Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

music music Thank you.

Welcome to the City of Bakersfield Planning Commission meeting. This television broadcast is brought to you by the local cable companies, the County of Kern and the City of Bakersfield. You can watch the rebroadcast of this meeting Saturday at 7pm and Sunday at 10am. The agenda for this meeting can be downloaded at www.bakersfieldcity.us. presiding over this evening meeting, Chair Cassie Biddle.

It is my pleasure to call to order the June 4th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll? Chair Biddle?

Here. Vice Chair Martin? Commissioner Strickland?

Here.

Commissioner Brandt-Oliver?

Here.

Commissioner Kor? Commissioner Cater?

Here.

Commissioner Brar.

Here.

Madam Clerk, next item please. Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

To the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Madam Clerk, next item please. Public statements. Public statements are now received at different times depending on the item. I will call on Madam Clerk to call on public statements at the appropriate time. So please listen carefully for the clerk time to speak. Non-agenda item 3A, public statements. Does anyone in the audience wish to address the commission regarding items not listed on tonight's agenda? If so, please come forward and state your name. Seeing none.

Agenda item 3B, public statements.

Does anyone in the audience wish to address the commission regarding items listed on tonight's agenda? If you are here for non-consent public hearing item 6A, now is not the time to speak. You will be given an opportunity to speak at a later time. Seeing none, Madam Clerk, next item, please.

Agenda item four, consent calendar items.

All matters listed under the consent items do not require a public hearing and will be enacted in one motion. There will be no separate discussion of said items unless staff or a commissioner requests specific items be discussed and or removed for separate action. May I get a motion approving consent items 4A and 4B? Commissioner Cater.

I'll make a motion. I second.

Thank you, Commissioner Cater and Commissioner Brandt-Oliver. Please cast your votes.

Madam Clerk, next item, please.

Oh, what?

Did we get the count?

Oh, sorry.

Motion passes with Vice Chair Martin and Commissioner Kaur absent. Madam Clerk, next item, please. Agenda item five, consent calendar public hearing items.

Now is the time for the consent calendar public hearing items. If the item is not removed by a commissioner, staff or a member of the public, the commission will vote on all items in one motion without further comment. If an item is removed, it will be placed at the end of the non-consent public hearing items. At this time, I will open the consent calendar public hearing items. Does any member of the public wish to remove a consent calendar public hearing item? At this time, the consent calendar public hearing items not removed are now closed. May I get a motion adopting staff's recommendation on the consent public hearing items not removed incorporating all staff memorandum and revised staff recommendations?

I will make a motion.

Can I get a second?

I'll second.

All right, Strickland and Berrar.

Please cast your votes.

Motion passes with Vice Chair Martin and Commissioner Kaur absent. Madam Clerk, next item please. Agenda item six, non-consent public hearing items.

Now is the time for non-consent public hearing items. Before we begin, I want to explain how the hearing will be conducted. Staff will first give a report, then those in favor of the project will be allowed to speak. Those in opposition to the project will be able to speak after all those in favor have spoken. Each side will be given five minutes to provide a rebuttal comments. Individual speakers may ask questions during their statements, but the questions will not be answered until the public hearing on that item is closed. Written comments may be given to the clerk who will provide copies to the commission. Please be respectful of others participating in the hearing by not repeating those remarks previous speakers and presenting any new comments or thoughts in a concise and clear way. Ms. Ng, would you please provide us with your staff report?

I'd like to introduce Veronica Martinez, planner on this project.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Veronica Martinez, associate planner with the Development Services Department. I'm here to present agenda item 6A. Item 6A on the agenda is the request to adopt a mitigated negative declaration and approve vesting tentative track map 7451 for a proposed project located generally southeast of Olive Drive and Santa Fe Way in northwest Bakersfield. The applicant, McIntosh & Associates, representing the property owner's Diamond Farming Company, plans to subdivide 40.77 acres into 313 single family residential lots, one multi-use trail, and one park lot in the R2 small lot single unit dwelling zone. The residential lots will range in size from 3,440 square feet to 3,600 square feet. The typical lot size of approximately 40 feet wide by 86 feet deep, or 3,440 square feet. Access to the subdivision will be provided from Forage Way on the east boundary and Poplar Spring Avenue on the south boundary. Staff has reviewed the development for compliance with California Environmental Quality Act. An initial study found that with mitigation measures from air quality, biological resources, cultural resources, and traffic, there would be no significant environmental impacts. The mitigated negative declaration was made available for a 30-day public review. Notifications were sent to property owners within a 300 foot radius and published in the local newspaper. Staff has also received written feedback which was addressed in the staff report. Additionally, staff has distributed two memos. One was previously emailed to the commission and one was distributed just before the start of tonight's meeting. The applicant is here today to respond to your questions. Staff concludes that the project complies with CEQA and is compatible with its surroundings, land use designations, and zoning. Therefore, staff recommends the commission adopt the resolution approving the mitigated negative declaration and approve vesting tentative track map 7451. That concludes my presentation of the project. Thank you.

Thank you. The public hearing is now open. Is there anyone who wishes to speak in favor of the project? Please step to the microphone, identify yourself, and proceed.

Good evening, chair and commissioners. My name is Blaine Neptune. I'm with McIntosh and Associates. the civil engineer representing vesting tentative tract 7451. Vesting tentative tract 7451 is consistent with the general plan and the housing element. It will provide much needed housing, and the proposed conditions include substantial mitigation. At this point, we have some people here that will say some other things and can answer any questions you might have. Thank you.

Madam, excuse me, Madam Clerk, I have copies for the commissioners. We submitted a memo quite late. Good evening, Chair Biddle, planning commissioners, and city staff. I'm Whitney Jackson with Trinity Consultants here on behalf of the applicant and offering support of the project to address the project's air quality, greenhouse gas, and health risk analysis. I want to highlight the actions that the applicant has taken to mitigate the project beyond the extent the current regulatory framework requires. This includes the commitment to an all-electric housing development with no natural gas connections or usage. The all-electric development, together with the proposed photovoltaic systems, would amount to a 22.6% decrease in the project's total greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the applicant has agreed to purchase carbon credits to offset all of the greenhouse gas emissions anticipated from the lifecycle of the project to achieve net zero emission reductions. Achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions is the first of its kind for an applicant to agree to the stringent mitigation for a residential housing tract development in the city limits to show its commitment to preserving the environment and global climate change. The project has received several public comments that the applicant has taken into consideration through carbon credit offset purchases and project design features. Those project design features significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and those measures include the all electric homes, no natural gas connections, solar PV systems, in-garage electric vehicle charging infrastructure, additional solar capacity where feasible, battery storage such as Tesla Powerwall or equivalent systems, water efficient landscaping compliant with MWELO, the model water efficient landscape ordinance, additional tree planning and shade canopy, and as discussed, verified carbon credit offsets for remaining emissions. In the following, I will demonstrate the project's compliance with impacts related to air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. For construction emissions, the project is not anticipated to exceed any of the criteria pollutant emissions or thresholds specified by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, or Air District, because I'm going to say it a lot, during short-term construction, and it does not result in any new potentially significant impacts. Since the project will not exceed the air district's thresholds nor result in any potentially new significant impacts, the proposed project will have a less than significant impact from criteria air pollutant emissions. The project's operational emissions will include mobile and area emissions. Mobile emissions are due to vehicle trips from residents, deliveries, and services, such as yard and pool service, where area emissions are from various everyday small scale activities, such as household chemicals, yard equipment, and paint. These emissions were quantified, and for all the annual operational years of the project, the criteria pollutant emissions are under the significance threshold specified by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. Since the project will not exceed the air district thresholds, nor result in any potentially new significant impacts, the proposed project will have a less than significant impact from criteria air pollutant operational emissions. Those are the long-term ones. Health risk levels were modeled for discrete off-site receptor points around the boundary of the project site. The total cancer risk was predicted for each receptor and a hazard index was computed for chronic non-cancer health effects for each applicable endpoint in each receptor. No acute risk was calculated as the expected toxic emissions such as diesel particulate matter do not have an acute health risk. The assessment of the potential risk of the population attributable to emissions of hazardous air pollutants from the project was performed and concluded 0.58 in a million for excess cancer risk and 0.00034 for chronic health index, which are both below the air district's thresholds of 20 in 1 million and 1.0 respectively. Therefore, the project will have a less than significant impact on all risk values and health hazard indexes. The project is also expected to generate greenhouse gas emissions from electricity use and the combustion of gasoline and diesel fuels, which have been quantified. The project includes several design measures and features that will further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As I previously discussed, one design measure the project will implement is an all-electric development, substituting natural gas with electricity from a power grid that is increasingly supplied by renewable sources, consistent with California's renewable portfolio standard and cap and invest program. This ensures that the operational greenhouse gas emissions will decline over time without the need for future retrofits or policy changes. The all-electric development project design is also synergistic with solar systems. Although these homes will be grid-tied, they will self-generate most of their own energy in alignment with the California Building Standards Code, California Green Building Standards Code, and building energy efficiency standards mandated under Title 24. It is worth noting that the all-electric development and solar systems would represent a 93.68% decrease in energy emissions when compared to natural gas usage and 100% reliance on the electric grid. Since the project is consistent with the California Air Resources Board's 2022 Scoping Plan, California Assembly Bill 32, and the Kern Council of Government's 2022 Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy, and pursuant to the state CEQA guidelines section 15183, the project would have a less than significant impact on conflicting with the applicable plan and regulations adopted for the purpose of reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases. The project will have maximum annual construction emissions of 315.07 metric tons per year of greenhouse gas and maximum annual operational emissions of 2,936 metric tons. per year of greenhouse gas. Pursuant to the state CEQA guidelines, section 15130, subsection C, the project will generate greenhouse gas emissions both directly and indirectly, but is consistent with current plans and regulations and further purchasing carbon credits for the project's greenhouse gas emissions to be offset to net zero, and thus will not have a significant impact on cumulative greenhouse gas emissions. Thank you for your time. I now welcome Steve Pruitt, our biologist, for the project to speak. And we're all available if you have any questions.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name's Steve Pruitt with Pruitt Biological Resource Consulting. And I'm here to speak to the wildlife studies that were performed for the project. The field studies that were conducted on the project followed professionally accepted methodology under CDFW, US Fish and Wildlife guidelines. Our reports of findings complied with both CDFW and US Fish and Wildlife standards. And the potential impacts to special status species were evaluated using the CEQA Appendix G thresholds, which is a standard. The applicant has proposed providing on-site enhancements for special status species, including kit fox, that would directly benefit the urban populations by providing things such as movement corridors and open space for foraging and denning, in the case of the fox. This is an approach that's a little bit different than the old HCP. for mitigation. It is supported by over 30 years of research on urban populations specific to Bakersfield, and it's supported by both CDFW and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Indirectly related, On behalf of the applicant, we have initiated communication with both CDFW and US Fish and Wildlife Service with creating, on behalf of the applicant, a 500-acre private habitat conservation bank that, when implemented, could serve as partial offset to potential impacts for multiple special status species, including those that would have the potential to occur on this project itself.

I'm available for questions if you have anything else. Thank you.

Members of the Commission, my name is Tom Dee. I'm representing the applicant here today. I've also got D.R. Horton, Michael Petrini's here. He's our home builder. We've postponed this a few times in order to get our affairs in alignment with some of our constituents. And I think we've done that. And I appreciate the staff's help on helping us get the the greenhouse gas mitigation and get it as a condition and make it real and enforceable. These were big steps towards making some of the opposition work with us. There was a letter submitted today from the Sierra Club at about 10 o'clock We've gone through those issues. We found that there might be an error in, it was track 70, 75, 40, or 74, 50, I'm sorry, too many tracks, 74, 50, and the rogue calculation there was based upon an original calculation. That really is gonna be reduced based upon what you just heard from Whitney, which is all of the greenhouse gas mitigation and all the other mitigation with the homes and whatnot. So we've come a long ways. We're excited to get this project going. We have a couple other things that we need to get behind us, but we want to go on record as saying that we've reviewed that record and we approve it. Trinity also put into the record today at around 4 o'clock another rebuttal or a response to that Sierra Club letter, which addresses what I'm talking about. So I think everything's there. I think everything's doable. And again, we certainly appreciate the city working with us on the greenhouse gas carbon credit. I know that's kind of in and above, but we're looking for your support. And I appreciate everything you guys always do for us. And with that, if Mike wants to talk, he can or we would just say we're gonna appreciate your. He's gonna be a cheerleader, okay.

Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Mike Petrini. I'm the vice president of land for D.R. Horton. Super excited about this project. 3,400 square foot lots, entry level houses. First time home buyer houses. We haven't had that in 10 years in Northwest Bakersfield. So now we have a track that can do that. I'm super excited about this project. I hope that we get it approved and we get everything worked out with the Sierra Club and keep this project moving forward.

Thank you.

Is there anyone who wishes to speak in opposition of the project? If so, please step to the microphone and identify yourself. Seeing none. Does any commissioner have any questions for the public on this item? Remember, this is not the time to express any opinions on the matter. It is only time to ask any questions.

A question for the speaker regarding the biological study for the project. I forget your name. I'm so sorry. And would you mind stating your name? I'm Steve Pruitt. Steve Pruitt. Thank you, Steve. Thank you, Mr. Pruitt. Sorry about that. You had mentioned the migration corridors and a 500-acre bank for the project. I was just curious. I may have missed it in the report. Is that tied to this specific project, or is this a cumulative benefit?

That is not tied to this specific project. It's indirect. The applicant is also working on creating this conservation bank that that would benefit special status BCs, but it is not directly tied. They're in the initial phases of consultation to create that bank.

So just to clarify, it's not under the purview of what we're reviewing tonight? Correct. But it's just a secondary project? Kind of some ancillary information. Parallel project, yes.

Okay, thank you.

Just to clarify that, thank you. That was my only clarification.

Do any other commissioners have any questions for staff of the public? No? Okay, I will now close the public hearing on the item and return it to the commission for comment and action. Do we have anybody with any comments?

Seeing no comment, I would make a motion to approve.

Got a motion to approve on the table. Do I have a second?

I have a second.

All right, thank you, Brandt Oliver and Strickland for the motion.

Please cast your votes.

Motion passes with Vice Chair Martin and Commissioner Kaur absent. Madam Clerk, next item please. Agenda item seven, communications. Does staff have any communication items?

Yes, there will be a meeting on June 18th. And then I just give you a heads up, you're gonna have a busy summer. We will be having two EIRs released in the next few weeks. And then the general plan update document will be also released in the summer. Thank you.

Madam Clerk, next item, please. Agenda item eight, commissioner comments. Does any commissioner have any comments? Madam Clerk, next item, please. Agenda item nine, adjournment. This meeting is adjourned at 5.55 p.m.