Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Is everybody else ready to roll? Yeah? Yeah?

Yes. Okie doke.

Unknown.

All right.

Good evening. I am calling to order our regular Planning Commission meeting for Tuesday, July 21st, 2026. And we'll have the flag salute.

All right.

Kim, roll call, please. Okay. Good evening.

Roll call. All right. Let's start with Commissioner Higuera here. Commissioner Party?

Here.

Commissioner Stearns is absent. Commissioner Penrose?

Here.

Commissioner Sarian?

Here.

And Chair Findling? Here. Thank you.

We have a quorum. Okay, item number three. This is the public comment time on our agenda. And this is an opportunity for folks to come and address the Planning Commission on something that is not on tonight's agenda. We will have plenty of opportunity later. We have a public hearing scheduled for our general plan amendment. But for now, this would be, if you'd like to speak to us about something that's not on our agenda, please do. And we will note that Tim Stearns is here. All right, anybody like to come speak to us on an item not on our agenda? And noting that no one's getting up to address us, we're gonna move on to item number four, which is on our consent agenda. That single item is the approval of the minutes from our June 16th, 2026 regular meeting. Commissioners, is there anybody wanting to make an amendment or a motion?

I move to approve the consent agenda of the minutes of June 16th, 2026 regular meeting.

All right, do I have a second?

I'll second.

All right. Do you have Belinda made a motion? Toussaint seconded. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? None? Motion passes. One abstention.

Oh, we have an abstention from Tim Stearns.

Okay, moving on to item five. This was going to be a public hearing about our tiny homes on wheels ordinance revision. However, this item has been withdrawn and will not be discussed. So we're just going to move on to our substantive discussion this evening about discussion and our public hearing around a general plan amendment. And this would be for our noise element. Take it away, Kim.

Okay. Apologies, but we're going to get very technical tonight. There's nothing glamorous about a noise element. So no pretty pictures in your staff report. But agenda item number six, right? Number six. So this is the noise element of the general plan. So what the general plan is, it's a book of 15 chapters, or not 15 chapters, multiple chapters, the land use element, the noise element, the safety element, traffic and circulation, open space. So the general plan document is the guiding document, like a long-term guiding document for the city of Mount Shasta. And over a number of years, the state will check in once in a while and say, hey, dear cities and counties in California, you have to keep your chapters updated every so often. So a couple of years ago, under the direction of Jeff Mitchum, the previous planning director, Work began to update some of these sections. In 2024, I believe it was the housing element that was updated. After that, the sub-consultants that were hired to do this work started chipping away at the safety element, the noise element, and also the land use element. So those three sections are in draft format in the planning director's office to be worked on. Since then, grant money has been expended and there aren't additional grant dollars to complete the work. those three sections are in various stages of draft development. In the case of the noise element, that section is most complete because there was an administrative draft noise element completed by the sub-consultant. That work effort was almost ready for planning commission at the time that Jeff left last year, and then it just hadn't been picked up by your current planning director due to the other things competing interests and priorities that are on the desk. So as of this evening, we have enough of the noise element put together that it's worth the planning commission's time to look at and discuss. There was a recommendation in the staff report to recommend approval to the city council for approval of the noise element. However, due to all of these other things that are happening, I completely skipped over the fact that there is a 45-day public noticing period for general plan amendments, which is different than the municipal code requirement of 10 days. So in my head, I'm thinking, oh, well, we just have to notice it for 10 days, and then we can take it for a public hearing. That is not true. So we have not given the public 45 days yet to weigh in on the noise element. So tonight, is only going to be a discussion and we'll continue this to a subsequent future meeting so that we can have those 45 days for everybody to weigh in.

So procedurally, no recommendation tonight, but we can still talk about it.

What you have in your staff report packet is a noise study that informs, well, yeah, noise study that informs a noise report that then generates the noise element and that element then at some point in time also informs a noise ordinance that the city will then adopt. So there are many different pieces that all need to be put together so that at the end of the day there are measurable ordinance items for any particular project to be in compliance with. At the risk of getting super technical, and for everyone's benefit, the noise study that's in your staff report packet is a series of tables with numbers. So what that is is a noise consultant choosing key intersections in town, different intersections in town that have different noise volumes, and documenting what those noise decibels are throughout the day. What's it like at 8 o'clock in the morning when the kids are walking to school? What is it at lunchtime? What is it in the afternoon? What is it at midnight when there's nobody around? So that data then gets collected and put into a report. Somebody in an office somewhere is extracting the information out of the study to put a report together that says, in this neighborhood at this time of day, this is what your noise conditions are. And then using that data, it gets distilled down even further so that by the time you're reading the noise element in the general plan, it should be distilled down to a point where it kind of makes sense that the layperson can actually read it and understand what's happening. In a nutshell, the noise element is simply documenting what the noise is right now within the city. And the reason why a noise study from 2021 or 2022 or 2024, reason why those numbers are still applicable, even though we're well into 2026, is because in Mount Shasta there's not a lot of development happening or changing from year to year. So if you're at the intersection of Jesse and Pine, for example, back in 2021, taking measurements then, those numbers aren't going to be statistically significant in change enough to warrant a new noise study being done in 2026. So that's documented somewhere in these pages is there's no need to do a new noise study every year because we don't have that many changes. to necessitate that. So that's why a 2021 document that's in here today is still accepted by the noise experts and recommended for inclusion. It's not outdated. But there is a lot of technical data. All of that informs the noise element, which is just a summary of what the conditions are today. We're not talking about, you know, how to mitigate things that happen in the future. We're just simply documenting within the city of Mount Shasta what are the noise conditions right now. How that impacts future development is, for example, if a large project comes in, like the landing, or if another multifamily project comes in, those projects, those site-specific projects will have their own environmental evaluation that tier off of what's done at the general plan level and the general plan EIR level. So additional analyses will be done for every additional project that comes in, And those numbers will be measured, those numbers will be taken then, and those impacts will be analyzed then and adequately captured. So what we're looking at today is just existing elements. We're not conditioning this noise element or study to address any future development that may or may not come in. So that's a lot of information. I will stop here and pause for questions and comments. But tonight will just be a discussion. We'll just talk about it. anything that we need to do to clarify the element or the report for future discussion, I'll just start taking notes and we can do that.

Okay, great, thank you. Okay, commissioners, we'll start here, then I'll open up the public hearing. Michael, would you like to start? Do you have comments or questions?

Can't we, we're going to start here?

Start here to talk to Kim, and then open the public hearing, get folks' input. For this first of at least two rounds of opportunity to discuss this with us, And go from there. All right. Anyway, did you have some questions? Please go ahead.

Let's see. I don't really have any questions about it. I looked at the technical studies. Very technical. Well, they seem comprehensive for the level that should be included in a general plan update. At least I thought it was. And at the the policies and goals that are identified in there, to me, seem to be pretty complete and comprehensive in this community. The only couple areas that popped up for me as I was looking at it is that in 07, you know, the old...

Here, keep the mic. Sorry about that.

I'll just bring it over here. In 07, there was a little bit more specificity and detail provided in the noise analysis that was done in terms of what was brought forward as... implementing strategies and those kind of things and the one thing that it appears to be missing that I don't know that has to be it I think it falls in a different way now is is the quiet zone issues around the Railroad tracks and the railroad traffic through the community before there was kind of a highlighting of something to be considered by the city going forward to Consider quiet zones around the railroad and it's not specifically stated in here, but it does I think get it to In other words, let me just say it this way. It's kind of moved back to a higher level of deferring to different requirements and objectives in the noise element. And so there's a section in there that's talking about coordination with the UP, right, and also with Caltrans, a couple of major noise generators in this area at least. So I think it still covers that, but it's just a little bit different way. That's the only thing that I kind of noted as I went through there. In terms of the standards and the goals that are set and the exterior requirements and interior requirements for noise levels and all those things, those seem to me very consistent with what was considered in 07 and very consistent for what you'd consider in today's world for noise impacts in a community. Maybe it's only the railroad or the noise.

I don't think that's uncommon. With every year, there are different ways of looking at at situations or issues. And there are different ways of analyses or analyzing it. And at the end of the day, the conclusions may be the same. It's just how you got there might be a little bit different. And how you got there changes year to year based on the latest and greatest how to do things. So there may be a little bit of that in there. But I have the question. I'll clarify.

Well, and I think back then when we were looking at this, there had been, and anybody else can chime in, concerns about railroad noise come and go. And it was a specific thing. There were changes made to the Lake Street crossing at one time to quiet it down. So it's, again, it comes up at various times in the community conversation. And so that might be the timing partly around that.

One other related piece to that is that I think that it's deferring, the way it's been prepared now, again, kind of at a higher level, it defers to various codes and regs that we have in other areas that would define that. And I actually like that because in the prior version, that's where I meant it was quite a bit more specific. It talked about staging of housing and blocking and a number of things that you can still get to out of this with more specificity in subsequent areas. And so, as such, I thought this was really at the right level and the appropriate level for going forward now. I didn't mean to confuse it with the quiet zone. It's just... No, that was an example.

I think... And I... This is sort of the general plan, whatever, however many thousand feet view, as opposed to the ordinance view, potentially, yeah. Okay, thank you.

Tucson? Yeah, this... I guess the two times that I recall noise issues coming up for us over the years would be a few years ago when someone wanted to come and do a car wash and a storage. And I think ultimately we said no car wash because of the noise of the vacuum. So I think it was working then. And then another one was the Golden Eagle Charter School, who was planning on building right next to the highway. And there was some discussion around the noise from the highway and impacts on the children. So that probably doesn't change anything with what we're looking at here. But I'm just out of curiosity, how much I know you're new here, but do you have records of, do people give complaints about noise on a regular basis?

It's a good question. If there are complaints about noise, that actually typically goes to our code enforcement officer. It doesn't come into planning, so that's a separate department. So Dan in PD would know. He would have a better pulse on how often the city gets noise complaints.

Mm-hmm. Just curious to know if people are being bothered by noise that's not the railroad.

It would be good to know if we could get a little report possibly about that. That might be helpful with our discussions. Yeah, will do.

And then I just noticed on page N6 the reference to the Roseburg Commerce Park. I'm wondering if we should just change it to the landing since that's more commonly. Yeah, we can do that. Yeah.

And it may change again, so. It may. Okay.

That's all I have for now.

Okay, great, thanks. Belinda? On page 113. under existing and future noise environment. There's a, it's Lake Road in there, and it should be Lake Street. I think that's what that is. Oh, I see that, yeah. That's just a typo, you know, that's all. Mm-hmm, got it. That I happen to see. But I was trying to understand on the table on page 117, somehow I, or there's a bunch of tables in this section, that they say they have an existing 2021 and future 2040 And I don't quite understand why that's written that way, because it's not like you have a comparison chart, and it's just like, should it be through 2040, or, you know, I don't understand what that means. I mean, I couldn't figure out how, I mean, I understand what the numbers and stuff are, but I don't understand why. what that means.

Neither do I. Oh, good.

What page? 117 and 116. Well, there's a bunch of them, but any of them.

Yeah, because it says existing 2021 and future 2040.

And there's no reference to either date with like two numbers. I agree, 100%.

I was looking for a comparison or something or just through. That would work too. in my understanding, but good luck. That's all I have to say. Look at that.

That's it. Okay, Alan, please.

So I've always just generally questioned the need for a noise element, because especially in smaller communities like this, when there's a lot of, as you were mentioning earlier, there's other ordinances that seem to take care of, we're not going to put a When a project came up that was going to be noisy, it gets turned down. And we, I don't know, noise elements are not my favorite. But I think that there's a lot of data there, by golly. And we don't have any noise problems, which is great.

But we do sometimes.

Well, yeah, when the train comes through and goes... Yeah, which I'd rather know he was there, so that's good. Anyway, thanks.

Okay, Jim?

Well, I thought, or I think that this is well prepared. I was pleased to go through it. There were just a couple of things that I have questions or suggestions on. Number one would be on page N18, page 126. Thitters and auditoriums.

Well, can you slow down 126, you said?

Page 126. Theaters and auditoriums in the land use type don't have any normally acceptable, conditionally acceptable, normally unacceptable. I didn't know if that was an oversight or done on purpose.

That's a good question. It may be because there weren't any theaters and auditoriums evaluated. I'll look.

Okay. And then secondly, I would have a suggestion, I have a suggestion for, to add on the bottom part of page 130, a goal N5. to limit exposure to ground-borne vibrations from new commercial and industrial activities. Goal number N4 is only related to rail activities. So I have a...

So expanding it so that it's not just exclusive to rail activities? Is that what you're saying? Okay.

Is this, did you make copies for all of this? Is that what I have? Oh yeah. So we can eat. Oh, thank you.

I think, um, gotcha. Okay. So the, the new goal and five would be to limit exposure to groundborne vibrations from new commercial and industrial activities. Okay. That makes sense because it stopped after and four, which is rail activities.

Right. And N4 is the only, that I could see, was the only goal having to do with ground-born vibrations. Okay.

Does that affect, like, will our housing develop a thing that we've just built? You have to have the, use the mic. Oh, sorry. Would that affect, do you see that affecting Like a new construction project?

No. I would see it affecting... Well, if Crystal Geyser had been here in the city limits, it might have affected Crystal Geyser because the neighbors complained about the vibration, the ground-borne vibration.

From operations or trucks?

Well, I think it was from the, I don't know if it was from the trucks or the operation. But if something like that were proposed for Mount Shasta, and we don't know.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea.

At least we'd have some sort of goal or standard.

Good catch. Good. We'll add it. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Anything else?

No, I'm pleased.

Well, guess what?

Can I ask just one question about this? I think this idea is very good, but it looks to me like it's talking about things that are not existing within Mount Shasta. I just want to clarify what that is, because we wouldn't have authority over that.

Not, no. This would not apply to presently existing uses, just to future uses.

Future development.

Future activities.

That are currently not existing, but it's still within, Mount Shasta city limits in terms of the application of this?

Yes, although I did suggest in policy N5-1 within the Mount Shasta city limits or within blank feet from the city limits.

Yeah, and that's the only reason I ask that question is I'm not sure that we'd have the authority to do that. That's the only reason.

That's a good question. But if it affects people living inside Mount Shasta,

Right, so within the sphere, I mean, we have some theoretical sway with the county within the sphere of influence.

Theoretically. Yeah.

So maybe that's, well, they could potentially impact city residents. I guess that would be what we'd want to say to your point. Within or outside the city limits that we would want to protect city residents. Yeah. Is that it?

Are we good? You go ahead first.

Go ahead.

I don't want to beat this up too much because I think it's a great concept. But it's talking about require commercial and industrial to do certain things. And so if we don't have the authority to do that, and maybe we do in the sphere of influence, I'm just looking at 5-1. Oh. Require commercial and industrial activities that are currently to do certain things.

Well, I think this is going to maybe be wordsmithed by him. You're getting, I think, the goals, right?

To protect citizens from activities outside as much as we can influence those and where we can utterly... And it could be also a matter of coordinating with Siskiyou County, Siskiyou County planning, Siskiyou County economic development, or as needed in order to protect the intention of...

Right, so within we can regulate, and outside the city we can request. Yeah. Did you have something there, Tucson?

I just have a couple more small things here. Page N20, implementing action N1 3.2. I believe that's... already kind of in the building code, the transfer of noise between commercial and residential uses in new buildings.

What is it? What page are we on?

Is that N12? Is that the one that you're talking about?

Yeah.

N20. N20. Thank you.

Does that mean we shouldn't mention it in our general plan? I mean, the fact that it's in the building code? I thought one grew from the other. Kind of redundant. But doesn't our general plan inspire our ordinances or inform our ordinances? So naming, discussing it in our general plan and then come.

I don't think it hurts anything, it being in here. But just to note. It's in there. The building codes have all kinds of noise barriers between uses. That's why I questioned the need for a noise ordinance. And then N21, enacting, it's the implementing action N21.1. Enact a noise control ordinance regulating non-transportation noise sources. Is that some sort of different noise ordinance?

So that's the noise ordinance that would then be drafted and adopted after we go through the exercise of adopting the noise element. So that comes first, then comes the ordinance.

Thank you for that clarification.

Good? Okay. Okay. So I have a few items.

Okie doke.

You know, we've talked about trying to have a noise ordinance, so I'm thrilled that we're working on this, and I'm looking forward to hearing what folks in the community, what's important to them around noise. So, just going through, starting on page 114, we talk about other noise sources. There's a little reference later on, but other noise sources could be animals, roosters and dogs are common urban Hopefully not, but urban noises, they can be pretty loud, up to 130 decibels for a rooster and 110 for a big dog. And when I looked at the table of what the human ear finds tolerable and not tolerable, that can exceed that. Also, I don't know, somebody's HVAC system, that can also be tolerable. a sound that can impact one's neighbors. So, and those are just three that I thought of, but I wanted to, I thought that expanding on that in here could be helpful, and it isn't really addressed much. Thank you about the, that table on 116, but I found that back in the, Back in the report, table 2-1 gives context for decibel levels that do impact, how they impact people. So I don't have page. What page are we on? So right now I'm looking at page 116, but there's figure or table 2-1 back in the actual, in the report. Oh, here it is. It's on page 23. Okay. And I found this helpful and I thought we should consider adding it to the noise element because it talks about, so it's on page 23, everybody there? It talks about noise exposure limits and acceptability. And I found that table a useful reference as a framework to look at these tables. And so even though I do think that the other table that's in, the other figure that's in here about noise, I forget where it is. Oh, on page 110, that does say common noise sources and their decibel levels. I think that's helpful, but I actually really think we should add this other one too for context for folks. Hang on. Do you have whiplash? Sorry. What's that? Do you have whiplash for me sending you around from page to page?

I think I follow.

You're requesting that these figures be included?

That this table, yes, that table 2-1 from the noise study report be inserted into our noise element update for additional context.

I think that's handy, yeah. Okay, yeah. Good idea.

Okay. Moving right along. Sorry, I have whiplash from moving from page to page.

But we have page numbers, so that's half the battle.

Okay, so I guess I could note that the Mount Shasta Code does, on page 123, there is a very general reference to unreasonable noise, which could, okay, so at the bottom of page 123 in the right column, it refers to chapter 920 of our code that does talk about Unreasonable noise. It seems a tad vague. Anyway, but that does dovetail in a little bit with the, whatever it is, roosters, dogs, HVAC. Cats, you know, cats next door, yelling away. Well, when they're fighting. Exactly, exactly. I believe there's a typo that needs to be fixed on page 125. The first sentence at the top column on page 125, I believe it's intended to say incorporation of feasible site modifications to reduce noise exposure. But there is some word missing between site and to. Got it. Okay. Okay. On... Oh, so I was looking through the goals, policies, and implementing actions, and I wondered if sometimes we say there's general words about, there's specific words about requiring, and then there's Other words that are less, that are like, that are encourage. And encourage doesn't make it into the municipal code and I don't think anybody's gonna follow up. I see what you're saying. So enforceable. I don't understand. I mean, I don't know where encourage is going to be useful, but you can convince me otherwise. But I'm wondering about looking at every one of these goals and implementation measures and say, do we really mean require if we're only asking to encourage? What kind of follow-up is there for that? Right.

So is it a directive?

Is it a directive, and do we want it to be? And I don't have an answer tonight for that, but it made me wonder why language changed.

We'll tally the shoulds and the shalls, and we'll decide which one to use.

Yeah. Oh. Right, and I noticed something on, let's see, Policy N-2 on page 129. We talk about... We talk only about construction work hours within 500 feet of residential areas, but we don't talk about connection to... There's other things listed in the policy, but there's only one thing listed in the implementing action. Are we missing something? Why do we talk about... using electrical service instead of generators, instead of erection of temporary noise barriers, and reducing construction noise, and yet the implementing action only mentions work hours.

Well? There's a couple missing pieces.

It seems like it's just not fleshed out all the way. Okay. And that's my list of things to get you started with. Okay. All right. Anything else, commissioners, before I open it up? Yeah. Go ahead.

Going back to your suggestion of using this table in here, 2.1, in comparison to these ones that are already in there.

It's addition to.

In addition to, but are they conflicting? These numbers here look a bit higher than what we have in these. They're a bit higher. And I like the lower numbers.

Well, that's a good question. And I don't know that I have an answer to that. What page? 23.

Yeah, N18 and N19 are where the charts are.

I'll take a look at the two sets.

A question that goes along with that. Is there an option or would it be reasonable to add an appendix that includes all the technical work that was done above in the general plan or not?

They're typically attachments, yeah. All of this is typically wrapped up as an appendix to the overall document.

Yeah, so I'm just thinking because I think part of what you were looking at here was the value of some of the information that was in a technical study that wouldn't necessarily drive the implementation, you know, in terms of this conflict issue, because I think that one that we first started with was a Caltrans standard noise sensitivity or something, which has a different level. And if that information is available as an appendix, or somehow folded in there, does it still meet the same objective, I guess, in terms of ?

I was thinking just readability. Because if you're going to have this table, and then we find out, well, OK. Do they conflict? I guess I just wanted enough context. And maybe because these are in the back, maybe they would be helpful. But this is for new development. Anyway, as I was going through it, I didn't find it readable because I didn't have enough context. And how we get there, that was just one suggestion. I am wide open as to the best way to get there.

Having it as reference, though, as you read it.

Up front.

Yeah. I think there's some value to that.

Right, because otherwise, you know, the readability just stops until you, unless you have context.

Because this is the California general plan guidelines, and here's Mount Shasta guidelines, which is lower.

Right, let's do lower. Yeah. What, and so, and this is another question, what's important to us? And do we want to stick with lower? So, again, I am super keen to hear what people have to say. Tim, did you have something else? Anybody else?

I've got a question. It uses, they always use, I've always, best management practices. Does that get translated into enforceable stuff? Is there a list of BMPs? I mean, I read that in things, and BMPs shall be employed at all, blah, blah, blah, but Is there a, here's what they are, and by golly, somebody enforces them?

Yeah, there are BMPs, like straw bottles or, yeah.

For things, and it gets enforced. Who puts that BMP list together?

Right, and I don't know that in a updated noise element, that's going to get there.

But I'm actually... I like the way this is put together, the policy language, and it references it. I just found myself wondering about BMPs and how they make their way down to an ordinance level.

I guess we depend on Kim for the BMPs.

Or are there standard ones like there are in a lot of construction things? Tucson was referring to one of the reasons I questioned the value of a noise element is in construction, which There's a huge noise source for a lot of things in buildings. How that's done to, not defray, reduce noise between units and from the freeway and all that, that's all handled in a different, from a different box. From the building code.

Yeah. Construction. Right, so then what is it?

The state says we have to have a noise element, so we have to have one, so that's fine, but

So the building code takes care of certain things, but it's not taking care of all of it. And that's why we need the noise element to fill in the gaps that the building codes don't take care of.

The other way around, really. I think noise element drills less detail down into more granular, more detail, enforceable stuff at the building code level.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay. Are we good? All right. All right. I'm going to open the public hearing. And if folks would like to come up and speak to us about the noise element amendment, please do. You'll have three minutes. Please introduce yourself before you start talking. And folks who are interested, please come on up to the mic. Kim, are you on timer? I will be in just a second.

Awesome. Okay, hi, it's Johanna, Mount Shasta, and I'm really glad to hear this got postponed because I had a really hard time getting through it and because a noise element is such an important document and it's with us for seven years, if not longer, because How often do we substantially update it? I'm really thrilled. So I think I have more questions and comments, but I'll give you some feedback, because I totally support, because I was going to ask for a continuation. But I'm also thinking, I want to point out to you, because I was going to, I was asking for a new noise study as well. because one of the things that you may not be aware of from the 2021 noise study is, A, it was done during COVID, and we had lower traffic levels on Highway 5, but more importantly, on Highway 5, both the northbound and the southbound lanes have been reengineered and reconstructed. I believe it was between 2022 and 2024. I may be off... a year there, but it took two or three years for Caltrans to do this. And the new material, because I've been talking to Caltrans for the last decade about the noise coming over here, because I'd like them to do like a rock berm to be consistent with our volcanic scenic legacy byway, thank you, or something with wood chips or something along those lines, because Anyway, so they've confirmed to me that the new material is, in fact, louder. And I don't know if I have that in writing from them or if that was just a phone call, but I can look for that. Or maybe someone from the city could follow up and ask Caltrans. Because one of the things that you guys are talking about is like, you know, well, what impact is this going to have? And that's kind of what I'm wondering. Like, when we update this, what is this going to do for us? Like, if we update this, can we go to Caltrans and say, hey, guys... Can you put in a berm? Because this half mile stretch from Lake Road to the railroad crossing is super loud. Like, especially in the summer, I have decibel levels up to 85. I mean, yes, it's on my app, but, you know, the app's probably not significantly off. And also the study, like on Pine Street, a lot of what the city does with public works is they use the chip seal, and the chip seal... although it's an inexpensive way to reinforce our roads and a great fix, it does, with our snow tires and the weather that we have, it creates a lot of air pockets. And people typically speed over Lassen Bridge down to Almonds. Okay. And so they do that. Anyway, so... So I guess, you know, will this resolution allow the city to approach Caltrans to implement mitigation measures? To add to Melanie's list, I want to point out sprinklers, especially when they're broken, are super noisy, like at the hospital, for example. Sometimes they go off, I think it was at 3 o'clock in the morning the other day, and construction noise. Like I can hear Danko at 4 o'clock in the morning, and I'm sure they got an exemption.

Thank you. Those are some thoughts. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Who's next?

Hi, everybody. Araya, Mal Shasta. I just want to say I'm really excited that you guys are talking about a noise element, ordinance, I don't know what the proper term is, but I was actually surprised that we didn't already have one. We went through on a, you know, besides the highway noise and the train noise, everyone's familiar with that, just on a personal level, when we live in an apartment and we went through a horrendous experience with an upstairs neighbor He terrorized the whole building for like a good year, year and a half. And I was surprised when you'd be playing guitar late at night and yelling and stomping, there's no noise ordinance. So the police multiple times said, there's not really anything we could do, except for the times when he was being violent with his wife. But that's a whole other story. um so i support a noise ordinance for multiple reasons um i think for you know just making living situations better and more agreeable for everybody especially when you're in close quarters with neighbors but also you know with some of the talks of different development ideas and that kind of thing just being really intentional about the things that we do want in our community that are going to support growth and support the economics and provide jobs and everything But, you know, making sure that we have safeguards in place, again, for our community and make sure that the things we're bringing in are going to support a better community and not be a detriment. So thank you. Great. Thank you. All right. Next.

Rosalind McCoy. I live here in Mount Shasta. Like Alan, we have to be careful that we don't weaponize this noise ordinance where it could be used against those people. So we don't want to over-regulate. But like Tim, we really need to look at this vibrational sound from fans. And I spoke with a neighbor that's further south than my Lake Street. And she said that when Dan and Coca-Cola were running, that she could feel the vibrations of the fans in her house, because her house was set up a little bit more than mine. It was like a straight shot. And so it's really important for us to be very clear on our noise ordinance. So if industry does come in we will have something in place. Because if they come in and then we put something in, then they'll go, oh, you're anti-us. And then we might be open for lawsuits because we're trying to catch up. And after industry comes in, it's very difficult to change the noise levels. When they put in the fans, there's certain kind of fans that they could put in that are much quieter and there's ways of mitigating the issue if they do it within the building process. So if there's clear regulations, then they will know When they come in, this is the expectations. So I would ask to really analyze that newer information that's coming out of Texas and the new data centers. We didn't have that in 21, that kind of research and data. Now we do and we can benefit from that kind of information so we could set up our noise ordinance to protect the citizens. And yeah, I love it when the snow falls and the freeways are closed and it's just quiet. It's just delicious. You walk out there and you go, oh, yes. And so if there's things that we can do to reduce that sound, that would be awesome. Years ago, we talked about reducing the train whistles. we'd put in gates on either side. So there are things we could do and to keep putting that out there of these are projects that would be nice to have funding for. Thank you.

Thank you, appreciate it. Who's next?

Hello, I'm John Sanguinetti and I'm a Mount Shasta resident. What I notice in the community about sound is barking dogs. We live up on Orem Street and we've had dogs that bark 24 hours a day up there and used to be that I lived on East Ivy for 25 years and I had an apartment there and at one time for several years I could call the police and they had an animal control officer who would come out and would address the issue with would go to the homeowner or the dog owner and try to find a mitigation for the issue. And I believe they could ultimately take the animal away if it continued. I don't know that that's true, but it seemed like that's what happened. And now we have several neighbors in our area who are complaining about dogs barking all the time. Now, my hearing's not what it used to be. I take my hearing aids out at night, and I don't hear them that much, but some of the neighbors are complaining about that. So another noise that I'm conscious of, of course, is the gasoline-powered blowers and lawnmowers. Some of those don't seem to have adequate mufflers on them or something like that. And that can be very annoying. And chainsaws, we have a lot of tree work going on in our area. And that can be pretty noisy sometimes. And that's my main complaint. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Appreciate it. Anyone else like to come up and help us out with this? Looks like not for now. Again, we're going to come at this again, so hoping we get lots of feedback. So I'm going to close the public hearing. Commissioners, any other comments? Tim, we'll start with you. Alan? I do not.

No.

Linda? Tucson?

I think we heard a lot of great ideas here from the audience members. that's pertinent to the actual ordinance. And wondering, after this noise element is taken care of, how soon after can you foresee us formulating an ordinance?

So here's where we're at. Our police chief is so on top of it that the draft ordinance has already been written. It's already been drafted. Um, and that is now taking a pause. So planning can catch up and get this paperwork done so that when this is done, we can slide in the ordinance right after that. Cause the sequencing is the noise element has the goals and policies and implementation measures. And one of those says that shall prepare a noise ordinance. And in anticipation of that chief has already drafted it. So we can take the comments that we've heard tonight and make sure that those are addressed in the ordinance that they aren't already. so that when it comes forward, we'll see that.

That says to me that they're probably getting some complaints.

Yeah. Michael, anything else you want to add?

Nothing.

Lovely. Thank you. Kim, do you feel like you've got what you need to go on to the next step?

Yes, I do. Yes, so it'll be coming back at you.

All right, 45 days at least for folks to get in. And please, you can come address us at our next time. If you have comments, I suggest getting them to Kim sooner, and then she can bring them to us. That'd be ideal. And that's it for item number six. Now we'll move on to item number seven, which is planning commission and planning director comments. And it says planning commission first. Commissioners, comments? Michael? Tucson? Linda?

I do.

So I don't know who knows. I'm kind of this person that's head of this old people's clean and safe committee. And I want to comment, and to all of the listeners that might be tuned in, that we have a real litter and trash problem And everybody needs to pick up trash, because I'm not picking up everybody's trash. We have one woman who is a stellar gal, but she's going to die someday. And if we don't train everybody to start looking and picking up litter and being responsible, it's a serious problem. And I don't know whether anybody's noticed on the freeways, it's kind of looking like what Mexico used to look like, which is awful. I mean, people are just throwing cans out the windows, and so that's my, had to say it into the public sphere. Thank you. Alan?

I'm good. All right, Tim?

Well, I appreciate the comments of Belinda, and let's give credit to Mount Shasta Rotary Club because they were out there picking up along the highway.

We need a trash can by the bus stop. Oh. Whoever does it. That's a good idea. Because it is, I cleaned it up and I looked the other day, yesterday, and it's a disaster. Because all those people sit there, wait for the bus, eat Burger King and whatever, and there's no trash can.

If we can provide trash cans downtown, why can't we provide them at the bus stop?

Okay. Yeah, that would be great because, and it all goes into the creek, by the way. where Linda Cabetto cleans it up. Oh my gosh. She's a hero.

We have trash cans. All those trash cans that got decorated years ago.

Well, I think they were getting knocked over. That's why they have these rock ones now, because they can't get moved. That's what I heard.

And maybe bear proof, or at least bear, not bear smorgasbord, but bear slower.

Crow.

Yeah, crows and ravens. Yeah, yeah. Wildlife. Let's just say wildlife not as desirable.

Okay. Anything else, commissioners?

I'll just bring up, I've been musing about the Active Transportation Committee and maybe because there's such a lovely interest and use of bicycles, e-bicycles, e-whatever, contraptions, skateboarding. folks are moving around our town without cars, which is really great. And if reviving the active transportation committee is something we can think about so the city's Figuring out how to serve our community. The bike rack that holds one bike at the city hall.

There isn't an active transportation committee at this time, to my knowledge.

I think that, right, that there was some, the city council passed something to get rid of it. Right. And so, maybe that wasn't such a good idea. I can see where that goes. Okay. Kim. Planning director comments. My turn already? Yeah, you're up. It's on there. It's on the agenda.

Oh, yeah. Quick plug. It's not listed on here, but we are recruiting for a seventh planning commissioner, right? We have one, two, three, four, five, six. David has put in his resignation. I don't know if we talked about this last time, but... There is a vacancy on the Planning Commission, so if anybody wants to phone a friend.

Out of the city.

And the Planning Commissioner does not, the 7th Planning Commissioner does not need to reside within city limits for the role.

So it's a big pool. Lovely. Just come join us. Come join us.

It's a party. Okay, so the next thing I have is just a quick heads up in case you haven't heard. We've had a few staffing changes at the city level. For now, the city council has asked me if I would be willing to step in to the acting city manager role while they're figuring some things out. And I said, absolutely, yes, I would. But that also means that I still have my day job of also being the planning director. So just a heads up that I've got a lot on my desk. So for the next couple of months, things may be moving a little bit slower than they normally move because I'm still just one person. But this is where we're at right now, and I'm going to do the best job that I can.

So no more sleep for a while is what you're saying? Nope.

Nope. I'll be wearing this again on Monday.

Yeah. And does that mean that we don't have any forthcoming projects that are time sensitive?

So that's complicated. There aren't any projects that are time sensitive right now, but we do have that that process called the landing master plan. Well, I'll talk about that in a second. But there are a couple of development project pre-applications that are coming into the planning department for review and consideration. So that's gonna go to the planning commission at some point. One of those projects is a proposed Indian temple on south Mount Shasta Boulevard, south of the landing, actually. So the east side of the landing It's the parcel just to the south of that. There's a proposed worship center, temple worship center. So city staff is going to have to go through and look at those plans first and make recommendations. And then once that application package is deemed complete, meaning we have all the materials, then we can draft a staff report and bring it to the planning commission for review and consideration because that will be a conditional use permit. So that would require your review. So that's one thing that will be coming in at some point. The other thing is there may be a multifamily residential project being proposed across the street from the hospital on Pine Street. That may be coming in too. So if that comes in, that's another discretionary review project, architectural design review use permit. So when that comes in, that will set the clock of staff has 30 days to determine whether or not the application's complete. And if it isn't, we provide comments. Application package comes back. Once it's deemed complete, then I have 30 days to bring it to the planning commission. So we'll get into those timelines in the autumn season. So I think that's what I know of that's coming into my desk. There may be some other lingering applications out there that I don't know about just yet. But those are a couple of bigger things. Moving on to the landing, I can't remember where we were the last time we talked about this, but the... The master plan consultant's been hired. They've started work. There was a town hall meeting that occurred last week on Tuesday. I think I saw Belinda in the audience. Thank you for coming. Town hall meeting number one, the purpose of that meeting was really just so that the consultant could hear from the community what it is that we might want to have or consider as part of the landing. Um, I've been a planner for 23 years now, and I will say that that was one of the smoothest, nicest town hall meetings I've ever been a part of because 75 people were in the room. 90% of the crowd took the mic to make comment. All of the comments were, none of the comments were, um, duplicating another speaker's comments. So we had a lot of unique individual good idea comments. Really good dialogue and discussion. The consultants, I think, are taking this job very, very seriously. The market strategist economist was here for five days interviewing business owners, other stakeholders, groups. She went into Dunsmuir. She went to McLeod. She went to Wairika. I think she went as far as Aetna. Just information gathering so that she has a really good, bigger picture of what it is that this community needs. The thought is even though the landing is geographically within the city of Mount Shasta, it's really gonna be more of a regional level project and it's going to impact the other cities and communities around us too. So we wanna think about how we serve not just people within Mount Shasta, but folks who live within a 50 mile radius from here, tourists who are going to be visiting within a 50 mile radius from here. People could potentially stay in a hotel at the landing and then go east to go hang out at the waterfalls for the day and then come back to the landing and then go north another day to go do something else. But there's an opportunity to put in a lot of different cool things and that's what they're figuring out. So town hall meeting number one happened. It was about three hours long. It was great. Town hall meeting number two is currently advertised for August 11th, but because there's so much to uncover and so much information to go through, I think we're going to push that out by a couple of weeks just so that when they come back again, they've hit a meaningful milestone so that we've got a good place to come back to. So I'll announce a new date when I have it, but it would be great if you guys are available, not as planning commissioners, but as community members of Mount Shasta to come take a look and listen. It's cool stuff what they're doing. So that's where we're at the landing.

Nice.

Yeah.

Great. Thank you. All right, then I'll move on to item number eight, which is future agenda items. Kim?

Subject to change. Subject to change, but behind the noise element, there's also the safety element that's going to have to be updated at some point, and also the land use element. I'm not confident at this point that those will come back to you in August and September. It may be a couple months after that, but that is on my desk. And then there's also the dark sky ordinance that we can start talking about putting together. I know that's a priority, and so let's start chipping away at that. I may be able to come back to the Planning Commission with some high-level bullet points or high-level things to consider. and then maybe get some direction on how to drill that down into an actual ordinance. So we'll bring it back here a couple of times before anything permanent gets produced. So it'll be community input.

Lovely.

So we're doing it.

How do people find out when the next meeting will be for the landing? You said possibly the 11th or whatever it was.

Yeah, so it's not going to be the 11th. It'll be sometime after that. The way we advertise for the first town hall meeting, what we'll probably do again for the next one, is there's a flyer that goes in with everybody's utility bill. So if you're within the city of Mount Shasta, the second page behind your utility bill is going to have a flyer about when that next workshop is. Obviously, we want more than just people inside the city or who are receiving city services. to get the note, so it's also being pushed out in the city newsletter. For those of you who are not signed up with the city newsletter, now would be a great time to sign up. You can hop on the city's website, and from there, there's a link that the city clerk put up saying, sign up here for the city newsletter. And right now, I think there's content going out about once a week with whatever updates there are to be sent out. She's pushing that out on a regular basis. In addition to that, and this has not been announced yet, but the city of Mount Shasta just opened up our Facebook page. So the city of Mount Shasta now has a Facebook page. I think Rachel initiated that Thursday or Friday of last week. We haven't really announced it yet, but we're going to. It's another avenue to get information out to the public. You know, the year is 2026, and you can't just go to Raze and look up a newspaper and see what's happening in town anymore. That's just not a thing. But what is a thing is people are putting content up on Facebook and sharing it. People are putting stuff up on Nextdoor and sharing it. So it's time for the city to figure out how to join those social media channels just in the spirit of trying to get more information out and in the spirit of getting more community feedback and input. to just kind of say, well, we'll just stick in a newsletter and people can come to the newsletter, I don't think is as efficient as we're just going to cast a wide net. The next landing workshop meeting is just going to be posted here, here, here, and here, and we're going to do it here too. And once you get it, feel free to share it also with your local community groups. I think Todd, you know, part of his information dissemination was, I go to the Rotary luncheons every Wednesday. And so when I go to the Rotary on Wednesdays, I provide updates there. And from there, it gets spread around. So we'll come up with some sort of grassroots information sharing campaign. And if you have any suggestions, the city is all ears. But we're really at a point now where there are a lot of things going on with the data center and all of that stuff. It's become clear to city staff that if we're not ahead of the news, the news will be ahead of us. And then other things may happen. And, you know, the terrible part about it is the rumor mill just happens so fast and it has its own life. And if the city doesn't have a social media channel to from the direct source state what's happening, then it just gets ahead of all of us. And so we're going to try to do better at being part of the conversation.

The younger people don't look at Facebook. They look at Instagram. Great. Now we're going to have to get an Instagram account. You do. Someone's going to have to get on TikTok. Nextdoor. Yeah. Nextdoor is, I think. Nextdoor is huge.

You've got to be on the shuttle.

Yeah. You can't bank on that. Yeah, there's a lot of avenues.

Exactly. So hang on, hang on, yeah.

Okay, thank you, thank you. So we're now getting a Facebook page.

right well facebook is a good start next door obviously and i we want young people to be engaged too and i think that's instagram yeah judging from the young people i know yeah yeah so we're working on it but you know that's great yeah okay anything else not that i can think of but you know where to find me Well, lovely. Then I am going to adjourn our regular Mount Shasta Planning Commission meeting of Tuesday, July 21st, 2026. Thank you, everyone. Appreciate the input.

Thank you.