Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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Thank you. Welcome. Welcome.

hear me i can't hear me okay cool uh welcome everyone to uh the planning commission meeting for october 6th can we please start with the roll call commissioner chan here vice chair chai here chair davis yes thank you all um three planning commissioners are present with commissioner quake being excused thank you next up is the pledge of allegiance if you're able please stand Okay, agenda review.

Do we need to make any changes or anything?

We're good. Okay, great. We have one set of minutes from our, I said October 6th before because I looked at those. The minutes are from October 6th. Today's the 20th.

Any questions, comments, changes, or motions?

Okay, we have a second.

Second. Move approval of the minutes.

Thank you. Can we vote? thank you motion passes three zero all right thank you next up is uh public communication this is the spot on the agenda where anyone from the public that would like to address the planning commission on a topic that's in our peer review but not on tonight's agenda do we have any speaker slips or hands raised on zoom

No speakers listed, but I do have one hand raised on Zoom. Okay. Alan Wong, would you like to speak on the item that's not on today's agenda? Hello, Alan, can you hear us?

Yes, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, good evening commissioners and planning commission. Um, just to note, I did put in a resignation for my position appointment on the planning commission. Uh, just sharing that to spend such an honor and privilege to join in this public process, um, the form and the meetings. that I went to just commend the staff, their preparation, all the agendas and the items and the planning that went into the meeting, just excellent. And the engagement and the patience and the respect that the planning commissioners had for each other and the public. I just commend the whole process and I was very proud to be a part of this process. So God bless you all and wish you the best.

Thank you.

That's all? Yes, no other speakers on Zoom.

All righty. Moving on to item four. It's the public hearing for 370 Adrian Road. It's a public hearing to discover... I can't talk tonight. A public hearing to consider the abandonment of a non-conforming use of 370 Adrian Road zoned retail commercial in the Millbrae Station area specific plan. A determination of the status of a non-conforming land use is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act under Section 15061B3 because the decision before the Planning Commission does not constitute a project, and it can be determined with certainty that the action will have no significant effect on the environment. Before we get started, I need to read this part here. Our next item is number four, Public Hearing 370 Adrian Road. This is a quasi-judicial hearing, meaning the Planning Commission is acting in a judicial capacity to determine the facts and apply the law. Because of that, the City Attorney will be representing City staff and the Planning Commission has separate legal counsel, Ms. Joanne Tran, advising us on procedural and legal matters. California law requires the separation of these two roles in order to preserve the property owner's due process. Are we, is everybody where they're supposed to be? Okay, good. Before we begin, I'm going to outline the procedures for this hearing. As this is a quasi judicial matter, the Planning Commission must base its decision solely on the evidence in the record, including staff reports, exhibits, testimony presented tonight, and any written materials submitted prior to or during the hearing. The order of the presentation will be as follows. City staff will present the staff report and evidence. The property owner and his attorneys will then represent their case. Commissioners may ask questions of either party. public hearing will then be open for public comment after public testimony both sides will have an opportunity for rebuttal the Commission will then close the hearing deliberate and make a decision before proceeding any ex parte communications or site visits should be disclosed missioners have you have anything to disclose no no no and no and no there's nothing no site business no conversations no other kind of communications with either party so the next up is the city staff report

GOOD EVENING, CHAIR DAVIS, MEMBERS OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION. TONIGHT'S ITEM IS A PUBLIC HEARING TO CONSIDER THE ABANDONMENT OF A NONCONFORMAL HOUSE AT 370 ADRIAN ROAD ZONED IN THE MILBURY STATION AREA SPECIFIC PLAN. PROPERTY IN QUESTION IS AT 370 ADRIAN ROAD AND THE CURRENT ZONING IS A COMMERCIAL, MILBURY STATION AREA SPECIFIC. warehouse and distribution at 370 adrian road is currently a non-conforming use use that was authorized at the time it was established but is no longer allowed the municipal code section 10.05.2420 specifies that If a non-conforming use is wholly discontinued for a period of 90 days, such use shall be deemed to have been abandoned and all future uses shall comply with the regulations of the particular district. This is the question before you this evening. Next slide. So the property, the subject property is located at 370 Asian Road. You can see where it is here in the screen before you on the zoning map, commercial. Next slide. The aerial view in the next slide shows the outline of the property boundary is adjacent to the southbound on-ramp to Highway 101. It is just a short distance from the southerly city limits adjacent to the city of Burlingame. Next slide please.

These photos were taken today by our staff.

You can see Lucid Motors, which is a car dealership across the street, using the subject property. Today, you can see the vehicle stored on the property, filling the loading docks. Pictures were taken midday today.

So zoning and land use background.

In March 2016, the city amended and adopted a new Millbrae Station Area Specific Plan that took effect on March 2016. Upon adoption of the MSASP, zoning for 370 Adrian Road changed from industrial to retail commercial. Been that way since 2016. So since adoption, warehouse and distribution uses are no longer permitted in the Regional Commercial Zoning District. Warehouse and distribution at 370 Adrian Rd became a nonconforming use at that time, which is a use that was authorized at the time it was established, but is no longer allowed. SOME BACKGROUND ON THE MILBURY STATION AREA SPECIFIC PLAN. THE RETAIL CENTER DESIGNATION POLICY WAS ESTABLISHED IN THE MSASP. IT WAS IDENTIFIED THE RETAIL CENTER ZONING WAS IDENTIFIED TO THE EXISTING RETAIL CENTER WHICH IS CALLED WILSON PLAZA TO RETAIN THE COMMERCIAL CHARACTER EXTENDED FARTHER TO EAST. additional retail shopping services and dining opportunities appropriate for the freeway proximate area. That was the policy identified in the specific plan.

Next slide.

So to frame the condition of the Planning Commission this evening, the question before the Commission tonight is to consider the evidence and make findings to determine the status of the nonconforming use at 370 Adrian Road. Tonight, the Planning Commission will consider the question in a quasi-judicial capacity. The Planning Commission's determination this evening is appealable to the City Council. So, some history, some analysis. Better for you, Breakfast, which was a... COMPANY THAT WAS ACQUIRED BY REVOLUTION FOODS AND BETTER FOR YOU BREAKFAST REVOLUTION FOODS IS DOING BUSINESSES BETTER FOR YOU BREAKFAST THEY HAD THEY WERE THE LEASEHOLDER ON THE PROPERTY THEY VACATED THE PROPERTY IN JUNE 2023 THEIR LEASE RAN THROUGH JUNE 2024 SO THEY STARTED MOVING OUT OF THE SITE IN 2023 THAT IS IDENTIFIED IN THE DOCUMENTATION IN YOUR PACKET THIS EVENING Lucid Motors began a month-to-month lease for vehicle parking in July 2024. That lease continues today as evidenced by the photos we just showed in the prior slide. The city is the water utility, the city of Millbrae, and the city registered zero water use on the property between October 2023 and February 2025.

That has been documented and identified in your attachments.

Ocean View Marine Products, following the departure of Better For You Breakfast, Better For You Meals, Revolution Foods, applied for a business license in October 2024, but no license was issued because their application was not completed and no inspections were requested. The city has building and fire performed inspections with business licenses for new businesses. That did not occur. Staff requested supporting documentation for Motion View Marine Products to demonstrate inactive business use. Invoices were provided to the city only recently on October 10th, 2025, which is in your packet as attachment seven. The first of these invoices for Motion View Marine Products is dated Thursday, November 28th, 2024, which is Thanksgiving Day. It is 150 days from July 1st, 2024. THE DAY THAT BETTER FOR YOU FOODS REVOLUTION FOODS VACATED THE PROPERTY. THAT TIME PERIOD EXCEEDS THE 90-DAY PERIOD IDENTIFIED IN MILBURY MUNICIPAL CODE, SECTION 10.05.2420. GIVEN THE LACK OF WATER USAGE AND THE DATES IN THESE INVOICES, STAFF DID NOT FIND THAT THESE SEVEN TRANSACTION RECORDS PROVIDED CONSTITUTE SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. In this slide before you, you can see a timeline of the events that I just described. In July, 2023, when Revolution Foods, Better For You Foods, consolidated operations to San Lorenzo, California. The property had zero metered water usage on the property beginning in October, 2023. July, 2024, Revolution Foods, Better For You Foods lease ended. Lucid Motors began leasing the property. It is at that time that the lapse of the non-conforming use began. That time period exceeded 90 days. And for the record, the documentation identifies that it extended for at least 150 days, if not longer. Those invoices provided, you can see the dates here. Some of them are on weekends for various time periods. The evidence provided by the PROPERTY OWNER. SINCE THE DEPARTURE OF REVOLUTION FOODS DOING BUSINESSES BETTER FOR YOUR MEALS ON JUNE 30, 2024, NO WAREHOUSE AND DISTRIBUTION OCCURRED ON THE PROPERTY THROUGH SEPTEMBER 28, 2024, WHICH IS A 90-DAY PERIOD. PROPERTY OWNER AND OCEAN VIEW MARINE PRODUCTS DID NOT FOLLOW THROUGH IN OBTAINING THEIR BUSINESS LICENSE. THERE'S NO EVIDENCE IN THE RECORD DEMONSTRATING ACTIVE BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS OR EMPLOYMENT ON THE SUBJECT PROPERTY UNTIL THE FIRST INVOICE IDENTIFIED ON NOVEMBER 28, 2024, WHICH IS 150 DAYS AFTER THE PRIOR TENANT VACATED THE PROPERTY. And as we showed in our documentation, there was no metered water usage on the subject property during this period that Ocean View Marine Products claims to have been in operation. So throughout those invoice dates that are identified in the prior slide, there was no water usage as identified in the attachment in your agenda packet. And during that time period, Lucid Motors, the car dealership across the street, had been using the subject property for parking cars. PARKING OF CARS IS NOT A WAREHOUSE AND DISTRIBUTION USE, AND LUCID MOTORS IS A LEGALLY OPERATING AUTOMOTIVE DEALERSHIP ACROSS THE STREET. NEXT SLIDE. SO THE DETERMINATION THIS EVENING, MILBURY MUNICIPAL CODE SECTION 10.05.2420 SPECIFIES THAT IF A NONCONFORMING USE IS WHOLLY DISCONTINUED FOR A PERIOD OF 90 DAYS, SUCH USE SHALL BE DEEMED TO HAVE BEEN ABANDONED AND ALL FUTURE USES SHALL COMPLY WITH THE REGULATIONS OF THE PARTICULAR DISTRICT. ACCORDING DOCUMENTATION, INCLUDING LEASE AGREEMENTS, CORRESPONDENTS, AND UTILITY RECORDS DEMONSTRATE THE NONCONFORMING WAREHOUSE AND DISTRIBUTION USE AT THE SUBJECT PROPERTY HAD CEASED OPERATIONS FOR MORE THAN A 90-DAY PERIOD. TONIGHT'S DETERMINATION IS LIMITED TO WHETHER OR NOT THE NONCONFORMING USE WAS ABANDONED UNDER THE MUNICIPAL CODE. IF THE PROPERTY OWNER WISHES TO PURSUE THIS MATTER FURTHER, HE HAS THE OPTION TO PURSUE AN AMENDMENT TO THE SPECIFIC PLAN. THAT OPTION IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE TO APPLICANTS. Staff finds there is substantial evidence in the record demonstrating a clear period of disuse and a lack of business activity for a nonconforming warehouse and distribution use at 370 Adrian Road for longer than a 90-day period. Staff further finds that the property owner and Ocean View Marine Products demonstrated an intent to abandon the previous warehouse and distribution use by failing to respond to the city's multiple requests for inspection and consequently failing to obtain a business license.

Next slide.

THEREFORE, STAFF RECOMMENDS THE PLANNING COMMISSION REVIEW THE REPORT, CONSIDER THE EVIDENCE, PUBLIC TESTIMONY AND FINDINGS AS PRESENTED, AND ADOPT A RESOLUTION DETERMINING THE ABANDONMENT OF A NONCONFORMING USE AT THE SUBJECT PROPERTY ZONE RETAIL COMMERCIAL IN THE MSASB. I'LL LEAVE IT AT THAT. THAT CONCLUDES MY PRESENTATION. I'LL BE HANDING THIS OVER TO OUR CITY ATTORNEY, LORI LU.

THANK YOU. GOOD EVENING, COMMISSIONERS. Just wanted to add a little bit of the legal context. So as Mr. Mogenson said, the municipal code section 10.05.2420 specifies that a nonconforming use is wholly discontinued for 90 days. And if that happens, it shall be deemed to have been abandoned and all future uses shall comply with regulations of the particular district. So under the specific plan that was passed the warehouse and distribution uses related uses are no longer permitted and The property is within the RC or retail commercial zone So we believe that there is substantial evidence in the record as has been presented that shows that the non-conforming warehouse and distribution use at the subject property has been abandoned and have received the information that the property owner submitted and we do not believe that it rebuts that evidence the property owner has suggested some other potential solutions however those have not those are processes that haven't yet been followed he has not followed the property for that's required for a rezoning so right now tonight i want to emphasize to the commission that commission cannot take action on a requested rezone it's only within your purview to determine whether or not the use has been abandoned if the property owner would like to initiate a rezoning process he has to follow municipal code section 10.05.2810 and that can be initiated by three ways number one the planning commission can file a resolution of intention with the city council Number two, the planning commission can file, excuse me, the first one is the city council can file a resolution of intention with the planning commission. Number two, the planning commission can file a resolution of intention. Or number three, the property owner can file a petition with the planning commission. So those are the requirements if the property owner would like to request a rezoning, but that is not what is before you tonight. Property owner has also suggested that the municipal code is too stringent and has made references to other cities. Well, the municipal code in Millbrae is what applies and it's as written and it can't, that's not something that can be changed. tonight of course there are processes for changing the municipal code and that must be done through adoption of an ordinance as you know but that is also not before the Commission tonight so just want to reiterate that what is within the Commission's purview is simply to determine whether or not there is substantial evidence that shows the use has been abandoned for at least 90 days

GOOD EVENING, EVERYONE. MY FIRST TIME. GOOD EVENING, COMMISSIONERS. CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? BETTER? Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. I want to first make it absolutely clear that my purpose here tonight is not adversarial, but to plead for a fair and reasonable consideration. My goal is aligned with the vision for this city as do the city planning department has made decisions on my property that i think are based on selective interpretation of events and i think i feel unfair application of the code the city's decisions severely impacted my rights my property rights and i think will lead to pretty serious problems for the property. And let me just start. I'm a first generation immigrant. I graduated from Berkeley and I worked at Pricewaterhouse as a financial analyst for many years. I currently manage a small trucking company based in Oakland. So let me start by addressing some of the items in the city's planning commission agenda report that they submitted to you. First, the city claims that Revolution Food possibly discontinued their occupancy as early as June 2023, and they show that by an email from a gentleman, Michael Thompson, of Revolution Foods in their email attachments to you. I do not know this person. I have never interacted with this person. My communications with the tenant started and continued to the end with Jackie Duvivier, who was the founder of Better For You and that established the operation at 370 Adrian. Better For You merged with Revolution Foods around 2021. the better for you founding team joined revolution foods and became shareholders I spoke to Jackie who has who indicated that Michael Thompson was a VP at revolution foods but has since left the company and please note that also his email that he sent to the city indicating no title and no official letterhead and I have no idea how to evaluate that email. However, I have an email addressed to the Planning Commission by Jackie Duvivier, the founder of Better For You, that she sent me. I'd like to read part of it to you. This is to the Planning Commission of the City of Millbrae. This email serves to inform you that Revolution Foods was in full use and operating in the facility located at 370 Adrian Road, Millbury, California until the end of our lease in June of 2024. While we began to move to the East Bay a few months before the end of our lease, we continue to have some operations and employees reporting to the facility daily until June of 2024. In order to keep the facility in full safe and secure use and keep loiters away, we sublease the parking area to the back elusive our neighbors from across the street and he is currently still a shareholder at revolution food I will submit that her emails on your record the second point that I'd like to address in the Planning Commission agenda that the city indicates that there is no provision in the Municipal Code to extend the 90-day limit well I think that the Municipal Code does not preclude the extension of time in fact cities offer extensions all the time on various projects and I believe the long-standing legal principle of what is not forbidden is permitted should be the guiding principle here and what the report omitted so um i what i want to also uh mention is the city omitted to mention and left out in their attachments that assistant planner miss jennifer lynn sent an email to me on september 26 2024 whereby she stated thank you for stopping by City Hall today planning staff is in the process of preparing a letter for extending the non-conforming use at 370 Adrian I will send you the letter once it's available so the city in the report did not mention that and did not include it in that include that email that was sent to me so and I call miss Lim the following week and was told the staff is still working on the letter and will be sent once ready I believe this is a clear indication that the 90-day limit from June 2024 it was extended and the third item that I like to bring up is the city by its action acknowledged the application for planning action and zoning clearance from ocean view on October 9 2024 and approved their non-conforming use on October 15 the city claims there was no evidence of business activity by pointing to the lack of water usage that is monitored through the city But as I will explain in my following presentation, this is consistent. What the city did not mention and also left out in their attachments are the PG&E bills Ocean View provided from October 2024 through June 2025. Ocean View maintained occupancy after they received non-conforming use from the city by the very fact that they establish a PG&E utility account and continue to make payments and the last item in that report it says the city claims to have asked for documentation to demonstrate an active business activity during the time in question but we did not provide any until October 10th 2025 That is not my recollection and record. During a meeting that we requested immediately after the July 24, 2025 denial notice, we requested a meeting with Mr. Roscoe Mehta and Ms. Lin, during which we were trying to urge the city to reconsider evidence and we offer these documentation but mr. meta show no interest to receive this documentation it was only after my current council mr. mr. Gladstone who suggested that we provide this documentation and he forwarded to the city attorney and director Andrew Morgan sent back in August August 20 25th 2025 so it's not quite accurate that we didn't provide until October 10 that the documentation of PG&E bills and invoices were provided to the city back in August I like to put forth the following explanation of continuous non-conforming used at 370 So Revolution Foods informed me in 2023 that they did not intend to renew the lease when it expires at the end of June 2024. So after a long and intensive marketing, we found a tenant, Ocean View, and started a lease negotiation with them around July, August of 2024. we actually signed a lease in the in mid-august but the owners were traveling in Asia to visit clients and but and they never fully executed the lease by making a payment so I actually went to the city and met with miss Jennifer Lynn and explained the situation ask for more time for the tenant to start and and she emailed me as I mentioned in my point to on September 26 stating that the planning staff is in the process of preparing a letter for extending the non-conforming use before they before I received that letter the the owners of ocean view came back and I notified miss Lim on October 8th and slim instructed the tenant to contact her and submit the planning action and zoning clearance applications which ocean view the tenant did on October 9th the city and the city approved and miss Lynn emailed the zoning clearance approval of non-conforming use to ocean view on October 15 2024 So Ocean View is a seafood processing and distribution company based in San Diego with more than 35 years. They started distributing their products in the Bay Area with a growing clientele and they want to establish a branch in the Bay Area. So after the approval from the city of a non-conforming use, they submitted the business license application and started to move their products into 370 Adrian Road. but i i don't understand the process but according to them seafood processing is a very specialized process so they that's assigned one of their employees from san diego to come up to set up the operation that's that was their plan but uh unexpectedly that that employee left in december of 2024 and they were left stranded and they could not find the qualified staff to to set up the operation ocean view received an email from the business license the department on december 30th 2024 informing them that they needed contacted Mill Bay Fire Department or an inspection to finalize the business license and the owner of ocean view contacted the fire department that was told that all the operation the equipment and the personnel need to be in place before a compliance can be determined And they were told to call back when they're in full operation. And this was at the end of December, January, beginning of January. That was the contact they had with the fire department. so ocean view because they weren't able to set up their their seafood processing operation continued their operation with only product distribution from 370 adrian road throughout 2024 and 2025 while trying to find solution to their staffing problem The city's assertion of no business activity based on lack of water usage is not accurate. The lack of significant water usage is entirely consistent with a facility that has not started any processing activity and only had distribution. Oceanview established their PG&E account after their approval of non-conforming use evidence by their ongoing PG&E bills starting from October 2024 along with the sales invoices submitted to the city in August of 2025 and in the beginning in the early 2025 Ocean View Express continued difficulties to fully operate the milbury facility to me and ask if i had some any any possible solution so i engaged with my brokers at colliers international and to start to to try to find uh maybe perhaps a sub lease or or some other option and the brokers were able to identify a buyer jc kitchen that was interested in expanding their family business in south san francisco because the existing excuse me build outs at adrian would require minimal improvements for them so we enter a purchase agreement that was set to close escrow in mid-july so per the instructions from uh miss lynn jc kitchen submitted the same application planning application for action and zoning clearance on July the 3rd 2025 there were continuing communications between the slim and JC kitchen over details of building color and the signage as far as all parties were concerned there was no issue of occupancy compliance abruptly on July 24th miss Lim inform us the non-conforming use was denied we were all back I notified the tenant ocean view of this this news and they were also in shock and they send an email to the city a letter to the city which I will read in part Dear Mr. Morgenson, I'm the owner of Ocean View Products based in San Diego, California. Our company started negotiating a lease for the building at 370 Adrian Road in August of 2024 with a start date, lease date of September 1st, 2024. I was traveling in Asia and South America during this time and upon my return, I submitted an application to the city for zoning clearance you allergy thank you I was traveling in Asia and South America during this time and upon my return I submitted an application to the city zoning clearance on October 10th for instructions from Millbrae assistant planner to formally establish our operation in Millbrae Our proposed use is the processing of marine products and storage and distribution. The location would be desirable because of the existing food processing infrastructure and this enables us to finally have a local branch to serve our growing client base in the Bay Area. receive the zoning clearance via email on October 15 the best of our knowledge ocean view marine products was approved by the city of Millbrae to operate at this location and there has been no communication to us from the city of Millbrae to the contrary landlord inform us that he received an email from city manager on August 4th telling him that our use was no longer legal because it had been abandoned for more than 90 days that is factually incorrect as we have been storing and distributing products at this facility throughout our lease term food processing portion of our business did not work work out as we could not get our employees knowledgeable in setting up processing to move to the Bay Area our company our occupancy excuse me is evidence by the sales invoices and utility bills we provided to the landlord as there was no processing any kind our water usage was minimal upon receiving this news we were shocked what is the operational for status of ocean view but that was the letter they owners of ocean view sent to me so We have repeatedly urged the city to reconsider all the evidence of occupancy, but they have chosen to ignore our explanations and evidence contrary to their assertions. I'm here tonight to ask the Planning Commission to please consider all the facts, the evidence, in support of our continuing non-conforming use. want to add a little more context to my association with this property I live in this area and really love to see how it can if this area will thrive I acquired 3 to 70 Adrian Road in 2009 15 years ago with the hope of developing a this to a more valuable property. I initiated a hotel development discussion with the then Mayor Wayne Lee back in March of 2014. may Lee refer me to the city the then city manager Maureen or I'm sorry Marcia rains our meeting was uneventful but she also informed me that I had only two days to submit a development proposal package to the Planning Commission which was not possible it was a short notice but I continue to explore that path in the following years and I have engaged discussion with no less than five architectural firms to work on this idea of developing a hotel at this site. I've also pitched this to a couple of hotel operators and those discussions did not lead to anything fruitful. And as recently as 2023, I partnered up with an experienced hotel developer who had worked for Marriott and Hilton for more than 35 years to try and bring a hotel to the site. We hired an architecture firm designated by Marriott and Hilton to begin the design process. I submitted and paid for an application for planning action on April 24th, 2023. along with conceptual plans and proposals to the city of Millbury. However, after discussions with builders and engineers regarding the development of this project, I was shocked at the level of cost that had risen for the development of this project. The cost was just astronomical. unfortunately after 15 years of planning and more than two hundred thousand dollars spent on consultants and architects i came to the painful and disappointing conclusion that given the high cost of construction and more importantly a fundamental shift in business traveling during and after the pandemic that is probably currently unfeasible more importantly It is impossible currently to secure any funding to develop such a project, given the high cost and the lower occupancy and average daily rate on the peninsula for hotels in this category. And I also explore other zoning options allowed under the MSASP, which indicates a retail development. Unfortunately, that does not seem viable either. My parcel is located at the end of the block at the Millbrae 101 southbound freeway entrance as you saw earlier in the slides. It is unfortunately grouped together during the formulation of the ASP plan together with the existing retail center that have been there for decades and identify that as a retail commercial zoning. The reality is, if you're familiar with that area, you'll notice the building structure of the existing retail center and the location of my lot, the existing building structure completely blocks off any visibility and access to my parcel. There can be no traffic flow from the retail center and the and and visibility so we hire consultants and and Brokers who specialize in retail tenancy their conclusion was that given the high cost of a retail development and the difficulty of attracting tenants due to lack of visibility and access and access this is not feasible currently and again I want to I want to reiterate that I purchased this property specifically with the intention of developing it to a better higher use but after spending all that time and resources, the conclusion is currently that's not feasible. And I've retained Collier International to try to market this property both for lease and for sale for more than two and a half years. And the only two parties that have expressed any interest is Ocean View and JC Kitchen. developers have shown any interest and JC kitchen offers I think the best option for 370 Adrian at this time they are successful family business providing crucial services and employment for our community and I would like to invite my by broker to give a little background on the current condition of the commercial property in our area. They've had extensive experience to give a little context.

OK, thank you. You can come up.

Very.

I'll be somewhat brief, but to kind of echo what Ed has said, and outside of the fact that, you know, we're well aware of occupancy and continuation of occupancy as brokers. We do it all over the peninsula. So we always get ahead of it when it comes to marketing properties, etc. And so we always ensure that Ed has a tenant in place and do it well in advance. So I'm not going to rehash the 90 days and the inconsistencies between... what we provide as well as a city. But from a thousand foot view, Ed bought this in 2009, the food facility. So I've been involved with this since 2002 when Sky Chefs developed it and they put in God knows how much money to do it as a USDA facility. Since then, it leased it to Casa Sanchez, who is the chips and salsa maker. um they moved to the east bay so it's kind of an incubator space to these food companies um after that it was better for you breakfast bought by revolution foods followed by ocean marine and you know in the past We presented Ed multiple offers to sell this building to a food company. He's always kind of rejected those with a higher and grander vision of developing the site. And I won't repeat what he said, but unfortunately, due to the site size, it being a triangle, in the limited uses, at least what we have now. We've got retail and we have hotel. Retail, single story, it has no highway frontage, it backs up the existing retail center, so no visibility whatsoever. It just doesn't pencil, it never has. Hotel development, Ed can speak to more of that than I can, but I did talk to my hotel expert and he said that that's not a developable site, not now. Three, four years ago, I don't know. I went through that process and it wasn't economically viable. And again, that has to do with the shape of the property and the size and the cost. It just doesn't pencil. It's not economically viable. You know, I would say, you know, if it was three, four years ago, which you guys did with the Millbrae Station Plan, beautiful project, the Gateway Project, you know, you have life science, multifamily, those kind of things that was on fire three, four years ago. You know, now life science is 30, 40% vacant on the peninsula. Hotels are suffering. Multifamily was never allowed. So that wasn't even option we explored. We went to market the space for sailor lease when we did do it as as it was evidence that, you know, Ocean View was trying to figure out their situation on coming up to producing the seafood there. and really building up the space, and they said they were having issues there, Immediately I said, Ed, we got to get ahead of this for a continuation of use. We marketed for sale. So before we went to sale, my partner JP and I went out to, I think our list is like 1,000 developers in the Bay Area regionally. And it was anywhere from hotel developers. We included life science and all that as well, even though it's not zoned for that. We got no feedback from anyone at all. I spoke personally to people. The only groups that we got feedback from was food-related uses, right? So we ended up going to the open market, food-related uses. kitchen, my other associate was able to find. And unfortunately, the other investors that were interested were groups like Prologis that would take it and release it to a food tenant. The issue is, again, the shape of the lot, the size of the lot. It's elevated, so it has dock high platform. So you can't even convert it. At one point before we found JC, we were even talking to Lucid Motors. So I think there was inconsistencies there when Lucid started. Lucid actually started two years ago, and they subleased it. It was subleased to... It was a better few breakfast was winding down their operations. We were marketing the place in advance to continue the use. We're well aware of that. And there were homeless people living in the doorway. There was trash everywhere. It was a nightmare. So they came to Ed and said, hey, look, Lucid's across the streets are banging on our door. Can we do an agreement to have overflow parking? Ed said, sure. We did a licensing agreement. It's... canceled 90 days and they may cancel at any point we don't know at this time they've opened something in San Jose now the bigger facility right now it's overflow parking but that's kind of kept issues away from a holistic view from a city perspective if this building goes dark and again have evidence saying that there's nine days of continuation but it's there'll be issues it's going to be mothballed right because you can't convert it to anything else and it's not developable um we talked to lucid about hey would you guys like to take this site and they said can't use it you'd have to demo the whole thing because again it's doc hey there's there's no grade level loading your height is low it's a food facility at the end of the day so in the future could it be life science and that bounce back if it's Maybe hotels at some point way in the future when that turns around or multifamily. Great. But right now it's just it's just not feasible, unfortunately. And again, Ed bought this site because it's next to the shopping center. It makes sense. And I get with the plan. Hey, it's a developable site. That's why he bought it. And he's turned down offers. I won't name prices, but from food tenants because he had a grander operation of doing a hotel thing, which didn't pan out. Um, right now, but we were in contract with Jesus at a at a much lower price because Ed was just kind of threw his hands up in the air and said, you know what? It's I can't develop this now. There's there's a guy that's a burden hand. I need to continue with the use and we found JC kitchen to purchase property. So, um. again you know it's size shake economic viability i know we can't change the code but i would recommend regardless of how this outcome turns out to really open up the zoning because a hotel is not going to go there anytime soon maybe never and it'd never be retail you could demo it and make it as parking but that'll go back to the bank so that's just something to consider for the future Lucid again, we went to them to buy the building. It doesn't work for them. They're just using his overflow parking. Better for you breakfast. Again, they came in. I was kind of talking off the cuff, but they came in and thank God Lucid came in because we're having homeless issues and trash. And, you know, again, we're not sure how long Lucid's going to stay. They have a 90-day out clause, and they've been back and forth on how long they're going to stay. So I don't know if it would be abandoned or not. But next up, I want to introduce Jesus with JC Kitchen. They're headquartered in South San Francisco. They own their building. His father started the company. I'll let him kind of talk about that. But this is an expansion site for them. So, you know, they're currently about 15,000 now. This is about 20,000 square feet. The reason he liked the building is because the existing infrastructure, right? So it's not a heavy lift for him. There's already coolers in there. There's processing facilities, a bunch of parking. So what he had proposed and submitted to the city Again, with these applications, there were no indications that this was an issue. They just simply asked, you know, what are you going to paint the building? What does the signage look like? We kind of got done on it. We were shocked when there was a kind of a denial here. But he's going to paint the outside of the building and refurbish the inside. It's already got the infrastructure. There's not going to be a heavy infrastructure hall here or capital improvement hall. The reason I mention this is because it's obvious the city is interested in this being something else, which is what Ed Kwan wanted from from day one. And is this going to be the same thing ten years from now? I hope not. I don't know. I mean, if the zoning changes to a different use, then maybe it can be developed. But that is the goal to develop it. Jesus is a businessman. They already have one location. There's no ties to this facility. He's a processing company. They cut fruits and vegetables, package them and send them out with very little impact. They service the airport. I'll kind of get into all that. But it's a it's a pretty light but consistent use. And he's a businessman. If things change five, ten years from now and someone writes him a big check, he'll gladly sell and move on. And that was what Ed wanted to do. And it'll probably be kicking himself ten years from now, but he can't hold on the property. He's not a user. And one last thing to note, too, is with leasing the property versus selling the property. If Jesus owns the property, he can sell to a developer at any time when the time is right. We can just turn off that switch. He can cut vegetables somewhere else and take a check. Find this because it's already set up. Whereas if you have an existing lease in place, it's, as you guys know, 10, 15 years, you know, developer comes along, there might be a chance that, you know, there's a leasehold interest and you can't buy them out and it'll stay there. So the opportunity change would come through an owner user when the time's right. And that's how developments work, right? I can't make it, the city can't make it. When the time is right and the zoning allows for it, that's how it happened in Millbrae Station. developer comes along stroke someone a big check and moves on so you guys know all that um last thing i would state is you guys did a great job on the you know the gateway mulberry station but this site's just a different location scale and zoning and you know with abandonment it it wouldn't be a good look for millbrae um and not good for the community um and one last thing is from an industrial standpoint there's only four industrial buildings in millbrae right now and it's like 85 000 square feet And this is one of four buildings. It's all in the 300 block of Adrian. The other side of the road, where all that is, it's still zoned industrial, except for Ed's piece right there. It's either here or there. It's 85,000 square feet. Burlingame has 4.1 million square feet of industrial. And that's just the neighboring city. And I'm not saying... That's good or bad, but in Burlingame you have retail next to industrial. You have life science next to industrial. Office, hotels. If you look on Bayshore Highway and Rollins Road, you guys are all locals. You know how it's mixed and integrated in. So I don't think it's a bad use. It's been that way for 25 years. It's continued occupancy with a great steward that I'll pass on to next. So again, it has nothing to do with the 90 days and how we continue to use because we're well aware of it, but just kind of thousand foot deal. Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Well, my voice is a little stuffy. Allergies earlier today, but I want to introduce myself. My name is Jesus. And I'm speaking on behalf of J.C. Kitchen, which is my parents started the company back in 89. The whole time they were in South San Francisco. twice already. Started at 2,500 square foot facility to a 4,000 to a 7,000, 12,000 square foot facility that we have now. For the last 10 years, we have been searching for another facility where we could move our operation or expand. It's been tough because a lot of our facilities are out there and MY SEARCH AND IN MY SEARCH, THIS FACILITY HAS BEEN ON MY RADAR FOR THE LAST SIX YEARS. AND WHEN IT FINALLY WAS UP FOR SALE, WHEN WE SAW THE ANNOUNCEMENT, I GOT EXCITED. I CONTACTED DAVIS, GAVE ME THE RUNDOWN ABOUT THE LOCATION. HE LET ME SEE THE ACTUAL BUILDING ITSELF. which within the first five minutes of just standing there, I could already re-imagine where all my machines and all my processing areas would be. The first five minutes because the infrastructure was already there.

Oh, sorry. Because the infrastructure was already there.

So with that excitement, I kind of contacted Mr. Davis to pursue the opportunity and If we could work out a deal, obviously, at this point, I'm. Well, at that point, I was not aware about the nonconformity use or none of that stuff. I was just looking at a building to see if we could expand our operations there. And like Mr. Davis says, and I'm emphasize a little bit of what he touched with this. speech was that we have 35 years of experience the employee around locally 60 employees at this moment and would be you know allowing them to transfer to no basis where our neighboring city we're pretty proud of the reputation we've developed over the years we basically just to put this very clear we are a raw production facility of vegetables and fruits there's no cookie there's no there's no grease there's no need for oil there's there's nothing so our impact within how we could you know mess with I don't know the city orders is here but with noise or pollution or anything like that, it wouldn't be a problem if I was to come in because like I said, it's all raw product. We're also committed to producing high quality, locally sourced food products while we support all Bay Area farmers and suppliers and their families. From what I know, there's only one other produce company here in Millbrae. I think it's Deeds Produce. They've been here for a long time. So I feel in my case, you know, we give the city of Millbrae, I guess, another fresh choice, you could say. That was another one of the reasons why it would be nice to expand over here. With that said, Okay, so our move to Millbrae would basically preserve and expand our current workforce, bring stable, well-paid jobs to the area. We offer training, career development, and opportunities for local advancement. With South San Francisco, we sponsor a lot of the football teams there. We donate to the Samaritan House down here in the peninsula. I know that Millbrae has a farmer's market every Saturday. I've attended it myself. I could be a contributor to it as well. I could provide my own stand and help out wherever I can to give advice to Millbrae regarding that. At the end of the day, all that said, This building for us makes the most sense just because of how Mr. Davis had emphasized that it's stock height, meaning that we could go back in our trucks, unload, everything would be basically turnkey. But at the end of the day, if I'm a businessman, if somebody was to come in in five, ten years and say, hey, we want this property or this area for or another use then I'm all here I'm not gonna hold on to it just because it's already there you know I would make a position at that time and if somebody wants to offer me something that I could make a profit over there I could move somewhere else though I'm not literally tied to it but at this moment in time it would help us grow our business to another level so that said i appreciate the time and thank you all so much thank you very much great with you

okay good evening Commissioner Gladstone with the firm of Goldstein Gellman Elberstadt Gibson and Harris I'm counsel probably no oh all right counsel to the ownership is you probably know let's see I'll try to talk on this side As was stated, there's a win-win scenario here to resolve this matter that would increase the likelihood that the lot in question will become a use that meets the development goals of your specific plan. That would be possible if the zoning provided more flexibility. so the uses such as housing office and r d and life science could take place that is the kind of zoning you gave all the facing lots on adrian it's called employment center you'll see it on the drawing here uh but what was done to give an rc zoning basically made my clients use into a non-conforming use it would not have been had you uh zoned it the same as all the other late adrian lots across the street uh by the way next slide please there's a chart here indicating how many uses that can be conducted in the employment light industrial zone that can IN THE RETAIL COMMERCIAL ZONE, WHICH IS WHAT YOU GAVE THIS LOT. AND, YOU KNOW, MORE FLEXIBLE USE MEANS MORE QUICKLY IT WILL DEVELOP, QUICKLY THE PLAN WILL BE MET, AND DOWNTOWN WILL BE IMPROVED. AS YOU KNOW, YOUR STAFF HAS BURDEN OF PROOF HERE, AND THAT MEANS THAT YOUR STAFF MUST SHOW YOU SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE BEFORE YOU ADOPT THE STAFF RESOLUTION TONIGHT. us next slide please substantial evidence next is the absence of conflicting evidence and staff has to show you not only a 90-day vacancy period but an intent to abandon you've heard from my client of all the efforts he took and all the efforts ocean view took constantly in communication with your city staff getting emails back from your city staff responding to those emails so i i just don't know how your staff which which has said there's there's a clear intent to abandon could say that perhaps they're talking about the least to lose it across the street for parking and i will get to that later and indicate why that isn't an intent to abandon so what you see before you now is a california supreme court case that binds other courts and administrative quasi-judicial decisions such as the one you were asked to make tonight This case requires a showing of intent before a non-conforming youth can be considered abandoned. You don't have to believe me. Your resolution for adoption before you says that there must be substantial evidence. It also says that when you sign the resolution, you're agreeing that the youth is not partially abandoned or temporarily abandoned. The resolution says that you must decide there is, quote, holy discontinuance, unquote, holy discontinuance, not partial, not someone in the process of moving in, not someone in the process of moving out, not someone in the process of getting in, moving some people in, and still waiting for that business license. And it's appropriate that your code and your resolution puts the burden on a public entity here, like your staff, because this involves a loss to my client of up to $6.5 million, which is JC's proposed purchase price. If the building has no occupant, the land's value is only the land. Thus, this is a substantial property right of my client. It shouldn't be taken away lightly. This is particularly true that it shouldn't be treated lightly when your staff is relying on some very technical grounds about business licenses And, by the way, there's discrepancy in the record. The owner of the previous tenant, Revolution, says they stayed until June 2024. Your staff says they only stayed until June 2023. Your staff relies on an email that they went out to get from someone who's not an employee of Revolution. That email is not on Revolution's letterhead. On the other hand, my client has shown you and put into record a letter to you from the owner-shareholder revolution on their letterhead saying that they stayed until June of 2024. Who's correct? Well, there's a discrepancy. But when you sign and adopt that resolution tonight, you're basically saying there's no conflicting evidence, there's no discrepancy. Instead, there's substantial evidence in support of what the client's saying. So basically, you have to rely on an email that your staff by going to a former employee of revolution and asking that former employee what date it was that revolution ceased to use the property he came up with a date a year from the date that the owner resolution is saying it ceased so I just ask you to take him into account that I don't think staff has shown you the substantial evidence your staff agrees that the owner my client has to have shown an intent to abandon you've heard from him all his time he spent talking to city staff emails all the time ocean view spent all the time and effort my client took to make sure that 90 days wouldn't expire and by the way why does staff attribute the staff staff is telling you the intent of the tenant is clearly to abandon sure the tenant couldn't be there anymore but why does staff attribute the intent of the tenant to the landlord You know, that is not done under California law. The law of agency in California clearly says that, you know, a tenant can't speak for an owner. It's not the agent or the owner. Most cities do not take applications from tenants unless the owner has written a letter of authorization to the tenant. for the city to say this tenant is authorized to apply for a permit. The rights are in the hands of the owner. So just to remind you, before the city manager's termination email arrived last August, my client was in the process of selling the property to this gentleman in case, JC Kitchen. Your decision to support staff tonight, as I said before, would cause many millions of dollars of damage to my client. He spent many years trying to find a tenant or an owner user. He finally found an owner user. The owner user is legitimate and would fit right in. It's been very hard to find a new tenant that fits the use. The space is small and you've heard about the problems with it. And you've heard that it'll be a long time before a developer wants to construct retail or housing. So your decision tonight to adopt the resolution really means that the building itself will be vacant for many years. vacant property at almost at a cul-de-sac where there isn't much pedestrian where there's an empty lot behind it that will be empty and homeless and other people will surely look at it so your decision tonight must be carefully considered considered also for what's best for the city and the immediate neighborhood Again, if we show that their tenant was operating at less than full capacity, for example, it was phasing in out of the relocation or was phasing out, then the Commission should not and cannot conclude that an industrial use had been, quote, wholly discontinued. Wholly discontinued is what your staff resolution asked you to vote. There's been a number of dates thrown out to you by my client, but really there's two key periods where the 90-day period is talked about. What's most key is the time between when Better For You Breakfast Company, later called Resolution, completely left. Left completely, not started to move out. And you've heard from Revolution that it wasn't until end of June 2024. then the other important thing is to look at when the new tenant ocean view moved in and whether you know the uh the the complete discontinuance by revolution you know resulted in more than a 90-day period uh in mind that september 1 of 2024 was the date that the jc kitchen lease was signed and they immediately took actions to try to move in as you have heard from them tonight um your staff points out a lot that ocean view was not able to get its business license within a 90-day period But you've also heard in your packages contained an email from Ms. Lin of planning staff saying you're getting an extension of time beyond the 90 days to get the business license. Your city attorney said that's not possible. You know, the law doesn't allow more than 90 days. Well, you know. Your staff provided it. My clients relied on it. They spent money and reliance on it. They spent a lot of time and reliance on it. And you know, one can't say that that was inappropriate for them to do. And again, another key time period is the time between when Ocean Booth fully moved out and when, but for the city's notice of termination, JC Kitchen would have moved in. They would have moved in within a month or two of their signing their lease. Maybe a few more months, but of course, they wouldn't move in more than a small amount. when they heard that moving in more would put them at risk because the city had decided to terminate their use um now the city has made made a big deal tonight about how the use changed to parking okay and i think what they were trying to say is that um parking use means there was no longer an industrial use and therefore when you change to a use other than the industrial use the industrial use is automatically abandoned and they think that's obviously true but what you don't know is that it's not my client who leased to lucid across the street it it was there it was their subtenor uh you know again and you attribute the actions of a tenant to my client the tenant leads to uh to lucid my my client had no intent of making lucid uh a permanent use uh nor even uh a use that would be a principal use as far as my client was concerned that's an accessory use that's a small use that's a temporary use that's a use that was put in just to prevent this portion of the city from being blighted by the fact that an empty parking lot behind my client's building which faces another building is a prime place for the homeless for crime to be committed and uh you have to keep in mind that there wasn't an entire change of use of the lot. The lot parking areas may have changed to a use, again, not one that my client intended, But the building did not change use. The building did not have someone like a retail parking operation like the offices of Lucid running retail out of the building. And Lucid did not run retail out of the parking lot. That was excess inventory. They would constantly move it in and out. so i don't think you should put much uh into staff position that were there was a completely complete change of use to parking for the entire lot it wasn't for the entire lot parking was not the main use uh nor was it the non-conforming use so it should not be taken into account the non-conforming use the primary use of the lot was still being rapidly put into use for an industrial use and you've heard all the efforts and the time put in i was really shocked to hear from staff tonight that the city sent a number of emails to my client or ocean view which were not responded to and that clearly showed an intent to abandon well i looked at those emails Most of the emails were saying, your fire department inspection hasn't been arranged yet. When are you going to arrange the fire department inspection? There were four of those emails. And yes, I don't think they were all responded to. And the reason they weren't responded to is that the planning department and fire department staff said to Ocean View, we can't come inspect until you're fully operational. Well, You know, Ocean View was trying to get fully operational. They were trying to import their employee from down south who would allow the food processing to begin. But because they were not fully operational, they couldn't respond to the fire department and say, yeah, we schedule it for a month from now. Should they have replied to all those emails about when are they going to allow the fire department in? Maybe so. But you can understand why they didn't respond to each and every one. And for the city to say, that's the evidence. that no replies that there was an intent to abandon it is it's just a little far-fetched i think um again the legal issue is whether a tenant's decision to leave the location should be legally attributed to a landlord next slide please Well, you have on your screen California Civil Code Section 2295, and it describes what an agent is, an agency. And that section of the code is the foundational statute for the law of agency, and what the law indicates is that somebody is not an agent of a principal and cannot be deemed to be an agent of the principal when dealing with third parties unless the principal has explicitly told third parties and the agent that the agent is acting on behalf of of the um principle uh i just don't understand how the city could continue to say that it can attribute the tenant's decision to leave to a landlord uh i don't see any legal support provided you in all their materials for that idea it's not an idea your city really follows your city follows the law and practice of all of all other cities in that your city treats a use is running with the land that is owners may come and go tenants may come and go it's the intent of a property owner that must be shown for example your Commission issues conditional use permits from time to time for uses right here when a tenant changes or when an ownership change the use can continuous the use runs with the land let's say there's a retail store the ownership changes the city does not terminate the retail use the right belongs to the landlord and that right is vested which means it is something that cannot be lightly taken away there are some exceptions to the rule that the use runs with the land okay there are certain kinds of uses where the city will ask about the employment history the good credit the background or the operator and those uses don't run with the land those include liquor licenses sex shop cannabis retail where allowed and the like purely a food processor you know, cutting, preparing vegetables and fruit in a completely enclosed building, not adjacent to any residential use, should not be in the same category of liquor licenses, sex jobs, and the like. whereby you know the the uh every new uh user has to be separately approved by your commission or by planning staff it just doesn't happen you don't do that except for those special kind of uses which can contribute negatively to people around and to the city they may attract crime and noise etc etc typically liquor stores The other thing I want to point out, and I'm sorry to go on so long, but this gets to the meat of the matter, because I'm going to talk about an email from staff that tells my client that the non-conforming use has been extended. And another from the same staff person saying, your business license doesn't terminate until the middle of 2025, June 2025. Imagine you're getting an email from city staff, which I'll talk about in a minute, that says, your business license doesn't terminate until June 30, 2025. Well, of course you receive that and you think it's been issued. Then the other email, and again, it's from Ms. Lynn of Staff says, and I'll read the wording in a minute, it talks about having extended the non-conforming use. So having received that, of course, Ocean View and my client would assume that, well, you know, zoning clearance that was given two months before that to Ocean View means that the non-conforming use, has been extended and will continue through the use of ocean, ocean wide. By the way, just a moment about talking about precedent. You know, your planning commission is looked to by other people. You're not aware of it, but generative artificial intelligence programs. can find all your resolutions all your staff report all staff documentation and the software can even provide a good legal brief in support of a party comes to you wishing to close down a non-conforming use so imagine that for a moment that the city has a street with two restaurants and one restaurant started 50 years ago but became non-conforming because the zoning changed to make it zoning that doesn't allow a restaurant And so imagine a competing restaurant filing a complaint that the older restaurant should be shut down because there was a failure to renew a business license for more than 30 days. Perhaps the bookkeeper of the restaurant, the old restaurant forgot to renew it. Or the competing neighbor may find that the restaurant declared bankruptcy in the past because of that shut down for more than 90 days and that wasn't in the control of the owner that wasn't the intent of the owner nonetheless that competing restaurant may just look at that and say well not only was the business license not in in you know, present for more than 90 days. But after the bankruptcy, that restaurant was closed for more than 90 days. So if someone comes to you with that, your commission would be forced to, well, it would have a hard decision. If precedent means anything, and surely members of the public will point to a decision tonight, sign the resolution as precedent, members of the public will say, hey, your commission is forced to terminate the use of that old restaurant, notwithstanding how many local fans the restaurant has, notwithstanding how long it's been there, and notwithstanding whether the property owner had an intent to abandon. Also imagine a case where the old restaurant is closed because the owner of it has passed away, but its location is still much desirable by people in Millbrae for a restaurant. imagine that a new restaurant goes in and the new owner of it may take more than three months to be fully operational it may take more than three months to get abc licenses which are hard its tenant improvements may take more than three months so it won't be operating and you know without being fully operational your department your fire department and your staff says there can't be any inspection so that 90 days will easily pass that means no business license again imagine that a competing restaurant brings that to you and ask yourselves what what you would do the city stopped to be consistent with its position tonight would have to send out a termination notice uh to the restaurant even though the landlord you know, which wasn't the restaurateur, never had an intent to abandon. And even though the tenant never had an intent to abandon, but rather something out of his control, bankruptcy forced him to close it down for more than 90 days. You should be aware that there are many legal non-conforming uses in your city given how there have been many properties that have been affected by your rezonings over the past decade. Those properties affected by your rezonings have become non-conforming uses. It's likely many of those non-conforming uses enhance the city and have a number of fans. So please consider the consequences to local businesses of adopting a position tonight, one that competing restaurants and NIMBYs may quote in the future, if you adopt a position that the intent of an owner not to abandon, it has no bearing on whether there's an abandonment. And sooner or later, some business that is shut down by the city's position, and perhaps by your resolution tonight setting a precedent, will challenge the termination in court. It wouldn't be unusual. Please now look at the third page of the City's Attachment 7 to their presentation to you. It also happens to be Exhibit B of my letter to you. Next slide, please. So first of all, on the screen is an email from Jennifer Lim of your staff saying, quote, planning staff is in the process of preparing a letter for extending the nonconforming uses at 370 Adrian. It doesn't say it's in the process of giving you more time it says we're in the process of sending you a letter which will be extending the non-conforming use and then look at uh the city attorney attachment seven exhibit b of my letter in that email there's a statement from uh jennifer lynn of the city to my client that uh your use of your non-conforming use will end in june 2025 It says, quote, please see the attached zoning clearance approval, unquote. That email is dated October 15, 2024, and it discusses Ocean View. It does contain a reminder to also submit a door signage plan and to get that business license application. It does not say that the failure to obtain those two by a certain date will mean termination of the use that's already a zoning clearance provided to my client in the ocean view so given Ms. Lim's email indicating that you know we are in the process of giving you a letter showing that the non-conforming use is extended given that You know, Ocean View and my client had every right to assume that the issuance of a business license was just a matter of time and a much less significant document and one whose non-issuance would not result in a notice of termination of use forever. You could see why Ocean View would feel that the license could wait until full operation, fully operating the food processing. Ocean View and my client, as I said, you'd get emails from the city saying, please get that fire inspection. Please get that fire inspection. Didn't respond. It didn't respond. Knew it was premature to respond and perhaps call them and told them that, but they didn't respond to every email. And I'm not sure why the city puts so much emphasis on that. The parties just assume those were friendly reminders. So given Ms. Lim's email stating the zoning clearance had been obtained, and given the email stating that the city is about to give them a letter stating there's an extension of non-conforming use, it's reasonable for my clients and Oceanview to think that everything was taken care of. Again, there is an email from Jennifer Lin of City Staff and it is the fourth from last page of my exhibit E and it says, quote, It is time for your City of Millbrae business license to be renewed. Your current license expires slash expired on June 30, 2025. That was a date that was many, many, many months after this email was sent. It was so confusing. And what a shock to have received an email later from the city manager saying, actually, your nonconforming use stopped in June of 2023 because I have an email that I went out to get from a former employee of Revolution saying that Revolution's use stopped in June of 2023. And the city manager said, you count from June 2023 to 24 when ocean view was engaged and moved in the manager says well you know um that that year you surely breached that 90-day period uh the city why did the city accept the zoning clearance application from ocean view and issue the zoning clearance and why did it email that the letter to extend the non-conforming use was forthcoming when you know the city manager was taking a position that you know there was no use that you know that no there there could not be an acceptance of a uh of a zoning clearance because the use had expired a year before we submitted the acceptance for the zoning clearance i mean how peculiar is that that you know your city manager is counting from June, 2023, saying a youth was abandoned for a year after that. When your city clerks accepted the application for non-conforming use to continue and issued a zoning clearance, that is so strange and confusing. And my clients in Oceanview relied on that email saying, Your zoning clearance is approved. They relied on it by they started oceans. You started to move in, started to hire people. My client gave up the marketing for another tenant because it believed this tenant had been accepted and didn't have to worry anymore about the 90 day period expiring. So. By the way, the Jennifer Lim letter saying your current license expires on June 30, 2025, doesn't say what the consequences are if that's not the case and what the consequences are for not meeting deadlines. It simply says, the email simply says, there's possible late charges. It does not say that a termination of use will be a consequence of you're not meeting any of the prescribed deadlines. so i just want to quote from ocean views letter a portion of it that wasn't read into the record quote our landlord informed us that he received an email from the city on august 4 2025 telling him the use was no longer legal because it had been abandoned that is factually incorrect we have been storing and distributing products at this facility throughout the time that the city says the use was abandoned I'm going to take a drink of water and then I'm going to be as quick as I can and thank you for your patience. I just want to point out that this point out that this policy that you can't get a business license until you have a fire inspection and the fire inspection can't occur until you're fully operational and then you know creates kind of a catch-22 my client may not ocean view may not have wanted to be fully operational because it had not gotten that business license so I mean catch-22 is creating a a problem that gets in the way of the solution thought by the party. Email from the city of August 4, 2025, stating that the use must terminate as the nonconforming use ceased much earlier, a year earlier, actually two years earlier, June of 2023, was shocking because, you know, well, if the city was going to take, if the city had taken that position again, why did it take in and issue the zoning clearance to Ocean View? There are two arms of the city that are not talking to each other. How can, you know, the city staff tell you that you know, all their notifications have been adequate and that the client was fully informed of the deadlines and failed to meet those deadlines. I mean, really, that just seems to me really, really odd and probably not something that would, you know, lead to a vote that there's substantial evidence of intent to abandon. um so again um i think what's really important is to note something that city did not bring up tonight the city told you tonight it asked it pointed you to billing invoices from it from from ocean view that we provided to you in the city pointed to the earliest invoices that we we provided to you What you should be looking at, and we provided to you, is the later invoices submitted that were showing shipment of Ocean View out of the facility. Those later invoices, again, you have them, were from June 2025. uh you know the c just pointed out to you that the invoices were a year earlier yes we sent you invoices from a year earlier but the key is we also sent you invoices showing shipping um and a price as of june 2025. so june 2025 let's assume the use stopped right there let's assume they moved out the next day which didn't happen uh you count june 2020 june 30 2025 now and isn't it november 30 that the youth would expire on this lot oh sorry i'm trying to say isn't it isn't it november end of november when you count 90 days from the end of june july august november so if you if you really look at the fact that the shipping invoices you have good shipping as late as June 2025 well that 90 days of disuse of an industrial use won't really expire until the end of November okay I will be as fast as I can the If you go to the slide where it says the definition of engaging in business in your code, in your code section 705.010, I think you'll see it here, says that engaging in business means when you commence the business. Commence. And it says proof of it can be any evidence of engaging in a business and lists some things that are possible, but says others are acceptable. By the way, your business license web page says, and I quote, the business start date is the first date your business started operating in the city of Millbrain. Let me move through this more quickly. I talked about the uptoning of the area. About how it'd be spared or there to be an initiation of a new rezoning I talked about how that would enable a developer coming to JC kitchen to offer a Development that is currently feasible which are which includes right now residential but not allowed on the lot The Conclusion Millberry provides only two exceptions to its 90-day rule for required upgrades and court ordered succession of business. Even a tenant renovation, which is a voluntary upgrade, not a required one, will not pause the 90 days. Is that fair? by the way those two exceptions deal with items beyond the owner's control well a tenant abandoning is certainly beyond an owner's control um the just including excuse me forgive my length um we would appreciate a uh a vote tonight not to adopt the resolution thank you very much

thank you okay sorry that's okay it's a long night okay and thank you very much for your time tonight um again i want to really make it clear that my purpose here tonight is not adversarial just want to plea for a reasonable and fair consideration of the facts the evidence that we introduced that were left left out in the city's presentation and just again thank you for your time thank you

Yeah.

Anybody want to take a break?

10 minutes? 10 minutes, my watch died. 8.58, we'll come back at 9.10.

Music Music you So,

Where are we? Where's too many lists here tonight? We are. Yes, alright, so we've heard. From other parties, the Commissioners have any questions or any of the people you just heard from. OK, Nathan go first.

All right. Well, thanks for taking the time to explain all the particulars and specifics of the case and laying all the facts out. I think for me, some of the questions that I have that would help me make sense of the record, there are five things I have written down here. So the first is, about the water use and that report. I would be interested to know what units the water use are in, because that would help me understand whether incidental water use, like using the toilet, it would register something on the water meter. It seems very unlikely to me that no one would have ever used the toilet in two years. if especially if Ocean View was using the facility to store and distribute goods out of. So that's one question that I have. The second one is kind of the role of leases in establishing whether a use is being continued or not. Director Morganson, in your picture of the timeline, I specifically saw that you noted that the discontinuation window began when Revolution Foods lease ended. so to me that seems to imply that the whether they were intending to leave the building or not before then it seems that it would be logical it would still be logical to start that when the lease ended and so that makes me wonder if When the new lease begins, and we have these records of a lease between the owner and Ocean View, does that establish the intention to continue the use even if the new tenant hasn't moved in? The third thing that I was interested to know about was the role of Lucid here. of pictures that staff showed us in the presentation, it seems like Lucid was even using the loading dock portion of the facility to park the cars. It seems extremely unlikely to me that such use of the surface area could coexist with an active distribution use if trucks are coming in and out. So I think that I would like to know more about about that and also if lucid signed the sublease with uh revolution food the foods the previous tenant who do they have the arrangement with now um you know just did that was that contract just never renegotiated and no one ever told them they could discontinue parking there it seems like they they're fine parking their parking there. So I would like to know more about that. Like what's the nature of their use of the property and how are they formally doing that oh sorry one more thing about the water use is the whose name was on the bill staff I think noted in there that the property owner was paying the the the water bill for the entire time that ocean view was supposedly the tenant and so I would like to know a little bit more about why that's what was in the record and then finally sort of I was really unclear about when the when and why the marketing to JC Kitchen began because it seems like the all of the invoices that were provided to us from Ocean View show continuous use up until you know up until very recently and so if they were actively using the facility like what sort of arrangement was, like did they know that the owner was marking the property in an attempt to sell it? You know, the owner of JC Kitchen mentioned that he toured the facility, right? If Ocean View was using it at that time, like what was seen there at the time. And you know, the last correspondence that we have from Ocean View where they sort of expressed surprise at their that they were not using the facility they mentioned wanting to terminate the lease with the owner immediately and we saw that that lease ran through 2027 so I mean, obviously owners are free to do what they want with their property without necessarily consulting the tenant, but it seemed like at least based on that correspondence, they were intending to operate there continuing on. So these are sort of the things that don't quite add up for me that are a little confusing in the facts that have been presented and would like more information about.

All right, I'm gonna go through your questions point by point from up here if you don't mind. So the first question is about water use. Does the city's meter record usage? Yes, it records cubic feet. So you're gonna see it if somebody flushes the toilet, you're gonna have one, two, three, four, it's gonna register on the meter. So the answer to the first question is yes. The water meter registered at zero as you noted in your exhibits. The next question on the timeline discontinuation window, you could bring that up, Michelle. so um your the timeline discontinuation window and i'm going to bring this slide up that she's a moment so you know i'm going to talk a little bit on the second question that you had the city does not typically get a copy of the lease we don't see them when people start their lease when people break their lease we don't we don't know they businesses do not tell us so that's not something that is shared with cities it's not you know it's not part of their typically part of people's applications but that's not something we would know unless they willingly gave us a copy of that lease so we don't know um the window that you mentioned about the lapse of non-conforming use um and it shows it on this slide you know revolution better for you foods their lease ended july 2024. that is a fact that is documented we have no documentation of ocean view marine being involved until they apply for a business license with the city that was in october of 2024 when they applied for a business license they did not follow through with that application it was incomplete it was inactive that went through December 2024 that's 150 days but just the first time period alone just from the point of application there's your 90 day period so right there three months July August September that's your first non that's a 90 day period right there

The next point.

You talked about Lucid using the loading dock if they could coexist with the use. Well, Lucid has been parking cars on the property. They use the loading docks. Those spaces are very long, so they make tandem parking, as you noted in the photograph we showed you earlier this evening. We did finally get a redacted copy of Lucid's lease from Mr. Gladstone just a few days ago. We did not need to enter it into the record. It does not provide any more information that you don't already have. That lease with Lucid, I'm going to state this right now, the parking lease agreement uh made on the 28th day of june 2024 the effective date by in between edward kwan and sao fun chong as trustees of the kwan and chung 2022 family trust uh licensor and lucid group usa incorporated delaware corporation licensing very top of the lease i'm just reading the top of it so i was with mr kwan so that lease is between lucid and mr kwan based on the document mr gladstone provided us want to state that for the record so that's your next question um so that is who lucid has a sublease could they coexist with use i don't see how you could use the loading dock for or move in and out as a warehouse distribution use of your parking cars in the loading dock so the next one the water use on the bill it is identified in attachment six pull up attachment six first page of attachment six is the the meter usage from the water department and it's zero for most of the months um in uh april 2025 there's an abnormal data point it shows up as 200 we're not sure we can't really speak to that but every other month is zero through um july 2025 so from from august i'm sorry from october 2023 through february 26 2025 the city water meter is zero every single month zero no water usage whatsoever um the uh the uh property owner provided uh pgd uh power bills but even a vacant building uses electricity fire exits you have you know alarms you have smoke detectors you have things that are electrified even in a building that's not being used however water is a different utility because water demonstrates an active use with employees employees who are in the building using the toilet getting a drink that demon water usage demonstrates an active business use Your next question was about JC Kitchen. JC Kitchen came well after this time period. So if you look at the timeline on your screen here, we're talking July 2025, just recently was JC Kitchen involved. So they're not a data point here. When you make your determination of a nonconformity because that time period is much farther in the past. We're talking July 2024, but when JC Kitchen applied for that zoning clearance, I want to make it very clear. We act on applications of staff. We do not actively monitor the land use status of properties. We don't go out there and keep track of everything. We only do the research when an application comes in. Somebody applies, we take it in for processing, and only from that point forward do we research it. so uh so like i said staff do not take uh an action until we get that application but the action is the determination is is what comes of that was a zoning clearance issued was a business license issued it either was or it wasn't there's no in between if staff sends you an email and says yeah we're working on it we'll get back to you with a response in this case you know the applicant referenced jennifer's email that's not an approval we're working on it it does not state there's an approval there we never gave them an email indicating oh yes it's approved you either are approved or you're not there is no in between in this case they were not um the last question you had i think was um said you were surprised that uh they were not using the facility the lease ran through 2027 that's what i wrote down but if you want to clarify that last one

Yeah, but actually before we move on to that, uh the attachment five of our packet there is the email um uh discussing uh please see the attached zoning clearance approval uh for the and then there was an invitation to uh ask for to discuss what the proposed signage would be and then submit the business license application so how does that zoning clearance approval well maybe you even have it on the timeline because i see october yeah so october 2024 so if the zoning even if there's no business license approved if there's a zoning clearance approval doesn't that mean that staff

new so at that point staff would have researched uh whether there was 90 days to whether there was 90 days from when the previous no because the zoning clearance is is the land use legal or not if you come to us with the zoning clearance and you say oh i have let's say retail staff is only looking at the code and saying that's either allowed or not allowed we do not research an active business status through a zoning clearance that is through a business license So the zoning clearance is based on that prior three before the 90-day window. But that 90-day window had lapsed. And so by that date, what is it, October 15th, it would have lapsed. The staff did not note that. But the business license was not issued and the non-conforming use had exceeded 90 days.

So why wasn't the zoning clearance approval in October of 2024 denied then, if it had lapsed in 90 days?

It was denied. It was denied because that was a mistake. That's why we're here this evening.

Okay. All right. And then, okay, and then the last question I had, maybe since it's about the timing of lease agreements, it's not, you know, as you mentioned earlier, it's not really something the city is overseeing. So maybe, you know, if the applicant wants to answer that, I guess I can hear more from them about the interaction between all the different parties involved. It was basically just like, seemed like Ocean View wanted to continue to use the facility, at least according to all the evidence that's been entered as to saying that they're in active use. And yet they're at the same time, the owners at the same time marketing to try to sell the property to another person, to another business that they testified earlier, they went to visit the facility, all of that. And it just wasn't, it's a little foggy for me. So that's why I wanted to know.

you know when staff receives a zoning clearance they have no they're only as good as the information in front of them and in this instance it's pretty clear that ocean view foods was not using the property so what they did is they just didn't use it we have no documented evidence that they use this property so when they came in even past that night that 150 day period it's still questionable whether they even use the property we do not we we do not have conclusive evidence and we don't we don't have any have anything showing that they were actually running a warehouse and distribution business on this property so that's why we're here tonight it's that simple question is was this did this lapse did this lapse of use exist and it did because we they did not run a business at this property There's no water usage. There's no evidence of employees on the property. We've got lucid parking cars there. So we have adequate evidence, and I think any reasonable person could accept that as adequate to support the conclusion that Ocean View Marine Foods was not operating on the property.

And again, just having a lease to you does not constitute evidence of wanting to continue use of that, of the property for that purpose?

A copy of a lease, but is the lease still active? I don't know. Okay. You know, did they cancel it? I don't know. What I base my, what we base our evidence on is, is this an active use? Is it clear? So,

All right, thanks.

Were all your questions addressed? Okay.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. I have a couple more. So I think this first one's for the city or attorney advising the Planning Commission. How should we define or look at the term wholly discontinued non-conforming use? Is there a legal definition or is it up to our interpretation?

it's up to your interpretation of the the municipal code section so oh it's up to the commission's interpretation of what wholly discontinued means um and for staff is it true that

only the business is fully operational can they seek a fire inspection and only then could they apply for business license not fully operation but moved in moved in i'll give you an example i had a business i think they were a hair salon or something and they called for an inspection for building and fire and they went there and it was empty no chairs no mirrors no saying it's just an empty room they said we'll call us back when you're when you're when you're set up so they have to be set up

the business license can only you can only apply for it after you're essentially set up and show that no no you can apply for it before it's the inspection okay but how about the business license the business license you can apply for at any time is it possible to apply for business license as soon as i have a lease or as soon as i have an intent as soon as you have a lease yes so you have to have a property owner's permission the property owner has to be a signature to the business license but i have there's no prerequisite

beyond wanting to start the business for me to apply for business license is there if the property owner authorizes you okay yes and they do not have to have a lease to be authorized it can be just a signature from the property owner got you licensing yeah I authorized this okay um that's all I have for now thank you I'm not sure where to start so just gonna go in the order that I find them here

I think I just heard there's no definition of fully discontinued but what's in our own heads is that what I just heard yes that's defined by the Planning Commission okay so we have no definitions of vacant or abandoned either not in the municipal code section okay so we don't know whether vacant abandoned whatever is activity is a fully executed lease is or is an ongoing concern basically i mean because it does sound like from what we've heard that an existing lease could be interpreted as activity so revolution could have been through june of 2020 or the end of june to 2024 right so but well they weren't really hanging out there much so were the activity does it count that's totally unclear i don't know if that's a question but that's a concern the lack of the water meter to nathan's point i mean if anybody was using the restrooms So it would show up. But if we have an anomaly at the 200 units out of nowhere, if that's an anomaly, why can't the zeros be an anomaly? I mean, where's the data?

I mean, how do I trust 200 cubic feet of water is very similar to what you might fill a water truck to put water on a property to get rid of dust control like dust control measures. So. i can't give you any evidence but it's my speculation that it could be someone filling up a water truck because it's such a precise number very unusual to have a precise number of that type on a water meter okay but again so this just this isn't solid for me it's it's okay but i can't say every other month not but that's what I'm saying but we had the it's one anomaly so it's like yeah and it made it did we say it's an anomaly but right maybe the meter's broken I mean did anybody ever go check when we've got a zero zero zero for even three bills in a row did we think what happened there we've we have water meters all the time that register zero and we don't they're that's not a reason to go out and check if it's okay

Uhm, on the flip side, the PG&E bill for Ocean View, the furthest one back was. Billed in November, but it had a previous balance, which means there was an October bill and I'd like to know if there were any other bills prior to that. I would defer to the yeah, I mean anybody who can answer that can answer that whenever the crime is appropriate. Uhm? looks like ocean views lease started in around October of 2024 if if we're saying the abandonment started at the end of revolutions lease at the end of June July August September we're talking thank you 1st September 1st would be in the 90 days of of that so for counting lease terms as a evidence of a business wanting to operate there it was in the 90 days of the end of the previous lease if leases aren't good enough I want to know what is good enough because somebody also at one point mentioned intent does intent matter at all does that have any role in our ordinance

do you want to speak to that so to establish and this is on behalf of staff you know miss Tran can can advise you separately but staff's position would be that you need both abandonment and intent to abandon so you need both and the and stuff's position is that the evidence shows there was actual abandonment as well as an intent to abandon based on the lack of water usage and electricity and other factors whose intent we had businesses operating there but we also have an owner did the because it doesn't sound like the owner ever wanted the property to be vacant and abandoned so based on our research the intent of a tenant can also be attributable to the owner the property owner his attorney did argue that you know it's not it's not the case but we we have not seen any case law to dispute that assertion that even if the owner didn't want to abandon if the tenant exhibited an intent to abandon that can be attributable under the statute

and if an owner is trying really hard to get a new business in place that would continue that use is it even possible within city rules and typical timelines of turning around all paperwork can even accomplish it if it was a transition between tenants 90 days isn't a very long time to get somebody in and out out and in excuse me

well the property owner if that was the case the property owner could have contacted the city and explained that they were trying to get a new tenant in and they still had an existing use that was legal non-conforming but the city staff's position is that the the 90-day limit is not discretionary in the statute in the Municipal Code it says the the use shall be deemed to have been abandoned so it's the the commission does not have discretion on as to whether or not to extend that 90-day limit okay i'm not suggesting extending it but i'm just trying to figure out how it is we determine the actual date of abandonment and then when that 90 days starts ticking that's what's hard here

Sorry, I don't know. I know how to interpret what abandonment means here. It sounds like it's up to me. For me, that's step one, and I'm having trouble defining that right now. And then, yes, the date.

I need a date. Yes. ocean view was working with the city to get a zoning approval which i don't see how that is or isn't i don't if it's not related to the non-conforming use then was that ever explained to anybody if that that was relevant but why did we approve that in october of 2024 and wait until july of 2025 to say oops sorry never mind you can't do this thing anymore i don't where's the where's the in between i can speak to that thank you so when someone applies for a zoning clearance staff simply look and see if that land use is legal or not legal

when you apply within that 90 day period, we're going to give you an answer based on the status when you apply. So a zoning clearance determination is based on the date you apply. So if October is the 90 day date where they lapsed the first date where they hit that 90 day period and they continued to not use the property after that date, that's what we've identified in the slide in front of you right here. So that October that zoning clearance was right right within the was in the 90-day period when staff looked at it but that also doesn't mean that you can carry on for the next year and not show any evidence of activity because there is no evidence of activity a zoning clearance itself is not evidence of activity of an active business use Neither is a lease. A lease does not mean it's an active business use. A lease is simply a document between a property and the user that says, yeah, I'm going to lease it. But we have businesses that break their lease all the time. We don't know, but they're not there. And so, you know, the zoning clearance is not evidence of an active use. It's not evidence saying that, yeah, this property is actively being used. So that's why it's not a bearing to the decision in your packet. It's just simply, was that a permitted use at the time of application?

Well, but I think you're arguing that it was already outside, but I'm not sure that it was because no one can give me a start date for abandonment.

Yeah, the start. Well, and the start date we're saying is July 2024. That was the beginning when we saw no activity and that has continued. It's been that way since. so the evidence that we have before you like i said we have evidence that i believe a reasonable person could accept as adequate to support the conclusion that this was a abandoned use so a water bill and what's i know there was one a water bill a lease from lucid motors and a lease that and we also have like i said we have no evidence of These invoices that we received clearly show a lapse of more than 90 days. They have 150-day lapse. The invoices that we received from the applicant are on holiday and weekends when you don't normally see business activity. They're PDFs that we received right before the agenda packet went out. So I can't speak to the credibility of this. Um, that's all we received. I mean, when we put this agenda packet together, all we received as evidence from the applicant from the property owner were those invoices. We received nothing else. If a business truly had someone working on that property, I would have testimony. I would typically have more documentation than just seven invoices. I would have perhaps an employee come and say, Yeah, I work there from this day. I might have a time card. I might have know some purchase orders from their purchasing department showing things were brought to serve the employees i might have some kind of contract for labor on the site i've got nothing i got seven invoices so i think that's a reasonable evidence to conclude that this was an abandoned use we just don't have the evidence we've asked for it and before this hearing when the agenda packet went out we did not receive that evidence and so the what you're reviewing here as you said it's very thin

Because then on both sides is my problem. And because I don't have definitions and dates, it makes it very hard. That's all I'm going to say for now. Are there questions that are there anything all those questions?

Do the applicants want to say anything?

OK, go ahead.

again thank you for your time tonight now the first question relates to the water usage from my understanding because they were not set up to operate fully it was used as a debt storage so products ship there when they i was i related to me when there were orders they would come and open up pick up the products now if you look at those invoices those if you look at the description those are dry goods dry abalone sea cucumber can those are those are not side stuff those are expensive product if you're you know familiar with the Asian culture those are very expensive product that do not take a huge truck to ship and and that's what I why was told so they had boxes of these product if you look at the invoices that's what they were so and as to the Lucid parking I may not have written down everything so please remind me if I miss anything the Lucid parking in the front are their employee parkings you can clearly see those are not Lucid cars but Lucid use the back side of the building as a storage for their vehicles now the fact that Lucid started parking in those area Really help even when better for you were we're still there to keep away all the Unauthorized parking and and and a lot of quite a few times there were just encampment back there so loose so better for you brought them in and just because they don't have an active operation on a regular basis at that point as the former owner of well the from Jackie related to me they had started to consolidate to the East Bay but they still had daily employees inside assigned to that facility but they needed to make sure that the other areas outside of the building are not occupied by you know an authorized party so that's my understanding from talking to them now as to the business license it is absolutely true that fire department wanted well in my experience I own a business too if they if they you know the fire inspection needs to have equipment and personnel in place to to verify compliance so that's what the the owner of ocean view told me they call they call after they receive that email on december 30th spoke to someone at Fire Millbrae one of the fire marshal he did not take down the name because now we're looking back in time I mean at that time a you know if you were just running your business those were the information given to you you know why didn't you you know be more active in following up because I guess I can't speak to the owner but My understanding is she reached out and talked to them, and they said, well, call us back when you're ready. Now, going back to the point that the city is making about the PG&E bills, I mean, that is not just lighting. That amount is not a huge amount, but I think it's pretty consistent with coming and going, turning on lights. I mean, if it was all dark, 24 seven, you wouldn't have a bill of seven, $800. month I mean on average so it is not just you know lights and and fire alarm that would generate at least that's my my you know my understanding and my experience with my own warehouse in Oakland right that's how much we pay and we don't have anything beyond you know just a warehouse in Oakland so so to address the issue of JC kitchen I think as I mentioned in my presentation at the beginning of this year 2025 I want to say February March there about there about that's when ocean view approached me and and and it was just frustrated and say hey you know I'm just having trouble getting the right people to set up this processing operation do you have can you find a sublease or any other you know option that at that point that's when we started marketing for looking for both a lease and the sale while Ocean View continued to be in the facility to store. So I want to emphasize, they did not have a regular employee at the site. They had their storage of products because their real goal, their real operation is seafood processing. What they store at the facility were know dry seafood abalone you know sea cucumber and abalone i mean you look at the invoices that's what they were um so that's the that's my uh you know for my but i can what else did i miss i think that i wrote down so much so much that i probably did not address all your questions if you could remind me what i missed and also I'm just going back to what mr. Morganson said just now we again I mentioned at that early the first meeting we requested back in July after that denial of notice to JC kitchen we spent my brokers and I try to urge him to look at the evidence and we offer what documentation all the documentation that we we could that we can bring to him but he basically was not interested he didn't want it so it's not true that the city asked for it it's mr. Gladstone just forwarded to them you know after he took on the case so we actually did offer those documentation very early on and yet you know mr. meta Roscoe meta basically said you know that's I don't remember his exact words but he was not interested so please commissioners if I if there are other questions that I did not address please remind me by the way also I'm sorry regarding business license whether a business is considered active only after a business license I mean until even recently I think there are emails from the city then to ocean view as recently as May or June saying it's time to renew your business license so what if there was no active business license how do you renew there were multiple such emails um the problem the issue goes back to we could not find or they could not finalize their business license application because they were told by fire department that the equipment and personnel need to be in place to verify compliance that's and they were not they had not been able to in you know have equipment and personnel in place because as we explained they did not have to purse the the right person that knows how to set up seafood processing that they that they were able to work with to bring up to to the Bay Area so they did not call the fire department and in the meantime they were using the facility just as a dead storage those high-value marine products that they distribute from this location to customers mostly probably all Asian markets in the Bay Area I mean you can look at this invoices that's what they were I think I hope I address most of your question if you know if you have any that I that I can answer I had one I guess I'm still a little confused about

know what ocean view's relationship with this property was around the time that you uh signed the or you found jc kitchen to work out a purchase agreement um so in your testimony just now you mentioned that they told you that they wanted to that they probably or my takeaway from what you were saying is that they told you that they didn't think they could set up a food process they were having difficulty establishing a long-term processing facility there and so they asked you to figure out a way to sublease or find out some other thing. That doesn't seem especially consistent with the letter that we received. This is the October 8th letter where I see language like, our landlord informed us that he received an email from the city manager telling him that our use was no longer legal. upon what is the operational status of ocean view after learning about the city's position despite all of the evidence of continued city approved occupancy since october 2024 we demanded the landlord to terminate our lease immediately that to me at least just reading these words it sounds like they were prepared to continue operating in middle millbrae indefinitely so it doesn't quite dive with what you're what you just told us about sure to vacate to intending to leave at some point right so our relationship as you know with landlord and tenant had always been a very very pleasant and friendly

relationship so when they told us told me um early on in 2025 i told them yeah okay i'll start looking ask my brokers to look but of course they're still obligated under the lease and as any landlord i will not release anybody unless there's a clear you know a reasonable way to continue the you know the financial side of a building thank you you know you just cannot randomly or or just say okay yeah here break the lease because that's that's not something landlords would do unless they can find alternatives so I as I told ocean view we will start marketing it both you know trying to find another occupant or if we could find a user buyer that would take the building so and as of now even they are still on the lease they are they've asked to break the lease but you know from my position I I can't just say okay here you go let me just cancel the lease so so that that's the situation they they wanted to break the lease once I informed them because because you know back in July I told him hey we got a buyer so they were anticipating that they could leave when the escort closes in July and it was set to close in July. It's after when the city denied JC's non-conforming use application that I told them and that's the letter that they came, you know, that sent me that they wanted out because now they're in jeopardy, right? What's their status? They're still obligated to me the lease financially but if they can't operate you know we're gonna I don't know how I'm gonna resolve it with them but legally they are still on the lease but they doubt the question is can they operate if the city suddenly takes this stands even though mr. Morganson said staff are just you know processing based on the code that is true that the city process but they you know the whether a business can establish is really begins by and a use approval nobody applies to a business license before they can be certain that their use is approved by the city so that actually know the the the use application my my experience has been you have to be approved by the city for your particular use before you can even start thinking about setting up a business and in this case that's exactly what happened they did apply a business license and was told that a fire inspection is needed to finalize that application and to call back when they are fully operational, which they couldn't, they didn't, they weren't able to do. And the city continued to send requests to renew the business license. So if a business license was not issued, why did the city continue to request a renewal? that's my you know that's my understanding so maybe the maybe the city can address that um better than i can through the chair could i ask cities to have to address that point so the city contracts business license processing with a company called hdl they're based in fresno

Their software sends out an automated email reminder to anyone who has put an email address into their system. Business licenses are renewed annually at the same time. So those are automated emails that everyone receives. It sends out automated emails. They are not evidence for the record that the city was communicating on this topic directly to the applicant. THEY'RE GENERIC E-MAILS. IT'S JUST LIKE ANY OTHER DEPARTMENT. I GET AUTOMATED E-MAILS ABOUT CITY EVENTS THAT ALL KINDS OF THINGS ALL THE TIME. I'M SURE YOU DO TOO. SO I JUST WANT TO SPEAK TO THAT.

I just have a few comments. I'll be much shorter than I was before, but these are legal issues. First of all, Mr. Morgenstern just said that a zoning clearance only dates what is allowed by zoning, and our zoning clearance only dates what the zoning allows. Well, that's not true. At the time the zoning clearance was given, industrial was not allowed. I don't know why Mr. Morgenson just said that zoning clearance says what the zoning allows. What the zoning clearance must have been was a statement that, you know, the non-conforming use continues even though zoning doesn't allow it today. The person who wrote it must have had in mind that the non-conforming use was continuing when he gave the zoning clearance because couldn't be saying mr morgeson he couldn't be saying that the zoning allows your use the zoning didn't allow zoning at the time the the zoning clearance was given i also want to mention a few things i was listening closely to mr morgeson and i wrote down some notes in the last time he spoke he you he said it's reasonable for staff to have assumed a reasonable person would have assumed um and there are many words like that i just wanted to remind you and the city attorney can find you it's in your resolution that you have to find that there was substantial evidence in the record and you know i'm not sure statements like you know it's reasonable for us to assume it'd be reasonable for anybody to assume given this than that So remember, the burden is on the city. I was, you know, the city attorney told you a few minutes ago they have not received judicial case citations from me that prove my points. Well, again, we haven't received judicial citations from the city attorney that proves their point. Remember, it's their burden, not ours, to show that the law doesn't support us and supports them. The case I mentioned in my brief of HH Armistead versus City of Los Angeles explicitly talks about how you cannot attribute the actions of a tenant to a landlord, and that I want to make sure, because in the record I was accused of not providing the judicial citation. THE OTHER POINT I WANTED TO MAKE IS THAT THE EMAIL FROM THE CITY MANAGER WAS A REVOCATION OF A RIGHT GRANTED OF A STATEMENT THAT um there was a zoning clearance and i again i said we had we had to assume the zoning clearance meant the non-conforming use had approved uh and it's how strange to have the letter eight months after six months after from the sitting manager saying you know we revoked that decision non-conforming use wasn't approved non-confirming use couldn't be approved my clients the notion view relied on that this is called a couple of other things of the fact that lucid used the docking is not inconsistent with there being no industrial use of the property you've heard there was storage use when distribution stopped there continued to be storage use if there's storage and no distribution people aren't using the loading docks and remember storage is an industrial use As long as there is any industrial use of the property, they didn't have to be also distribution. Then there was a non abandonment. And I've indicated the cases than judicial the judicial cases indicating that abandonment has to be total abandonment your code says has to be wholly non-use holy storage can't say that the building was not wholly uh unused and i think just one more point um yeah um Well, I think I think I made them. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Chair Davis, I have one more question. One more question.

Go for it.

so earlier it was mentioned that there was there were there was a second sublease agreement between lucid and the property owner to enable the car the them to continue using the facility for parking we didn't really discuss the terms of that lease but i would love to know you know, was there any language in there around how their use of the lot would coexist with a storage and distribution use? I mean, as we saw in the vote, as we saw in the photos earlier today, earlier in this meeting, like it didn't look like you could get anything in and out of out of the building where the cars were situated. So I would just like to know If that parking arrangement precluded the ability for the facility to be used as a storage and distribution facility, then that doesn't make any sense to me.

I'm going to read the term of the lease into the record for you in the use section because we did not provide the printed copy. Alright, so in section two of the lease that I mentioned earlier at the podium use. The licensed area shall be dedicated to the exclusive use of licensee, its employees, customers, guests, invitees and visitors 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the purpose of storing electric vehicles, and all lawful ancillary uses licensor shall ensure that licensee has reasonable access to the licensed area at all times throughout the term and shall not allow any party other than licensee to use the licensed area. And that is what the Lee says from between Lucid Motors and Edward Quan and Southmont Chung as trustees of the Quan and Chung 2022 family trust. So I want to state that for the record.

is there any elaboration on what the licensed area was is there any explanation of what the licensed area was because earlier we heard that they were only using the back lot but your photos indicate they were using more than the back lot i'm going to print the lease right now for the commission for the record since it's come up twice thank you

so the the license area only for the parking area not the building itself so that that's the backside there's a there's actually a aerial view of where is you know what areas are licensed to the parking now again I want to refer you to the invoices description these are not huge products If you're not familiar, these can be hand-trucked from the front. These are boxes of abalone, boxes of dry cucumbers. These are dry products that they store. I've seen it. I mean, it doesn't take a forklift to do it. They easily hand-truck those stuff in and out from the front door. there's access from the front door for the double double glass door so that's my understanding and i've seen the product in the inside the warehouse those are high value expensive products but they don't take up the whole warehouse the whole warehouse was intended and dedicated for actual seafood processing thank you and my brokers reminded me that parking agreement has a months I think 90-day termination that goes that goes both way they could terminate and I so it's not a long term it's really a stopgap that enable them to cover some of their you know their their overflow and in a way for for for the previous tenant and for the for me to prevent like you know people occupying and throwing stuff all over the place and that took that did happen so that's just a temporary stopgap and it's only for the exterior parking area so when did that sub lease begin it started with better for you I mean the the email from from from Jackie stated that

even they you know it started with them it's bringing it when it gets printed he's going to bring it okay i'll wait for the print thank you okay thank you all right next up is public comment we're going to open the public hearing now members of the public wishing to speak on this item please give us a speaker slipper raise your hand on zoom comments are usually limited to three minutes Is there any hands or sleeps? There are no speaker slips or hands raised on Zoom. All righty. Seeing no further speakers, the public hearing is now closed. We should have a motion and a second to do that. Do I have those?

I'll motion.

Motion to close the public comment, public hearing.

Public hearing is now closed. Motion passes 3-0.

All right. We're down to commission deliberation now. Who wants to discuss? What? Sorry? Chair Davis? Yeah? We have rebuttals. Rebuttals to what? I thought that was rebuttal to public comment. We didn't have any. uh rebuttals so that the parties can address any okay who who cities first any rebuttal i'm looking at this i just thought that was rebuttal's public comment not because i thought we already rebutted everything that got said but if there's more please we want more thank you so City staff. Well, this is staff, city staff or city attorney. Who wants to go first?

I believe city staff will go first, OK?

You have five minutes in total this site and that site.

Technical.

We're waiting for.

you could go to slide 14. so planning commission is basing their decision on the evidence before them this evening There's been a lot of confusing testimony that was presented to you this evening, testimony that was not backed up with records, testimony that was not backed up with documentation.

Findings of fact are pretty clear.

We know that Better For You Foods departed the property June 30th, 2024. We know that no warehouse and distribution abuse occurred since at least September 28th, 2024. That is a 90-day period with no activity. We know that the property owner in Ocean View Marine did not follow through in obtaining a business license from the city. They did not receive one. We have no evidence in the record demonstrating active business transactions or employment until the first invoice dated November 28th, 2024, which is 150 days, and it happens to be Thanksgiving Day. Next slide. know that there's no water meter usage on the property we know that lucid motors had a month-to-month lease to use the property and i quoted the use in that lease which is now before you documented for the record for this commission they have been using the property for parking cars since june 2024 and the use of that lease shows them as exclusive to the property next slide It's pretty clear in the municipal code that if a nonconforming use is wholly discontinued for 90 days, it is deemed abandoned. The documentation that city staff has provided you, including lease agreements, correspondence, and utility records, clearly demonstrate the nonconforming warehouse and distribution use was ceased. It had ceased for more than a 90-day period. That is very clear. Next slide. The decision before you is limited to whether or not the use was abandoned under the municipal code Based on the documentation. It's not based on what? Somebody claims they heard from ocean view tonight. It has to be documented Documentation before you very very clear go to court. It's based on that documentation. We have documented that I think our documentation is the city very very clear that this was abandoned and

Property owner wants to pursue this as a use.

They have outlets to do that. There are other avenues for the property owner to go forward. They can come in and apply for a specific plan amendment. They can go that route. That is an option available to them. This is not the path forward for them to get to where they want it. They would like to continue using this as a warehouse and distribution use, make a request to the city to change the specific plan. That option is always available to them. They can do that right now. They could have done that in July, 2024. slide and so based on that we find that there is substantial evidence in the record demonstrating a clear period of disfuse of the property lack of business activity we also find that the property owner and ocean view marine products demonstrated in an intent to abandon the warehouse and distribution use by failing to respond to the business license requirements for inspection and failing to obtain that business license Substantial evidence is not a lack of conflicting evidence. It is evidence a reasonable person could accept as adequate to support a conclusion. Does the evidence fairly support that our conclusion is a city? Yes, it does. We don't actively monitor the land use status of properties. And a zoning business license was not issued. And so I think the evidence of the record is very clear tonight that this use was abandoned for 90 days, more than 90 days. SO THAT IS OUR REBUTTAL THIS EVENING FOR THE PLANNING COMMISSION.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU.

NEW SPEAKER LORI IS GOING TO SPEAK NEXT ON THE CITY ATTORNEY.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU. SO MR. MOGANSON COVERED QUITE A BIT OF WHAT I WAS ALSO GOING TO TALK ABOUT. Just to reiterate, the property owner is welcome to file a petition with the Planning Commission for rezoning or to seek to have the specific plan amended to permit the currently non-performing warehouse and distribution uses. That would be the path forward. That is not something that can be done tonight. um the municipal code does not give discretion to the planning commission on the 90-day period uh the language says that the that the you shall shall be deemed to have been abandoned so as noted by the property owner the exceptions do not apply um and the property owner has acknowledged this but asked is this fair and unfortunately this isn't about fairness this is about applying the municipal code which the planning commission has to do strictly so as mr mogenson said substantial evidence does not mean the absence of conflicting evidence it just means that the evidence weighs in favor of the findings the property owner not believe has submitted evidence sufficient to show that there is a current distribution use as noted the as correctly noted by the commissioners the parking and use of the loading docks we believe is inconsistent it's not just about the expiration of the business license there's other evidence that the city has offered to show that use has been abandoned so conclusion we believe that the there is sufficient evidence for the planning commission to reasonably find that the use has been abandoned thank you property owner five minutes um so let me first um

your attention to the the lease that that was just submitted and you'll notice only the red area were part of the the parking clearly there's a path from the front door is not part of this sublease agreement and I've seen those products being loaded from through that door and again I want to reiterate these are high values small size products that can be loaded with hand trucks and secondly mr morgeson keeps referring to the first instance of the invoice being a thanksgiving day and i like to remind him he can go to any stores on thanksgiving day that are chinese operated we do not close for thanksgiving so it's point of pointing to that seem to suggest those are not that date is in question I just want to bring that up and it's curious to me where why the city only used the the you know only limiting the utility used to water PG&E bill bills are clearly utilities and to have seven eight hundred dollars of utility bills a month is consistent with a desk storage It is not consistent with a dark warehouse And to the point that the City attorney just made quoted she cited the the code now we the public can only rely on what information the city has provided us so are we to not depend on what the city staff communicated to us through email that yes I'm preparing in a letter of extension to you it will be sent to you you clearly saw that email they keep they kept you know they'd never addressed that email now whether or not yeah you know that is a fact that we rely we the public rely on that communication with with the city staff How are we supposed to function as public if we don't know what was communicated to us to be reliable? So that's my point.

Thank you.

I believe I have, what, two minutes? Yeah.

Five minutes.

Oh, five minutes. Thank you. OK. So I'd like to address the comment from Mr. Morgan Stern.

It's going to be now because Andrew took 5 so I said OK then 5 for you, 5 for you, 5 for you, so 5.

Yeah, 5 if you want it. If I don't have to, I don't need it. OK, so Mr. Morgan then had stated earlier tonight that there is no evidence of this use continuing industrial use continuing as late as June 2025 when I brought up and I showed you it's in your briefs. june 2025 shipping invoice of ocean view that's evidence mr morganston said we need more evidence well not really i'm not sure why that is not evidence why do we need to provide more i would ask What has the city provided to say that shipping invoice isn't valid? Mr. Morganson implied that it's not valid, that anybody could create a shipping invoice. Well, it's up to the city to show why that's an improper invoice. Things were forged. It wasn't real. They haven't shown that. And they have a burden, as you know. Then, you know, We have the ability to go to the city to seek a plan amendment, but I'm a land use attorney and I can tell you that such an amendment with environmental impact studies and the like can easily take nine months. Who knows if it will pass? And by the way, if it's not initiated by the city, and I have no reason to think the city will, given the statements of Mr. Morgenson tonight, then it has to be initiated by my client. Initiation by a person of a zoning change costs tens of thousands of dollars. And if he initiates it, he needs consultants to support him. Then he needs me. It's a lot of money. It could take nine months. During that nine months, the use would be abandoned. We're talking about blight. he has no income and we're not sure the city council would approve so that possibility i i don't think is is a fair one to to be offered to us especially since the law is clear that there has to be shown and intend to abandon the case law armistead i presented also says that the actions of a tenant cannot be attributed to a landlord. I pointed out that it's not your custom and practice in issuing conditional use permits and taking them away because a tenant has changed and the landlord has no intent to continue with another tenant in the same use. uh it's simply not done it's not fair and i don't know of any jurisdiction that that takes away conditional uses because of uh actions by a tenant uh that show his intent or her intent to to abandon um mr morgeson also emphasized there was no follow-through on getting a business license well you know we've showed you an email from jennifer lynn of the city saying uh will need to renew it in about six months uh in in june of 2025 well obviously when ocean view and my clients saw that they assumed they already have one you you as my client said why would there be uh a request to renew if there's why if there's one in existence so my client in ocean view thought there was one in existence so of course they didn't follow through in getting a business license and besides it was hard for them to do because the fire department and the experience of my client testified that it wants something more operational than ocean view was able to to have at that time a real catch-22 um With that, I'll let it rest. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay, now it's time for commission deliberation. The hearing is now closed.

Commissioners, do you want to start?

Go ahead.

Well, it's been a lively discussion. Thank you. Thank you everyone for your time and coming here. To start, I've heard a lot of evidence and argument as to what the best use for this plot of land is. I think we generally tend to agree, but that's not relevant here. The question for us is whether there's been more than 90 days of wholly discontinued non-conforming use. I think the information we've been given, that I've been reading, or the lack of, makes this very confusing. On the one hand, there was a zoning clearance issued by staff that was outside the presumed 90-day period, or at least the 90-day period that's in my mind now between June 30th to September of 2024. Also, the utility bills. The earliest invoice of the PG&E bill was also outside of that presumed 90-day period. So I'm not sure where that fits. um for me because there's no definition of wholly discontinued non-conforming uses and it's up to me to define that I am going to interpret that the intent of the landlord to maintain the use to be fitting within what's the to be part of that use and and the possibility of any activity however insignificant or infrequent that may potentially be part of or that may fit the term of the non-conforming use to be a reason why I would think that it was not abandoned and therefore I would not support the resolution thank you

I also find the signals given tonight from all the testimony and evidence very confusing. I think I come to a slightly different conclusion than Vice Chair Choi, however. I appreciate staff supplying us with the lease agreement and the diagram of what area was licensed. To me, it's the inconsistencies that make me wonder about the intention to have to continue the use. It seems like the fact that Lucid was uh granted the right to park anywhere in the facility including the loading dock would preclude the other tenant the main tenant from being able to utilize the facility for the storage and distribution use and again the the the written testimony from the written response from Ocean View that seems to imply that they were prepared to continue their usage indefinitely. It doesn't quite align with what I've heard in terms of the timing of the marketing to the new buyer. You know, I think it is the the timing of the zoning clearance approval is a little confusing and it does make me think that the owner and the tenant were given clearance to proceed with the non-conforming use but outside of the 90-day period but again I feel like the inconsistencies in terms of the actual activity at the site and other other written agreements that have been shared make me wonder like was there ever a like would ocean view have ever had the right would were they ever in a position to use the facility in a way that it was intended and how and so that to me makes me Makes me think about the the makes me think that the the actual activity of the site was not. Was not the non conforming use. So. It's a difficult decision for me based on the confusing signals, but I think I would vote to uphold the resolution presented to us by staff.

Thank you. been a lot presented to us a lot of it was yes very confusing um contradictory i regret any mixed signals that the city may have communicated but in the end there is enough evidence to show that there has been abandonment nothing's been happening there i hope in the future if this ever happens again we'll have more clear processes in place and notifications and perhaps double checking on our businesses before we decide these things. But at the end of the day, this is what we have now. And with no water usage with Lucid occupying all of the outside space with no business license and no apparent actual activity, I too will vote yes. There aren't any other other comments. I'll entertain a motion.

Let me just bring the resolution up. All right, I move we approve the resolution of the Planning Commission of the City of Millbrae, making a determination of abandonment of a nonconforming use in the retail commercial zoning district in the Millbrae Station Area Specific Plant Area at 370 Adrian Road and making a finding of exemption pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act Section 15061 . It's the little lever.

Oh, that's right. We haven't done this in forever. We brought the thing back. I'll second that. Can we vote? Okay.

SO I'LL JUST ADVISE THE PLANNING COMMISSION THAT ACCORDING TO NO BRAIN MUNICIPAL CODE SECTION TWO DOT ONE ZERO DOT ZERO FIVE ZERO THREE MEMBERS OF THE COMMISSION SHALL CONSTITUTE A QUORUM FOR THE TRANSACTION OF BUSINESS AND A MAJORITY OF THE QUORUM PRESIDENT SHALL HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO ACT ON ANY MATTER REGULARLY COMING BEFORE THE COMMISSION SUCH AS THIS ONE SO A VOTE OF TWO ONE TO PASS THE RESOLUTION WOULD PASS THE RESOLUTION. THANK YOU FOR CLARIFYING.

THANK YOU. MOTION PASSES 2-1.

Thank you. The action of the Planning Commission is considered final pending a 10-day appeal period and the payment of a required appeal fee. For anyone that wishes to appeal the decision of the Planning Commission, please contact the City Clerk at 650-259-2414 or etran at ci.milbray.ca.us with appeal process questions or visit the City of Milbray website at ci.milbray.ca.us. Thank you, everybody. Moving on to new business. I don't see any staff updates.

Yeah, I guess we still have a hearing. My apologies. It's been a long night. I don't have any updates for you.

Nothing? Nothing's going on?

There's a lot of things going on, but I don't have any updates at the moment for you. Do we know if we have we'll have a meeting on the next meeting date is November 6 I'm sorry. It's been a long night. I'm sorry. It's November 3rd and at this moment in time We do not have any items scheduled for the November 3rd meeting so I expect we'll be sending out a cancellation notice for that meeting and

just to give you a heads up thank you uh commissioner announcements alan are you still on you're still you still seem to be there can we let him answer just to make sure he's really there Alan, are you still there?

Yes, I've been watching.

Hey, Alan. So I'm sure I'll be the only one who wants to thank you for all your work on the Planning Commission. You've served for many years, and we're very grateful for your service. Sorry to hear you're gone.

Thank you. I I do want to add that Ellen you when when I joined the Commission you were the chair and I've learned so much just one talking to you but also hearing how you deliberate you read the way you reason and you talk through the case and provide the details on the very public forum I thank you for everything you've taught me um so I'm gonna miss you a lot Ellen I hope the best for you and please take care

not sure i have anything more to say beyond what has already been said but thank you so much for your service on this commission uh uh alan and uh you know uh when i was a new commissioner um you know you and you certainly were a mentor for me so and uh learned a lot from from you so thank you yeah thank you um unfortunately just um

Caregiving duties and other commitments and unable to finish the last like eight months of my second term almost made it to years but got seven years in so I hope you guys are able to Keep it going and fill those commitments.

So really big commitment Thank you any other announcements No

I WANT TO THANK MS. TRAN FOR ASSISTING US TODAY. THANK YOU. THIS WAS ALSO OUR LONGEST PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING IN SOME TIME, SO THANK YOU.

ALL RIGHT. THANKS, EVERYBODY. WE'RE ADJOURNED.