City Council - Special Meeting

Fire.

They all Isn't that good?

should just slide.

So, for the community's sake, just so everybody knows, um, if I can just get your attention for just one second, uh, the meeting is to start at 5:30, but city council is in close session. right now. So, when they come out, just give them a few minutes to get organized and then they'll start things. So, feel free to chat and visit with each other, but you'll know when they come out. You'll see them line up up there and then we'll uh get the meeting started right after that. Okay.

Yeah, we need to have the attorney report who reports that he he he reports as no. Okay. Yeah,

it's nice to see so many people come to hear about our closed session. Actually, I think we're here for other things, but um I'm going to have you Yeah. Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um so to report out of closed session, uh the city council met to discuss item 3A. There was no reportable action. All right. So I don't know if this is a first, but we're going to end the meeting. And now we're going to start a meeting. So that might be the first time in our history. So that's meeting is over. And now we start. Pretty awesome. Okay. Uh welcome everybody. Uh we are going to uh start with the call of order and we're going to start uh with the pledge of allegiance. So if everybody would like to stand and we'll get going. So

councelor Resnner, would you like to lead us? I pledge algiance to the flag. United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. We don't have our prayer stand. All right, we will start with roll call. Council member Adet here. Duka present. Muns here. Resner present. And mayor Lat

here. Looks like everybody is here. So, we are going to get going with a public hearing. Uh today, we're going to have a presentation from development services. Uh today's public hearing uh is to consider an appeal application uh regarding the tenative subdivision map application. Uh it's the peak subdivision for the development of a residential subdivision consisting of 120 single family lots on 114 acre parcel located at 850 Courtzill Road um in a residential single family district. So uh we're going to start with a presentation and then I'm sorry. Oh public

uh we do not have any regular public comment today. Public comment is only on the item before us today. So um after the presentation we will go to uh public comment at that point where everybody will get a chance to speak and um you know just reminders we're we're not able to interact so much with the audience. So, I thank you. Uh, but we do want to make sure we allow plenty of time to hear from everybody today. Um, after we have public comment, that'll allow us a chance to be able to uh ask questions, have discussion, and uh provide ample time and plenty of time to to discuss this matter today. So, um, so welcome everybody. I'm glad everybody is here, and I think we'll start the, uh, the presentation. So,

uh, thank you, mayor, members of the council, uh, community members. Uh, my name is Jeremy Pagan. I'm the director of development services for the city of Reading. Our presentation today to the council will be taking place with multiple members of city staff. And so to start things off, we'll have David Schlaggel, senior planner with the planning division, uh, get things going and then we'll be rotating up here and kind of tag teaming this presentation for the council. So with that, I'm going to pass it off to David. Thank you. Uh just first off want to apologize the title slide should actually reference the appeal number uh as this was a a project that went before the planning commission was unan unanimously approved and then later appealed. The appeal is uh 2025 01438. Um yes it is for the uh peaks uh subdivision 120 lot subdivision on 114 acre site in the northwest quadrant of our city. uh long planned for uh development in our area. It's a primary growth area in our general plan and this is just a location map showing you where it's located. Um the boundary of our city beyond to the west is uh unincorporated Shasta County or uh federally owned land. Um in in general the areas of single family residential to the east and south in the city boundaries and outside of that be rural residential uh in the county and uh managed lands federal lands elsewhere uh to the west. And this is just kind of showing you aerial imagery of the site. Uh as you can see it's uh vacant land with some WA power lines running north south on the property. Uh some of the green area shows you upper tributaries of Carter Creek and some seasonal drainages. And uh to the east there, some connections to the neighbor the River Ridge Terrace subdivision uh neighborhood at Steambo Street and Ke. And uh we also have sewer uh lines in the ground spanning this property. And

there's um easements and maintenance uh roads obviously on the property as well. Uh again the general plan for the area is single family with some greenway following the slope terrains. Uh residential density would be 2.5 units per acre. And that's the same thing with our uh zoning district for the property. And I just want to highlight uh some of the other constraints other than the the WA power lines uh is the slope topography. You can see our general plan actually doesn't count residential density if you're over 20% slope. So that's what that white hatched area is. So uh we wouldn't get credit uh no developer would get credit for uh developing uh those that d that density for they wouldn't get credit for the land to count towards density. I'm sorry. And uh this is just kind of showing you what that looks like from bird's eye view to northwest and another bird's eye view southeast. Uh obviously those WA power lines take up a lot of developable flat land on this site and you know it is a city uh application city project so there's a lot of history behind that and I just wanted to pass it off to city manager Steve Bade to go over that and along with the financing for the project. Okay.

Uh honorable mayor and members of council and the community. So this uh property has been with the city of Reading uh since 2003. We've been monitoring this property for many years. It has had a a few different transitions over that time. So, we originally purchased it through a utility uh tax delinquency sale and it came with so we purchased it, I believe, for $2,500 and there was about $900,000 in debt that was secured to that property. The city ended up buying it, paying off that debt. I think the debt was paid off in around 2005. In 2008, the city of Reading um had was the the city of Reading had the Reading Redevelopment Agency purchase the property and so it was purchased at that time prior to 2011 and it actually being part of the redevelopment agency. It was uh part of a dissolution act that was orchestrated by the state. So once that occurred in 2011, the property then transferred to the successor housing agency which it is an asset of that uh today. So along with that, once it was purchased with the redevelopment funding, that does um trigger it to be a housing type of development. It was originally purchased for that reason, but then it also places additional requirements in regards to the development that occurs there. Whether that's single family or multif family, uh it would it would be subject to redevelopment law, which is state law, and that's still active today. And so depending on what type of project, it would have a potential affordability covenant that could range between 45 and 55 years depending on what is negotiated uh out for that development. Following the car fire, uh the city was placed in a unique position to receive federal uh community development block grant disaster recovery funding. And we had a unique project because we owned the property. And with CDBG dollars, if you're able to uh complete infrastructure improvements in a low and

moderate income census tracked area, then you would qualify for that funding. We did qualify for that reason. And staff was very unique in our approach. We are the only ones in the United States that have uh proposed a project like this where you're going to build the infrastructure to create a single family development. So, it is an opportunity that we saw as we're looking to recover from the car fire and recover from those houses that were lost at that time. And so, we in that application, we guaranteed the state that we would do at least 120 lots. So the funding that is available today is specifically for the pre-development which includes the environmental process, the design and then also building the infrastructure for the subdivision and creating those 120 single family lots with that. Um right now we are in the first phase of that. We have one agreement and that was awarded to K2 development for the oversight of that process. So they are assisting the city of writing go through the process to get to entitlements and that's where we're kind of in the in that process right now. Uh beyond that once we're done with the entitlement process if it's approved then we would go to uh completing the design of the civil plans and putting it out to bid and then the construction portion of the project would occur after that bid. So it would be a um public contract. uh it would be oversaw by K2 and our public works division and then once it was developed it would be uh available for sale. Now that the sale of those lots has not been determined. That's that's the third phase and the third agreement that will come to city council for consideration. It could go to one developer, it could go to two developers. We we don't know how that's going to play out. It could be four or five. It depends on how we negotiate and what the council's pallet is for that development at the time. But the the goal will be to construct 120 units. 61 would be income restricted

and 59 would be market rate. So when we talk about how are those lots going to be developed and sold well 59 will be sold out on the regular market. A realtor will sell those and market rate people will purchase those. The ones that are restricted u right now it hasn't the details are not specific yet because we haven't negotiated that deal and council hasn't approved it. But if we do something similar to what we've done in the past, similar to what we've done in redevelopment and whether it was in a variety of neighbors within the community or neighborhoods in the community, there's a restrict resale restriction agreement that goes along with that property and depend on the funding sources for the secondary financing on that property that would drive that that level of secured affordability. And so it could range typically between 20 and 45 years, but that's to be negotiated. It could even be less. It depends on the funding sources that's going to be associated with that. And so the structure of that is that there would be a mortgage from a private bank just like anyone else gets a mortgage on their on their property. And then the balance, so when we have a restricted property, there's going to be a market value. Let's say that market value is 400,000. and we decide that based on calculations, the restricted sale price becomes 300,000. Well, the buyer is going to be responsible for that first 300,000 on a private loan and then there'll be a secondary financing just like a home buyer loan that you would get on the market today. And that would make up so that we're protecting the value of the whole neighborhood. And so if it's same thing if it was 450,000 and we had to bring in 150,000 that would be the secondary financing in that. So, we want to make sure we're protecting the value of those units. The city, we could be a portion. We could offer those secondary loans through our home buyer program. We do that. We've been doing that since probably early 70s, late 70s. So, 1974, I think, is

when we started be, you know, doing loans for affordable housing and single family properties. And today, we probably have a few hundred home buyers in the community. And we monitor those loans. we would do the same monitoring that that we do with our port portfolio. I think we have a probably a $75 million portfolio that we manage. So, we are experienced in that mortgage financing and multif family financing and single. So, we do get involved with that, but we're utilizing grant funds to create those secondary loans and then when those are paid back, we put them in revolving loan fund and then we reuse it in the community to create other opportunities for uh income qualifying housing. So, that's really the kind of the financing um portion of that and how that would play out, but that's still to be determined. Um, otherwise, I think that answers everything that's on the slide, I believe. So, thank you. Uh, yeah. And so, it being a city project, we had a lot of early public outreach uh that wouldn't otherwise be done for a private development. We had two workshops uh on-site special meeting. We also noticed well beyond the 300 foot min minimum uh radius of the project site. I think it went out about half mile capturing all the neighborhoods on Courtz Hill. And we got a lot of early uh public feedback that staff was hoping to be responsive to uh throughout this process. We uh let our consultant loose on studying an additional road to the north to Courtz Hill um at the request of neighbors and that would potentially change traffic patterns. Uh ultimately road D uh stretching to the north would go through uh county land, private land. Uh it would require a lot of extensive grading and environmental impact to the north there. Uh there are rightway issues in the county. Um that would potentially require imminent domain and ultimately the cost balloon to a point where the it wouldn't be feasible to incorporate as

part of this project. Uh so that's why you don't see that being recommended. Uh we also had uh requests for um lots to be designed with buffers from existing neighborhoods uh or or existing residential lots. And uh I get into that a little bit in in a second here. Just wanted to point out that yeah, we have a couple city part owned parcels as as a result of this design that the consultant brought to us um with a city park site as well. And obviously there's a lot going on with the uh extent of the slope terrain and where we're able to build. So you see the the development does follow uh the terrain with the roads going where they can go essentially. And uh just highlighting some of the other constraints, what that does to the site. We also have uh sensitive environmentally sensitive areas that we're avoiding and detention areas that are are needed. And the grant ultimately calls for a minimum of 120 lots. And that is exactly the number that was uh designed here. And so I think that kind of uh answers uh kind of the question or concern of why these lots are backing up to existing residential neighborhoods. It's not really an incompatible land use in the eyes of planning. However, uh we did look into that and ultimately the develop de develop sorry, the developable lots that are being shown here are essentially where we we h have room to put them. Um and now we're just going to talk about some of the features of the site of the subdivision that would be u added benefit more than what a private developer would bring. the east, west, and north south trails that would provide emergency vehicle and maintenance access to uh vegetation zones is considered a really uh key um improvement or key uh addition for the fire marshall. It's also an amenity for

folks who will be living in the area. Um I just wanted to show those uh a broader view of this would be a a longer trail network uh throughout that part of our city connecting potentially down to the Sacramento River. and this goes a long way in getting us towards that. Um the subdivision would include uh landscaping and common areas improvements that would be managed and uh obviously designed to u improve the aesthetic of the subdivision. Uh another key component that otherwise a private developer would not be bringing uh is this architectural design guidelines which um is part trying to raise the bar on architectural design and creating more of a front porch community and also trying to provide uh higher standards for fire resistant uh uh components of the of the subdivision of the construction not just of the homes but around the homes uh with five foot uh non-combustible zones, they call them zone zero. Um ensuring that we're using the best uh practices out there to uh make sure that we're bring a bringing a fire hardened community in this area and kind of setting that standard. And in addition to that, any uh subdivisions built in the city in the very high fire hazard severity zone is required to have vegetation management plan. The vegetation management zones uh start with a 100 foot zone one from all buildable areas which basically brings the brush down to zero and limbs up all healthy trees and make sure fire can't turn into something that fire fire department can't manage. And then beyond that, an additional 100 foot of 50% clearing. And that is all uh included in this subdivision as part of a landscape maintenance district that would be funded by the subdivision itself, the folks who live there through an assessment along with the public park,

storm water treatment, storm drain systems. Um I think I'm covering all those features to get us to why we're here today. um is that after the planning commission approved it, we did receive appeals, 12 different appellants, filed appeals uh of the the approval. And trying to summarize all of them and down here where you have uh concerns with the detrimental traffic volumes to the adjacent neighborhood, Sper Drive, Courtzill Road, and the general road uh need for road D, which I I just covered. Um also mentions of Blavventur Bridge needing to be built. We also had concerns about emergency access itself. CalFire reports that are out there suggesting secondary access being uh for for existing subdivisions and that the project doesn't have adequate secondary access which we'll touch on in a minute here and emergency fire escape overall a big big issue obviously uh with the history of this site. Um so evacuation congestion going down Courtz Hill unsafe conditions. Uh we also received some comments about the analysis itself that we have uh supporting this decision and a mention of the the park site in that analysis not being an adequate safe refuge. Uh staff report addresses that and we can get into that as well. We also had some uh appeal appellants raise the issue of the EIR, our general plan EIR. Uh I I'll just probably uh address that when I get to SQA and uh just kind of go over these uh subdivision design. I mentioned that previously and we also had some comments on preserving oak blue oak trees on the site and the adequacy of botanical surveys uh as when it comes to impacts on biological resources. First want to start with the access. Um this is the obviously the site plan

showing you where connections are. We have a requirement not only with state law for two points of public access, but also in our our residential fire code um or sorry, writing municipal fire code. And so uh this is just showing you where those connection points are. We have Steamboat Street connecting uh on the east side along with Keel Court. That gets you over to Courtzill Road via Sper Drive and Old Lantern. And then road A punching through BLM land to Buenavur Boulevard. That's the second access point. Um, just kind of showing you those access points. And ultimately those access points meet the standard. But what I want to point out is in these co uh these CalFire uh reports is River Ridge Terrace, a portion of it was um identified by CalFire as not having secondary access. And this project would actually provide that um for that subdivision. So it's fulfilling the recommendation in the CalFire report. and and so Steamboat Street, Keel Court now has egress to Waventura Boulevard and it's just a larger uh zoom out of circulation overall. Another part of the public resources code talks about not having a a circular traffic pattern and that's uh obviously not happening here either. Uh you can get out to Courtzill Road, you can get out to Kzwick Road, you can get Kzwig Dam Road, um you can get to Point Bua Boulevard and onward elsewhere in the city either to the north, east or west. And uh in addition to that, I just kept this slide in here from the planning commission meeting. It does actually provide uh improved circulation overall in the courts area. It doesn't necessarily provide a secondary access for the Stanford Hill subdivision to the south or land park there, but it does give an additional uh pathway. And and this was uh talked about we we worked closely with fire uh and this was a huge

benefit to the fire chief um every time we talked about circulation in this area and uh in terms of emergency fire escape. So obviously wanted to be sensitive to that. there was a a very uh major fire uh that happened with a chaotic fire escape and so we looked at what we're what we're able to do with SQA and understanding the impacts of that um and looked for guidance out there on how to analyze it, how to analyze emergency evacuation and found the attorney general guidance uh that tells you what to look what to uh study and then who makes that decision ultimately the fire chief and police chief, the people who operate the emergency operations plan and the uh the emergency evacuation plan. You look to them with the information that we studied and ask them whether it would impair their operations. And with that, I'd like to uh invite Jay Summerland, our fire chief, to go over some of the that process and what we looked at.

Mayor, city council I'm Jay Summerland. I'm the deputy fire chief and your fire marshal for the city of Reading. Um when first thing is this development meets all fire codes and actually exceeds it in several areas. So there's no worry in if this were done outside of a public project, we would have approved this the way it is designed. So uh no matter who brought this before us, it meets all the thresholds of the fire code for this development. uh and it's not lacking in any of those aspects. When we were asked to uh provide our recommendations for emergency evacuations of a region, we looked on our past experience both as firefighters and previous experience with evacuating large-scale emergencies, looking at other case studies of how other fire departments have done these things. And what we decided is when you're doing software, when you use software to do an evacuation plan, typically what you do is you select the region that you want to evacuate and say, where do you want all those vehicles to go and you put a little marker of I want all the cars from this region to go to this area. And then it runs the dynamics that it does in the back and tells you how long it'll take all the people that are in those vehicles to get from point A to point B. And it'll come up with a number. It'll take you an hour to get that many people that are in that area to that point. Well, the problem with that is typically where we want people to evacuate for in this area would be like the rodeo grounds. Well, there truly are safe once they get out of the area that the fire is directly impacting. So what we gave the uh engineers that did the study for the plan is that we felt that if the fire and from our scenario was where those red points were that was an unsafe place for the public to be. I don't want you on those roads. I want you out of that area as soon as I can get you out

of that area. But when you get into the yellowish orange areas, you would be safe. It would be scary there because it's going to be dark. It's going to be embers flying everywhere. But you are actually in a safe place, especially on Courtz Hill Road. Once you get into the areas that are developed where you have housing developments on both sides, um it is very difficult for you to be overrun by a firewave of fire coming through Courtz Hill Road once you you've hit there. So, you're in a safe place, but we really want you to down into the green areas. And that's what we've identified. So when they went and analyzed this, they were looking instead of going to the rodeo fairgrounds or rodeo grounds to um be safe. Um they chose somewhere on Courts Hill Road or one of the green areas on the map. And so that was the data we gave them. Um so like I said, a hot zone, a warm zone, and a cold zone is common terminology that you is used in the fire service. It's something that we use on every structure fire. We use it in hazardous materials calls and it's something OSHA looks at when you're looking at firefighting and how we do things. So we use that common practice that's used in other areas of the fire service and did it to for this and that's how we started coming around with areas of safe refuge or if you even just stacked cars on Courts Hill and they weren't even moving, they would still be in a safe place from where the fire is at. And it provides a buffer of time for firefighters to either contain the fire or traffic to continue to move and move those people out. Next slide. During the car fire, that section that's highlighted on this uh screen was under construction. There were barricades up. There was heavy equipment in a road. worst possible time to have road construction at this level uh in our jurisdiction is right when we need to evacuate that area. So when people tell you it took them three hours

plus to get out, believe them, it probably did. Um because you can't transverse across dirt roads very well. Um and we had power lines down on KZWork at for a period of time that had to be cleared. So there were some delays of roads through that through that time. And um so what they will tell you is true. It did take them that amount of time. It was a very unique time for this city uh during the car fire. Um and there's been a lot of lessons learned and there's been a lot of changes in how we do things emergency operationwise and plan checkwise on uh new developments. Next slide. So again the picture on the left is what it looked like. This is what it looks like today. So when you have irrigated stuff on both sides or one side of the road, the odds of fire coming across that and enveloping anybody that's parked there or slowly moving is very low. So that's why this is type of area is a safe areas of refuge as they move on out of the area. Next slide. So since the car fire um the entire county and actually most of the state of California fire departments and municipalities have moved to a product called Genesis Protect. There's the other side of it is called Genesis Genesis Alert and that's the public side of it for being notified when we are evacuating or sheltering in place. And when we built out the zones for our community, the police department, fire department, public works, and our GIS division, we sat down and analyzed the city and looked at it from different viewpoints. One of them obviously was wildfire and the amount of people in each zone. And then we looked at what would happen if we have a breach of the dam. What do they work together? Do I need to readjust? So, we started readjusting. And then we looked at just general flooding. Then we looked at

hazardous materials event. If a train derailed downtown with Bakan oil and we had a huge fireball burning down half of the city, where would I need to evacuate people? How large are those each of those individual zones? Uh, and we made a determination based off of multiple scenario types, the different sizes of them for proper evacuation. And so you put that whole system together, you link that up with the county, with other agencies in the state, and we can all use a product together. On the back end of Genesis Protect, there are tools for looking at the rate of speed of a fire burning. Uh, and those are some of the same tools colleges use for predictive modeling. And so those are some of the tools that we used to develop what a baseline fire that we were going to give the engineers to look at. And so we said, I want worstase weather conditions. This is where I want the fire to start and this is the wind speed direction, the humidity, the fuel moisture levels for all the f different fuel categories. and you put that into the system and it will tell you and show you on the map where the fire is going to burn to and hour by hour which zones are going to be affected or have to be. So when you're looking at it, you can say, "Okay, my fire started here in five hours. I need to evacuate these zones as we move forward." And that's how we do predictive modeling for future events. So when we are making decisions, we're using uh trusted technology to determine the rate of spread of fire and what zones in the future that I'm going, you know, five hours from now, who am I going to have to get rid of? What who needs to leave? What kind of buildings are in there? Are there nursing homes? Because now I have to deal with the public health department because that's who's in charge of them. And so there's a lot of stuff that starts getting spooled up as we forecast way ahead. And

so the idea is that we're no longer just saying the entire west side of city of Reading, I need you to evacuate. It's going to be zone by zone and we're releasing vehicles as we uh as we watch the roads and where choke points are. And as we do that, it's coordinated very closely with the uh police department, um state patrol, sheriff's department, all the law enforcement's there doing the evacuations for us. Um, I think the biggest weakness is the public not recognizing that there's an emergency, not listening to when we told them to leave and they hang out and then it's too late because the fire is already on top of them. Then they're now they're in a panic. They're in a really bad place and that is probably the most dangerous part of evacuations. It's so bad that on a national level, we've been asked as a reading fire department, we've already sat in with, I believe it's Texas&M and USDA, and we're part of this group that is looking at evacuations on a national level and problems. And they're even posing questions out is if I paid you money to leave, would you leave? I mean, it's that desperate of a thing that they're looking at a national level of how do you convince the public to listen to the government telling them to leave? It's dangerous. go away. And there's a lot more studying and there's a lot of PhDs that are behind this study trying to figure out what the heck we're going to do because people don't believe their government. And that's a problem, especially when it's a life and death pro thing like wildfire and how fast it moves. Um because if you don't want to leave, it's really hard for me to help you. But if you follow our warning, I can get you out in a reasonable time and we'll get you safe. The other things that we've done is worked with our traffic control. So, anytime a road is being developed where they're going to tear up something and redesign it, that comes through a review process through the planning group with

permits and it's looked at on are you planning on shutting the entire road down? Does your plan uh leave lanes open? If it leaves lanes open and they have a plan built for cars being able to still get through, it'll be permitted and moved through. But if they're saying, "No, I need to shut the whole road down." Then another process within the city happens where we evaluate what their plan is to make emergency access so cars can actually go across it during construction. If like in the middle of the day, we're like, I'm evacuating this area. Implement your plan. It's in place. All construction companies that work with the city follow those rules and they won't be permitted unless they have all of that documentation for us. Um, we've expanded again with Genesis Protect and Alert our communication systems um with the public. We've also enhanced our radio system for all city employees to be able to communicate. And we have a state-of-the-art emergency operations center where each division within the city is able to communicate sitting next to each other figuring out problems that the city's having during a large-scale emergency to keep the communication of upper management of the city and the our political leaders informed about what's going on, what we're planning on doing and getting their input back into ongoing processes. Um, every year before fire season, we have a meeting with all law enforcement officers uh in the region uh and all the fire departments. We do it's a pre-fire meeting. We talk about evacuations. We meet each other because in the fire service and public safety, you don't want to meet for the first time during an emergency and you're having a conflict. You want to know each other. And that's what we do every every year uh is we meet just about wildfire, just about evacuations and how we're going to coordinate changes that may have come

down from the state um about how we do uh surveys of buildings, how we do different evacuation procedures. That's all handled every single year uh that we meet. Um let's see. We also now have and you guys as city council have approved our community wildfire protection plan. And as part of that plan, it recognizes looking at egress points of roads to make sure that uh there's not overgrown brush by them. We actually have had grant money and we have launched our goats on Buenov Vetura. If you've ever gone through there, it looks a lot better. And because that's part of what the community wildfire protection plan does is looks at our risks, evacuation areas, and it uh identifies areas that we need to mitigate fuels. And that's what we have started to do as a city. Uh let's see. Something that we use in the field is Watchd Duty. Uh it if you want to know about wildfire going on in the community, download that app. Everything's there. They're really really good at keeping up on sizes of fire, where they're going. Um it's what we use in the field. Um it's good data. It's a good place for information. If you really want to know what we know, that's a good place for you to get it. And I think that's my last slide. Thank you.

Oh, now I'm unmuted. Uh, and so that was one component of this the public comment we got. It's also a major component of our review on for the SQA uh determination that we're recommending. Um in addition to that got obviously got a lot of comments about traffic impacts and uh as far as SQA review goes um the the traffic studies that we required uh to make this determination essentially determine that the project would not overload any capacities of any roads uh it wouldn't conflict with any general plan transportation program or policy. Uh that there's adequate capacity to serve this project. um average daily trips on roads in the area would not exceed uh their capacity or level of service and and obviously we already talked about that the project meets the criteria for emergency access. Those are the criteria that we looked at at SQUA uh with SQA and the general plan EIR uh also looked at uh emergency access and determined that there would actually be a significant impact if we were not implementing the road closure. um mitigation which is now incorporated in all our projects. And so I just wanted to highlight that and to go into more detail because I think it's merited. I was going to invite up Michael Webb, director of public works to talk more about traffic.

Thank you, David. Um good evening, honorable mayor, members of the council. Um, as uh, planning manager manager Schlaggel laid out, um, as part of the project, our design team, u, specifically our traffic consultant in combination with our traffic engineering team, um, performed a standard traffic impact analysis of the project. And to to be clear, um, this can be a little bit of confusing, there are two separate traffic evaluations, if you will. um one that um Fire Marshall Summerland touched on a few moments ago, the evacuation study that also had traffic um elements to that that our traffic engineering consultant uh prepared and we worked closely with through the review process. Um and then there is what I would call the the more typical everyday traffic analysis, which is the traffic impact analysis or traffic impact study that's in front of you right here. So for this study, our traffic consultant looked at um the roads there that you see as well as nine intersections within the area. And as planning manager Schlaggel uh mentioned, um each of the roads roadways within the project study limits um are currently operating at below the the threshold for traffic that we would like to see and they are projected to operate um below that threshold as well. So for instance, uh Spiner Drive, um you kind of see that on the bottom center of the slide. Um that is classified or it's functional classification as a local roadway. Uh typical roadway that we would see um in any of our subdivisions both in width and geometrics. Um the existing average daily traffic out there right now today is 122 cars. Um with the project um we're talking about um 685

and then in the future uh that would be existing what's there today plus the project plus future development that would occur roughly out to the year 2040 based on uh general zoning all within the area. uh Spreer Drive. We anticipate it to be around 985 trips per day. Um which is less than half of the the number that we like to see there. The capacity for a local roadway of roughly 2,000. Um you'll see similar Old Lantern just up the road from there. Again, similar a local roadway. Uh today we're seeing around 522 trips per day. Uh project is fully built. It would jump up to 1661. Um and in the future we would be just under the the number that we like to see. We'd be at around 1961 in that trend. Um if you'll notice um excuse me exists along point of Ventura um as well as KZwick and Lake. Now I'll touch briefly on Courtz Hill um being the one of the minor arterials out there. Um right now we're seeing based on most recent counts roughly 3,800 cars per day. um after the project is built, we would anticipate to see that jump up to about 4,900 trips per day and then roughly in 2040. So again, that's your combination of trips right now today. Project added trips and then added trips in the future from anticipated development. We would expect to see about 6,600 vehicles per day, which is roughly less than half of what we would expect for your everyday traffic capacity of a facility like Courtz Hill, um, which is approximately 14,000 vehicles. So, for for comparison purposes, because I know numbers are just numbers and it's easier to put something in front of you that you can wrap your arms around or bite your teeth into. Um, similar facilities around the city like Oasis Road, uh, very similar

in number of lanes, geometrics. Right now, it's operating at about 6,700 cars per day, and it's well within our general plan guidelines of the level of service C, which is the the operation level that we strive for here in the city of Reading. Rancho Road, again, another very similar facility to Courtzs Hill. We're seeing roughly 8,200 vehicles per day. Uh Victor Avenue, similar in geometrics and number of lanes. Again, we're seeing about 11,400 vehicles per day. and Airport Road um out on the eastern side of town. We're about 13,500 vehicles per day. And so I just point those out as references because sometimes the numbers can get lost and it's easier to sink your teeth again, wrap your arms around something that maybe we're using every day um to help understand that. Um and with that, I'm going to toss it back to planning manager Schlagel. Thank you.

No,

did you have a question? I'm sorry. Okay. Uh so yeah, just kind of shifting. Um hopefully that was adequate uh for traffic analysis. If there's more questions, we can go into it further. Um we did get a comment about preserving blue oak trees on the site. And uh if you look at the tree uh survey that was done for the property, a lot of the trees are actually we had an expanded biological review area when we were looking at road deconnection. And so most of the trees were identified in those areas that the project actually isn't impacting. Um there is one candidate tree identified and that's over by Courtz Hill Road, not really close to the development of this uh project and and that's so for our city uh code our tree survey or I'm sorry our tree management ordinance um there's only one tree uh that was identified as healthy and worth uh saving in that regard. Most of the trees sadly are are uh laying there standing there dead um from fire. Um ultimately though if you uh look at the project impacts uh it still would be considered less than significant if you it's and that's in the scope of the general plan EIR which looked at the full buildout of our uh zoning and designations our general plan designations and said that we actually would have significant unavoidable impacts to uh conversion of oak woodland and um that's just something we made a statement of overriding considerations to uh decide that this this is the development the city wanted to do. And so just to point just to point out that this project is in the scope of the general plan EIR and um that's kind of bringing me to my next point which is um the statutory exemption that was that staff was made aware of. We we completed our general plan EIR in 2024. It's a programmatic EI and the consultants that helped us prepare that uh pointed out this case law out of San Diego County

which essentially requires jurisdictions to make sure that we're not duplicating environmental review for projects. If a project's consistent with the general plan and zoning, you just look at whether it's in the scope of the general plan EIR. You look for whether the project has peculiarity that requires further review, whether there's impacts that weren't analyzed by the ER or whether there's more significant impacts that the ER didn't consider. And um that's that's what we did. We prepared following this uh statutory exemption section, we prepared an initial study or similar is what it uh how it characterizes that. And um just kind of wanted to point that out. We had a consultant help staff prepare that. It was peer-reviewed by planning staff and a third party uh consultant. And ultimately the the checklist uh evaluates all the pro parameters of that um section 15183 exemption and found that it the project's in the scope of the general plan EIR. There's no new impacts that weren't analyzed. Um there's obviously a lot of studies that support that uh finding and that recommendation to you. Um and and we also have standard subdivision conditions of approval that uh we're implementing on all projects that help us get there. Uh and so just kind of wanted to point the SQA finding or put the sequence findings on the slide here to let you know that that uh these were all evaluated with all our studies and um there's no project specific effects peculiar to this site. Uh there's no specific impacts which the general plan ER failed to analyze as significant effects. there are no potential uh significant off-site or cumulative impacts which the general plan ER failed to evaluate. We do have uh some significant unavoidable impacts in our general plan E and this project falls

within that scope. Um and there's no new information which results in more severe impacts than anticipated by the general plan ER. Um, and we also have tenative map approval findings that we are using to make this recommendation. And um, just kind of wanted to throw those on the screen and I guess I'll pass it off to Director Jeremy Pagan here to close us out.

Oh, thank you, David. Um, yes. So, as we wind this presentation down to a close, just wanted to offer a few concluding remarks um, and then give staff's recommendation to the council. Um, I know there's been a lot of information presented to you tonight. Um, the appellants have written their statements and will likely speak some later. You have hundreds of pages of information in your packets. Uh, it's a lot to digest. Um, if I were to attempt to simplify this down, really to get to the heart of the matter, um, the appellants of this project really have one very significant contention and that is that the project will substantially impair in their view safe evacuation of the area in the event of a wildfire and that additional road or egress is needed. Um there are other issues of course like we mentioned daily traffic uh biological resources environmental concerns but far and away the main concern is regarding wildfire risks especially evacuation of the area. Therefore uh council's decision to approve or deny this project really boils down to the answer to this fundamental question. Will the project substantially impair evacuation or not? As you've heard from this presentation tonight, um we feel as though we've carefully examined that question and concluded that no, in fact, the project will not substantially impair evacuation. Given how critical uh the issue is, I just want to give one final summary as to why staff have come to this conclusion and then we'll close. Um but before that, I do also want to acknowledge that our communities have been very much impacted by wildfire. We understand and empathize with the trauma and emotions. I myself went through the car fire, lived here. My in-laws were staying at my house for a week cuz their house uh burned down in the car fire. So, um we certainly don't intend to be callous or indifferent to our community's experience with wildfire. It's very real. We've heard, we share in your concerns, and we've spent a lot of effort uh in reviewing and analyzing this project to gather the best evidence

and facts so that we can give our city council uh the information they need to make an informed decision. Um, but nonetheless, we have an obligation to review this project like we would any other project. When we review a development proposal, our job is to objectively measure it against the goals and policies of the general plan, make sure it meets applicable codes and regulations, and if it does, our job is to recommend approval. And so, in reviewing this project and evaluating those wildfire risks, I'm just going to reiterate a few key points. Um, we must not evaluate this project in the context of carfire conditions. The law requires us to evaluate the project based on today's conditions. Um, that's our baseline. Much has changed since the carfire. Um, Courtzill Road is not closed. In fact, it's been improved. It's been widened as was discussed. We have new city policies that require it to remain open during construction. And that was some a lesson learned from the car fire. Evacuation methods and tools have changed. They've been improved. Genesis protect watchd duty surveillance cameras help with better early warning and coordination of evacuation. We also have updates to our city's emergency plans. We have the local hazard mitigation plan, the community wildfire protection plan, the emergency operations plan. We have our city's general plan. um lots of plans that we that make us think hard about what will we do in the event of an emergency. And it's really resulted in better and faster evacuation as well as improved fire fuels management. And so while I know it's very difficult um because our past experience with the car fire, we must put the project in its proper context which is today. And secondly, the project's potential impact on wildfire evacuation has been carefully examined by staff. We have followed attorney general guidance for evaluating wildfire impacts. We've completed an

evacuation study that's been reviewed by fire, police, engineering, transportation. That study has conservative assumptions. Uh it assumes it's the middle of the night. It assumes everyone's home. It assumes that everyone's pulling a trailer. Um, and it also assumes a couple of wildfire scenarios that are worst case based on our fire officials input for multiple fire ignition scenarios based on topography, fuel load, and prevailing wind. The study estimates uh that the project adds about 5 to 7 minutes of additional time to evacuate, which I know seems laughable to a lot of folks in the room who spent hours on those roads that were choked. But it's really important that we remember the 5 to seven minutes of additional time is not total time. It's the time required, the added time required for the project. Nor is it the amount of time to get all the way across town. As Jay Summerland mentioned, it's the time to reach a low-risk zone, a zone where our fire department believes you're safe and your life is not in danger. It may take 1 to two hours to get to Market Street or to I5. And that time certainly will be stressful and scary as many of you know personally. But your life will be preserved and that really is the point. Regulations and standards are intended to protect and preserve life but they cannot completely mitigate the fear, stress, anxiety of experiencing an evacuation. So finally the project incorporates numerous features that mitigate wildfire risk. We must acknowledge that risk cannot be mitigated to zero. That goes for any natural disaster in the built environment. We do not design buildings for magnitude 10.0 earthquakes. We do not require homes on the river to withstand a 10,000-year flood. Codes and standards mitigate risk down to as low as possible, an 8.0 earthquake, perhaps

a 100red-year flood. With wildfire, it's no different. While this project cannot mitigate wildfire risk to zero, it does have features that do greatly reduce the risk. It meets local and state codes for secondary access. Um, state building code for fire resilient construction of homes. We know that the building code is continuing to become more and more um cautious on fire and requiring more requirements of our buildings. It has a trail system proposed trail system that gives better access for firefighting. It requires vegetation management and fuels reduction through a landscape maintenance district. And finally, it enhances road connectivity in the area and even provides secondary access to neighboring residents, which ultimately helps to achieve CalFire recommendations for that neighborhood. And so for these reasons I've outlined, in addition to all the rationale and evidence provided in our presentation and in your staff report, it is staff's recommendation that the city council deny the appeal and uphold the planning commission's approval of this project. Um, with that, I'll conclude my comments. Um, we have numerous staff here tonight that would be happy and available to answer any questions the council may have. Okay, I told my wife I wouldn't be home until midnight. So, we have about five and a half hours to fill some time. So, we're going to go into public comments. And if anybody does want to speak, I definitely encourage you to speak, uh, you can fill out a card. Um, so if anybody wishes to address this council tonight on any considered item, um, before or during the council's consideration, enter your name in electronic kiosk. gets located in the lobby back there. Uh the city council is going to allocate up to maximum of three minutes per speaker for each agenda item. And the um reminder, all the staff

reports, they are available online uh at the city's website. You can reference them at any given time. Um they're also in the public view binder located in the podium if you didn't grab one at the north side of the chambers. Okay. So, we are going to um we're going to open up our for public comment and open start our hearing. So, yep. All right. So, we have some speakers. Um, we are going to start with Don. Uh, after Dawn, it'll go Melvin and then Charlie. So,

uh, Don Frell. So, I didn't see another Don on here, but Good evening. My name is Don Ferrell. I live on Courtz Hill Road just on the north side of this proposed project. I retired up here 26 years ago, close to 27 when it was a town. Now I guess it's a city. Anyway, everything that I heard tonight from all these gentlemen and they put a lot of work into that. There's no doubt about it. Ideal conditions. If the conditions are ideal, you don't lose one road. You don't lose two roads. You don't have a breakdown of vehicles on one road. Everything goes as planned by maybe a consultant from Riverside that put the money in their pocket and told you what you need to do up here. All of these roads that you've marked, what if you had a fire come from the northwest headed to the southeast through uh Sula Creek and all them digger pines coming on the north side. Now you've lost Hedwick Road and then once it jumps over there, I've seen these firemen years ago when uh the the new developments down uh Stanford Hills was put in, they required sprinkler protections inside in the buildings in certain high hazard areas or build a fire station on this side of the river. Well, they chose they just do sprinklers in certain areas high hazard inside these structures. And guess what? Fire didn't come from inside the structure. It came from outside. So what should they have done? Eve sprinklers, roof sprinklers would

have been fine. That protects your outside also. Now, if you're going to put a new project in with 120 homes, they have metal roofs. You you've eliminated the asphalt roofs. I have seen so many people talking about this one inura wearing matur dead ends up there at Stanford Hills and Land Park. It was intended to go across. They just didn't get the funding for it from the federal government years ago. They had billions of dollars for infrastructure funding for bridges. And you remember the it was back I think during Obama um before that, but they didn't apply for it. Now the price of that bridge is so damn much they'll never be able to put it in. And there's two dead ends. One that goes past the rich guys up there in Stanford Hills and the one that comes in from Buenova off Eureka Way. They was meant to join. It's less than a mile. The bridge would only be 450 ft long. It's a very narrow bridge. Anyway, they need to do a lot more thinking. The ideal situations that the commission has put up is is great, but ideal situations don't happen when everybody's panicking. It doesn't happen. They got to get real. Lose two of them roads. Now, what are you going to do? You got one road left. Somebody has a breakdown on that road. What's going to happen? Everybody's going to panic. All right, that's all I have to say. Uh so Don the uh question for you Don and every speaker today uh it could be helpful for a lot of us up here if you have a specific finding of the reason for the appeal if you found a finding that would be great if you can uh speak.

I have ear problems. What did you say? Uh what would help the council today I is with all our public speakers today is if you have a specific finding uh for the appeal if you might be able to state that that would actually help us navigate through that and navigate through all the public. You mean a finding of how to cure what's wrong? No. A finding of the appeal silk. So I I'm not an engineer. We have engineers, but we go outside and pull engineers in and pay them. Okay. All right. We don't use our engineers. Okay. Thank you, Don. Okay. Uh we have Melvin up next. Is that right? Yep.

And then Charlie Charlie Fitch, you're up next. Now, the city of Reading find itself as both the developer and the per people that are approving it. I ask you to withdraw your development. And here's why. Even though the p these public uh employees try hard, they're not always accurate. And one example you just had up here, your fire chief said that the whole side of Wartz Hill is green and managed, you know, watered. But right after that picture, it's not. It's brush going all the way up to the houses on the bluff, all the way down the hill to the nursing home. And it's unmanaged on the other side as well. Okay. So when inconsistencies like that are told to us, we're told basically not to believe our eyes, not to believe what we see in our own neighborhoods. Now, it did take hours to get down out of the fire area. There is a wider spot that's semiafe up at the top of Quartz Hill, but you can't put hundreds or thousands of people in that little spot. Okay. You can only parking lot so many. I know because I was one of those people parking loted in that spot. I parking lot myself next to a a fire captain or a fire chief. Not sure which one. Uh watched it for a while before I ended up leaving. But it took me a long time to get to the top of the hill and then it took me over 40 minutes to get from the top of the hill just to the bottom of the hill. And there is brush on both sides. Go drive

Cortill. You'll see that he was wrong. People do make mistakes, especially when they're trying to pvey a point of view. Computer models don't get the accurate picture. If people had actually come and talked to the people who evacuated, you would have found out that we were sitting, we'd move, sit for another five minutes, move a few more feet, get out, look, see the clear coat melting on the car, and move a little bit more. He also said something else, that it would be faster because it's now paved. It was graded. My Prius C, the smallest Prius made, had no problem on the dirt road. It was the fact that we weren't moving. Okay, so that is where the problem is. You have only two roads, Quartzill Road and Kzwick Road to evacuate all the people in the area. And Kezwick was closed in both directions at one point and you had one lane on each road for fire people to come in. So at the start of the evacuation, you only had one lane in on each row going out. And at the end, all you had was both lanes going down Quartz Hill. Um, if the traffic's not moving, and trust me, that dirt did not slow us down at all.

Melvin, your time is up. I'm sorry. So, thank you for speaking. Uh, Charlie, you're up next. Essentially, no.

Noel, you're up after Charlie and we'll go from there. Good evening. I'm Charlie Fitch. I'm a retired forester with the US Forest Service. I spent uh better part of 30 years putting out fires. And one of the things that really scares the heck out of me about this subdivision is the fact that you've got two 250 foot wide power tower corridors right through the middle of this subdivision. We all know that most subdivisions you take a block of land and you develop it and like people have said over here once you have that subdivision it constructed it's it's a pretty fires safe zone. But in this particular case, you have some houses, you have a fire corridor, you have houses, you have a fire corridor, and you have more houses. They talked about doing vegetative man manipulation. I talked to the uh one of the folks at at the very first public meeting and I found I understand what you're saying. You're 50 foot from the from the structures, etc. You're going to do this manipulation. Okay. If you have a house that backs up to that corridor, the house isn't going to be right on the edge of the of of the of their property line. It's going to be a distance. So take assume assume the house is even at the edge of the of of the as far as they can get into the corridor. You still have only treated 100 ft out of a 250 foot wide

fuel zone. That's going to be brown, dead, volatile all summer long. That's known as hazard. When you put a lot of people around that area, that's known as risk. Risk plus hazard is what makes a wildfire. Higher the risk, higher the hazard, the higher the potential. In my opinion, the this plan was talked about as being resilient. Well, I guess you better hope it's resilient because you're going to have a fire in here and somebody's damn well going to get hurt. And I just would not want to see that happen. I suggest you take your treat fuel treatments and re-evaluate them because 150 foot wide swath minimum probably wider than that of virtually untreated fuel is not going to be good.

Thank you. Thank you, Charlie. Uh Noel, you're up next. Do you want to speak at the microphone and then we'll start your time? We'll start your time once. Yes. That's fine. Okay. Good to see you again all of you. Um, so you asked us to specifically state what I'm going to talk about about this. Okay. The first thing I'm going to talk Oh, no. Yes. Go for it.

Sorry. I It was my request. I'm sorry. Um, if you are one of the appellants, I was just if you could tell us the subject matter for your I'm not one of the appellants. Okay. Yeah. Then don't even worry about it. So, you can go ahead as as you appreciate it. Um,

the two main things I want to talk about is the numbers, which I talked about the last time I was here. And the second thing I'm going to talk about is the um city of reading's monies that they're going to receive out of this 120 114 acre development. This is the city of Reading. Okay. Um last time I talked about this, when they talk about developments, they talk about a family of four and a twocar household. So, a family of four brings 480 people into this development. A 120 homes to two cars equals 240 cars for this development. Most families have more than two cars. When we talked last, they gave us three exits to get out for a fire. The emphasis on a fire is it's gone. Okay. The car fire was here in 2018. There's no other fire right now. But the idea is that we're emphasizing the fire and how to get out from a fire when the emphasis should be about how this impacts the neighborhood that has been there for 30 years. 30 years we had on America right off of a shipwreck. We had a lowincome development created there that is a piece of crap. The homes are cheaply made. The yards are I mean just terrible. And this is you're saying 61% has to be below the $101,000. That is the median income for reading. And then you're going to finance a h 100,000. The city of Reading is going to

finance a h 100,000 of a $400,000 home which gives you based on a 6.25% 25% interest rate. A pretty darn good little pot of gold. Okay. Secondly, permits. I'm just using $10,000 as a basis for permits to build these homes. That's $1.2 million that the city of Reading gets just for the permits. Then I'm using $1,500 as the property taxes. That brings in another $300,000 to the city already. Now, is that Prop 13 property taxes or the property taxes that you base on the cost of these homes? You don't know. I know that for sure just looking at you. You don't know if Prop 13 is used on this. And I pay three bond issues to the go gateway school district and two bond issues to Shasta College which is going to go right on these homes and for these people.

And then you said you were going to do 50 I know your mortgage. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. How do you pronounce your last name? Um my last name. Yeah. However you want. Most people say Latel. That's okay. But it's my first name is null. I am famous this time of year as Noel. Ah, thank you. This is the Christmas time. So, can I can I can I ask one question? What was the what was the neighborhood that you mentioned that looked less than desirable that you I was taking notes and I forgot to write? Okay. Um, can you speak up? What What was the property? It's in the subdivision. It's on

What was the What was the subdivision that you were that you mentioned that on Americana Avenue? Right. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Please take a drive and see it. Uh Jack, you're up. Jack Baker and then Sarah Thomas, you're on deck. So get my glasses out here.

Well, good evening, uh, Councilman. My name is Jack Baker. Would you be able to speak a little closer to that microphone so we can hear? There we go. Is that better? Yes.

Okay. My name is Jack Baker. I'm the developer of Land Park in Stanford Hills. uh I uh they're joining developments. My what I want to address is the fact that we've basically got one way in, one way out. I think that uh transportation getting out of there is is critical. The Wr says it's fine only under controlled conditions and that's not what you have when you have a fire like the car fire. It was not controlled as panic. It was smoke. It was really every man for himself. The California attorney attorney general now tells every city that you must plan for chaos, not calm. And reading, if you go through the Wran study, it conditions its findings on control. Everything has to be controlled. Everything has to be organized. Police have to be out there. Everybody needs to know how they're going. You're going to be evacuated in groups. Group A, then group B, group C. That's not how it works. People from Stanford Hills and Land Park were I'm sure that they were just uh scared to death. My wife was actually taken out by a helicopter. The uh Courtzill Road was not the problem. The intersection between Kzwick Dam Road and Courtzill was gridlocked. people could not get through there. It was stopped. Um 2014, the city council unanimously passed a resolution 2014-95 requiring the city to develop defensible defensible space along the wild line wildland city interface 200 and some feet

and uh they agreed to do it within one year in order to qualify for FEMA money. 10 years later, it's still not done. It's not done today. And so we hear all this good stuff about how uh the city's planning for evacuations, how they're going to I you don't have the trust of the people with uh based on the actions that the city have taken in the past. So, I have a a specific request based on an offer that I made to the city some years ago to give them the necessary property from Buen Ventura, the south end down to Harland Drive. My wife and I on that piece through there. We said we'll give you the rightway that you need for a road so you can build a evacuation road from Buen Ventura down to the south to Harland Drive and uh they chose not to do it. I noticed that the city didn't choose to have the uh traffic consultant study that either. It was just left out. That's what a specific need. I'm not against a project, but you need to solve the traffic problem out there. You You got a safety issue. Excuse me. And you need to get that safety issue addressed before you put a lot more people out there. Why take a bad situation?

Worse when you can make it better, Jack, your time is up. I'm sorry. With the same money. I'm out of time. Yeah. Well, you are. You know, we were just out of time. We spent a long time up there waiting for the situation. Jack, thank you very much. Sarah, you're up. So,

are you are you up, Sarah? Thank you.

After Sarah, we'll go to Patrick and Patrick Archer and then Nick Gardner. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes.

Okay. My name is Sarah Thomas and I am appealing the planning commission's October 28th vote that approved the peaks tenative map for squa on the grounds that the proposed subdivision would not be in compliance with public resource code 4290.5 which recommends subdivisions over 30 units to have a secondary egress as defined at California code of regul relations 1267.01. The Peaks SQUA traffic study on page 24 states the project would meet the minimum number of access points required under city code and the California fire code. However, using spre as a second egress is not in compliance with public resource code and the California code of regulations. borrowing or doubling up on spre will negatively impact the safety of all residents not only in an emergency but on a daily basis. I understand that the regulations I am citing um recommend a second recommend a second egress and they do not require it. However, given the peaks was ground zero for a fire tornado and took the lives of four people immediately adjacent to it and CalFire has already identified egress deficiencies in land park, Stanford Hills, Riverbridgeidge and River Park subdivisions to ignore these regulations is reckless and disrespectful to the citings of citizens of Reading. In order to mitigate this issue, I hope the city will take into

consideration the following three recommendations. Number one, constru construct a secondary egress for the peaks to Courtz Hill Road. I've heard it stated in this chamber that building a second egress for the peaks will cost too much. But is the cost of an approximately 300 yard road too much if it saves Reading citizen lives? Number two, install gates across Keel and Steamboat that could be opened if needed during an emergency evacuation. And number three, aggressively pursue funding for the Buena Ventura Bridge that was promised to residents almost 20 years ago. Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah. Patrick, you're up. Then after Patrick again, Nick Gardner. Good evening, council and members of the city of Reading. Um, I lived in I live in River Ridge subdivision for 26 years. I live on Landmark Court, which is a small culde-sac. We have 12 homes. I've I've watched the studies that you've done for the traffic, but I don't know if anybody's taken in consideration the Bethl homes. I have a Bethl rental next to me. There were eight young girls there going attending BSSM which blocked up our entire street all the time. And especially when they have their little gatherings, there was a multitude of over 25 cars on a little tiny culde-sac parked in front of your driveways, parked in front of the uh fire hydrants. So, I'm wondering if they've ever taken into consideration the Bethl homes that could go into these new Peaks division. How many more people is that going to bring in? are counting on two. I had eight cars next door. So, I want to know, have they factored in any of that? Because they've spread out all through the city. They're everywhere in every track. That's their goal. But I want to know the safety of how they're going to calculate these homes that they're renting out like this all the time. And again, we were promised 26 years ago a bridge across Buena Ventura. And yes, we almost died. Thankfully, the person sitting out here was the engineer for the Quartz Hill remodel, Ron Demag, my neighbor for 20ome years. The day of the fire, I asked him, "How are we going to get out of here with Courts Hill being closed?" Because that was his project. He said, "I thought of it." He said, "I had him scrape a road on the side so we could

smooth it and it'll be it'll we'll be able to get out if we have to." Well, we did. And it was all backed up until I got there and the sheriff was there and I said, "Move the barrier. There's a temporary road. We can get down." Which he did. And I was the first one to go down this rough little road. But we got out. But when we got down to the bottom, Lake Reading Park is on fire and they're trying to get out. Every road was completely clogged up. So when you take into consideration eight people living in one house and all that traffic, was that calculated into that? That's my question. Thank you. Thank you. Nick, you're up. After Nick, we'll go Cheryl and Rich. Sure. The reason we have government is to provide safety and infrastructure we can't provide for ourselves. I don't feel safe around the reading and our infrastructure is going to hell. I think you should get that house in order before you start worrying about going into the land development business and constructing homes. My name is Cheryl Bullock. Tonight, the question that I want to ask you is, is there anyone out there with the courage to do what is right in the design of this subdivision? A longtime Reading resident said to me, "Here's how the city works. They do what they want, and that if it doesn't turn out well, the response is, I'm sorry, it's too late. There's nothing we can do about it now."

I can honestly say after two years that this is the road we are on right now with the city. I have indeed heard those words. Sorry, it's too late to change the plan. And before that, for months, I heard, "Oh, there's plenty of time for your input. Don't don't get worried about this. There's plenty of time." Now, suddenly, we're out of time. Planners, you say you've checked all the boxes and everything lines up well. Well, the act of checking the boxes alone in decision making is a hollow exercise and procedural compliance falsely equating the presence of a process with the guarantee of a sound outcome. Think space shuttle challenger here. Cal Calire recommendations have been dismissed. Citizens experiences have been dismissed. We know our first responder teams will likely be functioning with fewer members in the near future. Who will end up paying the price for these one-sided decisions? Jeremy Stoke, our firefighter whose life was cut short, his wife and children get up every day to life without him. This costly loss should cause our city leadership to change how they plan and lead going forward. This week, Jeremy told Jeremy Pagan told uh Shassa Scout in an interview that residents could choose to sue the city regarding the upcoming SEC report. Let me ask you, city staff and council, is this leading well? Is this the best you can do for yourself, for the residents, and for your own city? You could be so much more. You could take the high road. We shouldn't even be here tonight. With collaboration, these

issues could have been resolved months ago. It is not too late to make changes. You do have the time and you are out of excuses. So, is there anyone out there with the courage to do what is right tonight? That's the question. Please overturn this plan. Thank you, Cheryl. Rich, you're up. After Rich, uh Dave Law and David Ledger. I'm Rich Bulock. I live on Sper Drive with Cheryl. And my appeal is on a personal basis, and that is that the design of this project that's been going on for quite some time. I think we're on at least the third map that shows the plot outlines and at least one of the previous ones had no homes right bumped up against our back fence. And that goes back to what I think it was Charlie that spoke on the fact that this is pushed up against Sper Drive all the way up and down. And we have seen what great planning has been done with these new homes, with fire safety, with uh the front porch mentality, the park, the encouragement of people to gather in in areas and so on and and have a community basis there. And about 80 of the homes in this new development all have open space around them. And yet the plan pushes it against Sper Drive and takes away that open space from the residents that have been there for anywhere from 15 to 18 years. And I think that's just a poor choice. If you're going to take the effort to plan a new development and have the homes back up to open space, don't take it away from the existing

people just so you can squeeze in your 120 lots. And I was at the downtown market yesterday. It's a beautiful, beautiful development. The K2 did and they've also got this plan. If they can pull off that downtown market and make it look that spectacular, and it really is, they can move a couple homes in that map because they had them someplace before, but now they're bumping right up against Sper Drive. And I just think that's a poor message to the existing residents who has spent time taking care of that property and now suddenly that's taken away in an effort to give that same uh ability to to the new design ability to the new homes that are going in. So I would suggest moving those homes that are pressing right against Sper Drive and and fixing the plan while there's still time. Thank you. Mayor, council, staff. Uh my name is Dave Law. I've been a resident of uh River Ridge Terrace for 32 years now. I was also a uh firefighter for the city rating fire department for 32 years. And uh at the time of the carfire, I was retired. I had a hard time sitting here tonight listening to Chief uh Deputy Chief Sutherland talking about the EOC and things like that. And uh I can tell you uh the EOC wasn't even activated during the car fire. The biggest disaster in the city of Reading, they trained the EOC personnel. Where were they? Why

wasn't it activated? Um, car fire was seven years ago. We had the fawn fire coming into the Terror Oaks area. Was the EOC It was roaring in there coming down. Was the EOC activated? Absolutely not. So, I think a lot of that is lip service. You know, we're doing this, we're doing that. Um, I'd like to see the training records. I'd like to see Chief Sutherland's uh you know what his his uh I don't have the word right now but his uh documentation is to be a fire marshal. I mean any fire chief or fire marshal that oasis project I mean they they aren't firemen. They aren't because you're talking about people's lives. And that's the biggest thing is the egress in and out. I was there. I stayed and it it I was ready to leave, but my 32 years of experience, I can tell when to leave and when not to leave and was able to save my home and several other homes there. But, uh, that's the big state. People's lives, you can't replace them. And I just I'm not against development. I want to see it done right. It's all we're asking. We want it done right so these people can live in comfort. And uh your budget situation, I hate to say it, but I think you're going to go back down to two people on an engine because, you know, I've been looking at things and and you got people leaving your department, uh fire department, and because they know they're going to be on the chopping block. So, uh, I would like you to take into consideration you have the chance to change this. Like

Nike says, just do the right thing. Just do it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dave. After David, we'll go to Todd and Mara. David, you're up. Yeah. Yeah. Um, good evening council members. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today and I want to congratulate uh Mayor Latau for being elected mayor. Um, I'm representing today um California Native Plant Society, the Shasta chapter and then Sierra Club, the Shasta Group of Sierra Club. Um, I'm going to focus on the botanical. Um, the California Environmental Quality Act was was enacted. It was kind of a landmark legislation to uh protect our environment and also to allow public um input into um environmental issues when projects come up. And so my concerns around this environmental protection the California environmental quality act is their biological surveys and I find this on a lot of reading projects is there are certain protocols that required by sequ through California department of fish and wildlife protocols that they have to follow when they do these biological surveys and one thing they're supposed to do is identify all of the species um of plants that are on a project. They did not do this on this one. They did not even come close. There were like two willows, a cottonwood tree, an alder tree that they did not even identify. And then there were some rare or protected plants that grow in wetland areas. So when did they do the pro when did they do the plant survey? Even though this project's been going on

for about five years, 23 at least anyway. Um they had them do it in September and October. And the the um biologists, which you can see in my letter that I wrote, they they admitted that because it was uh past the blooming period and all the plants were brown, they could not be identified. So the planning department um response is, well, we'll do that before construction. Now, where's the public input? Because they're going to send over what I call blind botists that are going there. There may not be any protected plants in there, but they're going to go in there and they're not going to find anything because if they do, it could cause some mitigation required for this project. So, that's my number one problem with this is it should not be approved when you're not following the CDFW protocols for plant identifications. And um so that's that's the number one thing I have with this. There's other ones. They didn't survey all of the plants for some reason. and they stayed away from the wetlands. So, they're not following the the environmental quality act. And um and that said, I want to make a quick statement about what people said about the wildfire issue. That's another issue. There's an area where I hike a lot. I've worked with CD um with BLM on this and uh tried to get them to not cut down too many br too much brush and they did but everything came up even where they did intensive brush clearing and where they did less that I requested everything came up and it's like almost like it was before the fire. So that's something that could happen. Thank you.

May Mr. Ledger can I ask a question? David David, there's a question up here for you. No, don't be sorry. Um, you said that those studies were done in September and October. Do you have a suggestion of when would have been a good time to do those studies?

Yes. Well, um, in the CDFW guidelines, they're required to do them in the blooming period and it's particular during the blooming period of the rare plants. Um, because you can't hit every blooming period, but they're supposed to go back three or four times. They went twice, but it was past the blooming period. The same with um Patrick Jones gun range out there. The biologist for that did did it in January and February and then county sent him back out there again. And he did it in the end of May after um there had been no rain for 29 days and he admitted um all the plants were dead. I couldn't identify them and that was one of the reasons why it was uh rejected. Well, the land owners in the area won the case and uh the project can't go forward at this time anyway.

Thanks. Thank you.

Okay, Todd, you're up. And then after Todd, Mara, and then after Mara, Rodney, you're out there. Good evening, council. Uh, my name is Todd Buck and I am a teacher out at Foothill High School and have lived in Reading all my life. Um, I moved up to River Ridge in uh, 1998 and I was the only house built on Yacht Court before the for foreclosures happened. That's the neighborhood null was talking about. um that was undeveloped till after the car fire. I was the one house known as the lone house, the first picture after the car fire taken uh above us off of um the culde-sac that was that showed the the only house in the subdivision that was there was down. Um, my biggest appeal is we had an emergency plan prior to the car fire and the city had, you know, what we should do in case we have a fire, in case we have uh an earthquake or the dam breaking. The city didn't uphold their part of the bargain by maintaining that fire break, the natural fire break above uh on the west side of our subdivision. So, that's my appeal. I'm going to stay somewhat short, but there's some things that were brought up tonight that remind me some of those pictures that were shown. They're they are nice pictures and they show Quartz Hill Road in their in its best time and its worst time going down the hill uh with Bedum. It was crazy. Um, what we endured was not just people coming up

and down the hill and in that safety zone were people down there parked next to the diesel horse bridge taking pictures. It was like a parking lot down there. People outside their car holding up their phone taking videos and pictures. Um, I don't necessarily agree that that, you know, even though the fire is not on top of us, um, th those the the hillsides are uh were dry. They're dry right now. That's true. On top of Courts Hill, I appealed to this city uh within the last two months. If you drive up on top um where right where the vistas are, there's no lines on the road. There's no lines on Quartz Hill Road. I asked, "Can they be painted?" When you're going down that road, we have the barrier on the west side that keeps the people from watching the fireworks seasonally, but we do not have lines up there or a guard rail going down the hill. So, if safety is our utmost important, we need to do our job or your job.

All right. Thank you. And then Mara, you're up. And then Rody. Good evening. I did not intend on talking tonight when I came in at all. I'm sorry. Can you hear me now? Yes.

I did not intend on talking at all. Um, I'm from the south originally, so I've been through hurricanes and tornadoes, but I've never run from a fire NATO before. My um brother-in-law was a chief of Orlando Fire Department, so I'm used to firemen in my family. And uh my sons have fought forest fires. I was prepared for this fire. When ashes started falling in the pools in my neighborhood, I started packing. I was one of the few in my neighborhood in Riveridge that did pack and I was prepared and started packing my car and my husband's truck. I have to disagree. I did not go over power lines when I ran when when my husband and I drove out of there. My neighbors um I'm sorry I'm a little upset over over this so I apologize. Uh kind of reliving this a little bit as I'm sure some of my neighbors in here are uh rethinking that day. Um, but I don't know how many of you actually lived in that neighborhood, but running from that was really scary. And uh, I know my neighbors are are reliving that right now. A lot of them. And some of them who who passed away in that. So, a lot of you who are sitting here in these chairs weren't the ones that were running away and weren't the ones that were dying. And your neighbors weren't scared coming back. and you didn't lose your neighbors. And like the gentleman that stood there and that spoke a little while ago, you weren't the ones with the hose fighting and talking to your

neighbors afterwards. And I'm still shaking thinking about it right now and remembering how I was picking watching my neighbors pick up their lost pieces and people coming in. You weren't the ones. You guys, you were the ones that went through this and was scared running from a fire NATO. So, please, please listen to these people cuz you don't want to be the ones running from this again and going through this. You don't want to be the ones. And when you build that park down there with those kids, you don't want those kids running from this. You don't want to be the ones. So, please listen to us. And you don't want to be the ones out there without a bridge and another road to cross over that should have been there. It should have been built. We were promised that and the city did not build it. So, please listen. I beg you. Thank you, Mara. All right, Rodney, you're up. Good evening. I just want to add my two cents to this. I live in Land Park. My house was burnt to the ground. Uh I was at work that day. It was across the river. Who expected a fire to right race across the river in 30 seconds? Actually, 30 minutes. I experienced it. I took off soon as that thing crossed the river. and we could not get out of there. I was literally where Jeremy Stokes died one and a half minutes before he died there. The flames were coming across the road. I had to turn my windshield wipers on to get rid of the embers. We ended up on on Courts Hill. And it was pandemonium as somebody pointed out earlier. Just pure

pandemonium. And there is nothing I heard tonight that explains how you get more egress by using Sper. Nothing. it the the the bottlenecks were were were Courtzill and and KZwick Dam Road. They didn't they're not making any of those bigger. So, my feeling is it's an egress problem and it's BS.

Okay, with uh no more speakers, we're going to close the public hearing. Uh this is our opportunity. Go to Oh, I'm What What was your name, sir? Okay.

Yeah. Go to the mic. You're good. So, no. sir, we need to have you speak to the microphone. So, okay. Yeah. Okay.

Oh, got it. Uh just

before my time starts, show me explain what I was saying about the box and the documents. Anyway, I was advised by the city attorney to provide 10 copies of whatever I wanted to submit, which is what I've done. And uh you asked about an outline of what we were going to discuss. Item one's going to be information that the staff left out that I think should have been included. Number two is the south evacuation routes. Number three is the Wr and Attorney General reports. And if there's time, and there probably won't be, the points of access issue. Uh, my name's Leonard Bandelle and um,

Leonard, can I ask a question? If you wanted more than three minutes, how much time would you like? I didn't, you know, I timed it to try and get it to three minutes, so I don't know how much time it would take if I I mean, I put a bunch of stuff in the letter because I knew I was going to be limited on time, but um, I mean, my wife doesn't think I'm home to midnight, so we got time. So, Well, I know say I don't I think I can get all of this done in five minutes.

Yeah. Okay, sure. That sounds great. Okay. Um, number one, I I think this is kind of a fatal comple. The city is the developer. You've already spent $ three and a half million dollars of the grant money. I can't see how you can go back on that. I understand it's tough to be objective, but I think and the council will do the best it can to be objective, but I know there's a push from staff and other forces to make this project happen. And I don't think you've heard any objections to the project, just about how it's being done. Um, I've represented Mr. Baker when I was in private practice. I had to quit for years for health and I've been working for him in his office for the last 20 years. Um, I'd like to talk first about the south egress issues. In the year 2020, Jack offered the city and in fact, if you could, would you look at tab four, if you have that handy, you'll see what he was talking about about the connection to Harland Drive. that would connect Buena Ventura to Lake Reading Estates because my time's going Oh, I was given five minutes. Great. Um, so in 2020, uh, Jack offered that connection. It didn't show lots on it at that time. And, um, by email of June 15, 2020, which I've provided in the packet, Larry VPel said, "We're we're just not interested. the city's not interested. In January of this year, we were contacted by the then city attorney and the current city, excuse me, then city manager and the current city manager to come meet and talk about the Peaks project. We met and the purpose from their point of view was Jack holds two easements across the Peaks property. The city wanted him to abandon those easements. They're held in the name of creative living. Um, Jack

said he was willing to consider that, but his biggest concern was fire egress and until we saw the traffic report and what mitigations were going to be offered for fire egress, he didn't want to talk about abandoning the easement. So, we've been waiting for uh the traffic report and the um initial study. Um, I think uh David Schlaggel could confirm. I was calling him or emailing him regularly. Where's the traffic report? Where does it report? It was delayed. It was delayed again. Um, and at this meeting in January, we were told that uh the Peaks project would enhance Jack's development of the property to the south, which is the Alise property, because they're going to put in a crossing of a water course. Again, Jack was not concerned about that enhancement over and above getting something to benefit the entire area. Um, so and Jack had suggested putting the road in as shown in tab 4 and said that he would pay for the the construction of that road and bringing a water line down that road if the city could include nine lots on the road as part of it. But if that was not doable, the nine lots, he'd be willing to still give the easement provided the city paid to to improve the road down to Harland Drive. So that was what we were waiting for. Um, in August of this year, I was again contacted, this time by Mark Christ, I think from your housing department, and David Schlaggel about having another meeting about the Peaks project. It was fine. We met with them and they were again asking, "Are you going to abandon the easements?" And we said, "We still haven't seen the traffic report. We haven't seen any mitigations." Um and and what happened with the our offer on Harland Drive? Uh the meeting adjourned. The next day I received an email. The

email said, "Well, the city really wasn't really going to accept or include anything having to do with Harland Drive as part of this project, which kind of floored us because we've been waiting to hear a response to that. So Harland drives offered and that would provide an egress. Now the other issue is the Buaventura bridge. I think that's been on the city general plan for like 40 years and I had requested made a public records request to find out what submit what the city had submitted but to seek a grant to put in the Bueno Ventura bridge. All I was provided with is what is given to you in tab three. Not suggesting you look at it now. And in fact, my bottom line here is going to be to ask that you take the time after this meeting and decide which of any of these points that are raised by the people here or in my letter need to be responded to. That's five minutes.

And no, you can keep going.

All right. Um, so we we think this we think the council deserves to have some additional answers. I guess the initial issue was nowhere in your staff report does it tell you that when the first motion was made at the planning commission to approve the project. It was defeated. It went down on a 221 vote. The staff report says, "Oh, it was unanimously approved." But they don't tell you this thing was really voted down at first by the planning commission. Any event, we got the the documents we got on the Buenovvenure grant application showed that the city applied for a $120 million grant for a 1600 ft reinforced box, girder, bridge, and one mile of paving. Um, we've calculated, we our company's done a lot of road building over the years, and we calculated looking at the cost of the bridge at the end of Court Street, the one that parallels Diesel Horse, which cost around $9 million to to finish in 96, and use the CALR estimator. And that figure comes forward to a figure of about $22 million. We also built the mile of buenur road that dead ends and that was at a cost of $700,000 when it was built and would now cost around $2 million. So what we're saying is we think that the city the buenura bridge and the road could be built for about $24 million. So why does the city apply for a $120 million grant and provides no supporting documentation when it submitted its grant? On the grant application, it says provide provide estimates from a a qualified professional and it notes that providing that estimate is optional. I asked for a records request for what was submitted and I got nothing that showed an estimate. So, I think you're entitled to some answers on what happened there. What happened with that application for grant

money? Um then how did staff determine that a 1600 foot bridge was needed when the when the bridge the court street bridge is around 500 ft? We checked that we scaled using Google Earth the crossing of the Sacramento River. The crossing of the Sacramento River at the two logical places to cross it to bring Buenov across the road would be a pro would be less than 200 feet of river span. In other words, 40% of what the diesel the Court Street bridge was. So again, why do you submit a request for a grant for a 1600 foot bridge? Um, that would trouble me if I was sitting on the council. Um, this project, if the council approves it, is going to stand or fall if anybody takes this on on the adequacy of the WTR peaks evacuation assessment. If you read the first three paragraphs of that report and I've brought I've taken them apart in my letter to you, you cannot come away from that saying this this is a proper answer of this issue. And you keep hearing about the attorney general's report. Well, yes, and that report, the Writes the Attorney General's report, but in the 675page staff report you were given. Why were you not given a copy of the attorney general's advice on this? And I would suggest if you read the attorney general's advice, which is in the package, and compare it to the Wrans, you're going to come away with a bunch of questions on whether that report, the evacuation report, is truly adequate.

Okay, sir. I think we're past the five minutes, but I really enjoyed the information. Quite finished, but um I think you get the gist of it. Okay. Thank you very much for this. Yeah, thank you. I may be off subject, but I mean I'm kind of curious if if there is someone that thinks they can build the bridge for 25 billion. What I'm unfamiliar what is the process? Could they just submit a proposal or is that I mean I that sounds amazing. So yeah, I mean it would be a letter of interest submitted to the city of Reading and then we would work with our public works department to analyze that offer.

Yeah. Uh I I would note it if the city were paying for it that would have to go through a public bidding process. Um so there are some steps that would have to be taken there, but I I certainly think it wouldn't hurt to hear any information um about any any such proposal. It sounds like it could be something that we could use for a future application as guidance as that gives us the playbook of how to get it done, right? Yes, certainly. Okay, thank you. We could and we had a public works engineer provide the estimate for that application. The application was very simple. These are emergency funds. They didn't require a lot just to get the application in and but it was denied. Okay. Thank you very Thank you.

Um there's a time for comments, questions. Um councelor Resner, I see you up first, so we'll go to you. Uh actually, just to clarify procedurally, uh Mr. Mayor, um I believe that Mr. Bendelle's statement was part of the the public hearing as well. So just to clarify if you're closing it now at this time. Yes, we we will we will close the hearing there. So, all right, Council Reszer, you're up.

Um I am going to do something different than I was originally thinking. Um mostly because I really enjoy data and I would like to thoroughly read through um this document that we were just given. So, I'm going to make before I make a decision um so that I am making a decision with all of the knowledge that I can um so I'm going to make a motion to continue the item. I understand that that extends frustration for all parties on all sides um and makes things more complicated, but it really matters to me that I have all of the information that I possibly can have. Um, I also um would like to just share because I've seen that there are comments online that we didn't live through carfire and so we don't know uh what that uh felt like. Um and I just want to let you know that um I evacuated carfire with a baby and a toddler and my uh toddler had to find a we had to find a different route once we had moved back in. Um we evacuated three different times um that summer and it was such an emotional stress on uh my toddler at that time um that we had to find a different way to enter into our house because it was he started having nightmares and um it was really upsetting. So, I just want to communicate that that some of us do understand what it is like to put try and um put the things that matter to you in a in what you can and and get out the door. Um I've lived through the Jones Valley fire and the car fire. Um so I um had a little bit of extra time and

because I had littles, I left um early. Um but we lost uh 17 or 18 homes. um in my neighborhood and I drove past that. So um every day um I do know what it's like to be out there with my neighbors and shuffle through um what is what they can find. Um I do know what it's like to look um at damage and and depressed scenes on a on a regular basis. So I just want to say that when I am making a decision, it is why I want to have all of the facts in front of me because I do understand the emotional trauma that our entire community lived. um during that time frame. Um and I want to make wise uh developmental decisions. So that's why I'm making a motion to continue so I can read this document.

Followup question. Has this document been emailed to us yet or have we have we received I I had encouraged Mr. Vandal to try and submit the document in advance so that there would be time to read it. Um uh this is the first time I'm I'm seeing of it. So um if you do want to continue to to provide time, you can do that. It does not require you to reopen the public hearing. You can just review the materials in front of you and then come back at a later date.

Okay. Yeah, I think I recall seeing that email where we did request the suggestion to send that if it was going to be more than 3 minutes or 5 minutes or so. Council reser just a question. um we received this document, you know, at the last minute here, but if if we continue this hearing to another hearing and somebody else submits a document like this too, um I mean that can continue to delay hearings and that can just keep going like that. So I um that would be one concern is that we set a precedence that we can uh take this hearing, you know, to the future and somebody else can submit a document like this, too. But that would just be my feedback there. So I

if I may, Mr. Um, you also have the option if you want to take a 15 20 minute res uh recess uh to take some time to review.

I mean when you decide these things can I yeah someone has you want to go first? Uh before that, I'm sorry. I try to take turns. I think I ignored councelor Muns was up there and then we'll go to you. Is that okay? Thank you. Oh, that's all right. No worries. Um Mr. Webb, uh can you step up just for a second? Just one quick question. I just have two questions. One for you and one for Mr. Pagan. Is my understanding through our meetings that these current subdivisions the roads were built for future housing? That is correct.

And can you explain that a little bit for me? Yeah. As um development projects proceed around town, Director Pagan's department as well as mine uh work through the entitlement and conditioning process to make sure that subdivisions are ultimately built. Um so that as future phases come in that we have connectivity. Um it's it's a really a a positive thing as I believe uh manager Schlaggel as well as fire marshal Summerland laid out um because it gives uh residents within those subdivisions options on how to get out uh daily as well as during emergency evacuations.

All right. Thank you. U Mr. Pagan, I think during our conversations, we talked about these lots 78 and 77 for sure, but there was some setbacks within the property that were not buildable that created a buffer between the houses behind. Even though the property lines connect, there was I think it was like 20 or 25 feet or whatever it was that there was no building for this property. Even though they owned the property, they couldn't build on it. Yeah, there's there's an elevation change between those parcels. Um it's hard to say at this point what at final buildout that elevation change will be. I think the plans show roughly 10 to 12 feet in elevation change between those parcels. Also, um if finished grade the pad, we don't exactly know those dimensions at this juncture, but um at slopes exceeding 20% it it renders it non-buildable. Um, we can't really guarantee anything other than what the zoning code says for a setback. And so a rear yard setback is generally a 15t setback to the rear property line. And so you you are guaranteed that per se because that is codified. Um, likely with the slopes of that lot, it would be more than 15 ft, but I I can't say that for certain at this hearing.

I'm pretty sure we talked about a bigger gap. you. Well, you could you could add potentially easements or other mechanisms on the map to guarantee that this a no build zone. Um, likely it wouldn't be buildable because of slopes like you're mentioning. All right. But I don't feel comfortable saying that for certain, but you could you could lock that down with an easement on the parcel.

Thank you. So u the day of carfire I was visiting my daughter in New York and uh my wife with two little kids and two dogs was running in the middle of night because sort of houses were burning around us. So having lived through that terrible experience that I was not even here to protect them or to help them at all was just horrible. So I just want you to know that this is my perspective. This is the lens I'm looking at through which I'm looking at this project. And it's a difficult decision because we have need of housing. We also want to promote developments but at the same time we want to make sure it's safe. So I have a few specific questions for the staff actually. So the first question is uh what Nick brought up very wisely that why are we in the business of development rather than focusing on infrastructure and I know partly because we are just developing the infrastructure here and later on some developer may come and develop this uh these lots furthermore. So I do find a little bit concerned with that that that kind of creates these kind of situations when we are developer as well as an approving authority and that does bring some kind of conflict of interest in that. But at the same time this has been going on for several years and we're kind of far ahead into that process. I have been on the council for one year but this process has been going on for at least three four years. So my first question is just hypothetically not saying that which way we are going if this project doesn't move forward what is the money city's on hook for in terms of returning

to the returning the grants how much money we'll have to return it would be about three and a half million is is what we would have to return so I anticipate we would sell the property to a private developer for them so we could get the market rate out of the property and then pay the grant back and and why was why was that I'm just wondering what was the reason that city chose to develop it it itself rather than selling it to a private party in first place.

The the grant funding is limited to the city owning the property and the city having the the ability to create the infrastructure. After that, once you're done with that portion of the CDBG funds, then it'll go to private development. So, we're just trying to get it to the private side. It's very similar to what we used to do in redevelopment. We had property, we would stimulate the development for a, you know, to create opportunities for housing.

So if this project doesn't move forward, we are have a risk of three and a half million. But also signaling the other developers that this kind of issues can make it very difficult for any future housing project development. So I see those risk. Second question I have is for uh the bridge on binomura. So, you know, I think most of the people here know that I'm a big advocate of that. I've talked with a lot of you and actually I've been I went to the city of uh California League and I talked with several people to see how we can figure out how to develop this. Michael, Mr. Web, could you just tell us I mean you've worked with Calran and you are our current public works director. What is your is that $120 million too high or is this something as uh the previous speaker said or do you think it's really doable for 24 million as he said or is there somewhere in between? What's your sense?

This this my sense on that is that it really depends on where the bridge is ultimately located. If we look at the locations that and I apologize that Mr. Bendelle described the terrain directly adjacent to the river is very flat and it would it's easier to construct a bridge there because you can construct it essentially to the width of the river. the location in which they're talking about has pretty pretty steep bluffs on both sides of the river and would require either a longer structure, which is I'm assuming is why staff at this time or at the time looked at a longer structure, or a shorter structure with extensive roadway construction to come down the the steep slopes. So, you're looking at probably combinations of retaining walls and very expensive roadway construction to get down to a level to have a shorter bridge. My gut tells me that there's likely a sweet spot in there where it makes sense, but you still have to get from Bua Ventura up on the peak on the north side down to the river elevation. And that is very expensive construction. The portion of Buenov Ventura that was constructed as part of that project was relatively flat. So they're not it's not a great apples and apples comparison. My gut tells me that it's probably somewhere between those two numbers. Um, I would be ecstatic to build a bridge for $24 million if that was the reality. Yes. Um, I just my gut tells me that that's not a reality today.

But you think there's a sweet spot somewhere between that that it doesn't have to be 120 or I understand all the you're just a guess. I'm not asking you to put your number on that. And another thing to point out um very likely back when those studies were performed to to look at the costs of bridges um environmental regulation has um grown considerably. in California. Yes. And so uh work in the channel in the flood plane is very expensive um and very time consuming and very challenging. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.

So uh those are the kind of concerns which I see are kind of we are always trying to you know this is a decision which we are all trying to make in the best interest of the public because we are you are neighbors too. We live here. we work here and I would love to see eventually Buna venture a bridge and I can tell you that I'm going to make sure that we work very hard to achieve that result not going to happen tomorrow but I definitely will work hard to achieve that but those are the two of my questions but I'm actually just want to stop there and say

okay yeah we'll come back to you I'm sure you can think of more um got a couple questions um going through my list here uh This may be overlapping. I know there was a lot of information earlier, but uh just confirming the traffic impact study that that was an independent third party. Is that correct? So, yeah. Um the traffic impact study or the evacuation study? Uh yes. So, both. Uh well, address you could address that. So, I'll have Director Webb make sure I don't make a mistake. He knows them more intimately than I do. Yeah.

Yes. Both of those documents were prepared by Wr. a consultant to us through the housing department. Okay. Uh I know we can't guarantee um that only 6.9 minutes will be added to the aggress time in a worst case scenario. Um is that the max that we would allowed? I mean, is there wiggle room for more minutes? And we can't guarantee that six minutes, 6.9 minutes added, but um uh how confident do we feel that that won't add, you know, significant more time? So,

um I think director Pagan um captured it very wisely in his summary of the presentation. Um through the development of this project, the the city traffic and engineering team worked pretty extensively with WTR on a number of the assumptions um and how to really prepare and and model that evacuation assessment from a traffic perspective. Um those are not documents that have been readily appear uh prepared and it really is an emerging field if you will um within the field of traffic engineering. Um and then also given the sensitivity of of the location, um we went back and forth with WTR a number of times on the assumptions um particularly um the average speed, particularly the the length of the vehicle as well as the number of vehicles leaving. Um and we feel like we landed in a spot that was very reasonable with assumptions that made sense. Um we looked at um also two pretty large aggressive fires. One coming from the northeasterly direction and then a second coming from the southwesterly um direction. Um and I believe the southwesterly direction is a similar path to what we experienced with the car fire. Um, so from from our perspective, we feel like the report did a a good job analyzing uh what evacuation would look like. And I would also remind council that the project is um and Director Pagan may need to chime in here and make sure I don't misstep, but that the project really needs to evaluate its impact, not necessarily the baseline that is there. And that's why the report focused on the additional amount of time required um to evacuate that area as what as opposed to the entire amount of time it would take to get out of there. And I think that's an important

distinction to make um because through the entitlement process um we don't have the ability to condition developments to do more or to uh mitigate for more than their project um does or has impact to. Excuse me.

Yeah. Yeah. And I I might add just a nuance to that is um the attorney general's document is guidance. It's not law. Um it's meant for SQA practitioners and meant to help guide us when we're trying to do a SQA analysis on a what is a very new and emerging field in SQL, which is wildfire analysis. And so throughout that whole document, you have words like should, encourage, you know, try. Um it's it's not very declarative in in a lot of ways. And certainly we can talk more about it. Um definitely not an intentional omission out of your packet. We had 700 pages already given to you. Um so we didn't feel as though was uh didn't make the list but um that guidance document talks about to your point uh Mr. Mayor which is what is the threshold? How many minutes is the correct amount of minutes?

And the guidance says that um cities are encouraged to find what that threshold is. Now in our research and looking around, we don't know of a single city in California that has that threshold defined to the minute. So what we have to do in the absence of that m that exact minute is we have to gather all the evidence and data we can. We have to commission a study that we feel is reasonable based on good assumptions, passes muster with our technical team. And then we have to ask our fire personnel and our police personnel and our city engineer, does this exceed a threshold of significance for you in your best professional judgment?

And when we took that to them, they said, for all the reasons we've already heard tonight, no, we don't feel as though it exceeds that threshold. So the city of Reading doesn't have a minute. It's it's pretty difficult to do because largely if we were in another area of town, that minute would probably be different. It'd probably be a different number based on the roads surrounding the property and other conditions. I don't know that we'll ever come up with what that exact minute threshold is. Um we are importantly commissioning a uh citywide evacuation study as we speak because our general plan tells us to do that. We're hopeful it will arm us with more information for the future, but right now the best we can do is what we've, you know, delivered to you tonight, which is that threshold isn't defined. We can analyze it and then go, do we feel comfortable with this or not based on our, you know, best professional judgment.

Yeah. All right. If I can Oh, yeah.

I was just hoping to add to that. I think uh what you received just now from Mr. Bandelle isn't is is similar. Sorry, I was about to use a double negative to comments we got from Jack Baker previously and it's highlighting language in the WTR evacuation study that essentially tries to say what Jeremy just said. It's it's saying the intention of this evacuation study is that the traffic engineers are giving information to the person who ultimat ultimately makes the decision and arming the decision maker to be more informed about their how it the project would impact their emergency operations plan. And so at the end of the at the end of all that, at the end of this evacuation study, uh what the attorney general guidance says is it it falls on the shoulders of those emergency operations authorities. And that's what um this study was trying to do. That's what that paragraph that's called out in item number one in Mr. Vandel's letter is trying just to say basically. I just want to add to that.

Okay. Thank you. Um when I think about the uh the park, um I think about shelter in place, you know, viability. Uh it it may not be required, but could we give consideration to making the proposed park site uh more viable as a temporary shelter in place location if there was an emergency just beyond uh say vegetation management? Um are we considering any kind of design adjustments, you know, that could help meet that capability or I I don't think the park design has been developed yet. So no,

if I may, Mr. May there um it may be important just for the purposes of this meeting to clarify whether you're asking because that's relevant to the environmental analysis or whether as the project proponent um that's something that you would like staff to look at later on.

Yeah, it's probably just more a comment more than anything. So I'd love staff to look at that in the future. And um sorry not got one more question then I'll move on to you guys. Uh uh we've heard about the tree removal that there's um with the blue oaks maybe only one tree that can be preserved. Um, not entirely up to speed, but maybe you could briefly help me understand the the specific methodology for determining which trees were either small, in bad health, or had died. Um, any feedback to that? So,

um, just generally, our methodology of our tree management ordinance requires, um, a tree survey to be completed. So all trees over six inches uh diameter at breast height are considered protected trees in the city of Ready. And so a surveys uh conducted to identify trees that meet that criteria. Then our tree management ordinance requires that those trees be graded on their health. And so an arborist or a biologist or someone with the uh requisite experience and education and training will evaluate all those trees that meet that criteria to tell us which ones are healthy and which ones are are called um so-called candidate trees. your tree ordinance calls them candidate trees. If we identify which ones are candidates for preservation, uh then it's up to us to determine with that developer, okay, which ones are worth saving, which ones are not based on their health. And so you kind of whittle through the process and narrow it down, narrow it down, narrow it down more. A lot of times with tree preservation, it's very difficult because you have a lot of competing regulations on a site, whether it's infrastructure, roads, grading, wetlands, riparian habitat, so on and so forth. So you narrow it down to candidate trees and then of those you save the ones that you can. Our tree management ordinance doesn't have anything declarative like thou shalt. It's basically saying do the best you can to save as many many trees that are healthy as possible. In this case, um David probably has more of the details on the specifics, but there just weren't too many trees out there that stood up as candidate trees worth preserving. Okay.

Thank you. Council Muns, you're up. So yeah, do you have a question? Okay. or maybe a statement question. But it's my understanding that if that we sold this property, we give it to a private developer, more than 120 houses would go in most likely.

Um I believe that to be a correct statement. Yeah. Uh you can certainly maximize this lot to a higher density than we are. We are doing 120 lots because that's the requirement of the grant, but you could develop it to a higher density. Yes. And I believe, this is my personal opinion, that we're going above and beyond most likely what a private developer would do. Um certainly some of the enhancements we talked about in terms of architectural guidelines, um the proposed trail networks, the um the other, you know, the the fire harden and fire resilient construction. Yeah, there are definitely things we are doing as the developer that are above and beyond uh the minimum standards.

And um uh Mr. Bade, if we did sell that property, what do you think we I mean, just off the top of your head, we'd get how much for it? Uh we'd have to do a market study. We purchased it in 2008 for 3.2. So, well, I don't know what it's worth today. If we had to pay that back, we'd also have to give back what is it? 23 million. Well, yeah, we haven't all of the funding and we have not drawn all the funding. So, right now we're about three and a half million, but with the remaining part of the grant would have to go back. It would just Yeah, it would stay with the state. We would pretty much not request that money. It would stay. Thank you. Uh, councelor Resner Ser.

While we're at asking questions, I uh just have a a couple that I uh uh wrote down before the meeting. Um, oh, I'll ask some questions. Uh, Spinre specifically shows a significant that's that's the one area towards the end of Spker that shows a significant um increase. Are there any sort of calming measures that should this project move forward that we could decide to implement? We're making Director Webb get his steps in, he's going to come up. He told me earlier today he was short on steps, so I said I would do my best to help.

I'll I'll turn it over to him. Thank you for helping me hit my daily goal. Um, that's a great question. Um, I would not recommend implementing traffic calming elements along Spre such as speed tables, radar feedback signs, or other elements. Um, right now I would wait and see um how things turn out. um the the project itself, just the construction of the infrastructure alone, um will likely take two full years and then we will likely see um a couple years of building. My my gut tells me that we would see um the actual vertical build portion of the project proceed in phases uh depending on what um assistant city or excuse me interim city manager Bade and his team uh feel like the market is ready to absorb and that would determine how many lots they would put out for sale. So my uh recommendation there would be let's let's wait and see and not overreact now because we do not have an issue right now and we don't know for sure if if or when we will have an issue. But we do have um traffic uh tools in our tool bag or when subdivisions have speeding or other issues, we have a process for implementing those that we can do downstream. So I would encourage us to wait and see. Um, you might want to I mean you could go back so that you can get steps in case this pertains to you, but I don't think that it does. Um, is the I know that the proposed park isn't obviously fully designed. Um, but could we uh at some point in time during this process set aside a certain amount of of money like we do in uh traditional sort of development that would say we're going to put a million dollars aside from this project so that we promise that this park gets built out, that sort of thing. Those things that we impose on developers.

So for that development side, we would have a contingency and we would make sure that we had some extra in there for the un unforeseeables. So you get comfortable with development once you get above ground a little bit. So once we got to that point, then we could look at our contingency and see if there's something we could do. And at that point in time, we would also be able to or planning commission would then be able to uh put various different conditions on uh materials that were used and fencing or barriers of any sort. Would that between us and the and the between us between the new project and the current project? That's usually something that comes before planning commission. Talk for future development of the park.

No, no, sorry. I moved on to my next question. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That was very confusing. I'm sorry. Could you repeat that for me, please? Yes. Let me start over and be more clear. My apologies. Um, typically planning commission when they're reviewing a project and they're looking at um maybe sound barriers or some sort of buffer, those sort of things. In this project, just like in those projects, planning commission would be able to condition the types of materials that were used as far as buildout of the subdivision. Yes,

that would be done at the well for site design and site conditions that would be done as part of this process and then future buildout of buildings and homes would come in at building permit level. I don't know if that answers mostly mostly I'm thinking between the new development and the current development because it sounds like that that you know right now they have open space yes at the end of this subdivision obviously this was going to be a connector the entire time so yes I'm only asking if on those four houses could planning commission say we would like the fencing that is at the end of this subdivision to look like this

so is that The opportunity for that would be now um the because we would condition it as part of the project as a whole for those parcels. After this, if it were to be approved, this would go to building permits. So, planning commission wouldn't be involved in the issuance of building permits. So, if you wanted to place conditions on the map, now would be the time at those particular locations. This once those the home, it will not go back to planning commission if approved. It would go to building permits. um grading permits and building permits.

Could we talk about that? But could we put a pin in it so we get some feedback from those people that are developing as the options because I know this was like I've sat in on a meeting about the options for that. I'd want to hear them again. Sounds great. But keep going. Oh, that's it. That's the end of my uh that's the end of my list for now. Uh

um so I I just read the Thank you. I love tabs. I really deeply appreciate this and that you highlighted the ones I really should pay attention to. I read those twice. Okay. So, um, some of the issues that are brought up in here, I think I had the same questions that I wrote as the public comments went down. So, I'm going to try to address them all about the same time. Um but on page 11 in your tab two um it's talking about uh with this um attorney it is talking about you should not be talking about emergency conditions just in ideal situations. So I know several people came up and said you can't just decide on ideal where everybody's going to line up and evacuate appropriately. So do you want to come back up Mr. Southerntherland and address. Did we only talk about ideal conditions? Did we talk about total chaos? Um did we address I know obviously you've read this so you know like that's a condition that you can't it can't just be under perfect circumstances.

Well I think what what you need to look at with this is we gave them worst case scenarios of the fire condition. Okay. how the actual engineers and how they looked at the road conditions at the time. I I'm not privy to that. Oh, that's not yours. Okay. That's not me. But I gave you worst case

scenario. You're off the hook. Okay. Well, could Okay. While you're standing there though, they also said I did not I didn't get the impression that the sides of the um street had to be perfectly green and lush in order for them to be safe. But that was the perception. I heard that from several people like, "No, it's brown. It's brush. It's unsafe. So I if their impression was that, could you speak to what conditions about Court Street makes should make them feel like they're safe?

So most of courts wherever there's housing developments, it's developed and that is the green and lush that I was talking about. The whole road is not like that. Okay. Some it goes from very rural, some of it's up against county where I have no control over fuel mitigation in the county. I do however in the city property and our rideaways and that is what's addressed in CWPP for us to evaluate and determine the correct methodology to remove fuels or reduce fuels in the future. Okay. So you weren't trying to say that it's all green all the way in the green all the way. I didn't think it was green either, but I I want to that's it's valid that you know because

I this is obviously like feels like life or death. So this is really and it is it is life or death. I don't mean that I don't I didn't mean to and just the feeling in the room and I know I've been I had to evacuate a house fire so I know the terror that comes with it. I did not have to evacuate for car fire. So but I know the terror of feeling like you have to evacuate quickly and your children are in tow. So, um, the other thing I think that I'd ask and maybe it's you or maybe we'll go back to planning was I know that the teacher from Foothill had said about the barriers. I my first impression when he said that was maybe that was the county side, but did anybody else catch the area that he was talking about when he said it's not striped? Was that the part of Courts Hill closer to

I'm not aware of that agreement. I'm Courtzill Road, I'm told. not striped on Courts Hill Road up closer to KZwick or just at the bottom. It was hard to say what Todd was referring, but somewhere along Courts Hill Road, it sounds like it's the visibility of the striping is not good right now. So, I would assume it's on top because the new I mean it's not talking about barriers. I just like I I don't know if those So, it sounds like it's on top. The neighbors are saying that. Okay. Was there any other comment Sorry. Was there any other comment made from the public that you could address from what was said and maybe misunderstood or they understood it perfectly and you want to speak to it?

No, I think a lot of it is off of their perception of what they saw and lived. Yeah. And that that is what they felt and that's what they saw. Um, all I can do is tell you what changes we have done as a city, what other cities do that are very similar to us, and how fires are evaluated, and how evacuations are done in communities now compared to what we did then.

Um, that that's really about it. They have valid concerns. I mean, all of their concerns are valid. They live them. Um, but when you're looking at building systems and you're looking at emergency operations and how we do things in the future, that's how we're viewing this is that I'm not taking what not taking what happened back then and saying I'm going to take those exact parameters and say we're going to evacuate the same way because we wouldn't. We're not going to close the road the same way because we can't anymore. We won't allow it. So those same conditions in roadway issues, how we evacuate are not similar. They're not appletoapple comparisons anymore. So you have those types of issues. And I'm living in what I I know we will do as a city because we have already we have done this with the Fawnfire. We just did it down south with moving uh ridge lines. We have used this system to evacuate and to shelter in place already. So it has been used in our county and has been used successfully to evacuate areas of our town.

So um one of on the next page on page 12 because basically on page 11 of this um it it does talk about you know you can't talk about ideal evacuation scenarios. You know you it's asking them to properly evaluate just the danger and the risk and then the next page talks about how you mitigate for that. And so I don't want to confuse the mitigation with downplaying the risk because kind of some of the communication could seem like we're downplaying the risk by talking about mitigation efforts that as though a perfect evacuation plan takes your risk away. It doesn't. What they're saying is that you we have to have some kind of a plan and circumstances will be different. So that's how I read that is that you have to then mitigate for it. So when we talk about mitigation efforts, I I'm just really talking to all of you when we're talking about mitigation efforts because it's very clear. You have to have a very clear risk assessment um and then a mitigation for those things. So I mean this is actually very good instruction I think for what we actually came up as a as a plan. Um but again, it's just a plan. Um okay, thank you. You're off the hook. I appreciate that. Are you going to stick around for if any of them have questions? I saw somebody raising their hand. So maybe if they have questions for you or more concerns or direct concerns, they can talk to you after.

Yes. Thank you. If I may, council member, I just I had a point of clarification I thought was worth mentioning. Please. So in page 11, those those highlighted sections of text, I think it's important to note this is actually more in the absence of an evacuation model. Yes. Yes. So, if you back up to page 11 uh page 10, you'll see that the attorney general uh encourages us to do an evacuation model, not required, but it does say at that last bullet point, traffic modeling to quantify travel times under various likely scenarios, right?

So, that's what we attempted to do. That's actually what's referenced in the Wrand report. And then it says at the top of page 11, in considering these evacuation and emergency access impacts, lead agencies reading may use existing resources and analyses. And so what it's saying and what we've actually done in two previously approved subdivisions where we didn't require them to do an evacuation model. They use these bullet points in lie of an evacuation model. So I want to be careful. This bullet point isn't saying this is how you should do your evacuation model. It's actually saying if you don't do an evacuation model, do XYZ. And I think it's a really important distinction. I just wanted to make you aware.

I think what I heard from the public though is the perception when we're talking about mitigation efforts, it seems like the fear. There's many, but part of it is are you saying that we don't have the same risk because you're talking about mitigations as those take away those risks. And we're like, no, this letter is this is a great letter. This is a this is great guidance. Um, and I think it holds cities or developers or whomever accountable to really be thoughtful and think through these things and to and to validate these risks and then h have a plan for them. So I correct

I just it's it's actually a very good letter. So um okay. Um um I hadn't I just want to address some of the things that came up during the public comment. Um, so it is the city making millions of dollars on this because if we are, I'd like to know that we've got some real budget issues. And um, could you maybe I I know this is going to be I know that this is like a 3 to five year thing. No one's going to see a house for a minimum of three years, correct? If that. Um and this what we approve only is the structure the infrastructure there's no houses is done at the end of this once if this is a yes and we move forward you and it was all completed there'd be no houses

so this process and is probably a two-year process and estimated and it's infrastructure correct so um are we making millions on that is this are we doing this for monetary gain? No. So, the construction of this is going to be paid for by the grant. Okay.

And then once that construction contract is done, which we believe because we want to really push the design of this if we're we want to spend the grant. That's what the grant is to utilize to create this infrastructure and we want to make sure that it's a welldesigned well-appointed neighborhood. So, we are going to spend the grant. We're not going to leave a dollar on the table probably. But beyond that, once we're done with this project, infrastructure is all done and you have just dirt lots similar to what you see at maybe um Jeb Allen's out there on off of Rancho Road. You're seeing just dirt lots and infrastructure shovel ready those lots. When we go to develop that, we're going to negotiate an agreement presented to city council for consideration. And then there's going to be some buying and selling of the incomerestricted lots and the market rate lots. As those dollars come back in, some of those dollars will be used for the secondary financing on those on the income qualifying that you it's could get expensive. You're doing a hundred or $150,000 per lot at 61 lots. You're you're looking at $6 million. So we use so of the lot actually funds the work. It's workforce housing is really what we're looking at.

Yes. So housing, not affordable housing. Workforce. Nothing's affordable in California. It's workforce housing. Yeah. Yep. So those are used very interchangeably today. Yes. But those dollars has to come back in. Now we may say, all right, we didn't get a chance to really do all the development we want in the park. And maybe city council will say, you know what, take those extra dollars from those market rate units and invest them in that park. or city council say take those dollars that you got off that and put it in your revolving loan fund for other uh income qualifying housing projects in the city. It's hard to say. It'll be a couple of years before that decision is made. And does it stay in housing? Yes. It's not coming into our general fund.

No, we have a local affordable housing loan fund and that's where those dollars would go. Those are dollars that we control locally. City of California, our housing funds for our our requirements for building housing from the state of California, all that kind of stuff. Correct. So, well, we separate it. We keep them separate. Yes. Federal, state, and local. Of course, we would never coingle funds. Okay. These would be local funds.

Yes. Got it. Okay. And when we say that it's a 50-year uh I'm not sure the language if it's a covenant or whatever thing that's on there, we don't mean that we're going to be giving 50-year mortgages. We're saying that it will have that re that market or that workforce um subsidy for I know that there's some wiggle room on that but but between 25 and 50 years. Not that we're getting doing 50-year mortgages. No, we're not doing 50-year mortgages. It's a restriction on the property on the the restriction might stay there for 50 years. 50-year mortgage. It's a standard conventional 30-year.

No will be no or Noel will be very happy to hear that that's not happening. Okay. Um. All right. Okay. On the issue of Buenovventura to Harlem. Okay. So, I I I'd love another route. I don't want to I don't want you going through my river trail to get it at the end of Harlem, but I do appreciate the idea. I appreciate the effort. Um I'm assuming we we thought about that or figured out like what the cost of that and we don't have money to be putting into that stuff. Or maybe I maybe we do I don't know but could you give a high level 30 second why we are not exploring that

correct so because it's offsite and it's not conditioned with the project therefore it's not eligible for our grant funding.

Okay. All right. Um okay. Um can I ask I know um can I just I have sat in a lot of different meetings. We had that outdoor one. And um can I ask Allan, would you be willing to sort of talk about why this development is a good idea? No. Okay. You're tired. You've already given too many speeches today. Um I I mean I'd appreciate it.

You can say no. I mean you could try. I'll just ask seven more times. No, I won't. I promise I won't ask. You can sit down if you want. You don't have to. But I would really appreciate if you would. Okay, good answer. Good answer. Let's clap. Okay. Um I want to just um say that the most compelling aspect of the idea of this project is that we would make the area safer. We'd make insurance it would help your insurance rates. It would help just the safety of the area. It would be um vegetation management and um I mean that that to me is the selling feature. So it is such a hard uh I think um decision when the the the perception is the opposite. So I I know that you have a good vision for this because you've been out there. You I know you've been everywhere and you're exhausted. I can tell it's been a long

I'm not exhausted. been a long day. I I appreciate you being willing, but I do think you have a vision for the area and I'm not I'm not asking you to agree or disagree. Just like what's the vision for that and and how do you think it's going to be a benefit to the area?

Um well, a couple things kind of happened. I'm Allan with K2 Development and we are retained by the city of Reading through an RFP process to uh run this project on behalf of the city and ensure that we're using the state grants funds correctly and to uh get the most out of them. So there's really two things that we look at it. One, if I just took, you know, the project hat off and I just went from pure economic development, housing in general is the number one economic driver in a community. If so, if you're building housing stock, you're you're driving the economy. So, a $23 million grant in a community, usually you'd take that amount of money and you'd multiply it by two and a half to three times for economic benefit impact to the community. And in a typical project like this, uh this would be a larger percentage, but you'd be at about 50% of that would hire local wages in a public works activity. So there's there's large benefits to our community, especially in a time that we're in a financially unstable environment to bringing these great jobs and economic stimulus to our community through the state money that otherwise another city would get. And we would now San Francisco benefits or LA benefits. Uh whether this is the project or another project, we we want to bring the money to reading uh that we've paid our hard-earned money in taxes for. Uh so when we um started looking at where the money came from from car fire funding uh we really leaned into uh fire resiliency in the neighborhood. So, uh, we have actually hired RGA architects out of, uh, Chico to put together a, uh, design architectural review package that will go on file with the property to ensure that the when it's time for a developer to come in and build the homes, that the homes are built with the intent of the neighborhood. And we work with IBHS, which is the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety.

It's probably the most recognized by insurance companies out there because this is a severe fire zone. And so, uh, that, um, we would be the second project in the state of California to adopt a project that goes after those fire hardening measures, which would be, uh, non-combustible space, uh, around the homes of 5T. Uh, the entire neighborhood would not be able to have conduct combustible fencing material. So, all the fence materials, no vinyl, no metal, it all be non-combustible. uh fire hardening of the type A roof systems uh non-combustible eaves uh and exterior hardening on the siding. So, we're talking Stucco or Hardy. Uh vegetation management would be required by the neighborhood. Um the neighborhood is also managed by an LMD, a landscape maintenance district that everyone will have to pay into to ensure that the area around their homes is managed for fire mitigation measures. Uh we've also designed the neighborhood to uh minimize the slope rating of the neighborhood. And when you're in a insurance um your insurance underwriting, they look at your slope rating, which is how steep the hills are around your home to ensure because fire likes to run up a steeper slope. Um so a lot of the design in the neighborhood uh took that into consideration uh to ensure that we had a a better slope rating. Uh the reality of all of these measurements, if IBHS is still recognized in 3, four, 5 years when the homes are built, is that this should actually create a fire buffer uh for the adjacent neighborhoods because these homes are going to be very difficult for the fire to uh not only get into but to jump from home to home because all the homes will be uh designed and built with the higher the fire hardening measures. Does that answer your question?

Yes. And uh a couple other things we are going to do front porch living. Um we we actually won a project award about seven years ago for a project where most the homes were required all the homes had front porches. So also in these guidelines will be front porch uh requirements of all the homes to encourage neighborhood living. Um uh something that we see in a community that that drives number one thing that drives happiness is good relationship with your neighbors. That's why you see so many people here that are all banded together is because uh that's a number one driver of community is having a good relationship with your neighbors. We don't always want them to come and see our messy houses, but we might enjoy a glass of wine on the front porch and so at least we can do that. Um so, uh a big part of the neighborhood was trying to create that create the trail system. We took the best piece of property because the the River Ridge neighborhood was promised a park and they were actually given a a poor piece of property for a park. there's actually a drainage area which would not make a very good park. And so we took the best piece of property in this neighborhood and actually uh are going to grade it to be the park which is the highest peak in all of the the 120 acres. And so that will be graded out. It's right off a main um the main main uh road and it will connect back into the river ridge through a walking trail that would go to where that original park was. So, you know, ideally there's enough funding at the end of this project that we can really lean into that park and create something amazing that the whole community can enjoy.

Um, do you want to talk about for these four? Is it just the four houses that have the neighbors behind it? Your question that you had. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's something the city could certainly uh you could you as a council could put on is to create a greater setback requirement on those homes to ensure that we're not following the traditional 15t setback. Uh that would just be a condition put on the parcel. So the future home builder would have to follow a larger easement or setback between those homes and the adjacent homes. Uh which would have both a greater setback and there's also an elevation difference. So, um, certainly something I think you could consider and, um, I it would not hurt the integrity of the project and I think, uh, would be warranted for the neighbors that are adjacent to those properties and, uh, so something we could we could work through in the in the completion of of the final map.

Okay. All right. Yeah.

I have just three quick questions and not necessarily for you, but you can stay there because you might like to answer them. U, for me, this boils down to three things. one, can Jack Becker build this bridge for $24 million with a guarantee and a bond to make sure it's a success and is he willing to offer that to the city with some kind of guarantee and bond? That's one question and Jack, you don't have to answer this right now, but that's something which can be really great gift to the city. So the second question is is there any mechanism you see in the future uh this is more for public works and the city manager that could we kind of not not as a condition of approval to this project but could we envision a some kind of a bond or uh some kind of a tax district or something which can fund that $24 million. That's the second question. Can you answer on that second part? I don't want Jack to be put on the spot for this. I mean, it's always we could certainly look at bonding capacity for the bridge at some point. I think it's important to realize that all of city staff we continue to look at opportunities, you know, if there if there's a way to get that bridge, we will keep that in our

I want this to go up on the priority list. Yeah. So, well, and I'll let you know what I think we should let uh Director Web to talk about. They do have a CIP that they they prioritize our public works project. I believe it's on the CIP, but I'm not sure where the standing is on that project compared to all of the infrastructure in the city of Reading. Um, but he could express uh where they're at and where other funds have been expended over time. Okay. I know some, you know, there are houses up there. They do pay into a traffic impact fee and he could give a little more detail on on what has been completed to date. Okay. Do you want to do that? You know, just a quick 60 seconds version if you have. I think he's he's confirring.

Yeah. And then I have one more question after then I'll be done. Yeah. Um, council member Denuka, could you please repeat your question? Sorry. So my second question was, do you foresee a kind of a pragmatic possibility that we can somehow not just with the grants but also generate some revenue or with a bond or some kind of tax district to build that bridge?

Um, certainly. And I'll need Director Pagan to help me with this to make sure that I get this correct. Um, we do have the ability um through specific plans, right, to uh condition certain infrastructure as a requirement of development. I believe we've done that before. Um, Oasis Road specific plan and others. So, that would be something that could be looked at, but we're I'm assuming we're a little late in the game. No, not for not for this project. I don't mean that for the future. Other projects in that area. Yes. I'm assuming we could have that conversation. That would be something that would be brought to this body and part of that conversation could be collecting fees specifically for similar improvements or with some bonds. Yes.

Okay. That's the last thing I want to say is Jack brought up a very very good point and uh I am actually thankful for you to bring uh that point that that's a question and also it's a something for me is going to be a really critical deciding factor. He brought that if we give this to a private developer they do not have to live by this density they can actually build twice the number of homes that city is presenting right now is proposing right now they can build 240 right so no I'm sorry yes I don't know how many

how many more but chances are maybe more so can you clarify that and the two questions I have for you is this if you give it to a private developer What is the max they can build? Number one. Number two, given the legal framework, our general plan, how much if they decide if they come in tomorrow to build 240 houses, can city really say no to that or will be in a position that legally we won't be able to say no? then you'll be stuck with 240 houses in place of 120 and that you'll have a more of a density problem, more of a crowding problem, more of a setback problem and more of an evacuation problem. Um, so our general plan designation, I'm looking at my senior planner here, um, two to three and a half units per acre. So in in theory, a private property owner also could request a reszone of the property in the future. um you as long it was was as long as it was within the bounds of our general plan range. And so yeah, you could certainly see I can't surmise how much more housing could go in there, but for a private developer, they're going to need to make money on the project they need to make the most efficient use of the land. So a reszone could result in a higher density of housing. I don't know if it'd be double. Um we could do some back of the napkin calculations. I see my city attorney telling me to stop talking.

Yeah. So I just um I've got a slightly different question. I was going to uh uh suggest posing to the planning director. Um the reason is not something that you would be legally required to do because that's a legislative action. So um and I think what um member Duka or Vice Duka is getting at is um essentially what would you be required to approve if this were coming forward with a private developer. So I would suggest the density on the the um existing zoning. Existing zoning. Sure. So that would be a discretionary act in the future that yeah you wouldn't have to say yes to. Um so with the existing zoning you want to

I I can yeah I can definitely add to that there's two ways to calculate density gross developable area and net um this project's using net developable area. So we have portions of property the city's going to retain in parcels A and B park site. um developer could use those areas for developable area and build on the same footprint a lot more homes uh by just calculating the density a little bit differently. And so uh we we are doing it at a net density on the so we're of the 114 acres we're developing at 65 point something acre area and 20 or uh sorry 20% slopes encumber where density can go on that portion brings it down to 48 roughly and so that brings us a net density for the developable area of the entire 114 acres of what we're proposing to you and what I'm trying to say is a developer could look at the remaining area set it aside as a remainder and develop a a lot more units in that same footprint.

So they could theoretically they could say hey because it's 114 acre total so from 40 you are developing like 40 plus and they can say 110 so they can go up to two and a half times.

Well yeah at 2 and a half units per acre you're at you're at several hundred or more units of housing. So that I think we as a community need to look at including the neighbors as well as city staff as well us that which one I mean let's just say that if you think this project is going to increase the density increase the traffic problem increase evacuation problem what is the alternative if a developer comes tomorrow and says I'm going to develop the maximum density you may be left with a worse off option that may be a bigger problem than 120 houses I'm just thinking loud here. So, does that make sense what I'm saying? So, I'll I'll stop there. Thank you.

Okay, we're sorry. And we won't be able to stop that. Most likely not. Yeah, I was I was going to say I mean it's still a discretionary approval, a tenative map approval.

Yeah, the So, the developer would have rights to have a map approved as long as it complied with the findings that required under the code. And that was the area where when the planning commission was reviewing this um uh I think some of them heard some of the community's concerns but they really because they were not the proponents they really had to evaluate it under the same grounds as a private developer. You know they really felt that they had to to make those findings based on the facts that were in front of them. So unless based on the facts in front of you, you would find that you wouldn't be able to make those those four findings uh provided under the code, then yes, you would have to go ahead and and approve that project. Thank you. Okay, we're going to take a 10-minute recess. I wish I could say there's ice cream in the back. We can't afford it, but give us a year. We'll make recess very exciting. So, uh we'll be back here in 10 minutes. All right.

All right, we are going to start. Hope you enjoyed your recess and um we're going to start discussion here and questions. So, we're going to go to um we're going to go to councelor Resner. So, I just uh I simply wanted to retract my motion to continue. Okay. Um more questions, discussion. Is there a motion?

I I actually can I just ask a quick question? Okay. Um I think this my question to Mr. Web was not very clear earlier. maybe perhaps could do you have the room to bring this bridge up on the priority list and how would you do that?

So, so thank you. So, to be clear, uh the Buentura bridge is listed in our current citywide general plan. Um however, there is no identified funding source for the bridge. So, it has never been um included in our citywide capital improvement plan, which is a document uh that spans a 10-year horizon. It includes all of the um proposed capital investments. So that would be our our bridges, our paving, our sidewalk, um work to fire stations, work to city hall, work to this structure, anything that's a capital investment, roundabouts, traffic signals, street lights, all of it. Um I can put that bridge into our capital improvement plan. It will go into the plan um in the unfunded category, which means it's in there, but there's no funding for that. We can definitely do that. um what I was alluding to earlier and I just unfortunately couldn't remember the correct term. Um we could form a special benefit district which I believe is the correct term up in this area which would then require all the lots within that district. And I'm going to defer to Director Pagan to make sure I don't put my foot in my mouth in this but we could do that and require um

um I I I think what I'm I'm sorry I cut off Director Webb. Um the there there's some legal requirements with respect to the creation of a separate funding mechanism. Um most of which involve votes of the owners within the the area which to assess. Um it we are getting a little bit of field of the item that's in front of you. Um if you would like this is something that could come back as a separate

but there's some mechanism to put it up on the priority list put in a CIP and some other options. That's what I need to know. There are some ways we can look at and bring it back right there. there are. We could also um look at including it in our citywide traffic impact fee program. I would just uh remind council that if we did that the that would be absorbed by development across the city and we would very likely hear that from the development community that we're stifling development by forcing them to pay for a large number of infrastructure improvements around town and it would it would likely increase the tiff fee I would think significantly because it's a huge project.

No, I understand that. But there are some ways just a quick question just a follow-up question I thought of Mr. Pagan if you may will be willing to answer that's it Mr. Thank you. U just the follow up on my point earlier that if we give this land to a private developer they can increase the density. Could you just follow up on that is what if this private developer wants to put an affordable housing apartment building which is like for whatever number three four stories. Uh would that be possibility there? So, um, it's single family zoned and so they could come in and propose a single family zone neighborhood, single family neighborhood. And we were just doing a little bit of math here so I could give you a good number, but, um, basically if someone came in tomorrow, purchased the property, and submitted an application to develop, we think they'd likely be able to get 200 to 220 units of housing at the zoning it is today.

Okay. and you city will be in a tough spot then it won't be easy to just say no to that because that's within they're within the rights to ask for that. Right. Correct. They would they would meet our zoning designation. They'd of course be held to the standards and codes. They would meet our general plan. So the findings would be it would be difficult to make findings to deny that project. That kind of uh uh solves this puzzle for me. Thank you. Um the question we were talking about um recommended setbacks and trying to identify the the best lots. I believe lot 7273. Am I missing one more lot or two other lots that came up in discussion that would

78 77 78 and 77. So um I would like to see a 30foot setback as a condition on those four uh lots. So that would be something of interest for me. Uh, is that something that would be feasible in those four lots?

Yeah. Uh, if I may, um, Director Pig and I during the break were discussing some of the procedural mechanisms for this. Um, we were not sure that you'd be able to do that with a private developer developer, but you are the applicant in this case. Um so um rather than uh establishing it as a condition of the approval of the subdivision which is the subject of the hearing, you can just direct staff to go ahead and make a change and then I will defer to Director Pagan in terms of the feasibility of that specific number.

Yeah, when we were discussing that I think um it'd be a minor enough change we could actually handle that administratively. Um so it could be a director level change to the map um later on. I'm gonna look you comfortable with that. Um, so if that's the direction, we can handle that outside of the hearing so long as we're directed by you here tonight. Okay. Um, are there any of the lots that would be good for setbacks? I think those were the only four that came up for discussion. Yeah, they're the only ones that have houses behind them. Okay. All right. Here we are. Is 30 the right number? Um, that's what we were talking about.

That would be a doubling of our rear lot setback. That seems reasonable. I mean, you don't want to limit, we've heard from the the consultant team, you don't want to limit the actual development on the lot after setting up some buffer. So, 30 ft seems like we could achieve that. Great. Great. You need So, here we are. Um, we would need some thought if we're going to move forward or either deny the appeal or accept it or so. I'll make a motion that we approve the subdivision or what's the proper language? You need Is this one of those scenarios where yes means yes and no means no?

Uh there is that risk. Um and uh I'm I'm apologize. My battery died. Someone can hand me the um agenda with the the recommended action. Um I believe it's you'll be voting to um deny the appeal and uphold and to uphold the decision of the planning commission. Um uh and then if you want to add the direction to staff to make the change with respect to the 30-foot setback, you could include that in the same motion as well. Okay. Yeah, I'll make the motion to uphold the planning commission as well as the 30-foot setback.

I'll second. And and before we vote, just clarity um we don't get to vote because of our gut feeling. We if we vote no, we need to find have a finding and um is how do we address that? This vote is definitely different than other actions that we've had.

So So with respect to the the appeal and in particular with a secret determination, you really need to have it um that decision limited to um the um uh the particular facts in the record in particular the um the the gerine information. So like for the SQA um analysis for example, you you wouldn't be basing that on what you might do in the future. You're basing that on the project as presented even though there was some discussion about the other possibilities etc. Um and the same in terms of the findings on the appeal with respect to um the specific findings made uh approving the subdivision. Um you as the applicant and this is this is where this one is weird because you are both the approver and the applicant. you you also have ability to go ahead and give give directions separate and apart from the peel um uh which is where we got into the 30-foot site back as to any changes that you would like to make.

Okay. And clarifying again the yes and the no vote. I know that gets confusing. So yeah, deny application uphold planning commission and then the 30 foot and the yes is to deny a no is to yes just for the just for the record could you just for the record for your motion I agree with that. Just to clarify, are we do we have the ability to say that we have not found any reason or finding to overturn planning commission's decision? Yeah, we're upholding there. We're upholding because we have not just I want to make sure that we had the had the language that we have not find we we haven't discovered any finding to reverse it and well that's already in the

Yeah. Okay. Um and and if I may, I'm I'm sorry. I think the the motion when we were discussing it, I might have skipped over the environmental action. I would suggest for clarification, um it sounds like the motion is those actions recommended in the written um uh uh staff report. Um if the motion is the recommended action plus the direction of the 30-foot setback, I would recommend just clarifying that before the vote. Yeah, thank you. Correct. Okay. Okay. We have a first and a second. Uh we're going to take a vote. All in favor? I. All oppose. That passes 50. Um, okay. Where's our

I don't I think we have an item 12. No, we're just going to adjourn. So, we are going to adjourn and thank you everybody for coming today. Thank you.