code changes tied to the housing element programs. In short, the other shoe hasn't dropped yet. One of the biggest unanswered questions is whether these future amendments include housing emulent program 3G, which directs the city to explore ways to quote minimize the constraints of a city-wide vote, effectively weakening the remaining protections of Measure Y. That would allow the city council far more discretion to increase density in existing residential neighborhoods without going back to the voters. After what we experienced with Measure K, residents must stay vigilant. What comes next may be even more misleading and that other shoe may have a stiletto heel. The initial study admits these changes will likely create significant traffic and air quality impact. Yet, no traffic study is planned and no roadway improvements are proposed. The city's preparing to add 30,000 new residents, actually 10,000 more if you include Fairview Developmental Center. the equivalent equivalent of dropping a small city into our boundaries without addressing congestion, pollution, long-term service demands, and we still have no clarity on what's coming to Newport Boulevard. Developers pay a one-time fee, but once that money runs out, the city and its taxpayers are left holding the bag for police, fire, infrastructure c costs that will only

grow over time. Residents deserve transparency. The agenda report includes a map of affected parcels, but no property addresses unless you're prepared to track down assessor parcel numbers on the county website. You've got no way of knowing if a site next to your home is about to be upzzoned. And given the city's pattern of minimal outreach, this may be by design. Finally, many of these projects will be approved by right, meaning no public hearings, no neighbor notification, no discretionary review. The recent small lot ordinance changes already allow up to four units with zero noticing. These proposed amendments eliminate long-standing protections for residents on the west side. The bottom line is this. Your neighborhood can construction begin next door and you will not receive a single notice beforehand. Cost me residents clear information, honest communication, and meaningful participation in decisions that will define the future of our city. We deserve better. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah. Jenna and Nico, you may provide your public comment. Hi. Is the audience better? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Thank you.

Cool. Great. I just wanted to say I'm support of uh adding new housing to the city of Costa Mesa. I'm just curious if there's any additional plans in terms of increasing the accessibility of the city either through like bike lanes or other sort of like public infrastructure. Uh thanks for your question. This is just uh comments from the public so it's not responsive. Do you have anything more you want to add? Nope. That's good. Okay. Thank you very much. There's no one else, Mr. Chairman.

Okay, I will uh close the public comment portion. Um, commissioners, any final comments or questions?

I'll ask that question. Will there be walkability built into um the plans? Um, Commissioner Andrad, when you start to look at the the mood, which is, you know, the items before us tonight, you're looking at um development that is more intense and more walkable. And our housing element sites are in areas where they'll be integrated with offices and commercial uses. And uh I just think that really lends itself to a more walkable neighborhood. Um, we're also talked a little bit about setbacks and how our intent with allowing between 10 and 20 was to have some more um tree canopy along our sidewalks as well. So, I do think that's what we're envisioning um with the new mood.

Fantastic. And that walkability would also, you know, that potential could also lend to bike paths and things of the sort, right? That is correct. you know, this this city has a great active transportation program and they are continuing to look for funding sources to help make those improvements. Thank you so much, Commissioner Martinez. Thank you. Comments.

Yes. I I just want to go through uh the questions the questions I asked and provide provide comments. Um so uh changing um administrative adjustment to major modification to m major minor good idea. Uh, I think that makes it kind of clearer. Um, I think uh cleaning up some of the um I didn't mention this previously, but cleaning up some of the numbering in the uh land use matrix uh might be helpful and u making sure that we get rid of all of the uh reserves that are uh in our proposal. Um and then regarding uh the the mood um I I think we um want to have um good standards that en encourage development that people will be happy with and that people will want to live in and that um will just to put it plainly look nice. Um to that end um first on setbacks um I think uh honestly I I would be fine with um no requirement just having the vision of what would you want in a setback. I if if it's a zero foot setback that's like right on the sidewalk, I think that could encourage walkability. If you have a little bit of a larger one, that may encourage some outdoor dining opportunities. If you have a 100 foot setback, maybe that means that there's a public plaza or some open gra grassy

area out in front of a building that's accessible to the public. So I I just encourage perhaps some some flexibility with that requirement um in in both directions to see what uh a developer may be interested in providing. Um also with open space um I think that having public open space is a big goal for our city. So um I I think we have three categories which is common uh to the residents of the site, private to units and publicly accessible to all people allowing for um either common or private. what what the required number of common and private square footage to be public uh square footage. Uh it's still open space uh and now it's just accessible to more people instead of just to uh a specific uh group or just one family of people. So to to allow that that flexibility maybe it's just calculate this number uh at least I don't know 50% I'm just throwing out a number it should be public open space uh and then you can decide the developer can decide from there where to go with that um on oh and also with open space if it's in a park poor part of the city uh I would want uh more public open space if it's right next to a park then um yeah I still have the open space maybe you don't need as much okay with

uh height and density I want to emphasize my point on wanting consistency with our measure K sites having different regulations for sites that are right next to each other or where or on sites where you can't even tell the difference that they are different parcels. I'm looking at South Coast Plaza, for example, uh I don't think makes that much sense. So, I'm really hoping for consistency on these development standards. Um, on parking, I I've expressed my opinion on our minimum parking standards before, but most of what's uh in our housing element is already exempt. And for those sites that are not in areas that have already been exempted by state law, it's possibly just it's it's unfair to to subject them to things that others aren't subjected to. In addition to uh the fact that parking is a barrier to development due to the cost of constructing the parking, due to the cost of maintaining the parking and on our point about walkability, having more parking means that the site and the area could become less walkable and uh less friendly to human scale activities. Anyone living at a at a housing element site who decides that this area is is walkable and they decide not to have a car would end up paying for a parking spot because elsewhere in our code, we say that um all that every unit must be

provided a parking space and you are not allowed to separate the cost of parking from the price of rent. It's called unbundled parking. Um that's one of the items in 1385 of our code that I think we should we should update. uh is allowing that um allowing parking to be priced separately from from rent for those people who don't have a car or who have less cars than whatever the number of parking spaces available at the site is. Um, I'll add on that having parking means less space where a person could live. Instead of uh just you're storing a car, let's house a person. So, I am extremely opposed to having a having off- streetet parking requirements for our housing element site and I would encourage us to remove them from our base zoning code as well. Okay, that is all. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Any other commissioners comments? Commissioners, vice chair Ze.

Thank you. Well, let's see. Um, I know that the team of consultants and staff are highly professional, highly competent, and have a great command of the subject matter. I have no doubt about that. I also have no doubt that this plan is in response to Sacramento and their desires and is not in response to what the larger community of Costa Mesa wants. This is about density, density, density. It's not about the things that the community has for years said they want. More parks, we're not talking about it. More ownership, we're not talking about it. You would think for something this big and this impactful to the city, our chambers would be full of residents wanting to give us all their wonderful input about what their city was going to be like. Once this thing was implemented, they're not here. Why aren't they here? I go up and down my street. I ask people, "Hey, tell me what you know about neighborhoods where we all belong." The blank stairs are frightening. It's pretty embarrassing, actually. What in the world does that even mean? Neighborhoods where we all belong. What does that even mean? No parking.

Great. Yeah. Ask the community what they think about that. Now, we don't care. Why? Sacramento doesn't care. That's not the input you're getting from the community. I don't criticize your professionalism and I don't criticize your al allegiance to Sacramento and all the laws they pass. What I criticize is that we're doing this making it easy for a developer to build. Yeah, maybe we'll see what developers actually want to build. You know, there isn't a realtor. If you know a realtor, go ask a realtor. Ask them when's the last time, no, ask them. Has anyone ever asked you ever in your entire career, you know, I'd like a house, but can you find me one on a really busy street? Doesn't happen ever. Never. Nobody asks for a house on a busy street. Look at the map where we're putting what we call homes, apartments. Maybe we're already upside down with rental to ownership. You know that this plan does nothing but make that worse. This isn't what the community wants. You're doing the best you can, but that is not good enough and not by a long shot. I'm sorry. All right. Thank you. Um, let me first say apartments are homes. More than 60% of our residents live in apartments and I would not deny that uh that roof over

their head very much constitutes their home. Um, nevertheless, uh, that's exactly what you said, John. Um, nevertheless, for the purposes of of giving, uh, staff and the consultant some input here. Um, I I'm going to reiterate what I said earlier, and it was piggybacking off of Commissioner Martinez's concern about kind of the the discrepancy between objective design standards for housing element sites and those for the measure K sites. And I asked about the timing because I fear that there's going to be some, for lack of a better word, clunkiness here that we're going to have a set of standards for one type of property that may be adjacent to a measure of K site and we're not going to have some, um, consistency. And so, uh, I'm more concerned with the quality of development in our neighborhoods than just absolute production. And I suspect that HCD is solely concerned with the latter. Reena is about numbers and getting uh to those to those numbers. Um but the way in which we do that should not uh adversely impact our neighborhoods. So, I'm um advocating for some consistency and maybe one strategy is that once we have our um housing element sites uh objective standards in place and then move on to the measure K sites that we go back after measure K is completed and say, do these apply to these sites? Can they apply? Um I don't think there's going to be that much of a lag time between the two. I don't know. That's going to be up to how quickly we execute this. But I think the development community would respond to I know they respond to some certainty and some flexibility. And so if they know that their measure K sites are

going to be of a maybe different design standards, they may actually opt to wait before anything is developed. So the I think best case scenario for us is to try and reduce that time period that lag between when we actually get our uh housing element sites finished and then the measure K sites. So does that make sense? Am I being clear about that? Okay, good. Um I I do want to ask of staff what is the what can we expect I think for everybody. What can we expect February 9th? You've gotten some input from us. What are we going to What are you going to come back with?

Um, Chair Harland, we plan to come back with an updated staff report. Um, we'll go ahead and look at some of the items that were mentioned tonight. Some sort of cleanup items. Um, let's see. Uh, some alphabet alphabetization and the land use matrix and other little things um, uh, that you mentioned. Um, and then we also are meeting with HCD. So there might be some minor tweaks that happen based on that conversation that's coming up, but we'll be presenting the draft again and asking for your recommendation to city council. Okay, that's all I need to know.

Yeah, it'll be a recommendation to city council definitely for the mixeduse overlay district and potentially the zoning code amendments if they're ready to. If not, we'll return at a subsequent planning commission meeting, probably the next one. um depending on timing because there's still a couple of things that we're buttoning up on those amendments. Okay. But the the schedule as I understand it then is to get to the city council in March for the housing element sites including the zoning code update, not just the map. Right. So once that would be approved, then we're basically done with that portion and we submit to HCD for final approval or certification.

Yeah. So we we're anticipating first reading on March 17th. Second reading possibly sometime in April. 30 days for effectiveness we submit to HCD. Okay. All right. Those are all my comments. Any others? Last chance. Okay. Anyone want to make a motion? Receive and file. I'll second that. Do you care to speak to your motion or are you good? I think I'm good. Okay. All right, let's call for the question. That motion carries 51 with Vice Chair Zick voting no.

All right. Departmental reports uh public services. Mr. Yang.

Yes. Uh Mr. Chairman. Uh good evening. uh for for the public works report. Uh the public works department is uh happy to announce that the city hosted the community bike skills workshop here at the city hall parking lot uh last Saturday on January 24th. It was a great turnout. We had a lot of uh parents and kids coming by learning how to uh ride their bikes learn also learning safety skills and also the proper use of their bicycles. Uh, another point is that for the Fairview south of uh the affair, the construction is u ongoing. The city's contractor will begin striping Fairview Road south of Fair Drive this week following the new paving installed uh that's over the past two weeks. Landscaping and new pedestrian crossings at Valley Forge is planned in the coming months and with a completion plan uh being this May. And lastly, the Adams bike facility project. Uh city's contractor will begin construction on Adams Avenue between Harbor Boulevard and Fair View Road next month um in February that will enhance pedestrian and bicycle travel and improve roadway lighting. Construction may have short-term impacts narrowing the roadway. So we ask the public to consider alternate routes. So that's it for the public works report and and I defer back to the chair.

All right. Thank you very much, Mr. Yang. Uh Director Tai, Development Services.

Yes. Thank you, Chair Harland and members of the planning commission. Just a quick uh couple updates. Um at the last week's city council meeting um January 20th, the city council introduced um and in into first reading amendments to the small lot ordinance. Um basically making two unit small lot subdivisions in the R2 and R3 equivalent to what is allowed ministerially in the R1 through the SP9. It's a lot of code, but basically it's any two lot subdivision to be ministerial. Um and uh that should make it equal at least. So second reading will come up on um uh February 3rd. Um at the previous city council meeting, the council also did a urban plan screening on a project at 1626 Placentia and it's 38 live work uh units. Actually they're I think half of them are live work and the other half are full residential. Um and so that will be coming in shortly as an official application and um once it's done processing will come to planning commission. At the next city council meeting uh staff will be presenting um an update to the uh climate action and adaptation plan um process and I I know that the um there was an Ohio House appeal scheduled for February 3rd. I think there are some conversations right now on um potentially a new date for that, but we'll keep the planning commission updated on the disposition of um you know of of that application. And then lastly, um there was a question earlier at the meeting about the pre-approved uh accessory dwelling unit plans and I can turn this over to planning manager Anna McIll for an update on that. Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Um so we currently have 13 applications that are in building check process. Um those are for the prototypes. Um they are still in review. One is currently in staff's court. We are reviewing it and providing comments. The other 12 applications we have provided comments and are waiting for them to resubmit. I'm really hoping we can start putting those prototypes on the website. So once they actually get that building permit approval, we will put them on the website and then they'll be available for um for applicants and residents to use. Um so we'll continue to keep the planning commission um updated when that's available and and start marketing it out to residents. I'm I'm hoping it's soon, but we're sort of at the behest of our applicants and their ability to resubmit, you know, in a timely fashion. So um we have been reaching out to them for updates. We're trying to make it um our resources accessible to them to move it along, but that's where we're so hopefully at some point we'll have at least 13 applications that are available.

All right. Thank you, Miss McIll. Um city attorney, Mr. Presiosce, any reports? Thank you, Chair Harland. I have no report this evening. Okay. I will uh adjourn the meeting and we will see everyone back here next month.