Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Commission for June 17, 2026. I now ask for a moment of silence. Commissioner Ochoa, would you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? Cameron, roll call.

Commissioner Smith is absent, excused. Commissioner View? Present. Commissioner Swigert?

Present.

Commissioner Ochoa? Present. Commissioner Greggins? Present. And Chairperson Gonzalez?

Present. Thank you, Cameron. We have a quorum. Cameron will now read information about how the public may participate in the meeting.

Members of the audience who wish to address the Planning Commission are requested to complete a speaker card available at the podium at the back of the council chamber. Please submit the completed card to the clerk before the item is called, preferably before the meeting begins. I would like to briefly go over the process of submitting comments to the Planning Commission. Please submit your public comment to the Planning Commission electronically no later than 1 p.m. the day of the meeting. Comments received before the deadline will be sent to the Planning Commission and will be part of the record and mentioned as part of the public comment portion of the agenda. Material may be emailed to planningweb at cityofmerced.gov and should be limited to 300 words or less. Please specify which portion of the agenda you are commenting on. For example, oral communications or the item number. Your comments will be presented to the planning commission at the appropriate time Any correspondence received after 1 p.m. will be distributed to the Planning Commission and retained for official record. To view the video or listen to the Planning Commission meeting live, go to the city's website at www.cityofmerced.gov, Facebook Live, or Comcast Public Access Channel number 96.

We now move on to item C, which is public comment. Members of the public who wish to speak on any matter not listed on the agenda may speak during this portion of the meeting and will be allotted three minutes. State law prohibits the Planning Commission from acting at this meeting on any matter raised during the public comment period. Members of the public who wish to speak on a matter that is listed on the agenda will be called upon to speak during the discussion of that item. Cameron, do we have any requests to speak? Not at this time. Thank you. We now move on to item D, which is consent calendar, including minutes. Would the commission like to remove any items for separate consideration? Hearing and seeing none, I can request a motion to approve. I'll make a motion to approve the consent calendar. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Ochoa, second by Commissioner Greggins. We now move to a vote to approve the consent calendar. and the consent calendar is approved. We now move on to item E, public hearings. Item E1, Cameron.

Item E1, subject recommendation to city council to adopt general plan amendment number 24-06, adopting the Merced multi-jurisdictional housing element and appendix G, zoning ordinance amendment number 26-0001, and adding language to the regional housing needs allocation rezones, environmental review number 26-0068, and the city of Merced's SB 244 analysis.

Hello? Good evening Commissioners, Leah Brown, Senior Planner. So tonight I have before you several actions pertaining to the adoption, the recommended adoption of the housing element, General Plan Amendment 2406, our Zoning Ordinance Amendment 260001, which adds in some statutory language to the ReZones Ordinance, Environmental Review 260068, and our SB 244 analysis. Okay, so what is the purpose of this? So the housing element is one chapter of the general plan. It is actually required by state law and reviewed by the state and must be adopted by the agency and approved by HCD. It is updated on an eight year cycle. It is a comprehensive assessment of current and future housing needs for all residents of the city of Merced. The primary focus of the housing element is to ensure decent, safe, sanitary and affordable housing for current and future residents, including those with special needs. Since 1969, California law has required that all cities and counties demonstrate how they'll meet the housing needs of everyone in the community. The state forecasts the needs for housing based upon population projections, and then each region must show how they will accommodate that need. So there's a lot of legalese tonight. So California has certain requirements for housing elements. We must first have adequate sites inventory, which is an inventory of land suitable for residential development that can accommodate the county's regional housing needs allocation, otherwise known as RHNA. I'll continue to use that acronym throughout, just I'll call her RHNA. We also must analyze constraints and barriers, which is an analysis of governmental and non-governmental barriers to housing production, goals, policies, and implementation programs, identification of specific policies and actions to implement our housing element, other analysis, policies, and goals to meet community and housing needs. So what is RHNA, the Regional Housing Needs Assessment? Well, it is a state mandated process that quantifies housing needs for each jurisdiction. It helps the communities to plan for smart and sustainable future growth. The state contributes by using demographic trends and projections for growth to set regional housing targets. MCAG plays a role in this and what they do is they work with the communities to distribute the state assigned housing needs across the Merced County jurisdictions. They develop the RHNA methodology in consultation with the communities and with HCD. So the final output, housing allocations are divided into four income categories. Very low income, which represents 30 to 50% of the average median income for our area. Low income, which is 50 to 80% of the average median income. Moderate, which is 80 to 120% of the average median income. And above moderate, which is 120% or more of the average median income. Now AMI, or average median income, is very specific to each area. So for Merced County, for example, a family of four would be considered very low income if their income was 41,000 per year or less. Low income represents 65,000 or less. Moderate would be 98,000 or less. And above moderate would be 98,000 or above. And again, that's for a family of four. Their scale is very large and I didn't wanna include all those numbers tonight because it really depends on how many people live in your household and if it's a one income or two income and whatnot. So that's just gotta give you an idea. And this is the RHNA housing needs for our area. If you had a calculator, you would add these numbers up and you would come up with 10,517 units. That is the City of Merced's RHNA allocation. And so we've broken that out into very low income, low income, moderate, and above moderate. So we have to zone appropriately for these numbers. be aware that these numbers are almost 5,000 units more than the last housing element adopted in 2016, I believe. Okay, so some background. The City of Merced last, oh here it is, we last adopted our housing element in September of 2016. It was in compliance with the State of California Housing and Community Development Department, otherwise known as HCD. We are currently in the sixth cycle housing element which covers the timeframe from January 31st, 2024 through January 31, 2032. We are currently out of compliance with the sixth housing element and you'll understand as we proceed kind of the trajectory for that and how that happened. This housing element must be adopted by city council and submitted to HCD in order to be in compliance. So that takes me to actions by year. So we did start this process back in 2022 before it was out of compliance when we were still in the fifth cycle as we would typically do. In October, we had an admin report to city council explaining the idea behind the multi-jurisdictional housing element effort. And by multi-jurisdictional, I mean the county of Merced and all of the agencies within MCAG. In December 2022, we submitted an admin report to city council authorizing participation in that multi jurisdictional housing element and our cost sharing agreement. It was, It was decided at that time that it was best to join with our other agencies because of economies of scale. If you can imagine smaller agencies having to pay for a consultant to help them with this effort, it would have been out of reach for most of us, and we would have tied up a lot of consultants all working on a very similar project for our region, so we combined together. In 2023, in August, the city council made, approved resolution 2023-63, the multi-jurisdictional housing agreement with the county, Atwater, Dos Palos, Gustine, Livingston, Los Banos, and us. We also approved the SB 244 analysis. In August 2022, I'm sorry, August 22nd and August 26th, we had workshops about the multi-jurisdictional housing element and the efforts that were being made. All of these meetings, by the way, are public, they're publicly noticed, and the workshops, one of them was held on a Saturday to accommodate the public as much as possible. In 2024, we had our first workshop on the proposed rezoning. So what happens with RHNA is that you have to show adequate zoning to accommodate the number, that 10,517. based upon the vacant parcels available in town that were zoned appropriately, we needed more. So to accommodate that, we knew we were gonna have to rezone. So we had our first workshop on January 17th. By May 2024, we had enough information gathered and enough background to submit our first draft of the multi-jurisdictional housing element to HCD. With that first draft, there's certain statutory requirements. We had to have a 30-day public review period, which ran from May 13th to June 12th. Also during that time on May 20th was a council meeting and so we had an admin report that went to council and during that time we discussed the public review process and that the first draft was out and available to review. June 3rd, 2024, we had another admin report that went to city council. It was on consent, and that was for approval of a professional service agreement with Rincon for work on the multi-jurisdictional housing element and the environmental review services. So we had the initial agreement with MCAG and Rincon was the subcontractor for them. And so they did, part of our cost sharing agreement paid for a majority of their work, but because we wanted more robust community involvement and workshops, we went ahead and had a second, a specific professional services agreement between just the city and Rincon. And that was June 2024. Okay, so that brings us to 2025. January 21st, we had a joint study session between Planning Commission and City Council, again, discussing the rezones that are needed to meet RHNA, the 10,517 units. On January 23rd, we had a housing element programs workshop. So I believe, well, I'm gonna get to that in a second, but the programs are a huge part of the housing element. It's how we accomplish the goals behind the housing element And so we started having that discussion with the community, with the planning commission, with public. And so that was an open workshop. On February 5th, we came to the planning commission and you heard and recommended the rezones of 27 parcels to accommodate Rena. We had three at the time that we recommended for denial and 27, the whole thing moved forth to city council. On February 18th, we had an admin report to city council updating them on the process and project multi-jurisdictional housing element. We received public input and we reviewed programs. Later in 2025, in April, on April, approximately April, we had our second draft. The public review at that time was from April 14th to April 22nd. So subsequent drafts of the housing element by law are only required to have a seven day public review period. Then the community has approximately no less than 10 days to review and incorporate those comments into their draft and then submit to HCD. Also at that particular meeting, the City Council voted on the rezones via Ordinance 2577. On April 21st, back to City Council was the second reading of Ordinance 2577, the rezones to meet the RHNA and those were approved. With ordinances, they have a reading, they have a second reading and they are adopted 30 days later. On September 2025, we had our third draft of the housing element. The public review period was September 26th to October 3rd. And in December, we had a fourth draft of the housing element. of the housing element. It went up for public review 12-22 to 1-9. Notice that that is an extended time period beyond the normal seven days at the request of leadership council because it did fall during the holiday season. So we went ahead and extended. So that brings us to 2026. The one thing I missed on this slide is that because of the public review period in December 2025 being extended, we did not submit the next draft of the housing element until January. So January 2026, we submitted. Now, each time you submit to HCD, they have a timeframe. The first draft, they are allowed 90 days, and every subsequent draft, they are allowed 60 days to review. And with each review, we received public comments, which were incorporated in, and then, HCD would review and give their comments back. Each time there were lengthy letters explaining what was needed, more robust this, more robust programs here and there. But this last one that happened in January, we were at the end, we were almost there. And it's what they call the golden ticket email. That's what you're looking for, that golden ticket where HCD is blessing your housing element, saying that it's substantially in compliance. So our consultants are so thoughtful and so understanding of this process of back and forth between HCD they have direct communication with our reviewers. And so our reviewers advised at the time that we have a technical advice meeting so that we could do that last little bit that would get us across the line. So we had a technical advice meeting. I have it down as March 2026. I think it was, it might've been like the last day of February. In any case, we made a few tweaks and we had a fifth draft public review that went out from 3-5 to 3-12. Consider that that technical meeting occurred during the last 60 days of HCD review. So we were able to ADD THAT IN, THEY HAD A FEW DAYS BECAUSE THEY HAD ALREADY LOOKED AT IT AND THEY HAD ALREADY GIVEN US ADVICE AND INFORMATION ON MARCH 17TH AFTER THE PUBLIC REVIEW, FIVE DAYS LATER WE GOT THE GOLDEN TICKET E-MAIL. NOW, YOU WOULD THINK WE WOULD BE CELEBRATING, RIGHT? it was a little scary to see the letter. And I have this direct quote and I'm gonna read it to you because at the time we looked at it and we said, is this the golden ticket? Is this correct? Because it's a little scary. So let me read it to you. So the revised draft element including revisions and minor modifications meets the statutory requirements that are described in HCD's December 8th, 2025 review. However, the housing element cannot be found in substantial compliance until the city has completed the necessary rezones. see below, next slide, to accommodate the regional housing needs allocation. The housing element will substantially comply with state housing element law when all necessary rezoning and the element are adopted, submitted to, and approved by HCD in accordance with government code section 65585. So, some things that you wanna look at is the second line, meets the statutory requirements. That one is the key right there. And what is required to complete the necessary rezones. That was the part we all kind of had to think about a little bit because we had done the rezones. We've adopted the rezones. What did that mean? Well luckily for us, our consultant has been around the block a few times. They've done this for multiple agencies and they knew exactly what it meant and they knew the exact language necessary. And so that brings me to the zoning ordinance amendment, okay? And this is required that we adopt the zoning ordinance amendment so that we are in compliance with state law and then the whole package gets adopted. So that's why you have before you tonight the general plan amendment, which is for the housing element, and you have the zoning ordinance amendment, you have our CEQA, and you have our SB 244. I'm gonna read this to you, it's a little complicated. And honestly, when we start to develop on these RHNA sites, we're probably gonna go to Craig and we're probably gonna look at this law again to make sure we all understand it. So what it says is to permit owner occupied and rental multifamily uses by right for developments in which 20% or more of the units are affordable to lower income households by right means approval without discretionary review. permit the development of at least 16 units per site, establish a minimum density of 20 units per acre and a maximum density of at least 24 units per acre for all rezoned sites to accommodate lower income RHNA. And finally, ensure that either A, at least 50% of the shortfall of low and very low income regional housing needs can be accommodated on sites designated for exclusively residential uses or B, if accommodating more than 50% of the low and very low income regional housing needs on sites designated for mixed uses, all sites designated for mixed uses must allow 100% residential use and require that residential uses occupy at least 50% of the floor area in a mixed use project. That's a lot, but that's required by state law. All right, programs. So the programs were extensively reviewed and approved by council. I believe it was April 2024 that we talked about this and that they indicated the programs that were appropriate, the programs they wanted. Over the course of the review period, we've had a lot of requests for other programs, and I'm sure you're aware of some of the tenant protection laws that are being asked for. And those might be great programs, but they are not at this point wrapped into our housing element. So keep in mind that in order to qualify for certain state housing grants, we must have a housing element in compliance. And that's our goal, is to get to the finish line where our housing element is in compliance. It doesn't mean we can't do extra stuff later on. It doesn't mean that we can't add an additional program that is beyond the housing element plan It just means that right now, this is in substantial compliance and this is what our ask is. So I've just given you the bullet points on the programs. There's a lot of data behind this. If you printed out your packet, it was over 600 pages. It's because that's how detailed the housing element is. And these programs were reviewed and approved by council and the state to meet state expectations and housing law. So we have a program on regional collaboration, adequate sites for RHNA and monitoring of no net loss. Notice the asterisk that's required by state law. Buy right approval, replacement housing, accessory dwelling units, zoning code amendments, facilitating affordable housing development, preserving at-risk housing, housing preservation and rehabilitation, lower income and special needs housing, farm worker housing, water and sewer service, community and economic development, and fair housing outreach and enforcement. All right, that brings me to what is the SB 244? The SB 244 is an analysis of the disadvantaged, unincorporated communities that are near the city. So they're not in the city, They're in the county. However, there's certain criteria. So they are required to be identified based on the following criteria. Communities must consist of at least 10 dwelling units that are in close proximity to each other. The community must have a median household income of 80% or less than the statewide average. Island communities, which are communities that are surrounded or substantially surrounded by one or more cities and located within a sphere of influence but outside of a city boundary. Fringe communities, which are communities that are located within a sphere of influence but outside of a city boundary. And legacy communities, which are geographically isolated communities that have either existed or been inhabited for at least 50 years and are located within the unincorporated county but are outside of a city boundary and in its sphere of influence. So we are required to do this analysis as we are updating our housing element and because in the future we have some potential of changing our sphere of influence. So we wrapped this into our housing element process as did most of the other agencies. The county didn't need to because they had just completed their SB 244 analysis prior to our joining together for the multi-jurisdictional housing element. But this process, was specific to the city of Merced. And this is a map, and I've highlighted just the areas that are considered a DACA, or Disadvantaged Unincorporated Community. There are six of them near Merced. They are near the South Merced. There aren't any in the North Merced, so when I got the map, I just kind of zoned in so you could see a little better where they're located. I'm gonna back up one second. So consider that the analysis of the SB 244 is simply an analysis. What we looked at is utility services. Some of them have city water service. Most of them are on their own wells. Most of them have, SEPTIC TANKS, THEY'RE NOT CONNECTED TO CITY SEWER SERVICES. A FEW, VERY FEW ARE. THERE ARE SOME, I BELIEVE, I WANT TO SAY IT MIGHT BE 17, IT'S IN THE ADMIN REPORT THAT ARE SERVED BY CITY FIRE BECAUSE THEY JUST HAD AN UPDATED FIRE AGREEMENT BETWEEN CITY AND COUNTY, BUT PRIOR TO THE DEVELOPMENT, THEY WERE ALL SERVED BY COUNTY. SO WE ANALYZED the services and in the report there is some potential grant funding that could be used to help bring these communities in. But the SB 244 analysis is simply that. It's an analysis of the communities and the services there. It does not promise incorporation to the city and it does not promise funding to bring them in. It just identifies it. Okay, and that brings me to CEQA. There was a general plan environmental impact report addendum adopted in April 2025 that covered the housing element and the rezones. But because that was so long ago, we also updated that with an environmental review 260068. We found that it is statutorily exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15162, which means that no further analysis is necessary because this is not development, this is a plan. Any future development in the RHNA rezone areas will require CEQA review. and of course consistency with the general plan. This amends our general plan as a GPA, right, to modify the housing element from the fifth cycle by adopting the sixth cycle and adopting the SB 244 analysis and both will be incorporated to the city's comprehensive general plan update that is ongoing now. So the recommendation is that you adopt resolution 4181, recommending to city council that they adopt the general plan amendment 24-06, housing element, approve the zoning ordinance amendment 26-001, approve environmental review 26-0068, and adopt the SB 244 analysis.

Questions? Thank you, Fred. Thank you for delivering that. Folks, any questions for the project planner? I didn't have any questions. Well, you answered my question. I just wanted to go back to the work that we did on the rezoning the parcels to meet the 10,000 plus. And I remember the 27 parcels that we had rezoned and there was quite a bit of work on going to some of these landowners and asking them if they could help us rezone. Can you kind of touch on that a little bit?

So it was definitely a public process. We reached out to the landowners. There were some comments mostly in favor of the projects because it in effect adds value to them. And so it's a great opportunity for folks that own a vacant parcel in the city. and there were a few and the reason we opted out on a few of them is just it wasn't practical. One of them was I think an error on staff's part, my part probably. It was a park so we opted not to rezone a park, right? But yeah, so there was public review. We had newspaper ads beyond the normal public hearing notice. We had informational notices. So we did quite a bit of trying to blast the information out as well as additional, the workshops that you can see that we had since 2022. It's like people kind of knew it was coming. So we tried to be very transparent with the need to rezone. This had not happened before in the city of Merced. It wasn't required before to rezone because there was adequate vacant parcels to accommodate the requirements. But as I mentioned, between the housing fifth cycle and sixth cycle, the number was over 4,900 units that were required from the prior cycle.

Gotcha. Thank you. And to touch on that, on the prior cycle, again, having the 4,900 short, as we're projecting to get to our specific unit number, is that taking into account the time between now and when we look at this again? or as these come out, we would have to adjust it or we would be behind the eight ball. So in two years, when we get a review, it could be up to 12,000 and then we'll be short 2,000, right?

Okay, so I think I understand your question. This cycle is completed in 2032. So this particular sixth cycle, we are in it right now. And full disclosure, when we looked at the rezone sites and we knew the number, IT WAS LIKE 2022. AND HERE WE ARE IN 2026 AND WE HAVE MULTIPLE REQUESTS FOR ANNEXATION INTO THE CITY OF MERCED. IF WE HAD THAT BACK IN 2022, WE MIGHT NOT HAVE NEEDED TO REZONE. GOT YOU.

THANK YOU. AND THEN ANOTHER QUESTION I HAVE IS WHEN WE'RE LOOKING AT, WHEN WORKING WITH, AND I WOULD ASSUME IT WOULD BE TRUE, WHEN WE'RE WORKING WITH FOLKS THAT HELP US ALIGN THE RIGHT CITY SIZE DEMOGRAPHICS AND INCOME, DO THEY DO A REVIEW OF LIKE A PEER REVIEW, LIKE US, LIKE US COMPARED TO A CITY OF THE SAME SIZE WITH THE SAME DEMOGRAPHICS? IS THAT SOMETHING THAT'S INCLUDED IN OUR CONSULTANTS?

OUR CONSULTANTS HAVE BEEN DOING HOUSING ELEMENTS UP AND DOWN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. THEY SPECIALIZE IN THE CENTRAL VALLEY IN PARTICULAR, AND THEY WERE A PARTY TO ALL OF THE OTHER AGENCIES, THE OUTWATER, THE DOS PALACES, I THINK IT WAS LIVINGSTON, I CAN'T REMEMBER ALL THE JURISDICTIONS, BUT THEY WERE A PARTY TO ALL OF THEM, AND SO WHEN WE ALLOCATED THE NUMBER, THE STATE GIVES YOU A NUMBER FOR YOUR AREA, and then it's up to your council of governments, MCAG, to work with the communities to come up with an equitable distribution based upon knowledge of the community itself. And so, of course, the city of Merced being the largest incorporated community, we got the brunt of that number. And then we divided out appropriately.

Okay, thank you.

Those are my questions. Anybody else have any questions?

Commissioner Greggins?

Yeah, there was a slide in there that talked about, I think it was like 80% of a development, or 20% of that was designated.

Are you talking about the complicated slide?

Yeah.

The legal slide.

Yeah, that's where I'm at right now.

That's a tough one.

It is a tough one. Just to make sure I understood it correctly, if a development... designates 20% as low-income or affordable housing, it goes without review, so it would not come to the Planning Commission or the City Council?

Correct. That is, yeah, by right.

So no aspect of it whatsoever?

Wouldn't come here.

Okay, gotcha. Thank you.

Sorry. I don't see any other questions. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate the delivery. Thank you, Leah.

Yep.

We're going to continue our public hearing and now move on to leader of opposition. Cameron, do we have any leader of opposition present?

Negative on leader of opposition at the moment.

Okay. Again, this is a public hearing and I move to other speakers. Do we have any members of the public who wish to speak in person, have sent emails or letters prior to this meeting?

That is correct. We do have two emails that were sent in and those have been both posted onto the city website and distributed in front of you. We do have one public speaker here present and Ashley Maria Suarez.

All right. Come on up, Ashley.

Good evening commissioners, thank you for having me. Leadership Council and the Public Interest Law Project organizations that work in the community have both submitted a handful of comment letters addressed to both the comment, I'm sorry, addressed to the Planning Commission, City Council, City Staff Legal Council, as well as the California Department of Housing and Community Development. I MOST RECENTLY SENT OVER A LETTER THAT WAS REFERENCED EARLIER ON FRIDAY JUNE 12TH ADDRESSED TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION WITH ATTACHED PREVIOUS COMMENT LETTERS THAT WE'VE SUBMITTED DATING BACK TO 2024. ALL OUTLINING CONCERNS FROM RESIDENTS AS WELL AS SOME THINGS THAT WE HAVE NOTICED LIKE DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN REQUIREMENTS AND actions that the city has taken with this plan and ultimately also concerns with the agenda item before you today. Before adoption of this eight year housing plan, it could be further strengthened by incorporating tenant protections and improving existing ordinances that affect the development of affordable housing. Meaningful changes must be made to existing programs to ensure that the city combats discrimination, overcomes patterns of segregation, and fosters inclusive communities free from barriers that restrict access to opportunity based on protected characteristics, which is affirmatively furthering fair housing, a California law. And so as stated in the email that the city received by the state, this plan currently meets statutory requirements, but only statutory requirements. The city can and should go above and beyond the requirements by adding additional housing programs now, not waiting until later. As mentioned by the presenter, this planning period has already started. We are over two years late with the planning period ending in 2032. Obviously, these programs aren't going to be realized overnight. This is definitely something that the city can work towards. But to say that this is definitely something that's in the hands of the council members to pass or establish in the future is definitely a little false. It's definitely something that the city can choose to do now and plan ahead. to meet these goals through this plan. Further revisions should include amending program two to amend the RHNA unit production plan to increase in lieu fees, increase the percentage of affordable housing units required to be concurrently built with market rate housing, and to expand this beyond annexations to include infill development. As well as amending program nine to establish a tenant relocation assistance program or amending program 14 to have the city work with local nonprofit partners to expand their capacity for legal assistance in the cases of evictions or anything of that nature. As well as amending program 14 to ensure that the city is going to collaborate with the city attorney or district attorneys and all their local nonprofit partners to establish an eviction protection program and the like. We're urging the Planning Commission to reject the current draft now and recommend denial unless further revisions are made because it's important to set the foundation now rather than waiting for it to be dealt with later. As for the SB 244 analysis, I'd like to flag that this analysis has had little to no input from the public and has made no revision since 2024. One more sentence, if I may. We do urge that the Planning Commission reject the current version of the 244 analysis and present it to the public before moving it forward for adoption. Thank you.

Thank you, Ashley. Cameron, do we have anybody else who wishes to speak? None at this time. Is there anybody else from the public who wishes to speak at this time? Hearing and seeing none. At this time, we close the public comment and bring it back to the Commission for discussion. Anybody got anything to add? Commissioner Greggins.

Yeah, I guess that the question would be, we have a recommendation by staff to approve this and move it forward to the council. And then we had somebody from the public request to reject it. So my question is, if it is rejected, what would that look like? What would be the timeframes and how would that affect this process?

So I think what we would do at that point is we would go forth to city council with your recommendation to reject. And we would most likely present resolutions for acceptance and rejecting. Sound about right?

So just to make sure I understood, if we did go through the rejection process, the city council would then receive it on that end and then they would be able to approve it at that point or reject it as well and it would go back to square one?

They would have to give specific direction. so that staff would understand what they would like to incorporate into the housing element. Because at this point, with the revision of the zoning ordinance amendment, it is statutorily compliant for the state of California. So they would have to give us specific direction because we've been getting direction, very, very detailed direction from the state with every review.

And that's the HCD?

That's HCD, exactly.

So it would have to go back through HCD review at that point?

Not really, because it's already met their requirement. Every time we submitted, the first comment letter from HCD was probably 20 pages. So every time we went back, and that was five times, the letter got a little bit shorter and a little bit shorter and a little more refined, which led us to the technical review that we had in late February, early March, 2026.

And then with, if we do go ahead and approve this recommendation to move forward to city council, then at that point they could either decide to go whatever direction they want to go at that point.

Exactly. They can go whatever direction.

Perfect. Thank you.

Anybody have any other questions or comments internally? All right. Open to any motions. Commissioner Ochoa.

Hello, hello. Appreciate all the work you guys done. I know this is a very extensive project and definitely not a little one. We've been working on a lot of projects here in the city. That is for sure. So with that, I'd like to make a motion to adopt resolution number 4181 and to adopt the, do I have to go into the list or is that okay?

Well, it's a recommendation to city council that they adopt each thing.

Yeah, the recommendation to city council to adopt resolution number 4181. to say the rest of the bit.

Cool. I'll second that motion. So we have a motion by Commissioner Ochoa, a second by Chairman Gonzalez. We now move to a vote. And it has been adopted to recommend to City Council for their review and adoption. Thank you, Leah.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

We have some comments on item E2.

Item E2 is minor modification number 26-0008 and environmental review number 26-0061. Hi, planning commissioners. I'm Kayla, planner for the project. We were just going to recommend that you table this item and that we would need to notice it for the public again once it did come back.

Go ahead.

Mr. Chair, it's actually a request to pull.

So it's a staff request, they're gonna pull it. Okay, so we don't need to vote or anything on it? No. Perfect, thank you so much for outlining that. All right, we now move on to item F, which is business items and a report by our planning manager and upcoming agenda items.

Good evening, commissioners. So as it stands, we don't have anything coming up until August 5th. I did want to make sure that this does get on your calendars because August 5th is we're going to be presenting to you the mission statement for the general plan update. So this is going to be an opportunity for the commissioners to help wordsmith what that mission statement is going to look like as we move forward. With that also being said, understand that it will go to city council and get many different iterations, but this is gonna be an important component on how we see the future of Merced.

So there is an opportunity to steer some direction before it goes to city council? Yes, there is. Thank you. All right, we now move on to item G, which is our adjournment, and I'll need a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

I second.

We have a motion to adjourn by Commissioner Greggins and a second by Commissioner Swigert. We now move to a vote. And we are adjourned. Thank you, folks.