Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

paradise fire situation where we have citizens dying in their cars so what is a life worth what is a citizen's life worth in Ventura is it worth these 117 extra units or can we find a better uh a way to to develop this land or at least a better plan to put in new units in there thank you for your time thank you

Chair, may I ask, it appears that you had prepared remarks that you read from. Could you send that into the city so that they could be put into the record? I'd be happy to. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Would I send it? Okay, great.

Thank you. Okay, seeing as there is no other public communication at the moment, Mr. Clerk? I will close public communication. All right. We will now move on to our consent items of the evening. And on our agenda tonight is the approval of the draft minutes from our June 24th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting, not to be confused with last week's meeting. These are just our minutes from last month's June 24th meeting. Commissioners, are there any questions, corrections, or requests on our consent calendar or on our minutes from last meeting? Seeing as there are none, okay. I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar.

I move to approve.

Second. Thank you. We have a motion from Commissioner Comden and a second from Commissioner Abbey.

Thank you. You can now enter your vote. All votes have been entered. five ayes, one abstention. By Commissioner Locke request. Motion carries.

Thank you. All right, next on our agenda is our public hearing items. We'll start with item number two, our Ventura, City of Ventura's pro-housing designation application. The city is seeking designation through the California Department of Housing and Community Development. The designation recognizes jurisdictions that take action to accelerate housing production remove barriers to development and implement housing supportive policies. The action before the Commission tonight is to review the draft application and consider a resolution recommending that the City Council authorize staff to submit the application. At this time, I'll invite staff to present. Thank you.

Good evening, Planning Commission. For the record, my name is Jen Harkey. I am the Housing Services Manager the city and we are here to present to you a proposal for the pro housing designation application and you will hear details from staff on what that entails. And we are we are requesting feedback from all of you tonight. Pass it over to staff.

Thank you. Good evening. So what is a pro-housing designation? It is a state program through the California Department of Housing Community Development that recognizes local jurisdictions that implement policies to accelerate housing production and reduce unnecessary barriers that delay housing production. These housing policies come from the city's certified six cycle housing element, which is a state mandated requirement of every jurisdiction within California. The city must enact the housing element policies regardless of a pro-housing designation. However, since we're already enacting the housing element policies, it is also beneficial to the city to apply for a pro-housing designation. It prioritizes pro-housing designations and jurisdictions for extra additional points on grant applications through the state. A jurisdiction must apply for the program and if awarded, there is a three-year period of performance with two years to implement zoning updates and other goals listed in the jurisdiction's application. And again, all of these come from the existing housing element. So what are the benefits of the pro-housing designation? There's priority scoring for state housing grants as well as infrastructure programs. For example, this does go beyond just housing grants. There was also a public works grant, the sustainable transportation planning grant that the city would have received additional points on it if we'd been a pro-housing designation at the time of their application last year. The city would be eligible to apply for the State Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention Grant. We have applied and been awarded this grant in previous years. We used this as our rental assistance in the past, and we helped keep over 100 households housed and not fall into homelessness. There is a seventh round that is being released. However, you must be a pro-housing designation to apply for this grant now. That wasn't the case in the previous grants, which is how we were able to be awarded, but there is that change. There's also exclusive access to pro-housing incentive programs, also known as PIP, and so these are specific grants that only jurisdictions that are recognized as a pro-housing designation can apply for. And finally it also demonstrates that the city is committed to the regional housing needs allocation progress as well as the general housing element We're slightly frozen There we go. So there are 75 jurisdictions currently in the state of California who have received a pro-housing designation. We have nearby jurisdictions such as the city of Santa Barbara as well as the county of Santa Barbara, SLO. We also have a lot of our neighbors within Ventura County. And the Ventura Council of Governments is also proposing that each jurisdiction does do this. So the City of Oxnard is currently pursuing their pro-housing designation as well as the County of Ventura. And so the County of Ventura's application was submitted on June 10th to HCD for review. So for the application process, we created a list of existing and proposed housing policies to monitor and implement within the pro-housing designation period of performance. And again, even those proposed housing policies that we utilized in our application for the pro-housing, that all came from our housing element. So regardless, we would still have to complete those housing element items in order to maintain our certification of it. But we just haven't enacted those yet, so those are why they're underproposed in our application process. The application scores up to 150 points. Jurisdictions need a minimum of 30 points to apply. The City of Ventura has 75 points in our application, and this is a mixture of base points along with enhancement factors. Higher points don't mean you have a higher prioritization. As long as you reach those minimum 30 points and any other requirements, then you've achieved that status. but it's nice that we have 75 as opposed to the base 30. HCD review process takes up to 60 days and the state may return with edits. We did work closely with HCD during our application process for the review. Of course, we haven't submitted it yet, so we don't know what edits they'll have, but we did work very closely with HCD. And again, these deliverables are identical to those already identified in the city's certified housing element. So the application structure includes seven appendices, which are required for submittal. This includes a formal resolution, proposed policies, a self-scoring sheet, enhancement factors, and enhancement factors emphasize project policies already in place, but we're able to highlight it throughout our application with different projects. Homeless encampment policy, public participation process, as well as additional information and supporting documents. So this included just, you know, the plan sets of entitled projects that already meet what we're doing. And so there's a lot of supporting documents in our application. We do also need to meet threshold requirements, so this includes a compliant housing element, and all of our annual progress reports being submitted and up to date, which they are, compliant with state housing laws, as well as complete any necessary rezoning. And so to give you an example of what Appendix 3, our self-scoring sheet looks like, if you look at 1A, the city did not apply for 1A. So there are just dashes all the way across that. However, we did apply for 1B. So there's a general question, which is usually if you look in your attachment, it's pages 7 to 9. So 1B will tell you what the category is. And then the city has an answer as to how we are meeting that or how we propose to meet that through our existing housing element. And then you can see the point system. So there are three base points for 1B. If we were to have done an enhancement category for this, we would have put which enhancement category it was as well as the enhancement points. And then that would have adjusted our total points. So for this one, It was a three points. This is how we felt we met 1B. And so we get a total of three points here. And if you look down on page 42 of the attachment, that's where we begin answering all of these questions in depth. And so enhancement factors, we did a lot of enhancement factors throughout our application. And so we mostly focused on enhancement factor one because it did give us two additional points as opposed to the other enhancement factors which just gave us one point. And so enhancement factor one looks at multifaceted strategies to promote multiple planning objectives, such as affordable housing, transit, land use, hazard mitigation. So one of our examples was the Westview Village projects with their multiple phases. This was 100% affordable housing project, and it was an example of efficient land use and the infill first strategy. It converted substandard public housing units into new apartments. And it more than doubled the existing public housing units. So now they're close to 300 units as opposed to previously they were under a hundred This also provided significant improvements to the infrastructure on the west side. So this included creating sheltered bus stations They improved the crosswalks all through the west side and so this one was a really good example of how we were able to enhance a lot of our applications and Similarly, Pasture Quartz is also done by Ventura Housing. It's also 100% affordable housing project. This one utilized Assembly Bill 2162 to streamline their application. AB 2162 is a supportive housing bill, and it can be used to be permitted by right in zones where multifamily and mixed-use development is permitted. And it also just streamlines their application and process, which we know can be timely and costly as we're waiting to get through that process. So that just helps streamline their application. This is also an example of efficient land use and infill first strategy as this has been a vacant lot since the 80s. It was previously a gas station and then it was demolished and vacant since the 80s. And this is a proposed project. So it will add 34 Permanent supportive housing units to the city's housing stock We were also able to defer their impact fees which helps fill a significant financial gap, of course because it's affordable housing and so they were able to utilize another program that the city has and An example of mixed use would be the Victoria Flats or Arrive Ventura project. It's 297 units offering 100 affordable units as well as commercial space. This project is unique because it is offering four bedroom units up to four bedroom units for the affordables. We don't often see that. A lot of times affordable units are studios or one bedrooms or at most two bedrooms, but the fact that they're doing four bedrooms will really help a need for our larger families who do need this affordable housing assistance. The city did defer their development impact fees for the affordable building not for the market rate But just for that affordable and they were also an example of efficient land use because it was a vacant lot on the corner of the Victoria Avenue and Olivas Park And last but not least, for our examples of enhancement factors, we utilize Maple Quartz. It's a mixed-use project that will include four cell townhomes, 59 units, as well as rental apartments, 244, as well as commercial space. There's inclusionary units there for both the four cell. We have six townhomes and 27 rental units for lower income. And this is located within half a mile to a major transit stop. It's across the street from the Pacific View Mall, which includes major realtailers, grocery stores, and businesses, and that bus hub there does get you to pretty much any spot in the town. So this was a really good example of using that transit. And I will pass it over to Jennifer Harkey.

Thank you Rachel. So for Appendix 5 the state requires each jurisdiction under the pro housing designation to comply with best practices for encampment response. This includes our coordination with the county of Ventura continuum of care law enforcement Caltrans and also local nonprofit organizations such as street outreach teams. Our city already has incorporated this guidance policy which includes proper noticing before cleanups and offering relocation or shelter other resources to those who are unhoused in our city. The mapping that you see on the screen was actually taken during our 2026 homeless point in time count to capture unsheltered surveys across our community. More details on homelessness resources are available on our city website on the housing services page. For grant opportunities the pro housing designation actually allows our city to have priority for certain state grant dollars. Some of these grants actually support affordable housing development rental assistance programs operating subsidies as well as infrastructure and transportation planning. The state is offering additional scoring points for several of these grants in 2026 and 2027. So our hope is that we can have the designation to give us additional priorities at the state level. And I am going to pass it over to Andrea Palmer.

good evening commissioners this is my first time here so nice to meet you senior management analysts here at the city of intro with these lovely ladies in the housing services division so um appendix six we had a robust public outreach strategy um huge part of the application process It includes a very comprehensive website on the webpage that has a summary of what the pro-housing designation is. We sent out flyers. We sent information to stakeholders. We did a 30-day written public comment period and posted it in the VC Star. And that started on July 8th and concluded on August 8th. And we opened the opportunity for questions that any members of the public or stakeholders had by providing an email to our division email address. Next slide, please. So timeline of outreach events. We had the public notice draft to go out on July 7th. We had a presentation to the Housing and Homelessness Subcommittee on July 13th and tonight we're presenting to all of you and then we will conclude our outreach strategy and comment information to sum up for the application on September 15th during the City Council meeting. The kickoff that we had for the outreach strategy was the workshop summary, or the workshop information. We held a workshop for stakeholders, any members of the public that were interested in attending. We had 15 public attendees that came in and listened attentively. They gave very positive feedback. We went over the draft application and whatever comments they had, we incorporated it into our draft application and then published the information for the website and for our final draft to process. So everything else has pretty much been covered, and the public comments, like I mentioned earlier, were 11 written public comments that were provided. There were seven in favor and four opposed, and these are just some examples of some of the comments that we received on both sides. Some were very lengthy, tried to pare them down as much as I could, but wanted to give you some insight on some of the comments that were made. And I believe that is did you want to conclude or?

Yes, so our recommendation before you this evening is for the Planning Commission to provide feedback on the city's proposed pro housing designation application as well as approve the resolute resolution recommending that City Council authorized staff to submit the application to the California Department of Housing and Community Development And staff is here for any questions or comments. You may have. Thank you. I

Thank you. Staff really appreciate the presentation and overview. Thank you to my commissioners for utilizing our technology here. And I will open it up for questions now. And we will start with Commissioner Abbey.

Thank you, Chair Boussa. Thank you, staff, for the presentation. So there's a lot of upsides to the pro-housing designation, so that's good to see. My first question though is, does it require anything more of us other than simply applying? Does the pro-housing designation application require us to promise more than what we have already promised in the housing element or any other commitments we've made as a city?

no the policies that we've laid out within our application are all existing housing element policies that we would have to complete regardless it does help ensure that staff are completing the housing element items in a timely manner the cycle is 2021 to 2029 however if we were to receive a pro-housing designation Any of those proposed policies that we have not enacted yet from our housing element, we do have to complete within the first two years of that three-year performance period of the pro-housing designation. So it just is kind of an additional timestamp for staff to complete the housing element.

Okay. And you did make the comment in your presentation that the deliverables of this are identical to those already identified in the city's certified housing element.

That is correct, yes. Okay.

I did have a question because I was trying to go through the different items and it wasn't clear. I did put in a call this afternoon, middle of this afternoon. And so there was on page, well, there was item nine, there was something about item 2M. And is that something we can put on the screen?

let me try to pull that up on the screen and just so that everyone is aware we're talking about the application attachment and if you look at page 9 to M that's part of the first pages sorry and so 2m talks about reducing public hearings we as the city have that as just the general overview of what are the hcd requirements and questions are And we need that for our application however if you scroll down further on page 42 you can see where our application answers actually begin And there you can see that we actually didn't answer to em that was not where any of our points are coming from because we are not choosing to do that at this time as the city and

Okay, so that's not something, okay, I just wanted to confirm that, so that's helpful. I'll stop right there, thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner McCarty.

Thank you, Chair Boussa, and thanks for the presentation, staff, I appreciate it. Can we bring up the application again? Page 20, please.

Yes.

Yeah. So yeah, that's it. OK. So a question here. So the columns here, we don't see it on this view. The third column from the left is key milestones and milestone dates. The fourth column from the left is anticipated completion date. And let's take item number 14.1.1 in the middle column. In the key milestones for the Pacific View Mall, It says by 2026, establish development standards, et cetera. For that same item, 14.1.1, in the next column over, the anticipated completion date is December 31st, 2029. Should I read anything into, and this is kind of common throughout the application. I notice there are many, many milestone dates which are kind of being pushed out three years until completion. Can you explain that?

So there are 33 programs within the housing element, but each program has a number of objectives. So when we're looking at 14.1 and 14.11, there's a total of 91 objectives under the 33 housing element programs. And so each of those objectives kind of you have to look at as their own separate things. So they might have their own completion date, and it might differ from literally the one right below it. And so I wouldn't say that it's something to specifically look at too in-depth, but those are just the timeframes that we realistically would be able to finish that objective. We're talking about the Pacific View Mall, so those are a lot of things and factors that have to go into it, and rezoning and things like that, and so that's why that date is so pushed out there.

Okay, so you don't anticipate HCD taking a look at this document and saying, well, they didn't meet their commitments in 2026, what confidence do I have that they're gonna make it in 2029? That's not any kind of issue you read into it?

Of course, I think HCD would like us to complete everything as soon as possible, but I think they realistically know there's a lot of things that had to wait for the general plan to be adopted. And there's also key objectives that we're currently working on that we have to wait for the objective design standards to be completed. As you all know, that won't be completed until early next year. And so there are several items that we had to wait for for the general plan that we can now start to tackle. So staff has added five new housing element items to our to-do list now that the general plan is completed, waiting for the objective design standards. We did also meet with HCD relentlessly through this process. And so... They are aware of our housing element state. They are going to be reviewing everything and sending us another letter of prioritization letter as to what we should really focus on. That is nothing to do with us applying for the pro housing designation or for where we're at in our housing element. They're actually doing it across each jurisdiction so it was already kind of helpful that we were talking about it proactively with the pro housing application because we would have met with them regardless on it so we will be receiving a new prioritization list and they might say hey we actually really want the Pacific View Mall done in the next you know two years so let's just focus on that right now but we won't know that until later this fall when we have that prioritized

I'd like to add to that, too. The repetition of the 2029 date that you see, it ties back to the fact that this is a three-year designation. So that's as far out as we can go with our goals. And if we don't have a date certain, then we use the default of the end of the period to accomplish that goal.

OK, thank you. One more question for right now. If you could scroll down a couple of pages to item number 14.6. I think one more page down. 14.6, continue all Ventura water programs and new projects such as Water Pure and the State Water Connection Project to ensure adequate water supply, et cetera. So this is a key milestone and what I read into this, my own personal read is very interesting. To me this is the first time I've seen in writing where the city is actually committing to the state to complete our water projects. Those two in particular, Ventura Water Pure and the State Water Interconnection. I had never seen a commitment to the state on that before. Is this the first time we've committed officially in writing to those projects to the state.

So I'm not sure in regards to any other type of reporting but this housing the housing element had been in talks and works since you know well before twenty twenty one and then it wasn't certified until twenty twenty three. So we have had you know this is pulled directly from the housing element so it has been documented to the state YOU KNOW AT LEAST SINCE 2021 AND CERTIFIED IN 2023 IN THE HOUSING ELEMENT AT LEAST I DON'T KNOW WHAT OTHER STATE DOCUMENTS THAT WATER MIGHT WORK ON DIRECTLY AND I'M NOT SURE IF MARUHA HAD ANY OTHER COMMENTS TO ADD THANK YOU MS WEST I THINK ULTIMATELY WHEN THIS WAS DRAFTED ORIGINALLY IN 2021 IS TO THE OVERALL SERVICE PROVISION OF WATER AND WASTEWATER TO AFFORDABLE HOUSING

So at that time, and still relatively today, we had the Ventura Water and Pier Project and the State Water and Connection Project, such as these projects, to ensure we were able to have water provision to affordable housing as part of that housing element program.

Okay, thanks. I must have just missed that portion in the housing element. Sorry about that. That's all the questions I have for now. I'll have a couple of comments later if you could keep the application handy.

Thank you, Commissioner McCarty. Commissioner Lagerquist.

Thank you, Chair. And thank you, staff, for the presentation. Just a couple quick questions. So I'm curious with this, does the city already have a grant, like, in mind? Or a couple grants? Or...

Yes. Thank you for the question. We do have a grant in mind especially for the homeless housing assistance and prevention program around 7. That is going to be available to us early in 20 27 and it does require us to have pro housing designation to be eligible to apply for that funding. That funding can be used for supportive housing can be used for rental assistance dollars. It could be used to assist with an affordable housing development you know in order to get tax credits things like that. So yes.

So when you flashed up the list of jurisdictions that already are certified, I was like, whoa. So I mean, and this isn't really a question specific to the city, except how's the state gonna deal with that? I mean, are they prepared to be able to fund all of this? And are we too late to the party or how do we feel about that?

I don't know that we're necessarily late to the party, but I think this has been on our books for a while. This is an extension of the housing element, and I think that there are cities within the state that have been a little delayed on meeting their housing element goals, and this is incentivizing cities to move on the objectives that they set forth in their housing element since it's a requirement. So incentivizing us jurisdictions by saying, well, we'll give you extra points if you apply for a grant through the state by doing this pro-housing designation. So that is, I don't know if they're ready or not, can't speak on behalf of them, but it definitely is a good deal when it was presented to us and we were very thankful to VCOG. They gave us some technical assistance as HCD did too.

they really want to see the jurisdictions come in set some goals and move forward towards meeting the housing element objectives so that makes sense okay that that definitely makes more sense um so you said that the deliverables are where they're already all in place we completely are there any extra requirements

There are no extra requirements other than things that we've already had to name in our housing element, as well as those threshold requirements, which is keeping a compliant housing element. The annual progress report has to be yearly and timely and things like that. But other than that, these are things that the city is already doing.

That's all my questions for now. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Law requests. I did have Assistant Director Clancy pop up. Is that not a? Nope. Thank you. He's disregarded. It was a response to Ms. West's request. Thank you. All right. Moving on. Commissioner Comden.

Thank you, Chair. So there needs to be a minimum of 30 points. Do we presently have 75 or this would put us in position to have 75?

With the way that the application is written right now with those base points as well as those enhancements enhancement factors We have 75 points.

So we are well over the 30 points and then I thought I heard you say it doesn't matter how many points above 30 you have there's no prioritization for the number of points that is correct whether we have the full 150 or 31 points there isn't any prioritization once we've met over the 30 points, so if we've already met the requirement and Why are we doing this exercise?

So we have never applied to a pro-housing designation before. This would give us those opportunities for those extra grants. So for the HAP grant, but also for those special pro-housing incentive program grants. And so those are specific to if you are a pro-housing designation. And so those 75 points, just because we have it, we do still have to do the formal application process with the resolution and city council approval. So that's what we're here tonight to do, is to get that feedback so we can actually apply. And then pretty much because we have the 75 points, we'll probably get a little bit of edits back on our application from HCD that says, oh, use this policy instead, or how about you highlight this, or things like that. I don't want to say it's a given past that point, but because it is a 30 point minimum and we're at 75.

Commissioner I would also clarify that the state does require us to go through the hearing process as well as have significant outreach and also the public comment period and Incorporate any of that feedback into our application as part of our process as well.

Thank you So what? What are the amounts of these grants? minimum and maximum or an average or a median of

Yes, very good question. So there are numerous ways to look at it. There's existing state grants that you don't have to be a pro-housing designation to apply for. However, if you are a pro-housing designation, you could get those extra scoring points. So for example, there was an infrastructure grant that Public Works applied to like a year and a half ago. And if we were to have been a pro-housing designation at the time, they would have gotten extra scoring points. So sometimes it just comes up to us getting more prioritization for grants that you don't necessarily need to be a pro-housing designation for. However, through that pro-housing incentive program or PIP, in 2024, the round two funding was $15 million and it went to 19 jurisdictions. Previous amounts have been 33 million that went to 18 jurisdictions. So it really does range. And of course, it's not like we're just applying the money blindly. Of course, we would have to have an actual plan set of, you know, is it going to go towards affordable housing? Is it going to go towards infrastructure? So we would still need to build up an actual, you know, reasonable plan to be awarded something. And I know that was a question earlier is if there's 75 jurisdictions that are now pro-housing, Is it really worth it? But I think each jurisdiction, of course, will have a different plan and different application. And of course, the state's going to look at what is most needed at that time and award jurisdictions accordingly.

There was a lot packed into that sentence. What I got from it was that the two examples you gave could be awards of $500,000 to $2 million per jurisdiction, which is not inconsequential. The money. Does it go to the city and does it stay within the city? I noticed some of the examples written to defer impact costs for 55 years for a development. Is that how it is used? It is used as a component to help a developer achieve the mission of completing a project?

Again that could be Depending on what the grant is at the time that we're applying for a lot of times It is affordable housing development, but like I mentioned it could be infrastructure so if you see some of our comments that we got during our public comment period was we need to focus on infrastructure this money if we were to apply for a grant that has infrastructure and get those extra points because we're a pro housing designation could help us fix the infrastructure and So it really is just dependent on the grant that we see at the time and how it is suitable for the needs of the community. But to answer your question of the overall, it would be money that stays in the city of Ventura. So we wouldn't, you know, get a grant and then help Fillmore, sorry, Fillmore, apply for affordable housing or things like that. It would be money that is for the city and stays within the city.

Right. So I know the request is for feedback and this is... couched as a positive thing. Are there any negative repercussions by going down this path? Objectively.

As Maruha says, this is kind of like a buy one, get one. So we are already doing our housing element. That is a state mandate that we must meet. And if not, there are consequences such as, you know, we've talked about it before, builder's remedy. We lose a lot of certifications and things like that. So we already have to do this. We might as well apply for a pro-housing designation and get that extra boost on grant applications as well as that more, you know, exclusive PIP grants opportunities. So there isn't really any negatives because we would already have to do this regardless if we were a pro-housing designation or not.

Thank you.

okay any uh before I have a few questions most of my questions were answered so thank you commissioners for for uh already answering some of those I get for my edification one of the things you mentioned was that our application is a mirror of our housing element in that list of 75 of those who already are there any but are there are there applications that extend beyond their current housing element is that a thing that is seen through this process I'm just curious

and didn't want to go green. Could you clarify your question?

So as we go through, we designate through the application. This is straight from our housing element. This is straight from our housing element. Are there any applications that include things for other of those? I was just curious. I'd go beyond that.

So the application, when you see here, it's pretty prescriptive. It asks will you, I'm trying to think of a question that we answered here. It asks us a poignant question about do you have federal grants that would match affordable housing, that would go to affordable housing. We'd say yes, we have CDBG and home money that would match with the housing element goals that we have. So to go outside of the housing element, most likely not, unless someone counteracts what I'm saying here.

I think your question was, have any of those other 75 jurisdictions applied outside of their housing element? Correct. Yes. So we did look at a number of applications, including the city or the county of Ventura, along with a couple northern California cities. It looks like most people do stick closely to their housing element. Of course, each jurisdiction's housing element drastically differs. Even the county is drastically different than the city of Ventura's because they have so much unincorporated land. They're also mixed with some coastal and unincorporated, but they also are on behalf of some of the smaller cities for CDBG funding. Most seem to stay within the thresholds of their housing element. you know, our housing element is very detailed. Um, and so we didn't have to go outside of our housing element at all to address the policies in the pro housing aspect of things. Thank you.

If I could just chime into, I mean, in our meetings with HCD, they were, very Enthusiastic about us going above and beyond what we already had in our housing element But as evidence with what we have already doing we have a very sufficient score and there wasn't really any Need to go above and beyond when we were working with place works originally who was hired by VCOG for a countywide pro housing designation effort with the other nine cities and um that we we were a little kind of behind with the certification process of our housing element you know we was drafted in 2021 was certified in 2023 so we have some catch-up and we're still catching up so we wanted to be prudent with what we were proposing to accomplish and we felt sticking with what we already have within our housing element was the best way to go and to achieve those objectives that have been approved by Council

Thank you. Those are my questions. Any other questions from the Commission? Okay. Thank you. Pardon?

Oh, Commissioner McCarty. Actually, so I'm back to, like, no questions, but recommendations for the document itself?

Deliberation? So we're in the public hearing, so now I would need to close questions and then open for questions. for public comment so we can wait for a deliberation and we can get back to that perfect okay all right and now I will open up the hearing for any public comment mr. clerk are there any thank you chair we do have one public comment on this item Karen Falk you'll have three minutes welcome

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Karen Flock. I'm the real estate development director with Ventura Housing, and we support applying for the pro-housing designation. This will reinforce work that the city is already doing to support housing, and as has been mentioned, receiving the designation will help make us more competitive for some affordable housing financing. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Flock. Any other public speakers at the moment? Thank you.

Mr. Philip Fields.

Hi, I'm a retired university professor. I'm also a disabled citizen. And I have my disagreements with the panelists and as well as a kind of lack My experience comes from my experience. I lived it. And I'll address the matter of affordable housing. With affordable housing, it's like saying hocus pocus. We're solving the poor class's lack of housing. But that's it. It's real because affordable unit, it's so abstract and it doesn't measure the reality, the income situation. Each county has different numbers. For example, in ours it's about $80,000 per year to afford a two-bedroom unit. And most employees here don't make $80,000. If you include me, I can tell you clearly no. But the fact is, it's the wrong parameter. So you guys gotta say the 80,000 threshold. And who can afford that? We gotta do housing for the low-income people and for the very low-income people, besides the homeless. And now, for example, parking for those units. There gotta be enough parking because the grids is a big problem. Now, regarding evacuations, evacuations for the disabled class, it's non-existent. In the previous fire situation we had, I would have been burned alive along Councilwoman Campos. They don't have means of evacuation. The fire department, you name it, et cetera, et cetera. Now, about the waiting lists. This is the biggest monster. fraudster I've ever met in my professional life.

Excuse me, sir. Please direct your call.

This is a constitutional expression, and you have no legal authority to disrupt my free speech. Please wait the end of it. I'm experienced. I'm a retired professor. So please, let's call. Let's talk. And now you ate my time. So I'm requesting that my time be repositioned. One minute. So the fact is that... These waiting lists are capricious, arbitrary. I have a minute because I was disrupted. There is no constitutional authority, no constitutional standing for you to disrupt. Just a minute, I'm talking with the council. I'm talking with the council, with the commissioners. This pattern must stop. We live under a constitution. I have a minute. Thank you. So the fact is this.

The list needs to be transparent.

They need to be accountable. They need to be fair. They need to be everywhere.

Thank you.

Chair, you have what it needs to be.

I would ask the parliamentarian to step in here and give you direction.

Well, I'm informing this. You're violating this.

I'll have to check into the protocols, but it looks like we're done now.

You're not going to put me on a false arrest.

Yeah, broadly speaking, if there's a disruption past a certain point, you do have the authority to remove somebody from a meeting. That's not my call to make. I will look up the details on that right now.

Thank you. Thank you. Sir, and thank you for your comments and thank you. for all comments here this evening from our public. We have established rules for public comment which allow an opportunity to address the council and our commission in a lawful manner. And currently those were not being adhered Those comments need to be addressed to the commission, not to folks in the audience. That is why I advise you to speak your comments to the commission and not to anybody in the audience. That was. You had directed your comments, sir, to the public and to a former speaker who had just spoken on the item, and I asked you to speak to the commission. That was why you were interrupted. And I would. Please. Your conduct is interfering with this meeting and in keeping with the business of the county council from progressing. I ask you to stop disrupting this meeting at this moment. If we cannot abide by the rules of conduct for the order of this meeting, I will have to ask you to leave.

May I speak?

It is now not the time. You have had your time to speak, sir. If you're going to continue to disrupt this meeting, you will be escorted out of here.

There you go. The state of California will listen exactly on the record, the denial of constitutional free speech, the frame to false arrest, et cetera, et cetera. You are ignorant, and you cannot stand it. It's no legal authority.

He's leaving. It doesn't matter.

Mr. Clerk, are there any other speakers on tonight's item? I apologize.

Please continue. There are no more public speakers on this item.

Okay. With that, I'm going to close the public hearing and bring it back to the Commission for deliberation. Commissioners, if you would like, I would ask you to use our... Yes, Commissioner Bacardi.

Thank you. And thank you for taking charge of the situation that just occurred. So with regard to feedback for the application, a couple of things, editorial, typographical kind of things. On page four, the application information lists the authorized representative and her email as Rachel Diamond. So that will need to be changed.

Thank you, we are taking note of that.

Could you go back to my favorite page, page 20 of the application?

Get in there, give me a second.

Okay, so I have reviewed and edited way too many documents in my lifetime. And I want to talk about how this document is aligned typographically. In the two right-hand columns where we see text, the two rightmost columns where we see text, that text is center justified. I don't have an issue with that. There's also left justification, right justification, and full justification. You can see in the left hand column, the left hand column is what's called fully justified. And if you can blow it up a little bit, you can see how irritating that kind of justification is at the bottom of that left hand column. If you go to the next page, one page down, here's an example of full justification. So the left-hand column with text in it, look at the very last line of text in the left-hand column. where it's completely split with that full justification. So just a friendly comment. If I were the one reviewing this document, the justification in that column would drive me absolutely batty. I would recommend going to left justification in that second column from the left. I don't mind the center justification in the narrower columns. That's fine. But I recommend getting away from full justification in that column just so you don't give the reviewer a headache. Thank you. That's my comment.

Thank you.

Thank you, City Attorney.

Yeah, I just wanted to quickly follow up on the question we got. Thank you. My apologies, it took me a minute to find the relevant section of the protocols. But for future reference, what you did is exactly what we should be doing. In the event that there's disruptive conduct, the procedure is, it's up to you, it's up to the person running the meeting to make a determination as to what does and does not constitute disruptive conduct. You obviously need to be mindful that the First Amendment, of course, applies here. But if there is disruptive conduct, the procedure is to first warn the person engaging in the disruptive conduct. If it then continues, you have the authority to instruct them to leave. If they refuse to do so, you have the authority to ask law enforcement to remove them. I don't believe we have law enforcement here, but that is the procedure.

Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate that. And thank you, Mr. Clerk, for providing that guidance as you did. I appreciate that.

I have a quick follow-up question to that answer. So do we have any capability in this room to turn off the microphones remotely?

Yes, we do.

Oh, did you do that?

Yes, Commissioner, I did at one point. Okay. Running between him and the desk, I did.

Okay, okay. Yeah, about 20 seconds into the situation, he did. Okay, thank you, thank you.

All right, thank you. Thank you for that clarification, appreciate that. We're gonna turn it back to deliberation and to the commissioners and Commissioner Winninger.

Thank you. I've been silent up to now. I did not have any questions. I think the report was very clear and concise. We have a robust housing element. I think it's probably one of the best housing elements that I've ever seen. So having this pro-housing designation does not seem, this seems great. I mean, it kind of, they have you by the handcuffs to do this pro-housing designation if you want a grant, and of course we want those housing, and of course we want the homeless housing grants, so that seems like a no-brainer to me. I really don't have anything to add. I have a couple of, the only nitpicky that I have on the form, I wouldn't have said anything except Commissioner McCarty opened the door. I would just like a header row on each of these when you submit it, it would be nice to have a header row. That's something that just drives me crazy for any work product. But I don't have a problem with anything you've done. I think you've done an outstanding job and defined 75 points. I've done these applications myself. Defining 75 points is amazing. So I just, I do have one question. I don't know if it's kind of later on on the planning commission side, but I do, and we can defer this question. um but i just i i want to make sure that if we're proposing uh rezoning in pacific view mall at some point at the commission or the council or somebody is proposing to widen mills road and i i just do you know maple court is coming mills road pacific view is coming so that's just a comment we i don't need to have an answer today but i i hope that's on everybody's mind um that's my only comment but great job thank you and um miss harkey jennifer it's really great uh that you're here for the first time and i'm sorry i i'm going to see you the first time too um so thank you so much

Thank you, Commissioner Winnegar. We will attempt to make that edit. This is a state template, so I think there is a little bit of limitation on those types of things, because it's how the state has it set up. But I agree, scrolling up and down, I was like, I have it on my second computer, so I could see what the topic is.

Thank you. Commissioner Comden.

Thank you, Chair. With that, I would like to move that we approve the draft pro-housing designation application.

I will second that.

All right. We have a motion and a second. A motion from Commissioner Comden, a second from Commissioner Lagerquist. Mr. Clerk.

You can now enter your vote. All votes have been entered. Six ayes. The motion carries.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, we will now move on to our next item of the evening. And let's just make sure I'm aligned with the agenda, because that has happened to me before in the past. We'll move on to item number three, project 250914, Loretta Quartz Apartments. And this is a request for a major design review for 19-unit multifamily resident project, along with three warrants and one exception under the downtown specific plan. And before we begin, I would ask if there is any ex parte from the commissioner or if there's any need for anyone to recuse themselves from this item for the evening. All right. Thank you. All right. With that, I will let Ms. Farley get settled. And we will allow staff to present at this public hearing.

Take it away. Good evening commissioners public city clerk. Tonight my name is Shannon Farley. Well not tonight. I'm always Shannon Farley planning manager. We needed to laugh. Sorry. I'm actually representing Grant White, our acting senior planner, who's on vacation this week. This item was originally scheduled for hearing last month and was continued due to a quorum issue. And so I'm representing him tonight so that we can move the project along. Tonight before you is the Loretta Court Apartments' agenda item three, project 250914, and the related case numbers. The project site is a roughly 12,000-square-foot lot located at APN 0730058030, located on the south side of East Main Street between Laurel Streets and Ann Street within the downtown. While the site fronts Main Street, the primary access to the site is along an alley along the back at Poinsettia Place, located on the southern boundary of the project site. The property is a rectangular-shaped property at the 1000 block of East Main Street, bounded by single-family dwellings to the west, north, and apartment buildings located to the east and the south. The site has been vacant for roughly 20 years. The proposed development is located in the downtown specific plan or referred to as DTSP throughout the presentation as shown in the orange area on the screen. The site is zoned urban general one or T4.1 main street frontage zone in the DTSP standards. The DTSP describes this zone as an area that aims to preserve and restore the historic character of the Eastside neighborhoods. The transect zones were established to affect the desired intensity and building scale of the specific area. The zone is considered to be the outer lying transect zone that is scaled primarily towards residential use and neighborhood character and encourages mixed use and residential infill projects. Uses in the project site's immediate vicinity include an eclectic mix of structures that are predominantly residential in nature. The abutting parcels to the subject site consist of residential uses north of the site across East Main Street are occupied by residential structure. The residential structures can also be found south of the site. Building heights along the block frontage range from one to two story buildings. The project requires the approval of a major design review permit, three warrants, and one exception, the exception for a new 19-unit multifamily residential development in the T4.1 Main Street frontage zone. Pursuant to the code, a major design review application is typically revert to the design review committee for recommendation to the applicable decision-making body. Because the project includes exceptions to the DTSP, This final decision is determined by the planning commission rather than the director. The code provides that when the decision making authority relates these two correlated bodies, that decision goes to the planning commission. The project is a new 19-unit residential apartment building in a three-story configuration. The unit mix includes seven studios, nine one bedrooms, and three two-bedroom units, with three units designated for inclusionary or affordable housing units. The building includes a shared side courtyard, bicycle parking, and onsite tuck-under podium parking. On the screen you'll see a slide that shows the unit mix which includes a total of 16 market rate units, two low income units, one very low income unit for a total of 19 units. You can see the bedroom count mix on the top of the slide. These are renderings of the east and west elevations of the project site. You'll note that you can see the exposed podium parking which has walls that allow you to see through and allow for ventilation. And then the north elevation, which fronts onto East Main Street, and the south elevation that fronts onto the alley at the back. The primary entrance to the tuck under parking, you'll see on that south elevation. Landscaping is provided along the perimeter of the project site and within the side courtyard area, and the planting palette generally reflects the downtown specific plan's preference for drought-tolerant plants. Deciduous trees are a predominant large plant material. In response to the applicant's refined landscape plan, the western front should now has a clearer hierarchy of ground covers, shrubs, and trees, and the eastern property line includes new shrubs and grasses, such as flowering maple and boxwood, within the required setback. The rear yard incorporates additional planting to screen the electrical transformers and softens the concrete wall on either side of the parking. The project was reviewed twice by the Design Review Committee. The first time they were seen was last year, July 2, 2025, and this was a conceptual review. This is not a mandatory requirement, but the applicant chose to go through a conceptual pre-application review to receive comments and refine their project. On May 6, 2026, they were formally reviewed by the Design Review Committee. They reviewed that response. They approved or recommended approval of the project with a 4-0 vote with minimal recommendations and one specific comment to consider reevaluating the location of downspouts. The project is subject to development standards within the DTSP, including urban standards, building-type standards, and frontage-type standards applicable to this zone district. Overall, the project is substantially consistent within the DTSP because it introduces a new multifamily building with a long-range infill project, providing the housing in the downtown area, activating the main street frontage with a pedestrian-oriented entrance sequence, and organizes vehicle access from the alley rather than primary street frontage along Main Street. However, the requested departures from the zoning standards are limited to design and site planning standards and do not undermine the overall purpose of the DTSP or its overall development standards. The project still delivers the core planning outcomes sought by the DTSP and does not rely on state law to accomplish the project, rather relies on DTSP standards for exceptions and warrants. On the screen, you'll see the standards listed that they're expressing requests for warrants, which would increase the maximum two stories and allow 20%, maybe three stories to three stories over 60% of the building. And I have a diagram to show you that. would allow 66 foot wide lot to use a side court building type, which would normally require a 75 foot required lot. The lot is constrained to that 66 feet wide, so they're requesting to use that lot without any consolidation of other lots. would be to allow a tuck under parking at grade configuration instead of a fully enclosed garage. And then the exception that they are requesting is to allow parking spaces within the five foot setback area provided. And I do have a diagram to show that as well. So on the screen you'll see the diagram which describes with three different colors the three warrants that are requested. On the top right you'll see the request shown in red which would allow for a greater third story request up to 60% which would normally only allow a 20%. So you'll see that darker area of orange is the 20% and the expansion of that and the lighter orange would be shown to exceed that to 60%. Below, you'll see in orange the request for tuck under parking, and then the yellow diagram on the front is the width of the property, which is existing, taking advantage of that 66-foot wide lot rather than being able to make it larger and 75. That is a constraint of the property that they are asking to be used. The exception, rather, is shown here with the red. The five-foot parking side yard requirement is shown in the orange blocks, and in places where the red block is shown, you'll see that encroachment of those parking spaces at roughly one to two feet encroaching into that to allow the tuck-under parking underneath the building outside of that. So generally the project meets the overall intent of our 2050 general plan. Those standards listed generally and detailed in more detail in the resolution related to urban design, infill first, parking frontages, quality of design, and staff finds that the project is consistent except where those warrants and exceptions are found to those general standards in our general plan. Pursuant to California Environmental Quality Act, the project is considered an infill project under section 15332, class 32 infill, and does not mean any of the exceptions to exemptions under the CEQA law. Therefore, staff recommends that the Planning Commission approve the major design review, including those warrants and exceptions as described in staff presentation and staff report. The applicant's team is here to answer any questions. They don't have a presentation to provide you, but they are here if you have any questions.

Excellent. Thank you so much, Ms. Farrelly. All right. Seeing as the applicant is here with no presentation, we will move on to questions from the commissioner, and I have Commissioner Comden up first.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the presentation. Do you know what the slope of the property is? It tends to slope down towards the alley.

I don't know the specific slope. It's a gentle slope and not a significant slope, but I can look up in the plans if you want to give me a moment. The applicant might be able to tell us off the top of their head, but I can look.

All right. If they can, we'll wait because they're probably going to be called up for other things. Who makes the decision or makes the offering of which units are chosen for the low and very low income? I notice there's one studio and two one bedrooms, which indicates to me Not a family, no family units typically are offered on this offering for low or very low. So who makes that decision? Is it the developer, the owner comes to the city and says, this is our plan?

Thank you, Commissioner Comden. The initial request is made by the applicant and then staff does review that and make comments. In some cases, they may recommend a different mix. I'm not sure in this case that there was a different mix proposed early on, but ultimately our staff has to agree that there's an equitable mix and that they're located and dispersed throughout the project site in an appropriate manner. Each project being unique, we don't always get an exact apples for apples, but we too try to make sure that the mix is equitable and distributed throughout the site. And this is ultimately decided by the housing division of our department.

Okay, thank you. Regarding the warrants, 66 foot wide property lines versus 75, which is needed. Can you give us some understanding of why 75 is a number? What is the magic of that number?

I don't know if there's a magic to that number. Under our form-based code, there are standards set forth which imagine when we consolidate lots or make larger lots into one. What it doesn't anticipate is when you're constrained by a lot that doesn't have the ability to expand its boundaries by either consolidating with a neighboring lot or doing a lot line adjustment. And so that might work in some certain circumstances to make a more appropriate or wider size frontage to make it more inviting. It can make this site more usable in certain ways, but because of their constraints and being flanked by existing development, they didn't have the opportunity to make that request.

So let me ask the question slightly differently. A side court is an open space, kind of a community space for the residents. and maybe the 75, I don't know why, but is it true to say that on the south, the property of the south side is largely an office building with a parking lot and not residences? South side B.

Let me pull up my diagram. I'm just not familiar with the south side use. It is residential.

That one's residential, the next one's commercial. Okay, it wouldn't hurt to pull that up.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm just curious why...

So the lot's flanking this, as indicated by the applicant in the audience who spoke, and I'm just repeating what she said, that they're surrounded by residential on the three sides, and that the, I believe Rubicon Theater is at the corner, on the one corner, and that there's an office building on the next property over to the east.

So that two-story with the parking behind it is right next door, and that's residential?

Correct, it is. Interesting.

A lot of space. Okay. Thank you. Tuck under parking replaces the enclosed. What's the thinking why enclosed parking is more desirable or required, and this warrant is asking for modification?

Typically, tuck under parking or subterranean parking or parking within a garage is asked to be screened so that we're not seeing parking from the exteriors of the property. Because of this and looking at this diagram on the screen, largely the parking will be surrounded by existing development and not seen from the public street. You would see it either in the adjacent parking lot to the east or along the alleyway, but largely there would not be any visibility of these parking spaces from offsite and it's usually meant to screen those from offsite.

Yeah, OK. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner McCarty.

Thank you, Chair Boussa. Thanks for the good staff report. So part of the staff report, there's a paragraph on historic context. And this slide you have up is apropos. We see the project site. outlined in red. In the extreme lower right-hand portion of this image is the Ventura Center for Spiritual Living, which is a historical landmark. And just, I think, two lots over from the project site is the Rubicon Theater, which is, in my mind, a potential historical landmark. So in the staff paragraph on historic context, It says that this site is not located within a potential historical district. What kind of analysis is, do you know what kind of analysis might have been done to make that statement that this is not a potential historical district?

Thank you for the question, Commissioner McCarty. So yes, and you may have recalled when we took the historic survey recently, the recent 2025 historic survey, which was just adopted by city council, recently included potential historic districts that have not yet been identified or classified by the city as historic. And this, because of that survey, did not identify this area as a potential historic district. I wanna say that there were a potential of five to six that were mentioned throughout the city, but this was not one of them. Typically, under our historic designation requirements, we do need to take projects that are directly adjacent to historic properties to our HPC, or Historic Preservation Committee, But in this case, none of the adjoining properties are actually designated as historic, and therefore it didn't trigger that requirement to go through that additional analysis.

Okay. Thank you. That allays my concerns. that I cannot unilaterally make this a historic district myself.

There are standards for that, and there are metrics for that, and we could talk about it. If there were a cluster here or you had a perception of a cluster that maybe wasn't identified in that survey, that might be one of those things that we would take an analysis of. Applicants can propose that. Director would you like to add anything? Oh, no, sorry. I'm apologize But in this case, this was not identified in that last historic survey as a potential cluster of historic items great That answers my question.

Thank you.

Thank you Thank You Commissioner, we're gonna

Thank you, Chair. I didn't see on the, I was looking at the development standards and I did not see what the maximum potential build out of this is. There's 19 units being proposed, but what is the, what can they do? Is this the maximum or are they, is it more or less?

Thank you, Commissioner. And in this area with the form-based code, there isn't a set density for this property, so there's no maximum that they would be maxed out at. Under the general plan, there are guidelines that they would reach, and I can pull those up for you, but they don't meet that threshold, but I can pull it up.

Okay. And are they, they're required to do 10% affordable housing and they're providing more or are they providing exactly what they need?

They're providing exactly what they need under the affordable housing for a rental project. They need to provide 15%. If this was a for sale project, they would only need to provide 10%.

Okay. I think that's all my questions. Thank you.

And I'll circle back with the density in just a moment. Commissioner Lager question.

Thank you. And thank you for asking those questions. Those were kind of along the lines. So what would have put this project under the density bonus law?

The applicant has chosen not to leverage the law for their own project. They could have, and in that case, they probably could have taken this down to the director hearing and not requested exceptions or warrants. They chose to pay for the fees and go before the hearing body. They may be able to speak more to the applicant's choice to do that, but it was their choice and not a mandate from the city. We did ask them numerous times about that.

What was the property before? Why is it vacant?

We're not aware of what was there. We did some research and it appears to be vacant for quite some time. I don't know if the applicants have any further information, but we weren't able to find any records of a structure on that site.

Okay. And do you, I don't, maybe this might be, do you have a visual of the studio, the sizes of the, like the plan view of the different sizes of the apartments?

If not, I do have the architectural set, which I can open up and pull up in just a moment and zoom in on. I don't know that I had all of the floor plans. Well, maybe I do.

Floor plans are on the staff report.

They are attached to our staff report. This is one of the affordable units. It's a studio on the ground floor next to the parking area. It's 443 square feet. But I don't believe I have the others in the presentation here, but I can pull them up. This is the breakdown of those as far as bedroom counts.

I'll look at them before I ask any further questions about that. Let's see. I think the rest of my questions are for the applicant. Thank you. The city person, also always known as Shanna Farley.

Not previously known as?

I know. Thank you, Commissioner Largois. Commissioner Comden.

Thank you, Chair. Two more questions. Parking, it looks to be that there's parking on Main Street as well as side streets. Do we know if that parking is available 24 hours or at least overnight?

I'm not 100% sure. I'm pretty certain it's available all the time, but I can confirm.

Okay.

And we do have a variety of parking in the area that's not restricted, but I can double-check.

Right, because there was one comment about parking and I want to be cognizant of it, but because state law has really come down, they're not required to do any more than they have, correct?

Correct, they're meeting the requirements of our code. They're not requesting an exception or warrant from it. I believe they are just too far out of AB 2097 to provide zero parking, and so it's the applicant's intention to provide the onsite parking that's required. They're also providing storage and parking for bicycles onsite, so that should provide additional resources to their residents.

Yeah. The tuck under parking, Does that mean certain parking spaces will not be the full 20 feet? They'll be 15 feet. Is that what you were describing that five?

foot exception No, rather they will be the adequate space for a normal parking space, but they would be actually protruding into the setback requirement So it's really a setback location of those parking spaces.

They will meet the normal size requirements okay, and the walls that will be built on those, yeah, with the greenery on top, the height of those walls at the parking area, do we know how tall those will be?

I want to say that they are six to eight feet tall, but I'll double check to make sure.

Okay, because I could see how a car starting in the morning might affect a neighbor if it's residential on both sides of this. Now, the one to the east or the south, depending upon how your compass looks, that looks like the parking is not going to affect those units because this parking will be in the rear. Those units are in front. I didn't get a close enough look on the one that's between the rubicon and this property to see where those apartments are situated but i'm cognizant of noise you know if somebody gets up at 5 30 in the morning and starts their car that's what the setback is probably you know considering in some way this one on the top

So this is reversed. So the top is going to be the west or the north. Right. I'll double check. I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure the building that's at the rear on the alley is a garage structure and not a habitable structure and that the main house is towards Main Street.

I see the same with the apartment this looks to be an illustration So there are there's like a garage and then cars and then a main structure home Correct. Yeah.

Yeah, and I believe with when Grant and I were reviewing this it appeared to be a unit to me but there are garage doors fronting out onto that alley off to the to the West side.

Thank you. My last question is do we know if this owner intends to build or are they going to Get entitlements and then try and sell the property. I

My understanding is that the applicant would like this to be their keystone project, sort of a retirement project, but the applicants may, or the architects might be able to speak to that in more detail. I've not had that conversation in that much detail with them.

Okay, thank you very much.

Commissioner Abbey. Thank you, Chair Boussa. Ms. Farley, I have some questions, some follow-ups. Can I have the diagram that shows the lot oriented north-south? The one that shows vicinity area. Oh, the larger map, okay. Not that one, the one that's oriented, that one's oriented differently.

The GIS. Oh, sorry about that, that one. Okay, thank you.

Apologies. All right, that's north-south. Okay, thank you. Let's see, so my understanding is that there is supposed to be There's a five foot setback on the west side, but we're saying for parking, it can go down to less than five feet?

Correct, the request is to allow the parking spaces to be within that five foot setback for parking spaces under the tuck under podium.

All right, and I see on this, the warrants and exceptions, and it's got pink and green, and so it says east, west, It says side yard, five feet minimum, west exception two to 3.75 inches.

I think that's a typo. I believe it's feet. If that shows inches, I believe it was feet, but I can double check.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm reading that wrong. Two feet, three and a quarter inches. Okay, sorry. That's accurate, yeah. Again, on the east side, two feet, eight and... Does staff have any concern being that close to the fence for the neighbors next door?

Staff doesn't have a concern because we don't believe there's tenants directly adjacent to it. Where those parking spaces are located is back towards the rear of the lot, towards the alleyway. So in this diagram, the alley entrance would be here on the left side of the screen. this image is just showing half of the parcel so the remainder of the parcel is towards the right of the screen and so the apartment building that's on that other diagram as well as that garage I was talking about in the earlier chat are both located near those this is a little bit better parking diagram so that existing garage structure building is not residential or habitable to our to our knowledge and then the apartment building that's on the east side is is located well to the front of that property. So we don't think that those parking spaces being adjacent to either a garage and a rear yard and a parking lot would have a direct impact.

Could you go back to that other picture that we had, the north and south? Now, right on the alley, right next to it, It does look like it, and I think there was a diagram. I don't need them to come up yet, but when they come up, if the applicants could talk about that, It looks like a residence right on the alley. Tell us what's actually there.

This building here?

Yes.

My understanding from our record search, and Grant did this analysis because I had that same question as well, is that this is built as a garage and has a garage door that faces towards this little side driveway, and it does not appear to be a habitable structure, nor do permits actually rely on it being a habitable structure. Not at this point now, could it be converted in the future? It could be under ADU law But right now this shows up on our register from the County Assessor as a single-family house.

Okay What's the lot coverage allowed on these parcels?

Let me pull it one second Within this specific zone, there's not a lot coverage standard.

So there's no lot coverage standard that I'm seeing here. The town doesn't have a lot coverage? The farm-based code down there? That's what I'm hearing from you, correct?

Correct. Looking at the standards that are for that particular T4.1 neighborhood, East Main Street fronting zone district, there is not a lot coverage standard.

Okay. Let's see. I want to go back to side setback. So regardless if the building is one story, two story, or three story, that side setback on the west side, well, I guess on either side, is only five feet, correct?

Correct, as far as the exceptions and warrants go that we've been discussing, and this diagram I think helps, the setback itself is related to parking being setback, not structures being setback.

What's the structure setback?

So the structural setback is five feet, but they're not requesting an exception or warrant from that. They are only requesting it for the tuck under parking location.

Okay, so whether it's one, two, or three story, it is five feet?

Correct.

Wow, okay. See Okay, and I know it's in there but if you could help me with the parking how many required parking spaces under our code The applicant is saying eight and

Correct, yeah, I'm finding that in the diagram. Complying with nine parking spaces and that they would require eight.

So we have 19 units and we only require eight. There's nine being provided. That's according to our downtown specific plan. They only need like 50%.

Correct, and unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, in the downtown specific plan, the standard is set by the size of structure rather than the amount of units within that structure. And so the parking standard is one parking space per 1,500 square feet. So a smaller structure would warrant less parking, a larger structure would garner more parking, not based on the unit count.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Abbey. Commissioner Whitaker?

Sorry about that. You mentioned, Shanna, that there was storage provided, and I looked at the plans, and I didn't see any storage. Are they above the garage?

Oh, I apologize. It's bike storage. I may have misspoken. In the parking area that you can see here, the secured bike parking is the bike storage.

Okay. They're not having any over the... over the parking storage unit, storage shelves or anything?

Not that I'm aware of. I believe those are just meant to be parking areas.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Comden?

Thank you again, Chair. I took a glance at Google Earth and I do see what had been thought of as a parking garage of some sort. That's clearly a residence on the alley, number 46. which is at the back of the lot adjacent on the west side. So if we go back, that would have been fine. Two more, go back. That building on the top left there is a residence and I'm looking at the picket fence and the house structure with steps up to it and windows now.

The structure here? Apologies, let me double check. I may be misremembering that.

Yeah, that's okay. If you had the ability to go to Google Earth, they do go down Poinsettia Place alley, and so you can clearly see it's a house for the sake of accuracy. It says beware of dog.

Is the applicant aware of that unit being a habitable residential? Thank you.

I can double check that right now. I apologize for that incorrect information. Let me pull up the records for that property.

I have a question as well.

There was a letter from the public. Thank you. There was a letter from the public that said that that was an especially narrow alleyway. They were concerned about having vehicles traveling there and it's too narrow and they were suggesting maybe it should be one way. So there were some issues according to this one letter writer and I was just wondering what is staff's opinion of that.

So I did reconfirm with the Public Works Division today. There was another comment about the the applicant being required to fix up that alley as well. And under the opinion of the Public Works Department, the alley is a public right of way, and it does not need to be changed. Now, that could be proposed to be changed by someone to be one way, but they found that it's adequate for alley services to the back of residential units. They also noted that because the project does not hit a certain threshold, they're not mandated to repair or repave that area of the alleyway. The applicant can choose to request that or do that as part of their project, but they cannot condition or mandate that they do that as part of the project. But Public Works found that the alley is adequate for the services that it's providing.

Okay, thank you.

Thank You Commissioner I mean that was actually my question although you just you said something in terms of the the comment from Public Works that it was adequate for Back access of resolution. No, this is the primary access for this Right. This is a primary egress and ingress for this whole unit. So I just If the consideration by Public Works was due to back access versus primary, I'm just wanting to make sure that that was considered because we're going to have more folks coming in and out of this property. And it is a narrow space and a bit of a narrow alleyway with that. There's commercial there, that office building right next to it. So I just was curious if there's any other further comments from Public Works or from staff around the Making that potentially a one-way.

Thanks chair boost. I appreciate that the Public Works Department didn't mention back alley I did because that's how this is access for this property That they found that this public access way was appropriate and and wasn't triggering any concerns for it being too narrow But yes, if someone would like to petition the city to make it one way that is something the Transportation Division can take into consideration And the Planning Commission, if you'd like to share that comment, I can share that with the Public Works Department. At this time, they found that the alleyway was sufficient for this project to move forward. Thank you.

Commissioner Lagerquist.

Yeah, along those lines. So because that's the only, it looks like the trash enclosure is only accessible from underneath. And so is this going to be one of those situations where they have to come in and roll the bins out?

Correct. The management will need to coordinate to have that pulled out either by a person or someone who lives there. A lot of these residential projects will have to do that in those situations where they don't have direct access out to a direct right-of-way. Other projects in the site also take trash access off of this alleyway as well.

So, but the truck comes down the alley. Correct. And then they just roll it out. Okay, thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Great. Any further questions from the commission? Thank you for the thoughtful questions. I'm still waiting for any response.

Just a quick response and looking at the record and I apologize for either me misremembering or having the wrong information. The parcel next door under the county assessor record shows that the property in front is a duplex and that there's a potential of that back unit being a single family unit. So I apologize for that mischaracterization of that back unit that this front house

a duplex and that this is a single-family or detached separate unit so if that weighs into your considerations on that side that is a small unit thanks for clarifying thank you for that clarification any more questions from the Commission seeing as there are none thank you all right we can now open the the hearing for public comment mr. clerk we have any speakers on this item thank you chair we don't have any public speakers on this item All right. Thank you. Before we close the hearing, if the applicant or staff would like to respond to anything out there, just want to give that option. Looks like we could do that. We can do that.

I think the applicant wanted to maybe add some context to some of the comments and questions that were raised. Excellent.

And I will look at some of the questions that were answered. And if those aren't answered, I can get those back to you at the end. Thank you.

And then you would be able to ask questions of the applicant.

Chair Boussa. Can I ask Ms. Farley also to look up the maximum lot coverage as well? That was one of the questions that we were asking, the maximum units.

I will look up the slope on the property, the density, the area of the affordable units and the size of those units and Yes, for lot coverage, I'll double-check that. That is not listed in our development standards list, but I'll double-check.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Welcome. Good evening, Chair and members of the Commission. My name is Linda Blackburn with RM Design Group Land Use Planner here with Kara Davis, the architect on the project. I just want to thank staff, Grant, Shanna, I wanna make sure I pronounce it correctly, and Maruha for helping us get through this permitting pathway. And I mean, I think she did amazing for not being the project planner and I wish other jurisdictions were like that. To respond to the conversation about using the city's existing development standards rather than density bonus, I think it speaks to the fact that we were able to pursue this development within the framework of what the city already provides. So it wasn't absolutely necessary for us to pursue state density bonus law. So that was one component of it. But I think Kara might be able to address some of the other things that were brought up.

The slope is approximately seven feet from the sidewalk to the back alley. The front couple units are on one slab and then we're able to do majority just sloped walk in the mid area. There's one little portion of a little ramp in the hallway to the back units. It's about seven feet totally across. And to talk about, yeah, I don't think we did realize that that was a residence. We thought it was the garage, but in speaking to that parking and the adjacency, the wall that's along both, all the way around actually, is mostly, I don't have the exact dimension, but it's about nine feet because of that slope. So it's like, it's about nine feet. There's a little articulation that goes down with the intention is like a railing to have vines growing on it. So that there will be additional screening there along that area. So it would be, you wouldn't see the car unless it's like a really big truck, I guess, you would see it. But a regular smaller car, you wouldn't see. And the lights wouldn't affect the neighbors. So there is that. Yeah. And that it's the reason why we're asking for that exception is so that we can have standard size parking spaces without. And I think in general, I mean, planning team can talk to it more, but in the way that it's seen when you read about the zoning and the reason for the five foot setback is more that usually they like to do what is in other parts of the city is you can plant that and do landscape for screening. so that you don't see the cars as much in the downplaying of cars. So in this case, we're using the wall. So because we have the wall, we felt we could get closer and minimize. But we had enough. We spoke with our landscape architect to make sure we still have enough to be able to put a few of the vines so they would grow up and do that play on the wall, so that it's both some landscape and the wall for the screening. So it's satisfying the intent of having screening. I think those were, yeah, and the lot coverage is really, yeah, in the downtown specific plan it is more of a, using the frontage type of the building and then making sure that you have the open space, which we're doing with the side yard. So we, it is kind of a, you know, it's like the lot coverage is not exactly, it's just as long as you're satisfying those elements is the way we understand when we read the zoning of the downtown. And we have those pieces, our side yard courtyard, even though I think, as Shanna said, even though we have a narrower existing lot, we're still able to provide the side yard courtyard in the minimum sizes that are requested, that are in the zoning code. Oh, and our typical unit sizes, We do have like a typical unit plan, unit plans that show, but we didn't get the square footage on there. They're on every level and the studios are about, most of them are, they're in like the 400 and where's my, sorry. like 450 square feet studio, and then the one bedrooms are in the 680 square feet range, and then the two bedroom is in the 860 kind of range. And then when you asked about the inclusionary housing, There's a certain, in the regulation about it, you go through, they look at your proportions. So we have, because we have, seven studios and nine one bedrooms, and only three two bedrooms. That's why the numbers split between the studios and the one bedrooms. And they go through, it counts, you have to start with very low, low, low. And we proposed what we expected, the way our interpretation, and then the housing element of the city reviews it and confirms that we were correct. And that it's meant to be distributed through the project so that people have a variety of equity of options. So we can't put everything on the first floor. That kind of thing. Make it like the worst units. Not worst units, but units without views as much or that kind of thing.

I think those were the questions that had come up. We have a few maybe more from the commission. Commissioner Lagerquist, we'll start with you.

In the DRC, they had asked for relocation of the downspouts, but then I didn't see any resolution. It doesn't look like the plans changed, but I was just curious as to what the reasons were for not responding to those requests.

They just asked for us to just double check our locations based on that making sure that they were working with the way the landscaping and water, the stormwater runoff. And so we'll be looking at that during design development.

Yeah. And my other question is, it looks like on the bottom level of the units, are there windows on both sides of the units? So both on the outside and then on the inside towards the courtyard? Yes. But as you go up, are there windows on both sides on the upper floors or just on the outside?

When there is a view to... There are... Yeah, the... The floor plans here don't show it as clearly, but there are windows that look out to the courtyard through the covered walkway.

For all the units? I mean, it looked like the studio may have been lacking windows on the interior.

Because it's, yeah, there's the door. It's really just the door in the bathroom on the hallway. I think we are actually showing a window that is in the bathroom that would allow light in, but obviously privacy.

I'm just getting at just having windows on one side can tend to make the unit quite dark. So I was just curious if that was being addressed. So, okay. That's all my questions. Thank you.

Commissioner Comden.

Thank you, Chair. Two questions. We're an older town and can the sewer accommodate this much of an increase without upgrading? Where is the sewer? Is it on the street or is it in the alley? And what modifications might need to be done to accommodate this increase in users?

There's already been, the city requires a sewer and water study, and it's both been done, and it both was shown to have not enough impact for improvements required. I think the sewer, looking at the civil plan, it's off the main street. Yeah. But the studies were done as required recently and evaluated that there's no significant impact to do upgrades.

And I saw there were markations on the roof for solar. Is solar planned for this?

There is a requirement in the new code for a certain amount of solar. So it is looked at for where that could work.

Do you know what the code calls for as far as kilowatt hours?

I don't. We did a prelim look on what is kind of typical, but it's not required of us to do right away. And it's usually a third party subcontractor that does that. So that's not my purview. to know exactly. But we'd show a designation of the potential extents based on the design of our roof and what we know that there has to be a setback from the edge for access.

Yeah. Two other questions. As far as lighting, is this going to be very low impact lighting?

It's a requirement, yes. So it will be. We did not do the analysis yet because we didn't have an engineer on at this time, but it's very standard. Our engineers are very familiar with that and yeah, that is the way that that is done the it doesn't spill over to the adjacent sites and it's all down it has Shields that make it's one of the conditions that is this the city has okay very familiar. Yeah, thank you Commissioner Abbey

I just wanted to piggyback on that. I think it might have been condition 21. Can you pull that up on the screen? I remember specifically it said something about dark sky compliant.

I don't have the conditions, but I can pull them. It would just take me a few moments. But condition 21 states all outdoor lighting for the project shall be installed and maintained for the life of the project as represented on the approved plans. And it goes through a couple of different code references for dates. It says all outdoor lighting shall be installed to meet dark sky friendly standards to ensure no light is directed off site and all lights are shielded downward to prevent light spillover.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Before I close the public hearing, any more questions from the Commission before we go into deliberation? Any more comments? Yes.

Yes, I just did want to circle back to the comment related to the intent of the owner to develop the property. And I think that staff answered that appropriately, is that that is definitely the intent.

given the current financial climate as feasible as that is possible but yes we are already in discussions about moving to the next stage of drawings and how that's gonna look okay thank you with that then I will close the public hearing and bring it back to the Commission for deliberation and commissioners would anyone like to begin the deliver oh right great excellent Commissioner Compton

Okay, so aside from the Rubicon and the building two door, no, next door, the apartments, I didn't know it was apartments. I thought it was offices. This area is generally single story buildings, and this is a three story building. But I think it's been thoughtfully worked on in that from the street and with the seven foot slope, which is let's call it half a story slope, that third story will not be visible to people at least on the south side of Main Street and only marginally visible on the north side of Main Street. So I like the fact that they've pushed that third story towards the rear and minimized its impact visually. I think the plan is pretty good. And they have met so many requirements. And the design is applicable to the area. There's a lot of things to like about this project. It's kind of amazing that you get 19 units into this size lot, honestly. Now, many of them, admittedly, are studios, but we can use those studios, and that's how you begin. You get people in on a studio, and then they go to one and two bedrooms, and then they purchase, and they stay in the community as... as their longevity increases. Really the only concern I have is, and I wanna ask staff about this because the applicant mentioned nine foot fencing. If I built a nine foot fence, I think I'd probably get a notice from the city. So could you clarify what that means? That would be helpful.

I do want to clarify, I believe our fence standards typically would be considered six feet in height would require a variance for anything higher than that. In this circumstance, I need to circle back and see if that needs to be granted or added as an exception under our code and the DTSP, and I can clarify that. My understanding was that this was roughly eight feet, but that would be something I would like to clarify.

Okay, thank you. So with that newly discovered residence on the alley next door, I'm only mildly concerned about the noise that the tenants of this new property would cause the tenants of the existing property by starting up their cars and or if they backed in the exhaust that would occur to that, especially because we're now considering lessening the setback to two feet three inches or something of that magnitude, which is right upon the wall. I don't know how to resolve that other than either allowing it or asking them to go to the five foot setback, but I don't know that another two and a half feet is going to make a tremendous difference. So I'm likely to say yes to this project unless I hear something compelling from my fellow commissioners. Thank you for your time.

Thank you Commissioner O'Connor. Commissioner McCarty?

Thank you, Chair Boussa. As part of the supplemental packet that the Commission received this afternoon, there was a letter from the California Housing Defense Fund, which references the Housing Accountability Act as it pertains to this project. The gist of the letter uh... sites the city's obligation under state law specifically that the housing accountability act protections apply and the city may not reject the project except based on health and safety standards I think my question is directed to council and perhaps to staff. I'd like to just hear a reaction or your thoughts on that statement that we can't reject the project except based on health and safety standards.

I reviewed the letter. I largely agree that that's an accurate description of what the Housing Accountability Act says. The one exception that would apply to this project is the warrants and exceptions. So broadly speaking, the Housing Accountability Act requires that you cannot deny a project except if it's inconsistent with an objective design standard, which this is by virtue of the warrants and exceptions, or based on the health and safety grounds, which are functionally identical to what you would get in a density bonus analysis. So, two points on that. One, they absolutely could have utilized the density bonus law to be granted concessions and waivers under the density bonus law, which would take that decision out of your hands. They chose to go with warrants and exceptions instead, and there are standards under the for what does and does not qualify for warrants and exceptions. Those are factual decisions that you can make. It's 24-537-050 in the muni code. I can read the whole list if you want. Yeah, but basically, assuming you believe that the findings can be made for the warrants and exceptions, if you can't find that the findings are made for warrants and exceptions, that would be the only basis aside from health and safety to deny the project that I'm aware of.

Thank you. I appreciate that answer. I like this project. a very thoughtful and innovative use of that particular size and shape lot. And I think all my questions have been answered. I don't have any qualms about it. I'm in favor of this project.

Thank you, Commissioner Gardner. Commissioner Comden?

Yes, me again. Two things. I was just thinking about the, and this is mildly off topic, it's not under consideration now, but I would probably advise against going to a one-way street. I'm just thinking if someone were to have a moving van or any impediment, it would force anybody using the alley to have to break that law by going out the other way. during the usage. So I don't know that it's necessary. It's not a well-used alley enough so that traffic would need to be controlled in that way. And the other letter that we received was about parking in the area. And my understanding is that you can park on the side streets. You can park on Main Street. and that I believe that there would be sufficient parking for a half dozen or more cars that the on-site parking uh would not accommodate uh in the area um and so i while i'm concerned and you know someone who is a property manager in the area knows the area perhaps better than i do but i don't think it's a significant impediment to this uh this project thank you thank you commissioner lagerwest

thank you um just a couple thoughts um i agree with commissioner mccarty i think this project they put a lot of thought into it and it it will look nice in the area i you know the 60 versus 20 i mean it doesn't it doesn't go outside of height limits so um i i really don't see an issue and i think the bottom line is that they didn't use the density bonus law i'm still a little confused why they didn't they certainly could have but But to your credit, we appreciate being able to review it. So I am definitely inclined to approve as well. I think I definitely would like the clarification on the fencing. So how will that work?

Thank you. I would like to clarify that there is a six foot height for fences on property lines restriction. So that would require a warrant. The other option would be that this is considered part of the structure, which would then be in the setback. So either way, it needs to either meet the height requirement of a fence of six feet in height or would need a variance for that or a warrant for that. I think the applicant has an option to redesign to have a lower fence so that it meets a six foot, but that would reduce the amount of screening of the parking. So that may be counterintuitive to what the request is requesting. The director and I have communicated that I think a warrant would be most appropriate that we could In concept the Planning Commission supported it recommend that that piece come back at a later time to the director hearing as a separate action Or you could make that action tonight, but we don't have those Relevant documents for you to review so we would have to continue it So I think the most streamlined process would be that that piece either be redesigned to six feet at this time under this permit and then come back to the director as a warrant separately

Okay, I'd be interested in what the rest of the commission thinks about that, but those are all my comments.

Thank you. Commissioner Whitaker first, and then Commissioner Abbey, and then we can talk about that.

Thank you, Chair Boussa. Just to keep going with your question, if the applicant requested that the walls are part of the building, is that included in this warrant right here?

No, the warrant before you was described in the staff report in the resolution as the parking spaces within that encroachment. So we would have to refine that in the resolution to make it more clear. Could that be done? Yes. But we would have to come back to you with a later revision to that. So that would delay the project from getting any sort of action tonight. But if you wanted to recommend that the project before you tonight is approved, but not with a height of six feet or greater, we could move that along and make that correction in the report. And then the applicant could at a later time either keep that six foot height or come back with a warrant to request the height be higher than six feet where it needs to be.

OK, thank you for that. I just wanted to also echo my fellow commissioners that this project, I believe it meets the warrants and exception findings. I do agree that it's a really nice project within this lot. I agree with Commissioner Comden. I don't understand how they could get 19 units in this. I mean it doesn't have you know a lot of parking but it meets also code so it meets a lot of the development standards that are required and they didn't Commissioner log request said they didn't go through the Dennis any bonus You know back door if you will and And they're providing affordable housing and I think actually they're providing housing that is really needed in the city the one bedrooms the studios especially Somebody that has a 22 year old and 26 year old That would love to get out of the house So, you know, it's nice for them to be I don't know if these would be affordable to them But it's nice for choices in our city. So I'm in favor of the project as well. I Thank you, Commissioner Abbey.

Thank you, Chair Boussa. Yeah, the fact that this could have gone density bonus does put sort of a different spin on how one would look at the project. On the face of it, it looks very nice. facade architecture in the front. Commissioner Comden mentioned it starts out as two-story, and the third story is set back quite a bit from Main Street. So that's very thoughtful architecture. You have the, I don't know what it's called, plaza, but open space within the property. I'm a little concerned about parking being closer than the five feet, but I think I'm willing to overlook that. It's not a big issue. The fact that Commissioner Lagerquist mentioned, and I think I saw in the project, the third story I believe only goes as high as 39 feet, which a third story could go 45 feet at least. So I think that's also a nice nod to the neighbors. Looking at the specific lot, looking at what's directly next to this building, I think it takes that into account and I appreciate that. On the whole, I think this is compliant and I will vote to approve the project.

you commissioner abby um just lastly i'm supportive of this project appreciate the comments from the commission um largely and wholly agree uh you know this vacant this this parcel's not vacant for decades it i mean from my recollection just a bit of being in the being in the community um warrants and exceptions need to to serve a purpose and this is a good example where those are are being used thoughtfully i also appreciate the applicant bringing this to a hearing when that may not have necessarily been required um and so oh i have a comment before we finish just as a point of order i want to i want to quickly research whether it is within the purview of the planning commission right now to approve a warrant that was not

anticipated in the staff report previously. I think you probably can, assuming it's accurately reflected in all of the documents in the agenda. It shouldn't present a Brown Act issue. For the sake of buttoning things up, I just want to make sure we're not missing anything, so I'm going to try to look this up quickly.

Before we make a motion? Yes.

Bear with me for about two minutes, hopefully.

Specifically to the nine-foot fence? Yes. Okay.

Yeah. Everything else was already part of the staff report, et cetera.

And should our legal counsel decide that we can't? We're of the opinion we can. We're just double checking. As part of your motion, part of your motion could be why we support the warrant as presented with the design, as noted by the applicant team, shielding headlights from the adjacent residential property and the vining aspect that they also noted. Thank you. While we do have this time, I would love to make an announcement that I think a couple of our commissioners last week were not here. Our community development director, her last day was today. She went to the city of Glendale, and I have the honor to serve in the interim role, effective today but officially tomorrow and while we do a recruitment effort so the commission will have my 100 best in this interim phase and just appreciate the ability to work with you and the honor to work with you in this capacity and at this table with you so another option or another announcement I'd love to make while our legal counsel does some research this for us it's kind of getting ahead with staff communications so we can check that off the list our local coastal program is having our first large community workshop this Saturday downtown at the county museum from 10 to 12. we'll have Miss Farley today and there representing the project manager of the LCP effort as well as Rincon Consulting who is our team working on that we're going to have a VR experience interactions and so bring any kiddos you have come on down to the farmers market and then stop on by and see us and learn some about our local coastal program

If I might piggyback on that, we've confirmed we have a raffle, and we have at least three to four gift cards from local coastal businesses that are operated in the area, including Paradise Pantry, Urbane Cafe, and potentially a couple of others that I still need to confirm, but just another reason to come out.

And you can see us again on Saturday.

Can I ask a question about that event? So I'm planning on attending, but if I show up and I see three other planning commissioners there, do I need to turn around and leave to comply with the Brown Act?

We'll have our legal counsel look at that after this query and have that be part of staff communications at the end. My hope is you all can attend, but we'll see what we can do.

Chair, can we take a straw poll on who's going to be there? I won't.

I won't. I have a soccer game.

I've got a sort of a brief answer, tentative answer on this. My advice is to not approve the not previously disclosed warrant tonight. It's probably overkill, but out of an abundance of caution, my suggestion is to hold off on that. It could probably be approved at a subsequent director's hearing if necessary.

So the motion would be to approve the application with a six-foot fence? Yes. That would be the applicant's discretion to redesign and then submit for warrant.

Subject to a future minor change or what have you.

Correct. That could be handled at a director's hearing.

And I'm sorry, what was the other question?

If Brown Act applies to them attending a public workshop.

It could. If you're attending any meeting you're attending at which there is a quorum present, you can't discuss anything that's within the purview of the planning commission. So, yes, you need to be cautious of that.

Thank you. All right, we'll bring it back to this project specifically, seeing as that we have finished deliberation, I would enter, oh, Commissioner Comden.

Regarding the fence, so we're going to vote to approve the project, or at least that's what the ask will be. at a six foot fence and then if they choose to go to a nine, then they will come back to the city to ask for an exception, correct? And if so, I would like to just suggest that the applicant speak to the neighboring property holders to come back with some feedback from them because that will be a major question of mine is how do they feel about it. Looking at the adjacent one that we've identified now as a residence, There's pros and cons why a nine foot fence would be warranted because there's a six foot fence there now and their windows extend above it. So because it's an elevated floor, unlike at ground level, they can peer down into the parking area over a six foot fence as they are doing now. And maybe they'll want a nine foot fence, which would help the process if they chose to request that in the future. So I am just saying that. And now I would like to move that we approve this project with a six foot fence.

Just really quick. I just wanted to make it clear if it does come back with the nine foot, it would not come back to this body because it would be a warrant rather than an exception, which would go to director's hearing.

Agreed. We have a motion on the floor for approval of the project.

I'll second the motion.

All right. We have a motion from Commissioner Comden and a second from Commissioner Carney. Mr. Clerk?

We have a motion and a second to approve as conditioned. You can now enter your vote.

Could I clarify the motion was to allow only a six-foot fence?

Okay. Okay. All votes have been entered. Six ayes. Motion carries.

Thank you. Okay. We'll now move on to item four, project 250933, the proposed addition at 1193 Colina Vista. The recommendation before us tonight is to continue the item to a date certain of October 28th, 2026. Unless staff has information that needs to be presented tonight, I'll entertain a motion to continue to the October meeting.

Chair, I'm sorry. To counsel, I have to recuse myself from this item. Do I need to recuse myself to continue it?

I think we've established previously that you don't. That's not a substantive decision.

OK.

I'll move. All right. We have a motion on the floor to move. Second. All right. And a second. We have a motion and a second. Mr. Clerk?

You may now enter your vote. All votes have been entered. Six ayes, motion carries.

Excellent, thank you. Is there any communications from the Planning Commission at this time? Okay, seeing as there is none, we already addressed some of our staff communications. Are there anything else?

We do have a director's hearing summary that's very crisp. I can run through it very quickly. Would that be okay? We already have done our staff communications and we can be done. Ms. Farley, would you mind running through the PowerPoint for me? Thank you.

One moment, I'm navigating to those slides.

Thank you so much.

So looking at the director's hearing projects for July 20th of this year, next slide. This is a continuance to September. This is for a battery storage facility on transport kind of near Made West. We'll be seeing that in September at the director's hearing. Next slide. This was also continued to a date uncertain. This is a tentative parcel map on Walnut Drive subdivision. Next slide. A planned development permit for a single family residence. We typically don't do discretionary permits for SFRs outside of the coastal zone, but in this case, this is in a residential planned development zone, and that has a planned development permit requirement. This was approved as presented. This is a coastal development permit and design review for the Marina Village Chase Bank. This is in the Marina Village Shopping Center. Used to be a Chase, oh yeah, Chase, I just said that. Doing a demo for a new building here and that was approved as presented. Alcohol use permit minor design review and variances for GG's in the Montalvo area for a park lit This was continued to last Monday and we'll get to those hearing items shortly. Next slide Ventura Avenue apartments. This is at 6 to 4 North Ventura Avenue. This was approved by the director with some changes we amended condition 8 to be allow more public notification during construction and including posting on-site signage and mailed notices so that neighboring businesses who came out to the hearing were concerned about impacts to their operations. So we added that condition. We also clarified condition 15, which was regarding potentially discovered cultural artifacts during construction that not only as an archaeologist on board, but a Native American cultural consultant be on board should that, during earthwork activity. There was an old aquifer up by Kenyatta Larga that kind of tracks with this area of the avenue, which is why we added that additional language. And then we added in the condition regarding the bicycle parking counts that were confirmed by the applicant during deliberation. Next slide is our August 24th hearing which was just last Monday. This was a use permit for a new daycare facility a blue crash downtown the right adjacent to The former barrel house restaurant. This is a new operation. They have at 1971 1975 East Main Street. This was approved as presented in And then GGs came back for their parklet, and that was approved as presented as well with an expanded alcohol use permit. And that concluded directors for July and August. We have already gone over staff comments. Any commissioner comments before we close? Commissioner Comden and then Commissioner Carty.

I promise I'll stop after this. Two things. That last project, is it a kindergarten, did you say? What is it?

It's a daycare facility.

A daycare facility. And then there's a new kindergarten that I saw a sign up where the consignment store in Midtown on Main Street was. It's good to see youth are being accommodated. And I see more families. So those are good signs. I'm pleased to see and report that. Yes. The other thing I wanted to just mention, and this is outside the purview of us, but with the El Nino anticipated, there has been, I was just in an area that is rock bedrock stone. But that's not the case here. We have a lot of sandstone and a lot of shifting, sloughing off of mountains and things like that. And when I think of the word planning, I think for planning for all things, including emergencies. And La Conchita is still in my mind. And we have... these mountains here that have not been battle tested with the type of flooding and rainfall that is being called for this year. And I just want to encourage the city to, you know, we're fire hardening and we're doing a lot of that planning. I don't know what's going on when it comes to flooding, but Today, against all odds, a giant slab of ice fell off of a mountain in Tibet and Nepal and caused unbelievable damage. Now, this thing was half a mile wide. I understand there's incredible video footage of it, and I want to go home and watch it right after this. But we have some of the most unstable mountain hill range in the area. It's constantly moving. It's soft sandstone. You've seen the demarcations of the sloughing off of land. I just encourage the city to look at it from that angle because we must look at all angles as we see sea level rise and, I mean, look at the heat that we've encountered. But this rainfall could be really detrimental to the city, and I hope we plan for it.

Commissioner Comden your timing is right on last night at the City Council meeting at the request of I think councilmember McReynolds We had a all hands on deck presentation of how we're preparing for El Nino from Public Works to our emergency services manager building fire It was an all hands on deck and a really great presentation. It's the last item on last night's meeting. If you want to go watch it, it was very informative of how we're preparing, talking about our foul weather shelter, other opportunities we're looking to prepare for sheltering additional unhoused. So you're picking up on the vibe that council did and it's a really informative presentation. So I encourage you to watch it.

Thank you. Commissioner McCarty. Thank you, Chair Booth. I do have one question about the director's hearing, the Chase Bank on Harbor Boulevard. Do you recall what will be replacing that?

I do not recall what is the new use. I'm not sure if Ms. Farley, if you have any information?

Right now, the current landlord has had very difficult is having difficulty finding a tenant. And the reason they wanted to demolish the building was because they weren't finding anyone who wanted to utilize that building in its current form. So they chose to demolish the building. The reason we needed to take this through a process in this manner, partially because it's in the coastal zone, but it was also identified as potentially part of a historic item of that shopping center. And so we took them through historic review to determine that that structure itself was not a key component of the rest of the architecture of the shopping center. And so their intent right now is to keep it clear. They are going to put some seating down to keep it looking nice. But until they have a future occupant, they are going to keep that open to opportunities in the future.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Wow, thank you. That really, I'm just gonna say, that really underscores the need for more Class A office space in our, I mean, the fact that we can't lease existing office space because of its current condition and old use. It would cost more for the current owner to keep the space than to demolish it, says a lot. And we see that, I mean, that's not, this isn't the only property in the city.

um facing that same sort of challenge commissioner conan uh just one comment on the director's uh hearing which is always helpful um it would be nice you showed a uh 20 unit structure on on the avenue i think it was it would be helpful if we could see the before and after of that because i don't know precisely where this is where 624 is And I'm assuming this went director's hearing because they weren't asking for any exceptions or warrants or it was just very straightforward. But it's a pretty large project. I'm curious why it didn't come before us.

It didn't require exceptions and warrants. It's outside of the form based code. It did have state density bonus law. And by way of that it was able to go to a director's hearing.

To help clarify where this is located, the building just on this screen to the right is the historic library downtown, the brick building. And then this existing site would demolish what our old Quonset hut car washes. So if that helps pinpoint where this is, it would remove those. Those were also determined to not be historic structures.

But point well taken, Commissioner Comden. We'll include more reference photos moving forward.

All right. Excellent. With no further comments, questions. All right. If there's no further business before the commission, this regular meeting of the Planning Commission is adjourned.