Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I called to order the meeting of the planning commission for 03/04/2026. I now ask for a moment of silence. Commissioner Ochoa, will you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance? Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America We now move on to section b roll call. Kayla?

Commissioner Smith?

Here.

View? Present. Swigert? Here. Ochoa? Present. Greggins?

Present.

And Chairperson Gonzales?

Here. Kayla will now oh, I'm sorry. We have a quorum. Kayla will now read information on how the public may participate in the meeting.

Members of the audience who wish to address the Planning Commission are requested to complete a speaker card available at the podium at the back of the council chamber. Please submit the completed card to the clerk before the item is called, preferably before the meeting begins. I would like to briefly go over the process of submitting comments to the Planning Commission. Please submit your comment to the planning commission electronically no later than 1PM on the day of the meeting. Comments received before the deadline will be sent to the planning commission and will be part of the record and mentioned as part of the public comment portion of the agenda.

Material may be emailed to planningweb@cityofMerced.gov and should be limited to 300 words or less. Please specify which portion of the agenda you are commenting on. For example, oral communications or item number. Your comments will be presented to the planning commission at the appropriate time. Any correspondence received after 1PM will be distributed to the planning commission and retained for the official record. To view video and listen to the planning commission meeting live, go to the city's website, www.cityofmercet.gov, Facebook Live, or Comcast Public Access Channel 96.

Thank you, Kayla. We now move on to item C, public comment. Members of the public who wish to speak on any matter not listed on the agenda may speak during this portion of the meeting and will be allotted three minutes. State law prohibits the Planning Commission from acting at this meeting on any matter raised during the public comment period. Members of the public who wish to speak on a matter that is listed on the agenda will be called upon to speak during discussion of that item. Kayla, do we have any requests to speak at this time?

No, we do not.

That's gonna be for his thing there. We now move on to item D, consent calendar including minutes. Would the commission like to remove any items for separate consideration? Hearing and seeing none, do we have any request to speak from any of the consent items? For any of the consent items? No. No. And I call for a motion.

A motion.

I'll second. We have a motion by commissioner Ochoa, second by commissioner Gregens. We now move to a vote. Let me change this off and get to my vote. And it has passed. Thank you, folks. Okay. We now move on to item e, public hearings. Item e one.

Vesting tentative subdivision map number 25 Dash 0011, Virginia Smith Trust phase one d, and environmental review number 25 Dash 0036, categorical exemption initiated by applicant board of education of the county of Merced, trustee property owner. This application involves a request to subdivide approximately 58.17 acres into a 197 lots. The subject site is generally located on the East Side of Lake Road, approximately 5,000 feet north of East Yosemite Avenue within a plan development number 80 with the general plan designation of Virginia Smith Trust specific plan. This is a public hearing.

Can you guys hear me? Okay. Good evening. The project I have before you today is tentative subdivision map number 25 Dash 0011 for phase one d of the Virginia Smith Trust master plan. Here's a map of where the project is located in a city scale context towards the northeast quadrant of the city, south of the university.

Here you have a closer map of the project site outlined in blue. And I've also provided for reference a land use map of the entire Virginia Smith Trust master plan, which is divided into phase one and two. Phase one includes five sub phases. Phases one a, one b, one c, and one e were heard and approved by the planning commission on 01/21/2026. The project is anticipated to have a fifteen year build out and provide up to 4,400 dwelling units and over 80 over 860,000 square feet of retail and office spaces.

This is a closer look at the land uses for Phase 1 D. The green and yellow are residential uses with some of the yellow being cluster units, which I will talk more in a couple of slides. The red shows a commercial center towards the southwest portion of this phase and other commercial opportunities towards the north and center of the phase that would complete the town center concept located in Phase 1 C. This phase also includes a community recreation center outlined in a darker green in the northwest portion of the phase. This is the proposed tentative map that would create a total of 197 lots to accommodate the land uses previously mentioned.

This is the layout of the cluster units I previously mentioned. Cluster development typically includes two parcels fronting a public street with two to six additional parcels located behind them. The units would have access via a 22 foot wide driveway easement and are located throughout the whole Virginia Smith Trust master plan development. Next, I'll go over some of the infrastructure improvements that would be developed as part of this phase. Starting off with circulation, this phase includes the construction of Center Street and Kibbe Road from Virginia Smith Parkway to Gardella Road and Gardella Road from Golden Bobcat Lane to Kibbe Road.

The sewer systems being installed during this phase include gravity gravity sewers in Gardella Road from Golden Bobcat Lane to Road A and in Incentor Street and Kibbe Road from Virginia Smith Parkway to Gardella Road. The water infrastructure includes the installation of a water main on Cardella Road from Golden Bobcat Road to Kibbe Road and on Center Street and Kibbe Road from Virginia Smith Parkway to Cardella Road. The storm drain improvements include infrastructure along Cardella Road between Kibbe Road and Golden Bobcat Lane and storm drain basins along Cardella between Kibbe Road and Golden Bobcat Lane. This project was adequately noticed in the newspaper and mailed to property owners within three hundred feet of the subject site. Staff did not receive any comments from the public at the time this report was prepared.

Some notable conditions for this map are condition number 18, which states that no residential driveway, shopfront on any arterial or collector streets except for multifamily housing developments within the R 3 and R 4 land use land use designations. Condition number 29, the applicant shall dedicate all necessary street right of way and easements during the final map stage. And condition number 39, which states that a final map for this phase cannot be recorded until the final map for the large lot subdivision map, which was BTSM number twenty five zero zero zero eight for this site is recorded. After the planning commission opens and closes the public hearing, the planning commission may approve, modify, or deny tentative subdivision map number 25 Dash 0011 subject to the 20 39 conditions of approval and environmental review number 25Dash0036. That now concludes staff's presentation.

I am available for any questions and the applicant is also here if you have any questions for them. Thank you.

Thank you, Valeria. Before we jump into questions, Tim, do you want to I know that we reviewed the multiple subdivisions in our last meeting, and this one got moved out. Do you want to provide some commentary on this one getting moved out and just us revisiting the total project? I think this was the one that

Yes. So back in can you hear me now? Yep. Okay. So back in January, we had a meeting where we had a series of maps of phase one a, b, c, and d, which was this map here, was brought to the planning commission.

The this map had to be put on hold. We made sure that it was in compliance with the specific plan, the circulation plan that was outlined in there. So then the reason why it's took in the amount of time that it has was because the following class two planning commission meetings, we had lack of form. There was things that were just going on. This was our first opportunity to be able to bring it back and then continue to move forward. But at the end of the day, it's the same process as the other maps that are involved. It's meeting the same criteria the other maps that are involved.

Yeah, thank you so much. And I just wanted to get some commentary on record for folks that are watching that this is part of that original project that we reviewed and approved January 21.

Yes, this is just one phase of the six.

Perfect. Thank you so much. Commissioner, is there any questions for Valeria regarding what's in front of us today? No? Okay. Let's go down the list here. Again, this is a public hearing at this time. We'll open up for hearing for public comment. I am the applicant to speak. The applicant will have a total of fifteen minutes, including rebuttal time. If you wish to reserve time for rebuttal, please conclude your remarks to give yourself time. Again, I think we're all really familiar with this project, so thank you for coming today to wrap this up.

Good evening, commission. And I'm here just simply to thank Valeria and Francisco and the staff here at the city of Merced who've been so diligent in working through this project. It's complicated. It's gonna have a long term impact on the city of Merced, and we wanna get it done right. Steve Peck isn't here tonight to go through other questions, so you got the b team from me. But I'm happy to answer any questions or give any brief updates you'd like to hear on how we're progressing with searching for a master developer. Other than that, have no other comments and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you for showing up today. We appreciate your time. Are there any questions for him? Commissioner Ochoa?

Yeah. And do you mind giving us an update on where the project is?

Sure. So, you know, I've learned a lot about the housing market and development in the last nine years, and I still don't know a lot. But I have to tell you that we're facing some headwinds with this project as I work with the master developers. While Merced is not overbuilt, many of the areas that these master developers work in are. And so they're waiting for some of their product to sell off before they're willing to jump into the next project.

They're also looking at the economic conditions and challenges presented by interest rates and increasing costs of construction and labor. And so those are all all headwinds kind of playing against us. And as they look at a forecast, they're thinking within six months. And we're all beginning to see the interest rates drop. But what's happening in other markets in Southern California, for example, visited a master developer that was, we're still talking to.

We've got three three of them that we're talking with right now. They're buying down loans, interest rates on people buying their homes. And so they have to build into the price of their home the cost of buying that loan down right now. And that's in a market that's considered a b market. And so they're still they're they're kinda standing back and waiting.

Even though they see the opportunity next to the UC, sharp ones see the opportunity, they just are waiting for the right moment to jump in. And so I'm hoping that right moment will come along sooner than later, but it's been a little frustrating. Nine years ago, you know, this is gonna take off. Five years ago, oh, Steve, by 2025, market's gonna be hot. And so here we are in 2026 still waiting for that market to turn a little bit further in our favor.

So that's where we are. And as soon as I have something to report that's more substantial, I'd be happy to come back and do that, let Frank and Scott know at the city. And hopefully, we'll have a celebration in the next six months once we sign a master developer.

Great. Thank you for the update. We appreciate it. We now move on to opposition. Kayla, there any opposition on this?

No.

No? Okay. Hearing and seeing none. We're going to move to public hearing other speakers. Do any of the members of public who wish to speak in person have sent emails or letters prior to this meeting? No. Is there anybody else in their lobby who wish to speak on this matter, which is none? All right. At this time, we close the public comment and bring it back to commission for discussion. Any comments, commissioners?

No? And open to any motions? I don't did you press a button? No? Okay. Oh.

Yeah. Think this is gonna be a great project when it's all said and done. Really happy to come back and finish this up. So with that, I'd like to make a motion to approve tentative subdivision map number 25 Dash 0011 subject to the 39 conditions of approval and environmental review number twenty five dash zero zero three six.

I'll second that motion. We have a motion by commissioner Machoa. We have a second by commissioner Gregens. We now move to a vote. And it has passed unanimously. Thank you. And that was our only item that we had for public hearings. We now move on to item f, is business. And does anyone have anything to add under our business tab? And then it says here the director of development service will go over items for any upcoming planning commission meetings.

April, we're going to have a couple we're potentially going to have a couple of CUPs that are coming in. They are going to be food vendors. So just be ready for that. I am still working on a training PowerPoint for the entire Planning Commission. I do know that a couple of our commissioners next week will be heading to the academy.

Please ensure to take down wonderful notes and share with your fellow commissioners what you learned there. Francisco will be joining you along with Jesse Lee. So that way if you guys have any questions, they'll be able there to help augment any questions that you guys might need. But other than that, no. Right now, guys, this lull because it is going to start picking up probably within a year or two. So enjoy it while you can.

And we now move on to item G, which is adjournment. But we will need a motion to adjourn.

I make a motion to adjourn.

We have. I'll second that motion. We have Commissioner Swigert with a motion to adjourn. We have a second by Commissioner Gregens. All those in favor, please vote. And we are adjourned. Six eighteen. Thanks, folks.

Meeting, guys.