Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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[Music] Good evening. The Thursday, August 14, 2025 meeting of the Brisbane Planning Commission will now come to order. Staff, please call the role. Commissioner Funka here. Commissioner Gooding here. Commissioner Patel. Commissioner Saison here. Let the record show Commissioner Laauo is absent. Next is adoption of the agenda. May I have a motion to adopt? Second. Those in favor?

I motion is unanimous. Next is a consent calendar. If there is any member of the public who would like to remove an item from the consent calendar, please state so now. staff, can you uh set a 30 second timer for those at home? Any member of the commission would like to remove an item?

No, thank you. Okay, 30 seconds has passed. Okay, thank you. May I have a motion to adopt the consent calendar? Second. Those in favor? I. Motion is unanimous.

Oral communications. If anyone wishes to address the commission concerning an item not on tonight's agenda, you may do so now. Okay. Okay. I don't see anyone in the audience. I see no one. Um, can we set a one minute timer for those at home? And while we're waiting on that, um, the commission did receive one written communication, a letter from Cynthia Rudolph regarding agenda item B, which is a subject of tonight's public hearing. 10 seconds.

Okay, that has passed.

Um, did we receive any more written communications? No. Okay, moving on to new business. Tonight we have a public hearing concerning 335 Mariposa Street. It's a grading review 2025-EX-01. It's an R-2 residential zoning district. This is a grading review for construction of a new 3595 square ft duplex and two 733 foot attached ADUs. Um the soil cut is approximately 477. Um and uh CBU Construction is the applicant and Lamb Y and Katherine Shei are the owners. Staff, may we have the uh presentation?

Thank you, Chair. As introduced, this agenda item is for a greeting permit review associated with new construction on the vacant property at 335 Mariposa involving, as you said, approximately 477 cubic yards of soil cut and export from the site. The proposal would allow construction of a new three-story duplex, two detached ADUs, and a retaining wall along three sides of the property. Planning Commission grading review is required when more than 50 cubic yards of earthwork is to be moved in any operation within central Brisbane. Uh, Brisbane Municipal Code Chapter 15.01 establishes the requirements for the commission's review for grading permits. The approximately 400 uh excuse me 4,997 foot lot comprises approximately half of the former Brisbane Nin parking lot located near south no located near the southwest corner of Marapos Street and Visitation Avenue. It is surrounded by residential uses to the west and south. Those are shaded in green. Might be a little washed out on the projector up there. Um and mixed uses along Visitation Avenue to the east shaded in blue. There are no trees or structures located on the site, but roughly half of the site is paved. The brown shaded area is the portion of the former Brisbane Inn not zone for residential use as the primary use. In November 2023, a building permit application was submitted to the community development department to construct the duplex and two detached ADUs on the subject property. During plan check review, the plans indicated the grading to be less than 50 cubic yards of soil export below the threshold for um planning commission review uh in the R2 district. And so the building permit was subsequently issued on January 30th, 2025 following approval by all city departments. The project complied with all applicable development standards, including floor area, lot coverage, setbacks, building height, landscaping, and parking, as well as the allowable number, size, and location of

ADUs permitted under state law. In April of this year, code enforcement investigated a complaint at the subject property and determined the scope of grading shown on the approved building permit had been exceeded. Specifically, the amount of grading on the site surpassed the indicated amount on the plans. The contractor submitted a planning application for grading review to cure the violation that same month and it included an updated grading plan with a revised estimated quantity of earthwork. The proposed project as approved under the building permit issued in January 2025 would develop the unimproved site with a 3,595 foot three-story duplex and two detached 733 ft ADUs. The structure shown uh in the site plan on the screen have not changed from the approved building permit. The updated grading plan included with this request proposes 477 cubic yards and a new retaining wall along both side lot lines and the rear lot line. It's clouded in red. The wall would be set back or offset approximately 12 in from the adjacent property lines and be no more than six feet in height at its highest point along the rear of the property. The height of the retaining wall steps down as it extends along each side lot line until it terminates at least 15 feet from the front lot line. New landscaping is proposed along the retaining wall to further screen and soften its appearance as shown in the graphic on the right. The approved building permit will have to be revised to reflect the proposed increase to the volume of earthwork and new retaining wall related to the increased earthwork and all city departments will review the revision for compliance with applicable development and construction standards. To approve the grading permit, the commission must make the findings contained within Brisbane Mun code section 150110. There are four findings. They're indicated on the screen and findings three and four are combined since they are related. Detailed findings are

included in exhibit A of the draft resolution. But in summary, the proposed grading is designed to fit comfortably with the site context and natural topography to the extent feasible giving the proposed grading allows for the structures to comply with the minimum setback areas required number of off- streetet parking spaces and state requirements for the construction of ADUs while limiting the overall height of the structures above street level. Also in compliance with the district maximum while safely transitioning to the existing contours of the surrounding properties at its highest point along the rear lot line. The retaining wall would not extend more than six feet in height above the grade that's in compliance with the maximum height allowed for retaining walls within setback areas and it both steps down and is screened with landscaping to be visibly unobtrusive when viewed from the street. Last, there are no trees proposed nor required to be removed as part of the proposed grading. This concludes staff presentation with a recommendation of approval of grading review 2025-EX-1 by adoption of the attached resolution. Any questions at this time?

Thank you, Jeremiah. Any questions? Commissioner Gooding. Yes, thank you. Um, and we can ask the the applicants as well, but perhaps staff has a shortened explanation of it. Originally the permit was applied for on the premise or the representation that there would be less than 50 cubic yards of of dirt being removed. Correct. Correct. To do the permit. And it turns out that there's almost 500 cubic yards of dirt that are involved or presumably required for stability of of the project. Is that correct?

Yes. The request for this grading view and what would need to be revised on the bill per is closer to 500 cubic yards. Do you have any understanding of of why the original estimate was so wildly off in terms of the amount of removal? Yes, the applicants shared that the was, you know, mistake made. I'm sure they can elaborate a little more. Okay. All right. We'll wait for them. Some more questions. Yes, just in a minute. Thank you. Thanks. Any other questions? Those are my questions.

Okay. Just curiosity um how it was discovered like that more was being removed apparently like is this is it there there was a code complaint and so code officer investigated and did a quick kind of calculation at the volume of of earthwork and it was kind of easy to determine that was over the 50. So it's like a concerned citizen. Is that what basically like a third someone neighbor or something? Confidential complaint. Okay. I just wanted it makes makes for me kind of the question of how in general things like this might be discovered if you're removing 10 times as much dirt as you said you would. Yeah. But anyway,

uh it's not it's not exclusive to just this project. You know, just we we often get concerns about any number of construction projects. Is it permitted? What's going on? Okay. Understood. Thank you, Fay. Any more questions? Commissioner, one one followup, please. Um, and this is sort of about my my general being bonneted about asking for permission rather than forgiveness on on projects like this. Um, and the ramifications of, you know, not not asking for permission. Um, what are the ramifications to this applicant already in terms of what he will have to do to to submit a permit application that's in compliance? Is there are there additional fees, additional expenses?

Uh well, there is a fee for this this permit review and and they lost quite a lot of time on their their project. So there sort of indirect consequences from the they so that this permit fee has a or this application has its own permit fee. So an additional cost and there's also additional time to get this approved. So they've lost out months on their construction timetable. So the the monetary um cost of of this this error is um an additional permit fee for this new grading permit application. There will be need to be a revision done to the original building permit and there are some additional fees for that mostly for plan checking

and uh there a grading permit needs to obtain from public works as a fee for that as well based off of volume of earth work. Is there any statutory fine or penalty for having not disclosed the extent of of of grading work on the outset? Is there I'm not aware of a statutory one. We do have our sort of standard umbrella zoning enforcement um penalty for for non-compliance. There's a similar one under the building permit, but that's at the discretion of say the building official or or the director on a case by case at discretion. the so it's the the building officials discretion for building permits and then u the director for for planning applications.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any more questions? Okay. Thank you. I have no questions. Um we'll now open the public hearing. Would the applicant like to speak? Please.

Thank you so much for coming today. Yeah. So, um uh Douglas for your question. Um yeah, it was miscalculated and obviously overviewed. Um it's kind of look like a flat lot. So I believe the civil engineer received kind of an impression and once we start to dig obviously the soil got also expensive and that's also create more cubic to be removed. So I told them to be accurate and as well include the gradings for the foundation because he did not include those. So I told them to basically get all the soil, you know. So that's how we got to this point and I told them, you know, whatever it is, we want to go the right way and not to get into um compliant, you know, violations and stuff like this. So this is how we got here and we want to fix it. Obviously at the same months I right away submit the same um required plans that needed and um yeah you know we got a complaint also few days ago on a neighbor that obviously had dirt pile that we didn't want to touch it cuz we're like okay we got a violation we're not going to move anything. Once she said that we right away at the same day cover it send it to the planning department at the same day to make sure we you know everybody's going to be h happy. Yeah. So that's for that question. Yeah.

Okay. Uh just a quick followup to that. So that so the amount of dirt that's on the property so that's always covered. You're saying no. Is it? It wasn't. And then once we heard a complaint right away at the same day we cover it up. Okay. So is it covered with a tarp? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And that's always going to be covered while it's all going to be until we get green light again from the city, you know. It's not going to be touching or any equipment's moving there. Okay. And then when you do start working and uh at the end of the day, it'll be covered anything any dirt that's

every day. Yeah. Yeah. I also before I start the project I went through the whole neighborhoods and gave them couple of little you know things and stuff and to remember us and but unfortunately you know obviously we didn't had a grading permit and it was overviewed so we had to pause and yeah you know but um in the end of the day I tried to keep everyone happy also in the neighborhood you know and let them know I'm here gave them my number you know to make sure if they have any complaint issues I'm right here you know so all of them know me But yeah, you know, um we'll definitely cover it up every day. Okay. Commissioner Gooding, do you have a follow-up question?

Just Yeah, a couple. Um so who exactly whose oversight was it that instead of 50 cubic yard that instead of 50 cubic yards, it was 500 cubic yards. I mean that that's an awful that's a ridiculously large. So at the beginning also there is a retaining wall that required there and that retaining wall wasn't in the approved plans. So in order to get the retaining wall, we need to also get more cubic that wasn't calculated in the beginning. But that's my question is why wasn't the retaining wall in the original plans? Um because when we did it, we was thinking that we're going to do the retain the footing, you know, and so it will be dirt covered up. So will not be anything that going to support the soil because it will be the house himself and soil.

But then we decided that we want to, you know, have a retaining wall there that will hold it properly. So in case of a raining seasons come, we don't want the soil to start to get you know lossy there. Um so yeah that's for that. Yeah but how was it? How why was so much off and who was overview that I can take the blame on me at this point you know because I was the one that's submitting the plans and we got the right cubic yard but then he you know we got it changed not the right one but we got almost you know like around two 200 And then he was um taking off the foundations and stuff. So we got to really small one. The impression he received from a flat lot was you know that cubic yard and I submitted this way. Yeah.

Any other questions? No. I just have procedural questions for staff. So when a project like this when a project like this comes to planning department or wherever they go to get permission, do they have slopes and things like that on their on on their um I guess like I don't know. You mean with the the building permit, right? Yeah. There there was a grading plan with the the building permit. Okay. And it had an estimated earthworks. It had you know what what they were where they were planning to do cut and fill. That was all included with the original build department is it did not match what you know what happened later in the field and what is being proposed here tonight needs revision.

I guess my question is is the slope of the lot on there like do you have to put the slope on there in indirectly it's there because the the grading plan had the um elevations the you know the current grade and from there you can calculate slope. I guess I just don't understand how I'm I'm just trying to figure out like how if the plans have the slope on it and it says it's going to be 50 cubic feet turns into 500 and well I think as as Josie was just saying the original plan was to not have that retaining wall or not have to cut so much because they were going to have their footings buried in the soil

kind of use the existing grade as is so you wouldn't have to dig so much but then it sound like They changed the what their plan of attack so to speak to make it totally flat and have retaining wall. So that would also give you a much greater grading quantity than trying to just put the footings in the existing dirt because you wouldn't have to remove so much. But if you make a change like that, don't you have to resubmit the plans to the You need a revision. Yes. Okay. And that wasn't done. No. Okay. So I guess why wasn't done? We are Yosi if you go to the microphone please.

Yeah we we getting the grading permits and at the same time we're going to submit we have everything ready for the retaining BS and obviously I will go to the revision. Yeah. No no I guess my question is why didn't you file that before you started the work? You you changed your plan right? We changed you had an original plan and that and then you changed it.

Why didn't you submit the change to the planning department? So we dig we we got the approved plans we start digging and we saw the necessary that how necessary is need a retaining wall there. Um so then we right away you know at the same time we got also the violation like two days we opened the job find out it was at the same two days that we opened the project and then at that point yeah we already got every all the plans to resubmit it. Yeah. I guess what I'm not understanding is you made a decision to change the plan that you decided to do something that was different than what was submitted to the planning department, right? The retaining wall. Yes.

Yes. You decided you made that decision, right? Let's say you did that made you you submitted your plans and on day one you decided to change the plan. Why didn't you go back to the planning? Why didn't you go to planning and say we're going to change our plan?

It was happening at the same time we observing all of it. You know they came with the excavators they start dig they took some dirt out the excavator called me I came day after over there it's supposed to come back and before I came back at the end of the day the violate you know the code enforcement guy he came gave us the violation and stop order and then I figured okay there is grading problem here there is a lot of other stuff obviously we'll get into a revision I spoke to Jeremiah about it right away and yeah you I mean we already got all the calculation engineering everything for the retaining wall um at the same kind of time that we got the violation thing you know like right after that.

How much um how much soil did you remove before you got the violation? Uh we removed over there probably like around I got to check it out with the with the contract you know with the subcontractor that did it. Mhm. But I estimate of course it's was more than 30 or so you know. Mhm. And but we was expecting it because we're doing grading a lot and soil is getting expensive and never get really calculated right by the civils.

Obviously it was more off than usual I have to say you know be honest but um we wasn't thinking it will be like that much with the retaining wall. We was figuring we will go back you know and resubmit everything again with the new civil engineer plan civil plans and you know get it all figured out. Um, how much do you think has been removed so far? It's like I believe like around maybe 80 to around 90ish, I think. So, you know, I can't really, you know, tell exactly. I I can ask for how many trucks and pair the trucks. I will know. I guess why didn't you guys stop at 50 and then resubmit your plans?

So, I guess you know the contractors it was two days. It was very fast, you know, kind of thing. Um so it's pretty much you know been a little bit oversight as far as like in two days and also the violation came right away. So we just basically paused everything you know and said okay let's do it right let's do it the way they should be you know in the same months we resubmit everything you know so we was really really pressing everybody to get it done and you know to show to the city that we're not dragging it right now for five months waiting for the winter to come and this this thing over there will be more disaster than now so um yeah so trying to do the best over here um we got an approved plan so for me I got the impression you know obviously engineer miscalculated and we oversight it but yeah you know in the end of the day I you know I want to do it right you know I have no reason to not pull a grading permit and pull you know an entire approved plans yeah

yeah res the

and through through the chair real real quick is it's not uncommon on a say building permit that the plans uh how they're drawn up this is what the what is intended to be constructed. But that in the field it situation is just a little bit different or once you start get going you realize you need to make a change and uh you know you're the contractors are doing a little bit and they might go a little beyond the scope before they stop even with the best of intentions to stop and get the revision. There's certainly some that might just keep going and going, but um you know they they won't go and stop immediately at say what the plan say just because the change of the field. They might go a little beyond to say all right this is what we need to do and kind of get it all pre-advanced in the field and then submit their revision.

But that's fine. That's fine. But I get this distinct impression that we wouldn't be here or had there not been a citizen complaint they would have gone and done whatever they were going to do. those building permits, the plans would have been inspected. So if they had built the project not in compliance with the plans when they went out for the inspection and there was work that would have been caught through the city inspection process. And what would have been the the monetary ramification of that?

Uh no different. Well actually no there would be no difference in terms of what the financial implications are. I mean, is is there any is there any result any, you know, finer penalty for essentially blowing off the process? Um, I think I I sense that that's the concern of one or two of my fellow commissioners is that, um, you know, asking for forgiveness and not permission is not okay. um and that we shouldn't really kind of let it slide just for an extra permit fee. Um yeah, I mean that's my personal opinion and I'm only 105.

Well, there is a provision to to fee, you know, charge more fee, but in this particular case, the building what we would be permitting the wall was not constructed. So there's no, you know, there's no building permit for an asbuilt structure that we would typically, you know, double fee somebody for. And what what this public works director decides to do in terms of a grading permit fee or penalties associated with a grading permit fee, I do not know. So that would be in his I'd defer to him as to what he wants to do with the charge on a grading permit that will be required.

Any more questions? Just one followup and it's not that big of a deal, but I'm I'm just curious as as to uh what motives there would be for the applicant um to do this. I mean, an innocent mistake versus if he had declared how much soil he had intended to dig up initially. I mean, is that would there have been a difference in in in charge or or work or delays or what? Can can you explain that, John?

Well, probably if this had all been done kind of per per the normal process, he would have been in front of you. When did they pull their building permit? Yeah, it was building permit was uh submitted in November. November. So they would have been in front of you because the yardage would have been identified as being subject to planning commission review. They would have done all done all that before they obtained their building permit. So in a sense the cost is to them because now they started a construction project. They had to put themselves on hold for 30 days, 45 days, whatever it's taken

months. Um, so in a sense they've cost themselves time and money by, you know, not following the rules the proper the proper way. That's really the only difference though. Procedurally, they need a grading permit. They would have been in front of you and they would have saved themselves a revision to the building plans as well. So, they've actually cost themselves more time and money by by uh heading down this path. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? I actually wondered the original thing because you're asking about what the incentive was and I I guess being below the threshold

that could save you some time provisioning but I assume the cost of moving the dirt there's the injury is only it's just the number of truckloads that you pay for right I mean that's that's completely borne by the builder at in any case so uh it's I don't feel it's like a violation like we're you're operating outside of the code and and polluting something, you know, it's entirely born by by the building. Okay. Um, is there anyone else who would like to speak? Please come up.

Hi. Hi, commissioners. Uh, I'm Carl Lamb. I'm one of the owners. Uh, my brother and I and my wife own the property. Uh, it's our family's property, of course, and we've been in, yeah, we're just bis residents for our entire lives. Uh I think the one key thing I think there's questions about like the monetary cost for our family. Of course we didn't nobody wanted this to happen like it was pretty fast like Yosi had mentioned. Um there is for sure like a delay and it's it's been I think with this process it's probably going to be like we started I think back in May so it's like four months. So, it's pretty substantial for a family especi we're also concerned with um like rain coming and again nobody wants that and I don't want you know we're going to have to put in like year uh erosion control and things like that uh with this pile because of uh because we intended to kind of do it in the summertime right with the foundation work. Um, but originally I think there was a question about like why was the 50 like 10 times different than the the 500 that or like the 477 now that's estimated. Uh, originally I think there was some EMA exchange to like the original plans. Uh Raza, our engineer, is actually on the on the line and can comment a little bit more, but um it was actually 280, but there was questions uh around like it's only removing like four to five feet of dirt, but it's like it's a long property, so it ended up being like so it it is basically a miscalculation originally and yeah, that's kind of what happened. But I did want to highlight that Raza, the engineer, can speak technically to some of these issues. you wanted to ask more. Um, but we wanted to make sure like our engineer triple checked the work before we resubmitted uh for this application works. So, um,

yeah, it's it's like pretty flat in the front and then and you know, civil Raza told me that basically civil is like never perfect for like uh soil estimations. It's like 200 could be like 300, right? So, um just up to the job, right? When you get into actual conditions. Um

sure. Uh Daniel, our contractor also had a lot of rental equipment rented out for months and months. So, he's still renting out and he's kind of bringing money there as well. So, yeah. So that's just a slight monitor um impact there as well. That's all I wanted to comment. Okay. Thank you. I think our structural engineer is on the call. So if you want to make a comment. Yes, I see some attendees in the Zoom. What is the name? Sorry.

Raza. Um could you be the iPhone? It's definitely not those two. Um, yeah. I don't know if Oh, Tracy's the architect. We Is he in Is he on his iPhone? There's someone without a name. I don't really have any questions for him. Yeah. Yeah. No, we don't. Yeah. Okay. No. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Um, anybody else would like to comment that's here?

Okay. Um, why don't we, Julia, open it up for about 30 seconds for any remote comments? Okay, 30 seconds has passed. Okay, thank you. May I have a motion to close the public hearing?

Some moved. Second. Okay, those in favor? I I I motion is unanimous. Okay, let's uh discuss. Um, Commissioner Funka, you want to start? Uh, I am um I think I've heard enough and I think I'm satisfied. I think I understand the the situation and I'm in personally in favor of the resolution as proposed. Thank you, Commissioner. Um, good. Yeah. Nothing further to add. Okay, Commissioner Patel. Thank you. Okay, then um may I have a motion? I'll make a motion to approve grading review 25 or sorry 2025-EX-1.

Okay. Second. I'll second. Okay. Those in favor. I I

Okay. Motion passes unanimously. Okay. I'll now re appeal uh read the appeals process. Anyone may appeal the action of the planning commission to the city council except we're specified otherwise. Appeals shall be filed with the city clerk not later than 15 calendar days following the commission's decision. Exceptions include appeals for use permits and variances which are six days and tentative maps and advertising sign applications which are 10 days. An application form and fee are required. You may call the city clerk for any questions at 4155082010. Okay. Thank you. Next is items initiated by staff. Um, I don't have any. Do Julia, you or Jeremiah have anything?

Go ahead. Um, we're having an open house for the former Bank of America site at 70 Old County Road on Saturday, September 6, and it's going to be at the property. Okay. So, it'll have an update on the outreach to date and the current um community feedback we've received and next steps. Sorry. Saturday, what? September 6. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Um items initiated by the commission. Anything? Okay. None. Okay. Well then, thank you everyone. This meeting is adjourned until the next regular meeting of August 28, 2025. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you. [Music] [Music]