Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Chair Bogis, we're ready for you. Good evening and welcome to the Wednesday, November 29th, I mean November 19th, 2025 planning commission meeting. Please rise with me for the pledge of allegiance. [snorts] I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. And our first order of business is roll call. Let the record show that all five planning commissioners are in attendance. Then we will go on to minutes. This is for approval of the minutes of the regular planning commission meeting of October 28th, 2025. Can I get a motion? I'll make a motion to approve. Okay. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? I I let the record show it passed unanimously. approved [clears throat] unanimously. And then on to item C, written communication.

Thank you. Um for the uh public hearing item tonight, a number of public communications have been received over the last 24 hours. Um those written communications have been put at your places this evening and I believe copies have been made available to the public as well. Other than that, no other written communications to report.

Okay. Thank you. Item D, oral communications. Members of the public are invited to address the pelining commission on any item not listed on the agenda. Public comments are generally limited to five minutes per speaker. Please note that the state law prohibits the commission from acting on non-aggenda items. Does anybody have a non-aggenda item this evening? No. So, I'm going to close the oral comments and move on to item E, public hearings. E1, hearing to consider resolutions recommending that the city council of the city of Newark approve one, revision of the area 3 and four specific plan. Two, revision of the general plan land use for a 84 acre portion of project site from low density residential to high density residential. Three, reszone project site from park to residential low density 28.37 acres and residential high density 84 acre. Four, establishing a plan development overlay district. Five, design review. Six, vesting tenative map 8517. Seven, alternate means of compliance. Eight, density bonus. and nine certifying the final environmental impact report SCN2011 0436 for the Maui Village residential subdivision project generally located at 7400 and 7550 Maui Avenue consisting of APN's 5370850--00001-11 537-850-001

1-13 and 537- 0850-00002- 0. Now I will turn it over to Art. Thank you. Um, thank you. It's working here. Hold on a second. Thank you, plan commission and chair members. Um, today we have the Maui Village project um in front of you as E1. Um, as part of this, here we go. As part of this presentation, I will give give an overview of the project and then I also have uh we also have our environmental consultants who will be part of this presentation. So, um, first I'll give a background project overview and then I'll hand it off to them as part of their PowerPoint. Um, and then we'll bring it back and we'll do the entitlement analysis for the project. um and then we'll do the recommendation. Okay. The project today is for the Mauy Village um project which is the applicant is the Mauy Village um uh actually the Mauy Project owner LLC. Um their application is 196 single family homes with 31 affordable housing units. Um the location is 7,400 and 7550 Maury Avenue. Um as you stated the there's several entitlements that include general plan amendments, specific plan amendments, reszone plan development, uh design review, best tenative map, alternate means of compliance and acceptance of the environmental analysis. In terms of the location, um the project is located on the basically the end near the dead end of Maui. Um it consists of three parcels. There is a vacant uh

parcel that is 9.5 acres and then the existing pick and pull business. Uh the total site or project site is 29.1 acres. In terms of the existing business, um the pick and pool is approximately 19 acres. It's an auto dismantling yard. Um it was annexed into the city in 1979 from the city of Fremont. Um once it was in the city, the city decided to renew uh through a cup, the business license um and the use permit for this business. Um the cup expires in 2034 or when there is a um overpass built over Stevenson, which was considered or that it was approved as part of the what's known as the Sanctuary West project. Um this is not a current um allowed use in the zoning. Um so it's technically a conforming a legal and non-conforming use. In terms of the area, [clears throat] um this area was one of many areas that were noted for development um as part of the general plan in 1992. We called it the general plan 2007, but it was actually adopted in '92. Um there were up to six areas that were identified um in Newark. Uh this is part of area three and four. And in addition to identifying as area three and four for development um there was a specific plan adopted um it was adopted in 2010. The development [clears throat] capacity of the specific plan is 1,260 units. There are different areas. There's sub area A um A, B, C, and D that were identified as part of this plan. Um if you look at sub area A that is currently built out, that is the sanctuary, uh which is in the corner of

Chariot Stevenson. Uh sub area D is part of the project that we're talking about today. And sub area B and C um are part of an approved project called the Sanctuary West project. Uh in total there's um [clears throat] uh well there's a remaining capacity of 405 units as part of this uh um 1260 that was approved for the specific plan. In terms of the general plan and zoning um the project site right now is currently zoned park um and the general plan has it as low density residential. So there's an inconsistency between the general plan and the zoning. In terms of the project overview um for this specific project, it's 29 acres, 196 executive style homes. It has um as we said 31 affordable housing units. It's for very low and lowincome households. Um there's 4.89 acres of private open space and um infrastructure improvements along Maui. So, we'll talk a little bit more about that in just a minute here. In terms of the lot sizes, you'll see there's three different types of lot sizes that they're proposing. Um, there's plan one, two, and three. Uh, generally, uh, the lot size for plan one or 3,375 ft. The home size, if I take just kind of the minimums that I saw in the plans or reviewed, it was 2,274. There's about 69 of those um, single family units. Um for plan two they're around 3600 square feet for the lot size. Um 2741 for the home size and there's 61 of those. And then the last one is just the plan B uh type three. So you got a smaller lot size of 4,000 or larger lot size of 4,000 2902 and about 66 of those units. So 196 is the total

for those. So it just gives you an idea of what'll be out there if this project was approved. In terms of the infrastructure improvements, um there's going to be some improvements to Maui Avenue to expand. Um we're looking at um you know, beginning on the kind of the right side of this drawing, there's a 7 foot sidewalk. There's 4ft landscaping. There'll be uh bike lanes on both sides. There'll be six feet with [clears throat]

uh 3-ft buffers and uh 12T drives. And then there'll be a median um um in the middle here. In terms of the utilities and for the water, there's um a water me that's going to be running along the uh railroad tracks here um along the city's property. Um this is essentially from the Alama Flood Control Channel to Maui and then it would uh traverse through the city's property um into this project site where the pick and pool is. um as part of this um project here the because they're putting this easement for the water line through the city's property um they would have to pay the city uh in order to do that. So there's an agreement for the city uh to receive $444,000 $440,000 um as part of this easement agreement to do that. Um in terms of the sewer, the sewer would run um through Maui under Maui. Um there were some discussions about this project and um not having access in terms of some type of train derailment or some other type of um emergency situation. Um so there was an emergency access route that was identified that the police and fire could go through. Um this would start or or enter through the um through the central avenue which is essentially the uh Cargill Salt Pond site. Um it would go through their operations um area and then run along the um flood control channel and railroad till it hits Maui and then it would then uh go down into this project here. Um and so this is again just as emergency access route that would be for police and fire just in case of a situation where there's some kind of

emergency where they couldn't get through Maui. In terms of the squa um I'm going to pass it over to our environmental consultants today. We have with us Anna uh who is the principal planner with Santag and Trevor um and Jennifer who also are part of their team. Um so [clears throat]

How do you get it up there? issues.

Oh Make sure that's all. Okay, thank you. Good evening. My name is Anna Radnich and I'm with Stantech. Uh we prepared the environmental impact report for this project. So tonight I'm going to kind of walk you through what is SQUA, what is the EIR for this project to give you a better understanding. So EIR environmental impact report. SQA is the California Environmental Quality Act. This is a discretionary action, discretionary permit. So, we prepared a SQA document for it. An EIR is a problem-solving document. We include mitigation measures. We look at alternatives. Um, so the EIR is just one thing you'll be considering as part of your uh decision tonight for your recommendation. Purpose of an EIR is to inform, engage, disclose, and try to reduce or avoid impacts. Um, inform decision makers like we're doing tonight. Engage the public. There's been multiple opportunities throughout the SQA process for the public to provide comment. So, during the NOP, there's a 30-day scoping meeting. during 45 public day public review of the EIR tonight. Um, and then try to reduce any potential impacts. Just because there's an impact, you can't just leave it there hanging. Steps in the ER process. I kind of work uh just went through this. So, back in

2021, we released the NOP and there was a public scoping meeting here. In 2023, uh the project was out for review for the 45day review of the actual draft itself and there was a meeting here in August of 23 and then tonight we're back again. Um there is a typo. This is listed as November 12th. Today's the 19th and then we'll be back for city council uh scheduled right now for December 11th. So the orange bullets are opportunities where the public has been able to chime in and provide comments on the project in an EIR. Um in this EIR specifically, every resource moved forward and was analyzed in the EIR. So there were 20 resources per appendix G guideline requirements for SQA. So they're listed here. And here's kind of like a cheat sheet summary of the different findings for each of the the resources. So you can [clears throat] see there's a handful that are less less than significant, two that have no impact, a handful that are less than significant once mitigation has been applied, and then we do have one significant unavoidable impact. It's four up from the bottom for transportation and it was actually just for one resource question within transportation for VMT. So here just a little more information on what is a significant and unavoidable impact or an SU impact. Um it's an impact that basically can't be reduced to below thresholds even with mitigation being um applied to try to reduce that impact. So again in this case it's BMT vehicle miles traveled. In SQL we also look at cumulative

analysis. So this is if uh two or more projects when combined you're considered together and uh the impacts that that would have with the project. So with the exception of VMT for this project, um everything else is less than significant but with excuse me but VMT is a cumulatively considered considerable impact. Part of the SQA process is also identifying project alternatives. when you have a significant unavoidable impact, you need to try to reduce it through different alternatives, different maybe it's a design, maybe it's a different type of um project modification. So, we looked at project alternatives related to vehicle miles traveled to VMT. And in the draft EIR, um we looked at alternatives that were considered and rejected and then as well as considered and moving forward. So first these are the three that were considered but rejected was alternative location alternative, restoration alternative and small project alternative. The four that did move forward for further analysis were the no project alternative, multifamily residential alternative, reduced density alternative, and a 100% affordable housing alternative. The little bullets underneath give a little more detail. As part of the SQA process, the draft DIR was issued for public review that was in 2023. Following review, a public review, comments were received and those comments were compiled and responded to in a final EIR document. So the final is a combination of written responses and the ARATA. So the ARATA is any revisions to the draft DIR coming out of the

responses to public comment. The comments received on the draft EIR were kind of primarily around five topics. All comments were responded to in the final EIR, but the topics I'm highlighting tonight um are the five on your screen. So, preserve and restore wetlands and balance, general sea level rise, flood zone, wildlife habitat, and um contribute to affordable housing. In preparation of the final EIR, a fifth alternative was identified and analyzed. And it's the project in front of you tonight, the 196 single family detached units, 30 multifamily residential units, and one manager unit. So in Art's presentation, it was referred to as 31, and that's the difference of the one unit. And here's a comparison part of the SQA document. This is in the final EIR is a comparison of the project alternatives to the project itself resource by resource. So the sec the first column is the resource. The second column is the original finding and then for each project alternative would the alternative lessen be equal to or increase impact. So you can see that here for each of [clears throat] the five alternatives considered and then part of SQA coming out of the alternative analysis is actually identified an environmentally superior alternative. Um and then this slide summarizes that none of the alternatives would actually reduce um or excuse me would actually eliminate the potent the VMT impact. Uh the reduced density alternative is though identified as the environmentally superior alternative because it would

meet all project objectives and it would not result in greater impacts in the proposed project. So I think that's the end of mine. So I'll turn it back to you. I just close this. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Adam. So, in terms of the um entitlement analysis, staff reviewed the project as proposed um the 196 units um and 31 affordable [cough]

um units. Um in terms of the general plan, one of the things that we had to look at was um we had mentioned that the general plan designation is low density residential um for the entire site which means you can have a certain number of residential units and um and so the uh residential zoning district or the actually the zoning is park so that has to be um changed to residential and we'll talk about that in just a second. But in terms of the general plan, um there is a change that was needed for a 0.84 acre lot and that is for the affordable housing units. Um because of the project adding those units, um it turns out that that lot would have a uh 36 dwelling unit per acre uh density which is greater than what is allowed per the general plan. So we are requesting or the project is requesting that there'll be one change um for that lot. So that is called the parcel H lot. So it'll be amended to a highdensity residential. Um in terms of like compliance staff has findings as part of resolution A. In general, there's about three um um policy that kind of stand out in terms of uh there's LU1.1 which provides a balance of uses in the city so that the residents can live close to where they work, shop, educate and recreate and their recreational areas. Um, policy LU1.10 is to encourage the development of Newark's remaining vacant and underutilized sites for the highest and best use. And policy LU7.1, which is to facilitate development in the southwest Newark region residential and recreational area, which is basically area three, area three and four. In terms of zoning, as I had mentioned, the site is parked, so it's inconsistent with the general plan. So that has to be reszoned. So the zoning amendment will

change that to residential single family with a PD overlay um and residential high density for those um affordable units. Um the areas that are for single family homes, the zoning would be RS district with the PD overlay. Um the PD overlay is needed because it has to comply with the specific plan. the specific plan actually has smaller lot sizes and um some uh design requirements that are not consistent with RS zoning. Um so that's why the PD overlay um would help it to comply with that specific plan. Here is kind of a visual of what that would look like. So um on the left is the existing on the right is proposed. So that would be that um Mauy Village site. Um and the affordable lot is if you can see it on here, it's on the bottom right of that um proposed image. Sorry, bottom left. In terms of the specific plan, there is some uh site standards and architectural design guidelines that I mentioned. Um this project has been reviewed um to be consistent with it. Um this project has one and twotory homes. It has a varied massing uh porch and entryways, efficient size lots, and their executive homes. Again, these are all kind of um spelled out in the specific plan uh design guidelines. So we found that the project is um consistent with that. Um and here are some of the homes that are u proposed. So there's are six different architectural style styles as mentioned. Um they have varied roof lines, front-facing homes. They have these recessed garage and we found that these

were consistent with the specific plan. In terms of the affordable housing piece, this has this kind of farmhouse um architectural style. Um this is a three-story building. Uh this would be again the 30 30 affordable units with one manager unit uh totaling uh 31. The building is about um 38 ft high. Um and it has some amenities um for um open space and some office um for this for the affordable housing units. In terms of how we um the project qualified for these um there's a density bonus incentives that are provided incentives and waiverss that are provided for this lot. Um again it's 36 dwelling units per acre. Um the developer decided to provide these affordable housing units. Um so because the units qual are equal to 15% of the project site um in terms of the units um they're able to get these waivers uh the waivers listed here are for lot depth um building height front setback street side yard um unit open space and parking. So, these red reductions are needed in order to build this affordable housing um building on this site um and to meet the RH zoning and specific plan um guidelines. In terms of the affordable housing program, uh the developer will instead of paying the impact fee will provide the on-site uh units. Developer is requesting that the affordable one units be in lie of paying that fee. [clears throat] Um and that would have to be approved by city council. In terms of the housing agreement that is required, um it establishes that the total affordable count and income category distributions

um be at the levels of low and very low. Um the deed restricted property would be for 55 years. It would have local preference um for Newark residents um who live and work here. It would be deed restricted for the affordable housing only. Um it would have a manager um affordable housing manage. Oh, sorry about that. Um the affordable housing would be um manager affordable housing manager would be approved by the um by the city manager units um to be constructed concurrently with market rate. So all the units again [clears throat] this project the 31 units would have to be built at the same time as the single family homes. Um in terms of like the unit mix uh you can see the chart here there's uh onebedroom, twobedroom and threebedroom ranging from 545 um square feet to 1,143. You can see kind of the breakdown of the number of units um for those types. Um here we kind of give you um a range that would be um for units if these were built today um and they were rented. You [clears throat] would see on the table here that the rent limits for a very low or low again which very low would be 30 to 50 AMI and low would be 50 to 80% AMI. These would be kind just some um potential rents that would be for those projects if it was built today. In terms of the agreement and its uh performance schedule, um one of the things that we emphasized was that the

units be built um at the same time as the um market rate units. Um so these performance schedules were put in place so that the developer um can meet those targets and that expectation. [clears throat] Um I think the main takeaway here is that the um the 31 units be built um at the same time as the market rate. So um [clears throat] so we can get people moved in there. Um [cough] there's also a vesting tenative map approval that's required for this. Um there's uh basically three lots will be turning into 197 lots. There's a private roads that will be internally um the expansion of the Mauy A rideway. Um and it complies with the standards of the subdivision ordinance. With that, staff um recommends that the planning commission recommend to the city council the following. And there is two resolutions that kind of go along with this um approval. Um the resolution recommended city council approved the certification of the final environmental impact FIR, a statement of overriding considerations and the mitigation monitoring and reporting program. and a resolution recommending city council approve the entitlements for the project which include the amendment to the general planned land use amendment to the area 3 specific plan amendment to the city's official zoning map um the plan development overlay district the design review alternate means of compliance uh a density bonus waiverss um and the best intended map as discussed um as we had mentioned earlier beginning the before the meeting there were some comments that we've received um as of yesterday that the planning commission was sent a memo for um and it had these

letters um there's a number of people who responded today um and those were added on the dis so you have those in front of you and there's also copies for the general public in the back and with that staff will answer any questions about the project or the process

okay before um I ask the planning commissioners if they have questions or comments. I just want to let the public know that if you would like to speak on this and you haven't filled out a card to please do so and turn it into Sophia. Thank you. And now I'll open it up to the planning commission for comments or questions. Okay. Okay. All right. One thing uh if I can may mention um chairman uh chairwoman um is that the applicant has a presentation um and they're here today and it's uploaded already in the um the computer.

Okay. All right. Then we can proceed with that.

I'm going to trust somebody else with that. Uh, thank you commissioners. I appreciate it being here and I want to thank staff for all the hard work that we've done over the five years that we've been planning this community. My name is Evan Knap and I'm a partner at Integral Communities. I've got many members of my team here from Helix, from CBG, from Magical Bridge. They're here to answer any questions if you have any. I have a short presentation. It'll be repetitive in some nature with arts presentation, but I think it's just important facts to get out there and be able to talk through. Um, so this community is being brought to you by Integral Communities and LAR Homes. and uh Integral and LAR formed a a partnership to be able to ride communities and impact areas, things that need tough cleanup processes or have reached their economic life and need to be redeveloped into thriving communities. To give you an idea, Lenar is the second largest home builder in the United States. They're completely committed to the home buying experience and providing excellent communities out throughout the whole United States. We actually as a partnership have built and provided about 1,400 houses here in New York with a total adjusted sale price of about $1.5 billion of taxpaying revenue to the city. And most importantly, those communities are thriving well. And if you go through them on Halloween and Christmas, you'll see just how impactful those are. If you could go to the next slide. So I think Art did mention that this site is uh we've been working on it since 2020 and we've made a whole host of changes based on community feedback, staff feedback, listening to the community and then implementing those

changes. We are part of an u a um density bonus application here as as fact that we've incorporated affordable housing. We've increased the elevation of Maui Avenue and the elevation of the site through community feedback. Through community feedback, we made the community all electric. So, we have no gas appliances, no gas ran to the to the site. And one of our biggest exciting features is that we formed a partnership with Magical Bridge to bring intellectually and developmentally disabled community to Newark for the first time ever. Uh we have added another emergency uh emergency vehicle access point. We can kind of go over that. We've made a number of of infrastructure improvements. So if we go to the next slide. So as art stated this actually was envisioned much long time ago. Uh it's general planned for housing and it you know as we go through this presentation we'd like to take credit for it but really it was the city's vision more than anything else that in in their housing element. Uh they provided for [snorts] a need to develop intellectually and develop developmentally disabled communities throughout their city. and we just read that and executed that. So I can't take credit for that. I got to give that to the city. Next slide. So this is on the overall site plan or or site the proximity. We actually within walking distance of Silman Center, walking distance to New Park Mall. So it's still very close but obviously on the edge of the city. Next slide. So the site as Art stated is currently the pick and pull dismantling yard. uh 9.5 acres is vacant land right now, but the majority of the site is and currently is operating as pick and pull. So, it's it's been a common misnomer that we've heard. We want to state that

we're not in a wetland. We are not don't have any uh endangered species there. We've had that verified by the Army Corps of Engineer. Uh the site right now has contamination on it and our company is committing $10 million to remediate that site and we have a cleanup order approved through Alama County Water District and if we don't do this then this site will operate in perpetuity as this use. So 196 detached single family market rate homes in that community are 15% or 31 very low and low apartment units. And it also has we I don't think Bart touched on it, but it has a 3,000 foot community meeting room that would be used by all the members of the community, not just the affordable folks. It's all electric. Every house has a twocar sidebyside garage. Every house has a twocar driveway. So our covered it. Our home sites range from 33 to 4,000 [clears throat] square ft. Much like Sanctuary, much like Sanctuary West that's built in our thriving community. um our community all the affordable units and the market rate units will all enjoy the same amenity package with inside the community. [clears throat] Next slide. This is the overall site plan right here. Thing I want to touch on in here is that we have three different series of homes on three different size of lots. So there'll be nine houses to choose from in a range of of density and size. So it can accommodate a whole bunch of different family needs. And then if you look at the lower lefthand parcel, that's our affordable building and we place that there because it's closest to the Silman Center, closest to public transportation, and it's still integrated inside of our community and uses the exact same driving, exact same street structure and and the same park improvements. So if of some firsts here is it's not

often that you see affordable housing and market rate housing integrated so well together. Certainly our our partnership with the Magical Bridge Foundation to provide these home options to intellectually and developmentally disabled is a first. That's a first. I haven't seen that yet. We have a linka here from the Magical Bridge folks and I know she's speaking about how excited she is about it, but we're very excited about it. Okay. So, by doing this, we're creating the first ever partnership. for providing housing to a much needed group of folks, meaningful spaces, meaningful places, and this is in alignment with your housing at limit goals. So, we developed Max's option. Max's option is a feature inside the home that starts out as a sensory room. [snorts] It then can be converted into a bachelor unit, kitchenet, separate entrance, giving Max, and I named this after a good friend of mine, Max Droasa, who will be here at the city council meeting but couldn't make it tonight. But it gives Max an opportunity to age and place in his home, be the last home that his folks ever buy and stay here in the city of Newark in a place that was specially built for him. This is Max's option right here. You can see that highlighted area is a label as a bedroom 4, but it starts out when Max is young as a sensory room, a place that he can go and recharge his own battery, his special place in this house. And as Max ages, and Max himself right now is 17 years old. And as Max ages, he could have his own kitchenet. He could have his own entrance. He could have his own autonomy in this house. But this is the house that he grew up in. So Magical Bridge folks have been incredible to work with. They took our small park and we allowed them to just say, "Tell us what you'd like in here. What would Max want?" And they took nine

of their best features from their Redwood Shores development park and they said, "This is what we would like to see." So, we got a special tot zone, a spinning zone, kindness and conversation zone slide. And this is specially designed so that Max has a place of community and sense of place for himself. So, a little bit about the fiscal benefits of our of our community is we have about $7 million of park fees that we're paying to to be deployed on any park in the city of Newark. We then volunteered another 1.3 for additional community benefit and safety. Our annual property tax revenue for the city of Newark is $645,000 with a net fiscal p positive impact of $333,000 perom. And then just from the families being here, we project that we will have about $166,000 of positive retail spending to the city of New York. School impact fees are $3 million and which is a boost to local businesses. Thank you. So uh another misnomer is that Maui village is at at risk of sea level rise and that is not the case. The city just did their own vulnerability adapt adaptation study and Maui was not in any scenario subject to sea level rise. We actually are raising up Maui about 2 feet. We're raising up Maui Drive by 1 to three feet. And at the in the same moment, we've got Union Sanitary District that has made a half a billion dollar capital improvement and that's at the same base elevation as Mauy Village. So, we want to dispel any myths that there's a risk there. So, the current condition of Mauy is tough. It's blighted. It's poorly lit. It's used for illegal dumping. This is actually these slides were taken two days ago. So, that is a current condition of what Mauy is. cars routinely exceeding the speed limit

and the rail crossing does not meet the CPU standards. So what we're doing is we are upgrading the rail crossing to CPU standards. We're increasing connectivity and then we're raising Maui and all of these features here are part of the development and occur immediately in the development as soon as we're approved and breaking ground. This is a cross-section. I know that Art showed one, but this is a colored cross-section of what Mauy, the ultimate goal of Maui will look like. Two-foot planning area, 7 foot pedestrian path, planting area, bike lane, buffer lane, and this will go from the crossing all the way down to the end of Maui and the median. I think it was a concern of the city and rightfully so that uh our primary EVA is approved through Alama County Fire [snorts] across that crossing across Maui. So that's the yellow highlight. We've also developed two other EVAs just in case. One that would go to the south through the sanctuary prospect pro uh project and then across and up Stevenson and then one through Cargill. So, we've sort of come at this from a couple different angles to make sure that safety was paramount. So, a couple myths uh just because we've heard so much about it. We're not in a wetland. We have a certified jurisdictional delineation that we are not in a wetland. There's no endangered species on our site. Um currently the Army Corps is has shown that uh we are not at risk of sea level rise. city's own study done by AUP has documented that fully. That's actually a very recent study. Uh the site could become a public park. Well, while that's true, it's not the city's vision that that happens. The city has general planned this and the general plan has existed for quite a while that it be low density residential. The actually the in the

federal plan, it calls for about an 8.6 density units per acre. We're at seven. uh the site provides a buffer zone for protect for flood protection. Well, that's not true because it currently is a polluted auto wrecking yard and without the community and without us cleaning it up, it's not going to stay in a place where it could provide adequate flood protection. We covered the EVA and pick and pull has no obligation to clean up the property. um we have the obligation to clean up the property. So by approving this, we're actually going to be cleaning up this property. So over the 5 years that we've been doing this, we've met with over 50 stakeholders. We've talked to 200 different community groups. We've had open houses. We've got a website up. We through that engagement, these changes are what you're seeing today. This is our timeline. And you can see that when we began this in 2020. And the thing that I'd like to highlight here is that the years between 2023 and 2025, that was just all about making the community better, engaging with the community, and finding out what we could deploy better to provide something unique and a first time for Newark. And then I end with this quote from Gavin Newsome, which is all Californians deserve. Affordable place to live, close to jobs, schools, [snorts] and opportunity, local housing. This is what this is is local housing means shorter commutes, lower costs, more time with family. When we invest in housing, we're investing in people. Chance to build a future, raise a family, and be a part of a community. And I thank you very much for your time tonight. I want to bring up Vince Fletcher.

Thank you. I've got a video to show um of the existing conditions at um pick and pole.

Sir, are you let me know when you're ready? Sorry. [snorts] Why is this? Why is it not showing?

[clears throat]

Yeah, we're going to pull up Here we go. Now it's not showing. That's it. Yeah. Try that one.

There we go. You'll get it. There we go.

Great. Thank you very much. So, as a sign says, uh, pickup pole is a automobile junkyard. It consists of over 2,000 cars at any one time. Uh, we view this as an opportunity to take a blighted area and turn it into a beautiful, vibrant housing community. Um, Pick and Pole, as it's been mentioned, is not a wetlands. Uh it never was a wetlands. Uh the soil here is not the bay mud that usually is associated with wetlands. Uh this soil here is thick clay. Um it's been a farming operation from the early 1900s to the 1960s at which point it became an autorecking yard for the last 55 years. This machine here crushes the cars. They take out about 20 cars a day. um and rotate them out. Uh this then they bring in 20 cars. Um we have done numerous soil studies and as you can imagine there are a lot of car fluids in the soil. They consist of benzene, diesel, oil, uh brake fluid, transmission fluid, and antifreeze. Um this spot right here uh is where the 20 cars are going to go. Uh the cost to clean up the site is between seven and $10 million. These brown spots are the contaminants that we are going to remove. The detention basins on site are not wetlands. They are man-made. They are maintained on a regular basis. The purpose of these detention basins is to filter out impurities uh and heavy metals that come from the uh pick and pull yard. Uh we plan to retool these into storm drain detention basins as part of our project. Uh this will satisfy our C3 storm drain

requirements. Mauy Avenue has become quite a nuisance with illegal dumping of garbage and soil. Uh there's so much dumping of soil, it's starting to encroach into the travel lanes on Mauy Avenue. We plan to clean this up, widen it to 54 feet curb to curb. We also plan to redo the intersection where Maui crosses over the tracks with larger uh arms and also pedestrian gates. The trains that go by are roughly 7 to 12 cars at a time. Uh they go by quickly so you don't have to wait for the crossing arms. Uh, in the unlikely event that Mauy is blocked, they talked about the different ways to get in and out. This is a dirt road that goes out to Stevenson. It's about a mile away over the Stevenson crossing. The other way is an easement that the city now has that is a flood control easement that goes through Carill. This is a rocked road. It's wellmaintained. It goes along the flood control channel. It goes out to Central Avenue, which also is roughly a mile away. So again, we look at this as a real opportunity to uh make a rough area into something that the city can really be proud of. I'll be glad to answer any questions. Appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

Thank Thank you. Um I have a quick question. So theing um filtering out the bad things before it goes out and then you're gonna re-engineer it. Um so you'll have to like I imagine you can help me out here. Dig out just tons of the soil until you get to clean soil and then probably put in good soil or concrete. I don't know how that works.

Yes. So, we're going to take out the top 18 in of pick and pull, offhaul that to a toxic dump, and we're also going to scoop out haul out the detention basins, get those completely clean to residential standards. Uh, and then we will reconfigure those basins so that they're storm water detention basins, not the larger um basins that you see right now for the impurities. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Any other questions? Just a a question about um an adjacent uh property. Cargill has their salt uh retention ponds that are um adjacent to the property as well.

Um they are you talking about the 9 acres that is not involved with the cars? No, I'm just talking about adjacent uh properties. Okay. Adjacent uh properties that have that have been commented on, you know, as being part of uh Baylands and so forth. Okay. We're We're buying 100% of what Pick and Pull owns. Yes. Yeah. Okay. That actually was not my question. Okay. I'm sorry. I'll save it for u you know after public comment. Okay. Have a question. Any other questions? Yeah,

I do have a question. Uh and I'm not sure if it's it's better for our applicant or for our consultant. But um piggybacking on uh chair person's bogus bogus's question on site contamination. Can you talk to us a little bit about um not just for this site but we also saw it with the conversion of the Dunart and TOD area primarily anytime we have industrial uses commercial uses that get converted to housing. What does that process look like when there is contamination uh between builder city oversight agency? What does that look like from where it stands now until a certificate of occupancy is issued? So the uh jurisdiction that oversees the cleanup in this case is the Alama County Water District and we will remove the cars, remove the soil, bring in soil. We'll be testing as that process goes forward. They'll be watching every step of the way and we have to satisfy and meet uh all their requirements and then they give us a bill of health that says yes, you've satisfied you've cleaned it up to residential standards. So it's it's testing of the soil after we do the improvements.

So it's a continuous process of testing and I imagine the city of Newark as well is involved in checking results, working with oversight agency. Yeah, our our engineer can speak more to this, but essentially um the ACWD um and the regional water board are the ones who um do that testing. um the city once they've kind of like signed off on that then we start you know beginning the building permits and grading that the city is then in charge of. Okay. Thank you. Um any other questions or comments? Mr. Becker I think you had a question. The Cargill Salt Plond just to the north of us was your question right? Yeah. That is not considered a wetland either. That's an agricultural mining operation that consists there that

that was the question. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any more questions from you? I just had a a question too. A very good presentation so far. U you've had Lenar's had experience in Newark of developing lands in the Dumbartan TOD area and you have some homes. That's a similar process you did there was a polluted sites. Yeah, there was a clay manufacturing site that went on there. We had a cleanup order to do that. We removed all the bad clay, brought in clean that up under a cleanup order and then brought housing in. Yes. And I have a representative from on our right there. But um yeah, and we when we did the Dun Barton, we

did that at a density in mind to be able to bring transit across the Dun Barton Bridge years ago. And so those densities were different and are a little bit more dense than what you're going to see in Maui. Mhm. Yes. Yeah. Very familiar with the area and done work with the city of Newark before, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. Since 2008. Yeah. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Any more questions? Just one more question. Uh uh for the emergency entrance, it's from the central and Stevenson. On central, they building a ramp. It's going to be after the ramp or before the ramp.

Well, I'm not sure the timing of the ramp. So, there are three emergency vehicle exits and entrances, if you will. The primary one is just right on Maui, and that's been approved by Alec Municowi Flood. I mean, a fire, excuse me. So the primary is just right down Maui. The secondary and tertiary are through the Cargill Salt Flats, that dirt road that the city is now in possession of an easement and has the right to be able to access that in case of an emergency. And then the third will be down the train track through the sanctuary west project and across Stevenson when that overpass is built. I'm not sure of the timing of that. Okay.

But but we sort of went at it from a belt and suspenders place. You know our primary is Maui, secondary is Cargill, third is or depending on how you do secondary and third would be the Stevenson offering because the train it's the what's that? Uh so it goes to the Tracy now that goes fast but sometimes the train for the cargill salt. Yeah. It blocks all the the central the mari and even the stemson.

Yeah. And that's why we met with Alama County Fire. We were very particular when we sat down with Alama County Fire and the city and said, "Let's walk through our emergency access. They looked at the Mauy condition, what is normally happens in a train condition there, and they said, "No, we can evacuate and get fire, life safety vehicles into Maui village just through Maui." And then we went back and just further, you know, made that even better by getting an easement through Carggo and then being able to go south too. And there only two entrance to the Mori village, right? I was looking in the There's two separate entrances off of Maui. Yeah. To come into the community. Yes.

Thank you. Any other questions from the commission? Okay. Thank you, Evan, for the presentation. Okay. [clears throat] Um, so this evening we have 19 speakers. So in lie of that, we're going to have three minutes to speak. I'll call up three people at a time and you can queue up and then the last group will have four. Okay. So, the first three will be Kelly Stowe, Peter Helman, and Lewis Morante.

Good evening, Madame Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, commissioners, and uh Newark staff. My name is Kelly Stout. I'm the vice president of land development for LAR in the Bay Area. I just wanted to come tonight and um with excitement and gratitude for staff's uh help to get us to this point at this um at this time. We are we I personally have been in Newark for the last 10 years working collaboratively to bring these uh communities online that we have in the Dumbartan tood. Couldn't be prouder of what we've built together. I drove them tonight and the holiday lights are up. the community members are walking the streets, walking their dogs, playing with the children in the parks and really looking forward to bringing another dynamic community, a dynamic neighborhood to the city. Um, we are the largest builder in California and we um are the right partner for Integral and to bring this community to life. So, thank you again and looking forward to uh making this happen.

Thank you. Appreciate it. [snorts]

Good evening, uh, Madame Chair, members of the planning commission. My name is Peter Helman. I'm an out oftowner from Wano Creek, California. I've been a home builder and developer for nearly 50 years. And I I know I look like it. I'm [laughter] 98% retired now. and and uh because I'm lonely and don't have many friends, I spent a lot of time talking to cities, encouraging cities to provide more housing for Californians. Um, for the life of me, I can't understand why this project is controversial at all. I mean, for goodness sakes, it's an auto wrecking yard. And uh not only that, but it's contaminated. And so here you have a fine company stepping up to uh turn this mess into a n 196 [clears throat] single family detached homes uh for people in the in the east and south bay. And uh these single family detached homes are a disappearing breed in California now particularly here in the core bay area. And my goodness, what an opportunity to provide that type of housing for 196 households. On top of that, they're proposing to do uh 30 affordable units for very low income and lowincome people. Uh I've done a lot of projects during my career. Those are very difficult thresholds to hit, so I think they deserve credit for that as well. Um the world's changed, folks. Um, uh, I've been in this business long enough to remember when we were the devil incarnate and, uh, you could smell sulfur when I walked in, walked in the road, walked in the room. This is a

different time and we're all trying to step up now and do our part uh, to provide housing. We hope you will do yours and approve this very fine project. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[clears throat]

Good evening, Madam Chair and commissioners. My name is Lewis Morante. I'm senior vice president of public policy for the Bay Area Council. We are an employer sponsored public policy nonprofit based in the Bay Area. Uh I particularly focus on the council's housing work and I'm here in that capacity to support this project tonight. Um, our project endorsement subcommittee reviewed this project and unanimously voted to endorse it in large part because of the immense shortage of housing the region faces. Now, you may have read recently the California Association of Realtors put out a study that showed the median age of the firsttime home buyer in California uh just reached 40 for the first time. So, first-time home buyers are getting older. That's in large part because housing here is getting more expensive. It's getting more expensive because we aren't building enough of it. This this project here tonight is a great opportunity to respond to that challenge. The average family in California needs about $300,000 to afford the average home in California. Here in Newark, that number is $347,000 of annual income just to afford the median home. Again, that's in that's in large part because California has built about a third to a half of the homes that it needs on an annual basis to maintain price stability for the last 30 40 years. Uh this project also represents a great opportunity for Newark to accomplish its rena goals. It has uh more than 10% of the low-income housing units that uh the the the folks at MTC and ABACK have assigned to Newark. Um that's going to help you stay out of the builder's remedy situation. that's going to hit other cities that don't meet those goals. It's going to help Newark stay out of the SB35 scenarios that are similarly going to hit those cities and it's most importantly just going to help reduce uh price pressure across communities across the Bay Area uh and particularly in this area. Afford affordability has been the loadar of our state policy makers and our regional

policy makers uh for the last several years. Uh this project is really an example of a way to align so many different victories across remediating the soil uh providing new for sale home ownership options to so much more uh that advances that goal. I hope you'll vote to approve it tonight. Thanks. Thank you.

Okay, our next three [clears throat] speakers will be and excuse me if I don't pronounce them correctly. Looks like Chinton Shaw, Steven Cassidy, and Cheryl Patel. [snorts] Good evening everyone. It's my first time here so I may make some mistakes so I apologize. Um my name is Chintan and I am a resident of city of New York since 2016. I'm speaking today because I live near the proposed village development and I'm deeply concerned about the impact on our community. This project is expected to generate more than 2,000 additional car trips every single day. The Maui Cedar intersection is already heavily congested and because of Maui Avenue being the only access point to this development, all of that traffic will be funneled onto an already overburdened road. We have also seen a significant rise in the traffic on Moors Avenue following the construction of the Amazon warehouse and the housing development on Cedar. Adding Maui village will only push even more cars on to this peripheral streets like Moors Avenue where where drivers are already using the streets as unregulated through street to reach the cherry street. This pattern poses a clear and growing safety risk for our children, pedestrian and neighbors. The recent installation of the speed radars on the cedar and moss. It highlights that speeding and unsafe traffic conditions are already a documented problem. For these reasons, I strongly urge the city to oppose this Maui village project. Our community cannot absorb the traffic congestion and the safety hazards this development will create. Let's not become another Fremont. Thank you.

Thank you. [snorts]

Hello um commissioners, my name is Steven Cassidy. I'm the president of the New York Chamber of Commerce and I'm here on behalf of the board of directors. We also have one of our directors here who will be speaking as well. The board has adopted a resolution supporting the Mouri Village project and in a nutshell we see this project as benefiting Newark in many ways but you know first and foremost it will be demolishing an existing auto dismantler, remediating soil contamination and then converting it into beautiful new housing um that will generate substantial potential benefits to the prosperity of Newark's business community and the needs of its residents. And I want to focus in part on the issue of housing. And you this is the number one issue for the business community here in Newark. It just creates a whole paniply of negative um impacts on the growth and the prosperity of Newark. It increases the operational costs. Businesses struggle to attract and retain employees when housing is unaffordable. They have trouble, you know, bringing in employees from elsewhere. When they see what it costs to live here, the employees say no. The increased commute times, you know, it's I live in San Leandro and I come down to Newark and it's possibly, you know, 45 minutes to an hour some days and that's only 20 miles away. So you have folks that are spending more than an hour coming to work here in Newark, you know, that live far away. Um, and you know, it's an hour in the morning, it's an hour in the evening. It's, think of all the pollution that those cars are generating because of the commute times. Um and then of course

there's you know reduced economic growth you know from the traffic congestion to the um fact that you can't expand the the companies have trouble expanding because of the employee um shortages. So word supported this project. We view it as smart infill development. It's an efficient use of the land. You're expanding the affordable and the market rate housing here. You're significantly um improving the ability of the city to reach its arena goals. You're also improving the infrastructure. Mallerie Avenue is blighted. Um you know, I sometimes go up to Oakland and you see the mattresses, you see the things on the side road there and I thought, you know, you never see that in Newark until I drove down Malerie. Um it's you have the opportunity to make a huge difference for the community that lives there. And then of course you're going to see enhanced property values and broader economic activity. The estimate is $6 million annually in new business here in Newark. Now multiply that by 10 years, 20 years. It's huge. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. All right. Our next Oh, yep. Sorry. Go ahead. [clears throat]

Good. Good evening, [snorts] everyone. Thank you for your time today. My name is Cheryl Patel. I am speaking today because I deeply care about the health and safety of Newark residents and its environment. I grew up in New York and my family still lives here. I am also here representing Beekeeper, a California nonprofit organization. Thus, I also share these comments on behalf of Beekeepers approximately 5,000 members and supporters who live and or recreate in the San Francisco Bay area. Baykeepers mission is to defend San Francisco Bay from the biggest threats and hold polluters and government agencies accountable to create healthier communities and help wildlife thrive. This planning commission needs to be aware of a 2021 report developed by Hawaii's Department of Toxicology which creates which clearly states that when land contaminated by petroleum products come in contact with brackish groundwater or surface water flooding, the interaction of these two materials create methane and hydrogen sulfide due to the anorobic degradation of petroleum. In other words, when water covers soils contaminated with petroleum products, the petroleum products are cut off from oxygen and in that low oxygen environment, they break down into methane and hydrogen sulfide gas. This chemical process needs to be carefully considered because the Mario Village project is being planned on a toxic site where the pick and pull industrial facility is currently operating. According to the state water resources control board, this pick and pull site in New York has the following contaminants of concern. Benzene, diesel, total petroleum, hydrocarbons, motor oil, and many more. The final environmental impact report suggests that this site will be inundated with groundwater and currently experiences surface water flooding due to high tides and heavy rainfall. Thus, the incontaminants of concern on this site combined with the current and expected flooding due to sea level rise can lead to conditions that produce methane, a highly flammable gas, and hydrogen sulfide gas. also flammable and toxic at low concentrations. Both methane and hydrogen sulfide gases can migrate laterally and vertically, meaning these gases will not, excuse me, will not stay in one place. Instead, they can travel

up to the surface and along the ground to different areas, allowing them to seep into buildings where humans and animals can experience unsafe indoor air quality and be exposed to flammable and explosive hazards. Unfortunately, even the best remediation efforts cannot fully clean up a contaminated site. And that is especially true for a site where petroleum products have contaminated soils and groundwater. Thus, any future residents on or near the current site of the New York Pick and Pole where the soil may be contaminated with petroleum products could be at risk of exposure to methane and hydrogen sulfide gas and all related consequential hazards. We encourage this commission to not approve the final environmental impact report as written without evaluating the potential for petroleum products to be left in place and to reconsider the safety of building housing on this site. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Okay, [snorts] our next three are Liz Ames, Olena Valale, and Nick Valencia.

Good evening. Good evening. I'm Liz Ames. I'm your BART director and um I am concerned about housing and transit. Obviously, I work in the five counties. We have arts in five counties in the Bay Area and [clears throat] it's upsetting to see the Bay Area Council and the developers saying this is a housing crisis. Let's build on this site. It's not transitoriented. It's low density for for the most part. We try to build high density near our train stations, high density along major bus corridors. Uh even San Francisco, I'd argue with San Francisco, you're not building enough housing. You don't have a Manhattan skyline. You have a a peak at Embaradero and the rest of your city is low density. Well, guess what? The housing community development department at the state audited San Francisco. Now they have to build 80,000 units in like eight years. So, we're building enough housing in Newark. And I think Newark's doing a great job. You have a housing plan. You didn't you you you're meeting your your numbers. So, you don't need to build housing in this area. And history is going to prove that we're right on this, that we cannot build in an area that's subject to wetland to subject to flooding, sea level rise. So this area needs to become a wetland. I'm sorry that there's a [snorts] lot of disagreement about this, but there's scientists that are saying if the sea level rises up, say 6 feet by 2100, the water is going to have to come inward. It's coming towards us. You can see the water from the site. So that water is coming towards us. And that's just sea level rise. That doesn't include storm surge. So we're getting bigger storms. So when they have these atmospheric rivers coming in with the high tide, the water goes even higher and then the water backs up into the creeks and floods the surrounding neighborhoods. So we do need an area to absorb this additional water that's headed our way. And I think I I do believe that Newark

is smart enough to figure this out that we do need a master plan for the bayands to absorb this kind of impact. It's a serious issue where if you keep building towards the shoreline, the shoreline's going to meet the project and it's going to be a liability for the project. You may not be able to get insurance for the project. Look at the hills right now. The the governor I wish the governor was here, frankly, and I wish we had a presentation. I wish we had a presentation that had our side of this issue because we have hazardous areas in the hills that are fire danger and you see this problem liabilities. They can't get insurance. The same thing's going to happen on our shoreline. So, I really hope that you're listening to us that we get an opportunity to have a presentation that that voices the science that's on our side on this one. And don't build in the wetlands. And this is not a wetland right now, but it will be. Thank you.

Thank you. Isn't democracy great? We can all agree to uh voice our opinions together. Honorable commissioners, good evening. Good evening, everyone. Um my name is Alena Variel and I am uh the founder of the Magical Bridge Foundation and we exist for one reason and that is to create playgrounds and places where those of all ages feel welcome and part of the community. And I have been so honored to be part of this um project and getting to know integral communities. And if I had a real magic wand, I would say that every community would benefit from a thoughtful developer like the integral communities team. The Mary Village project replaces the long polluting pick and pull auto junkyard with clean, modern housing, 196 new family homes, 31 muchneeded affordable units along with this unique MA Max's option that you heard about. It's a chance to remove a toxic use that has sat on this land for decades and replace it with a neighborhood that aligns with Newark's values and long-term plans. There have been a lot of environmental push back um as we just heard, but the facts really are clear. The environmental impact report studied 20 resource areas and found only one unavoidable impact. the treasure traffic measured through VMT and that result is driven by formulas not local harm and cannot be mitigated without undoing the very purpose of the project. This is not an environmental danger. It is a policy metric. Meanwhile, the true environmental win is the cleanup and elimination of an contaminated auto dismantling yard. Who could possibly advocate for keeping it? Approving this project not only does uh the cleanup of the land and provides housing, but it also unlocks almost $7 million investment to build a magical bridge playground, giving Newark a worldclass, fully inclusive public spac, families, seniors, and residents of all

abilities can gather, play, and really be a part of this community. We know many of your families travel to our playgrounds and they've been advocating for a long time to bring Magical Bridge here. Um so you are not choosing between development and um nature. You were really choosing between leaving a toxic site as is or creating a vibrant neighborhood with an exciting innovating housing [snorts] solution to serve today's diverse families with different needs and getting a trans a transformational community asset like a magical bridge here in Newark. Your votes have the power to transform toxicity to real community magic. And I thank you for your leadership and your vote positively today.

Thank you. Uh, good evening, Commission. Uh, Nick Valencia. Um, lifetime Newark resident. I'm live and work here as well. Um, selfishly from my side, I feel like I'm one of the lucky people who can live and work in Newark and and own a home here. Um, I heard some data earlier that [snorts] the average person that can buy a house now for the younger side, I guess we're calling that young now, is 40. Um, I bought my house in Newark at 32. And a big part of that was I was able to get a very good job here as Newark's kind of become a little bit of a biotech hub. Um as Facebook kind of bought out a lot of the stuff across the bridge. A lot of those biotechs have come and they've kind of rooted here in Newark. Um and so now we have these careers and a lot of the time when we go to do recruiting, we do a lot of stuff with Aloney and things like that, but sometimes we have to go out and we have to get kind of some top level talent. We'll have to bring them from different areas and recruit them and things like that. One of the biggest pain points we have is there's just not enough housing, right? And it's not just that there's not enough housing, but we just have an inventory problem. I don't know that that that just this project is going to fix that problem, but I think overall as we continue to build, kind of think of more thoughtful thoughtful builds and things like that, it kind of starts to alleviate that and kind of starts to get that pain point because it is hard for people like myself that grew up in Newark now now you can't live here. You got to go to Stockton or Tracy or whatever and things like that. And those are kind of those pain points of now you're in your car that much longer. if you're in your car, maybe that gas that you're doing, you're getting it in Stockton. So now Newark's kind of missed that that tax revenue as well. So I think a lot of being able, like I said, for myself selfishly and I feel like I'm kind of spoiled because I can live, I can work in Newark, I can play in Newark, my kids can join after school recreation programs here in Newark. So I think is more that you keep people around in the area, it just gets a little bit better, a little bit more sense of community and things like that. Um, and then on that same topic of community, um, in working with, uh, Evan and Vince as well, um, not only are they coming in with a proven track record of putting these communities, not just

other places, but they've done it here in Newark. So, you're getting, in my opinion, a qualified builder that's going to see it all the way through. They've helped with a a bunch of different nonprofit things that I work on here in the city of Newark. And so, those guys are vested in. So, I'd like to see the project go forward, of course. And I think it's just one piece of a larger puzzle as we kind of try to start to reverse kind of what's happened to that middle class and that kind of middle-aged guy like myself that eventually wants to own a home because I think everybody should have that dream and selfishly again like for me I want to do it in Newark. So thank you guys um for all your feedback and everything and appreciate everybody speaking both for and against.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, the next three um I I think it's Dixie Labs. This one, Precious Samagasa and Nicholas Melendez. Good evening. Yes, it is Dixie Lurabal. I'm the uh real estate developer uh real estate director for Eden Housing nonprofit affordable housing developer uh in based in Hayward and um we're hopeful that we open up our doors in uh mid December on our timber street senior project. So thank you all for the opportunity to speak in front of you. Um we have been uh speaking with integral communities for a few years on this project and have been uh encouraging some best practices uh on how to formulate the best uh best plan of integration of affordable into the community. And so uh we're hopeful uh that we get to work on this project as well uh with this group. Um, we've had a number of experiences where we have done standalone projects within four communities and just recently last night I got another project approved in the city of San Raone doing exactly the same thing. Uh, a number of single family homes uh is surrounded by a standalone affordable housing community. So, it has been um a great opportunity to provide affordable housing in a way where we can um partner up with our market rate uh friends uh to create that deep affordable housing uh that is sorely needed uh in and helps the resources of the city and the county and the state uh stretch just a little bit further in looking at the design of the community and seeing where we uh where

our potential lot is placed. We did encourage uh the developer to place us in that specific area because we wanted close access uh to the city services because distance does matter. Um it matters a great deal for uh leveraging financing but also in such a way that um it also can help us integrate into the community in such a way that we're we're also providing um housing for uh those individuals with intellectual disabilities in many of our communities um both as standalone communities uh like we've just opened in PaloAlto uh and in other communities where we integrate units within which is what we're planning on doing in Loscatoos on our Loscatoos uh north 40 phase 2 project. So, we hope you approve the project. We are ready to um bring solutions um to this particular site. It's a lovely site. We'd absolutely love to be involved in it and uh thank you for your time and appreciation.

Thank you.

Good evening, New York and community. Today I'm here again to speak on behalf of the petition. As a little girl who loved walking and biking around Dawn Edwards um with my family, I found it the perfect place to clear my head because of the open scenery. Um it was the perfect place because it was different. When I was in third grade, I went to snow school and we had the opportunity to go hiking near Coyote Hills. And I remember my group and I got lost into how beautiful everything was and ended up being late to lunch because we were caught up by the scenery. And now hearing this petition that if this building plan proceeds, Newark will be harmed over time with flash floods. And that makes me fearful for New York's future safety. [cough] as a student from New York Memorial Environment Club collaborated and held a presentation during lunch and we had gathered um physical signatures by tableabling during lunch and more online. As we educated other students, all of them were devastated about the news. I've heard from our track athletes opinions and they all shared their feelings of devastation upon hearing that their track might be built over house with with housing plans. And with every student we had talked to, not one of them agreed with the building plans. And I speak for not only me, but surely the entirety of New York youth that it feels like my safety from my future is being taken away. And I plan to take my future children out on a stroll to show them and teach them the same way my parents did. And from this meeting, steps to prevent flooding had been brought up. And my main concern is continuing New York's safety. How are we going to limit pollution from the increase of traffic? What does it mean for Newark in about 10 to 20 years? So, my main worry is to please hear us when we want when we say that we want reassurance of protection for Newark and from negative and from

future negative impacts. Thank you. Thank you.

Hello everybody um here this evening. My name is Nicholas Melendez. I'm a student at Newark Memorial High School and the secretary for my school's environmental club and I came here to speak against the Maui Village Project. I've always lived in Newark my entire life and had always admired its wildlife and appreciated its beauty and uniqueness. And at Newark Memorial High School, it has come to our attention that the city of Newark wants to build houses on Newark's marshal land. And it just affected me on how I could just be standing here and do nothing about my home that's in danger, such as affecting the wildlife, flooding that will eventually come, and the harmful chemicals being resurfaced into Maui's village if it is built. So, us as an environmental club are doing our absolute best to keep our home safe and protected. I'm sure that many people living in Newark can agree to keeping our home from harm's way considering how many signatures we have acquired against the building of housing units on Newark's unique Marshall environment. And we will not stop and I ask for this to be reconsidered for our sake and the sake of Newark's future. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. The next three are Yuyu Ya, Laura Walsh, and Raul I think it's Mendoza. I can't quite make the last. [snorts] Hello commissioners. Thanks um for letting me speak. Um my name is Yoyo Y. I have been a resident of Newark for 10 years and I am the local organizer for the urban forest friends. We are a group that's planting trees bring community to plant trees in our public parks. Um, so for trees, we like to say we like to plant the right tree in the right place. This is equivalent to the real estate agent location, location, location, which I'm sure you're all familiar with. And just as we want trees in the right place, we want housing, but in the right place. Um, so I'm going to I'd like to argue that as others have said, um, this is not the right place. It's not that we don't want housing, we just don't think this is the right place. Um, looking at the new roads, thanks for adding the second emergency access road, but those roads are not safe. Imagine, um, I can imagine already car accidents happening, some family's trying to get their kid to the hospital and there's a train. There's going to be an accident. I don't think the new access points are safe. Um, and also, um, I the FIR the final environmental impact report did mention the possibility of flooding. It's just not listed as one of the 20 metrics because the purpose of the FIR is to evaluate the impact of the project on the environment, not the impact of the environment on the project. And flooding is impact of the environment on the project. So the FBI does say there's a chance of flooding. If the sea level rises by 3 feet, the southeastern part of this port of this area will flood and if it rises by six, the whole area will

flood. Um, so I I'd like to bring up that at the end of the October 9th city council meeting, the mayor actually asked for help. He asked for help for anyone who knew developers. And we have a whole room full of developers right now, so this is perfect. Um, he asked for anyone who knew developers to help to try to get the new park place specific plan, housing plan project going. So, um, that is over 319 housing units that were proposed to be built at New Park Mall. And, um, that is safer. It's close to everything. It's not going to flood. And I would love to live next to a Costco. So, [laughter] please, all you developers who are here in the room tonight, like, we want housing, but New Park Place is such a better location than Maui Village. That New Park uh, New Park Place is is the right place. Thank you. Thank you. [applause]

Hi, good evening. I'm Laura Walsh. I'm a policy manager with the nonprofit organization Save the Bay. Um I share the perspective of the last speaker. Uh we're opposing the project and I just thought I'd come sort of respond to to some of the um comments about sea level rise risk and wetlands. Um, I will say, you know, I got my degree at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Save the Bay, works with San Francisco Estuary Institute and UC Berkeley every day on projects in the bay. It is tough to try to represent a science-based perspective on sea level rise. Um, you know, and have it essentially the findings be called a myth. There's a plethora of tools produced by our state and federal agencies that you can just go right online and look at the risks of this site. Um, and you can see that, you know, it's what the Arab study calls, you know, I think it's like quasi quasi permanently inated um with within a few decades. That just means like regular flooding. Um so I I think what um one of the gentlemen presenting earlier meant when he said that the the project is not uh susceptible to sea level rise, he meant that that's because the project proposes to build upwards, right? And so once you account for its new elevation, this site which is very much in a flood plane and very much at risk of both groundwater rise and sea level rise from the bay, the site itself as an island becomes safe. That's a problem to groups like ours because that causes an island effect. It means all the neighborhoods that aren't currently prepared for sea level rise, the water gets displaced there. Um it also means lots of underground infrastructure and emergency accesses might be at risk unless they're elevated too. they have to connect somewhere to city infrastructure. So that's where we start to think this doesn't really make sense. This is what we call mal adaptation. Um I think

someone said this is not and was never a wetlands. Um it has it's an area that has been filled but the point about wetlands is that it's a very rare sealized adaptation opportunity to have physical space near wetlands where wetlands can be restored and have connectivity. Um, so you can you most cities Save the Bay works with want to build projects like wetlands, which you guys actually have space to restore, which is really cool, and they want to do it because they're so good at absorbing tidal energy and flood waters. We're working in Hayward. They're investing hundreds of millions of dollars in a nature-based levy, which is a levy that includes features that Newark readily has and could have more of in this site. Um, so that's where we say we weren't trying to to call it the wrong thing. We just think this is an amazing opportunity that's being missed. Just want to add India Basin in San Francisco public park remediation existed. The city got coastal conservancy money to do the remediation with the park. I don't see why um remediation can't happen without this development. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening board members and attendees. My name is R Penaloza. I've come here today on behalf of Newark Memorial High School's environment club. I'm the vice president of environment club alongside Precious Sumagisai as president, Kimberly Spinosa as marketing coordinator, Nicholas Melendez as secretary, Ilana Solis Castana as treasurer, and Annabelle Lee as underassman representative. On October 23rd of this year during a city council meeting, it came to my attention that the city of Newark has planned housing developments on our sacred title marshes. From the very moment I was informed of this news, I found it bizarre. I asked myself, how could the city I grew up in even consider destroying this unique ecosystem we've coexisted with? Precious and I found this unjust. We took the matter into our own hands. As petitioners on the outskirts of the council chamber prepared to showcase the countless petition sheets signed to the council members, Precious and I joined them. After the after that moment of resilience, we spoke with the petitioners who had varied backgrounds of greener green organizations. From this moment onward, the Newark Memorial High School Environment Club began their campaign or quote save Newark's wetland campaign, which is still ongoing, by the way. It it consists of being included on the student announcements, being included in the student announcement digest, being included on the school's Instagram weekly student magazine, doing tableabling during lunch with physical petitions to sign, writing an article included on the school's student newspaper, The Cougar Chronicle, and even having speakers Jana Soo from citizens committee to complete the refuge and Liz Ames and Carolyn Harris from Tri City Ecology Center to inform our members of the issue during an environment club meeting

hosted during lunch. Our advocacy is not over until we stop this. Our club is still brainstorming and planning even more ideas to spread the word and fight for what's right. During these past events for the campaign, we have acquired 63 physical signatures from tableabling and a few more from the online form. I'm sure other people will inform you of the harm this will cause during public comment, but I want you to gain a new perspective with my words. I want you to realize this is Newark's youth who is protesting now. I want you to realize that this is much more detrimental to us than it is to you. The Newark you create and maintain will be left in the hands of us. So, as part of Newark's youth, I stand here as a representative who has to give us the right future. This one action of building over our wetlands is one step into the destruction of [snorts] Newark as a town and a community. I ask every single one of you to reconsider this. Reconsider this and remember the youth who must manage and maintain Newark in a distant future.

Thank you. [applause] And the last four will be Victorina Arvello, Janna SoCal, Ammer Khan, and Francis Mendoza. Hi. Hi, everyone. So much to say, so little time. Um, my name is Victor. I'm here with Green Belt Alliance. Um, had a whole set of talking points, but there's a lot that been said that I think it's worth being addressed. Um, so I'm going to go through like a couple different points. First of all, there was a mention that this was infill development. It is not by any definition of the word infill development. Um, and the vehicle miles traveled found to be 45% over the average proves that infill development would bring us closer to jobs in transit. This isolates residents on the other side of the train tracks. We do need more housing. I'm wearing a shirt that says we live better together because we want all types of housing. It's literally what we advocate for, especially affordable housing. But placing vulnerable families, lowincome families, families with members with disabilities in situations where they're going to be exposed to storm water, groundwater rise, to toxic chemicals. It's not equity. That's just perpetuating environmental injustice. Uh it was mentioned that the sea level rice study didn't find the site at risk which is partially true because the study didn't evaluate the site as it is proposed to be that was just not part of the scope of the study. What the study did find is that in the next 25 years which is not a long time uh the most of the site will be quasi permanent flooded

that means it's going to flood with every high tide and that happens every day. Uh even with minimal flooding, Newark is going to see 9 miles of road that are going to be damaged or at least have to be closed for several hours or several days because of the flooding. Um four miles of power lines are already in flooding uh places, 30 mi of sewer mains. These are all critical infrastructure. Uh the estimated cost is about $140 million over the next 25 years. So why are we looking to make that number bigger? Yes, the infrastructure sounds great, but at the end of the day, we're not investing in resilience. We are just creating more liabilities for the city at a time where we really need to be looking longterm. Um, as Laura mentioned, you have an amazing opportunity. Please do not waste it. Invest in resilience. For every dollar that you invest in resilience, it has been shown by studies, you will get $7 back in like not having to do emergency response. Um, I think this is the time for you to listen to Newark residents, to listen to people around the Bay. There's over 3,000 signatures of people that care about this. And it's not because it's a simple issue. There's obviously a lot more nuance to it than what you saw in the presentation today. So at the very least see the controversy [clears throat] and take some time to like really look into this and think if this is in the best interest of the people in Newark. Not now but in 25 years in 50 years in a 100red years that's what we should really be looking at.

Thank you. Thank you. [applause]

Hi. Good evening commissioners. My name is Jonas Soale. I'm a longtime resident of the city of Newark. I'm I'm here tonight as a resident is also a member of the citizens committee to complete the refuge. This site offers the potential for Newark to try and protect itself. The Capitol corridor line that's comes through here. We know that they're going to raise it. They're working on a study right now from Santa Clara all the way past Mauy Avenue in Newark. Some of that area may raise as high as 10 ft in order to meet 21 the year 2100 which is proposed at 6 feet. Yesterday I met with Arab and the city of Newark. Over 2,000 homes in Newark are potentially going to be flooded with every high tide when we get to 6 feet. That might be 3 feet of sea level rise and 3 feet of storm surge. Why are we putting more homes in the path of sea level rise when instead you could allow the the conditional use permit to expire for pick and pull? They are under requirements with Alama County and the city to do cleanup. They're a very wellto-do recycling company that owns that site. They have the funds to do it. Then we could restore it. And in restoring it, we could actually pull carbon out of the atmosphere. And in doing that, we would be helping to mitigate this crisis that is ahead of us that that our youth are going to inherit. We have to be thinking long term. This is the wrong place. I wish I could celebrate it. It sounds like a great

development, but it's the wrong place. The wrong place. Scientists all around the bay are telling you it is the wrong place. Residents are standing up. On October 23rd, we delivered 27 plus signatures. It's over 3,000. Nearly a thousand of those are Newark residents. They don't want to build here. They want it as open space. Matter of fact, the council made that deal with area 3 and four. They zoned all 100 acres as parkland. Don't go back on that promise. Look to the future. Think about the youth. Think about protecting this land. and encourage the developers to go to Newark, to go to New Park Mall, to go to inland sites, protect this area, restore it, sequester carbon, think about our future. Thank you.

Thank you. [applause]

Good evening, uh, planning commission. My name is Omar Khan and in full transparency, I'm also a board member of the New York Chamber of Commerce. I've also been an environmentalist pretty much all my life and I wish we had an environmental club when I was in high school, but we didn't. So, here I am without that background. That being said, I'm also a board member of lots of other environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and the World Wildlife Organization. Nevertheless, I'm still completely behind this project. Why is that? Well, because we know and you've seen the images and the pictures, it is a dump site. And even if they are required to clean it in in 2034, we don't know how much they're going to clean it or what the effect of that is going to be. I have lived in New York for 27 years since 1998. There's two reasons I I'm not moving out. One, because it's a centrally located area in the East Bay with easy access to San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco. And number two, because I can't afford to move anywhere else. And I've had family members and friends and colleagues saying, "Hey, is there more housing coming to New York because that's actually a pretty good place and it's still relatively cheap compared to Fremont, Union City, and others." The second thing I want to talk about is the environmental impact. And uh let's just do climate science for just a minute here. And you guys can research this yourself to prove the accuracy of what I'm about to say. In order for sea level rise to go up 6 feet, that's roughly 300,000 cubic kilometers of ice that has to melt. And I'm not talking about sea ice. I'm not talking about glaciers that are already floating around. 100% of that can melt and it's not going to raise one inch of sea ice because it's already ice that's in the ocean just like your ice in a glass of water. Even if it melts, it doesn't raise the water. So that ice has to come from somewhere. It has to come from the land, Antarctica, Greenland, places like that. Now, I don't think we should be making decisions on what may happen 75 to 100 years from now because technology is constantly improving. We've got plenty of time to offset this. As I said, I'm an environmentalist. I want to make sure

our wetlands wetlands are protected. I have a daughter. I've got nieces, nephews, and I think they deserve a good future as well. But we also need housing. We need employment, and we need jobs in this local area. And that's why I'm 100% behind us. Thank you.

Thank you. [applause] [clears throat] Mandangab, beautiful evening. So great to see so many young folks advocating for our plant and animal relatives along with the marshes and wetlands we love so much. [snorts] Most of you know uh this place as New York but I call it the village of Tuibun, home of the Joeno Aloney people who once called this place home but many still do. My name is Francis Mendoza. I'm a naturalist, park ranger where I work at nearby Coyote Hills, Hayward Shoreline, Tidewater Boating Center, and Crab Cove. I'm also the vice chairperson of the East Bay Regional Park District Park Advisory Committee. To answer one of the prior speakers questions, why is it controversial? First and foremost, there are plenty of other places to build in the Bay Area, but the developer wants to build here because the profit margin is so high. Let's not, you know, mince words about it. Having lived in Union City for many years where the median cost per house is 1.5 million. Uh proximity to Silicon Valley in the South Bay in Mendel Park makes it highly lucrative when New Park Mall is a place that's already developed and is potential housing for us all. To address the so-called myths and misnomers that the gentleman from LAR spoke of of it not being a wetland. Well, it was once a wetland even though pick and pull was not a wetland per se. uh my friend Ruth Orta who is a 91-year-old Aloney resident of Newark. She's a great great grandmother uh 17 times over and she remembers when there were wetlands here. No endangered species is another myth. Well, the salt marsh harvest mouse is right there right across the fence that they want to build. There's also the Pacific flyway. uh a three-story affordable housing

would be prone to having so many bird strikes, especially at night when the lighting that keeps uh us humans safe, kills many birds. Uh the other myth of not prone to sea level rise, well, one to three feet doesn't allow for much as many of our my colleagues spoke of. Um the extreme weather events that have been happening because of climate change will definitely make this place flood. Six feet is what many folks are proposing. The emergency access road is insufficient, especially when it comes to flooding. Just look at Elvis Viso, Redwood Shores, Bay View Hunters Point. In fact, I worked at Bay View Hunters Point with Literacy for Environmental Justice where Lonard put housing over at the old Candlestick Park. It's now dilapidated. There's flooding all the time. I have to go around the the hill to be able to get to uh the the the community garden. So, I also was a social worker, a mental health counselor. So, I know about Max and hundreds like him who where who I most recently worked for the Children and Nature Network. Imagine a wetland instead of a manicured playground with fancy names like kindness and connection zone and magical bridge. I think that that's something that we should all strive for. Thank you.

Thank you. [applause]

I want to thank everybody that came here. It's nice that the community is um just very excited about their city and voicing their views whether for or against. It's just nice to see um community coming to the meetings and voicing their opinions. Um I'd like to turn it back. Oh, first I need to close the public comment. So, we've finished with all that. So, I'm closing the public comment on that and then I'm going to bring it back to the commission to see if there's questions or comments. I have some I have a question.

Um, as it relates to going back to our affordable housing right now, our what I'm hearing is the applicant is providing 30 to 31 homes. It sounds like it's 301's a manager unit on the property. And historically, as we've reviewed projects in the past, many times a developer has play paid the inloo [clears throat] fee. And so, as it relates to the affordable housing um in reading the affordable housing agreement, can you talk to us a little bit about the city's mechanism or step-in rights to where if the builder does not move forward and build the affordable housing?

Sure. I'm going to have our housing um policy and program manager [clears throat] um share with you some of those details.

My name is Michael Kulum. I'm the housing policy and program manager. Uh [clears throat] thank you uh Commissioner Agular for the question. Uh exhibit E of the affordable housing agreement lays out a schedule of performance under which the developer um um must abide for the construction of the affordable housing. it is directly related to um the development schedule for the larger and complete project. Um if you look at that agreement um it's tied the the developer performance um in regards to progressing on the affordable housing is divi is is directly connected to several milestones with the market rate housing. Um um specifically, the city has the opportunity um to step in and claim um not only the housing impact fee, but also an additional $3.5 million if the developer is unable to deliver or otherwise does not deliver the affordable housing. Uh commencing with the um issuance of the 75th market rate home building permit. Um that $3.5 million um in addition to the housing impact fee um is what was agreed to as um a necessary addition in order to build um 30 affordable housing units elsewhere um and compensate the city for the lost opportunity cost. Sure. Okay. So there there's a mechanism to incentivize builder to for performance here in building them. I I do like the fact historically speaking, most projects we've had in Newark, there's been in Lui. So having something we can look at where affordable housing is being provided effective immediately as market rate homes are provided is a is a step in the right direction. Thank you.

Any other questions? [snorts]

I just have one question. Um there's been a lot of discussion obviously about um storm surge uh sea level rise flooding in this area. Um the environmental impact report was extremely comprehensive in addressing those issues and I think this question is maybe for staff. So Mr. Turner maybe this this is a question for you or for for art. Um, as a planning commission, our responsibility tonight is to besides a number of other uh actions to look at the environmental impact report and see if it really meets the criteria of this project and I would just like some clarification on that.

That is correct. In fact, that's really the first action that the planning commission is taking. And and in this case, since the city council is the final decision maker, you're making a recommendation to the council about whether or not the planning commission would recommend that the council um approve the uh and certify the environmental impact report and then concurrently adopt a statement of overriding consideration. So, that is a key element of your uh deliberation and decision tonight.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. just um a couple of comments. Um whenever I hear the issue of sea level rise and I and I'm it's very confusing because you hear a number of sides to the story. Um frankly, if sea level is going to rise six feet, the entire Bay Area is going to be in jeopardy. Uh not just this project. I I just it it scares me to think of what six feet of sea level rise might do. There's arguments that say it's not going to be six feet of sea level rise. And I think there's many sides to this issue. So I think from my perspective, I've got to look at it from what's being presented to us as as the planning commission, as a member of the planning commission. And so really, that's what I'm going to speak to tonight. First of all, I really appreciate this the civility of everybody having this discussion tonight. It's kind of a breath of fresh air that in this community, you can have a difference of opinion. People can express their opinions regardless of what it is. And nobody's out there shouting and booing and and and trying to shout down somebody. So, just for all those people that spoke, I just want to say thank you. Um, I go back on this project a number of years. Um when it was first proposed, you know, I had a number of reservations about this project. Um met with staff, discussed the issues. I met with the developers to discuss my issues on this thing. And as the project evolved, one by one, all of my concerns were eventually addressed. Um, I I just got to give staff um really a lot of compliments for working with the developers, holding their ground as far as what they felt would be best for this community. Um, and again, as staff continued to work with the developers,

components of this project that initially were not in the original proposal came to the forefront. The affordable housing element, that was for me was a was a a non-starter. if there was not going to be an affordable housing component to it and more importantly an affordable housing component that could actually be built and would be built, I wasn't going to support it. Um, the roadway improvements, I think a picture speak a thousand words. Uh, that's a horrendous area in Newark. It's an eyesore. I like the fact it will be cleaned up. The roadway will be brought up to a modern standard with bike lanes, um, landscaping and so forth. um the site cleanup. I mean, pick and pull, frankly, if this project is not approved, pick and pull is not going anywhere. Um yes, they do have a conditional use permit that runs through, I think, 2034, but they also own about 5 acres of additional land that's has a perpetual use permit that is not going to expire. Um the railroad uh railroad crossing um that crossing definitely needs to be improved. The city council I know has a um goal of having quiet zones throughout the entire community. We haven't built one yet. I think this location will be the best and probably the first opportunity to do a real quiet zone and it will be needed frankly. um emergency access. That was another thing that I expressed to staff that initially there was one way in and out. And I think the developer um did a really nice job of working with adjacent property owners to get those easements and to to get a commitment that um that I think addresses that issue in my mind. And then just this came up in the last year or so, the magical bridge park. Um, I I think it's an improvement to the um

to the um to the development. The park's not going to be that big. It's going to have nine elements, but the overall size isn't going to be that big. But I think some of the um components of the housing that will allow a population that has often been overlooked, not only in our community, but probably all over the country. Um, it will give an opportunity for parents that have children with special needs to um to be able to live in place and have a comfortable place for for their kids. Anyway, so those are kind of my comments regarding the components of of the project. Um, the EIR was extremely comprehensive, lots of comments. Um, and if you spent time going through them and looking at the pros and cons, um, I just I've got to give kudos to the consulting firm that did the EIR. They did it just yman's work. Um, I think the public outreach, we received a binder today that um detailed all of the public outreach on this project going back, I think it was four years. And it's just your eyes just glaze over when you look at just every single email, every public comment, every phone call, everything was addressed. So again, I got to give the developer credit for [clears throat] listening to the concerns of the community. And you're not going to always agree, and it's we've got a number of folks in this room that are probably never going to agree, but I like the fact that they have the opportunity to to reach out, express their opinion, and they got an answer. They just weren't ignored. So, thank you for that. Um, I think that's the extent of my comments. Um, based on what I've heard, um, I'm going to be supporting this project.

Thank you. Is there any other comments? No comments.

Yes. I'd just like to make a few comments. Excellent presentations. Nice to hear from the people. Uh I've been on the planning commission for a while. I bought a home uh quite a while ago. And over in the West New York area, there was a uh FMC phosphorus plant, just a industrial plant over in that area in the Dumbartan TOD. That area was toxic as all heck and unsafe. What they do is come in and they clear out the land. They dig down, get all the uh bad stuff out, and then you can build homes. So, there's homes over there. There's like 2,000 homes on the bayside side over there. I look at this property and I see the same kind of analogy where you have a toxic waste dump that is a autorecker and it's been an autorecker for 20 or 30 years and this is an opportunity to clean that all up and provide needed homes for the citizens of Newark and others and the affordable housing element of the thing too. I too along with Commissioner uh Becker had some very big reservations going back many years, but they've seemed to have addressed almost everything that we've uh had concerns about and that emergency vehicle access and that type of thing. So, I think this I would be in favor of this project and I think it's going to clean up a toxic waste dump and we're going to have something of of [clears throat] value out there.

Thank you.

Yeah, I want to echo the the comments here. I greatly appreciate everyone coming out tonight who provided comments. Uh that's why we have these public hearings so everyone can weigh in. I especially appreciate uh our students at Newark Memorial High School showing up. Uh that kind of engagement is fantastic and I hope to see you at more of these. I think it's important to get the input from the public especially our youth coming out to give that input. Um, some of the comments I heard today uh were raised about wetlands, sea level rise, uh, traffic as we we heard from some of the folks that were opposing the project and and as Mr. Becker stated, that has been part of our review uh, this entire process. I have in my notes here um, notes from our meeting in 2023. It was one of the very first public hearings we had in this building. Uh, so we've been at it for a while. I do recognize that staff has done an excellent job in working with the applicant and community to address as much as they can. As we evaluate it, you know, is we look at a few things as planning commissioners. And the first thing we'll typically pull up when there's an application is the general plan and what is the general plan for the site and does that application meet the general plan? And in this circumstance, it's housing and the application is housing. The other things we look at are what you've heard from other planning commissioners. Uh it is an auto dismantling yard. And so in our opinion, in my opinion, it is an improvement of the site. Um there are many other improvements as well. Uh from the infrastructure improvements, the widening of Mauy, the sidewalks, the bike lanes, the pedestrian friendly access that you'll get to the property. Um I read in our staff report, uh and we heard it as well, the railroad crossing. uh there will be such extensive

improvements it will potentially qualify as a quiet zone um given the improvements there. And so when it's all said and done um we're providing much neededed housing and improving the existing conditions. And so based on that, the conditions we've included on the affordable housing and the the oversight this project will continue to have from an environmental standpoint, uh I believe this is a reasonable path forward and I will be in support of the project tonight is recommended by staff. Thank you. No, thank you.

Okay. So, at this time, I would like to get a motion to recommend that the city council of Newark approve item E1 for Maui Village. I'll make a motion to to approve both resolutions as incorporated in the staff report. Okay. So, we have a motion from Commissioner Becker. Can I get a second clarification uh on that? So is the the motion to approve both the SQA document and the are those both resolutions? Yes. Resolution A and B. I'll second that motion.

Okay. So we have it seconded by Commissioner Angular. So we will put this to a vote. All those in favor say I. I. Let the record show that this motion has passed unanimously. Then we will move on to item F, staff reports. But no staff reports this morning this evening. Okay, we will move on to item G, commission matters to the report on city council actions.

Uh thank you uh commissioners. uh no specific items to report. Although I would like to highlight and we'll send to the planning commissioner uh later this planning commissioners later this week is council's actions to adopt new strategic objectives for for the coming year. Um this is uh an important moment for the council for them to highlight to the community those objectives which they feel are important and in those objectives they include things like affordable housing and financial stability um uh opportunities for recreation and those types of things. And so I want to be able to uh make sure the planning commission is aware of those. Uh so I'll send you the staff report that was heard at the council last Thursday. Uh but it really does provide the community uh and staff with overall direction about what council's priorities are for the future. So um that's very interesting for you to know.

Thank you. Nothing else to report. Okay. And then item H, planning commissioner comments.

Nothing this evening. I do want to um let people know about the um Saturday, November 29th at the Civic Center Plaza in the library community room. There will be an event to help support local small businesses. And that event has free refreshments, family fun activities, and also um there will be a tree lighting on December 5th. And that's from 5:30 to 7:30. That's a free event with crafts, hot cocoa, a toy drive, and the tree itself will be lit at 7 pm. So, I just wanted to remind people of those items. Any other comments?

Did you have one, John? All right. Thank you. So, at this time, I will adjourn the meeting.