Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

all right welcome everyone um to our planning commission meeting of the city of merino valley nice building this is nice i like this okay uh now call this meeting to order at exactly 6 01 p.m i invite commissioner stefan to lead us in the pledge of allegiance

Right hand over your heart, please begin.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Can we have a roll call, please?

Yes, Chair. Commissioner Zaitz is absent tonight. Commissioner Taylor is also absent tonight. Commissioner Steffen? Present. Vice Chair Baker?

Here.

Chairperson DeGeneres?

Here. All right. May we have a request for Commissioner Taylor and Commissioner Zikes for an excused absence? So do we have a motion?

I'll motion to excuse absences.

I'll second.

Can we have a vote?

We'll do a roll call vote, Chair. Commissioner Steffen? Yes. Vice Chair Baker?

Yes.

Chairperson DeGeneres?

Yes.

Motion carries.

Okay, we'll now move on to the approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion and a second for the approval of the agenda?

I'll move that we accept the agenda as submitted.

I'll second.

Okay.

Okay, we'll have a vote. Okay, the motion does carry. All right. Before we hear public comments this evening, I ask and encourage everyone participating to keep their comments respectful towards others, especially towards individuals speaking. I embrace and support the First Amendment right to free speech, including everyone's right to speak at this meeting and share their views about issues concerning our city. Any person wishing to speak either under the public comment section of the agenda, scheduled items, or public hearings must fill out a request to speak form available at the door. The completed form must be submitted to the secretary prior to the end of the public comment period. During the public comment period for each item, including items not on the agenda, each member of the public who has signed up to speak will have a maximum of three minutes to speak. The public must direct their comments to the chairperson of the commission. All right, let's move into public comments on any item not on the agenda. Are there any speakers?

Yes, Chair. We presently have three speaker cards. Our first speaker is Ishmael Gonzalez, followed by Fred Banuelos, then followed by Christopher Baca.

Good evening, Planning Commission, city staff, everybody here in the audience and at home watching. My name is Osman Gonzalez. I reside in District 2, and I have resided in Miranda Valley for the last 20 or so years. At the last previous Planning Commission meetings, I've brought up the weather. I'm going to do so again. Out of levity, I'm going to go ahead and call it Climate Watts, just as a little fun segment. Most of you have already heard this on the news or maybe from me in the past, but climate change is real. It's happening to us right now as we speak. We are pretty much passed beyond the point of debate, and we should be approaching this concern with an adaptive approach and resiliency in mind. Just yesterday, or maybe the day before, 100 to maybe 1,000 people died in Tibet, in China, because a huge, massive glacier broke off created a five-point magnitude earthquake and then had a flash flood tear apart tens of bridges in that community. It was with no warning and that's what it looks like every day. I see a meme always coming up. Climate change is coming to you until you're the one recording the video, right? I want to mention this important fact that I found on EMWD, where we get most of our water from. They describe on their website that we get 50% of our water from the Colorado River. It's approaching Deadpool. I don't know if you guys know this. This week... It's 100 degrees, maybe 110. People are suffering and it is because of the actions of this government and other governments all around us at every level, having poor management decisions, catering to corporations who pollute our environment with no regard for the people that live in those communities. Here, it is manifested by warehouses. It is manifested by what we will talk about later today, refueling stations. I appreciate the sentiment that is written in the 2040 General Plan. There is an effort, although on paper, to transition to a green, sustainable future, but the actions of this city continue to go against that. How long do we have to suffer? I know in my lifetime, every summer has been getting hotter and hotter. You guys have lived longer than I have. Please do something about it. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Fred Banuelos, followed by Christopher Baca.

Hello, everyone. I recently saw that our council meetings, they are bringing in these weapons detection devices. So I'm wondering if you guys are getting them here. It's a pilot program. If you do, get him here, I would suggest that we have an arm-trained good guy with a gun to take out the threat. When I came out to the meeting last time, a motion detector went off with one of our mayor candidates. It was kind of funny, I thought. But if that would have been a bad guy with a gun, who's going to take that person out? You know, you have deputies that are inside of here, but there's nobody outside that was manning that weapons detection device. I went to City Hall to... Kind of check it out over there. And there's a little issue with our security team that was there. You can see the issue that I had with them later. We have virtual. for our city council. So I'm hoping that we can do it here for the council. I mean, the commission meetings here. The equipment's here. It'll put our media team to do more stuff, but we need that. There's times where people can't make it here, and I hope we have the option to call in and go Zoom. The other thing is... The chairperson, Alvin Dijonet, I think you made a comment at another meeting about parking around schools during school times where it can be a problem. I have an issue with people parking in bike lanes. It's against the law, and we need protected bike lanes. I'm a bike rider now. if this is the planning commission and there's people in here that plan things, let's plan to make the parking lots where people can get in and out of there quickly. Let's plan it where everybody's happy. So I'm bringing that to you guys. Planning commission, make it so everybody's happy. But these people that are parking illegally in the bike lanes after school, it's ridiculous. It needs to be fixed.

I think that's it, guys. Thanks. Thank you.

Good evening community and officials. I'm here on behalf of myself as a private citizen and I just want to point out that here we are in the middle of election season, and I just want to point out that our usual corrupt developer here, Highland Fairview, is already interfering in the elections. We have several candidates up here on the city council. I mean, well, the city council, of course, there's three, and there's two here on the planning commission that are running for office. And I ask you, why is Highland Fairview reaching out to ask for, if you want monetary donations for your campaign, they're in the middle of bringing out Agreements or wanting the city to create agreements for them for the Gilman Springs project that is going to be brought on to you. If he's interfering in the elections, why is he bringing out these projects that he can't do that? That's illegal. He's hiding behind LLCs. And lobbyists to do the dirty work with our corrupt staff here, which includes our attorney and our city manager who capitulate for Highland Fairview. And they bend over backwards for whatever Edelman Zivi wants, which is full corruption. And then we have staff that overlook these things. And it starts here. They pack the... agenda with nonsense unknowingly what you're doing i believe some of you commissioners don't do your job diligently and pass these issues without knowing what you're passing which started illegally with an mou with the Gilman Springs project. That was an illegal under the table agreement and it's gonna continue and we're gonna see something come up to the city so that the city can pay for his infrastructure. That's all it's about. All these projects, Aquabella, Highland World Logistics Center now the Gilman Springs project all of those are forces they're never going to get built but the city is pouring money into them in infrastructure when he is supposed to be paying for this but yet the taxpayers paying for this by because the city our corrupt city staff again for whatever reasons they want to continue putting these fake developments on the books. Maybe it makes the city look good. It's like, oh, wow, they're top rated because they have all this development coming in. And they know very well, you staff know very well that these projects are bullshit. So you got to stop and we got to clean up this city hall and we got to clean up the staff and that will happen. And several of you officials.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nikita Wilson followed by Tatiana Flores.

Good evening everyone.

My name is Nikita Wilson. Of course, you just said that. And tonight my comments are of my own. I know that we're going to be talking about this later in the meeting, but I just want to address it because I don't want to talk about a specific item. So my thing is how many gas stations is enough? Oh, my goodness. When does development become over concentration? I mean, just look at Sunnymead Boulevard. At 23021 Sunnymead Boulevard, we have a gas station. 23050 Sunnymead Boulevard, we have a gas station plus a car wash. At 23550 Sunnymead Boulevard, we have a car wash. At 23960 Sunnymead Boulevard, we have another car wash. At 23991 Sunnymead Boulevard, a gas station. 24055 Sunnymead Boulevard, a car wash. 24840 Sunnymeade Boulevard, gas station and a car wash. 249, I think I said that one, I'm not gonna double that one, but you get where I'm going. We have eight sites and it's not even within a mile. We have eight sites, one corridor. More is not always development. So my question is, at what point does the city stop approving more of the same and start asking, what do our community actually need? We don't need more car washes. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Tatiana Flores.

Good evening Planning Commission and everyone listening here in person and online. I wanted to take some time today to talk about a bill that's being proposed right now for the state. It's AB 1804, and it's about keeping California state parks accessible to everyone. So I wanted to share that last week on Friday, I had the day off because I was working Saturday at an event that I actually shared here last time. And I actually went to the library on Alessandra and was able to get a pass to go to state parks for free. And this bill is essentially trying to secure this future for good to ensure that residents have the opportunity to go to state parks without having to pay. And it's a good program. I always advocate for having these resources. I know the Latino community oftentimes doesn't actually enjoy the outdoors as much as they should. due to, like, lack of resources, also, you know, growing up in families that are always working, so I can speak for myself and say, like, for example, I've never even been to Joshua Tree, even though it's, like, right here, you know, not too far, so... Just wanted to bring that out there or bring this up and encourage people to use these resources that are available in the library, but also to encourage people to, you know, reach out to their representatives and tell them to support this bill, urge, you know, the governor to, you know, support this as well. So, yeah, everyone go to Lake Paris, you know, take a stroll and enjoy it. Yeah, thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any of our speakers?

We have no more speaker cards, sir.

Okay. All right. The next item on the agenda is approval of the consent calendar. Items listed under the consent calendar are considered to be routine and non-controversial and may be enacted by a motion unless the member of the commission requests that the item be removed for separate action. Items withdrawn for report or discussion will be held before action on the consent calendar. Questions or comments from the public on the consent calendar matter must pertain, say that, must pertain to the subject matter under consideration. At this time, would the commissioner like to pull an item from the consent calendar for separate vote? Okay, take that as a no. Do we have any public comments for items on the consent calendar?

We have no speaker cards.

Do we have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar?

Okay, I'll move that we accept the consent calendar submitted.

I'll second.

All right. The motion does carry. Next item on the agenda is non-public hearing items. And at this time, we don't have any. So let's move right into the public hearing items. The next item on the agenda is public hearing item number one. That is a plot plan, PEN 22-0250. That's in District 1. Do we have a staff report?

Thank you, Chair. Regine Kennedy, Principal Planner. I will be giving the staff report this evening. Media, can we pull up the presentation? Thank you. The project before you this evening is a request for a consideration for a plot plan for a Penske truck rental and sales fuel station and maintenance facility. As a reminder, staff has reviewed the project for consistency with the development standards and provisions set forth in the city's municipal code. The project has objectively met the requirements set forth in the municipal code and has been duly noticed for a public hearing where it has been brought to you for your consideration today. The project site is relatively flat in topography and consists of eight contiguous parcels totaling 9.1 acres. The project site is bounded to the west by the City of Riverside and the old 215 frontage and to the north by Alessandro Boulevard. Surrounding land uses include a warehouse facility to the west across old 215 frontage road, industrial uses to the south and east, a vehicle repair facility and an office to the north, and commercial uses and illegal nonconforming residential uses across Alessandro Boulevard. The site is zoned Business Park BP, which allows by right the development and operation of a truck sales, leasing, service, and fueling facility subject to a plot plan. The Business Park District is intended to provide light industrial research and development, office based firms and limited supportive commercial retails in an attractive and pleasant working environment. The project consists of two buildings and a fueling island for Penske customers only. The project provides 50 parking spaces, 157 truck spaces, and 32 trailer spaces. The project also provides 10 electric vehicle automobile parking spaces and 20 electric vehicle EV truck parking spaces. Access to the project site will be from one driveway on Alessandra Boulevard and two driveways off of old 215 Frontage Road. The project has been designed to provide safe, efficient, and organized circulation for both vehicles and pedestrians. The facility will operate Monday through Friday from 6 AM to midnight, Saturday from 7 AM to 4 PM, I'm sorry, Saturday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 7 a.m. to noon. The proposed buildings feature contemporary design using a combination of materials and colors that are consistent with Penske's corporate branding. Building one, located in the central part of the project site, will include office space, wash, and service space, totaling approximately 19,200 square feet of building area. Maintenance, fueling, and washing of Penske vehicles would not be available to the general public. Building 2, located in the northern part of the project site near the entrance, will include a rental and sales office approximately 1792 square feet. The fuel island consists of two-lane fuel island for gasoline, diesel, and diesel exhaust fluid, which will be located in the north central part of the project site. Fueling service will be limited to Penske customers only. The project includes comprehensive landscaping across the project site and is intended to enhance the project's overall character while ensuring compliance with the city's municipal code's landscaping requirements. There will also be perimeter fencing and decorative block walls on all sides of the project site for added security and screening of trucks. An initial study was prepared by Ultra Systems Environmental Inc. in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA, and the CEQA guidelines. The 30-day public comment period for the initial study mitigated negative declaration, also known as ISMND, began on March 15, 2024, and concluded on April 15, 2024. Seven comment letters were received in response to the ISMND, and mitigation measures were recommended for the project, which are summarized in the mitigation monitoring and reporting program, also known as MMRP. The MMRP includes mitigation for biological resources, cultural resources, geology and soils, hazardous materials, and tribal cultural resources. The project also went through an ALUC review where a consistent determination was found. As a condition of approval, the project is required to prepare a final determination of biologically equivalent or superior preservation, also known as a DBESP, prior to the issuance of a grading permit. The proposed project complies with section 9.02.070 plot plan and all applicable development standards of the zoning code. The project's enhanced building site and landscaping design enhances the built environment consistent with the goals of the general plan's land use element. With the recommended conditions of approval, staff is recommending that the Planning Commission adopt resolution number 202628, adopting the ISMND and the MMRP, and also adopt resolution Number 2026, 29 approving the plot plan subject to the attached conditions of approval. This concludes staff's presentation. I'm available for any questions. The applicant team and their environmental consultant is also available for questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

How many trucks did you say were going to be on site?

So there will be 157 truck spaces.

Are they all going to be diesel and fossil fuel, gas? Are there any of the trucks zero emission?

I would like to invite the applicant who can talk more about that.

Well, before the applicant comes up, are there any more questions for staff, for commissioners? Wait, Joanne looks like she might have another.

And it zoned for, what did you say the zoning was on there?

Business Park.

It's Business Park, correct. And when you were going through it, it said it was going to be something that the public would be able to utilize and not just, I guess, not just for trucks per se. Gotcha.

So this facility would not be open to the general public. It's limited to the customers that Penske is serving.

Okay. But when you were reading the description of that classification, it kind of said that it was kind of something that maybe the general public or for residents, that's kind of what I got at the take of it. Our residents aren't going to be able to really utilize it that much.

I believe you might be referring to the statement about the intent of the BP district. There wasn't anything in my statement that referred to the general public. I did say that the BP district would or is intended to provide limited supportive commercial uses in an attractive and pleasant working environment. It did not refer to specifically for the general public.

Okay. Maybe I misunderstood. I'm sorry.

Any other questions?

No.

Thank you. All right. With the applicant.

Good evening, Chair. Good evening, Planning Commissioners. My name is Mike Barnes. I'm the Director of Facilities for Penske Truck Leasing, Western Region. I'm presenting to you our project that we wish to develop on the corner of Old Route 215 and Alessandra Boulevard. We are very excited to work with the city on this project and even more excited to work with the community. So looking forward to the feedback you have and share the services and the specifics of the project as well. Roger Penske, obviously the owner of Penske Truck Leasing, has many variable different businesses out there, some of which really adapt and focus on the local communities he establishes those in. I want to hit on a couple of those. The middle one here, the professional sports, is really a national, international kind of business that he runs. The top one, the corporation is really built on these three different core businesses. The first one is retail automotive. Penske Automotive is a bunch of car dealerships throughout the country, you know, from northern America, and a very successful company that... really involves the community. The next one over Penske Motor Group is really focused on Longo Toyota, Lexus, those are out of El Monte and a lot of the businesses created from the local community is in there as well. The last one is, you know, the transportation solutions and that's where I'm going to kind of really focus my presentation tonight on. We offer four different services to our structure, our businesses at this location. We do truck rental, we do full service leasing, we do contract maintenance, and we also sell used trucks. Truck rental is obviously what you see is what we offer. We offer the moving trucks to local consumers, but more importantly, we offer that option to consumers that use our trucks, but also in the commercial businesses as well. We are open to the public for rental, okay? So a typical customer for renting a truck would be the parents taking their daughter out of state to college. A typical customer for the commercial business is a small entrepreneur, somebody who doesn't have the capital to buy trucks and utilize his own trucks. They use our trucks for a small business person building millwork cabinets, maybe for a restaurant, something to that aspect. Next one is full service leasing. This is really an option for a benefit for a lot of businesses in the local community and are outside the community that really don't have their own trucks. But we offer them a lease program, typically about a five to seven year program. We really do a full a la carte process with them. We'll get them set up on a truck, maybe more than one or two trucks. We'll add maintenance to that truck. We'll help them with the tags, the licensing of those trucks. We really take a lot of the items that they, as an owner of a truck, away from them, let them focus on their businesses, the business at hand. Contract maintenance is another one. Difference there is we might be servicing trucks that are not our trucks that we're leasing, but they're trucks that they own. They just don't have the capacity to service their own trucks, so they rely on companies like us to service their trucks in that area. We still offer a lot of benefits 24-7, repair service. If they're broken down somewhere, we can get to them. If they can't make it to our shop to repair those, a lot of benefits there is in that contract maintenance program. First service leasing, full service leasing, I mentioned that prior to this, when the term ends on a full service lease, obviously the customer, we hope they lease more tractors or more trucks from us. When those trucks come back into our circulation, we might decide to wholesale those out or auction them off, or we might just try to sell those ourselves on our lot. That's where you get the last used truck portion of this. Obviously, when we sell trucks through our dealerships or our maintenance facilities, there's obviously a tax revenue based out of that that helps the city. I wanted to kind of get into specifics on the servicing of the trucks at our shop. We service Penske trucks only. We are not open to the public. Rental is obviously open to the public. We're a consumer and a commercial customer. We set a contract up, like I mentioned in the previous slide, with our customers. So you're not getting traffic coming off the street to park, to work on a truck, because they have to sign up with us. Um, we don't do heavy duty repairs in our shops. A lot of this is really, all of this is based on preventative maintenance. A big driver of this is our customers, um, uptime, uptime on a truck. The more, uh, you know, uptime we can have our customers, the better off they are. So, We're very big on the preventative maintenance. We do a lot of engine tune-ups, clutch repairs, tire changes, and washes. We're not doing an engine overhaul. We're not dropping a transmission. Those are not what we're doing on site. We're not a truck stop, obviously. We limited our traffic coming in. Everything is designed on an appointment program. We might have a furniture delivery company that uses our trucks to come in. He might not need that truck for two or three or four more days. We might have another truck that is delivering essential goods to a medical clinic. They need that truck. That might supersede the time frame to get that truck serviced, while the other one maybe has a little bit more time. Typical turnaround on a preventative maintenance truck is about a day. So our goal is to get the truck in, get them into the service bays, service that truck, and again, uptime. Get that truck back to the owner or the leaser, and then get it back on the road so they can deliver the essential goods or the services to the local community. Another portion of this location will include, we mentioned it by Regine and the staff, is zero emissions trucks. Obviously with Title 24 we have a responsibility to put in level two chargers. We're also putting in DC fast charging for 20 stalls. We know this is coming, we believe in it. We support the EV program. And it's a great thing to zero emissions for the fleet. It's better in the environment. A lot of benefits to that. So this location will have the most modern infrastructure for DC fast charging. Again, this is not open to the public. It's just our customers. We sign up. We also fuel trucks here. That's not open to the public either. It's just to our customers. Our fuel programs, our fuel systems, we rank above and beyond the average standards. We obviously know the fire codes, the CUPA requirements. We honor those. Again, the process is very easy to work with us as far as our customers. We have dedicated employees working on the fuel islands. that they only do is service that truck for fueling. We do not have the driver pull up and fuel himself. This really helps with uptime, they're in and out, and really eliminates any possible spills and drips and whatnot on the slab because of the person who's doing that day in and day out. Again, it's not open to the public. The rental building I mentioned, consumer, not really a big portion of our business. It's really the smaller entrepreneur, the business person that, again, can't afford his own trucks. He's using our trucks for his business. I kind of mentioned earlier the customers that we focus on really with the consumer rental. I want to get into the site and kind of, you saw some staff, what the current condition of the property looks like today. This is really a site plan of what the layout's going to look. Staff mentioned building one, building two. I'll kind of go into that further when we get into the renderings I brought. If you look at the very top, there's a bunch of stalls up there that are empty. That's all going to be our zero emissions tractors dedicated for EV tractors, really medium duty and heavy duty trucks. We also service smaller and small duty trucks for EV as well. This is a rendering that we had put together based on our plans. I kind of want to explain the process on the layout of the property. If you look at to the far right, you're going to see more like a medium and heavy duty trucks. Those are the ones I mentioned earlier that might sit for two, maybe one day, could be two, three, four, five days until they get to them. Because they are parked there more than 24 hours, we are putting up a 14-foot screen wall to basically camouflage those trucks while they're being parked. Again, they're not sitting there long-term, but we want to make sure that they're screened to the public to honor the code and the planning requirements. If you look in the middle, you're going to see a couple of smaller trucks, parking lots with smaller trucks. Those are turning a lot faster. That might be a little bit of overflow for some rental fleet, or those are trucks that are ready to be picked up for the customer, the consumer to pick up that day. I kind of like showing this slide for a couple of reasons. You'll see the white truck coming into the entrance there. We always do a counterclockwise to our buildings to show that when the driver's coming in, safety is a big, big priority with us. That driver, he or she can drive into the lot, know what's in front of them, but also can check and see if anybody's coming in out of the building. If you're on the opposite side, it's a little bit tougher to see that. Sometimes we get asked, boy, it's really organized law. Does it always stay like that? Yeah, we try to do that. That's an emphasis we put in our company that's more efficient. We label all the stalls to where the truck goes. We back in all of our trucks. There's a reason for that. Again, it's safety. It's organized, but we know when we're pulling a truck out backwards, a lot riskier to hit something or someone. We don't want that. TO ILLUSTRATE A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT THE SITE PLAN, WE'VE GOT REALLY MATURE LANDSCAPING, YOU KNOW, OBVIOUSLY PART OF THE LOCAL LANDSCAPING ORDINANCES. THE BUILDING WE KIND OF WENT INTO THE ELEMENTS. THE HEIGHT OF THIS BUILDING IS ABOUT AN EVE HEIGHT OF 24 FEET. SMALLER BUILDING TO THE FRONT FOR THE RENTAL AND OFFICES, THAT EVE HEIGHT IS ABOUT 18 FOOT. SO A LITTLE BIT LOWER PROFILE HEIGHT ON THAT BUILDING. This slide I brought because I really believe this shows a huge impact. When we bring the heavy-duty trucks into the property, those will enter and exit off of old Route 215. We do not want trucks, heavy-duty trucks, medium-duty trucks coming in off Alessandro. That is not the way we designed this site. The entrance off Alessandro is really for the consumer and the commercial rental on the smaller light-duty trucks being rented. Obviously another benefit here is the location in proximity to the 215 freeway. It's an easy access, easy off the freeway to get to our property. You're not meandering through a residential section if you can't find our property. It's right there. You can't miss it. Next profile, I think, is really looking southwest of Alessandro. Again, you'll see the trucks in the background. The space in the back there with all the green trees is our employee parking. And then you see the Penske building we mentioned, what staff mentioned in the beginning, for rental and offices. That's really, again, catered to that business purpose. rental light duty trucks entering and exiting off of Alessandro. You'll also notice where the pickup truck is parked right in front of the smaller building, there's a gate there. That gets locked after hours when rental is closed. The benefit here also is if somebody can't see us or meet us after we're closed, they have the option of returning a rental into that front lot where that box truck is sitting and they drop their keys off and then we just close them out the next day we come in. That's a big benefit because some places, if you drop a truck off, we don't want them parked in the streets. We want to make sure there's a space there for them to drop that truck off that's not interfering with the traffic. I mentioned earlier that obviously the access ingress for the bigger trucks off of old Route 215 and then the consumer and light-duty rental will be off Alessandro. This property will be lit with LED lighting and building to illuminate the property and comply with all Title 24 energy codes. There is no truck idling at night. Staff or the audience, please, we're going to hear rumbling noises. All of our services, our preventative maintenance, will be done inside the truck shop. We mentioned earlier on this one the big building. If you'll see on the bigger building, you've got wings out there. Those are canopies. Those are really what we call drive-up repairs, tire replacements, windshield wiper replacements, light-duty stuff that doesn't revolve any oils, any petroleum products, something that they can drive up. We switch it out. They're back on the road uptime. Landscape trees, obviously those are planned along the perimeters. Those also act as a natural buffer, which helps any kind of a noise reduction, but that's all part of the planning. We would go through the planning department and make sure that's approved. Security, all this property will be fenced in, gated, I mentioned earlier, and have a security system on site, as all of our properties do. Environmental consciousness, we are committed to proactively protecting the environment, state of the art fuel island equipment and monitoring systems that go well above and beyond the federal regulations. I mentioned the fuel island. California, obviously we know the regulations here are a little bit more strict. We are geared with that with our environmental team in the process that we have in place to eliminate any potential drips or spills. Unfortunately, the applicant wants staff to be aware that there is some contamination to the northeast of this property. We didn't do it. It's been there for 60 to 70 years by a prior building owner to the north, to the east of us. Contains, I believe it was a dry cleaners building, had PCEs, I believe this product is used for cleaning uniforms. For some reason, somehow it got into the soils and some of it migrated into the property we bought. We are doing the right thing. We're going to take care of this on our property. We'll remove the PCE, the soils, the contaminated soils on site. Our mitigation measures include working with DTSC on this. In addition, I mentioned earlier the right-of-way, the landscaping. We are adding trees along the right-of-way as well as some light poles. I want the committee and staff and the audience to be aware that Penske believes in environmental resilience and emissions, controlling gas emissions on these buildings. We put a lot of capital and thought and engineering into our buildings. We want them to last, but we want them also to be eco-friendly to the environment. Some of the things we are doing, obviously, in this building and throughout the country, we're doing LED lighting retrofits in all of our buildings. Obviously, this new building will have the latest LED lighting fixtures, but we are doing this all over the country just because, you know, the benefits of using a brighter light, but, you know, something that's better for the environment. We are devoting about 1.3 megawatts installed to date on solar. Currently, seven sites in Southern California are getting retrofitted with solar arrays on the rooftops. We believe in this technology. This is what I believe benefits the consumers, but also benefits the areas to show that we're making more eco-friendly buildings. Unfortunately, this building cannot have solar. We would still put it on if we could. This interferes with March Air Force Base and the trajectory of the landing and the takeoffs with the high reflective glare that they might get. Over 90% of our properties, our buildings, including everything in California, is going to battery-operated forklifts, no more natural gas. We're also using a lot more battery-operated tools. The technology and battery-operated tools these days have come tremendously much farther than they were in the past. We believe that's better for the environment. HVAC equipment, another thing we're doing, could be a higher MERV filter rating, VFDs in the area frequency drives into the HVAC units. Obviously, units these days run much more efficient than older units. And then a highly efficient truck wash system. This location obviously will have a truck wash. It will probably produce about six to eight trucks washes per day. And we use a company called Whiting System that uses a SuperScout gantry system in this. The averages on this are about six gallons per a standard 26-foot truck. Basically, this gantry system, a driver will bring this truck into the wash bay, The driver will get out, punch a code into our key box there, kind of registers the length of the truck. This gantry will go back and forth to clean that truck. Six gallons on a truck has come way farther than using pressure washers, which pretty much use double the amount of water. We believe in doing the right thing first. I kind of mentioned some of the things with the contamination on the site, with the environmental improvements we've made to the eco-friendly buildings we're building. We produce buildings. We conduct our business in a safe and ethical manner. Maintain a facility in a first-class manner that's compliance with all laws. We sustainability energy efficiency in reduction through LEED design, including EV and solar. Every single building that we produce these days throughout the country, including Marina Valley, will be a LEED certified building.

This is no different here.

We believe in the efficiency, the engineering in this design. We just, it's a great thing and we're using that going forward. Penske's annual CapEx budget, we put a tremendous amount of effort and capital into making sure our buildings last. We want the buildings to be efficient. We want our employees to be safe, our customers to be safe. Therefore, we put a lot of emphasis in the safety and the building as far as being lasting much longer than the average. An active participation in the community and assistance with relief efforts. We're very much involved in the community. We step up when there's a need. We've had departments that deal with this on a program basis. This location, I'm sorry, with all of our locations in Southern California, we have 35 buildings similar to this one. Out of those 35 locations, we employ over 1,200 full-time employees and 90 part-time employees. The early projections on this location are 31 full-time employees projected. I think the staff mentioned the hours. Those employees will come from the surrounding areas. We mentioned a little bit earlier about the tax revenue when we sell a truck on the property. That's a benefit, obviously, to the city. And we do a lot of local supports in Southern California as well as the country. Some of those examples are the Blood Drive and Awareness Week we do in Southern Cal, Heart Health Day. The holiday toy drives, and currently we've been involved in many years, which is coming up, the annual pinkout, which we spend a lot of time with employees and devoting time and efforts into recognizing that program. That concludes my presentation. I'd be willing to answer any questions from the council, if they had any.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I just want to go back, and I don't think I mentioned that the public testimony is open at 6.30 p.m. I just want to make sure that that's in there. Are there any commissioner questions for the applicant?

How many EV trucks do you have right now that are going to be at this site? Do you have any?

We have them deployed at probably the closest locations, maybe in Fontana in Ontario. Probably eight to 10 trucks right now in those locations. As far as the bigger trucks, the DC fast charging, I don't have an actual count on that.

Yeah, I know that you're going to be putting it because it's more or less the wave of the future, but I was just wondering if you guys already had gone to that wave of the future.

We have. We've got a devoted team that's really looking at the benefits of that. I wanted to also add, if I may, we also service C&G hydrogen trucks as well. Those are alternative fuels as well. Obviously, the zero emissions trucks is a wave of the future, and we're already using those now as we speak.

And I noticed on the sustainability, you did list solar. But on this site, you said that you cannot put solar, so that's going to be out.

Yes. We will still be LEED certified. If you put in a solar, there's a chance you can get it up to a silver rating or even a gold. But we will make sure it's still certified by the other items that we're putting into the building.

Okay. And then I noticed that you said about the washing of the trucks that you are minimizing the usage, but you're not recycling your water or anything like that?

We do not recycle as of yet. That technology is not offered to us yet, but yes, we are not recycling.

Okay. And are you bringing any employees with you to this site at all?

I do not know that answer.

I know you said you were going to employ 31, but I'm sure... Even employing them, they might not be up to speed with the way you guys handle everything.

As far as training and whatnot?

Right.

Yeah. No, we would have them mirror probably the closest location, work from that location while this one is being built. We also, one thing I wanted to add is we really, I think we set ourselves above and beyond any competition out there for training our employees. We send our technicians, although they have great knowledge, to Texas to train for two weeks on the Penske ways of doing the servicing and the preventative maintenance. They will probably go to a similar program like that, but also shadow with local other branches throughout Southern California.

And I understand that you do rentals for the consumer, but they're usually smaller trucks, you said, or even leases. So basically, the way I'm looking at this, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, it's more like a service station for Penske, where you service your trucks, you put brakes, you do all that. Is that basically what it is?

Well, again, we're not open to the public. We're just servicing our own trucks through our customers that are signed up with our programs.

Right. So it's something that's going to be basically for Penske to do their business on that site and not really for the general public.

Other than rental?

Right.

Correct.

Okay. It sounds like you're at a courtroom. I'm sorry to make you feel that way. You're fine. I'm just going line by line because these are things that I would just— Good questions. Yeah, I just want to get this all out. And as far as tax revenue, we, the city, would just get them from the trucks that you would sell? Is that it? Yeah.

That is it. I assume it's a tax revenue. We don't have projections yet. Yeah, I know. We're a little far out, but yes.

Okay, I just wanted to know about that. And then...

While she's looking at that, aren't there taxes associated with the rentals as well?

You know, I don't know that yet.

Let me see.

Property tax and rental tax. Okay.

Are you going to have underground storage tanks and above ground storage tanks?

This will have underground storage tanks, correct.

Underground. So you won't have above ground? No. Because I know some of your facilities you did have.

We do have some. Right. We do have some, not many.

Okay. And the hazardous waste, how do you dispose of that?

I can, if I can, I can bring up an associate that deals with that program if that's okay.

Okay, well... Because I believe there was an issue, environmental issue about that in the past. I just happened to come across it. They sent us some paper.

We can address a comment, yeah.

Yeah, it was an environmental lawsuit that you guys just settled that had to do with that.

I could tell you that we worked with the DA's office on that.

Right. So I was just concerned with that site because the last thing we want is to have anything, and I know you guys are going to have to rectify all this and come up to speed on everything, but we just don't want any of the public in our area to have to go through anything that mirrors some of these horrible things that we've been seeing happen.

We can clarify that further with our council we have with us tonight.

Okay. I just wanted to kind of just touch on that. I know it's a very touchy subject, but I think it needed to be brought out because that site is going to be there and it is in our town.

Would you mind if council came up and addresses that now?

Sure. Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. Sigrid Waggoner, council for Penske. Absolutely happy to address that. Yes, Penske just engaged with its regulators in a full and fulsome settlement that is before the court right now for ratification. And what that means is that Penske is now compliant with every environmental regulation at every site statewide. That was a very long and very collaborative process between the regulators and Penske. what is good about it. Um, people don't think about it is the fact that now every single operation and every single operation going forward is up to stuff, 2026 standards and beyond. Um, again, that was a lot of work and a lot of collaboration, but Penske is devoted to good responsibility and good operatorship. And that settlement is public. Um, The terms are available to be reviewed. That's on the court's docket. And you will see in the settlement recitals about all of that. So for the good of the hearing tonight, please keep in mind that now Penske is at the top of its game regulatorily.

Okay. That was basically my thing. I know that now going forward, I was just, you know, having to be good stewards of the community, you know, we have to watch out for our residents because we live here. And so basically that's, you know, I had to bring it out. I know it was the elephant in the room, but it needed to be addressed. Okay. That's all my questions. I don't know if any of the other commissioners have any.

I have one. You have an operation in Ontario and Fontana. Is there any other close by?

Riverside off of Hall in the 60 would be probably the closest. Riverside.

Where's that in Riverside?

All in the 60. I think it's just north of the 60.

And where's your corporate headquarters? In Texas or?

Redding, Pennsylvania, sir.

Do you have any plan on expanding the operations for EV?

As far as on the site?

Yeah, increasing the amount over time.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. 20 stalls would probably be the biggest we've ever put in and into our locations for the DC fast charging, and as well as the level twos, absolutely.

Okay, okay. So I guess my thought process on this being that it's Penske, I guess to equate it, this is like just a really, really large U-Haul. You know, you got semi-trucks, you got rentals, you got sales, but U-Haul doesn't sell their trucks. But, you know, we're renting trucks, we're leasing trucks and selling trucks.

Again, a big portion of, I want to say over 90% of our business for the rental is the small commercial business owner.

So then I think I heard that a lot of it has to do with the longer uses, five to seven year leasing, that sort of thing.

For the service, yeah, the leasing, correct.

No, I don't have anything else. You guys have any other questions?

I'm just wondering, is it fair to say that basically this is more, I don't even know if I should, I have to choose my words very carefully. It's more a benefit really to Penske, this area, than it is actually to the residents of Moreno Valley. Is that fair to say or no?

I disagree. Again, a lot of our rental fleet is geared towards a smaller business person, he or she, that can't afford their trucks, so therefore they're using ours. Right. Some of our big customers, our average customer fleet that services our trucks only utilize around six to seven trucks. That's a small portion. Those are used primarily in local areas.

Okay, because it just seemed like it's more like... An operation that Penske, because everything that was on there wasn't open to the consumer, wasn't open to the consumer, wasn't open to the consumer, except for just, like you said, the smaller trucks and the lease trucks. So for me, I just kind of took it that it was more something that, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with it. You're doing business, and you've got to service your trucks, and maybe they're not going to be so much utilized for Moreno Valley residents, but there are surrounding areas that would utilize them, Riverside, Beaumont, wherever, because I don't know where, like my colleague Ray said, there's other places, but I guess there's room to have one more. There's room for one more. So, basically, I was just, yeah.

You guys have done the demographics on this, I'm sure, right? Yes. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. But that was my thing.

Got it.

Because sometimes we're up here and we are, you know, looking out for our residents and what benefits we can get for it, you know? Absolutely. Get the most bang for our buck for that property that is going to be used. Okay. Okay.

Are there any plans for street improvements around the area, around your property?

Yeah, around the right-of-ways and the outside. You know, I don't know if we had any major social. Do you? That's right.

Chair, I do want to add that the project is conditioned to put in some street improvements, and I have our principal planner of land development to explain what those might be.

Good evening, commissioners. Larry Gonzalez, principal engineer with land development. The project is conditioned to install sidewalks along the frontage on old 215. The existing street already has curb and gutter. In addition to that, they are conditioned to install There are two driveways per the city standard plan for commercial driveways. And they will be connecting to an existing storm drain, 24-inch storm drain within old 215 for drainage from their property. There are existing, I believe, five existing streetlights along the frontage on old 215. And those existing streetlights will remain. One will be relocated in order to accommodate one of the driveways. Thank you.

And I ask you, what does the road look like on that side of the old 215? Because I know the other side has been repaved. It looks really nice. It used to be in bad shape.

Right. The condition of the roadway is it's a four-lane minor arterial. So you have two lanes northbound, two lanes southbound. And as I recall, I would have to double check, but I seem to recall that it's in good condition. They were not conditioned to do any additional street work beyond adding the sidewalk.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. I have another question for you. I'm not done with you yet. Poor guy. Stop it. How many trucks do you even think might be going on from your site onto the roadways?

Onto old Route 215?

Oh, 215, onto the freeways. How many trucks do you surmise will be going on there?

You know, it's...

It's the ballpark.

Yeah, I mean, again, it's all done by the traffic analysis, but also the accounts that we have when we make the appointments. You're not seeing a tremendous amount of trucks on the lot. So I would say maybe you're 10 to 12 or 10 to 15 per day coming in and out.

Okay, yeah, because I mean, it might not even come into the equation, but it's just that the truck traffic on the freeways, on the roads, they're just getting worse. That was my question. I mean, you know, I mean, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. You know, it's just gotten that way through the years. So I just want to know how many might be added.

If I could, with the facilities team, I wanted to give you a little bit more maybe metrics or data to kind of answer some questions to support Mike. As you think about your question on trucks, what you're not seeing today is all the business commercial, consumer, and I'll elaborate that more, that's transpiring business within the city today is driving those trucks within the city without our presence. So when we go back to the comment, what does this facility do for the city of Moreno Valley? And we're very cautious to say how much we spend. We spend millions of dollars on these facilities, and that's not bragging, but we choose our destination, our domicile locations wisely. So based on geometrics of the customers, the customers are what brings us here, not Penske. So we're not going to stand up a multi-million dollar facility to just rent for moving your house or maybe some commercial rental. We're bringing the business here really for the full service lease, which is supporting the businesses that Mike said. It's a lot of small businesses. So as you think about the world of trucks, in the whole industry, not us, 92% of all the trucks are have customer bases of six trucks or less. Now we have Costco, we have Trader Joe's, we have a lot of big entities, that's no lie, right? We are a big company, we're a network just like others. But really the focus in this town and others that we travel around is we're basing our decision to come here based on already the business of the trucks that are used. So the trucks that are the businesses today that are in your community are driving to Riverside full service lease, the fueling, all the complimentary services, which you are not seeing the benefit for. But you are seeing the increased traffic and flow and everything else that goes with that. So the reason that we are here today is because when we look at a concentric ring, so we do drive times, of where all the dots of the customers that we support are, We find the zoning that complies and we find the closest to the highway, right? So we talked about all this, but all of the strategic things we try to do to minimize our footprint on the community kind of brought us to this site cuz we have the revenue to help with the cleanup. This site has sit and vacant for many, many decades. So we feel like it fits our needs. We can support our customers that are already within the city. we can concentric that ring. So now our traffic is a lot less, because we're not commuting that half hour up and back. So when you ask how many trucks are on the roads, all of them, they have to go somewhere. But we are very strategic on keeping them out of the residential areas. A lot of them are the flower, when you think about the small trucks, so EVs. We made a public statement many years ago, we bought 250 electric vehicles of the 40 little vans, right? A lot of those that we see around, they're all in California for the most part. I would say 95%. I don't know the actual count, but out of 250, about 200 or so are in this state. We see electricians, flower companies, food deliveries. Amazon has taken a few, although they're converting to their own. So those are the people that are using it, but we know they're concentric here. So that's what brings us here. We're not coming here to try to build the business. We're coming here to support the business. And that's why we're not open to the public. The public-facing side is if you or anybody in this room says, hey, I want to move to another state or I need to take my kid to college, you can come in, you can get a truck for as long as you'd like. You can drop it off at any state. That's the beauty of us. It's a network. So it's not concentric there. But the commercial side of that rental is the FedEx and the UPS and at one time Amazon. So when the Christmas holiday comes, they do not have the volume to keep up with all our shopping online anymore. They can't. So they come to us and say, give us some trucks temporarily. So a lot of our trucks are delivering all these packages and these big flow from Black Friday all the way through the holidays. So that's the commercial rental. That could be a week, a month. The holiday. But the full-service lease is what really brings us here. That's the five- to seven-year commitment. That's with a Kroger, a Costco. We have business here. We have a lot of small businesses within the community, and we're just providing that service. We give them the truck. We do the license. We put the decal on. You don't even know it's our truck. And we service, wash, and fuel on-site. We try to keep it...

contained so it's not negative to the public it's we're supporting what's already here you just it's not invisible but you don't see it we're not driving around with penske on every truck does that make sense that's it makes perfect sense to me now because i was thinking you guys are just wanting to do penske and monopolize on everything and it didn't make sense to me that it would even be a value to our area if you guys are just going to do you know, a centralized location and just do that. But now that you're saying that we might not see it, it is a pensy truck. It's just kind of incognito.

The only value for us is because, and I know there's a lot of people in here that want to have a conversation. That's beautiful, right? That's what the country's for. And we'll disagree and agree on a lot of things. But what we do know is we come here for the customers, and a lot of customers follow us. So if they're in Riverside and they're like, hey, we want Penske as a service because of some of the values we provide, when we establish in Moreno Valley, they will come to us because they know that's the value we get. We're not the cheapest on the block. We are never a U-Haul. And the differentiator is U-Haul is just a transaction for a rental, right? They don't do their own maintenance. They do have their own vehicles. And another misnomer that maybe I could clear up is we don't build trucks. We're not a truck manufacturer. So we're agnostic to anything out there. We've got, we get a Tesla truck, we can get a Ford truck, a Volvo truck, a Daimler truck, anything out in the market. And that's what we do for our customer because if you came to us and said, I want to be zero emissions, we will say, do you want electric? CNG. We can do hydrogen as they come online, right? There's a lot of technologies coming. It's our job to be that advisor. We have the network to bring in whatever you need as a customer. We spec the trucks. You're going to say, I need a refrigerated truck because I deliver ice cream. We have a lot of those or breads. Food is a big industry for us. Auto parts are a big industry for us. So all these warehouses – They have to get fed from somebody, and we're kind of the unsung hero because you don't see us delivering in a Penske truck. It's in their trucks, right, since we're kind of branching out. So we want to be very strategic. We don't want to leave a big footprint within a community, but we want to be able to transport the goods, get in and off the site, and do it cleanly and respectfully, and that's really what we're trying to do.

Okay, can I ask you, do you have contracts with some of the bigger businesses in our city?

Absolutely.

Okay, well, I just wanted to clarify.

No, it's okay.

And if we want to get into the names, I'll have to bring up the operators, because I'm the construction guy. I can tell you all of that.

Okay.

I know you had a question way on in the presentation about why so many truck stalls, and that's a very common question we hear all around the country. And I can give you two simple answers. We follow the zoning code. So if the planners say, hey, 70% of the site you can have impervious, we try to maximize the site. We do that for two reasons. We want to make one impact and one impact only. We don't have to come back and grade and disturb and make all kinds of disruptions for us or you or the environment. But we also, as you think about yourself, so when you drop your car off to get serviced, if there's no parking stalls around the garage, what do you do? You drive around and you're like, oh my God, What are these people doing? There's no parking area. Where do I drop my car off? We're very much molded in a commercial atmosphere. So even though we have about 160 stalls, we have a rotation. So we have stalls that might not have parking so that when a customer drops their truck, they can put it in a stall and be organized, safe and organized. The next person that comes in, they're going to take a truck from another stall. So it's kind of a rotational parking lot. But we can't do that if we just design for exactly what's in the shop, if that makes any sense.

Yeah, that makes sense. And you are going to make it aesthetically pleasing, right? I mean, I kind of wish you guys would go a little above and beyond because I know sometimes the city hasn't really... You get a certain size tree that you have to put in, but it takes forever for it to grow. And the last thing I would like to see is... It looked like a commercial area rather than a business park.

We're open to any suggestions you have.

What is the size of box trees we have to put? Our code is.

Does anybody know?

How tall are they?

So we have in our project plans the preliminary landscaping plans. And let's see here what they have as far as. So it's a minimum of a 24-inch box. Can you go a little bigger than that?

We can, and we'll work with the planners.

Okay. Can we put that as a condition of approval if it were to be approved? Because I would like to see a little more mature. Okay, lengthen it.

No, I don't think so.

They don't? They won't?

Well, I mean, nurseries. I mean, that's where you got to buy it.

Well, go to the nursery and get a bigger tree.

Okay.

I'm just saying because I know that there was some buildings that we had around town, and it's taken forever for them to cover up what's actually there. I know your buildings aren't going to be, you know, super tall, but I know the area. I've been here 40 years. What?

Yeah, most zoning code we see inch and a half caliber. It's a very small tree. It takes 10 to 15 years to get anything like you see in a landscape plan. Right. We typically like to go a little more dense because we do want maturity. And we also have a lot of screening requirements. I think some might be here. But we're not opposed to changing that at all, right? We start with something and then we work with everybody.

Yeah, because that area, I know you've probably been to the site and it just would look nice because that is an entrance to our city. And so if you want, you know, for us to at least start somewhere to look nice coming in, I would like it to look nice because that area has been a very, almost, I just want to say, it hasn't been built up very well. It was the stepchild of the city.

I know we have fence. We have some screener walls, which are not unusual for us. Trucks are not always the most kosher world.

It's not that I wouldn't want to see the trucks. I just want to see something that looks good landscaped. You know, the greenery and things like that. It makes a place just look cleaner, nicer. It doesn't look, you know, so bad. I had another question, but I'll let the speaker speak, and then maybe I'll bring you back up to the firing range.

Yeah. Maybe two more things to kind of maybe help from discussion. Because I know you're going to hear a lot. And I know trucks aren't the easiest thing to think about. But we aren't a crosstalk. We're not the warehouse across the street. Our traffic footprint is very minor, as much as you want to not believe that. Most of our traffic is generated by our employees. So if we have 31 employees... We have 15 coming in, and we have an overlap of 15 coming out. So at any given time, we might have all 30 at one time, but there's a rotation, right, as people do shifts. We know there's a vernal pool in there, right? So we're very sensitive to that. It's not unusual for us to transport prairie dogs and turtles and spot it out. We do this all the time. Very sensitive to that. But I would recommend that when we, or one thing to know is when we went through with March Air Force Base, it was made clear to us and with the planners that we could not have an open water source on that property. And the reason is they don't want waterfowl conjugating there because of the end of the runway and getting into the engines. So that's one thing we had to do. We had to put that detention underground. I think it might be a bioswale. I'm a little out of touch. Mike probably knows. But we have to relocate that anyway, right, because of the water getting larger that was brought up to us. Can you fix that? Absolutely. We have to mitigate, so we will do that. A lot of things are just maybe unwritten, but we know why and where we're doing them, and we're welcome the questions to kind of explain that to you.

And honestly, I would hope that you would employ Merino Valley residents if they're qualified because, you know, everywhere, everybody needs a job. And if we can get some people jobs, then that's what we would really like.

I think your question earlier about... Are you hiring within? Do you bring people without? Just like any business, we would have a management team come in, right? We have to have consistency in training. We do have techs that live down here that go to Riverside. So we are very conscious of trying to get somebody more quality of life. So there will be some techs that come down here, and that keeps our base strong and consistent. But we do also go out to the tech schools, as Mike said, and we go out to the colleges for management trainees. And what are those? We put college kids on the counter, and we train the business, and they go up through, and we give them opportunity to become a salesperson or a VP or whatever they want to be. So we do have a lot of opportunity. A lot of opportunity to bring talent in. Just like any trade out there, it's really hard to get talent. So we welcome anybody that's willing to come.

Okay. Yeah, because we've kind of battled with Riverside for a long time with competition, but I just would like our kids to get some training, and it would be a good future for them because a mechanic, they pay good money. A lot of kids aren't geared sometimes to go to the four-year college, but a trade school or something like that, they make good money. Okay.

One more comment?

Go ahead.

Why do we have two buildings? This is very unique for us because it really splits our management and how we handle transactions and that. And the reason is March Air Force Base. There's a far ratio. We can only have so many people in a building at the end of that runway. It very much limits what can be built there because you can't have a high density population within a building on that lot at the end of the runway. So we worked with them and I think the planners and everybody else. It's been years now, right? So we split our workforce, office and technicians so that we could come within March Air Force Base's requirements. And I say that because it's very challenging aside from the contamination cleanup and the amount of money we need to spend to get this operational. It's very hard for anybody else also to try to meet those requirements. floor area ratios for major March effort. Let's say nobody can. And we struggled to meet it. So we had to get creative. And that's why we have two facilities. So you won't see that everywhere. But we're willing to work to make everything be compliant and you know, kind of work within the letter of the law.

Okay, I'm glad you answered a lot of questions, because I'll be honest with you, I came in with that elephant in my hand, and it had a bad taste, actually. I didn't really care for what I was reading.

I think our legal counsel addressed some of the elephants in the room. Yeah. I would say take the time and read the information.

come to compliance and do everything. And I'm sure that our facility is going to be up to par. I'm 100% all in on that one. But it's just kind of like I was looking at that and I was saying, oh, my goodness. So just so you know where I'm coming from. I normally don't ask that many questions, do I, guys?

I'll stay very topside on this, but I'll give you one last parting comment and then we can open it up. Your state is one of the most stringent and challenging to work for as far as regulations. But a regulation doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. It could be a procedural issue or it could be a documentation issue. It doesn't mean you made a spill. It doesn't mean anything leaked. It could be strictly paper-oriented. So I would encourage anybody to read deeper into why and where everybody is coming around with the information. And I think you might find that we're not really – enemy of the community that many people think.

Thank you.

Any other additional questions for the applicant while we're... Okay. Well, let me say this. How many speakers do we have right now?

We presently have five speaker cards, sir.

We've been up here an hour and a half now. Let's take a 10-minute break. Let's take a 10-minute recess and then we'll reconvene at 735. All right, I'd like to bring this Planning Commission back to order at exactly 7.38 p.m., and it looks like we're now going to move into the public testimony. The clerk will call upon each person who was requested to speak, and remember that you have a maximum of three minutes to speak. Do we have any speakers?

Yes, Chair. We presently have seven speakers. Our first speaker is Ismael Gonzalez, followed by Marco Hernandez, then followed by Tatiana Flores.

I want to begin by saying thank you to the applicant for that long-winded explanation of his project, or their project. Thank you to Stacey Dunning for printing out my seven-page letter for city staff and the commissioners to review. I think it's very thorough as to why you should oppose this item. I want to direct you to page four. Online, I know this is maybe unreliable information, but I did poll people directed to Marina Valley over this issue. I've received 75 responses with the majority of them, 67% to be exact, saying no, that they would not prefer any more gas stations or car washes. I think this can be considered a gas station, but for trucks, right? And you heard from Commissioner Wilson that within a mile on Sunnymead Boulevard, there are countless car washes, gas stations. We are plagued as residents with how many of those businesses are here in our city. I also want to, you know, just remind you the first couple of questions I ask you in this letter. Who are these applicants? What are their relationship with Marina Valley? Are they interested in benefiting our community? I will give you an observation here. There are a lot of rich white people behind me. who are, I bring race, why? I heard a lot of gasp, right? Why? Because Moreno Valley, according to the 2040 general plan, is overwhelmingly Latino Hispanic, almost 60%. So why are these people coming here dressed with a quilted sweater when it's 100 degrees out, to advocate for this business. They do not live here. I'm confident of it. You could easily see what their response is depending on what happens here. They're going to leave after this item. The residents will stay here for the next item, but I encourage them to stay all night if they do live here. There are communities In Edmont, the closest resident will be 220 feet away. 220 feet away, across the street. You are going to affect their lives forever. You are basically sending them out of the city. their city staff in their report said that the residents are out of compliance why it's because of lack of leadership in this management in this city for for decades you have forced them to be out of compliant let me remind you the edmont community was originally known as alessandro one of the most historic places in the city and now it's riddled with warehouses that is why they're out of compliance And, I mean, this letter speaks for itself. It goes against what we have in mind for Marina Valley 2040. The applicant says, you know.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Marco Hernandez, followed by Tatiana Flores, followed by Christopher Baca.

Good evening, Moreno Valley. My name is Marco Hernandez. I work for Wabash National here on Alessandro 22135. We're a truck body manufacturer for Penske. Penske is a well respected vendor, customer in the transportation business. You know, for us, why is it important for us, you know, to bring Penske to Moreno Valley? Penske brings a lot of business to Moreno Valley. Why? You know, we employ at Wabash, you know, 200 employees. When we ramp up, up to 250, 300 employees, 80% of our employees work, you know, live in Roanoke Valley. That's why it's very important that, you know, Penske has this opportunity in Moreno Valley. They bring a lot of business here. And we're fortunate to partner up with Penske to not only help the community also, but we're very involved with Moreno Valley during the holiday season. We're gonna be ramping up in the fourth quarter. And a lot of employees are going to come out of Moreno Valley. We hire a lot of residents here. We build all the 26-footers, 18-footers, Penske commercials, Penske consumers. We build trucks for the food industry for Penske, end users, Costco, Kroger, et cetera. So I'm just here to represent Penske and just communicate to the city of Moreno Valley, the residents, that Penske is a valued customer, very respected, and all in all, it's going to be good for the community.

Okay? Okay.

next speaker is tatiana flores followed by christopher bacca then followed by nikita wilson hello commission thanks for the opportunity to speak again my name is tatiana flores and i'm a resident here in moreno valley in district 4. i'm here to express my opposition to this item for the development of a new truck sales leasing fueling and maintenance facility according to the initial study provided with this item it is stated that the Edgemont community and Moreno Valley as a whole could now face an additional 184 truck trips per day. This is concerning when the nearest resident will be across the street around 220 feet from the project site. You know, we just spent several months discussing truck routes in the city and the importance of keeping truck traffic away from sensitive receptors, yet industrial development continues to be proposed in a community that is already overburdened with pollution exposure. According to CalEnviroScreen and SB 535, Edgemont is one of the most disadvantaged communities in Moreno Valley with a 95 percentile for pollution burden in areas designated disadvantaged communities and with heavy industrial usage. We require more meaningful and thoughtful planning that is required to ensure that residents do not continue to be harmed by future development. This is another reason why we spent several years working on the general plan update to ensure that this is the blueprint for the next 15 to 20 years and that it reflects what the community truly needs. This project alone contradicts many of the goals outlined for the city in various different elements, including the environmental justice element that outlines policies meant to reduce pollution exposure and improve community health. This company, as has been mentioned earlier, was sued up to $7 million for several environmental law violations related to their above ground storage tanks, hazardous waste control and hazardous materials at facilities it operates in Riverside County. I know they said that it could have been an issue of documentation, but they also mentioned in their presentation that a lot of their staff is trained super well and even sent out of state. So how did that even happen? How is this an issue that happened? So yeah, those are some concerns that I have. And I guess I would say, please consider your health and the health of your constituents when projects like these come before you. And I know something in the presentation that was mentioned was we find that a lot of people that are using these trucks are just moving to go to school and stuff. So why, why, why, why? But okay, thanks.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Christopher Vaca, followed by Nikita Wilson, then followed by Rory Blickert.

good evening again there were two um questions that weren't were addressed but really weren't clarified or didn't seem to mean much other than just rhetoric just to say that they said something or address the issue one of them had to do with the disposal of hazardous waste the other one had to do with uh the employment of uh people um one of the issues with the employment I would ask that you also put conditions there that the upper management and people employed are from Moreno Valley because most likely they're going to bring in the 30 employees are going to bring in are obviously going to be transfers from other areas and like our other speaker mentioned about the racial issue we have you know Like Raising Cane's that's in the middle of the ghetto and you have nothing but lily white people employed there. Penske also, when they come to their upper management, just like it's represented back here as a lily white views and they don't necessarily hire upper management other than their own kind. Not my kind, but I don't have a kind. We're... But certain aspects always show their awful faces with racial hiring, and you see that in many of these million-dollar corporations. With that in mind, this is a billion-dollar corporation coming into one of the most impoverished areas in our city, which is polluted. They didn't answer the environmental issue as far as the disposal of hazardous waste. They brought up legal counsel that just, I don't know, what the heck she was talking about just nonsense just to make it seem like she knows something or address the issue but it was all bs uh otherwise uh that needs to be addressed to the area as far as uh we have groundwater there we have box springs mutual water that is very sensitive that feeds all the community the lower income the disadvantaged community of edgemont um They're going to have car washes. They're going to have hazardous waste. That needs to really be addressed. They also need to address the citizens that live there. Why don't they reach out and go if they're so concerned like they claim with the community? Why don't they reach out and put, you know, higher fences, maybe give them some air filtration, water filtration, you know, just do something. You know, you come into our communities and pollute it. make a billion and the community suffers. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nikita Wilson followed by Roy Blecker then followed by Seth Cox.

Well I'm back and my comments are of my own. At this point, we can just call Moreno Valley the city of trucks and suds, because if it's not a car wash or a truck, we are tired of seeing diesels. I don't care if they have Penske's on it, Disneyland, whatever. And then to be getting right off the freeway, and that's going to be the first thing people see is what? What we are famous for. diesels trucks at this point we just should tell our kids to become mechanics or something or i mean it's the representation that we are giving for our city at a point has to become better and even with the and i hate to sound redundant about the jobs it was very very clear that jobs were not spoken about for this community okay it's not it nothing is open to the community But you can rent the trucks, which I'm not against that because I have brothers who are in the trucking business and they they like to rent trucks and deliver their goods and those things. So I'm not opposed to that. That sounds great. But we also need jobs for our residents. I mean, and then stating that. they go to colleges and training facilities. Is that something that we can get commitment to? Not just a brazen, okay, this is what we do. No, we need commitment that the colleges and the training facilities in Moreno Valley, that they will be also hired. And so, yeah, I just wanted to speak on that because I just find it, At this point, it's just really ridiculous. My 14-year-old at the time, she's 15 now, but she said at one of our city hall meetings, a city without places to gather is a city that people leave. And I hate for her to see that the only places to really gather in Moreno Valley is going to get a car wash or going to get a truck to go to college away from here. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Roy Blecker, followed by Seth Cox, followed by Manuel Topele.

So this is about three blocks from my first home in my native area of Edgemont. On top of that, back in the day, a guy named Roger Penske and Les Richter and others owned a series called the International Race of Champions, or IROC. There's also a Riverside Raceway that Les Richter owned and they kept one of the Camaro race cars for testing and stuff out there in the old Goodyear garage. Guess who used to maintain that car? Yours truly. So I'm very familiar with the term Penske Perfect. Which has me a little bit concerned and I brought these concerns up many times in a lot of this over the 40 plus years of this city. What concerns me about this is not so much of what the project's going to do left or right or up or down. It's how we present that. We should have, when we're coming up, and I've noticed this in a lot of them, the presentations made by the ones by the city staff and the project planners that are proposing these things, back in the day used to be much better, much more specific of what What the effects were going to be, good, bad, and indifferent. Do we know how many people are coming in? Are we going to do this part? What part are these companies coming in going to do to uplift the community? So much, we hear so much more is just the arguing, hollering, and back and forth. Instead of everybody working together, to make our home better for everybody. Businesses got to make money. I say that all the time. They only know one color, and that's green. So the purpose of our public policy is to make sure that there's a benefit to the community when they come in, because this is the basic shot you got to do it. So hopefully in the future, companies like Penske, entities like the City of Marina Valley, Well, give us better presentations and more information so you can make better informed decisions. Because like I've said many times up here, comfortable with any decision that's made as long as it's made on complete and accurate information. And so many times we don't, and especially now, we don't get that. And I think that's what causes a lot of the angst in the community and what you hear at these meetings. One day, maybe we'll fix it.

Our next speaker is Seth Cox, followed by Manuel Topelli.

Evening, Commissioner, staff, audience, anybody listening out there in the world. I'm going to surprise everybody because you know I come up here most of the time against most things. I won't say I'm against this or for this, but I would like to give a little history of what that property has been used for in the past. I first came out here in 1977. March Air Force Base was, what, number one. They did anything they wanted to. They contaminated the soil with operations they had out here, cleaning companies that cleaned uniforms on a mass scale. What was the property used for later on in life? It's been vacant for how many decades? It was used for an auction yard where they brought in caterpillars, tractors, semi-trucks, and they sat there on the ground for months on end leaking stuff into the soil. Nobody raised one word about that. They just let it happen. They don't do that anymore. They've got a few small businesses around there. But here we have a national company, probably international company. I know Mr. Penske from what he does. And Penske themselves does a lot for the community they're in. They're sitting back here saying they will clean up the pollution at their expense. That's a good thing, right? They're going to have employees. Yes, they will hire some locals, but they'll have some people that will move in. That's just the nature of the beast. We as a city, I don't think, can dictate that all 31 of those people have to come from Moreno Valley. That is not lawful. We can't dictate their employment policies. What else? Good things. They pointed out they have a lot of community activities, blood drives, the pink program, some of the other ones on there. They didn't mention something I'm aware of because I work with charities. They have programs where charities can sign a contract and they can do all the paperwork they need to do and go in occasionally if they need a truck and get it at a discount rate or sometimes free to go pick up stuff to bring into the city to give out to people. That's a good thing. So they can't stand up here and tell you every community event that they support. But worldwide, Penske supports Penske. Everything, most of the time, good. Have they done bad things? Sure. Every big company will. If you're a multibillion-dollar company, you're going to have mistakes. Okay? Things happen. I would say another word happens, but it happens. So I don't know why we're giving them such grief other than people want to ask questions. I'll call it politicking. Okay? Let's face it. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Manuel Topete.

Manuel Topete is my name. They call me Menyo. I'm a business owner here in Marino Valley for 36 years, but I've been a resident of Marino Valley for 54 years. Now, here's the thing. I live right down the street from this project that's getting done. You guys are abusing. First of all, you ain't spent a penny on anybody in Edgemont. We got no lights. We got people getting killed on Alessandro Boulevard. We just had a shooting. You guys are doing nothing for the community. I've been in the same corner 36 years. People say you're not going to make it in that corner. And guess what? 15 years ago, I came on this stage and I spoke out about another developer just like this one. Highland Fairview. OK, the next day I was home invasion. My teeth were knocked out. My wife was tied up and I was beat up and no suspects. Now, this is the problem. You guys do not hold these developers accountable. As a Moreno Valley resident, you three up there who laugh at me and block me on Facebook need to be held accountable. It's time you guys move on and let young blood get in there and do what needs to be done in this city. Desjardins, let's find out why he got fired from the school district. Joanne, you announced you're running during a meeting. Give every other person the same ability that's running for District 2 to come up here and say, I'm running in front of everybody. This is a TV ad right here, and you're using it illegally. Where is the people's safety in Edgemont? It's the original, original capital of Moreno Valley. When you get off the freeway and you get off that freeway and you see, where are we in Mexicali? That is embarrassing that you take our taxpayer funds. I want to know where our taxpayer funds are going. The east side where it's empty, where Edo is, is fucking nice. Brand new lights, LEDs, and what do we got? Yellow lights. You complain about a light, they change it like this and put another yellow light in. You need to hold these developers accountable. They come up here, they screw with your head, somehow an envelope gets into your guys' pocket, and we get screwed. Now, this is the thing. It's got to stop right now. Penske's going to do nothing for Edgemont. Nothing. There's no room for trucks. There's no lights. There's nothing for them to come into Edgemont and do. What you guys need to do is finish the bathroom in Edgemont that you guys have been working on for three months. Police don't come. Fire department don't come. Let's get everybody held accountable. And I don't want to go home and get home invasion again. Because no suspects. All right? So who's working with who? I know there's people that are watching this. I need help. I can't do this by myself. People are scared. I'm not scared. I'm here to tell you I'm going to hold you guys accountable. Manu Starr has been there 36 years against all odds. I made it. I've been robbed over 30 times, over 40 crimes against me. Not one has been solved. You guys want me out of Edgemont. So you can knock it down. You illegally rezoned my property from commercial to residential. I lost over a million dollars. Nobody's sticking up for me. Why? Somebody watching this is going to stand up for me, I know.

Thank you. Do we have any other speakers?

We have no more speaker cards, Chair.

Good.

All right, if there's no more speakers, then we'll offer the applicant an opportunity to come back up and maybe respond to comments, if you'd like.

Thank you, commissioners. And if there's anything specific that you would like to direct me to address, I'm happy to do so. I think just to close, I'd like to remind everyone that this has been a very robust and comprehensive project processing timeline. This project went through SQL review. All environmental impacts identified were either mitigated or determined to be less than significant. As to the air quality issues that folks were alluding to, this project individually and cumulatively is below all thresholds. for health risk for lifetime cancer risk all of those analyses are performed that's all part of the record before you this evening all those conclusions were developed by the independent sequa consultant that's not a penske document those are qualified experts coming to those conclusions everything has been done in accordance with the law specifically the environmental quality act And so I do want to emphasize that there were no corners cut here. This project went through a very robust and rigorous review. We worked for several years with city staff on this project. We did not make haste to come before you with something that was incomplete. If there's anything that I can address specifically, I'm happy to do so.

Thank you. I would like to touch on the disposable waste. Where is that going to go? Because, I mean, they said that nobody really answered that question. Can you answer that question?

Yes, absolutely. So, again, a project is always obligated to comply with the law. That's not a condition of approval. That is a background requirement of doing any business. And in disposing of hazardous waste, you have obligations to comply with local fire code, Cooper regulations, and overlying state health and safety codes and statutes. all of which the operation must comply with to remain operational, and will do so.

Thank you very much. All right, we'll now close the public testimony section at 8.04 p.m. and move into deliberations.

You know, I don't know the deal here on Edgemont. I know they feel like it's a stepchild, but I don't know what this project has to do with Edgemont on the other side of Alessandro. But all I can say is my experience with Penske has been very good because I've worked with them on the corporate level, and they do what they said they're going to do. So I like the project. I think it's going to be an asset to that part of the company.

and i know a lot of people don't agree with that but i think it's going to be an asset so that's where i'm at on thank you and my understanding is is that the soil was contaminated long before and they're going to clean all that up uh... as far as the houses that are there and they're very close to other uh... warehousing that's riverside anything on that old two fifteen On the other side, that's all Riverside. Riverside put that up there way before anybody could even build anything in Edgemont because Edgemont's infrastructure was not very good at all. Once they started building there, they kind of been able to tie in. So bottom line is, is that for us to get the blame on all those warehouses, those weren't ours. They're not ours. So the demographics there is totally off for people to say that that's what we're building on there. And this is actually a business. This is not a warehouse. This is a business. You can't build too much on there. You've got March base right by there. So they can't even put solar. I mean, they would put solar if they could. I mean, I just and they are employing a lot of people because they're actually got a contract with Wabash. So by even seeing that, I basically don't know what else could actually really go there. You can't put a shopping center there. So let's get that out of our heads right now. I don't believe we could put a shopping center there and have people there. So they're not really going to be causing a lot of traffic because it's not like a U-Haul. U-Haul is coming in and out all the time. And they are. supplying other people that are already in our city, they're doing business with Penske. Maybe they don't have the Penske logo on there, like you said, but I'm sure that they are doing that. So a lot of people, they get very upset, they storm out, they do whatever, you know, and anybody can come up to the dais and say whatever they want. But when I walked in here, I came in with... like a bad taste in my mouth with Penske. I really did. And I wanted to hear everything. That's why I ask question after question after question, because I want to make sure that I make a good, informed decision. That's my job up here. People don't like it. It's not a popular thing to be. It's not a popularity contest. I really don't care. I have to do what I feel is right for the city that I live in and have been here for 40 years. I'm not somebody that just moved here five, ten years ago. I've been here a long time. I know what Edgemont looked like. And hopefully we can start getting better businesses. That's why I said I would like the aesthetics to look really nice coming into the city because it has been a blight there for so long. I know exactly what you got next door because I used to go there all the time to service my car. I know the owners of that place. But there's not much you can do if it's an auto body place. You can't really do much there. But that's my concern is if we could at least make it look nice and it's coming into our side of town. Like I said, the other side of town, Riverside has always done what they wanted and there's nothing we can do about it. And a lot of people are wondering why those houses are out of compliance. That's why. That's why, Ishmael, that it's out of compliance. Those houses. That's why. Because Riverside just put all them warehouses there. Well, basically I think this is the only thing that can basically be of value to the city to even go there. And like I said, once I heard that Wabash has a huge contract with them and 80% live here in Moreno Valley and they're employing them. I think it's going to be a good fit for that area because they're going to clean it up. All those things that were there were prior. to them even getting on there. And they're going to clean up all that stuff. And as far as the lawsuit, they're going to have to put the fire, just like we had the fire put to us by the Attorney General. They're going to have their feet to the fire and a magnifying glass on them. And that's just the way it is. When something like that happens, believe me, they're not going to let them skip or do anything. So I'm leaning toward voting for it.

You got some? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We hear a lot of things. Sometimes it does get emotional. This is my 57th year in the city. And I used to live right on the corner of Bay and Day, lived there for years, walked back and forth from Bay and Day to Marina Valley High School on a daily basis. So Edgemont is really where I started. When actually the 215 wasn't the old 215, it was the 215. We used to drive up and down the 215. Yeah, yeah, old 395, and it changed to the 215. It was before it turned into a street. I think one of the things that happens here is there's two things. Laws do change. And we have, if people don't know what ALUC is, that's the airport, let me get that right, Airport Land Use Commission. Over the years, Some of that has changed because March Air Force is there. Back in, you could put houses there. Right now, with the new laws, most of Edgemont wouldn't even be there because you couldn't put houses there because of the planes flying over it. You know, we get a lot of folks, we actually get the same folks that come in and, you know, they're environmentalists and they, you know, everything would be nice if they were parks, you know, and waters and lakes and dog parks and stuff like that. But I really don't think someone's going to spend millions of dollars on a piece of land and put a park there. It'd be nice if... Every place there was a warehouse, there was a park, but people do come to the city to put businesses in. The thing that people have to understand is this. We do have land that is business park. We do have land that is designated for commercial. We do have land that is specified for those uses. And we've got to understand that that's going to happen. You can't stop every commercial building and every business park from coming into Moreno Valley. I wish it would be great if they're all houses. One of the things also is that we are evolving into, for instance, you build apartments, you can't wash your car in an apartment because unless you can somehow get that hose in your window and out to where your car is parked— It's not going to happen because you're not going to plug up an apartment at a general faucet and the apartment is going to pay for that water because you're washing your car. I think we put up 179. Every time we build apartments, every time we put that type of use here in the city, a couple things are going to happen. They're going to be looking for storage. They're going to be looking to wash their car. There's a couple other things that's going to happen. And I get it. I get it that Marina Valley used to be this very small place. I've been in this city longer than anybody in this building.

No?

Okay. Longer than anybody in this building. And I get it. It's changing. I think right now we're the 44th largest city in California. And we're still growing. And we still have a lot of land out to the east. And it's going to grow even more. And growing, you've heard it, there are growing pains. I get that. However, like you said, I've said this before, that dirt is going to turn into something. And I wish it could be houses. I wish it could, but the ALUC laws have changed. You can't put houses there anymore. You can't even put solar panels there because of the glare. You can't build certain things that have glare that would obstruct the landing or takeoff of planes. And that's changed. And guess what, folks? We have to change with that. We do. Um, you know, I wish we could stay the same. And, you know, the poor guy that had the horse and buggy, then somebody decided to invent a motorized car. And then if he didn't change or, you know, before Pac Bell or Ma Bell was back and somebody didn't. decided to create fiber optics and guess what you have to change i remember using thomas guides and paper maps and then pretty soon somebody comes along and now i can use my right there under my screen on my computer you have to change so um one of the things that the the planning commission is um to do is if we were to look at a project and say we're going to deny a project, we have to look at very specific things to do that. And it isn't that we can just say, well, I don't want it there. There's too many of them, stuff like that. We can create lawsuits for the city. And we don't want to do that. We don't want to do that either because guess what? Now we're harming the city as well. I looked at the project and I'm like, wow. I'm actually glad that things are going in the Edgemont because that was one of the last frontiers that seemed like a lot of development skipped and went into the city and just Edgemont stayed older until we started coming up Day Street and there's Portillo's and all that, and that's fantastic. For me, myself, I'm for the project. I think it's great. Now we have, and please forgive me the coin phrase, we have the high-end U-Haul. You know, and yeah, this Apple's not. But like my colleague said, that my car is more like the Penske and she's driving the U-Haul, you know. Myrna Valley does want better things here. We absolutely do, and we want higher-end businesses here, and we want people to thrive, and we want people to get hired and stuff like that, and we don't want everything to get stopped. I just want people to understand, just get that in your heads. That empty land is going to go, and if it's zoned for that, they're coming. Because we're putting up houses, we're putting up apartments, and people need to have jobs. It's going to happen. Now, again, everything is not going to go through the approval process. But when somebody comes in and they're dotting I's and they're crossing T's and they're helping clean up trash that we have created a long, long time ago, that's a good thing. And guess what? Lawsuits are also good things, just like some of the lawsuits that we see. It puts people off. On point. You have to do the things that are prescribed within the lawsuit. And that's a good thing. I'd rather the lawsuits that they had happen before it came here and then we have to do it. No, it's a good thing. And so that's my two cents. I like the project.

I just have a closing thing to say. Even though in a roundabout way, the way I see it, they may not be actually... It's for Penske, but it isn't just for Penske because they're employed by the gentleman that came up. I'll go back to the Wabash. They are actually working with Penske. Then there's other ones working with Penske that are in this city. So they are actually providing a need in the area for... And that's not, you know, they're not going to come here unless it is economically viable for them to be able to come here. They're not going to put a big old Penske hub here simply because they're not going to do good business within the city, within the surrounding area. So I just think it's actually a good thing. And there is a need for it. So that's where I'm at with it.

Ray, you got something? No. You know, it's kind of like with the online shopping, you know. The more we online shop, these stores don't have storefronts, and they're going to have to put their stuff somewhere, and that means a warehouse. We want our stuff to show up at our front doors. We want our ease. We want the convenience, but we don't want the growing pains that go along with that. We got to get out of that line of thinking. What do you got?

Well, the only thing I would say is besides Wabash, I'm sure they buy tires locally and the lubricants and all that's going to come out of Moreno Valley somehow, or at least the general area. So it's not only what they're doing, it'll kind of involve a bunch of other businesses. I'm sure you buy, maybe buy contract, but... Eventually, like Wabash is a big deal there for them. It's a domino effect. Yeah, I think it is a domino effect. So I think it's a good deal. Do you want me to do a motion? Yeah, go with it. Okay, let's move on this. This adopt resolution, how about this one right here? Yeah, resolution 2026-28, then also adopting the initial study mitigated negative declaration prepared for the plot plan PEN 22-21. which is completed in compliance with CEQA and the CEQA guidelines and reflects the Planning Commission's independent judgment and analysis. of the proposed project, potential environmental projects, and also adopting the mitigation and monitoring and reporting program prepared for the proposed project's potential environmental impacts. And also, we're going to adopt Resolution 2026-29, approving the plot plan PEN 22, Subject to the attached conditions of approval included in Exhibit A on the resolution 2026-29 and as shown in the approved plan.

And I'll second that.

Do we have a vote? All right, the motion does carry. Do we have a staff wrap-up?

Yes, we do, Chair. The motion passes 3-0. The project is approved. There is now a 10-day appeal period. Any person who wishes to appeal the project must submit an appeal application and the required fee to the Community Development Department within 10 calendar days of the hearing. Thank you.

All right, the next item on the agenda is item number two, which is the plot plan, which is PEN 22-0215 in District 1. Do we have a staff report?

Thank you, Chair. We have, giving the presentation today, our associate planner,

Associate planner like to hang on just one second. I'd like to remind the public to please remain respectful and Please allow us to speak so that we can hear what's going on.

This is a hearing just a reminder Thank You chair our associate planner vision Patel will be presenting the next item I

Good evening, Chairman and members of the Planning Commission. Dijon Patel, Associate Planner. The project before you this evening is to request to consider a plot plan for the development of a new 4,767 square foot automated car wash and associate parking and landscape improvements. The proposed project is permitted use by right, subject to the approval of a plot plan. Staff has reviewed the project for consistency with the development standards and provisions set in the city's municipal code. The proposed project is located on the east side of Pigeon Pass Road between Ironwood Avenue and Hemlock Avenue. The site is located within the community commercial CC zone, which allows the use. Surrounding land uses include an apartment development to the north, a home depot to the west, a commercial shopping center to the south, and a storage facility to the east. The proposed project involves development of a 4,767-square-foot single-story commercial building for the operation of an automated car wash on a 1.02-acre vacant parcel. The project site is accessible via two new driveways along the northeast side of Pigeon Pass Road. The southern driveway allows both entry and exit, while the northern driveway is for exit only. Both the driveways also serve as the project site's emergency access routes. Pedestrian walkways are provided throughout the project site for adequate pedestrian circulation. The site provides a total of 29 on-site parking spaces, including 25 standard parking with vacuum stations, four employee spaces, and two ADA spaces with one for the standard use and one for the employee use. The number and the type of parking spaces complies with the municipal code requirements. The proposed project features a modern commercial design featuring a mix of high-quality materials and distinctive architectural elements. Exterior surface will be finished with smooth sand-floored stucco painted in cornet color schemes of beige, white, orange-red, warm oak, and brown tones, resulting in a unified, visually appealing facade. The project includes a comprehensive landscape plan with landscape setbacks, parking lot landscaping, street trees, and perimeter plantings around the project site. The proposed landscaping is intended to enhance the overall appearance and experience of the development while complying with the city's municipal code for landscaping requirements. Following the further review, staff has requested the addition and modification of conditions of approval. Planning condition number 10, staff has requested that condition number 10 be modified to address noise associated with the drive-through operation. Under the proposed condition, the project would utilize a silent drive system and also the noise level should not exceed the 55 decibels at any time beyond the property line consistent with the applicable provisions of the municipal code. Staff also requested the addition of conditions for the site access and driveway design. The proposed driveways would be required to conform to the city's standard plan for commercial driveway approaches. Access would be provided as follows. Driveway 1, northerly, right turn out, egress only. Driveway 2, southerly, right in, right out only. Appropriate signing and striping would be provided as required. The proposed project complies with the section 9.02.070 plot plan and all applicable development standards of the zoning code. Staff recommends that planning commission adopt resolution number 2026-02 and thereby determining that the plot plan PEN 22-0215 is exempt from the provision of the CEQA as a class 32 exemption infill development in accordance with CEQA guidelines section 15332 and also approving the plot plan PEN22-0215 subject to the attached conditions of approval included as exhibit A of resolution number 2026-2 and as amended. Two public comments have been received for the project. This concludes staff's presentation. I'm available for any questions. Also present with us tonight is the applicant's team as well. Thank you. Thank you.

Are there any commission or questions for staff? While reading through this, I saw a couple things that don't really seem to see this all the time. Did I read this correctly? It says that the proposed project is consistent with the goals, objectives, policies, and programs of the general plan. All right. The proposed project, this is the question, is this correct? The proposed project complies with all zoning and other regulations. Is that correct? That's pretty good. So, okay. Good deal. Yeah, not bad. Any questions? No. All right, we're going to now open up the public testimony at 828 p.m. And would the applicant like to speak?

Good afternoon, Chairman DeJeanette and members of the Moreno Valley Planning Commission. It's a pleasure to present to you this evening. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Michael Pauls. I'm the applicant's representative. With me this evening is the architect of record, Mr. Andrew Pesterico, as well as the property owner, Mr. Ahmed Sarafi. This gentleman. To begin my presentation, we're proposing a quiet, environmentally friendly, water-saving car wash, which consists of 4,767 square feet of car wash building in conjunction with 25 quiet vacuum stalls. Our proposed car wash utilizes state-of-the-art equipment, which recycles up to 90% of the water used in the wash process. The proposed vacuum stalls incorporate an exceptionally quiet centralized vacuum system, which will be completely enclosed inside a building. Again, as articulated by staff, our request is consistent with the goals and objectives of the general plan. And the project also complies with all of the development standards of the zoning code and underlying community commercial zoning designation, which permits car washes as a principally permitted use. I'd like to discuss some of the community benefits associated with car washes. Car wash capacity is underrepresented in the surrounding community. The closest express car wash is the G.O. Car Wash on Frederick Street, a smallish car wash approximately half a mile south, which comprises 13 vacuum stalls for customer use. The next closest would be the iWash Express, a smallish accessory car wash located approximately one mile from the subject site and provides eight vacuum stalls. And lastly, the closest comparable express car wash is the QuickQuack car wash, which is located approximately 1.5 miles from the subject site. I'd also like to point out that there are no express car washes north of the 60 freeway. So the question often arises, why are car washes important to a community? Well, the simple answer is that car washes save water and they remove pollutants that would otherwise be washed off the car if a car were to be washed in the street or in a driveway. In this world in which we live, where water is becoming a scarcity, new automatic car washes are viewed as an important environmentally friendly, drought tolerant use. Let me give you an example of why car washes are important. When we service a car, when we wash a car, we use anywhere between 5 and 12 gallons of water during the wash process. The remainder is recycled. If an individual were to wash their vehicle in their driveway, should they have a driveway, they would be using anywhere between 80 and 120 gallons and up to 200 gallons of water. That water that in this driveway wash or a street wash would wash all the soap, would wash all the brake dust, the oil, the grit that collects on the car. All of that would flow into the curb and gutter system and it would wind up in our storm drains, in our rivers, in lakes and our local ocean environment. Whereas a single wash does not make that much of a difference. The tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of washes that occur in driveways and on streets, cumulatively, are a major environmental issue in Southern California. When we wash a car... All of those constituents, all of that pollution gets washed off the car, it gets collected in our recycling clarifier system, and then it just is disposed of in an environmentally appropriate fashion. Some additional project information. The site is going to incorporate high-definition security cameras, providing 100% coverage of the entire property, both inside and out. We're going to be providing a DVR system, which is going to record the images and maintain them for a period of 60 days. We'll also be providing lighting which will encompass the entire site, inclusive of the sidewalks along Pigeon Pass Road, fronting the property without impacting adjacent and adjoining properties. We're going to incorporate solar, rooftop solar, as part of the project. And I'd also like to indicate that this project represents over an $8 million investment in the Moreno Valley community, which utilizes, again, state-of-art technologies. We will also be creating 15 new jobs in the community and give preference to Moreno Valley residents, especially those individuals that can walk, bicycle, or use public transportation in coming to work. Additionally and most importantly, we're also providing Moreno Valley residents with a choice of selecting green, drought-tolerant services within their own community. With that, that concludes my presentation. I would like to make myself available for any questions, and I would also like to introduce the next speaker, the property owner, Mr. Ahmed Sarrafi.

Good evening, council members, planning commission. My name is Ahmed Sarafi. I am the applicant, the owner of the property in question. And I just wanted to come up here for a few minutes and want to introduce myself to you as a aspiring new business owner in the city as well as the developer and the builder of the project. A couple of things I just wanted to point out because these are important to me because the way I grew up and the way I live my life is because you do things right the first time. I've been around many projects and many developments where people cut corners and they spend a lifetime fixing things. I have built and been part of very large project teams. I have built colleges, universities, civic centers, city halls. I've been part of a lot of public construction. I really understand the process and the benefit of building things right the first time. So a few things about me. I am not from out of the area. I live 20 minutes away in Rancho Cucamonga. I've lived in the Inland Empire for getting close to 20 years now. I have been coming to Marina Valley for most of my life, whether it's going to the Air Force Base for air shows with my grandparents or attempting to learn how to water ski 40 years ago in Lake Paris, which was a disaster by itself. A few things also that I wanted to talk about is... I already have a management team in place. One of my best friends Carlos Prata here in the first row. He is also a citizen and living here in the City of Moreno Valley as well as his assistant manager also living in the City of Moreno Valley as well. So my team has already started. Carlos brings 25, 30 years of retail experience of managing and operating some of the largest retail establishments and businesses in the country, and he's bringing that skill set to the car wash that we are going to be building here in Marino Valley. Carlos is also, and he can confirm this, that our employees for this type of business are... live in the community. And this type of business will bring in employees at a maximum of three miles from the property, meaning all 15 employees most likely will be from Moreno Valley. And there's a very strong chance, and I will encourage Carlos to make sure as many of the employees as possible are from here in the community in Moreno Valley. Another thing about me, I am not a $250 billion hedge fund. I don't have a quacky car wash with 200, 300 locations across the country. We are a small family company here in Southern California where we live, play, and work and responsible for the communities that we also live in. Another thing I'd like to point out, now this is an estimate and the numbers are not, you know, solid but looking at our pro forma and our anticipated numbers in terms of property tax and sales tax that will bring to the city we're hoping to hit on year one at least a hundred thousand dollars of property sacks and sales tax to the city uh at least one hundred thousand dollars year one and growing from there on out which would i would hope to uh Provide, you know, whether city services or hiring additional staff or things like that. Another thing I'd like to point out also is when I build things, I do things the right way. I build with the best materials, with my best contractors, and my best people, meaning my property will have solar panels, which Mr. Paul has already spoke about. We're not going to put cheap, flimsy canopies over the vacuums. We're going to put structural steel panels over that, and we're going to have 163 solar panels generating up towards 75% of the power that we consume on site, meaning for every kilowatt that we... use, we will be generating three quarters of that on site, meaning we're only going to be requiring a quarter of a comparable property's energy requirement. As for the environmental issue, I'm a big environmental person. I recycle every bottle. You should see the back of my car. It's full of plastic bottles. They all go through the recycling center. And when it comes to the environmental issue on this, our equipment is electric. So we're not using loud compressors. We're not using hydraulic oils. We're not using anything that can hurt the environment that way. Nothing is going to be seeping into the ground. As well as our water reclaimed system, which Mr. Pauls spoke about. we will be recycling 90% of the water on site. And what is not recycled goes into a three-stage clarifier system, which is part of my equipment package. I'm going to be spending close to $2 million on just equipment alone for this property, meaning water reclaimed system, reverse osmosis, the car wash equipment, the vacuum equipment, as well as high-tech VFG drives for my vacuums to keep them extra quiet during the day as well. So, you know, I'm not here to cheap it and build quick, build fast, sell it, turn it over to someone and walk away. I live 25 minutes away. This is a business that is for me and my family. We've been in the community for the last 40, 50 years here in the Inland Empire. And I'm looking forward to working with the city, with the staff. with you members of the planning commission and anyone else to to uh to be a productive and contributing member to the city as well thank you thank you are there any commissioner questions for the applicant i'm not trying to make any comparison whatsoever with the operation that's there on alessandro and i believe it's uh graham is it similar to that one

It's the only great big car wash we do have in this city. It's really, you drive through it and it's a big one. And then they have all that stalls. Is it called Beyond Car Wash? It started off some different owner. And I went to that when it first opened years ago. And then I think they changed hands.

Is that the one behind the gas station?

No, no, it's been there for a long time. Is it Graham or is it?

It's Graham and Alessandro.

Graham and Alessandro.

If you told me the name of the business, I would know it. It's not Quick Quack.

Did it turn to Quick Quack? I haven't been in that area for a while. It wasn't Quick Quack to begin with.

Mr. Pauls is aware of the location, yeah.

Yes, I am aware of the site. The site was actually developed on...

It's kind of behind a little strip mall.

It is behind somewhat of a strip mall. It's also built on a unique parcel of land that has the state water system that runs through it.

Is it similar?

Yes and no. Yes and no. It is similar in the sense that it is an express car wash. It's similar in that the requirements that are imposed by the state of California are similar to the requirements that will be imposed on this project. Where it is not similar is the quality of the machinery, the quality of the car wash itself, the dryers, the investment that's being made by Mr. Senator.

I'm just trying to get a visual on what it's going to look like. Because the quick quacks look totally different. So when somebody said it was a quick quack, I didn't think it was a quick quack. Do they have a duck on there? I don't know. I don't need to go to that.

I don't have a duck. I don't know about that, but I'm not interested.

You have a pigeon.

An eagle, right? An eagle. Okay. All the equipment that's going to my car wash is manufactured here. Okay.

No, I just wanted to know more or less what it's going to look like because I know that there are different types of looks to the car washes.

So when I develop property, I develop for the long term because I'm a long-term owner, right? So meaning that the style and the design of the property would be consistent with something that you would see for the long term in Southern California. If it's an apartment complex, it's built Spanish style with tile roofs and white stucco. So it means, like, I don't want to go and have a quick gimmicky look that is – okay for five or seven years and all of a sudden it's outdated and I want something that's going to stand the testament of time and have a design and a look to it that will look good for the next fifty years versus the next five years, right? So when I say my projects have red tile roofs, they have white stucco, they have traditional Southern California landscape versus steel and glass and all this modernism that you see that looks good for a number of years but it But times change. Some styles do, some styles don't. So whatever I build, I like to have a timeless design to it.

Okay. Yeah. I know that you're saying, yeah, the other one has windows and you can see the car going through and stuff like that. I just wanted to kind of get what it was going to look like. Okay. Okay.

Did I catch that correct? We have two managers that are city residents, Carlos and – Carlos' wife. That's what I'm talking about, Carlos.

The question is who's going to be the manager and who's going to be the assistant manager.

Right. No, she's managing it. Carlos, you got to come to work on time. Any other questions? Well, thank you. I appreciate it. All right. We're now moving to public comments. The clerk will call upon each person who has asked to speak. Just a reminder, you have three minutes to speak. If you are speaking, just keep your eye on the timer. That would be just to your right there. Do we have any speakers?

Yes, Chair. We presently have three speaker cards. Our first speaker is Ishmael Gonzalez, followed by Liza Arellano, then followed by Tatiana Flores.

Hello again. Let me begin by first saying with all due respect, I think as a resident, I want to say same on all of you for that vote last item. Same to Commissioner Baker specifically. With all due respect, sir, I don't know you, but I think it was a shameful admission of you to say that you just worked for Penske and approved their project for the most historic place in Marana Valley. I'm here looking at the settlement announcement. The district attorney, Lauren R. Martineau, of the Environmental Protection Team, I hope that the residents are able to, I'm speaking to you all, Moreno Valley, I'm hoping you could talk to her and see what her thoughts are, considering that Penske just settled for $7 million on the Riverside location. That's the same. There's another facility not too far off. With this item, I think, Commissioner Zuan, Stefan, stick to your guns, please. You're the one that directed staff to take a look, study assessment into these kinds of properties, these types of uses with car washes. Again, 67% of 75 people, residents, said no to not wanting any more. There are more than 18 already in the city. I think that's very shameful. Where are the diversity of businesses, the variety of businesses that you guys just approved in April, the general plan 2040? You guys indicate on so many fronts, let's see, land use, character goals, economic goals. Circulation goals, noise goals, environmental justice goals, healthy community goals. All of those are being affected by this proposal and the last. And it's really a shame that you guys approved all of this. You guys spent so much time and now you guys are still considering projects that go against the general plan. It's really, it breaks my heart to be honest, you know? I can't believe that we're even considering having more car washes here when there is a study session coming up. Where is that? Where are you guys, like, can we get the ball moving on that, please? Here we have another instance where there's a car wash. I looked on Google Maps to see where the next one is. There is an ARCO on Hemlock. I called that ARCO. The worker there answered, I don't know who it is, but they did answer the ARCOS number. And they did tell me that they have a car wash there. It might be broken right now, but they do have it. And that's less than a thousand feet away from this proposal site. You are gonna stick this project right next to apartments and homes within a hundred feet will be the closest resident. We are becoming the laughing stock of Riverside County.

Same. Thank you. Do we have any other speakers?

Yes, sir. I'm sorry, having a technical difficulty. Our next speaker is Lisa Ariano, followed by Tatiana Flores.

Thank you. Good evening, planning commissioners. My name is Lisa Ariano, and I'm a 26-year resident of Marina Valley, and I've lived on the north side for the last 12 years. The proposed project would be something that I would pass every day going to and from work, and I'm speaking in opposition of this project. Over the last couple of months, I have been meeting many residents, especially in District 2, and overwhelmingly, our residents are saying we have too many car washes in Marina Valley. Marino Valley residents want more useful and diverse businesses. I know the last speaker spoke about the various car washes in this area, but also somebody mentioned about a mile and a half up towards Hemlock, there was a quick quack car wash that was open that is large in size, comparable to this car wash. So I think that with this vacant land, we could be using it to support retail, dining, family services, or another business meeting an unmet need in the community. I do understand that this area is a community commercial district. intended to meet residents general shopping needs through a variety of businesses and services. And so what I didn't see in the staff report was a market demand for a car wash, a commercial saturation analysis. And so my main question to the planning commission is what evidence shows that another car wash meets an unmet need or contributes to the variety intended for this commercial corridor. This is a large car wash, 25 stalls is a lot. Right next door is an apartment complex, and this business would basically be open every day, all day, every day, seven days of the week. And I do understand that there's conditions to the project being approved that do address the noise, the disruptive activity, the vacuum sounds, the vehicles, the disturbances to the surrounding properties. And I am concerned about all of those, but I'm also concerned about the traffic. The area that this is going to be in is right in front of Home Depot in an area where there's numerous traffic accidents that happen annually because there's no stop sign or no light. So I would ask that you consider before even thinking about this project that you would consider the current inventory of operating approved or pending car washes, a market demand and saturation analysis, and clearer evidence about the noise traffic and compatibility with the neighboring apartments. Even though a use may be permitted, the commission must still determine whether it is the right use for this location and whether it advances the commercial diversity Marino Valley residents are asking for. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Tatiana Flores. If she's not here, we have no more speaker cards, Chair.

If there are no more speakers, we're going to close the public testimony at 8.52 p.m. and move into deliberations. Yeah, go for it.

Okay. Well, the thing is with the car washes, if they're already coming down the pike and the developer wants to build what he wants to build, it meets all the requirements. What people don't understand sometimes is that we don't say what goes on somebody's property. Just like if you want to build on your property, you can build. And if it meets all the requirements and you've gone through all the planning, you can do it. And the thing is, is that area is zoned for that. It meets all the requirements. There is a shopping center right next door to it that's been there for many, many years. In that parcel, I go buy it every single day because I do live in District 2. We don't have one like this. There's only one other car wash that's even close to it. Now, we do have a lot of those real quick car washes that go through the Arco, that go through the Star Mart, or go through all those convenience stores. But one like this, we really don't have in that area. And I don't really, you know, we can't say, oh, you can't build that there. And then we get sued. People don't realize that. That's why we go to academies. We go to learn all the laws, the regulations, so the city does not get in hot water and doesn't get sued because we get some people up here that don't know what they're talking about. That's what's going to happen. I don't plan on being here forever, but I'm just hoping that my predecessor will at least know what they're doing when they're sitting up here, because that's the last thing Marina Valley needs is another lawsuit. So people can say, you know, we got a lot of car washes, and yes, We do need to study it, but we can only say we need to do this. We can only present it to staff, but it takes time to do that, and some people don't realize that. So it's not us that makes these decisions. Staff and also the commission. I mean, the council, they make those kind of decisions. We got people that we have to answer to. So basically, if the developer meets all the requirements, we can't just say, well, no more car washes. Just like we couldn't say no more pot shops. We could actually maybe say we only want so many, but it has to go through channels. Everything is a process. And some people can just say, you know, but if there's a viable reason, a safety and hazard, you know, there's not that many accidents there. There is up there where Jose's was on Ironwood and Pigeon Pass. Yeah, there's a lot of those. I don't see so many coming on that area. I don't know. You know, you can check with the police department on that one. But people can come up here and say all kinds of things and try to put us on the hot seat. But we're here to do a job. And he's doing everything that he's supposed to do. And I don't really see a viable reason. We don't really have one like that. All those other ones aren't even really being used anymore. You go to the gas stations. I don't see very many cars going through that kind of a car wash. Yeah, the quick quack. And then even the quick quack wasn't even being used that much out there by Sprouts. They had to get a big old sign and bring in people and say you could have a free car wash just to drum up business. So I really, really feel like, you know. People are trying to think that we're the ones that bring in these projects. We don't. But on the other hand, unless we have a viable reason to deny a project, we can't do it. And I'm just letting the public know that. I'm not up here. It's not a popularity contest.

Ginger and I, we do utilize car washes, and we used to wash at home there, and it just takes you an hour to get everything out, and you can go through the car wash, and now you can buy the memberships. It makes it a lot easier. So I think this is a good-looking. I like the aesthetics of this. It's unbelievable. It's a big plus for that end of town, so I like it a lot. I think we can make it work. Thank you.

The free enterprise system says if there's a lot of people out there, you can still compete. I think we have 18 car washes here in the city, and again, we're growing. The more houses, the more apartments we put in, there's probably going to be more people coming out here looking to put in a car wash. Got to understand that's part of the growing. Now, again, I absolutely agree with Ms. Joanne over there. The Planning Commission does not go out, look at an empty plot of land, go over and say, hey, can you come over here and buy this? That's not even anywhere near. We'd say, I get it. People want restaurants. People want these other types of businesses. They want, you know, the diversity and this and that and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But guess what? We don't go out and say, put a Ruth Christ here. You know, I need you to come out here and spend $2 million on this land and build that restaurant. That's not even anywhere. near the scope that the Planning Commission does. And I think people think that because I hear them say, you put this here, you do that. No, no, no, no, we don't put that. There's land out there for sale. If you wanted to go out there and buy that land and you wanted to put a business down there and you wanted to go within the zoning and the scope and sequence of the general planning, you have every right.

You have the freedom to do that. You absolutely do.

And then, of course, you have to go through all the hoops and jumps and bells and whistles and dotting the T's and, you know, or dotting I's and crossing the T's that you have to do. And you have to follow all the regulations and laws and everything from California and federal state. You got to do all of that. But you have that right to go out and buy that piece of land and put something there. You have that right. So do they. They have that right. They can go out there and say, you know what? I think I can take a chance with this car wash. I know there's other car washes out here, but I think mine's the best. And I think I'm going to make money on this. When people get the word, I say, wow, all electric? Wow, that's fantastic. I haven't heard that one yet. You know, an all electric car wash? Wow. You know, you hear the big motors going on and this and that. And, you know, you got recycled water. I mean, I don't get it. Think about it. The more car washes we put in the city, the less pollution we're putting in the gutters. I don't understand that. Yeah, that's absolutely true. We got car washes and we recycle the water. Now let's take all the car washes out of the city and let's put the soap and all the pollutants in the gutters and stuff like that. That's the alternative that we're thinking? No, that's awful. That would be bad. Let's put recycled water in there. Let's put some environmental-friendly, you know, reclaimed water. Let's do that. That sounds like an environmentalist is like, hey, that's a great thing. That's fantastic. Guess what? We're lessening the carbon footprint in Moreno Valley. You would think that, you know, that would happen. Absolutely. Anyway, I'm for it. I love the fact that Carlos is sitting right there. He's from Moreno Valley. I love the fact that the owner's not too far away. He's local. That's what we're looking for. Absolutely. Carlos, I hope your wife doesn't make you work too hard. I'm for it. I don't know. Anybody else want to?

I would actually like to add, I've lived in the city for 40 years, and I was wondering what was going to go there because it's been vacant for longer than that. And we can't really have another restaurant because that would be even more traffic. We've got the shopping center right next door. I mean, I was afraid a storage was going to go in there. I really was. I didn't think we needed another storage. I'm just glad something is going there because we've got a lot of commercial around there and we've got a lot of businesses. Like the girl said, we've got Home Depot there going 24-7 practically, you know, from morning to night. But they've got their area pretty well where everybody can go in and out. So I think it's a good fit for what is going to be going in there. And it isn't like every other car wash. It just isn't.

Motion. Second. I'm not even on the page here.

There we go. All right.

I'd like to recommend that the Planning Commission adopt resolution 2026-2 and approving plot plan PEN 22-0215. I believe that suffices.

And also to include staff's modification to conditions.

Ah, and to include staff's condition to modify.

modification to conditions.

Modification to conditions. Correct. That works for me.

And I'll second.

There it is. Do you want that or?

Okay, the motion does carry. Do we have a staff wrap-up?

Yes, we do, Chair. The motion passes 3-0. The project is approved. There is now a 10-day appeal period. Any person who wishes to appeal this project must submit an appeal application and pay the required fee to the Community Development Department within 10 calendar days of this hearing. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. The next item on the agenda is other commission or business, and we don't have any. The next item is staff comments. Do we have any staff comments?

No staff comments.

Thank you.

Really?

Looking forward to those. All right. The next item on the agenda is planning commissioner comments. Under the items of preview of the planning commission, do we have any planning commissioner comments? It means that it has to be within the scope of what we do. Okay. I think you had one for Steve over there from Palm Springs. We'll talk to him later about that.

I'll talk to him later.

All right. So at this time, the planning commission is adjourned at 9.04 p.m. to our next regular meeting on September 10th, 2026 at 6 p.m.