Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay.

Kim, it's all yours, roll call. Okay, roll call. Commissioner Party?

Here.

Commissioner Stearns? Here. Commissioner Sarion is absent. Commissioner Penrose?

Here.

Commissioner Findling or Chair Findling is absent. So tonight's chair, Chair Hagura? That's, yeah. Okay. We have four present tonight for a quorum for tonight's meeting.

Number three, a public comment section. This is a time that is set aside for residents to address the Planning Commission on matters listed on items not included on the regular agenda. And if your comments concern an agenda item noted on the regular agenda, please address the commission when that item is open for public comment. Each speaker is allocated three minutes to speak. Are there any... Is there any public that wishes to address something not on the agenda? I don't see anybody. Number four is the consent agenda. We have nothing for that. And we'll move on to number five, public hearing for the general plan amendment, the noise element. And this is a report by Chris Dugan, Environmental Science Associates. Is that what?

I'll be plugging remote. Sorry, he's down here.

Hang on just a second. He's outside. We have to let him in.

Make an entrance.

That's an interesting look. Can anybody?

They have a screen.

Oh, good. Hi. Can you hear us yet?

Good evening. I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. Loud and clear. Talk a little softer. Understood. Can you see me or no?

Yes.

Okay. Well, hello. I will go ahead and share my screen. Please let me know when you can see the first slide of my presentation.

We're good.

All right, great. Well, good evening. It's my pleasure to be here before Acting Chair Higuera and the Planning Commission. One more time, so you remember, my name is Chris Dugan. I'm with Environmental Science Associates or ESA. And I'm the person who's had the primary responsibility for preparing the city's noise study report, the updated general plan, noise element, and the city's updated or initial noise ordinance. And it's taken a little while to get here. Work on these documents actually began in 2021. A couple of key milestones, so we have the full context. PSA prepared a noise study report that was completed in 2022. We were back to the city to take a supplemental noise survey in 2024. And the draft noise element and a draft noise ordinance were completed in 2025. Of course, in July of this past summer, the Planning Commission reviewed those drafts for the first time, which has led us to the revisions before you tonight and my presence here. I know there's interest in the topic. I know I was sent some public comments to review, and I'm really excited to see the public involvement in the process. My presentation is short. I don't want to talk at you too much. I'd prefer that we have a dialogue and a discussion. So I will move through my presentation pretty quickly, and then afterwards I will answer your questions to the best of my ability. So first on the Noise Study Report, what the Noise Study Report does is it provides the basis for the noise element and the noise ordinance. It summarizes a lot of information, information on the existing environmental and regulatory setting, specifically as it relates to noise planning and noise control. There's information in the Noise Study Report on what existing and future noise levels are for sources such as highways, local streets, rail, and other sources. And I do want to note the initial study was conducted in 2021. Supplemental survey was conducted in 2024. And that supplemental survey focused on the downtown area with specific concern for nighttime noise levels in the downtown area. So the noise study report was used to prepare the general plan noise element. The noise element itself satisfies a lot of requirements that the city has to meet. It's prepared in accordance with the government code. It updates the 2007 general plan noise element. I think it's important to convey that the updated noise element, it reflects the direction that I received from city staff at the time in 2021 and 2022. And as I've noted, we did make certain revisions to address the planning commission's comments from July 15th, 2026. So what is the noise element? What does it really do? Well, it's intended to guide future development in the city through the local lens of the city of Mount Shasta. It establishes policy direction, but it also provides flexibility. So some of the policy language says the city shall require certain things, and then those implementation actions say encourage developers to do this. And that's because we want to provide flexibility on how we meet the policy direction that the city is establishing in the updated noise element. Because we're providing flexibility, we promote and emphasize performance targets, so meet a specific noise level standard, as opposed to setting prescriptive requirements in terms of a project must or must not do thing A, thing B, or thing C. I think it's important to understand what the general plan noise element does not do is it does not restrict or prohibit specific projects or sources categorically. It establishes noise planning consideration, it establishes noise standards that should be met, but it doesn't flat out prohibit any specific type of project or source. It also does not resolve individual neighbor complaints that might arise. Those are nuisance issues and that's not the intent of the general plan is to serve as the mechanism for resolving those types of nuisance noise issues. The noise ordinance is a separate document. It is based on a previous draft that the city considered. back in 2007, 2008. It also reflects direction that I received from city staff in 2021, 2022. And I should mention that the overarching direction I received from city staff was to keep the noise element and the noise ordinance simple. Try to keep it as simple as possible while satisfying all the requirements that must be satisfied. It constitutes a new municipal code chapter. And it aligns with the general plan noise element. And I should clarify, it aligns with the updated general plan noise element. It does not align with the existing general plan noise element. And we'll probably circle back to that on the next agenda item when we discuss the noise ordinance. The noise ordinance, like the general plan, it establishes specific criteria for regulating noise from existing and new development in the city. And I think that's a key distinction. The general plan is primarily focused on about the evaluation of new development and new entitlements. It captures existing development to the extent the new development may impact existing development. But the noise ordinance applies to existing and new development in the city. And it's really the mechanism for resolving complaints, issues, concerns between two existing developments in the city. I told you I keep it brief, so I did. With that, I'm happy to entertain questions, comments that you might have on the updated general plan noise ordinance.

No, we start with the commissioners. I'll open it up to the public in a little bit. Would you like something, Michael?

Yeah, I don't have any questions at this point or comments thus far.

Alan? I have a couple of comments with regards to the specific changes. For instance, playgrounds and parks. If we can say maybe from my little research that I've done, You're showing a conditionally acceptable noise level of 75 dBA. Can we reduce that at this point, or is that what we're about tonight, is maybe modifying, pulling back, pushing forward, that sort of thing?

Tonight's the night to talk about it.

Yeah. Yes, absolutely. And primarily, what was his name again?

I'm sorry. Chris.

Chris. Primarily Chris. Yes. I'm wondering how our 2007 noise element related to common noise elements in the state. Are we quieter? Are we louder? Is the changes we've made in line with typical norms? Are we going to be causing problems? That sort of thing. That's what I'm asking.

Yes, in general, the existing noise element and the updated noise element both set standards that are slightly lower than recommended standards that the state issues with its general plan guidelines.

I'm not positive of this, but specifically the playground, and I only did a little research on this, specifically with the playgrounds, the 75 dBA is the standard that the state uses. That's what I'm hearing from you, correct?

Give me one second. I want to just check the table in the element and see if the 75 is the normally acceptable or if that's the upper limit of acceptability.

Mainly, it just does appear we've bumped up on a number of categories. I don't want to push it too far. I understand if we are under a norm, allowing a little bit more noise might make sense, but I don't want to, you know, encourage more noise.

Yes.

Understood. So table N5 in the updated general plan. Do you have a page number there?

Maybe.

Yes. Agenda packet page 139.

Come on, come on, come on.

139. There it is. Yeah, but I've got page 118, if that helps.

This one?

Yes, either way.

Okay, we've got it.

So the structure of this table, a couple of things to point out. The structure of this table, one, it is different than the existing general plan noise albums. The existing general planned noise element does not have the conditionally and the normally unacceptable columns. It generally just includes the normally acceptable values. So those normally acceptable values are the, what a project can, a new project, if it's exposed to, for example, a new residential project, if it's exposed to a noise level of 60 dB or less, that environment's considered normally acceptable, there's really no additional planning, no extra care or consideration that we need to give to the noise environment. With the conditionally acceptable category, a project that falls within, is exposed to noise levels up to 70, what we're doing is we're flagging that this is a project that does require some additional thought and consideration from a noise planning perspective, because it's in an area that has a higher noise environment.

So if I might ask, If there's a project gonna be moving forward where, or it exceeds this 75 or something like that, and it becomes conditionally acceptable, how do we, I don't know, change that, police that, pull that back as a body? Ooh, it's too noisy, it's beyond what the plan says. How do we, what do we do?

So with the conditional acceptability category, it would fall to the planning commission and the city council to determine if the noise environment is acceptable for that specific project. I think it's important to emphasize these are guidelines. They're enforceable guidelines that should be taken seriously. But if the decision-making body feels that 74 decibels is not acceptable, an appropriate noise environment for, say, a park that's intended to support meditation or quiet respite. It'd be within your purview to determine that the noise environment is not acceptable for that.

And I'm sorry, Chris. I was actually sort of referring that question. You can't see me here. I was looking at the rest of the commissioners to say, what do we do if it's louder than we get there as a body that, if it comes back to us, boy, that park's always too loud or that's cool or whatever. How do we Okay. Anyway, I'm sorry. Proceed.

That hooks into one of my questions.

That was all I had right there.

Chris, I have a number of questions. The original noise study was done in September, October of 2021, as I recall. Then you did a supplemental noise study in 2024, September 2024. Was that to... validate the noise, the then existing noise conditions, because 2021 was during COVID. So explain why the 2024 supplemental study occurred.

The 2024 supplemental study was done solely to evaluate noise levels in the downtown area. The initial survey in 2021 focused on a variety of locations throughout the city that were intended to align with planned locations of new housing. There were no locations in the immediate downtown corridor. And in 2024, we worked with the planning director and we agreed to supplement what we did in 2021 to sort of fill in a gap in information. What are the existing noise levels in the downtown area? because there was a concern that there could be, I was not aware of any actual concern, but the staff at the time expressed some concern about noise compatibility with nighttime noise levels in the downtown area and trying to get out ahead of responding to complaints that might occur in the future. So that was the reason that we went back out in 2024 and collected data really in the downtown core.

There was one of the comments or some of the comments that we received that I understand you've reviewed. Is that right? You've reviewed the comments that we just got or not?

I have. I was sent comments. I've reviewed the comments that were sent to me. I do not know if I've reviewed all public comments at this point.

Oh, okay. In terms of the comments regarding this agenda item, There was some concern by a citizen that this project is not exempt from CEQA because of the, because it could have a potential effect on the environment in terms of sound and human effect. Can you address that, please?

Yes, I can, and I will. I think I will share my screen and try to show an additional slide to address that. Please let me know when you can see the screen.

We can see a train.

Screen. There's a screen, but it's hard to see. It's very small.

Oh, this might not be very helpful. So yes, I am aware of the comments that are suggesting that we're rolling, essentially rolling back noise standards from the existing general plan. I disagree with those comments. We are not rolling back standards in the general plan. We may be presenting them slightly differently, but I do not think we are rolling them back. And the reason we are not rolling back is it has to do with the existing noise levels that were measured in 2021 and 2024. So what I'm sharing you right now is just a summary of some of the long-term measurements that were taken. In general, noise levels were ranged, depending on where we were at in the city. I don't think it's surprising. They were higher the closer we got to the railroad corridor and the I-5 corridor. And then, conversely, I don't think it's surprising, the farther away we got from that corridor, the noise levels obviously decreased. The reason that we are not rolling back standards, as I have an example here, is because of the way the existing general plan is structured. So for example, if we look at one of the sites, site long-term one, which I believe was in Shasta Park. So what the general plan noise element classifies as residential zone one. So it's an area exposed to higher noise levels. It's near the railroad corridor and it's near the I-5 corridor. The existing general noise level that we measured there was 68, 69 decibels. That's already above what the general plan says a new residential project should be exposed to. It's by allowing a 70 conditional, we're not changing the amount of noise that a new residential receptor is getting exposed to. We're providing the city the flexibility to move forward with the project in this location. We're also not changing interior noise levels. that the project would be allowed to. The existing general plan noise exposure limit for interior noise levels is 45 DNL. The updated general plan doesn't actually have a specific interior noise limit, and the reason for that is because the state building code governs interior noise levels, and it sets the 45 DNL as the noise measure that must be met. Similarly, if we look at how much noise a project could generate Again, if we flip this around and say, okay, it's not a new residential project, what's the environment those people would be exposed to? If we say this is a new commercial project, how much noise is it allowed to generate? At the same location, daytime noise levels were approximately 65, 66 decibels. Your existing general plan, it sets a 50 base standard, but then it allows that standard to be adjusted in five decibel increments to capture the ambient noise environment. So in this case, because the existing ambient noise environment is 66 decibels, the applicable noise standard that would have to be met is 70 decibels. And in contrast, what our updated general plan is doing is it's setting a lower standard. And I show it here. The base standard is 60 decibels. And when you work out the allowable increases, it turns out to be 66 decibel average. So the updated general plan is actually setting lower standards in almost all cases. I will point out because the commenter, Mr. LaFaris, he made a great point about interior noise levels. The existing general plan does set 35 as the base standard, and that works out to a 24 hour, a daily noise exposure of 39 decibels, 39 DNL. Our updated general plan, it does increase that. Yes, it does increase the interior noise level from 35 to 40. When we work out what the 40 decibels actually means, it's a 45 DNL standard. And so again, state building code establishes a 45 DNL. The existing general plan actually allows 45 DNL for transportation noise. So a project can already be exposed to 45 DNL interior noise levels. And the updated general plan essentially holds that standard steady.

Okay, any other comments that you'd like to share with us or observations and conclusions regarding the citizens' comments?

Yes. Allow me to change slides again. So I will, first, I think there's two other comments the Planning Commission should be aware of. The first is, again, related to Mr. LaFleur's comments. He correctly summarizes the content of the updated general plan and the noise ordinance, which I know is the topic of the next agenda item. And a lot of his comments, well, he points out that what we're doing is we've established a residential zone one and a residential zone too. And that's correct. And we did that because there is clearly a difference in noise levels in the city. And in my opinion, I think the city would benefit from having the flexibility and acknowledging that different noise environment and treating projects a little differently depending on where they're at in the city. However, when we paint with this broad brush of zone two, which is defined as anything more than 500 feet from the highway, so pretty close to the highway, and then 1,000 feet from the railroad corridor. When we paint with the broad brush of zone two, there are some areas of the city that could experience higher noise levels, and these would be areas really on the eastern limits or maybe the northern limits of the city. Those areas, as I understand it, they're all zone residential. CURRENTLY THERE IS NO POTENTIAL FOR COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT TO OCCUR THERE. BUT, SO THE PLANNING COMMISSION IS AWARE, TO MR. LAFARGE'S CREDIT, HIS COMMENTS MADE ME LOOK AT THIS, THERE ARE SOME AREAS IN THE CITY WITH, AS PROPOSED, ALLOWABLE NOISE LEVELS WOULD INCREASE BY APPROXIMATELY FIVE DECIBELS. FIVE DECIBELS IS OBSERVABLE IN THE ENVIRONMENT. THERE'S NO QUESTION ABOUT THAT. However, even though we're increasing this standard, the reason why, in my opinion, we're not actually having a physical change in the environment and actually having someone be exposed to more noise levels is because the general plan already allows residential uses to be exposed to 60 dBA. And so here, even though we're increasing the standard for stationary sources, essentially, The transportation standard in the existing general plan is already higher than 55.6 dB. And so if the existing general plan allows a maximum noise exposure of 60 decibels, our 55.6, while it might be higher for stationary sources, not actually increasing what someone could be exposed to in the city. So that's the first thing planning commissions should be aware of. The second thing the Planning Commission should be aware of are there were comments about the metric used in the noise element, which is the A weighted decibel metric. There are several comments pointing out that the updated noise element should consider different weighting systems to account for potentially different projects. All I can say with regard to that comment is the noise element, it does use only the A weighting the A weighting, because that is the weighting that best mimics the human ear, human response to most noise sources. I understand there are some concerns about large projects, data centers, et cetera, that might have infrasound or very low frequency sound concerns. And the comments that say the general plan noise element does not consider ultra low frequency noise, Those comments would be accurate. That is not an issue that's considered in the general plan noise element update.

Tim?

Yes. Chris, So a question for you, how can the city establish with certainty that permitting an additional five to 15 decibels will not have the possibility of significant environmental effects if the underlying ambient noise measurements may themselves have been depressed by extraordinary COVID era conditions?

So on the first point, we're not increasing 5 to 15 dBA. As I've explained, the existing general plan has two categories of noise sources. It has stationary or fixed, and then it has the transportation sources. And the transportation noise levels currently allowed by the general plan are the same as what we've proposed in the updated noise element. So we're not We're not increasing, not allowing more noise exposure. With regard to the 2021 traffic noise levels. At the time, there was a traffic consultant on board who estimated traffic counts in the city. And we did confirm with the transportation consultant at the time, I believe it was LCI. I'd have to double check LCI. the name of the transportation consultant. There was a concern that the 2021 noise survey would be low because traffic was less, maybe there weren't as many visitors, et cetera. However, both city staff at the time and the transportation consultant felt that city activity was normal enough, that road activity was normal enough, and that there had not been a substantial change in rail activity. And so for that reason, we felt the 2021 survey could proceed and is representative of the ambient noise environment in the city.

Very well, thank you.

So my question, with the increase, to try and understand sound and how you, to figure out this stuff, and I really am a layperson on it. With the increase in the sports activities that are happening, does that, more activity mean more decibels? Or is it the sound is even, it's just everywhere?

So in general, yes, more activity would equal more sound. However, it's not, I would say, it's not linear like that. Just because you have more activity doesn't mean you'll have more sound. It depends on how big that field is, where the activity is occurring, where are we estimating that noise level. So there are factors that would make that a little more complex. But in general, yes, the more activity you have, the more sound would be produced.

And I don't know if this is a question for you, Kim, or for him, but is this code, is it a, does it have teeth? Does it have the ability to, can you actually use it to enforce, or is this just kind of a suggestion?

I'll let Chris elaborate, but the noise element is a, it's an advanced planning document. It's a, the umbrella, it's the umbrella. Beneath that, the next agenda item will be the noise ordinance, and that's where the teeth come in. So this is for future noise. The noise ordinance will then be the teeth that enforces what we're doing with the noise element.

Okay. So that's it, and... Anybody else, did you get inspired with a new idea? Okay, because you were first, so that makes, it's always different. Should I then open this up to the public?

To the public here, yeah.

So this is not an interactive thing, this is a statement thing, and you have three minutes. So when you come up to the podium, give us your name and where you live.

It's not a Q&A.

It's not a Q&A. You can contact Kim at another time to ask her a question. But, yeah, otherwise it doesn't work. So does anybody wish to come up? Just, yeah.

Hello. My name is Henry Altorfer. I'm at 618 Chestnut. So... Well, first let me just get the basics out of the way. I think this should be postponed because there doesn't seem to have been enough time for the public to really have been given notice. Related to the report, I think what you were trying to get at is temporal averaging. So basically freeway has a diurnal pattern, rails are intermittent. I wanted to know how the report took into account averaging over time. What kind of window is there? So there absolutely is going to be more noise for a more consistent constant noise than there is for a rail. Secondly, rails and freeways are not really in our jurisdiction. We can't do anything about it. So why are we even baselining what we want as a community to something we can't do anything about? It doesn't make any sense. Yeah, so basically, Yeah, so I would not want any increase in any noise level in any general plan or elsewhere. It doesn't make any sense to increase our noise. We're talking about quality of life, and it is just a guideline, so it's not even enforceable. So why are we even giving a nudge to this when we are just kind of baselining something that may not even have been taken into account properly? For instance, another thing, the freeway was resurfaced, I think, after the study in 21-22. There's more noise from that. But again, there is a diurnal pattern. So if we're talking about industrial noise, for instance, That could be a consistent 24-7 kind of noise. That is very different than a passing train. We have gotten used to that, and we love it because we live here. But it's something that you can basically account for. It won't drive you crazy like a 24-7 noise would, even if it's quieter than a train. So that's my comment there. So yes, please postpone any action on this so that the public can actually read the report more carefully, and we can understand how temporal windowing of averages was done, because I think that's gonna be key to understanding how much the proposed changes really, what they mean. Okay, that's it, thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else?

So my concern is that we're setting a standard of noise, and we're looking at developing the landing. And the noise doesn't exist there, but by having industrial at 70, 24-7, you know, a day. And then we're talking about having housing there and that just doesn't seem compatible. And so we're setting standards now of how we're going to develop the landing and what kind of noise interaction between what could be industrial, light industrial, and our housing, camping, and that that really needs to be considered. No, that sound doesn't exist, but that's part of what's being created here is what standards are gonna be implemented in that future design. So thank you. Thank you.

Next, anybody? Okay, I'm gonna close the public hearing. And I'm not looking on my phone, this is my timer, so I'm not really being a bad person. It's on Facebook. Usually I'm over here doing it and Melanie does it, so I'm taking care of it tonight. So, what do we wanna do here, gang?

Do we have any questions of Kim? I would be punting them back to Chris anyway. This is his agenda item.

So we have two things that we have on this agenda. And one is this, whether it needs to be sequed or whether it's fine. And we can continue with that. And the other is, I don't know, this is kind of like not just sequel here. This was the whole thing, I think. Am I right? I mean, and so we have the two, the noise ordinance and we have the noise element. And the noise element, is it okay in the CEQA guidelines? I've got to find the right pages. Does anybody want to talk to me about that? Let's talk about the CEQA thing. Let's just go straight to CEQA and see if we're comfortable moving it forward or whether it needs to be, do we need a continuation on that? We can continue one thing and not both things. So if we need to look at the... noise ordinance further and let people get settled with this, then we can continue that. Am I right? Am I doing okay with this? Yes, you can, yes. Because I am, you know, a little floundering. So, let's address the number five, which is the noise element and what we want to do about that. And that's mostly the CEQA piece.

And for that, I went to see if Chris Dugan has any additional comments, because we have the benefit of having him here. He's heard some of the public comment. And I think that he can perhaps address those comments. Chris? Yes.

You got small.

Thank you. I've started sharing my screen.

What I heard you say before is that this is really not increasing the noise levels or incompatible with... based upon the fact that there's some different language, it's basically saying the same sort of thing is the way I interpreted this. It's not increasing decibel allowances. Do I have that correct?

That is correct. And to go over that point one more time so it's clear. Because it's important. It's absolutely an important comment and an important consideration. I'm sharing table 7-5 from the existing general plan. Can everyone see that?

Yes.

Zoom in a little bit. I think why the reaction is that we're increasing standards, it has to do with the numbers that are in these tables. So I'll highlight the residential category here. And it currently says all residential, daytime, activity area, LEQ 50, nighttime 45. Now, I'll leave this table up for a second, but if you look at table N-6 in the updated plan, which is page N-19, agenda packet page 140. One what?

140. Thank you.

Yeah, one of them.

Okay.

When we look at table N6, the very first thing we see is residential zone one, 60. And so obviously the comment would be, look, we've gone from 50 to 60. Now on paper, that's correct. But what the comment fails to consider is the notes in the general plan, the existing general plan element. where it says that these standards shall be increased at five decibel increments to encompass the ambient. So your standard is not 50 decibels if your ambient noise environment is 65 decibels. Your standard is not 50 decibels if your ambient noise environment is 51 decibels. The existing general plan adjusts the standard in five decibel increments. And for large portions of the city, The existing noise environment is substantially higher than 50 dBA on an hourly basis during the daytime. It's higher than 45 decibels on an hourly basis during the nighttime. What the updated general plan does is it factors in that. It says, okay, you know what? We know the noise levels in this area are higher. So, We're not going to allow this increment for the ambient. We're going to set the base standard at 60 to account for the fact that we already know the noise level is above 50 decibels all of the time. There are parts of the city where it will not get below 50 decibels. So that's why in my opinion and why I'm telling you that even though we go from 50 to 60, we're not actually allowing more noise exposure. We're not rolling back a noise standard. All we've done is align it with the data that we collected in 2021 and 2024. So that's an example of that issue. Yes, the number went up. That's clear. But from an actual noise exposure perspective, the way the existing general plan and the updated general plan work, we're not increasing overall noise exposure. We're just putting in a number that better reflects the measurements we took in 2021 and 2024.

All right. And so the proposal is to adopt the CEQA exemption, the common sense exemption, that this will not have any effect upon the environment. I think you've explained why that is the case. Do I understand that correctly?

That's correct.

I I I I feel satisfied. I regarding the sequel question. I think Chris is explained that to us well.

So then I need if on page 5 is a suggested approval. Way of saying it so that we can get the right numbers. If that's what you wish to do commissioners. I just need somebody to make a motion in a second or not. I think that's the right one, isn't it?

I see it, yeah.

Under 8.

I move the commission should approve a motion to approve resolution PC26005 recommending that the city council amend the noise element of the general plan as described in attachment A.

Second. And... I think we need to, what? I'm looking at page three of the agenda.

No, page five.

I'm looking at page three, the recommended action. That's where I'm at. Okay, and that is the, okay, perfect.

It's been moved and seconded.

Very well.

Yes.

We're ready for a vote.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Carries? Thank you. Yes, all in favor? Okay.

I do think that...

It's too late. Okay. Now we're on... The ordinance? The noise ordinance, agenda item number six. Yes, number six, the public hearing. It's the public hearing for the noise ordinance, and this is another report, I guess by Chris Dugan. Is that right, Dugan or Dugan?

That's correct, Dugan.

Dugan. I had a friend with that name, so that's why. OK, so let's see. Let's gather our thoughts here. All right. Commissioners, who would like to start questions? Or Chris, do you want to just roll into this for us? Do you have a bunch of things you want to tell us?

Yes. Not a bunch of things. Okay, so just as a quick refresher, this is a new noise ordinance for the city. There was a draft ordinance that began in 2007, 2008. A lot of the language, a lot of the exemptions and things like that that are in the proposal ordinance before you were held over from 2008. So I would say we did not reinvent the wheel. We tried to maintain a lot of the considerations that city felt were important at this point almost 20 years ago, but that they felt were important at the time. It reflects the direction of city staff, It aligns with the updated general plan noise element that was just discussed, does not align with the old noise element. And really this is the mechanism for the general plan is screening and planning noise issues early in the entitlement process, planning commission conditions projects, make sure they've done the right studies, make sure they've planned for and addressed issues. then the project gets built and conditions change. Some trees have fallen down or somebody's fence was removed. Whatever the change in the environment was, it's now past the entitlement process and we're dealing with everyday life, living. And this is the mechanism for resolving those individual complaints that might come up during the course of day-to-day operations, primarily between two existing land uses. Because despite the best planning, despite the best intentions, someone might not follow their plans exactly. Something could come up. And so the noise ordinance is the mechanism for resolving that. There are two things that I must clarify with the noise ordinance. So I will stop sharing. And please allow me a moment to find the correct agenda packet page. Oh, well. Now the first is agenda packet page 154. Okay. Everybody there?

Okay.

Okay. So this very simply has to do with the chapter number. It's identified as new chapter 7.80. When this was drafted in 2024, 2025, there was no chapter 7.80, but I do believe the code now has a chapter 7.80. So where this fits in the code, that specific chapter, section, enumeration has to be corrected and updated. So that's the first thing to be aware of. The second thing, to be aware of is on page, it's on agenda packet page 156 and 157.

That's good meaty stuff.

Sorry.

Go ahead. And so on page 156 and 157, when I say the ordinance aligns with the updated general plan, the numbers that you see in the table, those are the same numbers from the updated general plan. However, on page, agenda packet page 157, at the bottom of the table, after the table, there is section two. And section two says that if, says if the ambient environment's already above these standards, increase them in that 5 dB increments. That clause needs to be removed from the noise ordinance. If that clause stays in the noise ordinance, then the comments saying that we're rolling back standards and we're allowing for noise exposure would be true. So this was... I mentioned we retained a lot of the language from the draft ordinance in 2008, which was based on the noise element from 2008. This Clause 2 here about measured hourly exterior noise levels exceeding base noise levels, that's a holdover, and that has to be removed from the ordinance. Strike it. Yeah, let's strike that. And that is... on agenda packet page 157, and then the same clause is also on agenda packet page 158 after the interior noise table.

Could you repeat that, please?

The same clause is on agenda packet page 158 after the table.

Oh, yes, okay.

So that clause there must also be struck from the ordinance. Cool.

Is this right? I'm looking at page 156, top of 156, subparagraph 1, and A through D, and I think I'm hearing you say that that also should be stricken. Do I have that correct?

No, I will share my screen. Please let me know when you can see it.

The deletion starts on page 157 with table... Table 7.80.030-2.

And the interior noise limits listed above that?

Yeah, Chris has it on the screen, yeah.

This clause two here, if the measured hourly exterior ambient noise level exceeds the standard, you increase everything by five. Oh, I got you, right. That must be struck. Because if we were to allow that, if that were to be the case, then the public comments about we're allowing more noise exposure would absolutely be trotted.

And what about the paragraph that's below there, subparagraph B, interior noise limits?

Same one, yeah. So on page 158, there's the same clause.

That will also be stricken.

That should also be struck from the ordinance, yes. A lot of struck. But striking.

Go for it, guys.

This is all great. But I'm also, I'm still curious about, so it's limited to whatever the number is. If it goes over that, is there a mechanism for doing anything about that? If it gets too noisy, residents are saying, oh, it's 60 in my living room, and by golly, it is.

Yes. So parts of the municipal code specify how you are to measure. If someone complains it's above these standards, parts of the code specify how you are to measure it. And then if you refer to agenda packet page 160, there is a specific administration and enforcement. And essentially enforcement displaces the requirement for enforcement on the Mount Shasta Police Department Office of Code Enforcement.

So Kim, do you understand the changes and deletions that have been? Yes, yeah. All right.

I just had one question that was going through some of the detail on this one.

Here we go.

And I think it's on page 159. It's talking about the construction hours. And I just, I think it was saying that we could be working until 10 p.m. in construction. And I thought that we had a limitation of 7 to 7 in other documents in the, That's the only question about the duration of that construction working period. So it's B, I think construction activities 7.80.040, exempt noise sources and activities. Yes, thank you. That's the only thing that may need to be considered if it's governed a different working period, allowable period, or maybe that's some unique construction that I'm not aware of.

Yes, so this section of the code provides specific exemptions for sources where we're just not going to apply the standards that are listed above. This subsection B is construction. So what we're saying here is that construction is exempt from meeting a 60 decibel standard, for example, as long as construction is more than 500 feet from noise sensitive uses. and it's not occurring between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., meaning if it occurs between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., then it's okay.

Okay, I understand that. I thought that we had other governing codes in the city that limit the construction period from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. rather than 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. That's the only question. I just wonder if those... I may be relying on different information. It looked to me like that might not be consistent with other codes.

Definitely. They need to match.

That's the only thing. It was a minor detail.

In a perfect world, construction noise would only be referenced in one section of the muni code so that we can't have internal inconsistencies. But if I can figure out where that is, I'll flag it for review.

Okay. Thank you. Well, should we discuss if that's what we want?

Discuss here what you want, and then if I find that reference somewhere else.

Yeah. So do we want to?

Well, can there be an exemption for some kind of like major snowstorm coming and we need to finish this?

That's emergency stuff. That's different. Is it? That's exempted already. Yeah. It is.

I would suggest that in addition to the modifications that would be made that have already been mentioned, that we include on section 040B construction, changing that 10 a.m. or 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., If the city council wants to make that different, they're free to do that. But I think having cessation of construction at 7 p.m. would make sense.

The question I have, though, we have a separation of 500 feet that's also required. Is that... That doesn't somehow... um mitigate the noise up to 10 p.m i mean i'm is it still noisy because it's you know or it's 500 feet away far away from the guy pounding nails far enough it's noise guy plus that construction is a really broad term we're not talking like i said pounding nails what's very specific i

Air gun. It's a great question. Construction is defined. It is defined earlier in the ordinance. Demolition, dismantling, clearing site preparation, a lot of the typical, when you say construction. The 500 feet is a great question. Most, a typical construction noise analysis, and based on my experience measuring actual construction noise levels, at 100, 200 feet, 300 feet, it is probable that construction could exceed 60 decibels, 65 decibels. So if there is a concern about construction noise, the planning commission may want to just put a time limit on it, may want to remove the distance buffer. I would look to the city to provide that on the ground information about what the actual concern with construction noise is.

So even with the 500 feet separation, we could still have, but if it's construction within 50 feet, what are we doing? I mean, if it's across the street and they're building a house, do we have something in here that talks about that? I mean, we have this 500 foot separation we're talking about. If the guy next door, there's a guy who's going to build next door to me, can I stop him? At 7 p.m. or 10 p.m.?

So the 500 feet, it's not prohibitive. It's not restrictive. It's merely when the exemption applies. So if you're doing construction within 100 feet, that construction can proceed. You have to do a more detailed consideration of your noise level. And if an adjacent property submits a complaint to the city, then the city would come out and compare it to the noise levels within the tables above. So that's how it works. In my experience, most people don't complain about construction noise unless it is exceptionally loud or exceptionally close to where they're living.

No, I'm not necessarily saying people should or shouldn't. I'm just asking, do we have a mechanism in there for dealing with it? Do we have, let's say the guy is, you know, everybody's running their noisy stuff at 10 p.m. on a Sunday. We can do something. We have a mechanism, if I'm hearing it right. The guy can complain. We can get the city.

Yeah, I think that falls under 7.8050, administration and enforcement. That's where that would come in.

Okay.

Yeah. That's correct. All right. The question for the planning commission really is, what I will say is this is a middle ground. This is a moderate level of protection. There are ordinances that provide additional protection. There are ordinances that say there are no limits on construction at all. And so the question for the Planning Commission is, does this moderate ground work for the city? The mechanism for enforcement is definitely in the ordinance. It's the standard itself and how it's being applied that I think you should consider.

Okay. Thank you. So do we want to bring it back to 7 p.m. for the end of construction?

Do what?

Do we want to pull it back to 7 p.m. for the end of construction, loud stuff?

That's still a 12-hour day for anyone who's working and for anyone who's listening to the work.

Yeah, I'd like to do it.

That doesn't require a... No, because she's already going to see...

I'm making a list of changes. If there's a consensus, I'll add it to my list of changes.

Do we have a consensus on that?

On the 7 p.m.? Yeah. Yes. Okay. So, what else? Do you have more to share with us, Chris? Or do you want us to ask you questions, or shall I open it up to the public and we can get some of their input, and then we can ask you questions from that if we want to? Does that make sense? Mm-hmm.

It does. I don't have anything more specific to share, so I'm happy to answer questions and listen to public comments.

So I'm going to open it up to the public to give us your three minutes worth of opinions and advice and all that. And once again, we need your name, even if you've been up here before, because it's recorded and we don't know.

All right, I'll speak to this again. Henry Altorfer, 618 Chestnut. I will again respectfully ask to postpone this item as well because the proper 10-day notice didn't seem to have occurred. But I will say again, you change the ordinance and you're changing something that it is increasing it. If you're increasing the number, noise is a very complex thing, especially noise quality, even noise amplitude. You can't distill it into one number. I am an engineer, I have a degree in physics, I worked over 25 years as an engineer. Over 20 of that was mostly concerning with acoustics, I've done acoustic measurements. I have done hydrophone measurements, I've done all sorts of ultrasonics, I know what I'm talking about. There's spatial peak, spatial average noise. There's temporal peak, temporal average noise. There's temporal windowing of small and larger quantities, you can't just simply say that, oh, well, the averages are this, so we can just increase everything. If you're increasing the value, you say to yourself, you're allowing stationary items to increase as well. That's very different than a train passing by. And you're basically ratcheting up regular ambient noise by what the worst case is. This seems to be what I was hearing just now. That absolutely is going to change the quality of our life here. There's not going to be going back when you change the ordinance. I think the public should know how these numbers were derived, how they were measured, and what they really mean. If you allow stationary noise, that is industrial noise, to increase, that can be a 24-7 thing. That's not Freeway noise, that's not train noise. It's not even construction noise. This is gonna affect the quality of life. And how these numbers are measured, and how they're averaged together. I also tutored my son in AP statistics, so I know a little about statistics as well. So I know how things can be averaged and smoothed out, and I don't buy it. You're increasing the number, you're increasing what you're allowing. Plain and simple. You increase that number, you're increasing the noise you will allow. So please postpone this. Let's have more eyes on it. And unless there's a really compelling reason to increase it, don't increase it. There's no reason to, it's just a guideline. And by increasing it, you're just saying, okay, well that's now acceptable. without even questioning it. At least with the lower number, you can at least question it and you have something to stand on. So please postpone this. Thank you.

Anybody, any, yes. Another.

On Roslyn McCoy, on page 159, under following acts are prohibited in the city. Number five, any yelling, shouting, hooting, whistling, singing, or other human produced noises that is unnecessarily loud. That's a subjective point of view. And this just can be weaponized. When you have those people coming to town and they may be singing Hare Krishna, you could go, oh, we don't allow that here. or it's not reasonable to have in here. And it's, please strike that out. The noise ordinance, It is delicious when the snow comes and the freeways shut down and everything shut down and it's finally quiet here. I mean, it just changes the whole atmosphere. And so this noise is really a life quality thing. I don't even come to this park anymore because the sound of the freeway is just overwhelming. I go to the other park and that we don't like move forward to try to quiet this down, to deal with the freeway that is becoming louder. And so ramping these numbers up and make it more allowable, I think it should be questioned. And if we can keep a limit on it, please do.

Thank you, Roslyn. Anyone else wish to comment? So I'm going to close the public comment on this. Chris, do you want to address any of the comments there or not?

I will address the averaging component of this. That is a perfectly valid comment. And I think it's important for the planning commission to understand a lot of the noise levels that are presented in the, well, the standards in the general plan noise element and the ordinance. are primarily average noise levels. To the commenter's point, noise is constantly varying. There are peaks, there are troughs, it gets loud, it gets quiet. Those are different metrics. The existing general plan uses an average noise metric. The updated general plan uses an average noise metric. So we've retained the same metric. I haven't changed the metric used to evaluate noise exposure or noise generation in the city. On item five, yelling, shooting, hooting, whistling, the ordinance can be revised with the direction of the Planning Commission. So as I said, a lot of the restrictions and prohibitions were retained from the draft ordinance from a while ago. So I'm happy to make any amendments or changes the Planning Commission feels are necessary.

Mike?

Well, I have just one question specific to that item that was just raised about weaponizing this particular element. And having the ability to enforce restrictions on excessive activities that are in these categories I think is valuable. And I do understand the comment about it being there's not a specific metric of it. if the volume is this number, right? Therefore, you've exceeded or haven't exceeded it. But there can be many times where you can have activities that are really, you know, over the top, and there's not a way to enforce that. And that's part of what this component is doing here. So while I understand the potential concern about something being used incorrectly, right, and leveraged wrong, I think there still is value in it. When I went through all these specific prohibitions, I saw merit in them, and I can see some vagary in each one of them. There's exhaust brakes that are defined, a variety of things, but it's nice to have a tool. At least as I'm thinking about it now, I don't really see a reason that we would change that if there was some sort of... inappropriate leveraging of that tool, there would be another path to address that, I think, in terms of opposing the enforcement, frankly. So I wouldn't be thinking about changing that at this point.

I wouldn't either because I know other things. I know there's times that would come in handy because it's not somebody singing and walking down the street. It's somebody that has gotten too disruptive. And it's just a tool.

In terms of industrial uses, do we have... I'm assuming the building code has something to do with industrial noises from new industrial facilities. There are no proposed industrial facilities. Can I assume we have extra protections in here that would deal with an industrial facility that has, I don't know, the hoots, the horn at the wrong time, has noise pulses that are objectionable? That's what code enforcement is for. I mean, do we have language in here that says that can't happen, so code enforcement has something to grab hold of?

Are you talking in general about having an enforcement subsection of the noise ordinance and how that would be enforced?

Well, I don't know if it would be a subsection or not. Something was mentioned about how a lot of building noise, interior building noise and stuff like that is affected by UBCs. and so it's not necessarily something we have to write down. The Uniform Building Code takes care of a lot of that. Can I assume, and that's okay, that's great, can I assume that also would protect us from overly loud proposed or new industrial facilities that might come into the, there's none on the horizon, I know that. I don't see the land open for it happening, a big industrial facility anywhere close by, thank goodness, but I mean, If there was, somebody wanted to, I don't know, instead of doing something nice down at the Roseburg site, they do a paper mill.

So if we're talking in general about a hypothetical large industrial user coming into town, right? So most likely, once we open up the municipal code, we'll see that that project would require a discretionary level type of review. So that applicant would have to go through the staff review process There has to be a determination made as to whether or not this project is even CEQA exempt. A large industrial project probably would not be. Therefore, impacts to noise would be considered as part of that project.

And in looking at those noise concerns, is there something here that says, by golly, you can't be that loud? I mean, there is restrictions on those users.

There are a lot of those. By golly, you can't be that loud.

Yeah. That's what I want. Beyond that, though, although we've had a lot of opportunities to look at the noise studies and stuff like that over the last few years, the noise ordinance itself hasn't been out very long. I would be okay with not approving it tonight and allowing a little bit more time for public review myself.

Just to be clear, the legal requirement is 10 days, and this was published in the newspaper in advance of the 10 days.

I accept that. But regardless, I kind of, you know, we haven't had, this is a new one for the community, so I think giving time is something that I think has merit. That's all for me.

Kim, do you have any? I don't have any questions.

I'd be willing to make a motion.

Did you see, so where are we? Page 148 has a little.

Let's see, 148.

I'm looking at page 151.

SOMETIMES IT'S SIMPLER THAT WAY.

WELL, THE ACTION ITSELF WOULD BE ON PAGE 151. 151.

THIS IS A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY, RESOLUTION PC2026-006.

And this is a resolution city of Mount Shasta, sorry, Mount Shasta Planning Commission recommending the city add municipal code MSMC chapter to be determined

780. It says here.

Noise control. Well, it says 7.80, but that's going to be a different number.

It will be whatever number falls in line with the existing media code.

And wherever it says Chapter 7.80 will, if need be, revise to the next number. Correct. in section three of the now therefore be it resolved the next to last line where it says though a discretionary action amending the existing I'd like the word noise ordinance substituted in there and strike the existing word and exhibit A to resolution PC26-06 would continue to have those modifications and also have the necessary changes that we've noted here at this meeting with Chris's help and with your help, Kim. Is that sufficiently clear?

Is that a motion?

That's a motion.

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Opposed?

Okay. Opposed.

So Tim Stearns moved, Mike seconded, and Alan opposed. Does anybody need a little break or not? We're going to take like a five minute break. So meet back here at seven. part of that we're doing here. Let me turn the page here and get the right, I guess I'm not quite ready. So number seven, conceptual review of the Camp Sisson, and that's on the Pine Street project. This is not, this is just information gathering. This is no action tonight, so it's not, it'll come back again to the planning, may come back. in an official manner. This is just a exploratory conversation, I think would be my way of putting it. So, Kim. Yes. You don't even have his name there, so I don't know. Do we want to talk to him, or would you want to give us a little, everybody?

I'll start with a little bit of a background. Let's get the slides up real quick, because we have slides for this one. Yay. Stand by.

What's your name, the person on the TV?

Hi, I'm Rob Brewster. Sorry, I couldn't be there in person. I had a babysitter lined up to take care of everything, and then that didn't work out.

No, but I didn't get the name. Rob Brewster. Rob. Rob. So we can talk to you directly. Okay.

Okay. So the next two, the next two agenda items that we have are both conceptual review items. So what this is is when projects of a discretionary nature projects that might be larger come into the planning department for review, um, we're now bringing them to the attention of the city council, the planning commission, and also members of the public. earlier in the design process so that if there are any red flags or no-go situations, we learn that now, and so we're not sending a potential applicant down the rabbit hole of spending two or three years in design only to find out that there's something that we hadn't talked about, something that we hadn't considered, that kills the project. So in the spirit of doing better business and quite honestly in the spirit of transparency so that right at the beginning of getting a project, everybody is aware of it, It helps the entire community guide whatever project scope that is to go forward in the right manner. So the agenda item we have now is for something that is currently called Camp Sisson. Camp Sisson is roughly 12 acres that's across the street from the hospital. So this is on Pine Street in that vacant space that's across the street from the hospital. That's up on the screen now. The general plan designation currently for this project site is high density residential. Depending on what happens with the project, there could be a general plan amendment that's proposed to better align the actual uses with general plan designations. But right now, it's high density residential. As for zoning, the project has two different zoning designations. Most of it is high density residential. There's a pocket of it that is low density residential. Ultimately, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Number one, the low density residential land use zoning designation is actually not consistent with the general plan. That's going to be a cleanup effort on the city to conduct in the next year. Regardless, this project, if it proceeds as proposed, the city will be asking for a master plan, a conceptual plan, similar to what we're doing for the landing. If there's a project that's 12 acres in size that has multiple phases, it makes sense to turn it into a planned unit development. So the zone change would be to a PUD to allow for a master plan so that everything could be looked at in more of a comprehensive manner. So the zoning will probably change to PD or PUD, which is the green color on your screen. Next slide, thank you. So this is a very conceptual high level site plan of what we're calling Camp Sisson. There is a cottage and hospitality base. So there are approximately, I think you see that labeled as phase one, 14 cottages with some pathways, common gathering spaces. The applicant can talk a little bit more about that in a minute. There is a residential component, possibly apartment buildings with up to about 75 units of apartment rentals. There's also a hotel in the bottom right-hand corner, approximately 75 rooms. That's a target for right now. then there are also some supporting retail uses there's retail and office up by pine street where the entrance to the project site is so about 5 000 square feet of commercial retail office space and then lastly there's a section on the right hand side of that site plan we're calling it out as an optional civic public area flex area it's in it's about an acre and a half um it's just optioned right now so that maybe potentially if the city might need a new city hall and the landing isn't an appropriate space or maybe this one is available sooner, that could be a point of discussion in the future for the city to move there. That's one thing that we can do. If that doesn't work out, there could be an option B, option C, option D put into that space for the one and a half acres. This is just more of a bubble map, conceptual map showing that there's an open space area. It's outlined in blue. In the previous version, there was a previous applicant on this exact project site a number of years ago that proposed open space in this area with the balance of the project site being designated for a school. That conditional use permit has since expired so that Golden Eagle Charter School project is not moving forward. This is what's coming in in its place. But the designated open space For right now, what was carved out then remains, so that isn't changing. So the development footprint is where the school was going to be. The open space from where the school had it remains. This is a, I think this is a conceptual design plan of the cottages, just kind of giving you a visual of what it could look like. It's not meant to be very urbanized and so we have it landscaped so that it's more in line with with what's happening in the area this is a rendering i believe of the commercial space um up near pine street and then in the back is that three-story hotel with the 75 rooms i think that's an apartment yeah that's a rendering of just the other side that's a hotel That may be all I have. So I'll turn it over here to the applicant who's on the Zoom line to fill in any gaps.

Sorry that I'm moving now. Can you hear me okay?

Yeah.

All right. I think you answered, you went through that quite efficiently. My overall comment is we're not trying to create something that competes with the town. We don't want something that makes it so that there's a distraction from Mount Shasta, and the idea really is to make it so that it's visible. Sorry if the car tried to get back to get a battery charged up. It's also intended to be sort of, but feel like a compact little village area that has the cottages, in part to make it so that it's not some big, giant... apartment complex that is blocking views or making it difficult for people to see through the site because there's clearly a beautiful view of Mount Shasta from there. That's also intended to be some workforce housing, market rate housing, good access for employees of the hospital and I suppose guests. And to update the hotel stock for Mount Shasta. So that's kind of, I guess, my elevator pitch for it. Ken, was there anything else that you think would be important to bring up?

I just have a quick question. Wetlands in California, that's not an issue it used to be? I'm sorry, say that one more time. Wetlands, there was a delineation years ago that was more substantial than where that ponded area is now. And I don't know if that's...

The city doesn't have a wetlands layer, so we rely on biologists to do studies, and there was one done for the school.

Rob, was the wetland delineation, I know the standards or criteria for wetlands has changed of late, but was there delineation provided as part of this early study?

If you go back to the site plan there, you can see what we're allocating. No, I understand.

I understand.

The pond concept is too advanced. And I mean, from what I read through everything that was created in the previous kind of concept for the site, the wetlands piece of it, I don't know if I'd necessarily call it wetlands. There's a stream that really is just a, I don't know if it's an extraction extreme. It comes from the... cooling system from the hospital across the street. Anyway, I love, I mean, I love wetlands. We'd want to make sure that whatever we did was certainly in compliance with whatever it was that the city needed or what the state requires. But the idea is to honor all of that and try to make that a big part of the site so that it's accessible to the public and that it's... Yeah, I understand, Rob.

My point was some years back there was an initial delineation done that was more extensive than what was shown there. Whether it's dried out more or anything like that, I'm not sure. It would have to be resurveyed. That might affect the layout on this. I like the drawing generally. I don't know if you'll get away with gravel paths all over the place or in that cottage area, but I kind of like the drawing. Yeah. Papers? Yeah, maybe papers. I don't know. Anyway, I don't have, yeah, nice drawing. I like that.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, the idea with that is to try to cut back on the amount of asphalt and pavement that's all over the place.

Something that, because historically I've been here so long, there is a master trail plan and that goes through that property and down to Cedar Street, I think. that is not, I don't want people to forget about that, because we'll hear about it later, but it comes across from the north end of the hospital, kind of north, yeah, and comes across and is supposed to go through that, and I think it's in MAPS places, so that's something for you to know about, because that would be public access, and also a big electric car, charging bicycle, and solar, all those things that you will get to eventually. But the public trail is important because it is.

It's important to us as well.

Good. You know about it? Have you heard about it?

Well, I spent a little of the time at that hospital, unfortunately, and walked around on the path, and I've seen it. I've explored around there a lot. I love it. I think it's just an integral part. I mean, in every project that we've done, we've always tried to integrate public access, especially if there's an existing trail. I'd love to see it be further advanced.

It's somewhere in the files. Tom Heseldon's, I think, designed that, right? Yeah, I think so. Okay. Tim?

Well, I was going to bring up that same matter.

I wanted to. I wanted to. I've been here longer than you.

WE HAVE LOOKED AT HAVING A TRAIL RUN FROM CITY PARK DOWNTOWN. AND THROUGH THAT AREA IN GENERAL, I CAN'T SAY THAT IT WOULD BE THIS PARTICULAR. I CAN'T SAY IT'S THIS PARTICULAR 12 ACRES BUT CERTAINLY THROUGH THERE AND DOWN ON CEDAR STREET. SO WE WOULD CERTAINLY HOPE THAT THAT WOULD BE INCORPORATED INTO ANY PLAN. I question the three-story versus two-story for apartments and hotel. I think that our ordinances provide for a height limit that I thought was two stories, but maybe it is three stories now. OK. Good enough. And then there's also, it seems like part of this property is also depressed.

Pardon me?

Lower than street level?

It's lower than Pine Street, yeah.

Yeah, lower than Pine Street. So I was thinking that maybe the three level would not be obtrusive.

Towering down on it as much.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So those were my comments based upon preliminary view or review.

Mike.

Mike.

The overall plan, to me, looks good and interesting. I like the mix that you're bringing forward. The geometrics of it, and specifically circulation and connectivity to the surrounding streets and stuff, I think is going to need quite a bit more work, and I assume you guys are going to be doing that, including the interface with the existing residential on the south side there. There's going to be some re... rezoning of that land there. And the R1, R3 interface, I think, is going to be very important to be thought through. And I assume you guys will be working on that. I can't see any way that a single access point makes sense at this point.

But from a drawing perspective, maybe it's a good starting point.

But I just can't see how that would work. But overall, it looks to me as a very interesting, good opportunity to be doing this kind of improvement down in that area. And the stacking that at least you're talking about here I think also makes very good sense from the freeway moving to the east. I'm interested in seeing it progress.

I also wanted to comment that I think we had so many tourists that come into town and they don't always have cars, but this is a great easy to walk to town and go to the restaurants or whatever or shop in the shops and stuff and it's a it's a peaceful walk rather than like from the hotels that are on Mount

I've stayed at many of those hotels.

Yeah, rather than having to walk up Lake Street or down Mount Shasta Boulevard from way to the south, this is a way nicer stroll for people. And with the electric bike thing going off, that's another easy bike area to go up to Shastis Park or whatever. So I do think that's really nice, providing we put in some decent bike lanes. Okay, go ahead.

I like the idea of having medical offices there across from the hospital. I think that's needed. Is it?

Yeah, I don't know. We'll find out, huh?

I'm generally favorable of the concept.

Okay. I'm going to open up to public comment.

Let's wait a minute until the train goes by.

Yeah, you can take your time until the train dissipates a little. And don't forget your name and what town you live in.

Oh, that's good.

You're loud. Hi.

You guys already know me. Yeah, movement, Ohana, everything. Of course, we're here, obviously. We're always here, pretty much. But we're here for affordable housing. That's our mission. So I love seeing this beautiful little rendering here of all these wonderful things. And A hotel makes sense and I like the apartments and the little, it looks like the cabins are little tiny homes. He mentioned workforce and market rate housing. As we know for a lot of our population, what is market rate is crazy unaffordable. according to the actual average income around here. So I would be curious when it comes to the workforce housing, is that like worker qualified, like it's been discussed as maybe some of the units at the landing, or is there a consideration for more affordable units in this mix at all, or is it just going to be straight, whatever you can get on the market? And then I think Michael had mentioned earlier Just as someone who makes this drive regularly, considering adding this number of residences and then a hotel and some other things here, as most of you know, it's like right before this little swoop up and that little overpass, it's very narrow, it's kind of tricky, especially sometimes people on bikes are walking during school hours in the morning. So I think he had mentioned the accessibility in the road point with all this extra you know, traffic. We don't have traffic, but this would be traffic for us. Just obviously that's a consideration. I was curious if that's been looked at yet or just obviously that's going to have to be addressed somehow because that's tricky, especially in those morning hours and school hours. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. I forgot to turn the time around, but she did great. All right.

I'm going to say a few things. Henry Altorfer, again. So I'm glad there's going to be a little more time to look at this report. And just from the information that was presented for the meeting and in this report, there's definitely some inconsistencies and some lacking, missing information that would be great to kind of iron out and fill in. As mentioned, outdated and or unresolved wetland issues. There's a 2012 report, so I would recommend that you guys consider updating that for sure. And then, as she mentioned, traffic concerns. And also, apparently there's some inconsistencies as well with what's stated in the report as far as property ownership. So let me go through a few things. And one thing, so my sister is adjacent to there, and her property lines are not demarked in the diagram, so it was confusing for her. for understanding where things were exactly. So first of all, in the two diagrams, there seems to be an inconsistency in the upper, in the southeast portion. In one, it looks like it's a green area, right? But then it's also labeled optional civic, and in the other, It's support, which could mean shops and other things. So it's a little unclear as to what would really go there. Is it going to be kept open in the short term? And are other things going to be phased in? And then how is that going to be really handled if things are kind of done piecemeal like that? So that can be scope creep. Let's just call it that. Okay, so and then the... Yeah, so where they enter, in the other diagram also it shows that they would enter in that southeast corner, so that's a little confusing. Would there potentially be a need for a traffic light on Pine Street? Pine Street's really wide, people go at a clip on Pine, and with that many people coming in and out, especially out-of-towners at a hotel, are we going to end up having to put a traffic light there? So I think a traffic study would be in order there. So anyway, let's see. Then, yeah, so then the height, it seems like we have a 35-foot ordinance or something, and this, something in the plan mentioned 45 feet. So are we just shoehorning that in an extra 10 feet? And the surrounding area is mostly two-story, 20 feet kind of stuff. So what's going on there? We're very generous with height. And then would the hotel end up having some sort of sign? Would there be an elevated sign? Would it be bright? That's not addressed, I don't think, in the report. So what would be allowed and permissible there and proposed? And then, yeah, so the property ownership that I mentioned It seems like approximately nine acres are owned privately, but there's almost three acres that are owned, I guess, by the city. So how is that being dealt with and so forth? And that's not necessarily consistently referred to in your report. Your three is up.

Thank you.

Okay. Well, thank you very much. So I just look forward to more information. Thanks.

Anybody else? Yes, here comes one more person.

Rosalyn McCoy. I'm also concerned about the wetlands. And that would be controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers. And 30 years when I bought my house, it was controlled by San Francisco Army Corps of Engineers. And I understood that that whole area was wetlands. And it wasn't set by the city, but by the Army Corps of Engineers. And Sisson Meadows is also controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers. And when I bought my property, I had a whole understanding of what I could do and not do on my property because parts of it was wetlands. The other is having only one road in and out. If I don't think that that's compliant with our fire codes that if something happened and there was a fire and you had fire trucks coming in or if an accident happened on that intersection there wouldn't be any way of evacuating and so I really believe there needs to be more than one way in and out of there. Thank you.

Anyone else like this? Yes, one more. Here we go. He's tired tonight.

Aloha. Afa. I forgot what street I live on. Hinkley. Thank you, and thank you to Rob. My only two cents is we're a big push on demographics and affordable housing, including alternative housing. So love that this is a solution for that. I hope it keeps going through and just work through all the kinks. My little two cents is that market rate of apartments, my two cents is 10% demographics fall out per decade. I like that we have apartments or cottages or anything really that's affordable for the average working guy. Diesel went from $6.50 last week to $7.50 this week to $10. It's coming because we work in fuel. So when we say fair market price for an apartment today versus what it might be in five years from now, 10 years from now for this whole process to happen, whatever fair market rate for that apartment is with $10 diesel is, it will be all empty. We're going to build apartments for nothing. for nothing. I can build 10,000 apartments too for two grand and not one single person could afford to live in it and our demographics would still fall. And so that's my only two cents. I love all the planning that's happening with all of it. I hope it's the best and best positive good vibes and energy. Just keeping the eye on the ball. If our kids come out of Weed College, what price can they afford in that apartment? Love and light. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? No. So I'm going to close the public hearing part or speaking part, commentary part. There we go. And anybody else have any input for this after listening to stuff and things like that? I think it's a long ways off, this project. And lots of stuff. I think we've given him enough to work with, concerns and that kind of stuff. I mean, I am looking forward to something happening there because it's... It would be nice to have that in a way. I mean, I can also understand. People talk about it being a wetland and wildlife and stuff, but really, you don't want any wildlife too much in there because they're going to get run over by the freeway. I mean, there's a lot of danger for wildlife in that area. And birds are one thing, but big animals are another. So they already are moving around right now. So everybody that's driving, watch out. The deer are in migration mode. Okay, so I think we'll close this.

Actually, let me add one thing to our project proponent. It was Rob, correct? I wouldn't, the water course along your, whatever it would be, southern border, maybe shouldn't refer to it just as drainage water through there. I think there is more to it, and I don't think that would be received well, so. Maybe just a little advice. That's it for me. Historic.

Okay, now I will close this conversation and move on to the next agenda item. This is the number eight, and it's a conceptual review very similar to what this was, or exactly similar to what this was, of the RV park and tiny home village on Ski Village and Mount Shasta Boulevard. And it's so complicated to figure out where to go with this. OK. Next slide, please. Huh? Oh, there it is. Yeah. So commissioners, do you want to say anything, or shall we just, because you want our input, right?

Are we on to the next item? Yes. Let's go over a couple of the slides first, and then I'll ask for input. Okay, so just because we have an audience here, I want to orient everybody. So now we're on to agenda item number eight. This is another conceptual plan for an RV park in a tiny home village across the street from the city park. So if we're here, it's right over there across the street from the road.

The general plan, next slide, please.

Nope. Uh-oh. Okay. So the general plan designation for this one is commercial center. And that wouldn't change because this would be a commercial use. Next slide. The zoning designation correspondingly is general commercial. So again, this project would be consistent with the existing zoning designation and would not require a zone change. So the conceptual site plan. Next slide. Okay, so this is a very high level exhibit. Staff acknowledges that the property lines here are not indicative of actual conditions. This is just a conceptual what we can do kind of diagram. So this is approximately 2.77 acres, just under three acres. The applicant is currently proposing about 14 RV stalls, recreational vehicle stalls for visitors passing through. There is a community building with bathrooms, laundry facilities, some offices, associated parking, common areas. There's a dog park, dog area. And then on the back end is, I think there are only eight buildings shown here, but the intent is to have a tiny home on wheels village of nine units, which is currently consistent with the city's tiny homes on wheels village designation. So That's what we have here. The site is largely undeveloped now. It's important to note that it's kind of a U-shaped, and it surrounds a residential parcel on three sides, and we can talk more a little bit about that. But this is what I have here for now. We do have the applicant, Mr. Freeze, here to provide you with a little bit more information. With that, I will turn it over to Jim.

Thank you.

Give us your name so we know.

My name is Jim Freeze. Lifelong resident here in the county, business owner, Wairika all my life. So I'm very acquainted with what goes on in the county and the county itself. I bought this property in 2015. Very nice that Kim's taken the time to kind of work us through this to give you guys input so we can all be transparent. In 2015-16 I proposed a mini storage complex. Spent about $75,000 in design in CEQA. Went through five different superintendents through the CEQA process. It turned into a nightmare and a train wreck. So I really appreciate her concept, being more transparent, being more business friendly. She's worth every dime you pay her. Really, she is. I called her a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, and she said, well, look, there's another thing coming out on the agenda. If you want to come, come. And she goes, I know it's not very much time. So I just got on the computer and my phone and Chat GPT laid it all out in about a half an hour. 45, and I've never done it before. I was astounded. It pulled all the parcel numbers. It had all of her information. Amazing. So this is a conceptual design with your lead and direction. We want to start to go into a design process. According Clarified nine tiny homes on wheels what I'm looking for is to provide recreational Access for RVs and tiny home rentals No, and not so much taken away from what you guys are proposing because I completely agree. We have a housing problem here Yeah, so Anyway, it's a combination of RVs and tiny homes. The Alpine theme, I mean, you're taking into effect Mount Shasta, everything it has to offer, ski resorts, lakes, hiking, golf. There's so much to do here. So we want to look to advance and go to some type of design to bring... to you to look at on this piece of property. The CEQA process I went through 10 years ago. I'm listening about traffic studies and ingress and egress. We get all that. I would propose, and again, we can talk about it, to come off of, it's called 2M16. We have a deed at access. It goes just off of Ski Village Drive and goes due north. It ends at the Spring Hill parking lot right there. We have needed access into the property, and we were proposed to come off of, enter ingress and egress off of that road at two separate locations for fire safety, what have you. So I think one of the things was nine tiny homes is allowed. Is that...

Up to a maximum of nine in a village.

Okay. Per parcel?

Per parcel.

Okay. The reality is there, and I'm just going to be transparent, I've got three legal parcels there. So that's, you know, I just want you to know, that's what we're thinking. If push came to shove and we thought we needed more than nine, would we be allowed to do it? I'm open-minded to tiny homes on wheels. Do we make something maybe a little more permanent in the 400 to 600 square foot range? One and two bedroom units, two bed, two bath, one and ones for people that want to come in recreation here. Another thing that we've looked at was 3D printed homes, small printed homes. Absolutely amazing what they're doing with those right now. So in wanting to be good members of the community and work together, you know, taking all the input. Steve, I feel bad. I surround his house with my property. But we want to get along. And we want his input. And then the other thing I'm not sure about is Springfield, the trail system, the parking lot. How is that owned? Who manages it? Who leases it? I know the people that own the data center area own all of that hill up there. And it's for sale right now as multiple parcels with that property. So I'm curious about Spring Hill and maybe owning part of Spring Hill and designing some small, tiny homes up on the hill, possibly. Again, just wanting to be transparent, put it out there so you know where we're coming from.

Okay. Commissioners, let's start down there. Tim, you want to ask any questions or comments and stuff? Your microphone is up in the air.

Jim, it looks like an interesting concept and something that I'd like to see more of. I understand you put it together in a half hour. Congratulations. That's impressive. I did wonder when I read this whether the tiny homes on wheels were to be long-term or just transitory.

The concept right now is it's strictly a business decision. It'd be transitory.

It'd be what?

They would be transitory. Short-term rentals. Yeah. Yeah.

Right, and I made the assumption that the tiny homes were owned by third parties and would come here and stay in this. They would bring their tiny homes into the space, or are you talking about you would own the tiny homes?

We would own the tiny homes and the property underneath the tiny homes and rent on a day-to-day, one day, two day, three, short term. Would be our goal. And again, it comes down to a business decision. When you punch the numbers in a calculator, in that property, it doesn't make monetary sense in return on investment to rent the property. You let somebody buy the home and I rent the ground under the property for $300, $400, $500 a month. It doesn't pencil out. So that's There's not enough space there to do it.

Those were my initial questions. I look forward to seeing what comes next.

Hey Jim. How are you? You're a long timer on this commission.

Not as long as some. Do I understand your Quick concept here that you're proposing, you're not changing the access point of Ski Village on to North Mountain Shasta Boulevard, are you?

No, no, no, no. We would come off of North Mountain Shasta Boulevard to Ski Village. Kim, what do you guys call that road? Do you have a name for it? Chat GP calls it 2M16.

I have one of the letters to comment. I had something on that.

We can scroll back to that vicinity map. Jeremy, can you go back three slides?

I think it's actually not a dedicated road. It's a... Excuse me.

Back two more.

It's a... Access. Right of entry. Right of entry or something like that. I'm not sure. What is it called out as? 16. Yeah. Yes. This is designation.

I've been talking...

Okay, but it does appear that you're proposing a second private road access north of the Ski Village intersection with the northbound Chester Boulevard. I think that's it.

That was a chat GP, and I wasn't smart enough to take it off there. That is not my intent, is to have one that runs east and west. from basically it would be spring hill parking lot to mount shasta boulevard you get it yeah and i you're not going to get another point of access on to north mount shasta boulevard through there no no no i don't even know don't even want to think about it okay so we would we would propose to do some type of ingress and egress off of 2m16 in and out okay all right um Cool.

That's all I have.

Thank you, Jim, for providing an explanation here. I went out and walked the site, and I thought, man, this doesn't make any sense. But I understand it's chat GPT. Yeah, yeah. It explains a lot of stuff.

She said, if you can get it to me by Monday, I might get it to the council. And I was just like, oh. I have friends that do some engineering and stuff. It would have taken them a week, 10 days to do what ChatGP did.

This works fine, especially with your explanation, because a lot of things have been cleared up. I was looking at this as longer-term rental, because I think that's one of the notes in here. Understanding what your use of this would be makes a lot of sense to me, too, in terms of property ownership management of the properties of the whole nine yards.

Yeah, it's just not the right piece of property, I don't feel, for long-term, although it's needed. Question, Kim, on the Rob Brewster's project, 28, what do you call them, cabins?

Cottages.

Cottages, that's what it was. Is that going to be a long-term or short-term?

Those are slated for long-term housing.

Okay, okay. One other question, the landing. Is that the Roseburg property? That is. Do you know, do they have any conceptual stuff?

Oh, yeah. There are lots of plans.

So I need to come and see that.

Yeah. I'll let you in on town hall number three.

Okay.

All right. Perfect. Thank you.

So I don't have anything additional to add over what's been discussed here. It's an exciting opportunity to do something here, and you're potentially bringing something forward that makes that useful, adds to the community. Exactly. Looks good to me. I'll look forward to seeing what your next steps will be.

We just want to know that we can go ahead and start spending some money on design and move forward.

I've got a question. Can I just add to my comment? My last comment. There will probably be an issue. We've been talking about noise. There's probably going to be a noise attenuation need on that site.

Yeah, we've... The CEQA prior, I think we were here in 20 or 21. I think it was 20. And we had a pretty thorough CEQA. I don't know if some of that data can still be used or not. I understand the noise thing. You know, all that property is all zoned in. There is C2. Not my property and... Some of the housing, it's non-conforming. It's in a non-conforming use.

So it's like... No, you might have to take into account the construction practices for your units.

Oh, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.?

No, no, no. Oh. No, noise. Oh. So there's quite a bit of noise coming off of North Mount Shasta Boulevard.

Yeah, there is auto noise.

The units may have to be built in such a way as to maintain noise levels.

Do you know how many times I've been down here in the evening and sat on that property in my pickup with my windows down when the railroad went through?

How many times?

Yeah, a lot of times. And it's shocking. I just asked Steve. I said, do you ever get used to that train? He said, it's not bad in the wintertime when the windows are closed. But he said, summertime, it can roll you out of bed. So we're already thinking about earthen berms and things like that to help. shift some of that, because that's a concern. Just don't take those trees out, all right? That's another question I have. I don't want to take trees out, but thank God we didn't have a fire this year and it didn't originate on my three acres of property and run up Spring Hill. I need to get in and probably start to do a little bit of maintenance, brushing, cleaning up, There are a lot of trees there. I got in trouble once before for going in and doing some work. I'd like to talk to somebody about coming in and flagging for me trees. Because we want to be good neighbors, I don't want to get in trouble. So that's a question that I would have for her, you, planning commission members, is how do I proceed with that? Okay.

So I have some issues. First off, the road that isn't a road, that isn't an access, it's just this very weird thing as far as I can tell from the other people that live on that road. It's not clear. It's not really a road. And so that needs to be cleared up and also very clear what's happening with Spring Hill because you're going to have a real problem if there's no parking like there is now. So wait. And I also... I am very concerned about the ski village comes down there and does that stupid bend and also the humane society and all that weird area that's not, what is it? You know, it's not a street, it's not a, what is it? It's not a parking area, it's just, it's not the humane society's problem or fault, but it's weird. You know, it's just weird. Everybody trying to get out if they're parking there and they're trying to get out and there's RVs coming in and there's people that don't know how troublesome that area is. And crossing over Mount Shasta Boulevard when you try to hang a left there, it's kind of like this hill and the traffic's coming down. It's a massively difficult intersection. And then we're talking about the former Crystal Geyser plant. That's the easiest thing to call it. And if it does anything, the kind of traffic it might add to this. And I think we need to think about that because it's there. That building is there and they're trying to sell it. So what are we doing as a city for this terrible, terrible intersection? I mean, this man wants to develop property and he has this way too much RV as far as I'm concerned for that little triangle that's there.

Completely conceptual, ma'am.

Well, but I'm going to tell you, say this, because you gave me this. Yeah, sure. So I don't want to not say something and then have you come back and say, well, you didn't say anything, babe, you know, so I'm saying something. No, thank you. And so I'm very concerned with that area because I know it really well, and I don't like it without any development. you know it's really bad so it needs to be thought about and I really would like to encourage you to make some of those tiny homes permanent residences at least Three or four of them. I know it's about money, but at the same time, you're talking about how you're doing all this for the community and blah, blah, blah, and I'm going, okay, I'm telling you. That's a need. Okay, and I would also like to know, make sure that if this comes forward and you are doing the RV, that you don't have too many long-term RV sites where they all of a sudden become messy, shall I say.

What I would put forward to you, and thank you for that. We've been through the traffic thing the first time I went through this process, and I've heard it. I get it. I don't know many RVs that are going to spend $75, $80 a night for 30 days. That'd be great. That's $3,000, $4,000.

A lot of RV parks, though, have long-term. And so now you're saying that, but in the future it might be different. So I'm just saying.

No, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Okay.

That is not our concept, not our goal. It's long-term.

All right. I think we should open it up to the public because it's getting late. I mean, this is not a deal for any of us. So thank you, Jim.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Okay, let me gather my thoughts. I'm opening up this to commentary from the public, and would you give me your name and just your town you live in? You don't need to give me an address, unless you want to.

Hello, I'm Steven Lehman, and I'm the intervening residential parcel. And what I love about this conceptual diagram is if you compare figure one and figure two, the conceptual diagram increases my property size dramatically. So I definitely, I encourage you to approve it. But okay, so you know, Jim and I, we're neighbors. And you know, it's a special area with the trail. and the headwaters and it's the tourist Japanese buses pull in and they walk down and look at the headwaters. They have to run across the road though. There needs to be a crosswalk. But I'm glad Jim is coming up with something that's a little more appropriate because in this zoning it could be just a big metal box with rivet stampers. And so in some ways I welcome this change from the previous proposal for the area. In some ways, when you move most of the business operations outside of building, it causes more room for problems. And so, obviously, I've already anticipated a lot of those. If Jim wants to work with the neighborhood when he's developing his plan, I think we could work together to anticipate things that would go well and and and be accepted and things that wouldn't and then you know he wouldn't it might help to uh make a viable proposal um for me my that whole area was on a different grade and gary gloin filled it in um i don't know if he did it with a permit but so i'm down this recessed backyard so i have some special uh concerns about being able to continue with the quiet enjoyment of my property, not having garbage and everything blow off the higher areas and accumulate down there, for instance, that I think that I feel optimistic that we could get a fair review here before you guys and maybe even streamline the process. I do think that having a permanent presence there is going to be necessary one way or another because now the business commodity is human habitation. temporary, short term, but humans need to have rules. There needs to be guidelines. And so somebody needs to be on site. That could be a great income opportunity for somebody who's looking for an affordable home. And so there's other elements that possibly could fit in here well. So anyway, it's really very broad and vague. So I don't want to be giving it a stamp of approval. And there's all the normal vintage interveners standing by who want to make sure that everything goes well. But it seems like there's some potential here as far as I'm concerned. Just really quick on the noise. In my review of the noise for the previous proposal, because of the train noise and the highway noise, the average, you know, noise is averaged, it would exceed It's very easy to exceed the allowable noise in that area. So anyway, I think noise mitigation would be a big problem. Nighttime illumination, drainage so I don't get flooded out. We need increased water main size so we have proper water pressure. leaving it the way it is now as a fire hazard. But if we do develop it, there's going to be other fire possibilities like people smoking, so vegetation management is going to be a big issue. And then the access. We'll definitely need a traffic study, I think. Sorry, am I beyond time? Your time is... Okay. Just access North Mount Shasta Boulevard and the ski village will need a traffic study, I think. So thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thanks, David.

Araya, Mount Shasta, again, obviously. I really love the overall concept, and I do also want to just applaud. They're collaborating. They've got neighboring properties. They're really having a conversation. They're open to creative ideas. I love all of that. I love that he's trying to include some tiny homes and and everything, I think that's wonderful. I'm really happy to see someone bringing something like this forward. I will say we absolutely need long-term housing, not just because we're in a housing crisis and it's the right thing to do and that's what our community needs, honestly, because we really are facing a huge demographic cliff. But besides that, if you guys can remember when we were bringing forth the tiny home ordinance, a big part of that did also include that that was not to be used for short-term rentals. I don't believe we even can use those for short-term rentals, because that was part of the discussion. So obviously, I understand finances, and we know, because we were literally given a lot in Lake Shastina. We're still trying to piece together, how do we build in an affordable way? I love he's looking at 3D printed. I love he's coming up with, let's look at all the creative ideas, because we're looking at all that stuff, too. So it might be even fun to have a brainstorming session sometime about bounce ideas and research and see what can be done because The affordability issue is a huge issue on a lot of fronts. And we've talked about fee relief for utilities and all kinds of other things that can help kind of ease that and make it a possibility to start moving forward on actually building some solutions that are workable for people. So I just, the long-term is absolutely critical. We have to have long-term options. So I just want to remind everybody that.

Thank you. Anybody else? Yes.

I'd like to thank Jim for bringing this idea forward. Support. Approved. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. But like my babe said, yeah, so just one thing to be aware of. There's so many codes and stuff and so many new updates going on. One thing to be aware of is the shortest short-term approval for tiny house inside the ordinance of this city is 30 days. It's not so much one, two, three days, but it is 30 days. So that might change your model. And, you know, more permanent houses, three or four, great suggestion. And we just did a presentation in the city of Weed for tiny homes, and they're about to take on the ordinance in their planning commission to start to copy and paste. So what I need is a model. I need a place that Dunsmuir, I just talked to them and their commissioner again, because we were pushing the 7.5 Airbnb cap that was down there, We talked at coffee, but even then, would love to come see a model, something they can touch. Young families, I mean, I don't know how many more dead horses I can beat about this topic, but we just need something to touch. We need a real thing to touch. So, If we can continue to talk about this, I feel like his heart's in the right place. Might just need a little bit more modeling, talking through a couple things, but I think in the long run, he would probably do a lot of good things for a lot of good families here, and we'll find a happy medium somewhere. So yeah, we'd love to collab. Thank you. Thank you. Perfect, good job.

Anyone else tonight? Good. Thank you. We're getting tired up here. So I close the public comment. Commissioners, anything else you want to say or are we good for the evening and we can close this conversation piece? You have enough information to do something, Kim? Yeah. I have plenty. I figured you must. You got plenty. Anyway. So then... We will go to number, what is it, nine? And the Planning Commission and Planning Director comments. Anybody have a comment? I do. Because, you know, I'm clean and safe. That's one of the other little hats I wear once in a great while. and we do have some cleanups happening, but one of the people that cleans up all the time was mentioning that the new apartments, affordable housing units, that the... Construction workers aren't the neatest person in the world. So that maybe before they get okayed, they have to go and pick up all the bottles and trash that they have scattered.

They should be doing that every day before they leave.

Well, this other person's managing to pick up a lot of stuff. You know, and if it's windy, it blows, you know. So, yes. Okay, just to keep an eye on that. I'm doing that for her because she cleans up all the time. And that's all I have to say. Oh, planning director, do you have anything for us tonight?

Just a couple of items. The first one would be under staffing updates. So you saw a new face tonight for agenda numbers five and six. That's Chris. Right now, ESA is scoped to help the city get past the noise element, noise ordinance, which that box is checked. But going forward, It's unclear how much time and bandwidth I'm going to have in the next short term future to work on planning things. So until we know a little bit more, I'm going to proceed with securing consultant planners to do more planning work because I have a full workload doing other things. So there may be some new faces coming at you in the next few months.

Are they going to be in person or remote?

That remains to be seen. It's really hard getting somebody in person here. All the consultants are in other parts of the state and having a consultant zoom in this evening is saving the city a lot of time and dollars and getting someone to physically drive up here from Sacramento and spend a night in a hotel and driving home. The city is on the hook for paying all of those expenses when we have consultants. So to the extent that we can work efficiently and remotely, That's probably what's going to happen.

Can we, if we are not happy with the consultant, because we've had this before. Oh, I'm well aware. And somebody with a little experience. Thank you. I needed that. Or if possible. Because I think we scared the other one terribly because of the questions we'd ask. And we don't want to do that. But I just know that if we say, no, this one isn't working out for us, do we have that ability? I mean, it doesn't have to come. He can be on the TV screen.

No, we do have that ability. And quite frankly, we shouldn't get that far into... an exercise with contract staff before we find out if it's going to work out or not. There's a lot of vetting that's going to happen ahead of time because that person is directly responsible for taking over my work. And there's a very specific list of things that have to be done in very specific time periods. And so there will be some level of oversight. It's not like I'll be handing everything over and saying, good luck. there is a level of oversight there. And I'll still continue to come to planning commission meetings. But we just need a little bit more help. Oh, you do? Yeah.

No problem.

So that's coming. I don't know how quickly. I'm in the process of interviewing with consultants now. So probably by the October meeting, there might be a new face or two to see. Yeah. Um, so that's the staffing update. And then the other one is the landing master plan. I don't know if you guys were able to listen in on town hall meeting number two, but that just happened either last week or the week before the weeks are all running together. But the short of it is there was a lot of really good feedback given in town hall meeting number one for the landing. And the consultant spent a lot of good time refining their concept to present for town hall meeting number two. It was a smaller crowd, but there was still a lot of good feedback. And even then, the land uses will be refined still before we get to town hall meeting number three, and then a presentation before the planning commission to review and approve and adopt the conceptual master plan. So there are a couple of more meetings to be had. So to the extent that you're available to come to the third town hall meeting, that would be super. If not...

When's it going to be? Do you know?

You know, I don't have a solid date. I'm meeting with a consultant team tomorrow, and we'll have a solid date after tomorrow for the third town hall meeting.

Do you let us know as a commission when those meetings are, or can you?

Yes, I can.

Thank you.

Yeah, that'd be great.

Absolutely. So that's the update on the landing, but it is progressing as expected. We're really excited to see something happen. So we'll get to the end of this and then unleash next steps. So those are the updates that I have for tonight.

And then you have number 10, the future agenda items, which, yeah, that will all just depend, kind of.

That will all just depend. So they're moving targets, but that's, I didn't put anything on October. There may be some things coming up in October. I just didn't want to overcommit myself. But when we get to the conceptual master plan, that's probably November, general plan amendments for the safety element, land use element, you know, that'll come, that'll come soon. We just need to find somebody to do the work. Thank you.

Okay, good, everybody? So we now will adjourn to the next regular meeting, hopefully on Tuesday, October 20th, 2026. Okay, thank you.