Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you. I would like to call the regular meeting of August 24th, 2026 to order. Will the secretary please call roll?

Chair, quorum has been reached at 5.33 p.m. Thank you. I'm now going to have Vice Chair Benninger lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Before we begin, I would like to remind my fellow commissioners to turn your microphones on when speaking and off when not speaking. And when speaking, please place the microphones about four inches away from you. Thank you. For members of the public joining us this evening, Spanish and Vietnamese language interpreters are available. If you would like to listen to the meeting or provide public comments in Spanish or Vietnamese, please see staff in the lobby to pick up a headset.

Members of the public may attend the Planning Commission meeting either in person or virtually via Zoom. I now invite the Commission Secretary to describe how the public can access and participate in this meeting.

Moving on to public comments on non-agenda or non-public hearing items. Secretary, does anyone wish to speak?

Thank you. So this is not the time for a question and answer. And we are reviewing the zoning code update today. So if your comment is specific to the zoning code update, you might want to make it during that public hearing. Thank you. With that, we will move on to the consent calendar where it is one motion for all consent items unless an item is pulled for separate discussion. Is there a motion to approve item A, minutes from August 10th, 2026, and item B, excused absences?

Thank you, we have a motion from Commissioner Wu with a second from Commissioner Guzman. Secretary, can you please call for a roll call vote?

Thank you. That concludes the consent calendar items. Now we are moving on to the public hearing. Before that, I would like to just share an announcement. So I was informed by staff that we will have to conclude today's meeting at 8.30 p.m. as there is a scheduled power outage for 9 p.m. So I share that to let you know that this meeting will end at 8.30 p.m., If the public hearing is not over by then, then this will be continued to a special meeting for next Monday, August 31st. As chair, I will not be rushing through this item. All speakers will continue to have their three minutes to speak.

Thank you. Thank you. Before I take questions, I would like to just share that, well, one, we apologize that the key revisions made in public hearing draft, the handout that is available up front and in the lobby, was not made available tonight in Spanish or Vietnamese. We apologize for that as we do provide interpretation for those languages. These documents should have also been made available in those languages tonight. If anybody needs any assistance, understanding the document because it was not made available in your language, you may please step over here with staff where they are happy

In preparation for tonight's meeting, I was kind of curious because something triggered as I was listening from the comments from our first session. from the public, the changes since those that were here when most of this was farmland and unoccupied land to what it is today. And I put myself in the position of remembering the 13 neighborhoods that I came to organize late 1970s, and what those residents told me about their neighborhood. And one that's a strength of the, it seems, of this update is that it responded to what their vision for the future seemed to be. They wanted strong, viable, s

And I understand that some neighborhood association and some group invited you to come out to their territory, to their place, and to ask questions, right?

so my third question is in those special district to increase density and increase uh housing they follow a pattern of what is already happening in that area so the update to the zoning is to continue to uh let the positive forces continue but having an avenue to deal with other people that may want to come into the area and do something totally different than what is already going on. For instance, around 17th Street, you have the official office, and someone wanted to put a fertilizer factory, would not be conducive. You're right in saying that you're not coming out of the blue to decide tha

And so, these zoning changes is not specifically targeting an individual property owner or individual business or individual institution, but it follows what already exists there and you're trying to make that into something that can, not you're trying to make something, but you're trying to make the zoning compatible with what's existing there.

And the last part is, so we're gonna make a recommendation should we arrive before nine o'clock that we forward to the city council which then has the final decision. Hopefully they have read the 400 pages heard all the public testimony and understand also what we've been dealing with over the years, in my case, about the last eight years of watching this process go through and that we can unite the city both businesses and residents along the same line about using this to grow what the general plan has in mind for the vision of Santa Ana, which is a different vision when I arrived here, becau

Thank you, Commissioner Wu. Commissioner Pham? Or would you like me to come back to you? Commissioner Guzman?

Thank you, Chair. I have a question regarding the residential industrial interface and the businesses that exist now should the zoning code be adopted as drafted and non-conforming use. So I'm going to walk through it. So if the zoning code gets adopted, some of the businesses there will not be non-conforming, will be non-conforming uses or will their use remain compliant with industrial as it's being zoned? Is that clear?

»» And can you walk me through, so they get grandfathered in, correct?

»» They're nonconforming. »» Yes. »» The existing use is grandfathered until it becomes what? So when does it fall out of their protected non-conforming use status?

So in that area, if there's a change of ownership of the building, it retains its non-conforming use status? Is that right?

Yeah, I think that's the question I had. Okay, thank you.

I think those are all my only questions for now. I may wanna ask additional points based on what comes out.

Thank you. First of all, now that we have, I think, as many documents as we can read, and the full details of the plan, first of all, thank you for the work. I know it took a lot of work. I know there were lots of meetings. I know there's some people who think we didn't have enough meetings. We may have more meetings. This is a long process. The general plan took how long? How many years? Seven years. Seven years. How many years have we been at this?

Three. So we've sped up a little bit, but it takes time. We're talking about the whole city, not just parts of it. So let me start off with, I think we're getting there. I think we're close, closer than we were before. We need to figure out a way to get to win-win with businesses and with those that are concerned about the environment. I think you've seen the comments from everyone. That's kind of, we're there. I think we need to kind of move it along and kind of maybe there's more meetings that have to take place so that people are comfortable in the direction we're going. People have heard m

And is there, so let's say, is it an 80-20 split between restaurant and hookah lounge, or can it be only hookah lounge, because that obviously brings its own problems? But what I'm asking you, is it ancillary to the restaurant? Because there are plenty in Anaheim, like all over the place. The processes of this, because what I'm trying to figure out is, and I think what the public is gonna try to figure out is, what businesses will be coming? Because we've done our business up here to try to figure out what to do downtown. We've twisted in pretzels to make things work because we needed to. And

That helps and I think What I'm hearing you say is that we have tried to figure out a way where business owners or people interested in opening a business will be able to look at the map and figure out, okay, I can do this here, I can't do this here, because we have non-conforming and really odd stuff all over this city. If you've lived here long enough, you know. Right, I'm always amazed at what 17th looks like. I'm always amazed what behind First Street looks like. Like Chestnut, we've got high rise, basically four and five story apartment complexes that were probably single family homes, ri

Thank you. Commissioner Femme or Vice Chair Bennett? Commissioner Femme, go ahead.

Thank you, Commissioner Pham. Vice Chair Benninger.

Thank you. Again, I'd like to re-echo that there's a lot of work with this. I appreciate all the input. A couple concerns that I have and one that I keep hearing from people. Some people get very concerned when they see going from permit to CPU. Could you explain the difference between the two and the cost of getting one versus the other?

There are some people that when they see the word that I'm gonna have to go from a permit to a CPU, that they're concerned that there's cost, tremendous cost involved, CUP, I'm sorry. There's tremendous cost involved and it's a lot of work that I don't have to do at other cities. I think let's just explain what's the difference between asking for a permit and asking for a CPU, both cause-wise and time.

the conditional use permit because it takes longer of course that's the most expensive of the three options so as you have here some companies going from permits to CUP are they going to those companies are they going to have to now apply for CUP

Okay. So they're right now existing with permits only. They're allowed to continue to operate. Correct. Not required to go and get a CUP. Correct. Correct. Okay. Go through why the change on laundry and dry cleaning locations. We allowed it before and why are we taking it away?

But is it because of the chemicals that they deal with? What's the bad cheer? Because I have a cleaner's neighbor house that do dry clean on site, right next to the residential.

Thank you for that clarity, because it really wasn't clear to me what we're talking about, so I appreciate that. Also, I do have concern. These revisions were only released Friday night, is that correct? When were they released in public?

Okay. And I became aware of it a couple hours ago, so I spent the last couple hours reading through them. There's a lot of good parts, and I admit there's a lot of it that are just minor changes. There are some significant changes inside here that what we had from the 21st on it. So I'm a little concerned if the public has had time to see what these revisions have been, and been able to fully respond back to them with these latest changes on it, per se. So I do have a concern from that standpoint. Also concerned too, we're going to be adding a buffer zone between residential and industrial. An

I guess what we're really asking is what do you envision in this buffer zone? That is one area that I end up hearing concerns about expressed to me. Whatever it will be there, it's our property. If it's behind a closed-end fence, what does it matter? So what do you envision in that buffer zone area?

I'm all in favor of that. In fact, every time a white pine is planted, we should celebrate because it does the most as far as removing carbon from the air and putting it inside cellulose. We have people from the staff, both from business as well as environmental. I do have a question for our business development. Are they here?

Economic development. The worst thing that we want to do is hurt the city from economic development. We want to be a place where businesses want to come. Have you reviewed this proposed rezoning and what is your opinion of it?

The worst thing we might do is pass something and push everyone to Irvine or Costa Mesa or Huntington Beach of all places. So right now what you've seen on this plan, you would say this would support economic development in the city and that hurt it?

Because I know, unlike some people think that every business is run by Mr. Scrooge, they're not. There's a lot of hardworking people that have put their whole life and background into businesses. They get them up and growing. The worst thing we want to do is take that away from them. Because that's where our jobs in the future will come from. That's where our tax dollars come from. 100%, yes. Very good. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm all set. Marguerite, I'm going to let you sit there and not get away with it. Can we talk to environmental? I'll be nice. She knows my wife, so one phone call, I'

It's a little bit off target, but it's still, one of the most embarrassing things I saw in the last six months was what happened with the aerospace firm not knowing what they're dealing with and not being able to tell the fire department what they were dealing with. As a woman, I'm a chemical engineer, I worked for Dow Chemical, I've prepared emergency plans and the like. I don't know, God, why they didn't have information on those chemicals there, and I've talked to Phil Passera, say please to get the fire department to start looking at the plans that our industries have. And that's how we ma

If you were to rewrite the plan, give an append and say make a change, what change would you put to this zoning plan?

Thank you. My compliments too, as I have spent two hours looking at all the changes from that came out Friday night and got in my hands today. I do like the approach of the vents or the air filters on buildings next to residential areas next to industrial that they're not aimed in the possession of the industry. Hopefully that means not downwind from them. That was one that we always had to be careful in chemical industry about is downwind intake. I'm glad to see it under consideration. I just didn't have a whole lot of time. It was just two hours to go through all the changes. I know there's

Thank you. So I know we're at about 7.15 and the meeting will end at 8.30. So I'll try to go through my questions a bit quickly so that we can go ahead and start the public hearing. So my first questions are on the residential industrial interface. So one generally is supportive of the residential industrial interface and what it's doing to ensure that there is very little or limited impact to any residential uses nearby that are existing or that may exist in the future. But I do have some questions about how the city chose where to apply this interface. So earlier I shared that I spoke to sta

Thank you for that further explanation. I'm just, I think when I think about those areas specifically and the new noise standards that are, or the new operational standards around noise, that's where I think it might not make a lot of sense because there is a road or train track, so I don't know what it would look like to And I don't know if this would be possible to select which operational standards might apply to an area based on any unique circumstances that may be there. So there aren't a lot of areas in the city like this, but there are a few where there is no residential neighborhoods d

Okay, I am in agreement with that and just concerned that maybe in the future we may have a planning director that could find a way to argue that it is a similar enough use to something else. So I would also want planning staff to explicitly state that data centers are not allowed per our zoning code and we've seen that done in Alhambra. and there's a few other cities that have set that precedent. So I'm very happy that that is the intention of staff and would just like to ensure that it's explicitly stated so that in the future it's not left to interpretation. also had questions on just a gen

Thank you for going through that. So staff feels comfortable that the zoning that is being proposed today in those areas will support the growth that was envisioned under the general plan, which includes new housing, both market rate and affordable.

Sorry, can you explain what that means, what UN20 means?

Perfect. Thank you. And then my final question is just, I saw on one of the slides that through the zoning code update, we're also providing more signage options. Exactly what does that mean?

Thank you, so are we updating our sign ordinance through the zoning code update?

Okay, thank you, because I did have questions about our sign ordinance, knowing that there are areas just like Historic Main Street and also the downtown area that have a variety of signs for many reasons. And I have recently had conversations with business owners that have told me that they've had a very difficult time getting signs. Have you noticed there are a few businesses in downtown that don't have a sign for that same reason? So I'm happy to hear that this is also going to support our existing businesses and hopefully encourage new ones knowing that. those difficult restrictions no lon

I will now go ahead and call two to three speakers at a time, so you may start forming the line. We are gonna begin with, and I apologize if I mispronounce any names, is it Dan Guzman?

Thank you. Up next, we'll have Angela Capuccia, followed by Brad Day, followed by Alexander Veyandi. And I apologize if I mispronounce any names.

Thank you. Reverend Holloway followed by James Adams followed by Dale Halvage. Can we have James Adams come forward? The Reverend may have left.

Thank you. We'll have Dale Helvig, followed by Jaden Marujo, followed by Yesenia Marujo.

Thank you. We'll have Jayden Marujo, followed by Yesenia Marujo, followed by Maria Marina.

Thank you. We have Yesenia Marujo, followed by Maria Marin, followed by Sandra Rodriguez.

Gracias. We will now have that public comment translated into English.

Thank you. Next up we have Sandra Rodriguez, followed by Isidre Espiritu, followed by Roger Simon.

Thank you. We have Isidra Espirito next. Followed by Roger Simon, followed by Dan Schimel.

Thank you. We have Roger Simon, followed by Dan Schimel, followed by Irma Jauregui.

Thank you. We have Dan Schimel, followed by Irma Jauregui, followed by Anthony Aragon. I apologize.

Thank you. We have Anthony followed by Muhammad Ali followed by Gay Olivos.

Thank you. We have Mohammed Ali followed by Gay Olivos followed by Jennifer Salas.

Thank you. We have Gay Olivos next, followed by Jennifer Salas, followed by Brian Hendricks.

Thank you. We have Jennifer Salas, followed by Brian Hendricks, followed by Renee Rowley.

Thank you. We have Brian Hendricks, followed by Renee Rowley, followed by Matt Nichols. I just want to say we will be going a bit over 8.30, just by a few minutes, so everybody continues to have their three minutes of time.

Thank you. We have Renee Rowley followed by Matt Nichols.

Thank you. And we have Matt Nichols, our last speaker of the evening.

Thank you so much. And we actually have one more speaker. I don't have the card. Can I please have Maran Tumajan please come forward? I apologize if I mispronounce that.

Thank you so much. That is our last speaker in-house. I understand that we may have several speakers on Zoom, and I apologize that we won't be able to take your comments tonight. I hope that you can join us for the next meeting, and if you can't, please send in your comment via email. I'm now gonna hand it over to our city attorney to explain exactly, well, to our staff, they can decide the order, but I know at some point our city attorney will explain exactly how we move forward.

Thank you. So at this time, I can adjourn the meeting with that language, correct?

Yes. Okay. So I'm taking a motion to continue the public hearing. And we need to do it quickly because I have been told that if we're not out of here by 845, the video might not save.

I'd like to make a motion that we continue our meeting on August 31st, given that it would give more time for the residents and businesses to review the documents because we're running out of time due to the outage with Southern California Edison.

And Commissioner Wu, can you clarify that you're motioning to continue the public hearing? Yes. So we have a motion to continue the public hearing. We have a second from Vice Chair Benninger. Secretary, can you please call for a roll call vote?

Thank you. With that, this meeting is being adjourned to the next regularly scheduled meeting on August 31st at 5.30 p.m. Just to clarify, to the adjourned regular meeting of August 31st at 5.30, it's a quirky section of the Brown Act, so I wanted to make sure we were accurate. Yes, so this meeting is being, we will see you all on August 31st. Recording stopped.