Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

ALL RIGHT. GOOD EVENING. WELCOME TO THE SPECIAL PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING OF MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 2026. I NOW CALL THE MEETING TO ORDER. IT'S TIME FOR THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE AND TONIGHT WE'LL BE LED BY COMMISSIONER DIXON.

THANK YOU. ADDRESS THE FLAG. 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. WE HAVE NO ANNOUNCEMENTS OR PRESENTATIONS THIS EVENING, WHICH TAKES US TO PUBLIC COMMENTS. THESE ARE FOR MATTERS THAT ARE NOT LISTED ON THE AGENDA. PUBLIC COMMENTS WILL BE HEARD AT THIS TIME. THESE ARE MATTERS THAT ARE NOT ON THE AGENDA. SORRY, MR.

SORRY, I WENT RIGHT PAST ROLL CALL. THERE I GO. IT IS A SPECIAL MEETING. SORRY. BACK TO PUBLIC COMMENTS. I WILL OPEN THE PUBLIC COMMENT. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COME DOWN AND SPEAK COME TO EITHER PODIUM OR IF YOU ARE PARTICIPATING BY ZOOM USE THE RAISE HAND OPTION OR IF YOU ARE PARTICIPATING BY PHONE PLEASE PRESS STAR 9. ALL RIGHT. GIVE ME ONE SECOND. ALL RIGHT. YOU ARE GOOD TO GO.

All right, if not, Ms. Turan, do we have anybody on phone or by Zoom?

Okay, I will close public comments. Now it's time for planning commissioner comments and suggestions. Let's start to my left, Commissioner Martinez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A few community events that are coming up. First, the Symphony on the Go. There was one, I believe, last week. And then the program will continue at Vista Park on August 19th. and at Schiffer Park on August 29th. Both concerts of the Pacific Symphony are free and begin at 6.30 PM. And I also wanted to announce and talk about the Costa Mesa Historical Society. They are having their, I believe, 60th anniversary event the weekend of August 29th and 30th. They will have a celebration at the Costa Mesa Adobe, the Diego Sepulveda Adobe, from 11 to 3 p.m. on August 29th. And the

All right. Commissioner Rojas? No. All right. Commissioner Klepak? No. Okay. Commissioner Andrade? None. And Vice Chair Zik? OKAY. I WILL KEEP THAT STREAK ALIVE. NOTHING FROM ME. WE HAVE ONE CONSENT CALENDAR ITEM TONIGHT. ALL MATTERS LISTED ON THE CONSENT CALENDAR ARE CONSIDERED TO BE ROUTINE AND WILL BE DISCUSSED AND ACT UPON IN ONE MOTION. THERE'S NO SEPARATE DISCUSSION UNLESS AN ITEM HAS BEEN PULLED. TONIGHT'S ITEM IS THE JULY 27, 2026 MEETING MINUTES. DOES ANYBODY WANT TO PULL IT OR MAKE A MOTION? Motion by Vice Chair Zick. Seconded by Commissioner Martinez.

Second. All right. Let's call for the question.

All right. We have one public hearing item tonight. Mr. Rand, can you please read the title for public hearing item number one?

might have a couple things mixed up. When you indicated that the draft housing element went out for review on June 8th to the 15th, did that version of the housing element have the total planned sites of 17,042? In other words, the various sites that have since been pulled, were they part of that draft version in June?

OKAY. AND THEN YOU INDICATED YOU SENT THE HOUSING ELEMENT TO HCD ON JUNE 24TH. HAD COUNCIL TAKEN ACTION TO on the housing element prior to that being sent to HCD, did they approve it or?

Okay. So has the housing element, has there been any action taken by council to date?

GOT IT. AND IN THAT MARCH, NOTHING HAS BEEN REZONED YET IN THE HOUSING ELEMENT. IS THAT A TRUE STATEMENT?

GOT IT. OKAY. THANK YOU FOR ALL OF THAT. I'm not sure I really saw in the presentation, and I didn't find it in our package if it existed, a map that showed the sites that were removed and the sites were added. I know in your staff report on page 8 or page 32, you list the sites. So I certainly could go to Google Maps and look them up individually.

OK. And then a related question. IN THE SECOND BUNDLE OF DOCUMENTS THAT WE RECEIVED, STARTING ON PAGE 365 AND GOING THROUGH PAGE 400, THERE IS A SPREADSHEET. LET ME TURN TO ONE PAGE IN THERE. a spreadsheet that looks like this, I don't expect you to be able to read it from there. I would expect I would be able to read it from here, and I can't. So I would like to have a legible copy of that made available. And the other thing related to that, and this was a problem in the very first version of it, and I really can't tell from this size font anyway, but is there a grand total at the bottom that

Would you know what page number that is in our package? 325. 325? Okay. I'll look at that later. Thank you for that.

AND I APPRECIATE THAT. SINCE WE'RE BEING ASKED TO MAKE A RECOMMENDATION TO COUNCIL TONIGHT, KIND OF FELT AN OBLIGATION TO KNOW WHAT I'M RECOMMENDING. OK. Page 65. So that's in the housing element page 65 there is a table. That shows the population growth 2010 to 2040. Are 20 20. Well, actually, the 2010, I guess that's the only actual in the table, 109,000. And the 2040 projection is 116,000. That's 5,000 higher, 7,000 higher. A growth rate of what it says here is 2.2%. Could you reconcile that growth rate to what we are LIKELY TO HAVE IF WE BUILD 12,000 UNITS IN THE CITY OCCUPIED AT A 2.6 PER

OKAY. SO THAT INFORMATION CAME FROM SCAG? And arena allocation, didn't that also come from SCAG? Correct. Interesting, okay. My next question relates to page 74. And on that page, there is a breakdown of the number of households by income category. So we have a total of 40,000 households in the city and it breaks it down. And if I add up the extremely low, very low, and low, comes to about 19,155 to be precise. If I look at the RHNA allocation for those exact same categories, so the subset of the 11760, that number is 6801. If somehow, by some miracle, we built all the affordable units that th

So maybe seeing it another way, this table on page 74 seems to indicate what the need is in Costa Mesa. The RENA allocation, again, if by some miracle we built everything, only meets 36% of the need. And I have my personal doubts that we'll build 11,760 units in the next three years or the next 13 years. So I just wonder what our plan or strategy is, or are we just really trying to answer the mail on the reallocation and the planned zone for that?

All right, my next question. When I look at the table, and this is a very minor one, on page 45, the table of contents for the housing element, I'm on page 45, and I'm looking under number three, and do you see open space under number three? And do you see where it says page 3-14? See what I'm looking at? OK, so when I turn to that page, I don't find it. What I do find is that the discussion of open space begins on page 3-9, and that's the table. And then the actual description or definition of open space is on page 3-11. So either way, it precedes 3-14. And that might be something that happen

But I'll get to that. I'm looking at the fresh, latest housing element. This is it, okay, says 40%, okay. On page 114, where it describes what open space is, I'll kind of say maybe it defines open space, one of the things that it specifically says that is not open space, driveways, parking lots, surfaces designed for vehicular access, upper floor decks, balconies, and areas under projection which are less than eight feet above ground are not open space. So to be clear, balconies are not considered open space. I'm just reading it straight out of this document

It'll be amended for the non-housing element sites that are part of Measure K?

And you're saying that in that amendment, it'll then say balconies are included? Correct. Now, back in 2018... The city's policy was that balconies were not included, but could be included by discretion of Planning Commission. So if it's being changed in the mood, who made the decision that that discretion no longer lies with Planning Commission? Who made that decision? That was updated in March. Who made, the council made that decision? It was an overt decision by them, or was something in a 400-page package that maybe they missed?

Okay. Page 165. Now I'm not sure what I can rely on or what I can't in this document, but I'll try this one. Page 165. Here is a table that discusses the feedback from the community on the implementation of the urban plans. That's the title on that table. The second item down talks about limited open space. That is the concern, the concern expressed by residents. The remedial action indicates that in 2015 there was an amendment that required a minimum of 30% open space. Now I happen to know from the April version of the mood that in that table, don't know if I can rely on this either, it says

Okay. Commissioners, any other questions of staff? Commissioner Martinez. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. All right. Another long set of questions. Okay. First, I want to get started with the staff report. Page 7 or 131. So we say that for the sites that we are adding with this new update, there's a bunch of different criteria, and they have to meet this criteria in order to be added. And the final bullet point in that list is sites that have developer interest. So of the sites that have developer interest, do we not care about the other criteria? Are we just saying developer interested and it's a Measure K site? Let's go for it.

11 property owners who have requested to be added. And then other than that, we're adding 94 new housing element sites. So there are 83 sites where it wasn't requested to be added. Have we confirmed that they're okay with that? Because I don't want to do this process again where we have another 24 sites who want to get out of the housing element.

OK, so they've been noticed, and they've hopefully seen all this stuff, and someone agreed to it. Cool. Page 10, or 34. Middle paragraph, basically it's saying, the public review is still ongoing. It ends Wednesday. So we are not seeing the final version that is going to be presented at council.

I DON'T SEE THE WORD MINOR IN THIS RECOMMENDATION. It just says incorporate revisions responding to HCD and public review. Technically with this motion, if there's a public commenter who says actually delete the housing element, then we've directed you to delete the housing element. So I want to make sure that we get the word minor in when this motion is made. so that we've seen a substantial version of what we are recommending to city council. Let me just write that down. OK. Now for the document itself. Let me see if I can find some page numbers. I'll point out if you can just do a control F

YEAH, ON PAGE 115 AT THE TOP IT JUST SAYS ON MONTH 2026.

Um, page 153 has map with flood zones and then 155 has fire hazard severity zones. The maps have housing element sites that have been removed. And I believe not all the ones that were added. So just updating the maps, um, to be the new housing element sites. And then. I think this might be city attorney question, might be us. Because I was not here the first time for the first go around for the housing element. So I want to make sure that I understand how this works, how the allocation and the planning works for the different income categories. So HCD, SCAG, one of those two, has told us that

OK. So I did say four categories. So we have to plan for enough, I'll just say, very low-income units to meet our requirement of 2,919. Yes. Yes. Yes, that's correct. OK. Why is it that our total potential, I'm on page 252. Why is it that our total potential capacity for RHNA for very low income is 1,974 units when our RHNA allocation was 2,919 units?

Okay. So for the purposes of like no net loss, how do we know that we're still, like are we just saying lower income and then we don't care about the difference between very low and low?

Okay. Okay. THOSE ARE MY QUESTIONS. THANK YOU, MR. CHAIR. ALL RIGHT. COMMISSIONER, ANY OTHER QUESTIONS OF STAFF?

YES. ON THAT SAME TABLE, THE LINE FOR FAIR VIEW DEVELOPMENT CENTER, AS FAR AS THIS REPORT, WE'RE PROJECTING THE MAXIMUM THERE AT 2300, RIGHT?

OKAY. AND I JUST WANTED TO DOUBLE CHECK. ONE OF OUR LAST OR MAYBE SECOND TO LAST COMMISSION MEETING WE HAD one of the trustees of the colleges come by. Is that identified as one of the housing opportunities? Because I clearly recall she came to speak. Trustee Dorn-Parker came out and spoke that she wanted the colleges campus to be considered as housing opportunities. I just wanted to, again, I can't really tell by the color of the streets on the maps. So I just wanted to just double check that that was included.

Part two of this. We had a great public comment talking about or making a recommendation as we talk with property owners to help us achieve the green space. Is that an opportunity that we're making available to developers to consider donating or selling their space back to the city to convert it into green space?

Awesome. Awesome. I also want to take into public and to comment some of the community letters that we received for this item maybe you can help us illustrate or help us respond i think there was this great letter from mr austin madison about concerns about over developing housing predominantly on the west side where we find a lot of industrial spaces that turn into creative THIRD SPACES FOR OUR COMMUNITY. SO COULD YOU MAYBE HIGHLIGHT FOR THE, YOU KNOW, OUR RESIDENTS AND THE NEIGHBORS THAT ARE LISTENING HERE IN THE AUDIENCE, HOW ARE WE HELPING MITIGATE THAT TO ENSURE THAT ALONG THIS REZONING E

OK. And just going back to that map, That slide with the map, please. Basically, it's only the colored, the teal colored areas where it was approved by Measure K only to rezone and develop. Nothing else. Everything else in the gray is don't touch. Not a capacity. So any property owner, even if they wanted, I mean, I guess if a property owner wanted to I don't know, you know, turn one lot into multi-housing unit. They cannot.

Go to the public in order to create a large development. So again, I just want to, I've gotten lots of questions on why is all the development happening on these main corridors? It's going to create more traffic. And again, And it's not taken into consideration the existing communities. But again, just highlighting that we're limited to Measure K passing and only allowing us to develop in the teal color areas. Everything else is do not touch. And should a property owner want to develop, it would have to go through a citywide vote, right? And the developer likelihood of doing that probably, I w

JUST A QUICK, I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS STILL OPEN FOR PUBLIC COMMENT AND STILL DRAFT. It would be extraordinarily helpful if in the staff report we had summary tables for all of this stuff. Like, I was a little surprised that the table of the sites didn't have the number of associated units, right, or the APNs or things like that. So just, that would be tremendously helpful so we wouldn't have to page through this thing furiously and with a bunch of post-it notes to get to the information that's really relevant. to what we're actually talking about so I think it's really important to show in

All right, thank you, I appreciate that.

Yeah, two quick ones. I just wanna make sure I got an agreement, commitment to provide a legible version of this table. And if it comes in our next Planning Commission meeting package, just as a informational item, that'd be awesome. A PRINTED VERSION? MAYBE 11 BY 17 BUT I'LL LEAVE IT UP TO YOU.

THE SECOND THING I WOULD You mentioned notification letters that went to property owners and to Commissioner Martinez's questioning, some of those property owners didn't request to be added to the housing element. I would like to have a copy of one of those letters. You can black out who you sent it to. I'm not interested in that. I want to see what was actually communicated to them in writing. Um, and specifically what I'm interested in, I don't, I'm not asking you to change the letter. What I want to see and understand from the letter is if they understand that being added to this list isn't

Okay, I just have two quick questions. Clearly, my colleagues have read this document very carefully, and I appreciate their diligence. I also appreciate their interest in making sure there's some consistency here. I want to kind of take it up a little bit of a level. The housing element is somewhat of an unusual part of the general plan. THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS ARE ESSENTIALLY DATA AS WELL AS SOME ANALYSIS ON SPECIFIC TOPICS. BUT WOULD YOU AGREE FOR THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATING THE PUBLIC THAT CHAPTER FOUR IS REALLY THE OPERATIVE PART OF THIS, THE HOUSING PLAN?

Right, so that's the planning piece of it, and then we will implement it, and through that implementation, there will be changes, for example, to our zoning code, and that's where we are going to memorialize these things like open space requirements. That's what staff and an applicant are going to use to determine what is really applicable for a project, not necessarily a lot of the, let's just say, background material in the housing element.

If there's no more questions of staff now, we can ask later. I'd like to open the public hearing and open public comments. So if there's anybody in chambers who wishes to speak, please come to either podium. All right, go ahead.

Thank you Anyone else in chambers wish to speak this trend do we have anybody on zoom or by phone I

Commissioners, any further questions of staff? Yes. Commissioner Martinez.

Just to confirm with the two public comments that we just got. First, I'll ask about the Newport Boulevard site, 2148 Newport Boulevard. Was that one already included or not?

What makes it not a Measure K site? I don't have a good image of it.

Okay. All right. Okay. I don't have a Measure K map in front of me, so better see that. And then I will ask about the property that Mr. Griffin mentioned, which is South Coast Toyota, which I believe is the corner of Harbor and Bernard, which, from looking at this map, does look like I measure K site.

That is, uh, we, we, we, sorry, we can't, we can't have a back and forth anymore.

Okay. Any other questions of staff? Commissioner Andrade.

Yes. If you can comment on some of the comments that we received regarding the density. We received two letters that there are some sites that are projected for 30, but really to make it feasible, they're asking to increase the density to 90, to at least 90. I FOUND A COUPLE OF HARBOR BOULEVARD LOCATIONS THAT ARE AT 30.

OKAY, GREAT. SO THEY WOULD HAVE POTENTIAL TO INCREASE THEIR DENSITY. AND THEN THE LETTER WE RECEIVED FROM McCRAE PROPERTIES I'M SURE THAT'S ALSO BEEN INCORPORATED IN ONE OF THE ALREADY COLOR COATED IN OUR MAP.

Maybe I didn't see that public comment. From Anne McCray, McCray Properties LLC. She just mentioned there's one lot that was included, the second lot wasn't, but she wants both parcels to be included as housing element.

ALL RIGHT. COMMISSIONER ANDRADE, IT SAYS YOU'VE GOT A MOTION. DID YOU JUST ACCIDENTALLY HIT ANOTHER ONE? OKAY. ALL RIGHT. SOMEONE WANT TO MAKE A MOTION?

OKAY. WE'LL GO AHEAD AND MOVE IT. MAKE THE MOTION.

Find that the project is consistent with City Council adopted resolution, certifying mitigated negative declaration, and adopting the mitigation monitoring reporting program. Recommend the City Council adopt resolution to approve the general plan amendment.

All right. Motion by Commissioner Andrade. Is there a second? Commissioner Martinez. Okay. Commissioner Andrade, would you like to speak to your motion?

Yes, thank you. It's been a long time coming. I really appreciate the staff and consultants that have been working on this project, the extensive community outreach and connections and relationships with the developers that are interested, curious, qualified, don't qualify, and all of that. So really appreciate the hard work and incorporating also the CAP. It was great to see that that was also peppered into this as well, prioritizing green space where opportunities lie. Yeah, so thank you for all your hard work. Looking forward to how City Council moves forward with this.

Commissioner Martinez, would you like to speak to your second?

First, I'll request the maker of the motion for two minor amendments, friendly amendments, if she would agree. First, in the second staff recommendation, where it says direct staff to incorporate revisions in response, et cetera, make it say direct staff to incorporate minor revisions in response to HCD and public comment.

AND THEN SECOND JUST REQUEST AND THEN SECOND JUST REQUEST WELL I GUESS THIS WOULD BE AN WELL I GUESS THIS WOULD BE AN ITEM NUMBER THREE TO REQUEST ITEM NUMBER THREE TO REQUEST STAFF TO MEET WITH MR. GRIFFIN STAFF TO MEET WITH MR. GRIFFIN ABOUT THE PROPERTY ON Okay, cool. And with that, yeah, this item, very big item, I'd like to thank staff for all of their work in putting this together. I know when we first sent over the March, I guess it was probably February for us, but the previous amendment to the housing element, my first priority was to get us a certified housing element. And that is my

All right. Any other comments? Vice Chair Zik.

Thank you. I won't support the motion. I haven't supported this housing element since the beginning. You know, one of my favorite movies is Groundhog Day. If you haven't seen it, I think you'd find it entertaining. This feels like that to me. Having a certified housing element sounds pretty important. Sounds like it's a legal requirement. And in the very beginning, we were told We can't get there from here unless we get rid of Measure Y. Four years ago we did that. That wasn't enough. Then we were told we can't get there from here. We need an inclusionary housing ordinance. So we worked on tha

Thank you. And I'm not going to do a substitute motion tonight because I think we have a good motion and a second along with some commentary. I'm not going to be supporting this as well. And not because I'm just against what's, we need to certify our housing element. But I think we have to be realistic with how we got here. And To the credit of the staff sitting in front of me, you inherited this problem. And I get it. And Director Tai, this has been going on for years before this team was assembled and before this process started. But we've blown either intentionally or by unintentional or ma

All right. Any other comments, commissioners? I WILL CONCLUDE BY SAYING I SUPPORT THE MOTION. I APPRECIATE THE CONCERN AND APPREHENSION OF SOME OF MY COLLEAGUES. BUT I AM COMFORTABLE ENOUGH WITH WHAT WE HAVE HERE AND I RECOGNIZE THIS IS A VERY FLUID AND UNUSUAL SITUATION. THIS WHOLE HOUSING ELEMENT HAS SEEN TWISTS AND TURNS. LEGAL DECISIONS THAT HAVE HAD IMPACTS THAT NONE OF US ANTICIPATED AND I ALWAYS SUBSCRIBE TO THE IDEA THAT I DON'T WANT THE PERFECT TO BE THE ENEMY OF THE GOOD AND I THINK WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS AT LEAST GOOD ENOUGH NOT NECESSARILY FOR ME PERSONALLY BUT GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE CI

ALL RIGHT. DOES ANYBODY NEED A BREAK OR CAN WE POWER THROUGH? YES, BREAK? NO, POWER THROUGH. OKAY. POWER THROUGH? ALL RIGHT. WE HAVE NO OLD BUSINESS. WE HAVE ONE NEW BUSINESS ITEM. MS. TRUAN, WILL YOU PLEASE READ THE TITLE FOR THAT?

Good evening, Ms. Halligan. You have the floor.

Thank you very much. Commissioners, questions of staff? Vice Chair Zick?

All right. One of the things you mentioned was that there will be, in the very first part of your presentation, traffic study, noise study, and then later in your presentation you mentioned the program EIR. Is it safe to assume that if there are significant impacts that are found that are unavoidable, that our response to that will be similar to the response that we had to the EAR for FTC, where we go, good to know, too bad about that, can't do anything about it, let's go ahead and start construction. Or would we look at the traffic study and go, oh no, that's bad, that's an impact, therefore

Oh, either. If we see significant impacts that are unavoidable, do we just sort of like make a note of that and say good to know and move on?

Okay, and my next question is When you mentioned, I've asked this before, but I don't remember your answer. It gives you an opportunity to give me a fresh answer. We remove parking minimums from developments under the premise that the developer knows how much parking his project will need. Well, and presumably what other people say is not scientific. You know, I've heard that. Is there any constraint that we put on the developer that prevents parking impacts from their inadequate planning for parking to spill out onto our streets or adjacent neighborhoods or properties? Or do we simply accept

Right, that was where my question was centered.

Okay, I just have two other questions. When you were talking about community visioning, I was wondering about this requirement of a maximum setback of 20 feet. Where did that come from? Did that come from the community?

Why would we put a maximum setback and not leave that up to the developer? Maybe they don't want to feature their building right up against the street. Maybe they want their customers to be able to come off the street, park, and go to the business, not have to go around behind the building, wherever the parking lot might be. Why would we not leave it up to the developer?

predominance of cars is not the main feature of the project and instead the people are the main building entrances are the building is I understand your philosophy on that thank you my last question you are estimating the council approval by October is that to beat the election what if this took until December January is that acceptable. IF WE NEEDED MORE STUDY SESSIONS, MORE DIALOGUE, MORE INTERACTION WITH THE COMMUNITY, IF THAT PUSHED US OUT OR ARE WE ON A STRICT SCHEDULE WITH THIS ONE?

IS THERE A BREAKDOWN OF THE COMMENTS RECEIVED? ARE THEY IN THE APPENDIX SOMEWHERE WHERE YOU CAN SEE EXACTLY WHO COMMENTED ABOUT WHAT AND WHAT THEY SAID?

Okay, that's my question for right now. One more thing on the publicly accessible open space. So I can see that like for instance, let's just say over by anywhere where there's a place where people gather at lunch or whatever, if it's a private development that has picnic tables or some other area, it could be a shopping center, like it could be Metro Point, it could be something like that. If there's not a public recorded easement of some sort, will the property owner be able to dictate or determine what happens in that open space? So if I wanted to go set up a pickup soccer game in the middl

What I'm trying to get at is that, and it could be soccer, it could be badminton, it could be model rocketry, who knows, but it's... It's a privately controlled public space that has significant liability and security and other implications for the private property owner. And so I'm just trying to understand if we're giving, if we're, for instance, one of the things that was talked about in the presentation was that we could give up all of the private open space if the developer discerned that they wanted to convert all the private open space to publicly accessible open space. So the nature of

Thank you. And then the other question I had was regarding oh Gosh now I lost it As far as the town center application of the mood to the town center general plan or zoning current zoning district That is a very tightly controlled specific plan sub area and it's been it's been that way for quite some time and so that seems like a Was that covered was that has that been thoroughly discussed with all of the stakeholders and property owners and everybody over there and

All right, thank you. All right. Any more questions?

Commissioner Martinez. I've got questions and comments sprinkled throughout. So if you want, I can do it after public comment.

Let's do questions first and then comments after public comment.

OK. I'll try and separate. OK. I'm looking at the links. And I'm going to go in order of the staff report, but I will reference the language that was linked to in the staff report. And this doesn't have page numbers. So for definitions, zoning district overlay. It says in our proposed definition, the overlay zone supersedes the zoning regulation of the base zoning district. I thought that the point was that they can opt into those zoning regulations and not that they were required to have the regulations of the zoning overlay.

YEAH. YEAH. OKAY. M, Chapter 5, Article 1, Residential Districts. Why limit townhomes to just six in a row? Is there a reason that we came up with that number specifically?

So if the intent is to do this stuff about facades, and in our objective design standards, which I'll get to, we talk about these facade regulations. Why not just only subject the townhomes to the facade standards instead of giving them this cap of six?

Got it. Okay. The next one is about residential common interest developments. And here we allow for multifamily essentially to become residential ownership housing. And the way that it's been applied in Costa Mesa, I think of the townhomes. So I think I wanted to ask about... if we look at applicability of the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 and like the very low income and low income current tenants, when we look at these applications and if we should include that process in our municipal code.

OK. Thank you. OK. Next one in the staff report is the mood. Let me try and separate comments from questions. So in our proposal, we have a bunch of different offsite improvements that we're saying are required. In addition to these offsite improvements, a developer will have to pay the various impact fees that we have. So I guess the question is why have these required off-site improvements if we're also collecting the impact fee, which should in theory pay for improvements roughly in the vicinity of a project.

GOT IT. WHAT WOULD AN APPEAL PROCESS FOR THIS LOOK LIKE FOR THE OFFSIDE IMPROVEMENTS?

Got it. Okay. I'll have comments later. Let's see. Okay. So permitted uses within the mood. I'll skip over to theaters for a question. I didn't find it. But theaters, it's specifically broken out into two categories, which is within 200 feet of residential development and outside of 200 feet of residential development. Being a mood project would mean it has housing. So do we mean within 200 feet of residential development other than the project itself?

Got it. OK. Thank you. Let's see. That's a comment. Oh, yeah. There's setback standards. And one of these was actually presented on site 11. THERE WAS ONE THAT GOT ADDED IN THAT I WAS INTERESTED IN WHICH WAS THE CLAY VALVE 50-FOOT BUFFER. I WANTED TO SEE IF THERE WAS AN EXPLANATION FOR THAT ONE.

Okay. Let's see if I have questions for objective design standards. the upper floor setbacks. I don't have the language in front of me. But it says, roughly, abutting residential zones. So I wanted to confirm, or see if this is wrong, if the upper story setback applies only on a side with a residential zone and not to the entire property. Like the front of the property along the street wouldn't have to have an upper side setback. OK. STAFF?

THANK YOU. THOSE ARE MY QUESTIONS. I'LL HAVE COMMENTS LATER. THANK YOU.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS OF STAFF COMMISSIONERS? Okay, we'll open public comments. If anybody in chambers would like to come speak on this item, please come down to either podium.

Thank you. All right. Anyone else in chambers? Mr. Rand, do we have anybody on Zoom or by phone?

I will close public comments. Commissioners, do we have any final comments or questions? Commissioner Martinez.

All right. Go back down the list, but with comments instead of questions. Yes. Starting from the top. Definitions, yeah, let's fix that. Overlay zoning definition, hopefully we can, when we see that next time, we can improve that. Townhomes to six in a row. With our objective design guidelines, I do feel like we can remove that six requirement. Plus, we do have open space requirements, and we do have other requirements. that I would feel comfortable removing that requirement given the other things that we have in there. Back to the mood. I think the biggest... CONCERN I HAD WITH THE PROPOSAL W

Thank you. So just a few overarching comments. I really appreciate the public comments because it underscores, you know, just a super brief aside. When I was originally appointed to the Planning Commission, I think in 2011, one of the first things we did was hold a study session because the Westside Urban Plans had been sitting on the shelf. I know I told some of you this before. And what we heard was from a huge crowd of folks who actually build things that there was – they loved the – the idea behind them, but there were specifics in there that were a problem. And so what Claire Flynn, who w

THANK YOU. I JUST HAVE A FEW QUICK I JUST HAVE A FEW QUICK SPECIFIC COMMENTS. SPECIFIC COMMENTS. FIRST I AGREE WITH COMMISSIONER FIRST I AGREE WITH COMMISSIONER MARTINEZ ABOUT INCREASING THE MARTINEZ ABOUT INCREASING THE DENSITY ON HARBOR BOULEVARD TO DENSITY ON HARBOR BOULEVARD TO TRY FOR NON-HOUSING ELEMENT TRY FOR NON-HOUSING ELEMENT SITES. DISPARITY IN THE SCALE AND SCOPE OF SOME OF THOSE ESPECIALLY ON LARGER PROPERTIES. MY SECOND COMMENT IS DIRECTED TOWARDS THE REVISIONS TO THE NEWPORT BOULEVARD SPECIFIC PLAN. So I've always struggled with the specific plan because it doesn't really opera

MOVE THE PLANNING COMMISSION RECEIVE THE PRESENTATION, REQUEST STAFF INCORPORATE FEEDBACK AND FILE THIS REPORT.

ALL RIGHT. MOTION BY COMMISSIONER MARTINEZ, SECOND BY COMMISSIONER DIXON. ANYBODY WANT TO SPEAK TO THE MOTION? OKAY. ALL RIGHT. LET'S CALL FOR THE QUESTION.

All right. Just for the record, I forgot to close the item, but let's make sure that's official. Anyone has departmental reports? Mr. Yang, public services? Okay. Sorry. It says development services. I know it's community development. Director Tai?

continuing to march along but thank you for your support and that's it for me tonight thank you all right thank you and lastly uh mr preziosi anything from city attorney thank you charlotte nothing this evening okay we are adjourned thank you everyone