Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, let the record show that we are missing two members of the Planning Commission. Commissioner Dillon and Commissioner Bogusich are not with us today. That brings us to item B, which is minutes. And this is approval of the minutes of the regular Planning Commission meeting of June the 9th, 2026. Can I have a motion to approve the minutes?

Motion to approve.

Second. I'll second. All those in favor say aye or raise your hand. Aye. Motion passes, three ayes and two absent. Okay. That brings us to written communications. Do we have any written communications?

No written communications this evening.

None this evening, thank you. Brings us to item D on the agenda, oral communications. Giving anybody in our vast audience an opportunity to address the commission on any item that is not on the agenda tonight. Do we have anybody wishing to address the commission? Okay. Seeing that, that brings us to the new park place specific plan overlay district. And it also has a general plan land use designation of regional commercial. So I understand we do have a staff report this evening?

Yes, thank you. Good evening. 6.30 p.m. or 7 p.m. And closing hours would be either from 9 p.m., 9.30 p.m., 10 p.m., 10.30 p.m. Approximately 35 employees would be working. And additional security would also be provided depending on the event night. The number of security guards would vary with a minimum of five security guards on slow nights and 12 on busy nights. Both the employees and security guards would be trained to act in response to an emergency and would ensure a safe and efficient operation. The project complies with the parking requirements for special events as New Park Mall currently has over 5,000 parking spaces. The parking area in front of the former Sears building is typically underutilized. Customers would be encouraged to park along that area, as shown in yellow, between the 24-hour fitness and Sears. However, customers may also utilize any available parking spaces throughout the mall. Overall, the mall would maintain a reasonable amount of parking to accommodate the event and should any parking or traffic related complaints arise, a condition of approval requires the applicant to prepare a parking and traffic analysis and the applicant would be required to mitigate any issues identified by the study. The applicant proposes to utilize the existing interior layout and floor plan. This interior layout and floor plan remains in place from the previous year and has not been altered or removed. Therefore, no new interior or exterior improvements are proposed as part of this project. In the zoning code, an event that exceeds three consecutive days may be allowed with the approval of a conditional use permit so long as the event does not extend longer than one month, which staff has interpreted this to be up to a total of 30 days, and that the event does not impact neighboring uses or create significant impacts. The planning commission shall approve or conditionally approve the conditional use permit request based on the required findings. Overall, the project would comply with the zoning code and new park place specific plan in that it would be compatible with the characteristic of the surrounding neighborhoods It would not unreasonably affect adjacent properties or the surrounding neighborhood, and it would not impact the adjacent businesses inside the mall as most commercial retail businesses typically close around 8 p.m. And based on staff's analysis, the conditional use permit findings for the project can be made in the affirmative. The project is categorically exempt from CEQA pursuant to the mentioned CEQA guidelines in the staff report and on this slide. With that said, staff recommends the Planning Commission to adopt the draft resolution approving the conditional use permit for the project based on the findings provided in the draft resolution. And that concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. And the applicant is also here at the meeting to answer any questions as well. Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much, Ms. Nguyen. Does anybody on the commission have any questions before I open up the public hearing? Yes.

Commissioner Fitts? Is there a minimum age for the people to go into, are small kids allowed to go into this? Or maybe this is better for the applicant?

Oh, yeah, I'll defer the applicant to answer that question.

Okay. Any other, well, let's, yeah, we could. We could wait and ask once we open up the public hearing. Wait till we open up the public hearing, I'll ask him that.

Any other questions before we open the public hearing? Okay, at this point, I'm going to open up the public hearing to allow anyone in our audience to address the commission on this item. And as traditional, we ask the applicant to come up to the podium first. Okay, so first of all, have you read the resolution and do you agree with all the conditions of approval? I have, yes. Okay, I probably should have had you introduce yourself first.

Make the point.

Okay, thank you. All right, so you have read the resolution, you agree to all the conditions?

Yes.

Okay, Commissioner Fitts had a question regarding is there a minimum age to go into fear overload?

We recommend 12 years or older. Okay, okay.

All right. Any other questions or comments? Commissioner Aguilar.

Mr. Polanco, how has attendance been annually? Does it generally improve each year, or have there been any years that are better than others?

I think we have been climbing a little bit, and so that's been our goal is to continue growing.

Well, I assume since you keep coming back that you must be doing okay there. Must be strong. Yeah.

Okay. This last year was better than the year prior.

Okay, well that's good. It's on the upward swing. Okay, well thank you very much. Is there anybody else in the audience that wishes to speak on this item? Okay, seeing none, I'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing and bring it back to the Commission. Does the Commission have any other comments or questions? Okay. At this point, I'm going to entertain a motion to adopt the resolution approving the conditional use permit to allow for a temporary commercial entertainment.

I'll make a motion. Second.

Okay. A motion and a second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye or raise your hand. Aye. Anybody opposed? Okay. Passes three ayes and two absent. Good luck, Mr. Polanco, once again. Thank you.

Have a successful year.

Okay, that brings us to our next item, which is staff reports, and we have no agenda staff report scheduled this evening. Brings us to item G, which is commission matters, and the first item is G1, which is a report on any city council items. Mr. Turner, do we have any?

Yes, well, thank you, Chair Becker. No specific actions to report on tonight. However, we do want to make the commission aware of the City Council meeting for Thursday night where City Council will be considering two items that have a land use component to them. We are requesting that the City Council conduct study sessions for two project proposals that have been submitted for essentially a preliminary study session type of review that may involve changes to the general plan land use map and the zoning district map as well. These are legislative changes that would need to be approved by the city council. These changes are based upon the development of findings and council has the discretion to approve or deny these projects. Oftentimes as planning staff we get requests in from property owners and developers for project concept review and those property owners and developers seek staffs guidance on how to move forward and how the their projects could be reviewed and approved. Sometimes those proposals include requests for modifications of the general plan land use map or zoning changes and those are Those are big changes. The city has, of course, the general plan land use map and zone district map that implements the general plan And typically we don't wanna change those. The city council has adopted the general plan that sets the land use guidance out to the future. So we take the request for a general plan change very seriously and provide a great deal of scrutiny to them. And oftentimes we tell the developer no, that we have a land use map, we wanna have a diversity of uses. We don't wanna create a patchwork of uses throughout the city. and developers come back and said, well, what could get us to a yes from the city council's perspective? And those are tough discussions to have because we can't predict what the city council and the planning commission and the city council would do. So in this case, we felt it would be a good opportunity to have the city council conduct a study session to provide some early high-level input to developers about their project proposals. We know that there's a diversity of views and opinions on the City Council and we want to make sure that the developers hear those opinions so that they can make the best decision on whether or not to move forward with a formal application or not. There's no approvals or no decisions happening with the study session, but allows the developer to make a presentation to council and then receive some very early high level feedback about the project, about in this case density or intensity, site planning and community benefits. Oftentimes if the city council is considering a land use change, we want to make sure it's overall beneficial to the community. Developers are aware that housing and affordable housing in particular are very important to the city. And they also know that residential projects often bring most value to landowners and property owners. And so in this case, we have two property owners who came forward at about the same time seeking general plan land use changes, or at least inquiring about them. The two sites under consideration are the Holbert Lumber site on Cedar, which has been a family-owned business for many, many years, but the family has indicated that they're interested in selling that business and selling the land, and so they've been working with a series of potential developers, and at this point, the developer of the project, the Robson Home project on Cedar has come forward with a concept that they would like council to hear. The other site is on Gateway Boulevard in Jarvis. This is adjacent to the Aloft Hotel. There's two smaller office and medical office and lab space buildings. I think one of them was occupied by DeVry University at one time. My understanding is that they're mostly vacant. at this point and the landowner is looking for additional value essentially from those sites and is proposing a residential project on that site as well. The two sites are very different. The two sites are not competing with each other or anything like that. They're looking, being reviewed and considered on their own. But they're taking a couple of different approaches to providing some community benefits and affordable housing. The Jarvis developer is looking to put affordable housing on site with a separate affordable residential building in combination with residential townhomes. The Robson Home developer on Holbert Lumber site would have mostly a townhome style development that mirrors the residential neighborhood across the street from Holbert Lumber. And they would be looking to do an offsite affordable housing residential project. So with those projects, we felt it would be helpful for the city council to conduct some high level review and give the applicant some overall direction about those projects and the developer can decide whether or not to file a formal application. Staff has not conducted any sort of project analysis other than analyzing the conformity with the general plan and the zoning. but we haven't done any environmental review, we haven't done any assessment of conformance with the development standards or site development regulations or anything like that. We would do that once a formal application comes in and we would assess what entitlements are needed, come to the planning commission for the standard review and recommendation to council and then eventually up to the city council up at that point. So because Because of the fact of the general plan changes, the community benefits through affordable housing that are being proposed, and because we know that there's a diversity of opinion on council, we felt that the study session process was a good way to go. So this is relatively new. We don't do study sessions that often. So we're gonna see how this goes. If we're successful, then maybe this might become a little bit more of a common occurrence. And if not, we'll learn lessons and adapt that way. So that's what's happening on Thursday night. So a little bit of a different process than we've done in before, but we think it's a good opportunity to introduce this study session concept to provide this early review. Happy to answer any questions about that.

I do have a question. Yes. So will these two developers be making a pitch to the council during this study session?

In a way, they'll be presenting their project proposal. Okay. And perhaps not quite a pitch, but certainly I think they want to clearly articulate their project and what they believe the benefits of the project are to the community. Council is not making any sort of decision. It's not a gatekeeper process in this way, as some cities do. Some cities have a formal process where they say, they hear this type of presentation from a developer and say, you may go forward with an application. And it usually, in my experience, it happens when there's a development maximum or a development cap and there might be some competition in a way to develop under that cap in a certain way. And so some councils and decision-making bodies can decide which projects they want to see move forward and things like that. We don't have any of that here, but still, I think it's a good way to provide some initial feedback to a developer before they spend a lot of time and money in a project. Thank you. You're welcome.

What's the underlying zoning on the Jarvis property and also the Hulbert property?

On Jarvis, it's a light industrial. And that's consistent with the business that is there. And the light industrial includes not only the Holbert Lumber, but the sort of the retail and light industrial use. There's the shoe repair and a Mia bakery. There's a liquor store. So in that area, that's also light industrial as well. It wouldn't include that area. It doesn't include that area. Just the Holbert Lumber site. the jarvis site is zoned btp that's the business and technology park that's a relatively new district i think that was established around 2018. yes and the business and technology park extends essentially northeast up jarvis up to gateway and includes lucid motors and and the other pharmaceutical companies and advanced manufacturing companies that are in that neighborhood.

Okay, interesting. Is that it, Mr. Turner?

Any other questions? I think in the past we've had joint meetings with the council when something like this comes up with the informal, just to kind of assign things. It seems like we're out of the loop on this one.

Yeah, this one we felt that since the Council is the decision-making body on this legislative action that it was appropriate to do so. We might find after we conclude this process that perhaps the Planning Commission is the appropriate body to conduct these types of study sessions. And so we might pivot and switch in order to best serve what the Council might need from the Planning Commission on this review.

I do recall there being a joint session for the New Park Mall plan. I think we did that.

We may have also done that in the Bayside Newark TOD area. I think when the FFC Well is just starting out, we may have had a study session there. It hasn't been Newark's practice to do study sessions, but this could be a helpful tool.

Yeah. Interesting to see how it goes. Yeah, because I do read the agendas and look at what's going on, and it kind of surprised me that they're considering that. Yep. Yeah.

Very good.

They're the final decision-maker anyway. Sure. Right. We don't have the power of the purse. Nope. I'm glad sometimes.

That's all that I have, but I will pass it over to Senior Planner Carmelisa Lopez to talk about upcoming planning commissions.

Thanks. Yes, thanks. Thank you. I did want to inform the commission that we will have a planning commission meeting for the next meeting. I believe it's July 14th. So for that meeting, we will be presenting the objective design standards project. You may recall in, I believe it was April of this year, we did a study session. We requested some feedback from the commission, as well as the public during that time. And we have taken those comments into consideration and are ready to present the proposed standards to you all.

Thank you. Good. Anything else? No other items to report today. Okay, thank you. All right, that brings us to item H, which is planning commissioner comments. I'll start with my colleague to the right of me right here, Commissioner Fitts. Do you have anything for the good of the order?

Nothing this evening other than wish everybody a happy 4th of July if we don't see you before then. Yes, thank you.

Commissioner Aguilar.

Nothing for me, happy 4th.

Okay, and I have nothing either. That brings us to item I, which is adjournment.

Yeah, I saw that.