Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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[Music] our what's today the Uh 18th 18th 13th, excuse me, planning commission meeting. Okay. So I call this meeting to order at 6 o'lock.

Okay. Madame clerk, can you please call roll? Commissioner Night here. Commissioner Ramirez here. Commissioner Thomas here. Vice Chair Holler is absent. And Chair Madrid here. Okay. Who do we have? Kayla. Hi. Could you lead us in the pledge of allegiance, please? Thank you.

Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Kaitlin. Okay, so looks like we're headed right to the uh presentations. So 4.1, we have a land use analysis and economic impact. Can I ask the community development director Orlando Hernandez to please present tonight's uh presentation?

Thank you. Uh very excited to uh to do this for you guys today. Um there uh I think everyone's aware that we're doing a joint workshop with the city council uh uh next month uh which is going to be many specific. This is uh something similar to what you're going to be seeing next month, but this is more general. And um as you know, we we deal with land use uh decisions. And uh this is going to give you an idea as to how how and how these land use decisions that we make uh or you as a planning commission make have a a huge uh financial fiscal impact to the city. So uh again, this is this is not property specific. This is not manifest specific. It's more general. So, um I will have our uh consultant. His name is Kevin Shepard. He's with Verdunity. Uh we have him virtual today because he's in Texas. So, if it can help us out uh put him through and uh we'll start the presentation. So, uh Kevin, can you hear us? Okay.

I can I can I uh they told me to to that they're going to keep my camera off for now and then if we get the questions at the at the end, I'll turn my camera on and uh show you guys my my pretty face. But for now, the the slides are uh are more important. Um looks like you guys can see everything there on your end, right? That is correct.

Okay. Um well, good evening, Commission. Uh my name is Kevin Shepard. I'm the founder and CEO of Verdinity. We're a Texas-based community consulting firm. Um we do work um all over the country uh in the area um of what I like to say of just cultivating fiscally resilient communities. Um my uh my background's a I'm a civil engineer by degree. Um and then around um the 2008 recession 2009 I got the opportunity to take over and serve as national director of my former firm's um meeting planning practice. And in doing that um I got to work all over the country and started to see that no matter where I went, big city or small city, rural, urban, suburban, uh very few cities had the money that they needed to pay for their infrastructure. So that sent me down this journey of trying to understand um why uh we're this prosperous country, but our cities can't uh can't pay all their bills. Led me into more planning work. uh started redity back in 2011 and we've been on this journey of fiscally informed planning um and education um ever since. So um Brian reached out to me and asked me uh if I could just give a a brief presentation to you all to kind of give an overview of our work but really get into the um focus on the fiscal impacts of density. Um there's, you know, there's a lot of different uh definitions of density. There's a lot of people that get scared by the word density, but really what we're talking about in the context of of Meny or so many of our communities around the country is is what I'll just call gentle density. Um a little bit more than typical suburban single family um type development, but you know, nothing like a nothing like in New York City. So, um, just to get you thinking a

little bit, um, first, you know, think think for a minute about what makes a great place. Um, it's, you know, tends to be places where people are comfortable. People are interacting and and getting together. There's there's lots of things to do. There's lots of things to look at. Um, sometimes there's smells and you you you smell the restaurants and and those types of things. But but so many people talk about we go on vacation and we go to you know to these great places for vacation or to go visit and then we come back to our to our homes and um you know I guess I would just ask the question and get us started if if there's things like this make up great places then why have we been building so much um of this across our country with big parking lots um a lot of vacant lots. We've got really wide rideways with with a lot of ugly stuff on on either side. Um kind of the opposite uh of place. And so one of the thing that's important and I'm going to dig most of this is going to get into the numbers and the math of why uh some level of density is important to a community to pay the bills, but also uh important to keeping housing uh diverse and affordable. Uh but at the end of the day, we want to we want to live and work and play in places that we love and feel connected to. And so at its really at its core, even even more so than um than money, it's it's really about bu building places that people love and want to stay and engage with. So um post World War II uh if you look at our development pattern and this was really the the beginning of my journey into more planning and away from more kind of straight up civil engineering. Uh but post World War II cities all over our country started to pursue fast growth, higher quality of life uh in the short term without fully considering

long-term costs and impacts. Um so we would we would look for those economic development deals to to bring jobs in today. We would look for the residential development to to just crank out the rooftops. Uh and a lot of this um has been in more post World War II has been in the more autocentric suburban type of um of pattern. But as we're doing that um what about looks like my slides are on a little bit. What about maintenance after growth? So our developers come in, they build all the stuff for us. They give us the the roads, the water, sewer, the drainage, the the residents, the the rooftops, the commercial, the schools, the all the parks, all the things. But as soon as that developer leaves, it's on our cities and the taxpayers to pay to maintain those areas for forever. Um, and so these are some of the the things that I saw working around the country of places that were, you know, best place to live, work, play in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and then in the 2000s and 2010s, they start to look uh like this. And unfortunately, we have more and more of these stories around the country of just cities that were great for one or two or three decades and then they just couldn't keep up with everything and it started the cycle of those who had the ability and the means to move out did both on the residents um and commercial side and it kind of puts the the cities in uh in a tail spin that's really tough to get out of. Um so going back to going back to 2008 2009 when I was in that role I started asking city managers, mayors, council members um when it came to growth and development in your community uh what's the biggest challenge or frustration that you've been dealing with? And a large majority of them, this changes a little bit year-over-year if you look at the National League of Cities surveys, uh but generally the the majority of those will say some version of this. How

do we keep up with the growing wants and needs of our uh of our community with limited resources? We have property tax caps. We've got um uh there's all kinds of pressure on our on our cities to, you know, to do the economic development, the new parks and the the new rec centers and things like that, but then we also have to take care of the older stuff, the utilities that are underground, the older neighborhoods, the older businesses, um etc. fairness. So, it's really um it's really challenging for anybody that's in city management today to try to juggle um all of these things. Um you know, the the expectation side of the equation is always always growing. We're always adding more things. You could I've got a whole section on a longer workshop that I do that gets into what's the difference between a want and a need. Um but just know that the majority of city managers all across this country even ones in the most affluent um welloff um you know financially sustainable strong places are really really struggling um with how to um how to keep these these balanced in digging a little bit a little bit deeper um infrastructure is a big challenge. This is this is an old slide back from 2019 from San Diego, but I could give you there's a a brand new article that just came out for the city of Houston. Uh more and more of our larger cities, some of our midsize cities um are really starting to struggle with this infrastructure funding uh shortfall and it kind of goes back to uh developers are putting this infrastructure in during the growth phase. Uh but then our cities have to maintain it and I'm going to dig into that a little bit more uh here in a second. Um so uh I feel uh this is just my personal perspective our teams from working in different places but um in most of the country we're building cities that we can't afford to live in long term as residents um and we're struggling to maintain them um as

cities. There's certainly exceptions but this is um this is more the norm than uh than not. And so this is the question that I was asking myself when I left uh when I left my former firm and started Verdinity back in 2011. Um I was asking this you with all the growth and and prosperity that we have in our country, why can't our cities afford to maintain our infrastructure? And the answer um gets to our development pattern. Um, and so I'm going to um kind of diverge here for a little bit and just talk about the the way that we built our places preWorld War II uh before the invention of of the car and the ability to acquire larger uh tracks of land quicker. Um, this is how this is from Chuck Marone at Strongtown's, good friend of of mine, somebody that that we've collaborated with for a long time. Um but two really powerful slides that show kind of the the way that we used to build our cities. Um it all started like this. It was a small block. It was, you know, maybe two blocks where people came together in an area and said, you know, this is this is a place we can live. We can do business. And so few people come, they build a couple buildings and they start to do their do their thing. And over time that little street turns into this. Um, and the way we used to the way we used to build our places was um, what Chuck refers to, and I think it's a a a great way to explain it, it's incrementally out, incrementally up, and incrementally more intense. So, as more people came to this community, as more people moved there, as more business came, they would add a few more blocks or they would add a second story to a building. Um, and our towns just incrementally evolved. If you look at at most of our older older cities, you can see that core traditional um kind of street grid where they just went and and started adding more and more buildings

incrementally out as the resources uh became available. Uh but after uh after World War II, the invention of the car, all of the housing bills, all the incentives, um oh, one more before I get to that. So this this is old kind of old historic look. This was from Indianapolis, one of my favorite neighborhoods. Um, but you can still see the same kind of design where it was it was about getting more about getting around on foot, more about u people and interaction than it was about um dedicating more space to our cars. And so you ended up with a lot of historic neighborhoods that look like this where you have narrower streets, you've got front porches, you got the majority of the housing and the businesses that are oriented, you know, up onto the street. Um and then um and then we switched and so then we went to designing things more around the car. So as developers, we could buy larger tracks of land. We could build more uh larger areas all at once. And so we started to crank out um the suburban single family homes and neighborhoods and suburbs. Uh and when you design more things that are more spread out for the car, that then leads to uh the need for more and wider roads. what leads which leads to more more lanes on the highways. Uh the regional commercial that has to have the big parking lots. And so you can kind of see that that shift from people and place-based and more incremental and more compact to more spread out and autofocused. Um I like to pause here and say there's no right or wrong here. They're both valuable. They're both um they're both needed even today. Uh but we've kind of shifted as as cities to building much more of this newer spread out uh development pattern that consumes more land and requires much more infrastructure. Um and because of that it's less fiscally productive and more costly uh to serve. So if we want to build truly uh financially sustainable

places, we need to get back to a little better balance between these two. um to illustrate kind of another aspect of of this um suburban development pattern or postw World War II development pattern. It wasn't just the the pattern that that changed. It was also just the area um that we were building in. Um this is a a graphic that we like to do with most of the communities that we work with that just shows the um the expansion of a city or the annexation history over time. Um, and in this one you can see the the dark green area is the core that's the core historic part uh of the city that I was just talking about. Um, and then you can see um that that kind of goes up to 1930 1940ish. And then the yellow, orange, and red is from 1950 on. And so you can see the the core of the town of of the city. And then you see that much larger area and expansion that they went through over the last um 70 plus years. Uh and when you grow outward like that, not not only you, so you're you're building this much larger area, it takes much more to serve. So you've got much, you know, a lot more roads and traffic signals and bridges and water towers and um police and fire and all the things that are needed to serve that broader area. Uh but at the same time, most cities have grown in a lower density fashion. And so um two things are happening here. You're you're taking on a lot more things that you have to provide in a lot in a much larger area that you have to serve and you're lowering your density uh to pay for it. And what that what when you bring it all the way down to just the the household, what's what that means is each household has to pay more um when you start to build um a lower a lower density pattern. The more compact higher density pattern you build in, you have more uh more homes, more households um and more

businesses to all share um in that u in that cost. In the case of Victoria, um here um their ser their service area between 1950 and and 2020 grew by over 13 times. Their population only grew by four times. So they were a very financially strong um city back when they were just that dark green area. Then when they took on all this other stuff, they really they significantly lowered their density, took on a lot more infrastructure and services, and now they're trying to add intensity and add density in places to to catch back up. Um this um this is an important chart because it it shows kind of that how a lot of our um a lot of our communities have grown and it also shows um the situation that you all in a in a fast growing newer community like Meny want to try to avoid. Um, so if to to walk through this quickly on the if you start at the left side of this chart, you've got a low small population. You've got a core part of town that that is your old town, your old historic town. Um, as you move to the right of this uh of this chart, you start to add population. And right here in the middle, it's it's that best place to live, work, play phase where you've got a lot of a lot of development activity. um a lot of new development, a lot of new people, new new businesses moving to town. And so the the average age of your infrastructure or age of your city um goes down because as you as you drive around town, you see mostly new stuff and maybe that old the historic part of town becomes kind of a touristy historic um kind of trendy place, but it's not it hasn't become a maintenance issue yet. Um, but as you go further to the right of this chart into the red area, you start to run out of land to develop. The revenue from new development slows down,

whether that's impact fees, additional property tax, sales tax, what have you. The revenue starts to flatten out. And at the same time, a lot of that infrastructure that was built in your growth phase by developers now has to have not just, you know, um simple preventative maintenance, potholes, things like that, but more significant maintenance and reconstruction. And so this is that the far right of that curve is where a lot of um a lot of cities have ended up that were not planning for that infrastructure, that wave of infrastructure costs that hits two or three or four decades after it's first put in. So in the case of of Menife, what can you do to manage your your growth and development pattern to uh to flatten this out a little bit? Number one, so you don't have so much rapid growth all all at once. Um but you're also thinking about how can you how can you um manage the the long-term costs that are coming um that you don't see when you're in u when you're growth mode. So it's really about shifting um if we want to build financially sustainable lasting places. Um, some of you may have heard the phrase disposable suburbs. Um, that's that's referring to places that were really great for one one life cycle of development and then they uh and then they begin to to struggle. So, this is something at a at a high level um that we encourage communities to um to think about, not not to run a city as a business for profit um but to run it so that you can make sure you've got the revenue keeping um keeping up with service costs, staying ahead of service costs, and then having some uh some surplus revenue to invest back into quality of life, economic development, etc. So, if our cities have resource gaps, um there's three basic options to close those. One is increase taxes and fees. That's not a popular option for u

pretty much nobody. I don't think I've met anybody that's a fan of that one. Um reducing services is basically what we're doing now. When we um when we set our budget, we have a certain amount of revenue and we set our expenditures to match it. anything we don't have revenue for in a budget or in a capital improvement pro program, we'll defer to the next year. Um and uh and so we do that over and over and over that the problem with that is if you defer things for too long and don't keep up, then you end up in that situation that that I mentioned um uh that I mentioned earlier. So that the third alternative um is develop in a more productive and sustainable manner. And again, for you all in Mini as a newer community, you're not you're not saddled with a lot of old liabilities yet. Um you're not you don't um you probably might be thinking even right now, what's Kevin talking about? We don't we don't have a resource gap in Meny um yet, but you might um and it depends on how you build out the um the the rest of your city. So what is developing in a more productive and sustainable manner? What do I even mean by that? Um, well, first off, there's trade-offs. Um, you you can't have stable services, low density, and low taxes. those uh those three are simply um do not exist except maybe maybe in a rural environment where um the person's definition of stable services might be you know it's okay if the fire department takes 20 minutes to get to me um or I have gravel rows or something like that. But we've been able to use this um this graph and or this chart and um different variations of it to help u to help communities residents understand some of these different trade-offs of you know if you um if you want low taxes and stable services then you got to you got to have higher density. If you want uh low density and stable services then

you're going to have to have higher taxes and home values to pay for it. So, there's a lot of trade-offs that um our residents and communities need to understand when it comes to development and what it costs to serve and maintain them. Um so, anytime we're we're talking about a lot of, you know, different different problems, different issues, um we've got different people and perspectives, um it helps to try to find a common language that you can frame uh frame things through. And for development and communities, um, I like to think that that language can be, uh, fiscal sustainability. You can take just about anything in a city and connect it back to what is it going to generate to it to our community in revenue, what is it going to cost to serve, and what does that mean for um, the taxpayer. Um, and so I this question up there at the top is is a really when you think about it, it's just a really powerful question to think about when you're talking about any development proposal, um, any infrastructure project, any growth scenario. It's just how are we going to pay for it? How are we going to pay for it as a city? How are we going to pay for it? Or how are you going to pay for it as a as a resident? Um, it's a really powerful way to kind of cut through some of the clutter and just get down to the the really basic um the the basic conversation that's happening in pretty much every city manager's head and um probably a lot of um you guys as well as you're considering some of the proposals come in there. So, um how are we going to pay for it is a really important question to to think about. So, starting to move into developing responsibly. What is it? you know, what do development patterns look like in terms of revenue and cost to serve and cost to taxpayers. One of the tools um in the toolbox is value per acre mapping. Um this is a map from Dallas County um that uh shows basically the

the higher the bar there. The darker the green and the higher the bar um the higher the um revenue per acre is. So, this is just taking the the property tax revenue that it's paid by the parcel, divide it by the size of the parcel, and you get a revenue per acre number. This is a really good way to kind of compare different shapes and sizes and development patterns and parcels and lot sizes and all kinds of things uh in your city on an applesto apples uh basis. You can do it just on the assessed value per acre. You can go into the property tax revenue per acre. Um, and what we've done quite a bit of is actually go to the net per acre uh level where you factor in cost to it as well. Um, before I show kind of what that net per acre looks like, um, just talking a little bit more about um, how do we how do we increase revenue to our city without changing the tax rate? Um, and a lot of people think about the tax rate as the main variable that that we can adjust, but the the development pattern actually plays a role as well. Um, the more um basically what this shows is lot coverage, the more building you put on a lot, the higher the value per acre is going to be. Um, the same thing holds true if you go up. Um, the more stories you put on a building, the more taxable value you're going to get. So for the same if you have a if you have a same size parcel and you um and you put uh if you just think about this residential um you've got uh you got the same size parcel, everything's exactly the same. The street, the water, the sewer, it's all exactly the same. A two-story house versus a one-story house, the twotory is going to be more um and so the city gets more property tax revenue from uh from that property. And if you get into a mixed use or a downtown scenario where you go three, four, five stories or

more, um that value per acre really starts to multiply. Um so just if you if you go multiple stories, if you uh put more building on a lot, uh you're going to get more of that taxable value uh per acre um without having to adjust uh the tax rate. And that's a really important conversation. And you know, I'm talking with you guys from here in Texas. We are uh you know, we're known for we're pretty conservative state. Um I uh I've I've lived I think in eight different states and moved around quite a bit. I tend to be a little bit in the a little bit more in the middle personally, but um but I work with a lot of cities here in Texas and explaining explaining the um the value that density brings um in a um very heavy, you know, keep our property taxes down kind of culture. Um it's a really powerful um it's a powerful tool in the in the toolbox. So showing images like this just to show the difference between the value of different development patterns. Um on the left you've got a large rural estate um kind of property. So that's um in this community that came out to a little under under 100,000 u per acre of value. The middle one is a typical suburban single family um lot. Third acre lot that's 2 and a.5 million per acre. And then you start to get into the town homes, the higher density stuff on the right. And you can just see how the the lot size is a lot smaller and the value per acre goes up. Um, again, pause here. Yes. Um, the rural state on the left has a bunch of open space. Um, the one in the middle has the yard and the town home on the right, um, you has shared open space. Um, and that's, you know, in this example, we're only looking at the specific property that the building is on. Um, but we also zoom

out and kind of look at a at a whole development pattern. So, in the case of these town homes, we would also look at the open space that's included in there as well. Um, if we look on the commercial side, you got a pad site on the left all the way to a big box in the middle and then a core traditional grid downtown on the right. Same thing shows shows true. The more compact and dense you go, the higher value per acre you're going to get. This is just property tax. um sales tax is harder to model down at the at the parcel level, but um it tends to follow the same trend. The more the more people you put in an area, the more value you're going to get out of that development, and the more you spread out people, the less value um the less value per acre you're going to uh you're going to get. So, this is just on the um on the revenue side so far. Um something that um one of my uh one of my colleagues came up with a few years ago that um that I think is is important to talk about too is is this connection between residential and commercial um when you build lower density residential um that tends to require lower density more autocentric commercial. the big box stuff with the bigger parking lots. Um, the businesses tend to do their their trade areas, they they pull from a larger uh a larger area to attract the the volume that they need to get to their store. Versus if you build a high density residential pattern um with more people in an area then that supports more um of your more mixed use, more compact uh commercial that can be um a lot of your local businesses that want the and need the the walk up traffic to also more of your employers that want to be in some of that live, work, play environment. But um I've worked with a lot of cities that that they want to have the lowdensity residential and then

they want to get the high density, you know, mixed use urban village um kind of way out way out away from it. And it's it doesn't always doesn't work that way. You've got to have you've got to have some residential mixed in with uh with mixed in with the commercial to create these um the quality mixed use places. So coming back to the the math um land use fiscal analysis is a process that we use whether we do it standalone for cities we do it for it's really the backbone to every comprehensive plan or general plan that we do. Um we want cities to understand what um what's already on the ground and what are you already you know what are you obligated to pay for already. And so we'll go through a process. On the the left, um you can see two different maps. The the top one is is a net per acre map for current budget conditions. Basically, anything that's purple or green is is net positive after you load it up with budget costs. Um and then the bottom map shows when we load in unfunded infrastructure liabilities like deferred street maintenance, park maintenance, things like that. Um and you can see how much more the city goes into the red when you add in um those unfunded liabilities. And then on the right side you see charts. We can once the the data is into the system we can slice and dice it by zoning district, lot size, land use, um different geographic areas and kind of dig in and see which different development patterns hold their value. even when you load in uh future uh street costs or or other unfunded uh costs. Um starting to get towards the the end here and um just wanted to show kind of the um the difference between some different scales of of residential and what it means for the return on the

the investment. This this first one is typical single family residential. These I think these three examples are all from uh from Fort Worth. Uh but we do this with most of our our communities that we work with as well. Um this just shows on this one you can see the orange bar on the left for every dollar the city spends to serve this development they get 11 cents back in tax value. Um when we go to the next option uh we go up a level or a couple levels to some brownstone residential. um you can see that that return on investment jumps up to 50 cents on the dollar. Um you're still not making your one to one though, even on um with just the residential and the um and the property tax here. And then the third one gets into the urban village mixed use at a much higher density um in what the West 7th neighborhood. Um and this gets close to giving that that $1 return just in property tax revenue. this has no sales tax on it or uh at all. So this this higher density development um almost almost pays for itself completely just from property tax. Um couple other things to think about as you all um you know you're I know you're thinking different residential context. I know you got some corridors that that are opportunities for some mixed use. um and why I think that the the direction and the conversation you guys are having uh or y'all are having on um you know density and and different scales of it and where is important. Um it's not just the math. It's also building a place that is inclusive and where three or four generations of a family are going to be able to um to live. Um, if you look at at this slide and the next one

I'm going to show you, this these are two, you know, two um, it's a vacant parcel in a city. We we like to find a vacant tract and kind of do these two scenarios to illustrate some things here, too. But this this tract is built out with just the suburban single family subdivision. It's all single family detached homes. Um, the most affordable home here is 325,000. You can see there's very limited green space, only a little under five acres of green space in the whole development. There's no commercial space. Um they might get something something small right there at the um at the entrance to it possibly. Um but there's just a single type of housing um at a pretty high entry point from an affordability standpoint. And when you run the numbers on the infrastructure and the service costs here, this little development um comes out net negative u for the city. Uh if we change it and we look at integrating some different types um of housing, we mix in some accessory dwelling units, some duplex, couple of triplexes all the way up to some town homes. Um the most affordable home here, the ADU, is 85,000. Um it's got 6,000 square foot of commercial space. It's got more than double the green space. Um, and it's a net positive for the city in terms of tax revenue. Um, it's also, going back to the point I was making a second ago, it's also a kind of neighborhood where multiple generations of a family could all live close together affordably within walking distance. Um, and these are the kind of neighborhoods that are um, more and more in demand now. um we're seeing less and less of just the straight up single family homes and a lot more of um just the integration um even if it's just integration of residential types um in a neighborhood kind of mixing them together. Uh but integration of the the smaller local and and neighborhood scale commercial um is

also something that that we're seeing growing in importance in the the newer communities or in aging communities. they're trying to kind of redevelop and take some of the older that are single-use type places and turn them into a little more mixed use. So, at the end of the day, what what all of the math, all the analysis that that we've done, um we've probably done, I don't know, at least a hundred different cities um around the country, um different, you know, different shapes and sizes. And the math will always show that um the more compact, dense pl denser places tend to have higher fiscal productivity. Um, yes, in some cases they can have more cost to them, but they uh they tend to generate more margin on the the revenue side to cover those um additional costs when they're designed well, when they're located um in the right place. And so um this gets to um just thinking a little bit more about a balance between um we we've gone in the last 50 60 years we've we've swung so heavily towards autocentric design and now um things are moving back towards designing places for people and placem and human interaction again whether that's you know kids playing outside more whether it's the older generation interacting with the younger generation there's a lot of things kind of going on. socially too with designing more places that um that all of our residents can interact a little bit more. So, and you know, just to wrap up with a couple, everybody likes to see the pictures, but just to show the pictures of what some of these more profitable and fiscally productive places look like. Um you've got a situation I I think this is um in Santa Barbara. You've got one. I think this next one um I don't recall uh where this

one was from. Um but you can see just you know a little bit more density, one or two story, one or two additional stories. Um you get more of the the street with on street parking and the streetscape and the landscaping and the tree canopy. um just a little bit more of this does a whole lot for the city bank account in terms of revenue per acre and generating more revenue than it costs to serve. Then you go up one more level um a little more of kind of a traditional downtown but in a little more modern setting and then you can go even higher than that. I think you have um you have a few places there in Meny where I think you could pull off something of of this this density and and pull in some of the um some of I think uh I think on our call the other day we were talking about some of the the medical um medical employment or the medical industry being a target for you all. So all of these different, if you go back to the to the numbers on these, each of these increments of density um are going to generate a little bit more value per acre just on the property tax side. Um probably a lot more on the sales tax side. Um and these tend to be more of the kind of environments where multiple generations of people want to be. Um, and so if you're a place where multiple generations of people want to be, um, you stay relevant, you stay vibrant, um, your neighborhoods continue to evolve and get reinvested in. Um but when you build places that are look um a lot alike uh you know a lot of the same kind of housing and the same kind of neighborhoods over a broad scale um you could be really attractive for a while and then you're going to struggle to hang on to those folks as they start to want or need something um different uh in in life. So that's um that's where I'm going to going to wrap wrap up. We can kick this over to uh over to questions if you if you all want. But my

um kind of my my takeaway, my advice to you all and um we do a lot of a lot of work with very fast growing cities here in Texas um as well and that the conversation's very similar in that you got some some older more established places uh around you and um and you've got an opportunity to basically build a build a new city that's you can learn the lessons from those around you and and build a place that's more attractive and vibrant and financially estate. uh sustainable and you know the I don't know that I mentioned this but um when you're also building places that are fiscally productive to the city in terms of boosting value per acre um you're also building the diverse mix of businesses and houses that keep the supply up and and are um and keep them affordable as well. If you I I know you guys are feeling the affordable housing crunch there in um in California big time. So, um, the more supply you build, the the more you can keep the cost down. But it it does it's not just supply of one thing. It's building more of a diverse diverse supply of housing in different shapes and sizes. And all of that needs to fit back into these different uh mixeduse neighborhoods that have different um different levels of density and placemaking to them. So, with that, I will uh I'll quit yapping and see if you guys have any questions for me. Hey Kevin, thanks for that postw World War II update. Um, I don't anybody have any questions for Kevin? Chris, Danny, um, are are you doing more what what is your range your scope of work on this, Kevin?

So, we're seeing the presentation. Are you doing numbers in addition? Um, so no, for right now, Brian just asked me if I could give you guys a little just overview of what we do and some of the perspective. We're not we're not under contract with you guys or anything. I just like sharing these stories and sharing the information. So that's this is it. This is just to give you guys some information to think about. All right, we appreciate it. Good job. All right. Thank you again,

Kevin. Um be before you leave I I I do have one not not a question but more of a comment because I think it's important to uh to understand the the picture when you gave us the the example of the comparison of the residential project uh between the standard single family versus the other one was a little more mixed in looking at the numbers the the increase in units it's not drastically higher I was looking at the numbers it's only like 60 60 maybe 70 units more right so it's it's not like we're doubling or tripling the units,

right? Yeah. No, you're um I mean in a lot of it it's you're not it I like to call it, you know, gentle density. You're you're just adding, you know, you're mixing in a few smaller lots and a few bigger lots and you So, you've got a cottage court or, you know, some duplexes or some three-story town homes mixed in with some of the the larger residential, but it's um you're not adding a lot of units. you're just kind of mixing in the the different lot sizes and the sizes of the homes which changes the price points and um you know with when you add a little bit smaller lots like that it opens up some green space as well. So um that's always surprising to people like you you're not you're not really ch you're not adding enough units to you know overburden parking or you know or something like that. I do have one question. So in your modeling, were you only looking at the advorum property tax or were as you brought more density in, did you factor in additional sales tax, maybe parking revenue, I don't know, whatever it is, any other streams of revenue, or were you just looking at the advalorum?

Yeah, that's a that's a great question. Um it depends. We've looked at we've looked at both. Um some places just want us to focus just on Avalorum um because that's the the most direct connection of development pattern to revenue. Um but yeah, we we've looked at um we brought in sales tax. We've looked at uh the whole general fund budget. So all the money in and all the money out. We do we do separate um enterprise funds. We don't put, you know, water, sewer, anything that's like has more of like a consumption type fee to it. We keep that separate. Um although I think you could, we've never been asked to. I think you could make a connection from development pattern to water and sewer also. Um but um but yeah it's we always start just as the base with adalorum and then we can add um we can add sales tax to it especially with more and more states that are going to u property tax caps you know you guys have uh California's had yours for years at this point um but the more you cap your ad valorum revenue um you've got to start to look at you know the you have to start to look at at other revenue streams so The important I guess the important thing is to try to keep it about the the development pattern and how the development pattern can impact these things and if you get too far away from that um the discussion can kind of um go all over the place but um

we've been asked to do it we've been asked to do it a number of different ways. Well, I ask it in the perspective of, and you can tell me if I'm wrong here, most residential development, basic residential development does not pay for itself as far as public safety, um, other city things that things that the city provides. So, is there a cost that you're not factoring into here when you bring in a higher density? Obviously, a couple units, you know, that's a balance, which I'm for, but when you when you bring in a more intense use, do you not increase the public safety, the and the other infrastructure needs exponentially, I guess.

Yes. Yes, sir. Another uh another great question. Um I think um what I've seen is um the numbers tell different stories in different places. there's usually usually the assumption that higher density leads to more police or more crime or you know what have you. Um that doesn't always show out in the numbers. Um I think uh the the big um the big thing that we show that that needs to be considered is the the full life cycle infrastructure costs. And so, um, I would agree with you that most residential is difficult to pencil out, um, and has to be, you know, subsidized from other sources. Um, but the more productive your residential can be, the the less reliant you you have to be on, you know, more volatile sources like sales tax or development fee revenue. Um but the the un when you when you when you factor in the unfunded street costs um you're more your more compact, more walkable places that tend to have more of narrower streets and grids and more sidewalks. um that um that pattern has less infrastructure than more of your spread out um pattern that has more of your four or six lane roads and culde-sacs and um you know pump stations and water towers and that. And so when you factor in the full cost of of the whole cost of your development pattern and the full life cycle of it, um that's where the the more spread out lower density stuff really starts to be exposed as it's even more costly than we

think. So or that we have been um just yeah as we've thought. So I I think there there's no there's no one answer there of more density does does drive more costs. I I think um that's certainly the case in some places, but there's also the the factor of um if you consider it of a of calls per person, um you know, you're going to get you're going to you're naturally going to get more calls in a more dense area because you have more people in that area. Um, so it's that's one that we try we we're trying to do more kind of dig into the data a little bit more and kind of prove up what's what's real and what's not. Um, but I I hope I'm kind of explaining this more like you have to if you really want to understand what what different patterns cost, you really have to think about the the infrastructure cost because we we think um you know when when we go build the and I see this a ton um a ton here and I I lived in San Bernardino back when I was back when I was little and have a lot of conversations with my dad about this but um the pattern California had there and what we're seeing today in Texas but we we think we you know we're building more spread out and we build all this new stuff and even if it's higher values that oh this you know this is less crime there's lower cost to it um but that infrastructure cost to serve that's more spread out pattern is really really it's a big ticket item um like we just I just did a presentation to a city yesterday that they it's just to rebuild their current streets is like 800 million bucks it's like they're short like 40 something million a year um just to keep up with existing streets and they're still being

building more. So So your basic model is that the deferred infrastructure cost is what's killing the budget. That's the basic premise here then, right? Uh that's a big part of it. Yeah.

Yeah. And so think, you know, think about ways that you can if you want to make up that gap. Um it's Uh it could be property tax, it could be um a a newer thing that we're seeing more of is a a street fee that's taken from sales tax. So dedicate a portion of sales tax to a street fee reserve. Um I don't know I'm not familiar exactly with what the uh the laws are there in California right now with this as far as setting up reserve funds for for infrastructure. Um but more and more states are starting to to allow that. That's um on the cost side, it's the infrastructure and especially roads. And then on just the people side of it, it's um being aware of a a little bit of a demographic shift that's starting to happen that um you know, the the boomers that are wanting to downsize and then the younger the younger generations that grew up in a suburb and don't want anything else to do with the suburb again. Um so that those two things are kind of driving a demand for a different kind of housing than what we've built in a lot of our um newer communities.

Good. Great. It's great staff that you're looking ahead for us. Thank you. Awesome. Appreciate your time. All right. Cheers. Okay. Thank you. Okay. We'll move on to item five. Um, are there any modifications to the agenda? Eda, we have none. Great. Can I ask the planning commission for an all in favor to approve the agenda? I I I

Okay. Hearing any opposed? Hearing none. The agenda is approved. Okay. Item six. Uh, madame clerk, are there any requests to speak on non-aggenda items? We have none.

Okay. So, this is the time for members of the public to address the commission about items which are not listed on the agenda. The Ralph M. Brown Act limits the commission's ability to respond to your comments on non-aggendaized items at the time such comments are made. Each speaker will be limited to three minutes on any single item. Um are there there is one set of minutes for the planning commission's approval. Does the planning commission have any modifications? No.

Could I ask planning commission for all in favor to approve the July 23rd 2025 minutes? I I I

I Any opposed? Hearing? None. The minutes are approved. Uh number eight, there are no consent item uh calendar items. Okay, we'll go to public hearing items now. So before we begin the 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 have an opport the 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 public hearing is closed. Okay, here's what we've been waiting for. Item 9.1, Denny's restaurant. This is item 9.1. Could the community development director please introduce the item?

Thank you, Sher U. Fernando Herrera, our senior planner uh that has been working with the applicant and is excited to give you the next presentation. Great.

Thank you. Good evening, members of the planning commission. The item before us is for the proposed Denny's plot plan PLN24-0189. Here is where the project is going to be located. It's going to be on the northeast corner of Bradley Road and Newport Road. The project is going to propose a development of a 4,500T Denny's restaurant and it's going to include the proposal of 56 parking spaces. The general plan map and zoning designation of the property is economic development corridor Newport Road. Here's what the proposed site plan is going to be. So, it's going to encompass two lots within the existing parcel and the one access that we have there along Newport Road is going to provide full access for the Denny's restaurant. The applicant has worked with us to ensure that the project site will meet all of the landscaping requirements and there's uh the proposed pallet of trees that are going to be located on site as well as the architecture. So here we have the elevations of the proposed restaurant. Public notices were given for the restaurant. We did receive two comments in regards to the project. one letting us know for the original meeting date that the public notice was located on an adjacent parcel. Hence, uh we continue the item to today's date and another letter in opposition to the project uh in regards to concerns about a meeting on Gats Road or Bradley Road, sorry. Staff did review the project and it was determined that the project is exempt from SQL under section 15303 class 3 new construction and conversion of small structures.

And it is staff's uh recommendation that the planning commission determine that the project is exempt from SQA under section 15303 new construction and conversion of small structures and direct staff to file a notice of exemption and adopt a resolution approving plot panel PLN24-0189 uh for the approval of the project. This concludes staff's presentation. Uh the planning uh the planning department as well as the applicant are here if you have any questions.

Thank you. Senior planner Fernando Herrera. Um does the planning commission have any questions for staff? No discussion, just questions. No. Okay. Um I do does so we pretty much approved this in the past. Um was there any differences that that we don't know about or that should be discussed? No. From then and now?

No. So the original Denny's as proposes as part of the original proposal. Uh so what was originally approved was a much larger shopping center. Um and the applicant has just moved forward with the Denny's part of that of the proposal. Okay. Then I have one more question. Okay. It's um well I have a question is so item 20 on the conditions of approval that' be the interim landscaping. So coming back to what you just said it's just that northeast portion of that port parcel. This says that degraded but undeveloped land shall be maintained in a condition so as to prevent a dust andor below sand nuisance and be either planted with well anyway that property that's not uh going to be developed at this time is that this applicant's responsibility

so that's going to be for the construction site itself yeah okay thank you all right Michael yeah I want to address the uh the letter we all received in our blue folder Um, with the right in, right out going into the Denny's property, um, do you see any issues that I don't see? Because I don't see them, but do you see any, um, issues in your professional opinion on traffic issues going to or from Newport Plaza?

I can respond on that. Um the minor study was done and the level of service is very small. So there is no impact on the the restaurant coming in on the traffic. Any other question Tammy? No. You happy? Okay. Um okay. Therefore, I'll open the public hearing at 6:59 p.m. Uh, Madame Clerk, can you confirm that the item was legally noticed and if any correspondence has been received?

Yes, it was. And there is correspondence in your blue folders. Thank you. Okay. So, I'd like to invite the um applicant to the podium to speak. applicants. Okay, good to see you again. Hi, uh Sher Monroe 4M Engineering and Development as represented representative for uh the property owner. Tanya, we are both here to answer any questions. F first of all, do you agree to the conditions of approval? We do. Thank you.

Any questions, commissioners? Michael Good. We're good. Thank you so much for your consideration. We appreciate application. Okay. Okay. Madame Clerk, are there any requests to speak for would anyone in the audience like to make a comment? We have none. Okay. Therefore, I'll close the public hearing at 7:01 p.m. Does the planning commission have any other comments or discussion? Chris

one, um, can we pull up the, uh, schematic in the staff report? It's the, uh, call it, but what I'm Orlando, what I'm talking about is possibly fencing off the back of the building from prevent homelessness back there. it if you can show the site plan on the presentation please. There you go. Thank you.

So go back back a slide if you could. There you go. So if you look at the pad at the uh southeast corner where it has the the buildings backed up to the wall basically. Um, I think it might be a good idea to just fence off the nor the north and southern corners, southeast north, the northeast and southeastern corners of the building to the wall to keep the homeless from going in there. You'll they always jumping in somewhere. You're going to have a problem in the future. That's just one. It could be a rod iron fence, something simple. What's the distance between the wall and the building there? 15 ft. 10.

That looks to be approximately 15 ft. Yeah. I don't see why you couldn't throw a rod iron fence in there on each corner and prevent a lot of problems. It'll reduce public safety requirements to be going back there and prevent the problem. So that's just a thought. I don't know what the rest of the commission thinks about. It's good. Good idea.

Can you come back up to the podium, please? that back area that Commissioner Thomas is uh looking at. Is that food delivery a food delivery aisle on the east? So the east side on the east side that's an existing self storage right on the property line. between the self storage and your building. It's just planter or is there It's planter. It's ADA access, sidewalk access back into um along the building back up to the front from the parking. Um I think it's all concrete.

Yeah, it's a concrete path that it'll be our delivery access also. So, it is delivery delivery access. Okay. So, you're going to need wide enough for pallet jacks. And yeah, we're going to be walking that area often. Then, uh then a gate probably wouldn't You could put a gate there. I mean, yeah, but those guys come at like 3:00 in the morning and they got to get more codes. They already have trash out constantly. Yeah. Okay. Have you thought about the homeless? I don't see that it'll

commission if I can if I can make a comment. Uh, Commissioner Thomas, I think your your your comment is appropriate. If there wasn't any activity back there at all, if there was no access, no sidewalk, I think I would probably have the same concerns. The fact that this is delivery, they're going to be taking out the trash. They're going to consistently be going in and out. I think the concern is less. That's fine. I thought it was all landscaping. So, that was my only comment. Anything else while we have them up there? Thanks, Sharon. It's okay. I need the exercise. Thank you. Ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch M Madrid. Yes.

If I could just also say um I know a lot of other cities have a homelessness pro challenge in their cities and and we are a city that does not have that challenge to the same degree. And uh our police department does an amazing job working with the homeless population uh to find them resources and and work with them. So, I just don't want anybody in the community to think that we have a homelessness problem. Um, we are working really closely with our homeless population. And so, um, and I just wanted to make that we have a great, uh, POP officer team that works closely with our homeless and and with the social services that exist in, uh, in this county of Riverside. So,

wow, you're on it. Thanks, Brian. Okay, any further questions, guys? Okay, so since there are no other questions, there is one resolution for adoption. Uh, may I get a motion and a second to adopt the resolution as presented by staff?

I'll make a motion. screenless. There we go. It's thinking Sorry about that. One more. Suspense is thick. Oh, you passed. You're approved. Thank you for all your hard work and we look forward to Denny's in this community. I do. All right. Thank you.

Okay. So, item 10. I see there are no discussion items. Here's my favorite part. Now, yeah, get it get the Denny's Deluxe back with the roast beef, not the turkey. That's my favorite. So, we're at number 11. my f my new favorite item with the community development director. Do you have any questions, updates, or comments?

Commissioner, just one quick comment. Uh starting next meeting, uh staff will um start doing some uh small training sessions to uh to the commission. I know that there's a couple of commissioners that have asked that maybe we provide some uh training in terms of you know planning history and different things. So we'll we'll do some smaller training sessions for commission and uh we hope that that's uh something that would benefit you as you continue to uh oh great be part of the commission. So thank you. Yeah, we look forward to that.

So um Orlando Um, can I get a status update for uh Newport Point in Macall Square?

Newport Point. Um, nothing has been submitted for the site as of now. As you know, the project was approved in title and uh currently no um nothing has been submitted for plan check. Uh MCL Square um is at the U mini storage that's currently under construction. UL and MEI, you got Ser Brothers coming in there, the McDonald's.

There's there's uh uh Chipotle that uh it's going to open up soon. We got the mini storage that's currently under construction. Uh probably about 70% complete. And uh we do have uh the developer working with us on the second phase of the project. Thank you. All right. Hey, the parking lot's looking great across from the justice center. Good job. It's clean.

Yeah, that's the uh city's uh parking lot. Uh the city just finished uh paving it. Uh there's still a few outstanding issues that we got to go back and complete, but uh CIP did a great job in completing that CIP project. Good job, man. I have one question, Randy. Yeah. Um do you know the over on Meny Road in Newport the Stater Brothers is and we approved a car wash and a Kinderare or whatever right there. Then there was some hoopla over that. I think it got appealed. Did it get pulled at the council level? The the car wash?

No, the project was uh eventually it was it was appeal. It was approved by council. Uh there hasn't been there hasn't been any movement because there's there's some uh outstanding litigation between the applicant and and um a member of the across the street a member of the public. So it was approved with both uses. That's correct. Okay. I heard they were going to change the dayare. That's what I thought. Okay, we're good on that. Hey, Michael, I'm ready.

Anything report on committee activities? On uh July 29th, I attended the economic development uh strategy community workshop. Thanks, Kayla. Um on August 5th, I attended the Bradley Bridge groundbreaking ceremony. That was that's going to be a huge project here coming up. Um, also on the 5th I attended National Night Out. Um, on the 9th I attended the Celebration of Life for John Denver along with Chair Mr. and yesterday I attended the uh evening chamber mixer over at Black Bear Diner also with Kayla. So that's all I got. Michael got us covered. I ask one more question, Randy, as far as the Bradley Bridge.

Yes, sir. Um, I had heard from some I haven't studied the traffic plan or the construction plan at all, but someone had told me they're going to shut down your the city's going to shut down Bradley from from Salt Salt Creek all the way up to past the LDS church or is it just going to be shut off? What what is it going to where is it going to be stopped at? Chair, Commissioner Thomas. Um, the project is currently already closed, uh, Bradley Road. It's basically closed from, uh, just south of Rio Vista Drive on the south side up to Peel Beach on the north side.

Rio Vista is that that's the the access to the um very north side of Salt Creek. It's the road that's just about okay. 200 feet north of Salt Creek channel. So, it's not closed on the southern side of Salt Creek. Yeah. I'm sorry. What was that question? It's not closed on the southern side of Salt Creek. It is closed on the southern side of Salt Creek. We do have uh uh maps on our website. Oh, Rio Vista is on the is the side. Okay. So, for Rio Vista to Pebble Beach is the only enclosure. Yes.

Okay. Yeah. Someone had told me it was closed clear up to Lazy Creek and I said I don't think so. And that closure will be anywhere from 12 to 14 months for us to construct the bridge. Good job. Thank you. Well, let's see here. Would the planning commission like to request any future agenda items? Got one.

Right. I think I think it's fitting. Um, it's been eight months since we've had a joint meeting uh planning commission with the uh city council regarding the innovation district. Uh 40% turnover of committee members and or commission members and council during that time. Um I think it would be beneficial if we had another joint meeting um with the council um along with the executive team, econ development, planning, uh traffic engineering, just city staff and just so uh we get more information and If I can't get a second on that, then maybe I'll light a fire under some of the staff here.

Is that included? Makes it happen. Maybe that's included in Orlando. Commissioner N. Um, that uh request will be at the discretion of the city council. As you know, we do have the innovation district uh project still moving forward. Uh there's still going to be opportunities for uh us to come back and provide additional uh and seek additional input from the commission as well. Um if council deems that uh it's appropriate to have a joint workshop, you know, we will definitely um uh do that as well if if that's the direction they want to they want to move forward with.

Thank you. Just putting it out there. Um, I need to make a comment out of order. I want to go back to uh item 9.1 and uh respond to uh concerned citizen resident Lori Clo. Uh Lori, we read your uh memo, your request. We we addressed it and we thank you for your u your uh comments. Okay. Um, Commissioner Yes. Um, may I acknowledge the deployment of Mayor Estrada?

Okay. Um, I just wanted to wish him well on his deployment and um, you know, he's the example of a of a true servant leader. He was elected to our city to serve the constituents and citizens of our city. And now he's going to serve our country. So I pray for his family. I pray for his safe departure and return in o when he departs in October. So I just wanted to acknowledge that and we would acknowledge but it's but we thank you but it's October. It'll be October. So

yeah. Okay. So, I adjourn this meeting at 7:16 p.m. Thank you everyone. Thanks for staying. See you guys.