Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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here. Vice Chair Holler here. Chair Madrid here. Can Jeff Leoo please lead us in the flag salute of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. What a great audience tonight. Okay. Uh there are no presentations. Are there any modifications to the agenda? There are none.

Okay. Can I ask the planning commission for an all in favor to approve the agenda? I I I Any opposed? Hearing none, the agenda is approved. Uh, madame clerk, are there any requests to speak on the non-aggenda items? There are none. Great. Okay. Uh, there are no consent calendar items. Okay. Before we begin this public hearing, chair, I'm sorry. Can we ask for approval of the minutes for the July 9th, 2025?

I was wondering if you were going to catch that. There is one set of minutes for the planning commission's approval. Does the planning commission have any modifications? Okay. Could I ask for the planning commission for all in favor to approve the July 9, 2025 minutes? I I

I Any opposed? Hearing none, minutes are approved. Now we go on to item eight. There are no consent calendar items. Okay. So before we begin this public hearing, I'd like to briefly explain the procedures. Following the staff presentation and any questions from the commission, I will open the public hearing. The applicant will then have an opportunity to speak followed by members of the audience who wish to address the commission. Each speaker will be given up to three uninterrupted minutes to provide their comments. Please note that the commission will not be able to respond to comments or questions posed during the public comment portion, but may raise questions or issues with staff or the applicant after the public hearing is closed. Okay. Okay. Make sure I got that. Okay. So, that takes us to item uh 9.1, Denny's Restaurant. Good evening, chair. Uh staff requests that this item be continued to the next regularly scheduled meeting and that will be uh August 13. Thank you, Orlando. Okay. So, that takes us to item 9.2, Santa Rosa Academy expansion. Oh, we need a vote to continue.

Yes, please. Okay. Can we do an all in favor for that please? I I I I And just for clarification, that is the regularly scheduled planning commission meeting on August 13, 2025. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Now we go to 9.2, Santa Rosa Academy expansion. So this is item 9.2. Could the community development director please introduce the item?

Thank you. Um, our associate planner, Brandon Clearary, will be making the presentation. He's our uh our Santa Rosa expert has been helping out with uh all the different expansions they've had. In fact, I was close to asking uh Dr. uh Hennings to maybe put him in first grade and and have him work out of there because he does so much work for them. But uh uh but yeah, he'll be handling the presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Orlando. Uh good evening, chair and commissioners. Uh the project before you is the Santa Rosa expansion, a major modification PLN25-00003. The project is located within the Meny Town Center specific plan, a planning area 5, south of La Pedro Road, east of Sherman, west of Han Road and the Flood Channel, and north of Cloudy Peak Way. Um, as I stated, the general plan and zoning is the town center specific plan, planning area five. To the east, we have the flood channel zoning and economic development corridor uh corridor uh community core. To the west is highdensity residential and EDC community corps. To the south is the countryside marketplace specific plan which has traditional tracked homes. And then to the north is the rest of Meny Town Center with the multif family apartments and detached uh single family lots. Uh for a little bit of background, uh the Santa Rosa Academy campus was approved in 2012 under public use permit 2011-165 for which all but the theater building was constructed. Santa Rosa proposes to modify the public use permit to replace the theater building with this elementary school building, which will be two stories at approximately 28,500 square ft, which will include 16 classrooms for an additional uh 217 students and seven staff members. The building will also have a stage and multi-purpose area to replace the uh theater building um to continue their theater program. Um and the new building is being placed in the northeast corner of the project site. Um here is the floor plan showing um the design of the interior of the building.

Um the 16 classrooms will be placed along the ex uh the outer edge of the building with the stage and multi-purpose area in the middle. Uh for architecture, uh it incorporates the same Santa Barbara and Spanish themes that the rest of the complex uh has, including the window trelluses, uh uh stucco u arches, and the Spanish tile. In addition, the ends of the building which face west and east uh incorporate stone veneer um on a good chunk of the uh exterior of the building along with a uh cupa, I believe is what it's called, which is the uh tower element. Approximately 6,800 square feet of landscaping will be installed around the building uh to help screen it from view uh which is also consistent with the remainder of the campus. The original Santa Rosa was approved with an addendum to the town center specific plan environmental impact report. An additional addendum was prepared for this project which analyzed uh the same uh subjects including but not limited to traffic biology cultural noise, air quality, hydrarology and water quality. Uh this second addendum was prepared and it confirms that no new impacts above what the original EI identified um would exceed any thresholds established. The project was noticed on July 13th for today's planning commission meeting and no public comments have been received. Uh staff's recommendation is to approve the project as outlined in this presentation and the staff report.

And this concludes staff's presentation. Uh we are available for any questions along with our SQA consultant and the Santa Rosa staff. Uh they also have a presentation that kind of outlines uh their proposed uh pickup time and drop off time staggering to help assist with traffic concerns. Thank you, Associate Planner Brandon Clearary. Uh does the planning commission have any questions for staff? Ivan,

thank you. Uh I think the question my only question is on traffic and the change from the auditorium to the classroom but I uh I suspect that some of my questions may be answered during the applicant presentation. So I want to hear that and then uh maybe pick this line of questioning up although it's not long uh after we after we hear from the applicant.

Thank you Ivan. Michael, good. Chris, Chris, you have any questions? Yeah, I'll hold off on mine, too. Okay. Um, so I'll open the uh public hearing at 609. Madame Clerk, can you confirm that the item was legally noticed and if any correspondence has been received? It was legally noticed and we didn't receive any correspondence. Great. Okay. I'd like to invite the applicant to the podium to speak.

Good evening and thank you to our Santa Rosa Academy uh fan club. In the back we have um representatives from our our parents and staff and from our construction firm. Could you state your name, please?

This is I'm Dr. Robert Hennings, the superintendent of Santa Rosa Academy, and we have our facilities manager, Mr. Peter Arabio. Um so uh we do have uh for a presentation um this evening um of how we um stagger our um not only our drop off times uh to the school. That was something that was established back with the original uh permit and we've continued to do so. But how we intend to reshuffle it so that we do not um have any more impact added to street spillage that we above what we already currently have. Um and so uh you see that we have uh four groupings that we have planned for after we open the new facility. Our our kindergarten through 2 grade uh pickup time is at uh 2:45 uh in the afternoon and currently uh K through two is all combined with the rest of elementary. But given that we'll have some additional cars visit the campus to do ch uh child pickup, we wanted to make sure that we remove uh in kind uh that amount of traffic and have them come at a separate time and a se a different location than we currently do. So we avoid adding any extra traffic spillage into the area. And so our K through uh two uh if you go to the next slide, our K through two um we will be changing the location where they pick up. Instead of picking up in on the La Pedra pickup line, they are going to follow the the scheme that we have for our our middle school that's been wildly successful for years. They're going to come in off our Sherman gate, bring the traffic into the rear of our campus, pick up in the rear,

and then they'll exit out onto uh La Pedro, make a right-hand turn, and either go left or right on Hong. Next slide, please. Um at 255 uh is when the rest of our elementary will continue with their traditional pickup as it currently is on our pickup lane on La Pedra. and they'll they'll exit back out onto La Pedra and again go either left or right onto Han. Of course, if they have some shopping that to do, they can go straight. Next slide. Our middle school pickup will will then uh follow later at 3:10 uh p.m. and they'll come through the our our Sherman entrance. They'll queue up in the rear of our campus so that we we bring the traffic off of the street and onto our property. They'll pick up the students and and they'll leave uh out onto La Pedra and use Han as their egress from the area. Next slide. And then our last group, which are which is our smallest group, high school picks up at 3:35 uh p.m. Next slide. And then in the morning time, all of our students drop off in the morning. And we have not had uh an issue over the years with students dropping off in the morning, but we've maintained staggered drop off times. They all use the the La Pedra uh drop off lane, but we'll have our kindergarten through 2 drop off between 8 to 8:25, grades uh 3 through 5 at the same time. Uh middle school drops off at 7:30 to 7:55. So, we'll get middle school on campus before the elementary students arrive. And then high school, they they drop off at 7:40 uh to 8:25. And and so we'll have most of those high school students on campus

before the elementary students arrive. By staggering, it creates a nice consistent flow in that morning to bring the cars in off of La Pedra as as quickly as possible and out through our lanes and back onto La Pedra to aggress out from the area. And it's a system that's worked really well. A few years back, um, traffic officers worked with us to try to, um, uh, ch change it up to make an adjustment and ended up actually, uh, adding to traffic out onto the streets. And so we reverted back, uh, to the system that we have. And this past year was our fastest drop off and our fastest uh, uh, pickup and egress out of the area that we've seen. Uh we added uh additional staff out to the front during drop offs and pickups to help facilitate the flow, helping kids uh get into the cars quicker. It's the picking up that's a a longer process, particularly with little kids. You know, for some of them, they have to uh about have step ladders to get into some of the vehicles, but it's fun to help help uh the the little ones. And you know, the the larger kids, man, they it's like the car doesn't even stop moving and somehow they're in the car already. So, but it's it's worked out very well. Uh we regularly get compliments from traffic officers uh who who say that our processes are are noticeably different and they they opine about uh some of the difficulties in some other areas of town where some of the school traffic can uh impede travel through the area for 40 45 minutes. Um but we haven't had anything like that at all.

It works well. Um, I do need to give compliments to city staff. Uh, when we uh began this project and started working with them a few years ago to let them know that we needed to complete um our campus buildout, they had a really great idea of uh going in first, adding the extra parking that the building was going to require and adding the the fire lane that it was going to need. Uh and so by taking care of all of that ahead of time, um it uh has made a more efficient process for us currently in terms of traffic, but we won't have that hangup going on while we're doing uh the the rest of the uh building uh construction part. And so it was very smart on their part to advise us of that. And it's brought us to a point to where uh we do not believe that any of the actual construction activity on the building is going to cause us any um traffic headaches because we have that extra parking and we have the uh the fire lane already added.

Very good. Works for me. It doesn't hold me up when I'm driving by there. Well, thank you. I appreciate the feedback. So, do you uh agree with the conditions of approval? Yes. Which aren't many. The city staff, you have a very professional staff and they have done a great job in advising and uh working with us uh all for several months now and getting us to this point. We really appreciate their help. We appreciate you too.

Okay. Well, yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for your presentation. So, you you answered almost all of my questions. I just have um one more thing to uh to ask. You had said that in the original use permit, the the public use permit, not a permit I'm all that familiar with, but I assume you can regulate ongoing conditions just like a cup, but you said there's a there was a condition in the original permit that relates to the staggered drop off. Is that correct? Did I understand that? Yeah, the original permit actually called for um the the staggering of drop off and pickup times. Uh and it also called for there to be um uh staff on hand to help facilitate uh the kids exiting vehicles and entering vehicles to help keep things moving as slow as uh efficiently as possible.

Great. Thank you. My my question now is going to be for those guys sitting over there. Um, so given that there's a a staggered pickup and drop off condition in the original permit, that'll carry over to um the changes here. And the only reason I asked the question is how the auditorium would be used and when traffic would ingress and egress from the site with the auditorium is obviously different than a classroom. And so I just want to make sure that that's going to carry forward. As long as you guys shake your heads up and down, I am good with that. And I appreciate your presentation. And and I like to hear the motors are happy. The motors are happy.

You guys aren't motors. Covers. All right. Thank you, Ivan. I have a question. Oh,

Dr. Addings, welcome. Um, it was not unnoticed that you didn't talk about your project at all. You came in here and you talked about traffic, which was my my biggest concern. The building itself, it's a big Chick-fil-A, you know, no offense to you guys or Chick-fil-A or whatever, but I don't know about the rest of you guys, but my main concern was traffic. And it's been like that not just for you guys. It's been like that. I've been involved with men, you know, all that. Um, but I was handed this yesterday. All my concerns about traffic gone. So, I appreciate all the work you guys did this. I wasn't even aware that the staggering happened. Um, I think you need to call Dr. Ruth. Um, get it going at their schools. But yeah, we're going to add we're going to add traffic to the project. 217 students. Um but it looks like you've mitigated that. Um one of the question, a couple questions I have is all these drop off and pickup times. How many of how many multiple student families do you have where that's going to impact a student being there 45 minutes early or half hour early for both pickup and drop offs? Do you have that number? Uh uh from from my visual memory we uh let first let me explain how we address that. Um, it has always been at at our school that uh if you have younger students uh waiting for older older siblings to get out of school, they they go to our our aironditioned uh plaza,

work on homework and things and and and so they're with our campus supervisors and they're waiting for their older sibling to get out of school and then they leave school uh during their older siblings uh pickup time. It's a system that's worked out really well. Most of our families use that. On any given day, there's about 50 students in our plaza waiting for an older siblings uh pickup time for them to get out of school. And and it's great. Big brother, big sister, whether they're a middle schooler or a high schooler, comes and picks them up and just handholds them and and walks them out uh to get picked up. Um, some of them have uh older high school students who already drive and it's kind of cute to to to see them walk them out to the student lot and load up in Big Brother's car and go home. Um, there are u uh a small number of families that prefer just to come get them whenever they're a available and they'll make uh multiple runs uh to to campus uh to pick up different kids and shifts. um that works for their family, but most of our families by and large just wait to pick them all up at one in one group.

I appreciate that. Um one other question, how is uh ABA or AB984, whatever it is, AB84. Yeah.

Um if that passes, how's that going to affect your student population? Um AP84 as it's currently written a as it came out of the state assembly side has some harmful impacts on charter schools that operate independent study programs. Uh so that would affect our uh full-time independent study uh group which is our homeschool families. Uh it would also impact our part-time students because part-time students in California are considered independent, a form of independent study. Um there are several amendments on the Senate side currently being considered and and uh lobbyed for. So at this point in time, uh it's speculation of what the final form of AB84 will will be when it's voted upon. Assuming there are no changes, if they're just going to vote on what the the state assembly uh sent to them, it would cause uh schools like ours to uh re-evaluate the uh viability of continuing those type of independent study programs. our our homeschool and our part-time uh student population comprises about 38% uh of our total student population. Um in order to uh sort shield ourselves from whatever new requirements would be imposed by AB84, we'd need to get our independent study program to about less than 10%. Um and we could still operate independent study. you would just have to be on a much smaller scale which would mean that for those other students it would be approximately 125 uh students. We uh would instead of

having some of these new CLA there's four classrooms that are marked to be servicing our part-time students. we would need to convert those to full-time daily attendance classrooms so that we could accommodate uh 125 of our students to add to our our daily vote. Now, that's all that's all uh speculation based on how AB84 currently sits, assuming that there are no changes and goes forward as the as the state assembly handed it to the Senate. You're saying 125 potential students? Yes. You you didn't just make that number up. I saw you read it. Yeah.

Um so 125 I'm okay with. If you said 900 additional students that are on those other tracks, then that brings us back to more traffic problems. We're we're we're fortunate that more than lion share of our campus is already full-time attenders and our our campus already has a finite capacity. Um and this this latest addition which completes our campus buildout as you see only mildly increased our stu overall student population. Commissioner Thomas.

Yeah, we have um we have well over 2,200 um people on a waiting list for this coming school year. And that's that's the perpetual every year. It's well over 2,000 uh waiting for a spot to open up. My suggestion all the way down. Right.

Um, we we don't we don't do that because we don't have control over what what what what the streets say. But when we do have a special event, it's usually uh graduation. We do in advance um work out with the city and with traffic enforcement uh a special parking arrangement for for street parking and they've been wonderful and we've made we've made those arrangements for the uh for that evening where when we have graduation and it works out really well. Um the city uh has even in the past opened up um their uh their dirt lot parking over by Central Park uh because that's just a very short walk uh to our campus and so that's been an option in the past as well. Um we we've also um had good relationship with uh Target and Lowe's and they have not uh minded at all for when we do have graduation that we have some folks parking over there and walk across the street for graduation.

Commissioner Thomas, can you please turn your mic on?

Sorry. So last comment is have to confess some sins here. So when I was taking my kids to school, maybe the queuing wasn't as wonderful then, but there's the Sherman and La Pedra and we would go over to the corn the what the northwest corner over there. Go on La Pedra and drop off on that side and then they would run across because the there was just too many cars at that too many students. Uh my other suggestion was once that the the west side of La Pedro as you go west from your your from your location um that as that right now it's not developed but as that develops that the city consider widening it long enough to allow parking along there for events or or drop offs or something. So I again uh hopefully this queuing system works good but I know at certain times this does happen. So, I will add that even myself as a parent at Santa Rosa Academy, I try to do my part just to avoid bringing a a vehicle um into the area when my wife has to pick up our son because I have a late meeting. And so, I'll have my son uh walk uh to Han and and walk down Han and let her uh pick him up uh down on Han out of the area. So, you know, so one one car at a time. We try to, you know, send send more cars to the outer areas and not

that was a thinking of opening up Sherman down south on Sherman, people parked down there, get them out of the sec kind of a thing. So, we're open to to to that idea. Um, I I don't know what the turn lane re requirements are out out there or what the requirements are for the street sign signage, but but the city professionals and traffic safety officers, they they're well versed. They could advise on that. Yeah, I'm not proposing a condition or anything. I'm just bringing up from my personal experience and as future events grow out there, that may be a consideration. So, that's all. Commissioner Hi, how are you? I'm well, thank you.

Um, my question was going to be Michael's question, so I'm glad he asked it and so that has been answered for me, but I also have another question. Um, has the school conducted any community forums to share with the community about the expansion of the school or like are residents aware that there's potentially going to be more cars even with the queueing system? Uh yes. Um not only did the the city uh do a mailer to all of the residents that were that live within a certain distance of our our property, uh we also just recently had our uh 25th uh birthday for Santa Rosa Academy. It was this past spring. And so we had a community event and sent out flyers um because it wasn't just for our students and families, it was for the whole community. And while it did uh drizzle just a little bit, we did have a present a public presentation um in pictures and on posters uh and uh I explained in a speech all about the the new facility and what it brings to the campus. But that was a culmination of a few years about speaking about completing the campus buildout. We've been dis discussing it um in our board meetings and um uh and at our community events about about the need to complete our campus buildout. Uh we actually started with a different uh concept many years ago. It was just going to be a theater only. Um but our you know our families recognized that we needed more space for elementary students to match the size of space that we have for middle and high school. This expansion is going to solve that issue while keeping our um uh much needed uh theater.

Thank you. All my questions have been answered. Whatever you're doing out there, keep doing it. Oh, it's it's God's work. I love it. Good will. Amen. Commissioners, any more questions for Dr. Hennings? Thank you, Dr. Hennings. Thank you, commissioners. Uh, madame clerk, are there any requests to speak or would anyone in the audience like to make a public comment? I have one request to speak. David Foust.

Uh, thank you, uh, commissioners. David Fast, Santa Rosa, uh, board of director, community representative. I'm not a parent of students, but we do have two two seats on the board that uh have community representatives that help kind of bring the community input into into the operation of of the school. And so I'm writing I I'm uh here to express my support for for the adoption of the two resolutions before you. You know, uh Santa Rosa Academy is is just a gem in the community. It's a it's a beautiful campus. It's uh it's been a cornerstone of educational excellence in our community for now 20 years uh since our founding in TW in 2005 and currently with a 63,000qt campus. And so Montterrey Hall, which is what we've named this this new building, this uh almost uh 29,000 foot facility, twotory, uh 16 classrooms in the theater, really marks not just a a milestone, but really a capstone to our our campus project. And so we hope to open at the end of uh next summer uh for the 2627 school year. And uh we're confident that this uh this new facility is going to enhance our elementary schools capacity and provide a dedicated space for performing arts which is well needed helping to foster creativity and uh strengthening our our school community. And we are committed as you know to innovation and character development and preparing students for leadership and with our values of uh excellence, integrity and respect. And so I uh if you approve these actions uh they will support our our continued uh growth and and be continue to be a and we will continue to be a positive impact on the region's students uh and families especially here in Meny. And so I I thank you for your consideration and I

urge you the commissioners to adopt this the proposed resolutions and support this project. Thank you.

Thank you Dave. Thank you David and thank you to any of the uh board members that are here from the academy tonight. I see one and one and one councilman from Kenya Lake. Okay. So, if there are no further public comments, Gloria, nothing to say? No. Okay. Then I will close the public hearing at 6:36 p.m. Okay. Planning Commission, any other comments or discussion? Covered. Okay. There are two resolutions for adoption. Can I get a motion and a second to adopt the resolutions presented? I'll make a motion.

Okay, passes. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay. [Applause] All right. Okay. That takes us to uh item 10, discussion items. Are there any discussion items? There are no discussion items. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, let's go to 11. Community development director comments. Orlando.

I do have one comment uh for the commission. Um, I would like to acknowledge and thank uh Rachel. Uh, today is going to be her last meeting uh helping us with the planning commission. She's not going anywhere. Okay. So, she's she's still with us. Uh, but uh we will have Edna uh helping us out moving forward. But I did wanted to take a moment and and thank Rachel for her great work and and uh helping us out this uh past few years. So, thank you for everything and for helping us and and making sure we do things right up here. So, thank you.

Of course. Thank you. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you, Rachel. We're gonna miss you. You did a great job. Miss you guys. Who's going to keep him in line? I will say this that There was always a smile at the end of this row. She's always got a smile. Even when things were get a little heated and we had fun, you know, things were going that she was always. So, I thought that was great. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Orlando. Okay. Commissioner reports on committee activities. Michael, what did you were you up to this week? Last week, I was camping in Utah.

I didn't attend a thing and kind of nice just to take a break. Um, but since I have the mic, um, take advantage of this. Hopefully you'll you'll like this one. I would like to make a request of you to close out this meeting and former mayor.

Thank you. What Michael's saying is we'd like to pay our respects and to um, John Denver, our our past wonderful councilman. you want to know. There's a beautiful article on him on the uh city website. Those of you that didn't know some of the things that were on there that he did. So, thank you, John, for everything. Anyway, any other words for John? No. Okay. I guess Chris knew him the longest, so Okay. Thank you, Michael. Any other committee uh activities? More. Okay. Um future agenda requests from planning commissioners. Would the planning commission like to request any future agenda items? All right. Are there any coming that we've requested in the past?

Yeah, there's there's there's one that's coming and uh as soon as we conclude the um uh global traffic study and then we'll bring back some findings. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Item 14, adjourn. I'd like to adjourn this meeting at