Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Santa Clara County
Tuesday, July 14, 2026Official site

The Planning Commission approved the May 26, 2026 meeting minutes and received a presentation on the Greater Downtown Specific Plan, which aims to update the 2009 plan and expand its boundaries. The commission also selected a new chairperson and vice chair.

About this meeting

Government Body
Planning Commission
Meeting Type
Planning Commission
Location
Morgan Hill, CA
Meeting Date
July 14, 2026

Published excerpts

Only published remarks appear here. The full transcript is not published.

35 sections

0:06•James Wilson

Hey, good morning, good afternoon, evening, something. Can you hear us?

0:15 – 0:34•James Wilson

Perfect, okay. May I? Ms. Jennings? All right, I'm going to call a meeting to order. Welcome to the July 14th Planning Commission. I know it's been a while. Hope everybody had a wonderful Fourth. Can we do a roll call, Jennings?

0:47•James Wilson

Here. Thank you. Can you declare the posting?

1:32 – 2:17•James Wilson

Thank you. Public comment. Members of the public are entitled to address the Planning Commission concerning any item within the Morgan Hill Planning Commission's subject matter jurisdiction. Public comments are limited to no more than three minutes. Except in certain specific exceptions, the Commission is prohibited from discussing or taking action on any item not appearing on the posted agenda. I see we added a... some more additional information that's available at the back of the agenda.

2:45•James Wilson

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Do we have anybody in person or online that has any comments to any non-agenda items?

2:59•James Wilson

OK. No public hearings. Item 1, minute approval.

3:09 – 3:20•James Wilson

I'm going to do a roll call. Who was the motioner? Joe. I heard Joe.

3:23•James Wilson

Okay. I'm going to do a roll call. Roll call.

3:45 – 3:58•James Wilson

Thank you. Item number two, the workshop for the greater downtown specific plan. I'm assuming Adam or Jennifer is giving the presentation.

20:12•Mohammad Habib

So applications for that fourth round is due by July 1st.

20:32•Mohammad Habib

If for any jurisdictions that are compliant, there's going to be a set funded for that, for those jurisdictions.

21:36 – 21:56•James Wilson

I'm sure the commission has a few questions. I have one before Paul, before you start. So the grants you got, I think is a little bit over a million, right? Total? And will that take us through with the consultants through the development of the approved plan?

22:34 – 23:04•James Wilson

Okay. I just have one more question and I'll turn it over to the rest of mission and this could be a dumb question but so we have a specific downtown plan we have a general plan then we have a housing element plan so to speak how does this dovetail into that yeah so the general plan is really high level it's kind of when people talk about they talk about like a

24:46 – 25:10•James Wilson

Oh, that part I understand. I guess I didn't explain my question accurately. So you have an existing downtown specific plan right now. So how is this new plan going to, dovetail with that. It's going to replace it. Oh, it's going to replace it. It's going to completely replace it. There you go. So we're going to rewrite the entire specific. Perfect. Right. Thank you.

38:00 – 38:36•Mohammad Habib

Thank you, Chair. I just had a few clarifying questions, Adam. So the first one earlier on, you mentioned that there was the timeline or at least the deadline for compliance to be sometime in, I believe you were saying July of 2027. And I was looking at the staff report too, and it also mentions that we're hoping to have at least the specific plan completed by roughly the summer of 2028. So how does that come? Is the compliance going to be able to be achieved before we have the completed specific plan?

40:57•Mohammad Habib

Okay. And the points are there to determine the amount of grant funding or eventual funding that you're eligible for?

41:44 – 42:38•Mohammad Habib

Got it. And that's really based off of what you're producing to MTC. So it could, for example, be more aspirational than practical and so on. It's just based off of their analysis of what you end up along those four priority areas that you develop and hand over to them. Okay. And then let's see. So I think one of the commissioners, I think it was actually the chair that already talked about the interactions between different items like the general plan, specific plan, and so on. I think this was more specific for the Monterey corridor form-based code. I think it's been two or three some years

44:33 – 46:45•Mohammad Habib

Got it. And along those same lines, so talking about the possibilities of how we can really use what we have to achieve the goals was on page one of the staff report, this is where we have the map, the location map slash project information. And I think it was actually a really nice visual to help understand where the original or the current downtown specific plan was. And then where it's expanding along the red dotted lines. And then really, at least how I understood it, the TOC area that they're primarily focused on. And so for me, it was a little bit hard to understand. And I think this Com

48:32 – 50:11•Mohammad Habib

Yeah, for sure. And I think it also makes sense, too, is, again, given the practicality of it, right, there are some locations that are even closer than if you go way up north on Monterey Road that are just east on East Main or along East Main and that kind of go into some of the development on the east side of the railroad. And so, again, just kind of looking at how we can possibly bring that And even though it might not be as practical, obviously, just looking at the downtown specific plan. But I think that would be something my interest is seeing how we can really connect those other areas

51:46 – 52:43•Mohammad Habib

Great. Thank you, Adam. And I just wanted to do a final comment too. I wanted to appreciate a couple of the things that you had shared with us. I think it's really phenomenal to be able to go out and beyond and get the grant funding. It's something that not many other cities were able to accomplish. And so I just wanted to give a kudos to the team to be able to do that. And on top of that, being able to get more flexibility I think it was from the tier two to the tier four where you couldn't do parking requirements and so on. And so I think it was really great to be able to, you know, advocate

52:44•James Wilson

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, a few questions.

1:02:53•James Wilson

No, we're not because I do logistics for that.

1:13:32•James Wilson

Right. Okay. So I think we've covered survey thoroughly. Anything else?

1:16:20 – 1:16:56•James Wilson

OK. Yeah. Let's bring it on home with one question. So if you don't mind, I know I'm .. Oh, it's all right. Don't have to judge me. Adam, what is our goal? When are we going to have the final outreach plan ready? Just spitball. Yeah. Hopefully within the next month.

1:23:42 – 1:23:53•James Wilson

Okay. Thank you. So our audience, both of them, have been very patient. So I'd like to know if they have any public comment. No, thank you.

1:24:01•James Wilson

What a comment from our business development.

1:33:13 – 1:33:37•James Wilson

Okay. I need to formally close public comment. So what do we need to do to accept this? Do we need to make a motion or we accept it? Beautiful. All right. Other business selection of planning commission chairperson and vice chair. Mr.

1:34:33 – 1:34:46•James Wilson

Right, so that's why we got to get Mr. Habib into the conversation. or whatever, they get it defer or whatever.

1:36:07 – 1:36:48•Mohammad Habib

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Adam. And thank you, Chair. So I'd be happy to serve as chair. I think just the one caveat to make clear is, as you know, there are times where I am frequently traveling, but we'll be making an effort to join via teleconference. And so with that said, I'm assuming when it comes to teleconference as a chair, it's probably best to have whoever decides to accept the vice chair that's likely yourself, Commissioner Lake. to run the meetings in those situations, but I might be happy to, in the instances where I'm able to, I'm not traveling, to be able to conduct the meeti

1:37:22 – 1:38:04•Mohammad Habib

At this time, it's roughly what's been the previous year. I would say there's probably around four meetings out of the year or so. The last 12 months, maybe four or five. that I was not able to of what's supposed to be, I think, scheduled as 24 meetings, roughly. So maybe 20% or so, roughly. And I'll also reevaluate too. And if I'm not able to, depending on the days I am traveling, that's maybe a point where I can look at reconsidering if it's needed. But otherwise, I'd be happy to serve as chair.

1:38:38•James Wilson

Now we need a roll call. Roll call, please, Jenna.

1:39:04 – 1:39:28•Mohammad Habib

I just had one comment. I just wanted to thank Chair Wilson. You've done a phenomenal job over the past year. I know sometimes the discussions can be really long and inundated, and I think you've done an excellent job of really balancing the meeting timelines, making sure we're productive online, and just running the meetings in a very well-formatted fashion. So thank you so much for all the work you've done as chair.

1:43:07 – 1:43:23•James Wilson

What about tractor supply? That's important. Well, we got, I think we can address the question first.

1:47:16•James Wilson

Anything else? Oh, Sprouts. What's going on with that?

1:50:39•Mohammad Habib

I think like their fences fell or something. That was issued to clean up the site.

These excerpts are remarks by officials whose identity a person confirmed, from a transcript generated automatically from the official public meeting video and presented unedited. Accuracy may vary; view the original recording for reference.