Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the November 4th planning commission meeting of the city of Vista's planning commission. I call this meeting to order. Would you please rise and join us in the pledge of allegiance led by Commissioner Jolian to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Miss Lumis. Could we have the roll call, please?

Chair De Jesus here. Commissioner Grim here. Commissioner Jolof here. Commissioner Martin here. Commissioner Thompson absent. Student Commissioner Nwin. Thank you. Commissioners, you've been provided with the minutes from our meeting October 21st, 2025. If there are no changes, can we hear a motion to approve? So move. Thank you, Commissioner Grim. Commissioner Martin,

I'll second. Thank you. Seconded by Commissioner Martin. All those in favor, cast your vote. Lock it in.

Excuse me. Chair Deesus. Uh, Commissioner Thompson's not marked as absent. So, can I just please have a hand vote, please? Thank you. Sure. All those in favor, raise your hand. We have all commissioners present hand raised. Motion passes. It's been moved, second and approved. Um, Miss Chow, are there any changes to the agenda tonight?

Good evening, Chair De Jesus. I just wanted to mention um to any members of the public uh interested in item PH1 that item PH1 which was the 600 AIA drive special use permit for ARCO AM PM uh was removed from the agenda. So it is not part of the agenda tonight. I just wanted to mention that. So actually it would go straight into PH2 as the second item for the night. Thank you very much.

Thank you Miss Chow. Is it possible to clear the voting screen or is that locked in? Thank you. The next item on the agenda is oral communications. This is the time uh commission sets aside for members of the public to address items that are not on our agenda. Are there any speaker slips? No. No. Okay. Are there any exparte disclosures, communications from the commissioners that might have to do with tonight's agenda item? Okay, we will move on to our first public hearing item. Some protocol to review for tonight's meeting. Staff will make a presentation followed by applicants presentation if any. Then commissioners will have a chance to ask questions of staff and the applicant. Then I will open the public hearing for comments from the public. Each speaker will have three minutes to address the commission. Please make sure to fill out a speaker slip. Then I will close the public hearing and we will have commission discussion and a motion will be made concerning the project. Can we have the staff presentation, please? Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for being here tonight. Um, I think I've had the pleasure of meeting all of you at this point, so that's good. Um, but my name is Kate Piaza. I'm the new associate planner for the city of Vista, and I'll be presenting um the development proposed for 1570 North Santa Fe Avenue.

[snorts]

So, just a little bit of u background information for the project location. It's at the corner of Weston Circle, North Santa Fe Avenue. It's about a halfacre site um including a portion of the ride of way, which is why it says gross right there. Currently, there's a single family residence and multiple out buildings on site um including two trailers which are not currently occupied. A little bit about the proposed project. We're looking at a site development plan and density bonus application um to develop a new 33 unit apartment building and including amenities such as a dog run, co-working space, and roof deck for residents. This project is using density bonus law to facilitate the development of the site. They're providing four very lowincome units allowing for the use of three concessions and waiverss which we'll go over a little bit um more detail as the presentation goes on. They are providing 18% with those four um units uh for the density bonus which allows for a total of 11 additional units than would normally be allowed. So to get into some of the density bonus concessions and waiverss, um the first concession is going to be the for the side yard set back. Normally 10 ft is required and 4.6 ft is being proposed. There's also a concession for the drive aisle. Um there's a requirement for be 24 feet and it's reduced to 22 up for a portion of the site. They're also reducing parking. Um, and I do want to note in the staff report there was a miscalculation based on the

base um the underlying zoning not accounting for um the North Santa Fe overlay. So, they're required to have 45 or 78 is mentioned in the staff report. Um density bonus allows them to have 35 and they've requested additional um concession to have 33. So that will be one parking space per unit. In addition to the concessions, they've requested three waiverss, including for the landscape perimeter, which requires an 8ft buffer. That varies a little bit throughout the site from zero um to a little over 5t. They've also requested a waiver for their open space requirement um reducing that down. Excuse me. Um from pardon me, I have that listed later in my application. I might just have to reference it at that point, but it's a reduction in the open space requirement um for all the dwellings. And they've also requested a reduction for the minimum unit size for the one-bedroom units where there's usually 700 square ft required. Um the smallest unit is 535 ft. So just to go over some of the larger elements of the site plan, as I mentioned, it's a 0.53 acre site. There's 33 units with a mix of studios, one bedrooms, and two bedrooms. Um, on the first floor there's 22 covered parking spaces. On the rear of the lot there's an additional 10 uncovered parking spaces and at the entrance there's one ADA. Additionally, um, towards the entrance there's a trash pickup area which was coordinated with EDCO. Um, and on the

north side of the building is a lobby area as well as some of the utilities um that serve the building. And then also at the rear is that enclosed dog run which is about 264 square feet. Um the majority of the floor plans beyond the first floor are kind of reflective of each other. But as I stated the first floor is primarily used for covered parking, um utility trash, mail room lobby and some bike storage as well. Moving on to the second floor, um there is a co-working space, um trash, elevator, and storage lockers. And each each of the three floors has one studio, nine one bedrooms, and one two-bedroom. The differentiator between the second and third floor is that instead of that co-working space, you're going to see an open roof deck to provide a nice common space for the residents. Um, and everything else is pretty much the same as the second floor. And then the fourth floor where that deck is on the third, it's just kind of an open space to down below. The unit count remains the same along with the storage, lockers, elevators, and trash. So, just to go over um the exterior of the building, starting with building materials. This is primarily for the facade material going to be stucco and corrugated metal siding in a galvanized finish. The stucco has three primary colors. Um there's a vibrant orange, thunders sky, which is the gray, and then glacier white. Um, as far as accents, there's perforated panels um that you can see on the balconies um as well as uh galvanized steel metal railings on some of the other balconies

and split lace block um that borders part of the under our first floor parking. [snorts] And these are ju just um a series of elevations and perspectives from different points on the property. So, um, sometimes cardinal directions aren't super helpful. So, southwest is basically just facing north sound Santa Fe. So, it's functionally the front of the building. The northeast perspective is going to be the rear of the building. Um, you can see the outdoor um, surface parking shown here as well as some of the landscaping. [clears throat] And then just the southeast perspective and the west elevation which includes um the uh third floor rooftop deck um in that kind of passive space that's also um partially landscaped. So to go over general plan and zoning conformance, general plan has this as the mixed use um with 40 um dwelling units per acre permitted. This proposal, as I stated, is is a density bonus project. So there's 33 units in total proposed, which would calculate out to just under 62 units per acre. So above and beyond what we would normally permit in terms of density in this area. Um other uh standards they are meeting the maximum height require or allowance [clears throat] which is either four stories or 60 ft whichever is more. It's a fourstory building and it's about 52 feet in height at its tallest point. um the open space as I said I would get to. Um there's 4,620

square feet required. Um and they're providing 4,144 square ft. Not necessarily um traditional open space, but that's provided through the common areas, which is going to be the roof deck, the dog run, and um the co-working space inside. They're also meeting their landscaping um site coverage requirement which is 10% and they're providing just hair over at 10.9 and um as discussed they've requested a concession where 45 parking spaces would typically be required. There's 33 provided. So considerations for this project um for all of you is um compliance with the general plan. So thinking about quality of design um uh introducing a variety of housing types in Vista and increasing the overall housing supply which this um complies with. And as we went over, the zoning requirements are met. And if they are not, there's a concession or a waiver that's allowed through the density bonus uh law. And they are consistent with the density bonus law in terms of justifying their concessions and waiverss. Also, as a reminder, you all did look at this project back in October of 2023. Um just some of the main items that came up uh was the trash access. There were some question about having it inside of the building and how was that was going to be managed for pickup. So the applicant did coordinate with Edco and what's proposed on the site has their sign off. Um there was also a little concern about fire access. The fire department has reviewed and provided conditions of

approval to satisfy any of their concerns. [snorts]

Um, additionally, there was a little bit of concern about the overall heights. The surrounding properties vary a little bit. There's um some multi-story uh residential to the north and to the east, but directly to the west is a mobile home park. So, I think there was a little bit concern about the shadow probably from the building. They do meet the um height limitation at about 50 just under 53 feet. Um so they haven't had to use a concession or waiver for that and haven't made any well they reduce the building height slightly um but haven't had to made much more of an adjustment. Um there was also a suggestion to activate um some of the open space area in the front for the community. Um, I can let the applicant speak a little bit more to that, but it doesn't appear that they really made any adjustments in terms of providing that space for the community in the front, just allowing for that common space that was mentioned before for residents on site. [snorts] Um, the architecture has remained largely the same through the review process. It's obviously a pretty contemporary design, but it was a suggestion that they keep that contemporary design and materials consistent from when they had the design review. And at the time of the early design review, there wasn't a landscaping plan provided they have provided it at this point. Um, it meets our landscaping requirements in terms of site coverage and it primarily consists of drought tolerant and native plantings. There's a total of five trees on the site including a western sycamore and desert willows.

And then as far as environmental review, um this is an exempt project. It's um considered an infill development project and it meets the exemption standards um that are listed on the screen which include um consistent with the applicable designations and policies of the city's general plan and zoning which we went over. Um it's developed within the city limits no more than five acres um and substantially surrounded by urban development and does not contain any habitat for endangered rare or threatened species. And finally approval of the project would not result in a significant effect um on traffic noise, air quality or water quality. Um sorry, one more. and the site can adequately be served by public utilities and services so they meet all the standards for that infill exemption. So with all of that, the recommendation of staff is to approve the resolution for the site development plan inclusive of a density bonus to construct the 33 unit apartment building and associated site improvements on um the lot located at 1570 Santa Fe North Avenue. Thank you.

Are there any questions for staff from the commissioners? Commissioner Martin. Uh, thank you, Madam Chairman. Um, yeah, I had a question regarding, well, I guess just looking at the landscape plan, the site planning, there's minimal trees obviously along the the frontage of the development, but there's a 10- foot wide sidewalk, which seems kind of odd to me when we only need four feet for ADA and I think five feet's kind of more typical. So, it would seem like perhaps there'd be an opportunity to allow more landscaping in that area if the sidewalk was more typical. Is there a reason why it's 10t wide?

I don't think I could speak to the reason why it's an existing 10-ft wide sidewalk, but it is currently there. It's not a proposed improvement. Oh, it's existing. The sidewalk is there. Yeah. Oh, okay. I wasn't aware of that. Thanks. Commissioner Grim, thank you. Yeah. Um, I don't see a lot of people in the audience. I just wondered if you had any recent feedback from the neighborhood.

We did receive one uh letter. I'm actually not sure. I don't recall what the address is, but that letter I think was included with your documents, and that's been the only correspondence we've received. Not that I've heard of.

Thank you. The student commissioner, do you have any questions? You're welcome to stand up the the mic. Um, I like the colors of the buildings, but I just have some like questions about like plants, like how you could add more color because looking at the slideshow, I only see like a few trees or like just green. Well, they they like I had stated, they do meet the landscaping requirements. Um, so, uh, I don't believe there was any discussion about changing the landscape plan at all, but I think the applicant could probably speak a little bit more to the selection of the plans and, um, why they went about choosing what they did. Any more questions?

No, that's good.

Thank you so much. Um, I don't have questions, but I would like to reiterate uh staff did a great presentation, but to reiterate people watching at home and um we do have the uh the requirements of this development met through the density states density bonus laws. Again, that's the increase in the number of units allowed because of the um affordable housing element. Um and they can add waiverss which are you know they use they chose to do use some landscaping, some parking um and a couple of others. I don't we can go back and look at the the footage to to hear more, but um as staff has presented and done all their research on that we have um a project here that meets all of the requirements of our code um even though a lot of these are from the state of California mandating that we accept these um they meet all of those requirements. Um so appreciate the questions and um at this time I invite the um applicant to come up and speak if they'd like.

Hello. Uh hi. My name is uh Colin Lowry. I'm the architect for the project and I'm here representing the applicant as well. Um I don't have any additional presentation. Um I do think the street trees would be a great idea. I don't know if that's something that engineering would allow, but I would certainly be happy to raise that question with them. Um, other than that, you know, I'm here to answer any questions you guys might have on the project. Commissioner Martin.

Yeah, I had a question on the uh on the architecture, the um galvanized metal sighting. I like the texture that it provides, but what about weathering? What what's going to happen there? I mean, it seems like it might be something that could weather fairly easily. Yeah, sure. I mean, it will be galvanized and I believe that provides some protection to from from the weathering. Is there a coating applied to it so it doesn't um I I don't know to be to be honest. I could look into that though. Okay. Commissioner Jolith. Um,

it's touchy.

There we go. Okay. [snorts] Uh, I share the concerns about the the corrugated metal. Um, I understand that it's adding texture. Uh, you do have texture also with the perforated orange material. I I feel like there's a lot of gray, and this might just be me. Um I think the gray is fine as an accent. There's one elevation where the whole side seems to be gray, and that feels a little heavy to me. Um when it comes to the layout of the the units, it feels kind of like a motel to have the bedroom window directly on the corridor. Um, and for units 20567, they're looking at the wall of this co-working space. Um, I wonder about flipping the layout. I know this is probably late in in the process for that sort of thing. Um, but flipping the layout to have the bedroom over the balcony seems seems like a great thing. um the co-working space I wonder about and and what kind of conversations have happened there, what the trends are with co-working spaces because I wonder if [music] this would be used by the residents in that fashion or if perhaps another use might be um a better use of the space or even have it be a covered patio. I don't know if they would want a gym. Maybe that's something that could be open to the residents. Um, but I do want to say that I appreciate the covered parking and the EV chargers and the rooftop solar. Thank you,

Commissioner Grim. Yeah, just to uh kind of add on to Commissioner Martin's uh comment about the um the galvanized steel. Um there's different my understanding there's different gauges to that and I guess um I'd be you know concerned about and it might have to do with the quality too. I assume the it's like roofing the thinner the the gauge the worse the quality. So, um I probably will be putting asking the commission to put a condition on there that you work out a gauge that's acceptable with the uh director of of community development if that's acceptable to you.

Yeah, I I mean I think any exterior um material is going to require some amount of upkeep and I'm sure this is no different. Uh but yeah, I think that's reasonable. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, I'd just like to say that I orange I think the orange is vibrant just like the color calls it. I think it's it makes it more alive rather than this gray and white building. The the orange pops. Sure.

Um, I noticed in the renderings one orange looks a little bit lighter than the other and it's probably because the sun coming in and you're getting a little bit of bounce. So that's really it's a good color for that bounce. Um, I like the round edges and giving a little bit of a different slope on the roof. I I think it's an attractive project. It's hard to make anything sort of fit in an infill project without, you know, disturbing the aesthetics really. Um, with a a manufactured home park uh next door, um, you know, there's just a lot of uh there's diversity in the in the neighborhood uh in the types of residences. So, I I think it's a it's a good-looking project. I like that there's affordable units. We need them. Um so I I the only thing I would say I'm concerned with would be parking, but then again, we are our hands are tied. We are not allowed to um change the parking rules because you're um exercising the state's density bonus laws. Um so um ideally there'd be more parking, but that's okay. You're within the guidelines and um I think it's a a nice project and thanks for bringing it to the city of Vista.

Thank you. Commissioner Grim, do you have anything else or you're good? Okay, clear the list. Um, thank you. Thank you so much. So, I will now open our uh open up to a public hearing. If is anybody here to speak? Do we have any speaker slips? That was fast. So, we're closing that. The public hearing is now closed and I'm open to the commissioner's discussion if anybody would like to chat about it. Commissioner Martin.

Um, this may be a question for Miss Chow. I found it curious that all the affordable units were all grouped side by side on one floor. Isn't there state law that requires them to be equitably distributed throughout a development?

That is true. Um, as far as the expectation of the affordable units so that they're not of all one certain kind and different from the rest of the distribution of the uh project. U there's specific conditions and a regulatory agreement that we would have to put in place uh to address the specifics of that. and um looking at assistant city attorney Allegra Frost with regards to the specifics of that uh for prior understandings on other projects that we have had similar situation.

Yeah. So, we do draft a a regulatory agreement that governs the affordability restrictions that go on each of those uh um units and it requires each of those units to be similar in um design as the market rate units and it does require that they be distributed throughout the project. Great. Thank you. Thank you for that question, Commissioner Martin. We're good. Charlie, did you have anything else? Commissioner Grim?

Yeah. Somebody a little earlier, I think it was Commissioner De Jesus had touched on the parking a little bit. I just wanted to, you know, it's a it's an old horse we've been beating for quite a while. But um it it to me it it's just it's troublesome. There's nothing we can do about it. I don't blame the applicant. I'd be doing the same thing if I was in in your position. But you've got a situation where you have one one parking space per unit. what's going to happen is gonna spill out, you know, into the neighborhood. That's why I kind of was curious that nobody was here because, um, you know, it will spill out into the neighborhood and, uh, you know, it creates, uh, creates a problem. It creates, you know, just different, uh, unpleasant situations in the neighborhood. People have to scramble for sp uh, for spots to be able to park their car when they get home from work. So again, I'm I'm not going to beat this horse too hard, but um it's just frustrating that it it only has one space per unit. And um anyway, that's my my rant for the night.

Thank you, Commissioner Grim. Commissioner Jolof, I had noticed um in the floor plans that the lowincome units appear to be all on the second floor facing the co-working space, right? So, they don't have a view, whereas the third floor and the fourth floor, they have a view. So, perhaps that was the reasoning behind that. Um, and I don't know if there's a a legal if that needs to be changed, but maybe that's the reasoning.

I think the city attorney had addressed that that there will be a regulatory agreement with the build with the developer to space those out those units out. Can you reiterate that please? Yeah. Um, and just for clarification, can you point us to which page you're talking about? We're trying to find it. um where you see on the floor plan the the units grouped together. It's the second floor um plan that shows all the units on the second floor. Uh when you look at that, units 205, 206, 207, 208 are facing the co-working space. Okay.

So that and that's their bedroom window, which is what I find odd. Um but that means that they're on this corridor with no view whereas the third floor and the fourth floor have a view. Uh which in my mind made sense that perhaps those can't go for the same market rate. Right? So that we do have the regulatory agreement that we will put in place and we'll make sure that it is consistent with state law and state law does require that they be distributed. The idea being that you don't want to group the affordable units in a you know segregated area of the project. So you want to make sure that they are consistent with the other market rate units and that they're evenly distributed. So we will make sure that that is uh implemented in the regulatory agreement.

Perfect. Thank you. I have a question. is that regulatory agreement does it allow the um property management to um move those around as they see fit as long as they meet that agreement? Those aren't like are they in perpetuity? Those units designated for that. They're usually designated in the regulatory agreement. Which unit is uh restricted? Okay. Thank you. We're all set. Commissioner Grim, do you have any more questions?

No, I'm good. Thank you. If there's no more discussion, we can move to a motion. Commissioner Grim.

Uh, I'll move staff recommendation uh with the proviso that a condition be added that where the applicant would work with the community development director to determine an appropriate gauge for the uh galvanized metal sighting so that it'll um last into the future and and um be as weatherproof as possible. something to that. You know, staff can massage that, but something to that effect.

Commissioner Martin, I'll second that motion. Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to approve the project. Please cast your vote and lock it in. The motion passes with the commissioners present for uh four to nothing. Um we can move on to reports. Miss Chow, do you have any updates or reports for us on upcoming meeting dates?

Yes. Uh, Chair Deizes. So, basically, we are looking um this is actually our last meeting of the year uh for 2025. We're possibly looking at January 20th, 2026 as our next meeting. Uh potentially one or two projects that night. Uh but more to come on that and if we do have premeings for that uh for those particular projects, we'll make sure to let you know or notify you ahead of time for that. Um that's what I have and director Vaka may have additional items that he may like to share with you tonight.

Thank you very much, Miss Chow. Good evening, members of the planning commission. Um, I just want to remind the commission that I know that there are waiverss and incentives and concessions that we must apply to density bonus projects, but you did hear again that the regulatory agreement will lock in place the affordable units. And just want to remind everyone that that's for a term of 55 years. So there is a benefit for us to have um a significant amount of affordable units being provided and at low and lower income. So there is a real benefit there for our community even though there's a lot of tradeoffs. So in this instance we do get affordability out of it. So there are some positives but does that give you any ability to

Can you use your microphone? I'm sorry. It's not control [clears throat] management but have some say into into the management of the project at all or so it does allow through that regulatory agreement that for a term of 55 years those designated affordable units must um have income qualified candidates confirmed legally and um that's verified on an annual basis. So those will be they'll be locked in for you know a h over a half a century. So that's a real benefit. But I was thinking more if manage if there's if there's a lot of problems on site and the management doesn't appear to be doing the job, can you take a role in that at all? We would. Yeah. Through we could use fair housing practices to enforce property management for sure.

Great. So there will be an on-site manager. I believe that's why there's a two-bedroom unit. So there will be an on-site manager. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. Is there just a just a reminder on that benefit? Go ahead. Is there a process underway to refill our two vacant seats?

Yes, there are. So, we've received applications. They've been um submitted through our city clerk's office and those are being vetted through our city council. Good question. I was going to get to that, but you beat me to the punch. So, um that's an update on the affordability the term, which is good. That's a benefit for the city of Vista. um you just went over the vacancies and then I just want to highlight that we have a couple projects under construction in the grading phase. So the um project known as Taylor Terrace Town Homes, it's 51 town homes. It's at 1858 East Vista Way and that's currently in grading operations. And so that should be coming out of the ground within the next six months. I'm sure most of you have probably seen the grading underway for the former TTLC project at Melrose and Madagal that was acquired by Trioint Homes and they've been making significant progress on the infrastructure and the grading is nearly complete and so they hope to have sticks in the air um after the beginning of the new year and they hope to have models open by spring. So that's going to be a really good project all single family deta detached and they're all market rate. There are already two buildings there. They're already got two framed out.

Yeah, those are the models. Those are pretty cool.

I know. It's going to be a good project. And then I also wanted to share that the Camino Largo project has begun grading. So, that's been acquired by Lenar and they're moving really quickly on that. So, they started grading about three weeks ago and they've made massive progress already on the land form and how they're adjusting that to start working on going vertical as well. And um that's a total of 46 single family detached homes and they're all market rate also. So that's good. We have housing construction in all um different affordability levels and underway right now in Vista which is really a good sign that we're trying to cover all our bases for the community.

I had a question just popped in my head about the guy lumber property. Is there any movement on that? What are they what are their plans? So, the family um is kind of sitting on that as far as we know and that they uh are just slow and patient and how they want to see that property developed in the future. I know a local developer has been reaching out to them consistently to see if they'll make a deal for a future development project, but there's nothing in play right now. Santa, the old lumber yard. Oh, yeah. So, those are my updates. Thank you so much. So, thank you all for what you do. I wish you a happy holiday season and we really appreciate all of you. Thank you so much.

So, I'd like to take the opportunity since it's the end of the year technically for us and that is for me to say thank you to staff. We are so lucky I think very fortunate to live in a city like Vista that has such an outstanding staff that helps us every step of the way through. Miss Cow, thank you so much for for helping us up here and and community development director of Vaka and and everybody that helps us every every time we meet here. Um I hope that the citizens watching on TV are proud of this um proud of our city and the and the people that work so hard to make it keep it going and I just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for for all that you do for us. Um we serve at the pleasure of the city council and I'm grateful for for this appointment and uh I wish you all a happy um holiday season and look forward to seeing you next year. Any of the other commissioners have anything they'd like to add and take this opportunity including the student commissioner?

Thank you. Okay, good. Uh that's it. Then I will adjourn the meeting. Thank you.

Yeah, very nice. Good job.