Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, it is now 5.27, and I'm gonna call the Planning Commission meeting on Thursday, August 6th, 2026 to order. Taya, could you please call the roll?

Okay, thank you. Now, Commissioner Mansfield will help us in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. All who are able, please rise and join us.

Please put your right hand over your heart. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. All right. Now I would like to open public comments for non-agendized items. This will include any item not listed on tonight's agenda. Taya, do we have any public comments on non-agendized items?

Thank you. Melissa, do we have any introductions?

Would my fellow commissioners have any announcements or reports they'd like to share? How about additions or deletions?

All right. So we'll move on to the consent calendar. All the items listed will be enacted by one vote. There'll be no discussion of these items unless members of the Planning Commission request specific items to be removed from the consent calendar for specific separate discussion. Can I open the public comments, please?

Thank you. Any of my commissioners like to pull the item to discuss? Okay. So then we could have a motion.

Thank you. Then we'll move on to item two, and I'll open the public hearing. Melissa, could you please introduce the item?

Thank you for the presentation, Tiffany. Since there's no applicant, we don't have an applicant. So we'll open the public comments on this item.

Okay, then I will close the public hearing and open it up to my fellow commissioners to ask questions. Vice Chair Lynn.

Thank you chair, and thank you for the presentation, and I know the staff report was rather lengthy and all the attachments are a lot, but thank you for kind of just going over the main points, my first of all. I haven't seen this number of attachments before on this on on on this item, could you just explain the change in process for the planning Commission.

more updates because this is the only update that we're taking this year okay and the the reason mainly was because because we used to have them three times a year or four times a year three times a year typically three times a year and okay um i had a question regarding the cottage food operation I was wondering what triggers, like a referral to enforcement to look into a case. I was wondering, regarding operations, were there certain triggers that you've been seeing in the city?

Great. Thank you. And then I had a question regarding the setbacks and I don't remember exactly, but I wrote down it was Gateway Village. And it was the separation changing from eight feet to six feet. And I was wondering what prompted that change.

Great. I love the preemptive moves and measures that our city takes. One more question. It was regarding the connectivity, the objective design standards. And I was wondering, so in terms of connectivity, if there are plans over different sites, multiple sites, like multiple property developments, and there are different ownerships, how would that work in terms of working on connectivity? I was just wondering.

All under one owner. Separate owner. Separate owner. Sorry, separate owner. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And that's it on my end.

Thanks, Vice Chair. Commissioner Bhatia?

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for the staff. I agree with Brenda. It's robust attachments, certainly. I've never encountered that since I started, but I had a question regarding the benefits, public benefits. The definition of significant and specific public benefits is somewhat flexible, and that's how you want to keep it, but I'd like to know how can we have that fine balance between public benefits that are flexible versus predictability for future applicants? So that's not, you know, they have a clear set mind about what they need to expect as far as public benefits.

i had another question here but i may come back to that a little bit later thank you thank you commissioner uh commissioner bill guzak thank you chair um thank you staff for a great presentation to i had a couple questions uh the first one is if staff could shed some light on these changes regarding accessory retail in future developments and how we could make that increase and and where we are today

I see. Is there anything coming up in the future, like the IVC, for instance, or the spectrum? No.

Got it. And then my last question is about like the boarding, like house, housing. What is the feedback you're getting from stakeholders about this if these changes are made?

Like from corporations, are they interested in maybe putting this in the near future?

Thank you, that's all I have. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Grossman.

Thank you. Thank you to staff for being proactive. I think that it's commendable as a city that we, we, we do periodically. We look at our, at our codes and continually update them. I recall a couple of weeks ago, we were dealing with the coastal commission and talking about point systems. And I had to do a lot of homework to understand what that was. Cause we were dealing with 20, 30, 40 year old code. So I appreciate that when you guys modernize and update. Okay. I'm just going to go through a few small, small and a couple of big ones. Um, To echo Commissioner de la Cusack on the boarding ho

Okay, fair enough. That's good that we have a... A follow up on opportunity on their great quick question on the self storage issue now, it is, I know that it is a we're being presented as correcting a previous omission and I and I acknowledge that that it is, I guess i'm just want to ask a question to staff to you. it's more of a land use question. Self storage doesn't generate very much employment it's. It's a very large use of space for a very low employment type category. Now it's a needed, it's a valid business use. Do we really want it to be by right? Is it the best use? Have we contempl

I have no problem with it today. I think it is an omission and such. I would encourage us to look at the land use element of self-storage spaces. Okay, I really wanna keep going. Where I wanna spend a little bit of time is the minimum density. First of all, I wanna really applaud staff for seeing how things have been developing and pushing forward the removal of financial infeasibility as an independent basis for reducing required minimum density. the preferred profitability of a project should not determine whether affordable housing is up. So I thoroughly support that. As part of the follow-

Okay, fair enough. All right, last question, last topic for me. Adult daycare and the community facilities. I just want to point out 100% support um bringing in not not not not having an issue with conflicts of existing conditional use permits and existing facilities most of these organizations that are covered by this are doing amazing work which we would all fully support adult daycare is an interesting category, and it is governed by state licensing requirements and has its own, again, going back to the idea of defining things as clearly as possible, like corporate housing versus a boarding

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Tiffany, Nick, thank you very much for such a voluminous presentation tonight. I actually went through and read all of it. I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but Commissioner Grossman and the rest of the commissioners pretty much stole my thunder. I do have a couple of questions. If you could define for me low barrier navigation centers, I'm having a difficult time understanding what that really means.

Okay. I just wasn't familiar with the actual definition or the terminology. So I appreciate that. As it relates to the bicycle minimum parking established, can that be overcome by a waiver?

Okay, very good. I appreciate the additional need for a concept plan that's been introduced. I think that's a very good measure. I think that's it.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Mansfield?

There we go. Good evening. Thank you for your presentation. Just a quick question about the short-term versus long-term bicycle parking at the hotels and motels. What is the difference in length of that time? What does a long-term bicycle parking look like at a hotel versus a short-term?

Got it. Okay, no worries. I see that it was put in sale in 2025 in the Calgary Entitled 24 Part 11, and then we went into effect this year on January 1st. I was wondering, it is a little strange that we have long-term tenants at a hotel. Okay, and I guess, well, first and foremost, thank you. That's all my questions for you. Thank you. And then my last question is, does approving any of these decisions, and I currently... Does anything remove any decision-making amongst the commission down to a staff level?

Fantastic. Thank you. That's all my questions. Thank you, Commissioner. I have a quick question about the boarding house. So my reading of it is if I was a homeowner, I could have one lease to rent out a room in my house, but I could not have two leases to rent out two rooms to two different people, correct? Is that ever an issue that comes up in the city?

Okay. And we don't really see it as a problem. Although it probably does exist in places.

Okay. That's all I've got. Thank you. Commissioner Pearson, do you want to speak again? Yes.

I was just going to pair it off of what you just said. In my neighborhood, we did have a home that was owned by an individual that leased out five or six rooms within the house. So it does happen. And code enforcement came in and shut them down.

Commissioner Grossman? One comment. Going back to the hotel, Commissioner Mansfield, I would also suspect that the reason for the long term is the employees of the hotel would need a place as they're riding their bikes to work to be able to store it on a date and don't necessarily want to put it in the front of the hotel. I'm just speculating, but it seems like... Might work for me. One question I forgot to come back to. There's on the five business day appeal for administrative approvals. Again, I, again, support faster finality benefits the applicants. They have more certainty. That makes to

Published on the website. OK, so if I'm a nearby resident or, you know, or tenant or How would I know if I wasn't regularly on a daily browsing the website?

OK. with all the, that feels inadequate if I were, because I acknowledge that they probably aren't controversial, but if someone was doing something either near my home or near my business, I kind of would like to have an easier way of knowing. So I don't know if there's a way of, you know, whether we're required by law or whether there's a way of notifying, you know, we have other rules where it's like 500 feet, people who live within 500 feet of a location. I don't know, it just feels like five, certainly five days would be hard to figure it out, find it, figure out what to do, and then if y

okay nothing further thank you commissioner looks like we're all out of uh comments and questions uh entertain a motion chair i'll move to adopt the recommended action we please set up the vote chair the motion has passed unanimously Oh, great. Thank you. So our next planning commission meeting will be held Thursday, August 20th at 5.30 p.m. in the city council chamber. It is now 6.03 and I'll declare the meeting of August 6th, 2026 adjourned.