Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, mics are ready.

Wonderful. Welcome to the Planning Commission meeting of May 11, 2026. If you would, please join me to pledge allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

All right. Let's see here. We are going to do a roll call.

Okay. Actually, let me get you guys in order here. This is something I do.

Peter Tiernan's not here tonight, by the way.

I will not have Commissioner Tiernan this evening. Okay. Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Commissioner Grebe.

Here.

Commissioner Havel. Here. Commissioner Roche. Here. Commissioner Tuckenberger.

Here.

Commissioner Harroff.

I'm here.

Welcome.

Did I pronounce that right? Close enough.

All right. Thanks. How would you like me to pronounce it? Harroff.

It depends on where you're from in Germany.

OK. Fair enough. Fair enough. All right. I'm going to go with Harroff. Harroff's fine. Don't hold it against me. OK. Public approval of the final agenda. Do I have a motion? So moved.

Second.

Commissioner Grigie? Aye. Commissioner Havel? Aye. Commissioner Roche? Aye. Mr. Stockbroker? Aye. Mr. Harroff? Aye. And Commissioner Derby's an aye. Okay, wonderful. Public comment. I will open the public comment period. Anyone who would like to speak, please come forward. Not seeing anybody. We'll close it. All right. We will get right into the consent items. Do I have a motion on those? I move the consent calendar. Second. Wonderful. Commissioner Grege. Aye. Commissioner Habel. Aye. Commissioner Roche. Aye. Commissioner Stuckenberger. Aye. Commissioner Harroff. Aye. And Commissioner Derbys and I. Wonderful. All right. We're just going to get right into the general business. It's going to be the consistency report, the general plan, capital improvements.

Well, thank you. Good evening, everybody. That was probably the speediest kickoff to a meeting I've ever witnessed, so thank you for that. My name is Chris Panini. I'm the Public Works Director for the City of Novato, and tonight we are here to talk about the Capital Improvement Program and review it for general plan consistency. So what we have tonight is a list of projects that Public Works plans on doing for the next fiscal year. And it's set up. Tonight is a requirement that we do in the city. Public Works brings a list forward every year. to the Planning Council Commission, sorry, that you guys review for consistency with general plans. Driven by government code sections 65401, 65402, you can see the two paragraphs really set out. Public Works brings the plan to you, and you review it for general plan consistency, and then it is then taken to City Council. And so the ask tonight is to adopt a resolution reporting to city council that the proposed capital improvement program projects for the next fiscal year are consistent with the general plan. So broad strokes overview. Wanted to go over what we do. What is Public Works? What are we bringing forward? A capital improvement program is a five-year outlay of projects. In broad brushstrokes, it's our roadmap. for what we're prioritizing in the future. We look at a lot of different things. It could be anything from resources to staffing to needs across the community. It's data driven. What we're trying to shift our focus to is a lot of criticality, consequence of failure analysis, really looking hard across all of our different asset types to measure what we should be working on first. um and so this year one of our major themes was we had a recent tax measure measure m and it was really a savior in a lot of different ways for the city but we got a lot of capital influx of funds that we were actually able to bring more projects forward and get the support we need to actually move infrastructure projects forward Seeing that this is the only item tonight, I did want to take one liberty to talk about a few projects we're working on currently. This doesn't have to do with what we're approving tonight, but these are projects that Planning Commission approved in prior years. So it's almost like a little update. You saw them in their planning phases. And so just the next five slides, just wanted to roll through very quickly and give you guys some broad, broad strokes overviews. This is probably the largest project that the city has seen, but the Novato Boulevard improvements from Diablo to Grant, we're ramping up for construction this summer. The private utility companies are wrapping up their work in the next month or two. But now, Nevada Sanitary District, the North Marin Water District, and Nevada are all collaborating to spend the next 24 months continuing to make Nevada Boulevard a mess. But this will be the final phase, and what we're focusing on is the finish line, where we'll have a new three-lane wide road with bike lanes and sidewalks, which is a major, major improvement for the community at that location. It's a major win for traffic safety. Also, we're making movement on the Hamilton Amphitheater Playground. The picture on the left gives you a little bit of the magic behind the scenes. This is what playground design looks like. Every structure we put in a playground, there's a fall zone. So we don't want kids on swings intersecting with kids on slides and vice versa. So it's a small project on the playground, but there's also going to be restroom ADA improvements, parking lot ADA improvements, and really a lot of concrete work around the site to reduce trip and fall hazards. Another roadway winding project is the Olive Avenue Phase 3, which is, if you look at that diagram, that's a striking plan. This is to the southeast of where Trader Joe's is. Where the railroad crossing is on Olive Avenue just to kind of let you know, okay, what are we doing? What are these engineers drawing up? It's stuff like this This is one of the final phases of the construction will be putting striping down and what you're seeing is a modified Format of how traffic will be flowing and how there actually will now be a sidewalk on the north side of the road. So I It's going to be great for folks who like to walk to Trader Joe's. Right now, there is no railroad crossing for pedestrians or bikes. Folks just have to go for it. So this is another major safety one for the city. Lastly, it's the Nevada Police Department HVAC project. Our HVAC on our police department is largely the original design. It's what we like to call a Frankenstein system. It's been piecemealed together for the last 30, 40 years, and it's barely holding together. So we have design going on right now and a lot of analysis to tee up construction in another fiscal year. Actually now lastly the annual payment rehab project last year we just completed the 25-001 which was a lot of small full rehabilitation roadways and 26-001 is what's going to be teed up the summer. This will be late summer into the fall. We're going to be doing Redwood Boulevard from Rowland Avenue almost all the way up to San Marin and Atherton. It's going to be a combination of slurry sealing and full digouts just a lot of a lot of work new striping along the entire corridor and also Class 4 bike lanes on the southern end from Rowland all the way to Diablo And so this is what we're here for tonight, so without further ado getting into We're gonna have three slides to talk about the ten projects categorized them first up as transportation and drainage so in The next fiscal year, we're hoping to begin with the 2027 Annual Pavement Rehab Project. That is something where we don't have the roads identified yet. However, there is going to be analysis. There's going to be a new, it's called a PCI Pavement Condition Index analysis. There's basically a van that drives around the city, has LIDAR scanners, looks at all of our roads, says, okay, these are where the potholes are. These are our worst roads. And that'll help us prioritize for the 2027 roadway selection. And it serves. the general plan what you're going to see is the pattern and these bullet points is we have each project and then the general plan objectives that we found that we're consistent with so public facilities objective number one is management of public facilities and infrastructure managing city facilities and infrastructure in a safe functional and well-maintained manner as practical And that goes for all four projects on this slide. Additionally, Mobility Objective 22 is creating an accessible circulation system that is consistent with guidelines established by the Americans with Disabilities Act. And the next project is storm drain pipe replacements. This is a project that's going to be maintained from our operating crew out of the courtyard. So our streets team does both street work and stormwater work across the city. So $50,000 is giving them the capital influx of funds to do about one to two pipe replacements a year. So they see the worst of the worst. They see pipes when they fail. And this is something to give them the capital needs that they can actually act and follow through on major repairs. And this serves, like I said before, public facilities objective number one, but also safety and hazards objective two, which is reducing the risk of loss of life, personal injury, and property damage resulting from flooding by properly maintaining storm drainage systems naturally. flood control channels, and waterways and regulating runoff from new construction and development projects. Third on the list is Measure M, pedestrian safety project. This is something that was, we were given the opportunity to bring this project forward by the council. It was late in the year, but we added this capital project to address major deficiencies or even minor deficiencies. But in this case, it's four different crossings across the city where we know we can have positive impact on pedestrian safety. I have a slide in a second. I'll show you what it is actually about. But it satisfies the mobility objective number one, which I mentioned before, but also number five, which is providing a safe, convenient, and integrated network of facilities pedestrians and bicyclists, and Mobility Objective 20, which is promoting and providing and maintaining a safe and convenient pedestrian system, including consideration of lighting, sidewalk condition, road surface conditions, roadway crossings, access points, signage, shade landscaping, and street furniture. And last on the list, San Marin Drive corridor improvements. This is a new project that is actually the consolidation of four prior projects on San Marin Drive. And this $350,000 is for a roadway corridor study. It's a comprehensive major study that is going to focus on San Marin Drive the entire length, from where it terminates at Atherton all the way to Boulevard. And I've already talked about mobility objective one and five, but also mobility objective 21, collaborate with schools to identify and prioritize transportation improvements that strengthen pedestrian and bicycle safety for students traveling to and from schools. This has a major impact on San Marino High School and San Ramon Elementary. So there is already collaboration between Nevada and the Nevada Unified School District on this project. And so we really hope to make some major improvements for the students in that area. And so the third bullet point on the first slide was measuring pedestrian safety projects. It's improving three crosswalks with rectangular rapid flashing beacons. It's those little spots where you hit the little button on the side of the road and you have the orange flashing signs really to improve crossings along the major corridors. But also behind Nevada High School, we're going to add a new crosswalk on Washington Street at Gardner, which is right now it's just kind of along a blind corner and kids are popping out along the road and this will help make it safer. And like I mentioned with the San Marin Drive corridor improvements, it's a consolidation of these four previous CIPs. They all were From an outsider's perspective, it looked random. There was four different projects, different intersections, some random safety improvements, what our goal is to consolidate, have a cognitive scale, and come up with a cohesive plan for the entire corridor and really make it something that's going to be usable and actually better for the future. The graphic on the left really is only conceptual. I'm not going to be advocating for traffic circles now or in the future. We're going to let the traffic engineers tell us what the safest formatting would be, but initial preliminary studies showed that at San Marino High School, a traffic circle would be better than a four-way red signalized intersection. Okay, moving on to parks and recreation community services. So here we have the Hamilton community pool and play structure replacement. The existing pool and play structure, it's beyond its anticipated useful life. This $50,000 is to do a study and asset condition analysis of the pool itself to make sure that When we replace the structure, it actually meets ADA requirements and is actually going to last into the future. And that satisfies public facilities objective number one, which is the management of public facilities and infrastructure, city facilities, and infrastructure that is safe, functional, and well-maintained as much as practicable. Second on the list, downtown rec center turf. The downtown rec center, there's a little pocket park on the north side of the building. And it's all spring, has been lost in the turf. There's drainage problems. So we need to do analysis of the stormwater drainage, replace the underlying material for the turf in order to make it more practical for kids to play on. and potentially open up a can of worms to figure out how to actually make a drain better. So that's a preliminary study and some initial site work. And that is also public facilities, objective number one, and mobility objective 22, which is accessibility improvements, creating an accessible circulation system that is consistent with guidelines established by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Marin Highlands Park, which you can actually see that's a picture on the left. It's an aging park with a lot of wood structure. So the playground structure and the surface is hopefully going to be replaced as part of this capital project. And it involves two of the objectives that we've already talked about, but also living well objective two, which is community and neighborhood parks, providing a network of community and neighborhood parks within walking distance of all neighborhoods to the maximum extent feasible. Fourth on the list is Marion Park, and this is a satisfies all the same objectives as Marion Highlands Park, but a very different project. Marion Park is a lot of play fields, and it involves a lot of gopher abatement. About 150,000 out of 200,000 is for gopher abatement and reconditioning the ball fields. And then 50,000 is for ADA improvements. And Parks Master Plan Accessibility Project Phase 3 satisfies also the objectives, Public Facilities Objective 1, Mobility Objectives 22, and Living Well Objectives 2. This is a lot of small projects. It's ADA enhancements, anything from pocket parks to major parks, and it's a lot of little things spread across the entire city. And the last project, municipal buildings and the rooftop solar module replacement. We are dedicating $50,000 to do a study of the solar systems at the Hill gymnasium, Margaret Todd senior center, and the downtown recreation center. All those solar systems are aging. Uh, they have multiple inverters that have broken down. So we have solar systems that are not fully functioning. And so it's to hire an electrician to do a full analysis to see, okay, should we be replacing the inverters? Should we be moving forward with these projects or should we be doing full full-on replacements. And that satisfies public facilities objective one, which is facilities and infrastructure, managing city facilities and infrastructure in a safe, functional, and well-maintained manner as practical. And environmental stewardship objective 25, increasing energy and water efficiency and conservation and city buildings equipment and operations promoting energy and water conservation and building upgrades to the community and That is the end I am available for any questions

Wonderful, thank you. Bringing it back to the Commission for some questions, then I'll open it up to public comment, and then we'll bring it back around for a final recommendation. So, Mr. Grigie, any questions from you?

Yeah, just a quick couple of questions. First, on the pedestrian improvements, I might have missed it. It's just those like handful of projects that were on the slides, correct? Or am I missing that there might be like additional, or is it like the road improvements where some of the projects haven't been identified yet? I just wanted to confirm.

So what was presented tonight, the last four slides, are all new projects. The city has ongoing capital projects in the past. I think you might be referring to other things around the city, but it would be... So this is what you're referring to?

Yeah, going forward a slide. Just wanted to confirm that those are the four projects that are...

So these are the four small locations that are part of the Measure M safety project. So it's $250,000 out of, for this coming fiscal year, it's about a $20 million budget. So we got a lot more going on than just these four locations, thankfully.

Perfect. Just wanted to make sure. And then on the Samaritan Drive improvements, do you have, are there any, I was a, full disclosure, I'm an alumnus of Samaritan High School, so I know the pedestrian challenges there well. I have seen... Many of former classmates almost get run over at San Marin Drive and San Carlos, kind of going between the high school and across the street towards the church across the street. Are there any improvements envisioned for that intersection? I mean, the idea of a roundabout, I think, is really intriguing for that intersection, because that's often the source of traffic there. But I'm just kind of...

Curious. So yes, San Carlos is an intersection that we do want to have a lot of improvements. Its current state, it's a low condition. It's not a complete failure, but as far as intersection goes, we do need to do work on it in future years. This corridor study, that intersection is part of it. So prioritizing, whether it be Nevada Boulevard, San Maran at San Andreas has major ADA improvements that we want to do. So there's a lot of different projects that are going to stem out of the study. Can't tell you what the prioritization is, but we're going to let traffic engineers kind of give us input and say, okay, which is going to be the highest safety impact that we can basically attack first.

Excellent. And then my final question is, Late last year, we had a number of residents from the neighborhood off of Davidson Street testify in front of the Planning Commission about pedestrian safety challenges in the neighborhood. Is there any plan? I didn't see any mention of that here, but in the short to medium term of making improvements in that neighborhood.

So Davidson rings a bell, but just to give you a lay of the land how things come into Public Works and how we prioritize them, every single traffic safety issue that's presented to Public Works, we run it by a traffic engineer. There's everything from speed monitoring to traffic warrants to Stop sign analysis to sight line considerations and go through the litany of all the different measurements and you know ways that we can improve the road then from that it either goes on a list of quick repairs emergency repairs to Long-term fixes and well, I can't tell you offhand what we're focusing on as far as road my road We do have another committee. It's the CSPAC, and they periodically work with the engineering department to create a long list of projects. It's the bike-imped plan, and it was recently amended in 2023 with new projects. So all these requests that go to our traffic engineering team, they're put on lists, and it's brought to our committee that they look at it, they prioritize it, they come up with ideas for different safety projects across the city. And so if Davidson is not already in the biking pad plan, it might be living in a list that's going to be taken to C-SPOC for a future addendum.

Excellent. Thank you so much. Those are my questions. I'm really excited about the stuff that is before us tonight. Some really exciting projects.

Great questions. Commissioner Hammer? No questions. Thank you.

Wonderful.

Commissioner Roach? So I have a few questions. And I know this is just a sip, but look, if we can't get it now, when do we get it? Couple of questions dialing way back to the projects that have been gone, going Novato, Boulevard in particular, between DeLong and 7th. I'll believe it when I see it. Okay. Is that going to be completed this year? No, sir. Okay. I have a really hard time that we can't even get some sidewalks in for people that need them more than anybody. I see people, ladies, pushing their kids in strollers. And the city comes across, as far as I'm concerned, as indifferent to their needs between 7th and DeLong. It is nothing but a danger spot for people that don't have access to be vocal and advocate on their behalf. I have to ask the city to even come over and trim the hedges on that thing. It's not my job to do that. It's really base. When is that gonna be done?

So right now the private utility companies are coming to the end of their undergrounding portion of the project. So by when I say private utility companies, that's PG&E who's been leading the charge, but also the communication companies. So Frontier, Comcast, you know, you have AT&T. They've installed a shared utility box down the middle of the road where And where all their lines are going to be underneath the roads. So that's been installed all the way up until DeLong. They're going to be doing work in the intersection within the month to wrap up their project. And then once that's done, the city, the water district and the sewer districts are going to start our part of the project. And we are doing a joint.

Do we see any more houses being taken or not?

To my knowledge, it's been frontage along houses. I don't know of any houses themselves that have been taken. But I could be wrong. I've been with the city for six, seven months now, so please correct me.

It's not directed to you, but it's just nuts as far as I can see it. And that's really how I stand. On that three-way, we're talking about three lanes, is there going to be an island with a curb in the middle? Or is it just going to be flat? And if we're talking about white paths, is that going to just be a line painted on the road? Or is there going to be a designated path there? Same thing holds true for sidewalks. I mean, this is years on. I've lived in this city for 15 years. I lived on the corner of Pine and Nevada Boulevard. I know it. And I just don't get it. And it's frustrating to tell you the truth.

To answer an earlier question, I think you said what's the anticipated timeline. So 24 months is the anticipated timeline for our phase of the project. The center lane is going to be the two-way turn with no raised curve in the middle. So it's going to be, you know, if anybody makes it to the left-hand turn lane, you turn into the center lane.

It has the opposing turn arrows when going this way and when going that way. Right.

Um, the bike lanes, due to several things. It was space, but it was also residential driveways. It's going to be a painted bike lane on the side of the lane of traffic. And that's to ensure to make space for, you know, people pulling in and out of the driveways and the less barricades and barriers that we have for drivers to see people pulling in and out of driveways. That was a safety consideration that we made.

So elementary school kids ride their bikes on that road to school in the morning. I just don't get it. And that's where I stand with it. Two years, wow. I tell you what, six months should have been done. Where are we going jumping forward? There were three other outstanding ones. How long has this been in play? For 10 years is it? When did it finally get going and when was the study? And I tell you what, when I heard all these commit, we're going to do a study for $300,000, another study for $300,000 when I was listening to this and I'm thinking, wait a minute, are all of those studies for $300,000 or is that also including some corrections or improvements at the point in time? I don't know if we were using that word loosely.

So the San Marin Drive corridor study is $350,000 and it is one study, one time cost for the entire corridor. So I referenced a lot of different intersections. Here we are. So all the way from the highway to Nevada Boulevard, it's one study, $350,000 to get the analysis done and preliminary design concepts for the entirety of it. Part of the plan, part of the reason we're doing this is that there's an outside project that is kicking off. Marin Water has the potential to install a pipeline in the entirety of San Marin Drive. So we're ill-advised to do any work in the right way now because it is just going to be torn up in the next, you know, one to two years. I think construction for the, it's the last bullet point right there, it's the Marin Waters proposed atmospheric river capture project, ARC project for short. And the construction phase for the ARC project is 2027 to 2028 is when they're planning on doing their work. And so at this point in time,

And is that where the road narrows to one lane?

The entirety of Samarain Drive.

But OK, so with that and the Spirit River that you're talking about there, we're holding off because the impact of what you're talking about there is all along there? Or where are we going with this?

you could help me out a little bit geographically so do you know the east terminus of san marino drive is that u.s highway 101 yeah redwood boulevard goes through it right there sure the arc project is going to be coming onto san marino drive at that point there's an aqueduct that comes from Sonoma County, into Marin County, supplies a lot of water. It would then, for you guys, I'm going to pretend like you're looking at the map, Redwood Drive going south, heading due west on San Marino Drive. And it would go the entirety of San Marino Drive in the right of way. We don't know yet. It's still in early, early design phases. We don't know what part of the road. But it's going to be a 36-inch pipe. which is a major endeavor to run down a corridor. And so any improvements that we do now are likely to be torn up.

So with that said, is it asking too much that we have to wait for this study, a $300,000 study, to get crosswalks at San Andreas and San Marin? That is just so base. And is that going to hold up even taking these most basic and elemental measures to make common sense approaches to that street?

So the intent to do a quarter of study now is because the best thing we can do while we're forced to wait is I'll come up with a plan. And so the intent is as soon as the art project is finished, we will have designs. We will have plans. We will have action ready to go.

Right, action like a crosswalk painted. That's not asking too much. And when we're doing these initiatives, we're going to be asked to approve here tonight. It just, come on, man. Okay, powers that be. That's where it's at. Big picture, I get it. But Simmons, there's the study. I don't see $300,000 to remedy the obvious, and it sounds like we're not gonna have anything happen at a basic intersection, which is San Andreas and San Marin that we're talking about, if we're talking about high school and stuff, let alone the people that we need to cross that road, which is a very wide road. And I don't think that has to be included in a SIP program to do that common sense solution. And that's what I'm advocating for here tonight. I don't want to come across negative or inspirative, but boy, oh boy, guys. You know, we need to do some common sense stuff. And I don't need $300,000 to figure that one out. There we are.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Oh, sorry.

There we go. Thank you, Commissioner Roche. Commissioner Steckenbroker.

I do have one question. You say the San Marin and Simmons corner right there? If you were to put a roundabout in there, how is that going to affect the two houses or three houses that are right there on the corner? Will they be able to get in and out easily, or are they going to be tied up in traffic?

So this is Nevada Boulevard at San Marin Drive. Simmons.

The San Marin Simmons.

That one. We don't have any data to know how wide the roundabout or signalization would be. It's conceptual at best at this point. The intent would not be to be removing houses.

The driveway of one of the houses is almost to the corner of Simmons and San Marin. So I'm just curious, and it's somebody I know, so I'm just kind of curious how it will affect them in the future, if it would, if you knew, but it's okay.

Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for that tonight. Essentially, the goal is always to work with the space we have, but then there can be times where we negotiate for frontage along properties.

Okay. All right. That was it.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Harroff.

No questions. I'm here mostly to learn and listen.

Wonderful. All right. The only question for me was, I think I've come to a few hearings, or maybe they were brought to us, but I think I went to some council hearings where the Parks Master Plan was presented. I'm just curious, everything that's in the Parks Master Plan, is all of that happening simultaneously, or does one of those items have to make it into the CIP list and then be presented here tonight, for instance, some of the park improvements that I saw tonight?

So unfortunately, the answer is yes to both of those questions. So it's not an either or. So the Parks Master Plan, it comes up with different programmatic suggestions, which our PRCS department handles those internally and is not part of the capital projects. There are small projects that we identify and we just address through operations. Okay. So, you know, flush valve is out and it made it into the parks master plan. Let's just hypothetically, there's a lot of small things that we do address just annually or weekly, whatever it might be.

Do like a maintenance fund or operations fund, not a big deal, but they don't need to make it onto this list per se. Precisely. Okay. But the big ones I assume would have to make it onto this list, right? Yeah.

Exactly. So the Public Works and PRCS collaborated two years ago to start adding those projects to the capital program. And so right now we are at phase three. So it's a lot of different ADA improvements at different parks, such as the amphitheater park, which I believe it's coming up. No, I lost it. The Hamilton Amphitheater Park, we're redoing that, and there's a lot of ADA improvements to that to the tune of $700,000. That was part of the Parks Master Plan. I see.

OK. Is there a cutoff money-wise that makes it, or just if we can't fit any operations this year, but we think it's really important?

That's an excellent question. So we at the city do not have a written policy for a cutoff.

Okay.

Mostly because there are some projects that are one-offs. You do it, you're done, you move on. But we also have programmatic projects, such as that $50,000 for stormwater pipe replacement project. That is a new $50,000 every year to continuously replace pipes from now until hopefully forever. And we'll just keep on replacing pipes because they age out. So we don't have a dollar threshold for that reason.

Understood. And then just for Commissioner Rose's sake, and by the way, his response reminds me of some former commissioners we've had where everyone kind of starts weighing in on uh different capital improvement uh plans that you have I'm curious you know how do these come about how do you prioritize them because you hear a lot of folks that are saying well hey why you know and by the way it's not just Commissioner Roche many members of the public over the years have all come forward and you know had complaints about well you know why why this capital project and not that one if you wouldn't mind just kind of explaining a little bit on how you guys go about this

Sure. So every year it's the same process over and over again. And so data comes first. We take in all the information that we can. The data could be in the form of PCI ratings, like pavement condition index. saying, OK, where are our reverse roads? It could be service requests. So when somebody calls the city, emails the city, puts in a request online, we keep it on record. We keep it in tables, and we log it, and we prioritize operationally on the spot, but for the larger projects that we have to budget for in the long term, they're added to the list. Then you have maintenance costs. We track how much it costs to run a building. So if the HVAC costs are rising over time, that's usually a sign that the HVAC system is on the fritz. It's getting worse and worse and worse. Number one offender being our police department. It is the oldest and the most expensive HVAC system that we're running right now, and we really want to get it replaced. The new one that was added to the list this year was the DRC HVAC replacement. Those were the rising costs of the HVAC repairs. We took that into account for prioritizing. Um, and so there's anything from assessment reports, um, there's a, some, it's kind of a hot phrase or some, some people love it, some people hate it, but criticality and consequence of failure. It's analysis we're getting into, and at this stage in Novato, it's early adoption, but You look at an asset, whether it be a roadway, a pipe, you ask, what's the criticality? How important is it? How close is it to a hospital? How close is it to a school, to an energy provider? The closer it is, if it's a one way in, one way out, let's just say Pacheco Valley, one road going in and out of Pacheco Valley for all those reasons, it's a fire hazard. It's a fire road. We need to keep that road clear and operating. So we look at criticality and then consequence of failure. how long will it be down if it fails? If and when something fails, it's basically a formula. You multiply them together, you have really a good way to understand, okay, these are the things that are most important from an asset weight standpoint, rather than real-time, you know, hey, what's failing?

So it's very objective. It sounds like there's a lot of data being aggregated, you're running numbers, and this is the stuff that's percolating to the top based on the amount of complaints or the criticality of the dangers that it could be to the

I think the goal is to be as objective as possible. At the end of the day, I think there's a lot of subjective input into the system when we do. We depend on our residents, our elected officials, our volunteers to be our eyes and ears throughout the community. So we listen, and one argument would say you listen to everybody, it becomes objective, but it is a lot of people giving subjective input, and we do want to listen to everybody and take it all into account. So that does have a weight on the pairing process.

And traffic studies are behind everything that we're talking about here when it comes to roadway safety that people are typically most passionate and concerned about. I'm assuming there's actual engineers, traffic engineers, looking at this, walking through it, and understanding what needs to be done and what the safest thing to do is, correct? Correct.

Correct. And I'm glad you brought that up, because this goes beyond just the city of Nevada. We are strong partners with the Transportation Authority of Marin, who do a lot of these studies. They take regional funds, national funds, and do county-wide assessments. And the same thing goes for Safe Routes to School. It's one of our strongest partnerships that we have in public works. where a lot of these safety projects are recommended. They're vetted by Safe Routes to School. They have teams of engineers that come to the city, and they're paid through Transportation Authority Marin, but they'll do an analysis of different roadways. For example, we have something cool coming up. Safe Routes to School is partnering with the city to do a corridor study of... Oh boy, Center Road. To the point of kids walking to school. It's near and dear to all of our hearts. We can't fix every road, but Center Road is the highest priority for safe rest of school across the entire county right now because Lou Sutton is right there and there's a lot of deficiencies. So what we're doing in May is we will be doing a walk audit where traffic engineers, hopefully some representatives from our police department, myself, team members, will walk to school. And we'll look at every intersection, every curb, lifted sidewalks, the whole nine yards, log it, turn it back to safe for us to school, and they'll do analysis. And they will come up with safety recommendations based on that.

Excellent. Thank you. Thanks for walking us through that. I think that's all the questions from us. I will open it to the public hearing. Any public comments? Please come forward and fill out a card when you can.

Thank you. 200 San Marino Drive, which is at the corner of San Marino and San Andreas, one of the intersections we were just talking about. Just here to express support for the San Marino corridor study. Just to talk to neighbors and others in the community, I think there's a lot of it. Excitement about the opportunity that's there as you mentioned opportunities to improve safety It's a hundred foot wide Boulevard, which you know, there's opportunities for traffic improvements and bicycle lanes and things like that So, you know look forward to participating in future sessions and thank you for doing that Wonderful.

Thank you, sir Not seeing anyone else in the crowd. It will close the public comment meeting OK. I'm going to bring it back to the commission. If you want me to go down the row, I can, unless anyone wants to make a motion or everyone wants to finish anything off. Mr. Grege, anything to say? It's quite all right for you to say. We're good. Oh, I know. He's up next.

I was going to make a motion.

Oh, OK. Well, if we're all good, all right. OK. Well, can I have a motion then?

Yeah. I will move that we adopt the resolution reporting to the City Council that the proposed new CIP projects for fiscal year 26-27 are consistent with the Novato General Plan.

Happy to second that. Wonderful. All right. I will take a roll call on it. Commissioner Griggy? Aye. Commissioner Havel? Aye. Commissioner Roche?

Aye.

Commissioner Stuckenbroker? Aye. Commissioner Haroff?

Aye. Commissioner Derby is an aye. Wonderful.

Passes. We recommend you take it on up to the council. OK.

Anything else on the agenda tonight? notice note that we will not be having a planning commission meeting on may 25th and we're looking at our next one on june 8th wonderful we're trying to get some zoning ordinance amendments pulled together for that meeting somewhat sorry sorry zoning ordinance amendments uh hopefully have those done and ready for commission review

It's an aggregate with zoning across the whole city?

Yeah, so it's looking at zoning changes to implement aspects of the general plan as well as the housing element. So we're trying to take these in sort of a phased approach where every four to six months we do a batch of upgrades or amendments to the code, if you will. And so we're just getting through our first batch. It's a pretty lengthy one and hopefully done and ready for review here pretty soon. Wonderful any update on the fireman's fund is a tentative map a tentative map is still in process the developer is discussing Submitting a design review application for the actual design of the homes that would go on and The lot's created by that subdivision, so that's ongoing. I think we've all noticed the third and final building is now fully gone from the site. And I believe what's left to do in terms of demolition is more asphalt and concrete recycling across the site. Wonderful.

That's great. We'll see something soon. Anything else from the Commission? What can I call it? I move to close the Commission hearing.