Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I am going to call to order our Regular Planning Commission meeting for Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. And now we'll have the flags loop. 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, Okay, item two, roll call, please.

Okay, good evening. Roll call for this evening. Commissioner Higuera? Here. Commissioner Pardee?

Here.

Commissioner Stearns? Here. Commissioner Penrose? Here. Commissioner McDowell is absent. Chair Finlay? Here.

We have a quorum. Item 3, public comment. This is a time that we set aside for folks to come and speak to us. on items that are not on our current agenda for this evening. There would be no action taken on what you say, but we're very open to folks coming and speaking to us. You'll have three minutes if you'd like to come up. And looks like we have someone. And please introduce yourself.

Aloha.

Aloha.

My name is Afa. I live over here by the KOA. Been around about 10 years now. And yeah. I know we have a lot of really good topics on top of the agenda tonight to be talking about and catching up with a bunch of stuff. So those are all extremely important. I'm going to second the last time that I was here that after all these super important things get ironed out, then... I'd like to move forward with the lowest hanging fruit of whatever alternative affordable housing options we next prefer. Which might be shipping container housing and just grabbing a bunch of data from a bunch of cities that's already doing it. Or if it's a kit, assembly kit houses, those are everywhere too. Or if it's 3D printed houses, I work with a cement trucking company. So... I don't think it's that far-fetched to be able to do that, and I know a big company is here in Reading. They already do that stuff. That's another alternative form of housing. I don't care if it's a yurt. I don't care if it's a teepee. All I care about is that it's alternative, which is usually affordable. We have different opinions on what affordable is, but when the average median price of the individual hasn't changed in about a decade, two, or three, which is still around $34,000 for an average individual in Mount Shasta, The average mortgage still needs to be somewhere near $150,000, which is not. It's definitely up there at half a million. So we're going to focus on all these agenda items to catch up, which is extremely important. And then after that, I would love to just talk about whatever other, just like the tiny house on wheels, which was extremely successful. And so we appreciate all of you. We appreciate you guys volunteering to do this on your spare time. We appreciate a full quorum. Got a couple absentees. That's OK. We just appreciate that we can have conversations. And we appreciate your work ethic. Aloha. Thank you.

Thank you. Would anybody else like to come speak to us on an item that is not on this evening's agenda? And I'm not seeing anybody come up, so we will close public comment and move on to item four, which is our consent agenda. And there is one item, which would be the approval of our minutes from way back October 21st, 2025. Commissioners, we can leave it on the consent agenda and move to approve as submitted, or if somebody wants to discuss them, we can pop it off the consent agenda. Commissioners?

I move we adopt it as provided.

Okay, we have a motion from Commissioner Pardee. Do we have a second?

Can I point something out? It says Escondido, the address of Escondido minutes on the agenda for that meeting. I just thought I'd move that to file. Can I show you?

I think that the commissioners are okay with what we have.

I don't have that on my copy. So this is minutes? This is agenda?

This is the minutes.

We're adopting the minutes.

This is just the minutes. So we have a motion from... A second. And we have a second from Commissioner Higuera. All in favor? Aye. Aye. You don't have to have attended the meeting to vote on the meeting. FYI. So we have three ayes and one abstention and one other abstention or two abstentions?

I do think that you have to be present in order to vote.

That we've gone over it and our understanding is that is not the case.

Okay, so you two are sharing a microphone. That means you have to do this because we're not really hearing you. They can't hear you either.

Yeah. Okay, so we have, are we voting?

Abstaining.

Abstaining. And Mike?

In favor. In favor.

So we have three in favor, one abstention to adopt the minutes from our October 21-25 meeting. And the abstention was from Commissioner Stearns. So is that three I's or four I's? That was four. Okay. Commissioner Penrose and Pardee Higuera, myself. Got it. Stearns Abstain. Okay. Thank you. Got it. Okay. Item number five. We are having a public hearing tonight regarding the revised architectural review permit for the...

For the property at 735 Chestnut Street the mountain townhomes Okay, so just to provide a little bit of background for everybody in the room who may not have been here at last month's meeting This was agenda number eight I believe at last month's Planning Commission meeting this item was continued so that the applicant can come back before the Planning Commission to provide alternative building materials and for the Planning Commission's consideration and approval. Upon notifying the applicant that the Planning Commission continued the agenda item and will be seeking alternative building materials, the applicant declined to come back and said, thanks, but no thanks, we'll just proceed with our previous approval. So they will not be coming back with something other than stucco, other than siding to propose. So because there is no alternative building material proposed, staff is simply going to recommend denial of the request to seek modifications to the building exterior. And that's the staff report.

Great. Commissioners, is there, Mike, I don't know if this is all familiar to you. If that's all good, commissioners, do we have comments, questions before I open the public hearing? Seeing none, I'm going to open the public hearing. If anybody would like to come and speak to us about this agenda item, you are welcome to come on up and please introduce yourself and you'll have three minutes.

Good evening, Johanna Altwarfer. I mean, they can do whatever they want, I guess. But what I was reading in the agenda was that they were having some issues with cracking on the stucco. And because of the wetland situation that they have there, and I think there were some foundation issues which they corrected early on. It seems to me, I mean, did anybody talk to them about doing the suggestion I had, which was the hardy board smooth wall siding? Because it might behoove us to maybe offer that suggestion to them so that it can avert potential cracking in the future. given the area that they're in and the weather that we have here, and it may help avert a tenancy in the future in case they have to repair it, although that is external, not internal, but just a thought. Okay, thank you. In case you wanted to offer that to them. Anyway, thank you for listening.

Okay, anyone else like to speak to us about this item? It looks like no. Commissioners, we don't have the applicant here. Do any discussion, any thoughts on, we have planning director's recommendation that we deny because they haven't come up with an alternative. Commissioners, go ahead, Tim.

I'd move that City of Mount Shasta Planning Commission adopt resolution PC 2026-004 by title only.

Adopt the resolution.

The resolution recommends denial. The resolution recommends...

Correct. Thank you. You're welcome. I just forgot to dive down in that. Okay.

I second that.

We have a motion from Commissioner Stearns, a second from Commissioner Pardee. Commissioners, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? None. So the motion passes unanimously. We have denied their request... for changing from the original adopted design. There we go. Now, planning commission and planning director comments. I'm going to start. And welcome Mike Penrose, our newest planning commissioner. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it. And that's it for me. Commissioners? That's it? Al?

I have something. I don't know how to exactly do this. Can we, as a planning commission, write to the Board of Supervisors and urge them to oppose the closing of the local Forest Service offices? You can. Yeah. Okay. I'd like us to maybe talk about that as a possibility. The loss of jobs, all the other reasons why it was a bad decision. What office? The Forest Service offices. Oh. So...

The Ranger Station, but the research, it's a lot of jobs, a lot of changes.

Anyway, I'd like to maybe talk about that. Is this the right time to talk about it?

That was a good question. I think we can't act on anything that we don't have as an agendized item, but we can bring it up as an item that we would want to have on our future agenda that we would like to

We can talk more about it if you want, but I'd like to have that on the agenda next time.

Great. Let's talk about it, and then I'll plan to agendize it at our next meeting for official discussion.

The question would be, would we be asking the supervisors to weigh in? Would we be weighing in as an entity on our own?

My thought was we would urge the Board of Supervisors to adopt a resolution that opposes it. They've talked about other federal land issues in the county over time. I'd like them to, they're the lead body in the county.

Well, they're expecting us in the city, too.

Yeah, so it'd be nice if they...

Okay. Can I make a comment? Okay. All right, commissioners.

It's so important for the safety of the...

Anyone else? Sorry, this is just between the client commission. Okay, commissioners, anything, anybody else, comments? Tim, did you?

You're itching to do it. Come on.

You know, I'd like the Planning Commission to consider the possibility of recommending to the City Council an amendment to the requirement that contractors have $2 million insurance policy in order to work inside the city. There's only $2 million insurance policy.

Who needs to have that?

Construction... Contractors.

Just $2 million?

$2 million. And I think there's only two companies that have the $2 million insurance. So it really limits ability.

I carry $2 million. It depends. I carry one and two depending on what. Is this just for construction or any contractor? Because I've done contracts for this.

Even to have an encroachment permit. As I understand it, a contractor's got to have $2 million insurance policy.

I'll look into that. So typically the Planning Commission doesn't weigh in really on financial things per se. It tends to not be our realm. Not that I'm not open to it, but it's...

It, I think, goes to the issue of if we want to encourage contractors to come in, build housing, et cetera, that is an impediment. The question is, and I'm proposing that we discuss that and perhaps recommend to the city council that they modify that. But it would be up to them.

So, yeah, I mean, it's not sort of a little adjacent to what we normally do. It's sort of, you know, building code and so on.

Could we ask, maybe you can do a little research into what most cities do?

That's exactly what I was going to suggest. I'll speak with a city manager about this one and get his input in terms of what the next steps might be and report back at the next meeting in terms of where we go from here in terms of that topic.

Perfect. That sounds great. Thank you. Anything else?

What's the current minimum?

Okay, so we're not speaking into the mic, so we should...

If it's already, two million is already required.

So lowering it to one million, for instance.

The question is whether it can be lowered to, say, one million.

into the mic. But yeah, folks can't hear you.

So the question is whether it might be possible to lower it to $1 million if the city, how the city feels about that.

No, but I thought the current standard is they have to carry $2 million and they have to, they would have to come before this body or the city council and ask for a reduction? Is that? Or the city policy would change to... Are we planning on changing it to $1 million? I'm

Well, we would ask that it be considered, or at least take it to the city manager so they can consider it.

Okay, maybe I misunderstood. Tim, I thought you were asking it to be raised to $2 million. You're asking it to be reduced.

No, no, to lower, discuss the possibility, consideration of reducing it from $2 million.

Right, so it would open the door to more contractors who could work if that makes sense to... Right.

city manager and city attorney etc okay so you'll report back i'll find out report back it also seems like it might be the value of the project would be you know if it's a i'd have to dig into the language i i vaguely recall this issue recently um city staff went through and looked at multiple um building department contract staff um because we need contract staff for building department. And some firms had 2 million, some firms had 1. There was a question about what the minimum was. So it makes sense to seek that clarification now.

Great. Thank you. OK. Anything else? How about you, Kim? Do you have a comment for us?

You beat me to it, but I was going to welcome our brand new commissioner, Michael Penrose, to the seat. It's been a year in the making, but we now have seven seats filled. So thank you very much. Hopefully unlocking future meetings and having the quorums for future meetings. My items are short tonight. I think I only have three, and I'll lump the first two together. If I heard correctly, the Planning Commission is seeking staff... is asking staff to go before the city council to get guidance on whether or not we should look into and draft a dark sky ordinance and also a vacancy ordinance. So if I understood you correctly, that will go to the city council. Both of these will go to the city council on Monday, June 8th for city council review and discussion. And if you're not listening to the meeting, I'll report back next month on what happens

great that would be lovely yes go ahead kim i thought that the city already has a dark sky ordinance i do not believe the city does have a dark sky ordinance in place right now we used to have that and i couldn't find it anymore that's not a dark sky it got cleaned out some in some revision it's gone we used to it somehow fell off the pages i just i checked recently it

It disappeared.

It didn't have dark sky. It had glare. And the glare piece, poof, gone. Which is why I think we need it back. And call it the dark sky. And how it got, I don't know if somebody can figure out why it's gone. But, yeah. Gremlins.

Thank you. Now we know. So, June 8th. June 8th, and I'll report back after that June 8th meeting. The last item that I have is for the landing. City staff, I can't remember if I reported this last time, but after the RFP period closed for the landing, city staff received 14 very nicely written, well polished, well thought out responses from 14 different firms. It took staff a couple of weeks, but we've shortlisted the 14 firms to five firms, and as of 2 p.m. this afternoon, have completed Q&A sessions with all five firms. So there's going to be a couple of days' worth of deliberation amongst the panel, and we're just that one step closer to figuring out who's going to be awarded the contract. to develop the conceptual plan for the landing for the 120 acres, which is a really big deal. This plan ideally will have an economic market component and also a traffic study component so that we know what our boundaries and parameters are so that when land uses are proposed, they're proposed within the realm of reality in terms of what the city can actually support. So a consultant should be selected shortly here. Once that happens, we will go into a very abbreviated six month process where we go through a series of town hall meetings and have charrettes and include, welcome anybody in our city to come out and speak with us, speak with city staff, speak with the consultants on what we want to see down there and input from everybody is going to be welcome and encouraged. So that will start here shortly. So that's what I have, which I'm personally very, very excited about.

Do you have a, can you give us a sense of what the budget on the project is?

The budget is leftover EPA grant money. As of right now, it's about $200,000. Okay, thank you.

Great, all right. If that's it, then I'll move on to item seven, which is future agenda items.

Okay, this is just me trying to put dates onto some things I know we have lingering and they'll shift based on workload because there are other things that are on my desk that are outside of planning commission purview. For example, the mobile home rent stabilization ordinance. That's a big chunk of my effort right now that goes to city council. There's a draft of that ordinance that goes to the city council on June 8th. So that's taking up a lot of my bandwidth. But future agenda items for the planning commission, I'm hoping to sooner than later bring back the tiny homes on wheels ordinance. And the reason why is because as we have interested parties, some who are in the room here who are trying to figure out how to logistically implement the tiny homes on wheels ordinance we're finding that there's some gray area you know it we don't the city doesn't specify how these tiny homes have to be tied down we haven't specified what site work if any is required we haven't laid out you know what utility connections look like and how they have to how they have to look like. So some of these details we need to iron out and then bring back to the Planning Commission for consideration in terms of, hey, this is what we have. Here's some questions and here's our best guess in filling out the blanks so that we can better have an ordinance that answers all the questions for everybody. Because we're going to get the first building permit in sooner than later and we want to make sure that Everything is in order. Fewer questions, quicker process, that kind of thing.

I understand there'll need to be some unique construction standards for the tiny homes on wheels. But who was going to formulate those? That won't be this body. Who would formulate those?

So the building inspector is going to be tasked with some of the building standards and putting together some of the building standards. Planning staff through connecting with with the community has also been in touch with the president of the tiny home tiny homes on wheels Alliance organization the the name escapes me Dan Fitzpatrick, I believe is the name of the gentleman, but he's been here city staff has been in touch with him directly He's authored so many different ordinances all over the country that to hear from him how the city of Mount Shasta could better write our ordinance or rewrite our ordinance and having his guidance is very, very helpful. So we're doing that as part of this process.

In a lot of these instances, the state will adopt standards for different building types.

That'll come down the pike also.

And then the cities will follow, tag on to that. Right. Is that underway at the state level?

It is underway at the state level. We don't know how many years out that is. The last time I was in a discussion with somebody, the estimate was maybe... THREE OR FOUR YEARS OUT. SO WE WANT TO HAVE SOMETHING THAT WORKS UNTIL SUCH TIME THAT THAT'S ADOPTED AT THE STATE LEVEL. BECAUSE WE DON'T WANT TO WAIT FOUR YEARS.

NO, I HEAR YOU. THANKS.

OKAY. AND THEN AFTER THAT, YOU KNOW, THE STATE ALSO DICTATES THAT, YOU KNOW, EVERY CITY WITHIN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA PERIODICALLY UPDATES OUR GENERAL PLAN. AND THERE ARE DIFFERENT CHAPTERS IN THE GENERAL PLAN. Most pressing right now is probably the land use element because when the housing element was adopted a number of months, maybe even a year ago now, there were some drop-down things that needed to be updated within the land use element. That has not been done yet. So the first general plan amendment section I think I'm going to tackle is the land use element. And then after that, we'll backfill with the noise element and safety element. And I'm sure other elements will come into play to be updated because one's going to trigger the next and it's going to trigger the next and we can't afford to update our general plan all at once. So we'll do this in smaller pieces. Will you be able to do that yourself or are you going to need help? I'm going to have to do this myself unless we find additional funds. Gotcha. We'll add that to the list. Okay.

Did any future agenda items from commissioners? to put on our list. Looks like there's none. Wow, that was fast. Okay. Then I'm going to adjourn our regular meeting, and we're looking forward to our next meeting, which will be held on Tuesday, June 16th, 2026. Thank you.