Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Yeah. Are we ready? Okay. 6 pm. This is the regular meeting of the planning commission for Tuesday, March 11th, 2025. Can we call the meeting to order and have a roll call, please? Commissioner Lombardo, present. Commissioner Parker, present. Commissioner Row, present. Vice Chair Wagstaff, present. Chair Nandell, present. Okay, let's rise for the pledge of allegiance, please. Place your hand on your chest and repeat after me. I pledge allegiance 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. Very good. All right. Normally, we would have public comments now, but I see no one in the audience and there are no comments. We have none, sir. Okay. Then we'll move to the administrative calendar. and there's only one item on it, the 2024 housing element annual progress report. And I'll turn it over to Travis Clark. Okay. Thank you, uh, Mr. Chair and commissioners. We do have a very extensive agenda for you tonight. Um, so it's that time of year again, uh, where we create our annual progress report, uh, for the housing and community development, uh, department. So, um, each year we submit this, uh, in the April time frame. U, it's actually due April 1st each year. So, I don't know if that's meant to be a joke or what, but, uh, uh, that's always our deadline. Um, so the purpose of this is to report to housing and community development, uh, our progress on the housing element and our regional housing needs assessment goals or also known as

REA. So we're in the current the sixth planning cycle now. Uh and that runs from 2021 to 2029. So we're about halfway through. Uh we are required to collect detailed data uh for the categories of entitled, permitted and completed housing units as well as progress on the program implementation in the housing element. uh data is also submitted on the low income level uh or income level for the units from very low low moderate and above moderate incomes. So the numbers these years are this year are okay uh not quite as good as they were in 2023. Uh with respect to entitled um units we are 206 this year versus 475 last year. uh permitted units were about the same 136 versus 133 and completed units we are down uh 91 versus 158 the previous year. I just want to make a note that entitled uh in HCD's mind means an application has actually been made and has started through the process. That's a little bit different definition than we have here where entitled means the planning commission has approved the project. uh 62 of the 136 permitted units were infill. That's a really good number. Uh that helps, you know, uh with the vacant lots that we have through the older parts of the city. Uh and the number is 62, not 61. I had a little mistype there in the staff report. So what is actually uh in the pipeline as far as entitled tracks the way we define them? We have Amitur Palms at 31 unit 34 units. Rancho Discono at 76.

Skyborn Village 3. The large one is actually kind of two communities wrapped up into that one village at 286. And then Eagle Point was the last one uh that got entitlements at 10. uh we actually have more using the very traditional uh definition of entitled. You know, essentially the rest of Skyborn has gone through some level of entitlements. It's just that they're required to come back to you with a development plan for each of the villages. So, we actually have a lot more that are quote entitled uh that can come through the process. Uh we then break down the structures uh by type. We had 151 single family uh this year that were entitled versus 431. Uh 44 ADUs versus 16. So we we really seeing a tick up uh in the ADU uh construction uh within the city and would note that six of those uh were using the city's pre-approved plans. This was a one of our housing programs that made it easier for folks to build ADUs by essentially removing that cost to develop architectural plans. Uh from duplex to quadplex, we've had nine uh uh nothing five or more uh as far as multif family this past year and two manufactured homes. So balancing that against our arena allocation, uh we are allocated 3,873 housing units over the entire sixth cycle, the 9-year period. Uh you can see that uh the numbers range from extremely low to above moderate as far as income. Uh most of our housing units are sort of tilted into the moderate and above moderate income levels. Uh that's generally because Desert Hot Springs is more affordable than many of the

communities in the Coachella Valley. So what we've accomplished so far is we built uh 500 of those which equates to about 13%. Uh so we still got a long way to go to meet meet the arena numbers. Specifically where we uh are lagging behind is in the goal of affordable housing. Uh now affordable uh in the state's mind means there's some sort of deed restriction or covenant that ensures the unit will be rented uh with somebody with low to moderate income. Um a lot of we get a lot of builders that say I build affordable housing that unless there's some sort of restriction on it, it doesn't count in the state's mind. So what's has been approved uh or is in the pipeline is Green Day Village. They do get their entitlements. Uh we're still working at bringing infrastructure uh to that project, both water and sewer. That's the big impediment right now. Uh we have two new affordable housing projects that are under review. Uh the crossings at Camino Capanero at 64 units and then the Park Lane Homes uh right behind the library at 167 units. So these should be coming forward to you uh in the near future. uh that provides a total of 476 affordable housing units uh leaving 647 remaining of the 114 that have allocated to the city. So we continuously look for opportunities for affordable housing and reach out to affordable housing developers who have that kind of expertise uh in building these developments. some other activities. Uh, as far as the housing helmet, we uh completed our LEAP grant. This was a state grant that enabled us to essentially review all of

our ordinances, uh, make sure that they were compliant with state law, uh, streamlined them, uh, removed any kind of conflicts. And so, uh, some of you are aware we reviewed the 17 chapters, uh, in our title 17, uh, concerning housing and revised those. We still have a few others that we want to, um, review and bring forward. Uh, but we got, you know, the most important ones that dealt with housing u standards and guidelines and those sorts of things. Uh we did team with Riverside County on a first-time home buyers program uh down payment assistant and home enhancement program and conducted several workshops with them. Uh and then as I mentioned we've been working with uh the two affordable housing developers uh in the city abode communities and blue companies on their development proposals. So, our recommendation is to adopt a resolution of the planning commission. Uh, this to the city of um uh of the city of Desert Hot Springs recommending the city council direct staff to submit the 2024 annual uh progress report and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have. Do we uh have any questions? Yeah, I have one question. What is the total number of infill lots available in the city right now? I think we're still in the hundreds. In the hundreds and think we're still in the hundreds. Yeah. And how do builders know that they're available? It's just the owner happens to contact a realer or are builders driving around looking at into the builders are definitely driving around. You can also go on to our web viewer that we have and then you can kind of zoom in to the different neighborhoods and you can also see where their vacant lots are. And have there

been any are you aware of any studies that show the effect on a neighborhood especially like our numbered streets here when an infield lot has a new home built on it. Is there any anecdotal evidence on what that does? There definitely is. Um, a lot of the vacant lots of course become places where folks, you know, reposit trash. Uh, we somehow sometimes have problems with the unhoused and every time one of those vacant lots u, you know, gets a new new home on it that t tends to help the whole neighborhood. And does the city encourage builders to look for infill lots? We do actually. And there's uh in our fee structure there is an area called the discount zone uh which is essentially the older part of the platted city kind of the original platted city. Uh and within that zone you do get a uh reduction in your impact fees. Uh so that helps also offset the cost of building in those areas. Okay. Anyone else with questions? Someone want to make a motion? We need to adopt a resolution. I move that we adopt a resolution of the planning commission of the city of Desert Hot Springs, California, recommending that the city council adopt the housing element annual progress report and to authorize staff to submit the APR to the office of planning and research into C HD. Okay, we have a second. I'll second that. Okay, can we take a vote? Ted, can you press second? Okay. Motion passes unanimously. All right.

Very good. Um, we're back to public comments. I don't see any more public coming in. Um, so chair and planning commission member reports, does anyone have any thing they want to report on? No. Nope. Okay. Community development director report. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have two items that I would like to report on. Two exciting items. Um the we are very close to starting the construction of the police annex building here um on uh our public safety campus. So that project has been bid. We had our kickoff meeting. You can see the fence is going up. So very soon we'll be starting construction on on that long- aaited project. And then the other exciting project I wanted to inform you about is the improvements on Hienda Avenue. Uh the first phase will run from West Drive to Tamar Drive I believe it is. Um so you know a very you know substantial length of that you know road and it would get new sidewalks in some places. Uh we'll be doing the uh curve meandering sidewalks uh lighting uh also uh um landscape medians in different sections. a lot of pedestrian improvements. So, that also is getting ready to be uh to break ground soon. So, look for those two construction projects in the city this year. Okay. All right. That's it. I think we're at the end of our meeting. This is probably one of the shortest ones ever, but uh it's adjourned. Okay. Thank you. Yeha. Huh? Yeha. Yeha. Oh, I thought I forgot something.