Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I will um call the planning commission of April 16th, 2025 to order. Um Madame Secretary, can we have a roll call, please? Commissioner Mc Male, present. Commissioner me here. Vice Chair Lee present. Commissioner Bard here. Chair Malikov present. Let the record show all commissioners are here. Now, can we all please stand if you can for the pledge of allegiance to our great country. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. On confirmation of the agenda, we've had a request to move our number three from our esteemed building official to number one. And if there's no disagreement on that, we will have that as our first item. I don't see any disagreement. And we'll move number three up to number one. Um public comments. The public is invited to address the planning commission on any matter not on the agenda. If you wish to speak on the agenda item, please wait to be recognized under this item except for special circumstances. The Brown Act prohibits the planning commission or staff from responding or taking action on any comments made by the public unless it

pertains to an item that appears on the agenda. All speakers should give their name and city of residence. Please limit your remarks to three minutes. Do we have anybody online or anything like that? Uh we don't have any members of the public in the audience, just our building officials. So there's no public comments. Then we can move on to approval of minutes. Approval of the March 5th, 2025 meeting minutes. Do we have a motion and a second? Motion to approve. And a second. I'll second. Do we Do we have a second? Mr. President. 1B will be the special meeting minutes for the March 13th. Sorry, chair. Excuse me. Sorry. Just one second so I can read that into the record. Let the motion Let the record show. Motion was made by Vice Chair Lee, seconded by Commissioner Bard. Motion passes. Thank you, Madam Secretary. Item 1B is approval of the special meeting minutes for March 13th, March 15th morning, and March 15th in the afternoon, and March 16th. Are there um are there any requests from the public to speak on this item? We have no one in the audience wishing to speak. Do we have a motion and a second? Um vice chair, if I may, for the record, we do have some changes to those minutes. If I could read those in. All right. So, for the March 13, 2025 minutes, the end time will be corrected to read 6:45 p.m. The March 15th morning

minutes will be corrected to a 10:00 a.m. end time. March 15, 2025 afternoon minutes. The start time will be corrected to 10:30 a.m. and the end time will be changed to approximately 11:30 a.m. And finally, the March 16th, 2025 minutes will show the end time approximately 11:00 a.m. With that, um, incorporating those changes into by ref by reference. Sorry, I I have one other minor amendment. Um, I was not present on March 15th at the 9:00 am meeting. I'm sorry, which date, vice chair? Uh, March 15th, 9:00 am. Okay. That will be corrected in those minutes for approval. Thank you. Okay. And the motion will include those corrections by both the secretary and commissioner Lee by reference. And do we have a motion to approve with those changes? I'll move and a second. Second. Second. Okay. Let the record show the motion was made by Vice Chair Lee and seconded by Commissioner McFale to approve the special meeting minutes with the noted corrections for the record. Thank you, Madam Secretary. We're going to move on to item 2 C. And we're very lucky tonight to have Jeremy Frey from is our chief building official to make a presentation

on the functions of our building and safety department and we look forward to seeing his presentation. Thank you for coming tonight. Sure. You're very welcome. Commissioners, my name is Jeremy Fry, chief building official here for Cathedral City. Um, what I'm going to present today is is kind of a a synopsis, a snapshot of what the building and safety department does, what our overall function is. Um, the things we look out in the office permitting in the field inspection wise, uh, getting a project from start to finish. Um, so I'm not going to read word for word, but um, you I believe you do have the presentation in front of you. Um the building and safety their primary our primary function is to observe, assess, document and then educate. Um permite techs are our first point of contact. They're the ones who are uh receiving the applications, receiving the submittals, construction documents, um and any pertinent information that comes with that. um their job is crucial to the point where their quality control at the at the very beginning of a project, they're going to catch documentation that's whether it's missing, whether it's um uh missing information on the application or if it's just they're missing pages and in construction documents, the plans, the blueprints. Um from that, when they catch those when they catch those issues, if any, um they'll kick them back. um and the project has not technically started yet. Once we receive a complete submitt, that's when the actual uh permit application date begins. Um and that to that aspect that it really minimizes delays in the project moving forward because those types of things gets halfway through a project. Um things can they can affect the project whether it's an address, a false address, um a scope of work,

what's what's being done on the project itself. So those are the quality control up front is is crucial to that aspect. Um once the permit techs uh approve the project, excuse me, when they when they uh deem it complete the the application, it moves forward into a plan review process. The plan review process is we have an in-house plan checker. Um what he does is he'll take the project uh review the plans, review the documentation, make sure it's it's meeting the code minimum uh and the standards to the state and local uh jurisdiction, our municipal code. Once he approves that, that approves the actual uh the permit itself and it's ready to start construction. So from that aspect, um the construction begins, inspections start whenever an inspection is requested. So you know, we can say if it's a new single family dwelling from the ground up, we have theoretically there's nine there's nine inspections from start to finish. Um there are times we can go back if if something's not ready or something fails. um the inspector out in the field, what we call it's it's kind of the inspector's creed. It's you observe and you document. Um so in that aspect from start to finish on a project, the inspector theoretically we hope can take it from start to finish as the inspector of record. Um they review the documentation anything inspection wise from structural to what we call the MEPs is mechanical electrical plumbing uh energy requirements accessibility requirements which most people know as ADA um which we have a slide later on that we'll we'll address ADA and accessibility uh requirements in the code. Um, and then when we when I say educate, it's it's to the point where whether it's an inspector or a permit technician myself or a plans examiner, if someone doesn't understand the code, you know, there's always it's kind of like the law. There's always the letter

of the law and then there's the intent. For us, there's the letter of the code and then there's interpretation. We need to be able to explain that to the applicant, the contractor, the homeowner, whoever it may be. Um, and that's that's a that's a a big part of the inspector's job as well as everybody else is being able to elaborate that so they understand it. Take it out of code speak and put it into normal person so they can understand it. Um, and then lastly, investigation and compliance. that is that can range anything from a fire to a structure, what we call vehicle versus building, which you know we'll get those probably a handful of those every year. Um natural disasters, flooding like we had in August of uh 2023. Those are the types of things when we talk about we go out uh and investigate or search for compliance. We'll also work handinhand with the code compliance department if they're if they're finding something or receiving complaints of um structures that are uninhabitable from, you know, poor conditions, whether it's lack of water, lack of heat, lack of electricity. We'll go out and assist the code enforcement department. Um we'll make observations, we'll document, um and then we'll make an assessment to move forward with that building. Recently, in the last year, we've gone uh 100% digital, what we call um the CSS portal, which is the uh customer self-service portal. Here, you can pretty much do anything licensing wise, permitting wise throughout city hall. Uh building and safety, planning, we are all digital. Fire is digital. So, if you need a water heater permit 11:30 at night and you're sitting there and you forget the water heater is going to be installed tomorrow

morning, you can go online, you can scan it, you can click the submit button, you can go on the Cathedral City app, you can have a permit within 24 hours. We have expedited permits, we have, I believe, seven of them. So, water heaters, HVAC change outs, if you're doing a sewer connection, a residential re-roof, those are called expedited permits. what we refer to as you can pretty much get those within 24 hours. It's a few clicks. We go through the application process. Those will be submitted and approved as long as it's within a business day. Sometimes you might have them in 10 minutes depending on the workload for the permit techs and and the inspectors. Um once we get the application submitted online, the permit techs will go through do their quality control as I was speaking on earlier in the previous slide. um they'll push it into the plan review process. Everything can be tracked digitally on the portal. So each each applicant will have their own portal, their login, they'll go to their portal and it will show all of their work that they have from anywhere from submitted all the way through, you know, final projects. So they track their inspections, they track their uh any corrections, any uh questions they have, if there's fees due, you name it, it's on there. Okay. So, what we enforce and why? Um, obviously the California building codes. It consists of the non-residential, commercial codes, residential building codes, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, green, and energy energy codes. All of those in California have their own code books. The International Code Council, the ICC, they write the model codes and then what we call the legacy. Some states have their own codes. They base their codes off of the legacy codes. California, we have our own standards. We have our own

books for each discipline. Um, disability accommodations, most commonly known as ADA or accessibility. Those those codes are are in uh excuse me, the California Building Code 11A and 11B. Those are chapters that addresses accommodations for public housing as well as public public buildings. We'll address that a little bit in the next coming slides. Solar energy requirements that'll be in the energy code. Um and make a quick note of this. Uh Commissioner Malikov requested a few of these specific subjects that we touched base on and this is one of them as well as the uh accessibility and the green standards. Um the green standards will also address EV charging and the requirements for EV charging stations for new construction. All right. All right. Now get let's get into the weeds. So uh the first slide you'll see is is the requirements for what we call accessibility. uh chapter 11b a lot of the there's a lot of uh there's a lot of um crossover from 11 A to 11B but the most commonly that we're always using and the most uh complaints we get is parking and that is where accessibility starts. So what we call site arrival. So if you look at the very top, at least one accessible route shall connect accessible buildings, accessible facilities, accessible elements, and accessible spaces that are on the same site. So the minute you cross into a parking lot, whether it's a private parking lot or public, that's when the building code kicks in. So if you're walking down a sidewalk along a street, that's going to be more on the engineering public work side. But as long as we have a a path of travel from the public to the accessible entrance of the building, that's what we're that's what we're looking at. And then it goes

through parking. It goes through um what's called your accessible route. So when you're looking at the parking slide to the right, there's minimum requirements on width, length, and then how many spaces that is required. So, you have a van accessible space, you have an accessible aisle, and then you'll have a standard um accessible parking space. So, each one of those has its own own numbers. I can I can get more into detail on that. It's probably fall asleep if I keep going on that, but uh the minimum width for a van space is 12 ft. The minimum access aisle is 3 ft, excuse me, 5T. And then the the standard car accessible car space is 9 ft. Each one of those is 18 feet long or 18 feet deep. The required parking itself, you need one accessible space for every 25 standard parking spaces. So if you walk into a parking lot, and I know everybody when you leave, you're going to walk pull into a parking lot and say start counting and say, "Well, they got one and they got two." Sometimes businesses and and parking lots or at least owners of of complexes, they'll go above and beyond. They'll put two or three when really one is only required. One van accessible parking spot for every six standard accessible parking spots. So, when you see a van, you'll probably see a standard next to it. If a van's by itself, it's because they're just putting the van in. The van will take care of the single spot itself and the van. So, there's a lot of interpretation in there, but if you only see a van parking spot, it's because they had the space and they put it in there. Um, if if you do have uh complaints or if we do need to field complaints, if someone uh Mr. Commissioner Malikov earlier said there's possibly tripping hazards

throughout the streets or walking in the buildings. Um on our city website under the building and safety page, there is um a a link that says forms forms online. The very first link is called it's ADA complaint form. What that will do is you um the reporting party will fill that out and they can either send it directly to the building email. They can send it to myself or you can go on to the city's app or the website where it says contact us. Anything any any way that you need to communicate with us will get to us. Um, and then if it's actually a building uh issue or accessibility feature that was maybe removed, we will go out and address that with with the property owner or the manager. All right. Next uh discipline would be uh energy. So title 24. So there's there's certain requirements on buildings both residential and non-residential. Um, I I try to keep it as as as simplify simple as possible and and keep it um consistent with the code without having to go into extreme detail. But the residential requirements and there you see the asterisk up there. If a new project and these are all this is all new construction. If a new project comes in and if they are proposing solar on their project, none of this matters. If they don't propose solar, all of this matters. That's the easiest way I can explain it. So, on a single family or two family dwelling, if they're not proposing a solar system, they have to provide what's called a 250 ft designated rooftop solar zone. And what that is is 250 ft uninterrupted. No vents, no skylights, no really anything coming

through it. It's got to be flat. It's got to be blank roof for them to actually put a solar system in the future. Okay. Um ESS ready, that's battery backup or at least energy storage system. A lot of people are getting those. They're the solar companies are giving them away like hotcakes because the uh the state is actually providing very high very um I guess it would be a high very good incentive for uh battery systems like they were for solar panels 5 to 10 years ago. Now the batteries are it's the hot ticket item. So, battery ready system on a brand new on a brand new build construction, it's required you have at least a 1-in conduit or a raceway and then be able to provide a 60 amp breaker for that for that uh um battery system. Also, a 225 amp, what's called a 225 amp rated main service panel. Okay. So, what that's going to do is it's going to be a little higher than a normal 200 amp panel on a new home. It's going to give you a little extra room so you can put that breaker in there. That's the easiest way I can explain that if that makes sense to you guys. Okay. Non-residential requirements, it's the same if they don't propose solar and ESS an ESS system is not required. So, battery systems are not required in non-residential. However, multif family and commercial, they need to provide a 250 ft solar zone. Um, if they do not provide or at least propose solar, any structure included in the project that's within 250 ft of the main building should have solar zone on it. So, let's say you've got a 10,000 ft building going up. If they have parking structures, shaded structures within 250

ft of that building, those parking structures need to provide at least 250 ft of openness so they can build uh solar in the future. Um solar zone minimum 15% of total roof area. So on that 10,000 ft building, they need to prevent, excuse me, provide 15% of that total square footage of that building. If they can't get 15% on that building because there's obstructions everywhere, they need to put it on those accessory structures. So, the parking structure um if they had, you know, any type of um let's say cooling structures or anything that that has to do with that main building in that project scope, they need to be able to provide that 250 ft there. Uh California green building standards. So the EV charging EV EV charging and the requirements is probably one of the most gray areas when it comes to new construction. There's there's three basic categories. There's EV capable, there's EV ready, and there's EV supply equipment. EV capable is the most standard requirement for any new construction. They need to provide or show us that there's room in the main service panel or a sub panel. and they need to provide a 1-in conduit going to somewhere where a vehicle may be. So, let's say I'm the I'm the main service panel and there's five parking spots. Okay? One of those parking spots needs to be provided EV capable. All right? So, what they'll do is they'll run a 1-in conduit from me to you and they'll put a box there and that's it. They're good. That's EV capable. EV ready is the same thing I just said

as well as running the wire and running the actual what's called a box or the fixture. So a plug that needs to be in that's actual EV ready EV vehicle supply equipment is ready to go. So you can drive up, you can plug in and you're ready. You can you're charging. So those are the three aspects. Keep in mind as we're as we go to the next slide when the requirements are EV capable, EV ready and EV uh supply equipment. Any questions before I go to the next slide? Hold it to the end. Okay. Sure. So, the requirements for single and two family dwellings with an attached garage. That's that's the kicker. Um they need to install a 1-in conduit connecting main panel to what's called a listed box. So, anything that's recognized in the electrical code. So, you'll see if you if you built a new house or if you've boughten a house within the last probably 15 years in your garage, you're going to see a plug or a blank spa blank plug that's got conduit running from there all the way to the panel. There's going to be a little sticker on it, too. It'll say EV. Okay, that's EV capable. Um, and that is going to be capable of supporting a 40 amp outlet. So that's going to be blank spa in the excuse me blank space in the main service panel. Um there is an exception and not 40 amp is not required to be dedicated in close proximity to a proposed EV charger. So if there is already one there or let's say you got a threecar garage, if there's one in the two-car garage, you don't need to put a third one in there. Multif family and hotels projects with greater than tw 20

dwelling units so more than 20 rooms 10% of the total parking spaces shall be EV capable and the breaker at the electrical panel labeled EV capable 25% of total parking spaces shall be EV ready. So if you have 100 you if you have 100 parking spaces 25 of those need to be EV ready and 5% of the total parking spaces shall be EV supply equipment. So let's say if you know we're building a new hotel or apartment complex. If there's 100 spaces, five of those are going to be ready to go. You'll be able to pull up at the end of the project, plug your car in, and you're charging. Projects with less than 20 dwelling units. 10% of total parking spaces shall be EV capable. The exception is equal number of level two charging stations are installed. So level two means that's kind of your standard charging vehicle charging station. As long as they have two of those installed, that stuff doesn't matter. 10% does not matter. And then 25% of total parking spaces shall be EV ready. Um, so the green building standards for what we call non-residential, so commercial projects, uh, along Perez Road, all the commercial buildings are industrial. This chart here, I mean, it's pretty self-explanatory. gives you the total number of parking spaces that they're proposing, the number of EV capable spaces required, and the number of EV uh capable spaces if the EV um supply equipment is not installed. Uh really quick on the right, medium heavy duty charging for warehouses, grocery, and retail. So, I'll use the the big guys down the street. Starts with A and M ends with

Amazon. Um that's heavy that's medium heavy duty. So when they're charging their trucks and their vans that's a medium heavy duty charge. Okay. So electrical systems must meet the minimum power requirements. What happens is is when you have that many vehicles they need to propose to us that that project is capable of maintaining charging that many vehicles at one time. Okay. Um and then medium medium heavy duty the quick definition equals trucks, vans, buses greater than 10,000 pounds. So most of them are delivery delivery vehicles, commercial u uh semis. So the one exception to all this is if the local authority determines there's no power available from the utility, the utility cannot provide enough power. Extra utility upgrades needed for compliance would significantly increase the price of the project. we can step in and say all right propose to us what you can do. So that's where we have the jurisdiction of stepping in and saying um for instance IID had had an issue with a couple of projects in the east valley. Um there were there were times where they would have to st step step in and say we can't do it. We can't we can't supply the power to put that many EV charging stations on this project. Okay. A question about the uh if the compliance would significantly increase construction costs. Does that become a discretionary thing at the city level? Is it a is it a planning commission? Is the city council at what? Who's making that determination that it's too expensive? Typical it will start with me. Okay. It'll start with me and then it'll climb up the ladder. Um normally when they submit their project to the utility, the utility will tell them right off the bat, "Yep, no problem.

They put us in there as a not a middleman but discretion. So you know the project will come to us. It'll also go to the utility. They'll come to us and say hey these requirements are they're we will not be able to build the project because of the price that it's going to cost us. We can we do have the authority to say okay propose to us what you think you can do and then we'll review it from there. Okay. Question. So are we are you are you done now? Uh I believe there's the next slide is questions. So that yeah that's we're we're done with we're done with the actual presentation. So um it does drum up some questions though. Absolutely. So, back on the slide you just had, was was any of that would this be only new construction or did any of this have to go say on I forget the name of the project on date palm where the uh mega dollar store is and Planet Fitness and and those types of things that are happening there. And there's a new company coming in and they're repaving and painting which is wonderful. But did any of this apply to that or is it only new construction? It is only new construction. It's only new. Yes. When they, let's say they come in and they want to install EV charging. Mhm. This will apply, but they have to want to, which is a cost that they're going to want to pay. I'm just curious cuz that's a very large parking lot with lots of businesses and there are no EV. And I believe uh the lots are divided up. It looks like it's one big complex, but I believe the lots are divided up. You'll be able to tell me. And there's not a whole lot of handicap or disabled, sorry, there's not a lot of disabled parking places in that center. Sure. So, to answer your your first question, it's it is only new construction. Okay. So,

if they do plan on coming in and they want to they want to add EV charging stations, this will kick in, right? So, even though they're pulling permits, they're putting in landscaping, they're redoing all the tarmac and all that type of stuff, that doesn't trigger a That is correct. All right. That's a bummer. So, and then to answer your you briefly mentioned um uh ADA or handicap parking that does trigger when they come in and they bring in the new business proposal. Luckily, planning department as well as building and engineering, we all work very closely with that. Um, and if there is a refresh needed, then there is certain amount of parking that they'll need to provide, especially if they're doing some tenant improvements. Oh, that's great cuz there is not very much there. So, that's awesome. Okay, Commissioner McFale. Okay. Well, first of all, thanks very much for providing the presentation in advance. You're welcome, which is something I have mentioned in the past, which we don't get very often. So, it's nice to see the presentation so we can maybe ask some useful questions, which we've already had. Um I guess I might just ask about the the slide that's on the screen right now actually. Um where you know for example if we look at um 26 to 50 spaces they're meant to have eight capable spaces which simply means one fine day there could be something installed but there's nothing actually there beyond the power supply. That is correct. Correct. And then two, if they're if they're proposing 26 to 50, two of those spaces should have equipment shall have shall have. So they they will be required that they put in electrical vehicle supply equipment. So those two spaces when that project is complete, you will see two charging stations. The one thing that it's it's it's hard to

explain sometimes is when we say charging stations, it doesn't necessarily need to be a big Tesla Power Wall box that you know is freestanding in the middle of the parking lot. It can be a just a a small stand which you can pull in and just charge it. Let's say the difference between um I don't have an electric vehicle, but from what I've observed, the difference between let's say maybe a Prius or a a Volt, a Chevy Volt, what it's literally it's a plug. You know, you can plug your car into an outlet in the wall. It's a It's a little different than normal compared to what's the Tesla uh superchargers, which is a freestanding box with a giant plug on it. So, those are It's EV. TV capable. That's an EV charging station. There's just there's different magnitudes to it. Okay. Um, you probably know that you'll probably have to get ready for some major education the staff in terms of the the permitting process and the how that relates to zoning code because we're about to do our updates. That's going to be big educational exercise for the staff. I'm sure you mentioned I think earlier on in the presentation um about how there are nine inspections that are part of the the menu things that you have to do. Are they um all state requirements or a mixture of local and state requirements that we have? So the easiest way to explain that is is and um when I say nine inspections I use I always use a single family dwelling a brand new house. So from start to finish there's nine required inspections. Um, different jurisdictions will put might add an inspection in there sooner or later. So, what you're going to have is you're going to have a ground plumbing inspection. You're going to have a footings and foundation inspection. Then you can start going vertical. Then you'll have what's called a roof nail inspection. You'll have what what we call a sheet and shear or an okay to wrap. So, when you see a house um

getting ready to be what's called dried in, it's the L in the paper and they're getting ready to stuckle it. That's one inspection. Once that's done, what we have is what's called a combo inspection. That's your framing, electrical, mechanical, plumbing. That is a that's a milestone inspection. We're giving them the the okay to cover everything up on the inside of the house and insulate. Then there's an installation inspection, a drywall inspection, and then a building final. Back to the solar for a second. Sure. Um, pardon me, Commissioner McNeel, I'm so sorry. Can we speak into a little way about two centimeters away from it? Sorry. Um, yeah. um the requirements and the mandry measures you showed also talked about how the lack of a power supply or coming from the utility would put that all out. You know that some someone determines you determine utility determines that we can't supply um power. So those those um requirements are are moot then it doesn't matter. Not necessarily. Okay. Normally if if it gets to that point I I haven't been to that I haven't had to make that decision yet. It hasn't gotten to my desk. It has been made before it's gotten to me. Um but in this case what we do is we try to get the most out of them as as we can. So let's say if they needed 20 and 20 EV charging stations or EV supply equipment and really their budget would only allow them to put in five, we would work with them. It's that is the last case scenario to that's the easiest way I can explain. Do you have a sense from your experience how often that is an issue for us that there's no power, we can't do this? No. Hasn't come up. No sir. Yeah, that's good to know. Um it does happen though on the other side of the valley with Imperial Irrigation District quite a

bit. Yeah, they ask people to put in generators and they don't have the capacity that we do and it's a real issue. But we're lucky we um don't have that. So the various um e I'll just stick to EV charging for a moment because I am an EV car owner. Um you've gone through the uh definitions and the the mandatory measures that we have. Are these the sorts of things this is maybe for our planning staff. Are these the sorts of requirements and regulations that could be looked at as part of our zoning code update to see if there's anything that could be improved and modified for the future? So, um I think it could be discussed. I I just would not these requirements are the building code. The building codes get updated every three years, right? And so, um, there the there's no, um, if there was a need for redundancy, I could see that, but, I'm not sure at this point that there would be a need for redundancy since it's covered through building and safety. Got Yeah. Okay. I think something else to think about is you have the zoning code, but you also have local amendments to the building code, and that's a possibility as well. So if the city wanted to set a stronger standard than what the state requires to set a higher minimum, that is something you can do through local amendments to the building code. Uh so right now this year we're going to go through an adoption for the 2025 uh California building code. That's a possibility. So I think if there is a desire and you know this is a policy direction that the city wants to undertake, we do have that authority to express that through the adoption of the building code. And at least in that sense, you're not creating a potential conflict between the zoning code and the building code. Yeah, I know. I know it's a a tight rope between letting development happen plus the sort of things we would like to see, but uh I you know, I think I do think uh EV

charging is something that we should be conscious of as we go forward because it is something of a growth industry. And from personal experience, you know, I I go down to the Palm Desert Target all the time to do my charging. and be nicer we had something local to do and give Cathedral City some sense when I do it as well. So anyway, on that aspect, M uh Commissioner McFale is is you will see that um and you see it more often in big box stores, the companies that have the the capital to do that. Um I call it they're they're just doing their due diligence without having to do any work or bringing in new construction. They'll just go in and and they'll have the money to do that. Nope. Okay, we're let's go out and put 10 charging stations in. They just it's because they have the money to do it. Um and they have the space and the infrastructure capability to do that. So, thank you very much. You're welcome, Commissioner. Thank you. Um just a little bit of information for another EV owner here. So, the the thing you were struggling for, the difference between those great big chargers and the the EVSC ones. EVSC would be a level two and the big one is a level three. Right. So, um thank you. It's okay. Um I wanted to go back a minute um to partly to education and also to how residents uh deal with um permits and so on. Um, I'm wondering whose responsibility is if if I'm employing a contractor, a licensed contractor, um, is it their responsibility to get the permits and do what is appropriate? Do I have to check with the city to find out if I need permits? Who who's the onus on in in that situation? So, there there it's actually that's a two-part

question. Um, ultimately it is your call as the homeowner. You can pull the permit as what we call owner builder. Okay? When you do that, all liability lands on you as the homeowner. Um, if you want the the licensed contractor to pull the permits, they can as well. Um, typically what happens is if let's say you pulled a permanent owner builder, what we require is it's just there's a couple signature boxes saying that you are um obtaining full liability for that project. Um whether it be a basic, you know, water heater change out or if you're building an ADU and remodeling your entire house, you can do that. Um, from from the contractor standpoint, I have always always recommended to have the contractor pull the the actual permits themselves. It's not saying that pulling an owner builder is a is a bad thing. The problem or the issue that I've seen my entire career is the owner builder wants to pull the permit because it'll save them a little bit of money. And the issue with that is if you've never done it before or let's say you're not if a lot of times they'll pull a permit owner builder and they're a contractor themselves. They know the process. They know how it works. The issue is is if they pull an owner builder and they don't know um there are there there won't it's not that there may be issues there will be issues and it delays the project. So what it is is it's it's more of a setting setting the standard and giving them their education upfront. Just telling them, hey, you're you more than welcome to do it. We will help you as much as we can, but there are there are issues that that can arise if you if you've never done it before, right? But um I want to go a little bit different to that and say, so you know, my water heater's gone out, so I need to get a

new water heater. So, I call a plumber that I trust, who's a licensed contractor, and I say, "Oh, I need to get a a new heater as quickly as possible, and uh then I say, "Do we need a permit?" And he says, "No." How do I know what what tells me, the homeowner, that I should have said, "You damn well do need a permit, so go get me one." Yeah. Um, to answer that directly, yes, you do need a permit to change out a water heater. Um, think of it this way. any any structural um infrastructure to let's just say a house. If you're altering it, if you're changing out a water heater, if you're changing out an air conditioning unit, a heater unit, um or if you're changing out the piping from that unit to the rest of the fixtures in the house, yes, it needs a permit. If you're changing out light bulbs in your house or if you're just switching out a light switch, you don't need a permit for that. what that's cons that's considered maintenance. Um and the easiest way I can say is you have the easiest and and most uh efficient way to to ask that question. You just comes directly to us. Um, and I I tell that I get calls from residents from different cities, myself as well as the rest of the building team because a resident from a different city wants a standpoint from another city uh building department just to make sure that the city they live in is telling the truth. So, it happens a lot. Um, but yes, to answer your question, if you're making if you're altering any part of the house that doesn't have to do with if it's not flooring, cabinets, countertops, paint, those things, they don't need they don't require permits. If you're rearranging the layout to your house, moving walls. Yes. I actually actually had an experience last week with an electrician who I've used for years and he's he's licensed and trustworthy and and I had him come over to do some work and I

said, "I guess we're going to need a permit." And he said, "No, because of the age of your property and when this was done." Um, so he pulled out the code and actually showed me, which I was was very um very good of him to do that. So anyway, um, but but I just think a lot of homeowners don't understand this. So I I'm wondering, is there any sort of educational program? We we we yes we've had we've actually had discussions and this is one of the reasons why I like I I came to the city because I being in the valley most of the cities are small um Cathedral City is one of the smaller ones as well and the interaction public public interaction in the in the interface with the residents themselves um I enjoy that part of it. So we have that and I think over the last year year and a half the staff that we've built, the team that we've built is very conducive and open to helping the residents instead of you know there's whether it's outside of the valley or any other cities, a lot of them don't give you that that personal um face to face. Um, so, you know, from that standpoint, we've talked about putting on maybe workshops um on what requires a permit, the basics, like you're asking, Commissioner Lee. Um, do I need a ch Do I need a permit to change out my water heater? Do I need a permit to fix my cleanout in the front of the house because my my uh the plumbing is backing up? Those are the type of types of things that we definitely can um put together workshops. What we've actually talked about is doing pre-recorded videos for YouTube and posting them on the site. Um, so those are just easier that's those are the easy and efficient ways of of addressing those types of topics. To

expand on that idea, one of the subjects that we discussed actually was accessory dwelling units and trying to break down some of the barriers to accessory. Can you speak into your microphone? Trying to do what I can be louder. In other jurisdictions, we did deck building workshops or basement building workshops. And a lot of this was geared at sort of the do-it-yourself homeowner, trying to encourage them to get permits and to show them that you in fact can do this work. Uh we're not building decks or basements here in uh Cathedral City. But u I I think we can do more to engage the community to talk about the permitting process, the reason why someone should get a permit. uh this is to protect your interest, to protect the the future owner's interests, and we can use that to enhance communication and to break down barriers on certain permit types. I I imagine Ryan would be willing to help in that area. So, uh he's a good resource. Um inspections. So, um, since I do collect a number of permits, um, particularly in the last year, um, we we've had good responses on inspections, um, but I used to hear a lot of feedback from people, particularly developers, who say, you know, it takes weeks to get inspections done, whatever. So, I I understand actually that we've improved that a lot. I just want to know how we doing in terms of inspections now on projects. Sure. Uh the easiest way to answer that question is is right now we're at a 24-hour turnaround. So we're we're at next business day. Um taking except the exception that we don't do inspections on Fridays. We work the 410 schedule. So Monday through Monday through Thursday, the inspectors are out in the field between 7:30 and 8:00 a.m. and they're back in the office by 4. That's about 2 hours longer than most other jurisdictions have inspectors

out in the field. So that allows us to give us that allows us to put about another four to five inspections on top of that day's run. So to answer your question, yes, that was one of the uh that was one of the um roadblocks that that I saw right away when when I started with Cathedral City. Um, and I mean, credit to our inspectors and our permit staff as well as our plans examiner for giving me the input on why that was happening. I have my own input. I had my own observations. Um, but utilizing them to to tell me what what was going on or at least what they thought was going on. Um, and we did get a lot of feedback from from the development community. Um I've I've been in the valley for about 24 years now as I've been on the other side on the private side and have run into those issues with with other jurisdictions. So right now we are at a 24-hour turnaround. Something I would add to that as well, and this is to give Jeremy some credit. Jeremy advocated for a second full-time building inspector. Right now we have a a full-time staff building inspector and a contract building inspector. uh we have sustained demand for building inspections and in order for us to continue to meet that uh 24-hour turnaround for inspections, we needed to staff that position. So through the budgeting process that has been presented to city council and as part of the city manager's recommended budget, uh we will be uh converting uh a vacant FTE into a second full-time staffed building inspector position. And so we'll have two full-time building inspectors and as Jeremy said, you know, they're out all day Monday through Thursday uh with a full list of stops. Okay. And and last question, which is back to solar again, but roof solar. Um

I I your slide for where there is no solar planned. Um I thought it was required now for all new um buildings. So, the 2019 code required a 2022 code changed. Oh, 2025 code's probably going to go back. Um, I have not seen it yet. I will not have eyes on that until July. Um, but as often as the energy code changes, it it they literally, and when I say this, I'm not exaggerating. It changes. They have amendments in uh Aratas every 6 months. So, it's constantly changing. Um, and that is going back to it's California. It's the legacy code. California, it's from the top down. So, it comes from the state level, the Department of Energy, and it and it trickles down to us. So, keeping up with that is difficult, but you're right. It did in the last code cycle. It was required. Oh, okay. I did. I had no idea it changed. Um, I'll just add another informationational note, which is that they talk about 40 amp circuits for home chargers. Level two chargers typically um demand either 50 or 60 amp now. So 40 amp is giving you quite low response on the level two charger. So hopefully they'll increase that too. You are you are correct. Yeah, it's they're they're keeping it at a level where I shouldn't say level, they're keeping it at um a uh a demand where it's not going to increase the cost of putting in the actual electrical equipment itself. That's that's the Yeah. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner me, uh just two quick questions actually. Um one, who's responsible for the maintenance of the EV station? still say in a commercial area is is it the commercial landlord who's responsible

for making sure that they're working or That is correct. Yes. And that and that depends on you know the contract the agreement between um the owner or the the property manager and the installer or they could have a separate contract with a different a third party that maintains because sometimes they're outsourced like they're kind of leased, right? They don't have to be owned by the property. Okay. Um, and then, uh, I love your I I love Danny's idea about educating people because I'm a we owned a condo, but we never had a freestanding house, and so permits were really never something I thought about. Sure. And I'm sure a lot of people who are moving out here, kind of same situation. I see a lot of people asking about property taxes. So, um, I think that's kind of common. Um, I know the city sends out that booklet twice a year, and I'm always advocating for putting more in that booklet, but it's a great, it goes to every house, right? It has a lot of great information and maybe one page about, you know, if you could come up with an acronym for the major things that need a permit, you know, that we could all remember an acronym. I love acronyms. Maybe because my parents were teachers. Um, and then I was thinking, I know when um people move in, they have to activate uh electric, right? They're they have to basically there's an activation of electricity in the house. I don't know if there's any way to get information about when that happens because you could then send out something automatically because when people move in a lot of times they're going to do remodeling and they may not know, oh, I need to pull a permit to, you know, swap out this or replace the water heater or whatever. So, just two suggestions. But I love the idea of educating people more because I'm sure people don't have no idea that for little things like to me replacing a water heater seems like something that would be really not a big deal. I never think what you and me both. Yeah. So, you're doing a great job and thank you for the presentation. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Jeremy, for a great presentation. Um, just a few questions. So, um, going back

to like is a trip hazard actually a building issue? Like if they have like a power cord running across a walkway or they have a step that's not painted or illuminated in a way that people would see it. Um, so is that actually a building issue? It's a loaded question. Um it's let let's put it to you this way. If if it is in the path of egress, what's you know that's the that's the word we use. If it's an egress path, um it can be a building issue. Um a lot of times it's just a maintenance thing that they're not they back to the word using educated. They just don't know. If they don't know, they're not they're not going to know unless someone usually it's a react u a reactionary visit because something happens. Someone trips on something and we go out there and say, "Okay, the problem is is you can't make someone do something if they're not pulling permits for something. If they take away an accessible feature, let's say they let's say there's a there's a stairway up to a front door to a a target and that stairway is their main path of uh accessible egress. If they take a handrail out, we can go out there and we can actually sight them and we can require them to put that handrail back in. if they take out a door that's part of their main egress or accessible path of travel ADA, we can go in there, we can cite them, and we can require them to put that back in there. So, it's a real gray area for the trip hazards. Um, if they're not pulling a permit and then if is when somebody makes these kinds of reports, is it confidential? The person's not going to find out that who did it, right? It it depends. You know, it's it's if someone goes onto the app or the city's website and says, "This is uh Rich Malikoff and I'm putting this

I'm putting in a notification that something's going on at this address." Um, it comes directly to us. So, we will file it and it'll stay in the it'll stay in the city's records. Um, so and if you can submit it anonymously as well, but the the person that you're the party that you're reporting doesn't find out who did it. Not if you don't want them to. Okay. And so if you find that there's like a wall that's unstable, you know, a wing wall or or a column or a P pillar. Pyaster pillar. Pyaster. Thank you. Get that out. Um I kept on thinking of um never mind. Um pilaster. Um now that would be an issue where even though they're not pulling a permit, they would have to fix it or or you could red card them. Well, it it's it could be it could be a life safety or a health issue. Yes. Um, if it comes down to something like that, red tagging is it's a it's a very very very strict and strong uh action that we take on on buildings. Um, I can go into that for for about 10 seconds if you want me to, but in this case, if there if you walk into some place and you say, I mean, that wall doesn't look sturdy and you walk up to it and push it and say, then yeah, you can tell us. Absolutely. Um, I often go into places of business and um, I'll see like beer crates stacked in front of a fire door. Is is that you or fire? Both. Both of us can address that. So, it could be reported to building also. Yes. Okay. um

is so let's say Target or Stater Brothers is adding 5,000 square foot to the rear of the building. When Commissioner Bard was talking about, you know, the existing businesses needing to put um the EV facilities in. At what threshold does an addition require the them to install the EV facilities when they're adding when they're adding usable space? It can be 10 square ft. So if they if if our target enclosed the garden center that would be an addition and then they'd have to bring it up to code for the EV if they're turning it if they're turning it into the same use and occupancy of of the building itself. So they're let's they're enclosing 10,000 square feet as an assembly area or a merkantile like the rest of the building. Yes. Yeah. The garden center now is just like a covered pattern. Sure. So if they put four walls around it and it would and there's no minimum. It's just any addition there in in um in non-residential or commercial there is no minimums. That's interesting. So that's also a way for people to be brought up to code. Um the last issue I have which in some building departments they issue grading permits. I don't think we do here. Do you? We do not. Okay. And then engineering issues that building and safety we do not. No. I can veer just to a grading permit issue. So [Music] um before if we have mitigation measures that we approved through a mitigated negative declaration for monitors for archaeology or biology does engineering come back to planning and

say what do we do with this so that they don't just not do it. So yes um there's a lot of uh communication and coordination through the departments including building and engineering and uh fire and planning. So when grading permits come into the engineering department a couple of things happen. Our engineering department will ask us for the signed conditions of approval so they have a sign set that they can refer to. Um they also advise planning department that engineering plan excuse me grading plans are in plan review so that we can also review it and comment to catch those mitigation measures that are triggered at grading as opposed to building. Do you does the grading plan actually get circulated to the planning department so that you can get back to engineering because typically that's those kinds of things aren't the top of their list. No offense to take it to anybody particularly. Yes. Um so so you would be able to say oh you need they need to do they need to contact the tribe and get a tribal monitor out here before you break any ground. Yeah. Yes. And and a recent example is uh Nirvana Estates. Right. So they got a rough grading permit but that um rough grading permit had conditions on it that they had to provide the tribal contract for monitoring. They had to do the burrowing owl, the nesting surveys. So all those things uh had to be done before they could actually start doing rough grading and we kept in constant contact with the developer um and they did provide all those things before they started rough grading. Yeah. So that you interact primarily with the planners here at planning commission and I would say that for the entitlement process, your planners act effectively as the project manager. They're coordinating the review process. Many others are still involved. Engineering is involved, building is involved, although they have a secondary role in a post-entitlement process. Engineering

really takes that lead role where they're acting as the project managers and they're coordinating among the review agencies. And then when it gets to a building permit, uh Jeremy's team is acting in that lead role and others are still involved in that uh secondary or referral role. It it's very much coordinated and we use our internal development services committee meeting to coordinate uh those various moving parts. But that's that's good to hear. I feel a lot better about those mitigation measures knowing that and the reason that I asked about the grading permit um I wasn't trying to jump out of subject is it's always seemed odd to me but there's some building departments that actually issue the grading permit even though engineering takes the action on it building is the central clearing house for fire building planning everybody so so I wasn't I didn't think you did that here but I wanted to back. So this was a great information session and can I ask another question? Sure. May thank you chair. So I'm just one is sort of informational. We have the existing project that's still I believe it's been delayed that's still happening in our downtown here with the Starbucks Chipotle gas station just across the street. Um I believe those EV stations are only level two. Uh as it's still in construction. Uh there was talk over a year ago about those. Uh I know it was mentioned at a chamber of commerce meeting with an that it was mentioned that maybe they would be going up to a three. Not sure what's going on with that. Do we know where those stand since it's been delayed? Level two charging stations by the time that's done they're already in a way very obsolete. To answer that question directly is they only have to install what was approved on that plan during that code cycle. Okay. um if they want to upgrade it, they would actually have to come back through um and and propose, you know. So, we'll have a lot of charging stations there,

but they're only going to be very slow in level two. All right. Um then my next one is I love you all the changes that you guys are doing. It's just remarkable from my experience with the city 5 years ago and now you guys are just like, you know, blue ribbon winners. It's amazing. But I I'm always looking for forward progress and other types of developments that we could do, other types of building, other types of things that are approved by California highest standards and all that type of stuff. Um, our type of construction, again, these are my opinions, is really unsustainable. The way we're building and the way we build in 120° temperatures isn't such a great idea. There's all types of other structures that are becoming increasingly popular especially with price problems uh in standard construction. So there's adobe super adobe there's earthcrete or aircrete there's cobbous there's all these other types of constructions that are much more durable sustainable and energy efficient for desert environments. Uh is there you have this great system that's being done. Boom inspection another triggers another inspection triggers another inspection. Is there anything in your mind as far as future uh for coming up with that idea like well all right let's we want to be ready somebody wants to put a boxable in or somebody wants to put aircrete or a super adobe or something of that sort. How would is it preparation on your end to be ready for that? Um to answer your question directly, yes, it is great. Um luckily the the code the code actually is is some people look at the code like it's been it's been there for, you know, 40 50 years and it hasn't changed. California, it couldn't be further from the truth. It's it's constantly evolving. Um that that's

the one thing that I like about the California code is it's evolving with energy standards, uh efficiency of the actual building itself. residential or commercial. Um they have not gotten to the point where they're addressing um alternative methods for the way it's constructed on the exterior walls. You were talking about uh Adobe Super Adobe um aircrete that is a it's it's coming up a little bit, but it's it is um I know the cost of that is I just love that you actually know what it is. So, no, I' I've seen it a couple times, you know, whether it's in videos or in the San Diego area, they're doing some really cool things with construction in a lot of the outlying areas cuz it's fireresistant, it's super strong, it's super light, it's easy to work with, you can actually cut it with a straw, it's harder than concrete, right? This type of thing is just interesting. So, to have that awareness, like if I came to you next week and I said, "I bought a piece of land and I want to build an aircrete house." you would be ready to deal with me. We we could deal with that. Um the biggest what I would say is I would flip that script and is finding someone that would is willing to work with it or is at least certified to actually build that product. That's that's the other that that's the other side of that uh of that argument at least. Yeah. Right. All right. Great. Thank you. So um thank you again for spending the last hour with us and answering all our questions. Um it was a very good um discussion and presentation and I really liked Commissioner Meat's idea. Um if we could get um Deanna Prescrove to give us a page in that twice yearly booklet that comes out um that would be great cuz um you know I I know people that have installed things and just didn't know like you know one

of the things you're supposed to get a permit for is if you replace a commode and people I think often do that. I didn't know that. People do it all the time, but you're supposed to get a permit for it. And um so I think that would be a good way of um providing some additional education because I I I think people actually read those even though it's a booklet, you know, it's like it's colorful and people see it and I I page through it all the time and um you know, so um if she's willing, we'll look into that definitely. That would be great. But thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. You're welcome. So, our next item is discussion of public noticing requirements um and possible changes to the zoning ordinance. Um we have a report from staff. Yes. Good evening, commission. So, this is a follow-up discussion from our March 5th meeting. And at that meeting we did talk about um expanding our public notification requirements. And at that meeting um we talked about um why the discussion started came from a commissioner commissioner me uh asking that we consider expanding our notification efforts to include uh residents that may uh live in apartment complexes or business owners uh you know not the real property owners that typically um get the notice but not the occupants. And so we talked about that. We talked about state law requirements which uh does require direct mailing to real property owners within a 300t radius. That's the minimum standard and that's what the city has met. Um and then also um that there is the opportunity for local jurisdictions to

expand that. And so we had a discussion last time um and at that discussion we also had a comparison of other cities. I'm not going to go into this other than to say that there is uh some um cities that do have expanded notification u excuse. Sure. Um some have expanded notification requirements, some require signs, some require community meeting. And so there's there is a a variation. Uh but we do see that many jurisdictions have increased their mailing radiuses to to at least 500 feet. Um um so what we talked about last time is we talked about expanding the notification requirements based upon on projects uh the size of project increasing a base minimum 500 uh foot radius we would notify all property owners consideration of maybe increasing that to 1000 ft for uh sites of 5 acres. Uh there was also some information that some of our larger projects such as the Ren and Rosemont and such were on 10 acres or more. And this is a graphic that our IT department helped us with just showed the color coded the boundaries of what 300 gets you 500 and a,000. We also talked about expanded notification to non-propy owners um owners within homes of mobile home parks or maybe um an RV park, tenants of commercial spaces, tenants of commercial tenants of commercial spaces and residents in apartment complexes. This particular notification had um you know commercial spaces nearby within that radius. They had residents in an apartment complex. They had a mobile home uh next door to it. So the discussion we had is not only real property owners but the occupants would also get some notification. We talked about neighborhood outreach. It would be a

community meeting that um of those interested parties that would get a notice a mailed notice based on whatever our expanded notification standard becomes. It would be developer-led to identify issues and um allow the the community to understand what the project is and express what their concerns may be or maybe they don't have concerns. Maybe they are positive about the project. But it's intended to um vet projects before they get to hearing. Allow that exchange of communication, allow the developer the opportunity to address those issues that can be addressed. Um and then there's a notice that or excuse me report that comes back to the city that indicates um what were the issues, what was the notice, you know, signin sheet, who participated. Um so there would be also procedures um for those projects and we also talked about what that uh threshold would be to require uh the community engagement process. Then we talked about posting of signs. Um how many? Where? Um was it just one? Is it more than one? Does does the parcel size matter when we look at these different type of signs? So these are all things we talked about in the uh packet. The report that was provided to the commission. The the language that would be in a draft ordinance included all these provisions, but I did want to discuss them a little bit more. Um as as staff went back and looked at these items and did a little bit more analysis of what the requirements would be for um applicants and what the um requirements would be for the city to u ensure compliance. We we we had a little bit um recommended um changes that the commission could consider. Ultimately, I I do want the commission to know that it's um up to the commission to determine what those

standards would be and we would um of course incorporate all those changes into an ordinance that would move forward. The other attachment that was provided identified all the other sections in the municipal code that touched upon public noticing and so we would revise those to be consistent with the ultimate um ordinance that gets adopted. So really when we discussed this last time, we talked about all these different uh approaches or avenues or enhanced uh notice that we could u require. But there was also discussion about how do we balance that? What's going to be the most effective uh manner to get the word out to the interest of parties? Um and let's balance that out. So we did talk about at a minimum the mailing radius should be 500 ft. That was an agreed upon um point. We also all agreed that we should expand it to uh non um owner persons, you know, persons that live in apartments, condominiums, rentals, uh businesses. So that was agreed upon. We also talked about um the uh increased radius. We talked about if it's uh 10 acres or more, maybe it should be 1,000 ft. But we said when we look at the community engagement process, we look at these other process, maybe 1,000 ft doesn't make sense. Let's balance that um out as well. And so um we also looked at the posting of signs. I um engaged our public works department to find out what what would a sign cost? and it's about um just under $1,000 for a sign. Um more signs are required then that that price would increase. And so um perhaps that's what staff is suggesting is perhaps that may not be

something that's required given all the other changes that we're proposing. Um, I would add that uh, you know, like Palm Desert, they made changes to their notification efforts and they added the signposting requirement, but they had the experience of all these other um, notification standards to um, assess and then determine that determine that for them they also wanted to do the posting requirements. So I would suggest that um we consider delaying or deferring for further discussion posting requirements and as we go through this code update perhaps we now have a history of how this um expanded notification process is working and then decide or determine at that time maybe if we should add the signposting requirements. But at this particular time staff would recommend that we we defer or delay that particular aspect. But we are we are recommending this table shows what the uh discussion was back on March 5th and what we're proposing based on our um our revised staff report. But again um this is a discussion and we do want to get the commission's input of u how we um draft the final document that goes forward through the amendment process. So again 500 ft for all project sites would be the the radius. we would increase it to perhaps 750 feet for sites of 10 acres or more. The commission may decide yes or maybe just leave it at 500. Um the notice, we're not making any recommended changes. We would um provide the notice as indicated. Um on the neighborhood outreach, we would require that on sites greater than 5 acres, but the director has a discretion to require community outreach for any other discretionary project based on based on the director's discretion. Um I would say though that um on March 5th we talked about a 10acre site because um the Rand Rosemont those

were all 10 acres um and so the 5 acres is what's being recommended here but we could look at 10 acres and then also um for now not move forward with uh on-site public hearing signs. One more slide. Um Chair Malikoff. So, I did get questions from Chair Malikoff on a couple things and so I wanted to kind of talk about these a little bit because I think they do have bearing on uh the discussion that's going to be had um with regard to the signposting. We talked about you know maybe if we were to move forward with that provision if uh you know maybe the signs vandalized and so it needs to be fixed or repaired um maybe wind affected it. What would be the timing of that? And so if we did look at this provision, I would say, you know, no more than 24 to 48 hours. Um, but if it wasn't done in time for the public hearing, um, would that delay the hearing? And I would suggest that perhaps no, because this is a supplemental noticing effort. But if the sign had incorrect information that was materially, you know, uh significant, maybe it had the wrong hearing date for whatever reason or some other significant aspect that um gave uh folks the wrong information, I think at that point maybe we would consider uh continuing it. That's if we were to move forward with that. And then as far as the community meeting, uh there was a question about the timing of requiring the community meeting, you know, before submittal or um the timing of after submitt. And um I'll let um Chair Malikoff um go into that some more, but the the intention was that the applicant would have the opportunity to vet the project with the community um and address what could be addressed and and that there they agree should be

addressed um prior to plans coming into the city. uh the way the ordinance is being drafted is that by the time between the time of it coming into the city and let's say it's 2 months 3 months later and it's going getting ready to go to hearing if there are m you know really substantial changes between the original submitt and any revised plans then the the the director would have the discretion to require a second uh community engagement meeting. Um and then the question about coordination with staff. Yes, there would be coordination throughout the process. And Chair Malikoff, that might not have been the the gist of that particular question, but but you know, as you uh all provide your input, maybe we can clarify that, too. So, make sure we understand and and and respond to your question correctly. So, and that's Thank you. Um I'm going to um it's unusual, but I'm I'm going to go first because I'm ready to explode. um in a good way. Um so so are the on-site signage you're not requiring it? Well, at this point to the council. Um well, I'm suggesting to the commission that with all the other efforts that we are um discussing to implement that it may not be um it may not be needed at this particular time and maybe we look at it at a later date. I I think that's a a great idea and let me say I'm all for bringing more people in, notifying more people, but given the cost of these signs and it's and they're really hard to read cuz like you're driving down Raone Road, you see notice of public hearing. It's not like you can pull over and look at it. You can't circle back and park on Raone Road and look at it. So, so you you if you really want to read the

details, you're going to have to park and then walk and and either take a picture of it and think about it or, you know, but it they're just very hard to read and I think they add to the street clutter. Um I I just don't think they're all that helpful um compared to increasing your radius and notifying non-owners and businesses. So, um, I'm glad that you're you're not including that for now. The installation cost, did the $1,000 include the instabation of the sign was $1,000? Did that include the posts and the installation and the removal? So, it included everything but the installation. Okay. and and that you know that's an increased cost to people when they're trying to do business in Cathedral City. And I just think that the the overall I think the overall benefit doesn't doesn't meet the criteria of the cost. Um so that was my strongest issue. Um then um when you're notifying the people within the 500 ft radius for the homeowners associations, are you going to notify each owner in the HOA or just the management company? No, we we would propose to notify all occupants of real property. So that would be Yeah. the the property owner and the occupant if it's not owner occupied. Yeah. No, no, no. That's good because not every homeowners association like could put it on a bulletin board or something that nobody might see. And then, you know, like where I live, it's 68 units. And I'm just not I I know when other public hearing notices were received by the city, the only

reason that they got circulated is cuz I said something. And I think that that that happens a lot. So, I'm glad that, you know, when you do the tax roles, each of those units in a condominium association do show up on the tax roles. So, I'm glad that they'll get notified, too. Um, then, um, for the community meeting, I think you you kind of answered my question. No, you did. Um, I like and I liked your answer. Um so for community meetings I was like boy that's early in the process but then the more I thought about it it's like the project can change over time but I think if they do it early in the process after their initial submittal and they get the feedback from the city on what they think is good and what they think isn't then they work with the city and they modify the project and then if if like things change and buildings change orient orientations and it's something very different, then the director can say, you know, it might be a good idea for you to have another community meeting just for them to see all the things you did. And that could be to their benefit because PE otherwise people aren't going to know. They might show up and be ready to rumble and all their concerns were addressed and they have no other way of knowing that other than um if they don't have another meeting. So, I like the idea of not making it mandatory to have a second meeting, but leaving it up to the director if if there's substantial changes. If there's no substantial changes, then there's no reason to have a meeting and people can come and object to the project as they saw it. Um, so so I like that. And um then the last thing I had and let we can move on. Um is I've noticed that when people come to the community

meeting sometimes they're just outside the radius or they're not going to get notified. Well, they didn't get notified because they're not the property owner and it's their mother or something like that. So, if they're just outside the radius, I think that the person conducting the meeting, which is always going to be the applicant, that they should make a list of people that want to be notified and then give that to the city so that those people that have another reason to want to be notified that just don't fit into the category um can be notified. So, um I don't know that I saw that somewhere in the ordinance, but I think that that that should be part of it because just like if somebody were to call the city clerk, it'd say, "I want to be notified." So, um I I I'll have to go back and and and look at it more closely, but I believe I wrote in there that the notification had to be provided to those that would have received public hearing notices. So, it would be owners and occupants within those rad within that radius. Um the other thing I just wanted to u just asformational. So um probably for the last year and a half uh since since um Andy came in as our new director, we the city has been generating those mailing list so that we our GIS department will get all that property owner information. I've already spoken to them. So they know that they would then be pulling uh non-owner occupied information, business license information, getting the mailing addresses for persons in apartment complexes. So we've been having those discussions. And so perhaps it's um a matter of looking at our uh proposed language and and and basically creating that list that needs to get uh that mailing list and providing that to the applicant so that we ensure that we're hitting all the people that our ordinance talks about. Yeah. What um I think the easiest way to do it is at the at the community outreach. There are

going to be people that didn't receive the notice and then just ask if somebody didn't receive the notice, please sign this register with your name and address and then they turn that over to the city and then those people can be notified so that they're included for even though they might be outside the the the the radius. But I um this is this is a great step forward and um I don't know why I'm so excited about you not doing the on-site signs, but I am and um I don't know why, but let's uh go on to somebody else. Commissioner McFale. Okay. Um first, thanks very much for showing us the strikethroughs in chapter 9.05. So, and we see what's being replaced and what's new. though. Yay. Um I was just wondering how do we identify residents who are not owners? What what data sources are we using to identity? So when you um look up the ownership information, you also get mailing addresses. So if the mailing address is not in Cathedral City, you know it's not owner occupied. Yeah, makes sense. Um, you also mentioned I think you you would uh notify through publication in a general circulation newspaper. Which which one do we use for those sorts of things? Um, we use the Desert Sun. Desert Sun. Yeah, I thought so. Um, community engagement. Yeah. So, we're going to go through a I think a really great process of the the applicant conducting these meetings and you get feedback and you you will get a report of how those meetings went and what came up. Those reports will be part of what we would see at at the end of the process as well. So, we would see that too. Correct. Great. Um let's see.

And then just I guess my last question is to do with um this is a discussion and I saw that in later on in our agenda in I think the staff comments section in 521 May 21st it will come back to us and we will actually take some kind of a vote and then does it go to city council after that's running what the process is? Yes, thank you for asking that um Commissioner McFale. So, so yes, based on the direction we received today, um I I believe we'd be ready to move forward with the ordinance for the planning commission. So, the planning the planning commission would consider the ordinance and make a recommendation to the city council. Then it would go to the city council for introduction and then it goes to a second meeting for adoption. Great. And I think I concur with the chair regarding the signage. I think my my gut reaction, oh, it's nice to have signs to see them. like when I drive by some nice new developments in Palm Springs where there these fabulous new houses are building that great signs to look at but the reality is we're not most people are not stopping to look at these signs and I think the increased notification that we're doing kind of negates the need for them. So thanks very much Commissioner me. Uh yeah, I think I agree with uh pretty much all the other comments and I agree that the the signs I I like your idea of seeing how the additional notification goes and then it could always be something that's introduced later. But we don't require any sort of like let's say a restaurant applies for a liquor license. There's not even that just like white piece of paper that goes up on the outside that says so the city doesn't require it. The uh state ABC department requires it. Okay. because I was like, I know I've seen those. Okay. Um, yeah, I mean, I think uh I think I agree with the 750 for the projects of 10 acres or more just because I think something of that mass is going to

create more traffic with a broader wider impact. Um, potentially changes in noise or things like that. Um, and I like the community meetings. I think the way you've structured that is perfect. And I'm really excited about bringing more people into the into the process. And I did want to ask though a question about him. HOAs, wouldn't the individual condo owners get notified now because they're homeowners? I always did in LA. So, um, if you're a condominium owner, yes, you'll get the notice, but if you're, um, not the owner, yeah, you won't you won't get it. um you will get it now with our changes, but previously if it was just the owner, you wouldn't get it. But if you live if you're an owner occupied condo, you would get notified by default prior to these changes, right? Yes. Okay. Just wanted to make sure because I thought that was the case. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Lee. Um I was going to Lee, excuse me. Whatever. I I was going to say I think we should keep the signs, but I don't want the chair to explode. So, and no, I think that's fine. um delaying that and thinking about it later. Um on the notification, that seems to one thing that we're talking about here. Um but I not first of all you you say that um they they should notify by first class mail and they're going to be 10 or 20 days out from the from the meeting. Are we putting an extra cost on on the developer in doing that? I mean can they notify in other ways? Um so the law requires that mailed notice by first class mail. So that is a that is a requirement and and we do recoup those costs. Okay. Yeah. Um the the other point is the the one Commissioner me was also talking about

um in the in the draft or uh under section E paragraph three um it it says that they get that mailing list they it says they shall so it's it's enforcing shall be the mailing list shall be obtained by the applicant and based on the most recent property tax assessment roles of the Riverside County Assessor's Office, which implies that only the owner would get notification. So, I think we need some other wording. So, we'll I'll take a look at that. Um, again, because we have records, right? We have who the business owners are. If it's in a commercial area that's getting noticed, we have a lot of that. We have that information. And so, I'll take a look at it. might make sense that we provide that to them. Yeah. I I just don't know how you get from the assessor's records to the renters. Correct. In rental accommodation. Yeah. So, if you're saying they shall make the mailing list from the assessor's records, they can't reach the they can't reach the the renters. Yeah. So, um renters I think again um I understand what you're saying. I think renters is a little bit simpler, but it's the business owners and maybe the within mobile home parks, those the occupants of those parks. But let me go back and look at that and see how to figure out how you know how to make sure they do include the renters cuz we want them to. Yes. Does doesn't the assessors doesn't the parcel diagram tell you how many units are in the building and then give you the I know like with the I I thought that was somewhere maybe it's in the title or something where it tells you the all the unit numbers because all you would need is the list of unit numbers and then you just send a tenant or a resident, right? It doesn't say you don't need to know that. It

doesn't say the unit numbers. What it says is like if you're unit 56, then you'll have an APN number that'll be like 07 0170-66- 54. Yeah, but you're talking about a condo. I'm talking about apartment building. So, apartment building won't have renter information. However, um we can we can get that information, find out how many units there are, what the addresses are. We we have ways to to even if it's just calling the apartment complex and finding it out. But we'll we'll we'll figure that part out. We'll come back and report on that. Okay. When we return, there's got to be a publicly available database of that because we I mean people get stuff addressed to resident all the time from correct even the electric company and all those things. But I I do think though that that the ordinance somewhere says that the renters do need to be notified as well as the businesses. But I think for um I my my answers changed a little bit after Commissioner me with the for an apartment building. But like if if the owner of 4563 Cascade Court and they live in San Diego, they're going to get the notice. But then you can just mail 4563 Cascade Court and then you don't have to put a name on it. you can just put occupant and then they'll get that and then that's how the renters would get that for the the lots of record but for the apartments there's going to have to be more research and as I say in the Senate I reclaim my time. Um so um I the the only other thing I noted was in thank you also for the um the state uh legislature the the copy of the um code but um that

does make a mention somewhere um 65 091 in paragraph 4 of that it says if there are more than a thousand people affected then they can just do the notification in lie all the Yes. If it's more than a thousand property owners, you can put a quarter a quarter page ad instead. Mhm. Um so will that still apply to this? So if there are more than a thousand people in our area, that that would still apply. Yes. And we'll take a look at that closely as well. All right. Good. I I wanted to go Yay. Um because one of the things I I hate about code in general is when things are duplicated throughout when they should be in one place. And so I loved all those deletions of the instructions for how to uh notify meetings and it just says refer to 909 and I love that. So that's great. Thank you. Thank you m Mr. Vice Chair. Um Commissioner Bedard. Uh, thank you for doing this. I think it's really great. I love where it's going. I love everything that you guys have done. I have one exception, and I don't want you to explode. Um, I'm on the fence about the signs. I'm, I guess, one of those people, unlike the rest of the commissioners, that I actually would find a place to park and go out and look at a sign and take a picture and go to the website. or I did that on the projects in my neighborhood for projects on the other side of town for me. I I would be curious about that and if I'm not notified, I'd be even more curious uh to know what's going on there. So signs to me, I'm on the fence. I understand the rationale for them and the cost. I really like them. Uh I have

a lot of experience as a community organizer for almost 20 years and community meetings were very very I think it was reflected by a previous uh uh commissioner in this as well that community meetings in the are not well attended in general and the only way reason when they do become well attended is because somebody's angry about something and tells all their neighbors and the neighbors show up. So having assigned although I love the commission I I mean I love the meetings I love the having to do that I doubt the turnout is going to be very productive uh at those types of meetings just based on experience. Hopefully that will change and people will engage more in our community. The signs is a way to actually get that information out there even to the entire city, not just the neighbors affected and to a lot of people don't read their mail. It goes into the recycling bin and the sign makes up for that non-attendance. So, I'm just curious. I don't know how to evaluate like you had said like what's your return kind of what's your return on the investment on a sign? I I I I don't know how to evaluate that. How how would you evaluate how could you calculate how many people walked on the sidewalk or pulled over and took a picture and went to the website or something of that sort? As far as the information on the sign, the date of the meeting would be great if the meetings moved. Maybe there's a URL on there, a QR code that takes you to a project page on the city website that you could then go to and check out. I I'm not sure how to handle that. That's my only feedback. Yeah. Well, um what if we split the difference and we did something more like what the ABC requires, which is more of just a print

out like the the hearing notification that gets that that we get like just gets printed out and just put on. I think the challenge you have with something that simple is when you're dealing with a vacant site, an undeveloped site, you have wind, you have environmental conditions, they don't stay up, right? I was thinking more of a project that was already more of a remodel. Yeah, you're right. Forget that. Scratch it. I mean, I tend to agree with you. I like the idea of the signs because in LA, I think it makes more sense. People are walking around. I think here may I could see maybe in 10 years I pull over. I I purposely go look at them. Well, I think, you know, looking along this bench here, we're we're a bunch of strange people who would probably all pull over and find out what the sign said. Well, what do they say with mailings, right? If if you if you somebody mails a complaint letter, that one complaint letter counts for at least 50 other people or something like that. So, the fact is, you know, you can lead the horse to water, right? there. People who throw the mail away are going to also ignore the sign. Exactly. So, um I think this is a good compromise. Let's do it this way and then if we feel we need to later, we can add the signage. I I also do pull over even though see you know but even though you don't like it even though I but but but what I do that's even stranger is every morning you know how some people read the obituaries I read the legal ads for the area and I I I see what all the public hearing notices and what they look like for all of the jurisdictions and if I if I don't do that first thing in the morning my day is just not right. But thank you very much. This was a very interesting public I interesting discussion. I know that a lot of people wouldn't find it interesting. I do and I think all of us did and thank you for

the work you put into it and we look forward to it. Um so um let's move on to um I just have to take a breath. Commissioner's reports. No, no, no. Oh, sorry. Yes, that's right. Discussion on accessory shade structure. I knew it. I just couldn't find it. Right. Good evening, commission. I apologize that I was late to your meeting. It's been one of those days and I am seeing this presentation for the first time as you are. So, this is going to be an adlib presentation and I apologize for that. So, I am not Cynthia Schultz. Cynthia did write the staff report. did an exemplary job on that and unfortunately she could not be here this evening. Uh so your staff report walks through several concepts really. We have uh the R1 zoning district uh listed as a prototypical uh zoning district for residential properties in the city. Uh we talk about uh setbacks for primary structures and the building envelope. So your primary structure and an R1 zoning district. Uh this could very well be you know the principal residence along with an attached garage. Uh and then it it steps into accessory structure setback. So an accessory structure that could be a detached garage. It could be a carport. Uh really it is open on three or more sides. Uh that accessory structure can encroach into the side and the rear setback. Uh that can be 5 ft from the side or the rear but it may not be located within the front yard setback. So on this slide, we have, you know, your prototypical um building envelope for a a primary structure in an R1 zone district with a 10-ft side setback on one side, 5T side setback on the other, and a 15 ft uh rear setback.

Uh and then that accessory structure setback can be 5T on the side and the rear, not encroaching into the front. Uh it then discusses temporary uh structures and temporary structures are intended to be up for a a period of time of 90 days or less. And really the reasons for that these are not designed to be permanent. Um the the materials they're typically lower quality. It's not something that's durable. We'll get into some of the issues or the challenges there, but temporary structures can be up for a period of 90 days or less. Uh they are permitted essentially the same way as an accessory structure. So they can be in a a side or a rear yard up to five feet from the property line. They may not be located within the front yard. So as we assessed and evaluated um the notion of uh say a covered uh parking space um if this were a detached garage, if this were a carport, that is something that could readily be permitted. Uh looking at our accessory structure setbacks. Now, we took a look at um temporary shade structures, and we have some examples here that I'll show you. That is not something that we would currently permit today. Uh we would allow temporary shade structures in a backyard, let's say, for um an event or, you know, if someone had reason to shade their backyard over the summer, that's something that we would permit, but we wouldn't be inclined to support that today for covered vehicle parking. Uh so to give you some examples uh these are examples that we found on the internet today uh just looking at examples of what um say a popup or a temporary shade structure would look like. And some of the challenges that we have with these are the durability of the materials. These are not designed to be up uh year round. Um the the material is typically lower quality. It degrades in the sun. Uh these structures have a

tendency to blow uh and they become projectiles. Uh and when when they're left up for longer periods of time, they can um affect the aesthetic within a neighborhood. Uh as well as create uh long-term code compliance issues. That's something I've seen over the course of my career. And uh as staff, we would not permit these or advise that we permit these. But uh to give you some examples of what could be permitted in the code, um these are um attached detached structures uh that that would be allowed as an accessory structure in our code up to that 5-ft side or rear setback. And I believe those are the slides that we have for you. So I will get out of the way and enable this for discussion with the commission and I'll happily answer any questions that you may have. Um, Commissioner Bedard, I know this is an area of interest for you, so why don't you go first? Thank you. Yeah. So, I this is basically explaining what is in existence, correct? It's not what this is the code as it stands today. And I think the professional staff is saying we would not as a professional staff advise that we permit temporary structures for um covered parking on a permanent basis. Uh and we as well would not advise that we permit those in the front yard. These can be permitted in the side or the rear yard. So this I totally get it. It doesn't solve the problem. One of the issues that I brought up and why I brought up this was the uh equality equinimity type of issue that people who do not have garages, do not have those types of spaces, do not have sun coverage or shade coverage, anything like that. Um, I'm hoping that we could have a a more flexible response or at least something that people could do instead of just nothing. Cuz I appreciate

providing shade in the backyard, but even the images that you show on the last side appear to be front building structures that are on the front of a house. So if a house is built to the uh property I forget what what would be the the setback if it's built to that setback how do people then provide shade wealthy people are adding structures building things have have garages or putting air conditioning in their garages or doing all those types of things your average person how are they getting shade on their vehicle and it's becoming more and more of a problem. I appreciate that. Okay, now we could do things in the backyard, but that doesn't solve the problem. And I'm hearing that there is no solution. We are not presenting a solution tonight. We're presenting a summary of the code as it stands today in our professional recommendation. And this is my experience, 20 plus years in local government. I have years of experience in code compliance. The temporary structures that we see here become problematic. Absolutely. And I I absolutely agree with you. Uh yeah, they do become problematic. Yes. And I'm just curious like um you know my neighborhood I think quite well. A lot of the homes in my neighborhood don't have parking. So they have a driveway but they don't have covered. Now, at least 25 to 30% of those homes actually have a shade structure, but that was built previously before the code excluded it. So, there's quite a few of these last slide structures that are in my neighborhood. Quite a few that were permitted and they're there and they don't disrupt the the visual quality of the neighborhood. I don't at least I don't think they do.

I I think in many ways some of them are done so well that they enhance the property in the homes. So, but they're now not legal. So, let's say I'll just use myself as the example. I've kind of solved my problem, but um my neighbor next door has this beautiful carport, sort of like the one in the top right corner that was built onto the structure. Did it completely legally, permits, all of that kind of stuff. Now, they don't have the capability. If I wanted to do that, there's already precedent for it, but I can't because it doesn't qualify under the legal definition like what you're saying right now. It was at one time. The R1 zone district today has a 20 foot front setback. So, you could build a shade structure, a permanent shade structure. You could build that in the front yard. Two feet in my If you met the 20 foot, so I could put a shade structure on that would be 2 ft. That's what I would be allowed to under today's code. Under today's code. Now, keep in mind, you are going through a zoning code update. So, if you want to modify that 20ft front yard setback, you could do that through the zoning code update. If that were a policy decision that you wanted to advance, well, I invite our two representatives on that to take that up. Again, I I really think Can I ask you a question? What how how how would you be envisioning someone putting up because it seems like the last slide that you showed gives people a lot of options. So, if they don't have a I guess what you're saying is if they don't have a driveway, no, they have a driveway but they don't meet the setback requirements. So, I'll just use myself for an example. Well, I again I think I've solved my problem, but I have a driveway and my house is 22 feet 22 feet to the curb. So, I only have a add a

space that I could add, let's say, a shade structure that's 2 ft. You couldn't put a carport essentially in your driveway because it would be too close to the street. Because it would be too close to the street. Now, there, like I said, there are quite a lot, at least a third, if not more of the houses in my neighborhood actually have these structures that actually exist. I believe several of them, if not, I don't know how to say that. Some may be permitted, some may not be. I know my neighbors is permitted. Again, these houses were built in the 1950s and60s, so they went through a different requirement, right? And there's already a precedent in the neighborhood for that. So, I guess I just want to confirm what you're saying is you're you're looking for a way to allow a permanent shade structure in an existing driveway, correct? That may be closer to that may not have the big enough setback. You're not talking about building a shade structure like in the middle of someone's front yard. No. Okay. No, that's all I wasn't sure if all these when you were talking about these homes if you're talking about always homes that have a driveway or if you're talking about homes that don't have either. No, they the particular style of homes all have driveways. They may not have garages. Again, the garages were originally in my development were actually originally carports. The carport, there's not one carport in my neighborhood. They were converted converted to to drive garages. So, they were closed off. And then, like in my example, my house was built in 1961. the original owners actually pulled permits and turned the garage into a living space from the beginning in its occupancy. Right? So, and I know that because I found a permit that reference to it, but uh we also knew the people that we bought the house from, right? It was a long-standing neighborhood. The people lived there for very many years, right? So, that type of thing and there's already precedent. So, it's I'm curious. There's quite a lot of ex

existing structures, but if I did it maybe 15 years ago, it would have been fine. Now, not so much. I don't know if there's flexibility that could be built in for that, right? Like in legal stance, we say, well, is there precedent for that? I know they use that in architectural review. Oh, there's precedent for this height. is precedent for this type of thing that established it. When I lived in the historic zone and we were doing a new structure, there was precedent for a particular type of development even though it wasn't quite uh all by code. We were able to work with that. There was a flexibility in doing that because of the precedent of the type of neighborhood that was already there. Right. Can I just ask you a question? Right. So, um, obviously there's going to be zoning code update, but if the city were to change and say, okay, you could have a carport that was closer to the street than the existing setback. As you said, people originally on your street had carports and then they turn them, they close them in into garages, right? And then some of those garages get converted to living space. So, how would we if we allow people to now build, let's say, to within 5 ft of the street, what's to stop them from then enclosing that into a garage and then turning it into building space, right? And now you have houses that just literally and then we're stuck in the same spot where then you buy that house and you still don't have a place to put your car with. Well, it would be about determining the actual shade structure as a shade structure, not a living space. And and again the reason why those things happened was because we were county. Right. Right. I'm asking him in terms of could that be somehow written in that then there's absolutely no ability to convert it. We can write anything you want in the code. I'll start with that. But I I I want to put this graphic back up on the slide. And I know the state has done a

lot to undermine single family zoning. Single family zoning doesn't exist the way that it uh once existed. But setbacks were built in order to create a building form within residential neighborhoods. And you know this was intended to you know just maintain that density to limit the bulk and mass within neighborhoods and to give it a certain visual aesthetic. So you had setbacks from adjacent properties. You had setbacks from the street. There was a certain visual appeal about having front yard landscaping and you know more open space within that neighborhood. I know this is, you know, more of that postw World War II concept and it's it's radically changed, but that front setback was was put into the code for a reason. And I know with ADUs, we we've seen vast changes with uh single family zoning and setback requirements and ADUs can go just about anywhere on a property today. Uh we now have urban lot splits and two family dwelling units. And maybe this is immaterial. Maybe this doesn't matter anymore. But, you know, I I would go back to this graphic and say, you know, there was a reason why we created building envelopes. There was a reason why these standards existed. And yes, people chose to do the things that they did in the past to convert carports into garages into living spaces. Not every property has development potential. Some are maxed out and maybe it's not fair, but I I think there there is potential on some properties, less potential on others. And well, so that's my question. Like how is that decided? like what you're talking about about this post-war aesthetic, which I don't like, but I understand that there is a desire for it. That's how the community was formed. I think that's how a lot of communities were formed. Well, back in the day, 50 60 plus years ago when it was actually built, but the community changed all of that. Like like I said, at least a third, if not more, of the structures in this particular neighborhood have built these carports. So the idea of maintaining aesthetic 60 years ago that

was changed. So or over the many years that aesthetic has evolved and it doesn't have that. It's not like it's in a historic overlay zone and you could only design this way or that way. There were there weren't these overlays or designs requirements. Right? If you go back again to that last slide, the house, if you can imagine those houses are all ranch houses and that one particularly on the right on the top right, like that shows how my neighborhood looks now. If you got rid of or at least a large portion of the neighborhood, if you got rid of that carport, that's how it was built. But the neighborhood doesn't fit that post-war aesthetic anymore. And that post-war aesthetic after that had been dropped for decades until at some point the city came back and said, "Oh, oh, we're going back to that preservational type of post-war aesthetic." I I don't know how those particular houses how those carports would have been permitted. I would say that the the 20 foot setback we have in the R1 zone that likely goes back to early 90s, late 80s, um there is not a provision in the code today that would allow someone to lawfully permit a structure in the front yard. I I don't know how that's happened. Apparently, all of the structures in my neighborhood are illegal, which maybe is the case. I you know, I know my neighbor did it with a legal permit. I mean, she did a whole thing. Her mother did it. her mother bought that was the original owner of the house and so this was back in the 1950s so she did it legally I know at that time and it was beautifully done. Um I'm just saying that I wonder if there is if there's a way and I know it's hard to do things neighborhood by neighborhood or development by development. I know that that's not

necessarily a good or a bad thing. It creates problems at times and if a zone if a if a permitting rule doesn't match, right? Like if houses at one time in a development were only built I'm just hypothetical were built 4t away from the property line but now they have to be 5t. Does that mean we have to go in when somebody applies for a permit to do something on their house they have to then take out that wall move their wall back? So, I'm just saying that those that rule that then overlies the entire city doesn't or can't even apply for that particular house that was built that way originally. It would be considered legal non-conforming. We wouldn't make them take it down, but if it did, if it was damaged, destroyed, um, typically it's a 50% threshold. Uh, they came back and they wanted to rebuild it. Uh, if it were damaged or destroyed, 50% or more, we would say no, you have to build it or rebuild it to the current standards. Again, I think you solve my problem. And as an equity type of thing, we are not a super wealthy community here in Cathedral City. I love our community and the my friends that live in Rancho Mirage, my friends that live in Palm Springs, they are air conditioning their garages and they have threecar garages. the families, especially on the north side of town. I have friends that live over there and I drive over to the north side and there are cars baking in the sun. It reduces the value of the car. It makes the car have to have more repairs. It dries out gaskets. It ruins paint jobs. You have to get in 140°ree car in for 3 4 months out of the summer. there just doesn't seem to be a way so to provide inequity. So for me I you know I

understand this is a personal issue because it's your neighborhood and you want to see a change for that neighborhood. Oh no it's but no just listen. So um I also understand what Andy is saying that um there is an aesthetic that was developed for the city. Um, we we don't just have your neighborhood or other neighborhoods where there's no parking. We have um condo complexes which have full-time um all year round living and very little covered parking. We have um other locations which have the same problems. But all all that design is there right now and we can certainly consider in the zoning as we move forward if there are changes we want to make in order to improve the character of the city as a whole. I we can't I think um simply apply our individual preferences cuz I mean I prefer the style that we have right now except it drives me crazy sometimes cuz I can't do much with my 20 foot in front but you know sometimes I do want to do something. Um but even so I I appreciate that it keeps a standard to the uh uh the character of the city and that neighborhood. So I think you're right that it would be these two commissioners who could um consider that in their deliberations on zoning. I don't think we can solve it here. No. And I'm not asking to I'm looking at this as a conversation and I'm not looking to be confrontational in the conversation and I'm saying can we do more? Well, I I you know I'm going to jump in. I I heard what you said the last time that you brought it up and I remembered that. And

then at the at the workshop where we were marking up maps and putting in suggestions of what we wanted our consultant to address, I put that in there. The, you know, how to deal with providing shade structures and non-conforming areas or, you know, for small lots and things. And I think that our consultant who I don't know the exact details of the contract, but I I I was I think they're pretty knowledgeable and we're paying them a good fee. Um that it's something that we can definitely explore in the zoning update. Now, I'm not suggesting that this is the answer, but one of the things that I was thinking about was something that we used in Redlands for older homes. It was in the rear yard, but and I'm not saying this is the answer, but you could provide some kind of language that says that you could provide a 20 foot an extension into the front yard no more than 20 ft within 10 ft of the property line that's open on three sides. Now, I don't know if that's going to work, but it kind of addresses your issue. It kind of addresses your issue because it has to be remain open on three sides. I I didn't have an issue. I No, no. You said you were Didn't you say you were concerned with them enclosing it? Well, I just wanted to know how that how that Yeah, that that would be a way to address that. Sure. So, and I'm not saying that that's an answer, but it's something we can explore as a possible solution as we move forward in the zoning update process. Cool. So, I I I assure you it's not going to be forgotten because um I already wrote it down and and I'm going to remember tonight and um it's it's something that we we will address as the larger group when we meet. Yeah, I know shade structures was a big theme when we were doing those events. By the way, I was at

the March 15th one. It was fabulous. Uh and I know shade structures were one of the issues that were coming up in commercial parking spaces. Well, and how important they were. Well, somebody in a commercial parking space is maybe there for a half hour, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. And it was so important to so many people to have these shade structures in these commercial lots, but people are parked at their home for much longer periods. So, I'm curious about if that is a disconnect or not, like if we're It's going to be addressed. Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you. I appreciate that. I like I said, I I wrote it down on a not even on a sticky. I wrote it directly on the map. Um, so, um, if there's if you was I was going to just I think we're done with the three of us and I was going to move on to you. Okay. Um, so I appreciate what you said about the post World War II aesthetic. I I understand that that's how it started, right? having big setbacks, friendly neighborhood, you could sit on your porch and you could stay down the street with kids playing and whatnot. But now, and I think to your point about all the laws that the states state has passed with ADUs and subdividing lots and all this kind of stuff, the setbacks are getting smaller, the fire risk is getting higher. And I think one of my concerns is always for setbacks, can emergency personnel get through? Can two guys in full fire gear get a gurnie through a setback? Because if you have a fire, especially on a two-story building, they have may have to get a ladder in there to get someone out. Um, and the smaller the setbacks you have, the easier wildfire spreads, the closer the roofs are together. when we're talking about

having all these lots with two a subdivided two homes now it's 4 ADUs whatever the new law is and it now is getting us to like eight structures basically on a single what was a single family lot I have a real concern about fire especially when you I have a close friend who lost his entire house and all they got was them and two cats and six dogs out of their house in Palisades they have nothing so I you know I I know that originally is about the aesthetics, but I am concerned about us having people build to the property line and make exacerbating what the state is already doing. So, I just want to bring that up because I think it has evolved and the environment has invol evolved over that time. So, I appreciate that. And if we go back 50 years from, you know, when the postw World War II boom happened, when you first started seeing zoning laws come into effect, it was public health and safety. It was uh for light and air, for those basic principles. That's why zoning fundamentally exists. So I I think there is a good point there. I I flip was also for greenery so that as you're driving down the street you don't just see blocks of buildings so that you see you know landscaping. I I did want to leave the commission with with, you know, a positive thought, something to think about here. And this this is to your point that not all neighborhoods are the same. And, you know, we have a zoning code right now that the R1 is applied broadly across the city, but not all R1 zoned neighborhoods are the same. And this may be something we want to think about as we're going through the zoning code update. Do we change residential zoning? Do we create uh separate districts, subd districts? Uh this is something I did in a community in Colorado. We looked at older neighborhoods where we wanted to encourage reinvestment. We wanted to

encourage additional development. We wanted to encourage expansions. And the only way to do that was to allow for greater lot coverage to allow for reduced setbacks. So, in that community, they had a residential zone district standard that was for more stable neighborhoods that may have had, you know, lesser lot coverage, uh, greater setbacks, and then for those neighborhoods that were tighter, had smaller lots, uh, that community knew in order to encourage those to be brought up to current standards, they had to do something along those lines to allow the greater lock coverage and the reduced setback. So, that's a possibility. That's something we can think about. Uh, and in that community as they were going through the zoning code update, you know, they assessed, they looked at every neighborhood, identified its character, and there was a very exhaustive effort. I was part of the team that looked at every parcel of land, 30,000 properties in the city to figure out, you know, how we're going to categorize them. It can be done. Um, and if there is a desire to break down the R1 into uh separate districts or or uh logical subdists to reflect uh desired intentions or uh particular character that we see in neighborhoods, it's possible. Commissioner McFale, I don't think I've got anything to add to that closing statement there. I think I think the route is to for you on our uh task force or whatever it's called to take the message that you're hearing and maybe there is some flexibility in blanket R1 zoning to do something for different neighborhoods that have different characteristics. I think that's probably the avenue to go down. The important thing is it won't be overlooked. I just add um because we actually are seeing um a change happening anyway in what we're doing because um um Rio Vista

Village I think it was um we um in that um uh special what's the term special specific plan specific plan that's that's the word I've got his problem Now the words are escaping. Um but but there you know we changed setbacks. We changed lot sizes. We um uh did a lot of things there in order to encourage that development. And they wouldn't have 20 foot uh they wouldn't have anywhere to park a car in fact at the front of those properties. I think it's 5 foot setback or something. So um yeah we're we're doing it peace meal. I think what we're what we're getting from the the um zoning code changes is we can incorporate those ideas where we think they should be and not have all these variances and not have to have special plans all the time to change so that somebody can build whatever it is they want. So I'm hoping that that's what's going to come out of this process. If nobody has anything to add, um we'll move on to commissioner comments. Commissioner Baddard, did did you have something? Yeah, so as you guys know, I think you know, I'm on the board of the Cathedral City Chamber of Commerce. I'm also on the Hispanic American Chamber of Commerce board. Um something that keeps coming to me, and this is specifically for permitting uh of small businesses, u I'm not sure how that fits the dynamics. Um, you know, more than 50% of small businesses are home businesses uh in the United States and we have something called the cottage food ordinance which is a CFO which is done by the county. So if I was a cake pop maker, I could make cake pops in my home. I could have an employee in my home. I could also have someone come in

my home and taste my cake pops if they wanted to get 50 of them or 100 of them for their wedding. Right now that's the CFO county ordinance. Right? And the kitchen has to be certified or whatever. But if that's a food-based small business, right? Now, small businesses as a license in the city say you cannot have an employee and you cannot, as I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, you cannot have an employee and you cannot have anybody to come to your home to taste your cake pops. So if I have a CFO license and the CFO license from the county says that I can have somebody, but if I go to the city and I get my city license, the city says you can't. So there's a inongruency that that's there. And as I'm reaching, one of my goals is to reach out to more um small homebased Hispanic businesses, and that as we know is a large portion of our population here, to try and get those businesses more involved in the community, to try and get them more represented and stuff like that. There are hundreds of people that that are avoiding being licensed by the city because they don't want anybody to know. And I think the original intention was to keep traffic and stuff like that down. We don't want strangers walking in our neighborhood and and stuff of that sort. To have a a client come to someone's house. And the number of Amazon Uber Eats and drivers that are coming through our neighborhoods far surpasses how many clients that a small business would have at their home. So, I'm bringing this up just to say as we move forward in our resoning and and permitting and that type of stuff. I think it behooves us to get more small businesses licensed. I think it behooves us to actually match CFO requirements to city requirements. And I don't particularly, and I might have I maybe people would disagree with me as as a

small business person that runs out of my home. I don't understand exactly like if I wanted to have a client, all my clients are online, but I have a client that's an emergency client or a client that is having an anxiety panic attack and they need to see me. I don't want to be out of compliance with a city by inviting them to come to my home and having a private session in my home. So I think as somebody who's very business on these business task forces on these business chambers I am disappointed that the city has that limitation and I don't know if there's a way to look at that since we are at this point of review and it's for whatever reason been a hot topic the past month as I've been going to chambers especially the Hispanic American chambers. That was it. Thank you. Anybody else have commissioner comments? Commissioner McFale report comment. Just uh I attended the uh Palm Springs zoning code update meeting on April the 1st. Uh which was like a a public meeting. And I I just want to say I was quite impressed with how they they ran the meeting. Obviously, they're much further down the process than we are. They've got their preliminary um reasonzoning maps, but the the the format that they they ran I thought was something to to emulate in terms of public meeting having pretty short presentation by the experts and instead having experts at board showing people what the proposals are and allowing people to interactively post-it notes and things on. There was a good interaction I think between the the staff and the experts and and the members of the public who were there rather than just a 30inut presentation. Thank you much very much. Go away. And also bring food and water that will get people going as well. Um Miss Schulz was also at the meeting. Uh

and I think and something I'd mentioned to her before that that I I think I put in some comments. um you know our website for the zoning code update relative to what Palm Springs has. I think Michelle was suggesting there's a technical reason maybe why we can't have some of the functionality. If you go to the I can't remember zone Palm Springs that's what it's called. Um there's a lot of material there information there. It's very interactive and when you go to our page at the moment, of course, we haven't done very much, but it's a very static and dense page with lots of paragraphs and I hope that as we go on we can make it more accessible to people. Allah Palm Springs. So that's me. Sure. Um I just wanted to say about the walking tours. Um, even though besides my husband and myself and and Commissioner Lee, there was only one true member of the public there on our walking tour. She had a really good time. She learned a lot. She was very excited about her experience. And it's funny because I went home after that and then I went to the Stater Brothers and actually ran into her at the Stater Brothers and she engaged me again for like 10 minutes about how great a time she had, how much she learned. Um she wished more people would get involved and she it was one of those things where like she didn't know what she didn't know, right? She didn't know what zoning was. She didn't know about all she came because there was a big house going up across the street from her and that's basically what drove her to come out. But she really learned a lot and she I just thought it was very valuable feedback for you guys that you know I think if you can get people there like and put it in terms that they understand like I almost feel like those walking tours wouldn't be a bad thing to do as an educational tool because it puts it on a level that people can understand.

You know, reading a zoning code is boring, but when you're like, look, like, should we allow wooden fences or do we want to have people have walls and look at the difference between this wall which has no landscaping and this wall which does? Like all that's much more engaging to people and I think they just understand then the importance of why the city has rules and codes and stuff. So anyway, just wanted to pass along that feedback that she really enjoyed it. I think I met the same lady on the walking tour that I went on. Um, nothing else. So, um, that would take us to staff comments. We did have two items that we attached under staff comments. One is the future agenda items list. Um, and the other I can't I can't hear you. Excuse me. Um, chairman, I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. He said he couldn't hear you. Oh. Um, under staff comments, we have two items. One is the future agenda items list and the other is the planning commission work plan. And so, um, that that's being provided every meeting that we meet. If there's any questions or comments, um, this would be an appropriate time or email me. Thank you. We had a conversation about recusal and I I had asked how do I actually have input as a stakeholder and I didn't hear about you you okay I I'll follow up with our city attorney and um have them h have Stephanie reach out to you apologize for that I was in that position a little while ago and um actually was told that because we're volunteers um We exist in two realms. So if we're

if we're um recusing ourselves um from uh an item of discussion, we can still appear as a member of the public for a threeminut comment. There's no city attorney here tonight, so no city attorney report. And therefore at 8:21 I adjourn this meeting of the planning commission. Yay. Yay.