Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Everyone to the, Nevada planning commission meeting of September 8. Thank you for joining us here tonight. First thing I'm gonna do is, call this to order and do a roll call. Alright. Looks like everyone's here,

but I'll do it regardless. Commissioner Crockett? Here. Commissioner Havel? Here. Commissioner Tiernan? Here. Commissioner Grigey? Here. Commissioner Roche? Here. Commissioner Stuckenbrocker? Here.

Broker. Sorry. And commissioner Derby is here. Knew I was gonna mess that one up eventually. Forgive me. If everyone could join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, everyone. I'm going need an approval of the final agenda.

So moved. Second. Roll call. Commissioner Crockett. Here. Commissioner Hamill. Aye. Commissioner Tiernan. Aye. Commissioner Grigey. Aye. Commissioner Roche. Here. Commissioner Stuckenbroker.

Aye. Commissioner Derby's an aye. Great. I'm gonna open this to public comment. This is not public comment for anything on the that's currently on the agenda. So if everyone understands what that means, I'm gonna open that up now. Anyone would like to speak on something that is not on the agenda tonight, feel free to come forward. Seeing no movement, I'm going to close the public comment. And we will get through our agenda. First item is a consent item. It's the approval of the meeting minutes on March 10. I believe all of the commissioners were present, with the exception of Commissioner Grigey. So I'll start. Do I have a motion?

I would move to approve as presented.

I will second.

Wonderful. Commissioner Crockett? Aye. Commissioner Havel? Aye. Commissioner Ternan? Aye. Commissioner Griggy?

Abstain. Commissioner Roes?

Aye. GREGORY Commissioner Stuckenbroker?

Aye. GREGORY Commissioner Derby's an aye as well. Wonderful. Seeing as we have nothing else, it's going to get into the public hearing. I will ask tonight that the staff will make a presentation.

We will have the developer follow that presentation with their presentation. We will come back to the commission. We will ask questions of staff and the developer. At that point we will open the public comment and many of you who will speak tonight or choose to speak tonight please fill out a card maybe in the interim or after you've spoken please fill one out because we will need all that information. We will then close that and then I would I would it'll come back to the commission I would like to also offer up since there's sometimes some back and forth that go on and since there's a lot of folks here tonight would allow for the developer to come forward again and maybe speak to some of those items as I would ask the staff to do that as well to make sure all of the concerns were addressed and then I'd bring it back to commission to make their final vote.

So anyway, I just want to make sure we laid that out before we started. But without further ado.

All right. Thank you, planning commissioners. So this item is a public hearing consideration of resolutions regarding the California Environmental Quality Act exemptions review, from additional and design review and use permit entitlements for the construction and operation of a 95,400 square foot self storage facility consisting of three buildings and ancillary improvements Street. So the project site is located on the Southerly Side of Davidson Street, immediately west of the city's Public Works Corporation yard. And the Novato Sanitary District wastewater treatment plant is further to the east of the courtyard.

A residential neighborhood is located to the west of the project site. So the existing buildings and infrastructure on the site would be demolished to accommodate the proposed project. The project includes three buildings accommodating five ninety seven storage units, an office, drive aisles, parking, landscaping, stormwater control facilities, and ancillary improvements. Buildings A And B are one story buildings that would range in size from approximately 4,800 square feet to 8,500 square feet. Building C is a three story, 82,100 square foot building.

Once constructed and operating, the applicant anticipates two to three on-site employees and has proposed gate access hours 6AM to 10PM with more limited office hours. Building A, which is one of the one story buildings, is roughly parallel to Davidson Street. Building B is on westerly side of the site adjacent to the residential neighborhood. And that is also a one story building. And then more towards the center of the building is Building C.

So there was a neighborhood meeting on 05/23/2024. Subsequent to that, there were DRC hearings held on 09/18/2024, 12/18/2024, and 03/05/2025. The project design was revised subsequent to the September and December hearings at the Design Review Commission. Story polls were also placed at the site. And at the March 5 meeting, the DRC made a motion to recommend approval of the project, although the DRC did ask that the Planning Commission and City Council consider directing staff to amend the definition of floor area ratio to address building mass regardless of whether a building is habitable.

Additionally, the Design Review Commission, based on public comment, requested conditions of approval regarding mechanical equipment noise and lighting. And those conditions of approval have been included in the attached resolution. The slide does include some of the changes from the initial design to what we have today. Notably, Building C is now a step design, with the westerly portion of the building being two stories, and then it steps to three stories. As I mentioned before, the total storage unit count was reduced to five ninety seven from six thirty three.

The commissioners did ask that the building elevations be revised to show where the rooftop mechanical would be located on the building. Paint colors were revised. I believe this was based on some input from the public and the design review commissioners. Also, they did add building and pole mounted heights for the lighting, so there would be a better idea of how light may impact the surrounding uses. The applicant also had his architect prepare a shade study to see how the building might shade adjacent properties surrounding the site.

And then there were some various landscaping plan changes. Regarding CEQA, staff has determined that the project is exempt from additional environmental review pursuant to CEQA guidelines section fifteen thousand one eighty three and section 15,332. Section fifteen thousand one eighty three states that projects which are consistent with the development density established by zoning or general plan policies for which an environmental impact report was certified shall not require additional environmental review. The city's general plan 2035 included the preparation and adoption of a final environmental impact report. And this project is consistent with the development intensity analyzed in the general plan and the final EIR.

To comply with mitigation measures that were adopted with the final EIR, the applicant did prepare a biological resource assessment and also a cultural resource assessment. And this was to comply with those mitigation measures. And staff has reviewed both those documents. And there have been conditions of approval incorporated into the project resolution before unite to implement the recommendations of those professionals. The second CEQA exemption is section fifteen thousand three thirty two.

And that is for the infill development projects. That specific CEQA exemption does include five criteria for complying to meet that exemption. And staff has reviewed the project, the project site, and determined that the project does qualify for the infill exemption also. So staff did do a detailed analysis of the project's consistency with the general plan and zoning code. And those are detailed in the resolution in Attachment two.

One of the main discussion points that got brought up at the design review commission was regarding floor area ratio. The city's zoning code has a definition of floor area ratio. And within that definition, it includes the phrase, floor area ratio restrictions are used to limit the maximum floor area of all habitable space allowed on the site. And this is important because early on, the project applicant and his attorney did pose this question to staff as, is FAR applicable to the buildings that consist research of our own zoning code. We confirmed with the city attorney's office.

And we even went a little bit further regarding some definitions and conferred with the city's chief building official regarding how the building code would classify a storage type facility. And what we came up with between the city's zoning ordinance definitions and some references in the California Building Code is that public storage facilities are classified as an S1 occupancy. And those occupancies are intended exclusive as storage. And storage occupancies don't allow for habitation. So that is the determination that staff made specific to floor area ratio and its applicability to this project site.

The 1,200 square foot office area is applicable to floor area ratio. Some other items that the applicant has requested. The LIO zoning district typically has a maximum height of 35 feet. Within the zoning code, there are some provisions to obtain additional height above that 35 feet. Building C, the three story building in the center, does have two parapet walls on a portion of the building that extend to 37 feet, which is two feet above the 35 foot maximum.

And then additionally, there are the elevator overruns that max out at approximately 35 and onetwo feet. The second item is screening between land uses. Our zoning code has a provision that where you have adjacent land uses, such as commercial that's adjacent to residential, that a six foot tall masonry wall be built between those two uses. And there is a provision in the code that says that the director has the ability to revise that requirement. And in this case, the applicant has proposed, instead of a masonry wall, a wood fence that would be six foot high with the potential of two feet of lattice atop that to replace the existing fence.

Based on some input from the public, staff has written a condition of approval that would require the applicant to basically check-in with those adjacent neighbors. And if they would prefer to retain the existing cyclone fence not cyclone, but chain link fence that's there, there is the potential that the chain link fence could remain. But that would be based on the wishes of the individual property owners that border the site. And then the third item is parking. So the zoning code for self storage use requires one parking space for 1,500 square feet of floor area, plus two spaces for the office use.

At the size of this building, that would require an excess of 65 parking spaces. The code does have a provision that the applicant can submit quantitative evidence that would justify reducing parking at the site. The applicant has provided some information specific to the typical amount of traffic coming and going to the storage facility and the traffic generation, how often people typically visit their storage unit. And staff has agreed that there is some sound reasoning for what they proposed based on the information they provided. And so staff is recommending that the seven proposed spaces be considered.

So with that, staff is recommending that the planning commission adopt a resolution finding that the project is exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA guidelines, section fifteen thousand one hundred eighty three and fifteen thousand three hundred thirty two, and also a resolution approving a use permit and design review allowing the construction and operation of a 95,400 square foot self storage facility consisting of three buildings at 501 Davidson Street, assessor parcel Number 150 Three-two Fifty-eleven. A couple notes here. So receive, I believe it was, seven comment letters subsequent to the agenda being posted. And those all were emailed to the planning commissioners. And they've been in the agenda packet book that's been available for public review at the city offices.

Additionally, subject to the posting of the agenda, staff has made two revisions to conditions of approval. One condition, I failed to include the condition of approval specific to the fencing requirement that I mentioned a few minutes ago. So that was added to the conditions of approval. And then also a condition of approval regarding the Davidson Street frontage improvements that were part of the Public Works Department engineering division comments have been amended just for clarification on the public improvements that would be required along the frontage of the property. So with that, staff's available for any questions.

Also, have the applicant Mario Gelatti representing Vera West here to make a presentation. Thank you.

CHRISTIAN Chair Derby, if I can tack on a few comments. I also want to mention this evening, have some folks joining us by Zoom. We have Assistant City Attorney Mackenzie Anderson with us. We have civil engineer Lori Loeza. She's the city's consulting engineer on this project. And then we have the project architect David Meineke joining us as well. To tack on to Brett's comment about the conditions of approval, based on a conversation with the applicant's lawyer, we would like to insert some modified language into the condition addressing the fringe improvements. So when the commission gets to forming a motion, if you're looking at conditions of approval, it will assist with that.

Wonderful. I know we're going to have a lot of questions. So I would ask, maybe the developer gives their presentation next, and we can aggregate our questions for after that. I know there'll be probably some visuals in a presentation.

Evening, commissioners. My name is Mario Guilati. My company, Verroles, is the applicant for the self storage facility at 501 Davidson Street. First, I want to thank staff for all the time and effort they've decided dedicated to reviewing our application. This has been a collaborative process, and we truly appreciate the opportunity to share our project with you this evening.

Before we dive into the details, I'd like to provide a a little background on the site and how this proposal came to be. As you may know, the city purchased this property in 2022 after discovering part of the corporation yard encroached on frontier telecommunications land. The city used 5,800,000.0 in emergency funds to secure the site and ensure that corp yard could remain in its current location. When the city began considering how to utilize the property not needed for the courtyard, I entered discussions about leasing it for my family's construction business as a storage yard. How however, through those conversations, it became clear that a contractor's yard would create too much impact for the surrounding neighborhood, and that led us to explore other options.

And, ultimately, we landed on self storage. It's a low intensity use and high and high demand, an appropriate fit for the industrial zone property. I wanted to share that context with you so you understand how this proposal evolved. With that, I'll turn it over to Riley who will walk you through the project in more details. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, members of the commission. My name is Riley Heard. I'm part of the project team here, and I wanted to walk you through some additional details about this project. First, I think neighborhood context is always super important when you're considering entitlements like these. So here you can see the site in the yellow circle and the types of uses that surround it. Of course, there is the neighborhood. But we are next to a sewer plant, a corporation yard. We've got the community hospital across the way, and then the residential neighborhood. So this property really serves as a transition area between some pretty heavy industrial uses. Next slide, please.

So the site as it exists today is fully paved. It's in disrepair. And it is essentially one big, impermeable surface. And it does not benefit from any meaningful drainage improvements. So one plus to this project is there is a robust drainage plan.

So for the first time, the water leaving this site will be bioretained, go through treatment facilities, and that has been prepared by a civil engineer and is being fully reviewed by the city. So that's pretty important. And it's also important to note that this is what it looks like now. It's a bit of an eyesore. Next slide, please. As you heard, we did prepare a biological resources assessment. That's part of the EIR requirements. No special plants, animals, no habitat, no aquatic resources on-site. It's pavement, weeds, and old buildings. Next slide, please.

I think it's always really important to identify what the city said goes here, because we, of course, did not zone this property. We respond to what the zoning is. And the zoning is light industrial office. There's a number of things that are permitted there contractor storage yard, heavy equipment rental, auto sales. I was surprised to see that permitted as a matter of right, with no conditional use permit, is commercial cannabis manufacturing with volatile compounds.

Dry cleaning plants permitted as a matter of right. So the city has really said in its zoning ordinance that those are the type of uses that go at this site. Now initially, because of Mario's family business, he approached the city and said, I would like to use this as a contractor's yard. Large equipment, storage, coming and going all day, going out to job sites. And that's allowed by the zoning.

And the city said, hey, we know that's in the zoning code, but would you please consider something a little less impactful? And so that is how the fully contained self storage concept came about. If you go to the next slide, please. The reason storage was selected, other than being one of the uses for the LIO, is it has the lowest trip generation in the ITE manual of almost any listed industrial use. And that is because it turns out most people don't visit their storage facility very regularly.

They end up being a set it and forget it type of thing. As you can see, over 68% of the tenants come less than once every two weeks. So when you compare that to the other commercial uses and the intensity of the trips that could be occurring, this is as low as it gets. Who rents storage facilities? It's going to be Nevada residents. It's people nearby. You don't rent storage facilities far away from your home. And also, with the advent of some of the new housing typologies that we're seeing apartments, townhomes people have less storage than those who have the ability to reside in a single family home. So this actually benefits the higher density housing types. Next slide, please.

We contracted with WTrans to perform a traffic study. The max trip generation here is 54 vehicle visits in one day. So if you stand on Davidson Street for an hour, you'll see four cars. There is no grade change, letter grade change, to the level of service of any intersection. And at the most, you would have 0.1 of a second of additional wait.

So it's essentially as close to zero traffic impact as something could be, particularly when you compare it to the other permitted by right uses. Next slide, please. So I think it's very important for the commission to be aware of the history of what it took to get here today multiple, multiple DRC hearings, project changes, change after change after change in order to get to that unanimous approval, which was frankly hard to achieve. So what you can see here was the original site plan. And I'll go over some of the differences here in a second.

But I just want to point out at the top of the screen is the adjacent residential neighbors. And you can see Building C there. Building B exists in this down below. And if you could go to the next slide. So throughout this series of DRC hearings, there were many, many requests that were made.

But probably the biggest one was, please move it further away from your neighbors, and please reduce the distance of that third story from your neighbors. So to do this, the three story element, the most significant building, was moved 30 feet further away. So this made the new setback 32 feet to the closest building. And once that moved down on the screen that you saw, an entire building, what was called B, had to be eliminated. So that went away.

Thousands and thousands in square feet of lot coverage was eliminated. Additional landscaping that we'll talk about was put in. And during the survey process, it was determined that the neighbors on the top of the screen encroached by a fair amount with their fences and yards onto this property. So the decision was made by the development team to allow those encroachments to remain, not to make them push it back to the true property line. So that was one of the many things that happened during this DRC process.

If you go to the next slide, here's the revised plan. So that smaller building at the bottom is gone because the larger building pushed down. The building at the top, which is now Building B, has been moved quite a bit further away. And on this one, it's very faint. But at the top of the screen, you can see the line that goes up and then down.

That is the fence of the neighbors and how much of the property is being utilized for their use, which, again, is being allowed to remain. So pretty significant changes in the site plan. If you could go to the next slide. This was the original design. You can't really see it too well on this screen, but it was basically one large block.

It's quite hard to see there. But it was a kind of large block. Yeah, you can see it over here much better. So you see the taupe color there. So now if you go to the next slide.

Go back one. Thank you. So now we're going to describe what the DRC asked for in regards to the elevation. The last one was site plan changes. For the elevations, the big, big thing was taking that 3rd Floor and cutting it back by 30 feet. So that's kind of your wedding cake design or step back from the neighbors. So that 3rd Floor averages 125 feet from the neighboring properties. It's a very, very significant setback. The colors were changed. This is not one of those orange public storage side of the freeway operations.

This is a very thoughtful, Marin County based design palette. Again, that's the hard work of the DRC requiring these changes. And then another big thing that you heard mention regarding the height was a parapet, and that is to screen the rooftop mechanical not just visually, but for noise as well. So if you go to the next slide, here's the outcome of all those changes. You can see the significant setback of both the 2nd And 3rd Floors, remembering that the neighboring properties would be to the right, But it's a little bit off access from that setback.

The color palette is a little bit more elegant than a traditional storage facility that one might think of. Next slide, please. Another thing the DRC really pressed for was significant landscaping enhancements. And this was quite an undertaking. There are 29 new trees, including a mature tree that's coming in at 25 feet tall with screening, 173 new plants.

And I've been to a few storage facilities. I would say this is probably the most robustly landscaped storage facility design that I have come across. Next slide, please. We did hear comments from the public about security. And I think it really comes down to the operator.

So there are different tiers of levels of storage facility operators everything from your mom and pop shops to really nationally recognized, high level, best in class operators. And the goal here is to use one of those extremely high level, national third party firms. They've got on-site management, 20 fourseven digital surveillance, cameras. You have to have a unique code to enter this property, so only tenants can come and go. And I want to bring up an important point about this, because the operator is so important to fitting in and operating in a way that the neighborhood would expect.

Once that square footage reduction happened by eliminating the building to the south and that large setback on the 3rd Floor, we're now right on the cusp of the minimum size facility that a top tier operator will accept. So it's been shrunk, but now it's to the point where that's it, if we want the top tier operator. And we absolutely do for all of the reasons that I just said. Next slide, please. Heard about lighting.

Heard about noise. We already talked about the parapet. There was a really thoughtful lighting plan with shielded down lights, but still at a level to provide enough security. So that's important. One thing that wasn't brought up is and you can see the example of the sliding doors in the upper right.

This entire design has been carefully thought out so that those doors only face the interior of the property. So they do not face out. So the buildings themselves serve as their own screening for noise and other comings and goings from the doors opening and closing. So that was very, very purposeful. You go to the next slide, please. So we'll just conclude by some of the benefits. The city has a strategic plan. They say, hey, we have properties that we own, and we need to generate revenue from them. So that is one big benefit here. We went through the uses that you could do.

There are many more. I have the zoning table. I can read them to you. This is about as least intensive as it gets. We're in between a residential neighborhood and a sewer treatment plant.

So this is a transition use. One thing that we didn't talk about was when the DRC and the neighborhood asked for the buildings to be pushed back and shrunk, we went into a little bit of area that the city was using. So as part of the project, the developers are going to build the city an all new storage facility for their equipment. So the city is also getting that as a benefit. And then, of course, the full drainage plan, over 6,000 feet of bioretention, so storm runoff gets treated and the like.

So in conclusion, this property is zoned to be used for an industrial use. It's been zoned that way for a while. It just happens to have not been used that way for a little bit. But this is a direct response to what the city said goes here. And it's a very thoughtful, evolved application because of the way the DRC really put it through a ringer, to be frank. So we'll be here for any questions you may have. And we'll reserve the rest of our time for rebuttal. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's bring it back to the commission for us to ask some questions of staff. And then I will be opening the public comment period for all of you out there. And again, please leave your yellow cards with me so I can call your names when that time comes. So I'm going to open up to the commission. I'll start with Commissioner Crockett.

Thank you. My first question is for staff. I think you've made it clear that it's the interpretation that this proposal is CEQA exempt for the reasons you stated. The proposed use is clearly allowed by the current zoning. It also seems as though, even though this project has been through design review and has been evolved significantly through that process. You are looking for the planning commission to give you direction, whether it's concurrence or different direction, with respect to the density as the FAR is currently proposed overall is about 1.4. Is that right?

GREENE:

One moment. Me

JOSHUA If I recall correctly, the FAR is 1.28. Well, let me rephrase that. The FAR equivalent of the entire project is 1.28. The portion that, from staff's perspective, is subject to an FAR is only the office space. And I believe that calculates to 0.016. And

the developer just described some encroachment issues with respect to both the neighboring properties. And there's a line that a little hard for me to read, but a jagged line of people's yards, I guess, on the westerly line of the site, as well as the area where the corporation yard encroaches on the site. Can you just reclarify that for my eyesight, where those are?

JOSHUA Yeah. So on this slide, you do see the existing fence line. And I'm trying to go along it with the cursor right there. So the applicant, part of his engineering design team, I think they had some of their surveying staff go out and did a survey of the property and determined that the dash line that's shown at the extent of the green landscaping area is the actual legal limits of the property. So that was what was referenced by the applicant's team during their presentation.

And as part of my presentation, when I mentioned existing fence and the code requirements for new fence or masonry wall, this is the fence location GREENEZ: that I was discussing regarding that condition of approval.

Right.

Okay. And the city corporation yard, the balance part, the active part of it maybe I'm just reading this from some correspondence. There was some reference that that may overlap some of the proposed development on the site, as journalists.

One of the correspondences, it talked about, if I read it correctly, that some of the existing courtyard buildings that are off-site of this site plan area shown here. When you line up the aerial images, it appears it might encroach possibly into a flood control district property. But that's not verified. But that's off-site, not really part of this proposal tonight.

Thank you. Then I have a couple questions for the applicant as well. Just curious, do you know when the original or the building or buildings on-site were built, the Frontier Communications, when that was these structures of the

Yeah, please approach if you'd like to speak to that.

Looks like it's

Yeah, I think it's over fifty years. I don't know the exact year.

Yeah, yeah. It looks like it to me, too. Thank you. And it's my understanding for the fire regulations, among the kinds of items that'll be stored here, you won't be allowed to allow people to have store like motor vehicles or boats with motors. Is that correct? And partly my question is in terms of the kinds of frequency of trailering and access to the site. And if you don't know

I'm sorry. The question is if fire spells that out.

Are you allowed to store motor vehicles in these storage units?

I don't know what the fire code does on that.

So I did review the Nevada Fire Protection District's latest set of comments. And they did have a condition of approval in there requesting that the operators' lease agreements have a requirement that no hazardous materials be stored in the storage units. So I would guess that gasoline would be considered a hazardous material without being an expert on what the fire district considers hazardous materials. Okay.

Thank you. This is partly just me being educated about storage facilities. I'm looking for one, frankly. When you mentioned the input from the top tier operators, Can you expand on that a little bit? It sounds like your position is you've scaled this back to the position where it's right on the margins of whether it would be something they would work with you on. Is that also a matter is it square footage in total? Is it number of keys or the number of individual units or both? What describes that threshold for them?

They mostly speak in terms of gross square footage or rentable square footage. The number of units here are so nuanced. They can be as small as five by five. And that's up to the development team to decide. The number of units wouldn't really be a

good indicator.

Yeah, we're right at that. We're actually below the guidance we received for them to be interested.

Okay. And the site lighting, there's been a lot of discussion about it. I would assume that your primary objective for site lighting is what I'll call the drive areas. The the fronts of the storage units and that big square donut of circulation. Do you know if that lighting design will be intended to light like what I would call the backside of Building B, the the west facade of it? No. Grass area?

Not the back. No. And I believe part of the DRC, actually lowered the lights. And in the project plans, it shows the cone radius of them. And I believe most of them are motion sensors.

Okay. Thank you. I'd be interested in hearing from your perspective a couple of things about the fence. Because the staff has indicated some flexibility. And I think you've indicated some flexibility. I'm talking about the fence along the west side that's currently chain linked with vegetation. Is that fence intended primarily in your proposed use as a visual screen? Is it a security barrier? In other words, you're not fencing off the entire site. What's, from your perspective, the primary purpose of that fence, whether it's existing or if it were rebuilt?

JOSEPH Yeah. The intent is for the whole project to be fenced for security one. And the additional bordering the neighbors or the transition fencing is for a purpose for screening. The existing fence today, that's a chain link fence, is covered in vegetation, where it actually works as a nice screen. So I think we've left that open to leaving that in place if the neighbors

think that's visited the site. Didn't walk the length of the fence. But I'm curious, JOSHUA well, it would be presumed that in the next level of design, whatever fence, if you make any changes to that, a big part of that would be navigating topography and dealing with the property lines, too. You wouldn't want to build a new fence? Well, guess it'd be on your property no matter what you do. But you'd be sort of reinforcing the encroachments if you built it at its current location. It would seem a little strange to me to do that. That's just me. Okay. End of my questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Habill.

Thank you. So staff most of my questions are going be directed at staff. You guys yeah. So the survey that was prepared shows the fence and the landscaping. It's unclear to me from the plans where the landscaping is with respect to the fence.

Is the fence moving to put in landscaping? Is there going be landscaping going behind the fence? Maybe

That was sort of what I was getting at in my question is, does the landscape plan anticipate new fence? Or does it weave around existing?

And I realize that landscaping can be moved. But I'm just curious what

Yeah. This might actually be a better question for the applicant or possibly his architect. I'm looking at the landscape plan, and it doesn't show that existing fence. And so I'm not 100% clear with the proposed landscaping and which side of the fence that's on.

Yeah. That's I just I was at this point, I don't need absolute solidity on this. It was a question just to kind of highlight it. With respect to the property line and the fence, has the applicant put anything forward regarding an agreement with the property owner's easement, something that clarifies and memorializes and sort of and I realize that's not necessarily a part of a land use entitlement application. It's not a requirement. But they apprised you of that? Is there any discussion GREEN: about that?

To my knowledge, there hasn't been a discussion about easements. It's my understanding that the applicant, when this question got brought up about the fence line versus property line, did have a discussion with the city administrative staff, city manager's office. And there was conversations about trying to retain, since the fence line is there, more or less utilizing that fence line as sort of a project boundary and just leaving leaving it let be the idea that the fence is not right at the property line.

Okay. All right. And then I noticed from the plan, there's it appears to be topography. I've been out to visit the site. I've walked around.

I've walked around the neighborhood. I've read all the letters that came in. I'm trying to get a real grip on what's happening. The topography, from what I could tell, is it looks like it drops from the neighborhood down to this site slightly, maybe five ish feet plus or minus is there is there any more like topographical information or grading plans or anything I recognize again I recognize the site has an existing concrete pad I would imagine that the grading or the site prep is going to be pretty minimal as far as site prep goes.

Yes. So we do have an existing site plan survey. And I think this does show that topographical change that you're talking about right here. You've got a 20 foot contour, a 15 foot contour. And then you get to the point of where it looks like the pavement starts, and there's maybe some drain pans along that pavement pavement edge.

And then additionally, Then we have the site plan. And that does show some grading lines here. But I think essentially on the backside of that fence, the existing fence, I believe it's going to remain untouched essentially. And then all grading would occur mostly, I believe, just to deal with drainage management areas and leveling the site for that sort of thing. And

then in reviewing the project record and correct me if I'm getting any of this wrong that the application was submitted in February 2024?

That sounds about right.

And it went through a neighborhood meeting in May '20 actually, back in May, late May. And went through four did it actually make it to four design review commission hearings?

No. I saw that a few were canceled. Yeah. There was one in January. And I believe, if I remember correctly, we showed up to the meeting. And unfortunately, we did not have a quorum. And then so it got postponed to the next month. And I believe prior to showing up to the meeting, we had a quorum issue. So that's how it got essentially bumped to the March hearing date, March 5 hearing date.

So this has been going on for a year and a half?

Yeah. Okay.

And so it didn't happen last night or overnight or in the dark of night. This is something that's been in the full light of review and discussion and debate. And then I guess the other thing I'm curious about is, forgive me for not seeing this in the materials, but when was it deemed a complete application?

GREEN: Do know off the top of your head? Application deemed complete, that wasn't until June. There was some time where the applicant was preparing additional studies that were requested by the the city's engineering division, that sort of thing.

BIOLOGICAL assessment, the Cultural resources assessment. Cultural resources assessment, the engineering reports. And those all take time and money to prepare. And then when staff reviews those, it's data. It's not for or against. It's information about the site. It's disclosure. It's part of the public record. So that's available to everybody to come in and review?

Correct. Yeah.

And when you've got I'm not a biologist. And if I want to challenge a biologist, does my opinion matter, or do the facts matter?

So when we get what I'll call special studies that the applicant provides, first off, we look at the quality of the work. We review the document. I'm not a biologist either. But typically what we do in this case, we have a general plan environmental impact report that had mitigation measures. And it had certain mitigation measures specific to the requirement for biological reports in certain instances.

So first thing we do, or first thing I did, was review the content of the biological report for consistency with the mitigation measures in the general plan EIR. And then, of course, review the biological report to see if it appears to contain all of the information that one would expect to be in there, reviewing the California Department of Fish and Wildlife CNDDB database that shows sightings of various plant or animal species, doing the site inspection to determine if there's any listed or special species plants or animals on the site, that sort of thing.

Is

it on a disturbed site, meaning there's already been development there, it's already been paved over, Is it a regular practice to ask for a biological assessment, to have somebody say to go to a property owner, whether it's somebody fabulously wealthy or somebody just a regular Joe and Mary, is it normal to say, yeah, you know what? Your site's disturbed. It's been developed before. But we need to see a biological assessment to ensure that there's going to be no environmental impacts, even though it's covered in concrete, even though it's already been disturbed? Is a regular thing that is done?

Well, would say if it were a ministerial project, say a single family residential lot that had already been developed with the residents and someone was tearing down one house and then rebuilding, And the site would typically have non native, maybe grass or that sort of thing. It typically wouldn't be required in that instance. But when you have a use permit, which is a discretionary project potentially subject to CEQA environmental review, and then also based on the mitigation measures in the environmental impact report, that's where it comes up to a level of the city requesting these so we can determine compliance of the project with those mitigation measures. Okay.

Okay. Yeah, that covers it for me. Thank you. Appreciate it.

JACK Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Tiernan.

I'm going to pursue this fence stuff a little bit farther. So the perimeter of this project is going to be a wooden six foot fence all the way around it? Or is

it just against the west neighbors? JAMES Just the west neighbors.

JAMES Okay. And I appreciate the communication we received, the amendments, to try and address some of that. And I heard the applicant talk about hydrology in that area, because it does appear to me that it drops off and that there's a swale or a ditch between the properties. And so the hydrology there would be important, particularly to run into that bioswale. And it seems to me that that is exactly where landscaping and neighbors' backyards and fences are. So it would seem to me that there might be sort of a procedural process to get the hydrology done properly. Because that's going to rip out landscaping. That's bound to alter some of that. And then figure out how you can not only secure it, but then make it attractive.

As

much as the neighbors probably like that chain link fence, because part of it is the vines have been ripped down, from my perspective, look horrible. And it is in need of some kind of attention. And then, as was pointed out, there's a grade change. So even if you put a six foot fence along the 32 feet from Building B, the houses are still above it by a considerable amount. And so hopefully, the landscaping can address that.

But I can see that we're going to I think we need to have a little more discussion before we're done here about how can we address that. I think you've done a nice job of attempting it in the resolution. But part of it, I think, requires the neighbors to participate somehow. Those are the extent of my questions or comments for now.

Wonderful. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Griggy.

I think a lot of my questions have already been asked by my fellow commissioners. But I'll keep the extent of my questioning brief today so that we can get to public comment. The first question I have I guess most of my questions are really for the applicant. My first question is, in the presentation, you mentioned that the setback had been moved from 15 feet to roughly 32 feet. Is that being measured from the surveyed property line or from the residents' fences?

That's from the property line to shortest corner of the first building. So you can see that tapers and it increases.

Perfect.

I'm still a new commissioner, so I'm getting my sea legs. Thank you all for bearing

with

me. I also wanted to inquire about the other side of the parcel. You had mentioned the residence, the street, the corporation yard. I wanted to ask about the side facing the marsh. What measures have been taken there to prevent disruptions to the ecosystems?

Yeah, our intent is to respect the existing fence line, even though that's not the property line, so that we're not intruding on any new land or undisturbed land. And then we'll have our, I think, typical preconstruction, sweepy best management practices, the storm water concerns. And given the biological report of no species, habitat, etcetera, I don't think there's been any other requirements for that.

And then my last question it was also mentioned in the presentation that this project is now approaching the minimum amount of square footage that a top tier operator would accept. What is that minimum, just for our information?

It's around 100,000 square feet.

Okay. Those are my questions for now. But I'm sure we'll have

another one.

Yeah, of course.

You will have another one. Yes.

You, Commissioner Grigey. Commissioner Roche.

Thank you. So on the lines of the top tier operator, looking for that definition, you would be the property owner and then it is out to one of these national entities that do this. Is that what we are looking for with definition?

Yes, correct.

Got it. Then along with the hazardous materials, would this be standard information for any storage lot that would have very visible signage on the outside allowed what is not allowed?

Yes.

Got it. And then new building facility for the city light equipment, can we shed some light on that a little bit?

Is that a question?

I'm talking about

council or sorry,

commission.

So

that's been a conversation mostly with our public works department and not planning staff. However, there is a location to the east of this project that's in an area that the city has historically used for storage. And as part of the agreement, constructed. And I believe the purpose of that storage building is mainly tied to the charging of electric maintenance maintenance equipment. As you might know, the state's going away from those small engines for a lot of maintenance type equipment and going towards battery operated.

And so that, of course, is going to require some new infrastructure to charge all those batteries. And so I believe that's the primary purchase of the proposed storage building on the city's courtyard side of this property.

Also along the lines of security so along the lines of security, what type of security would be in place for this.

I think more to

the question that I was reading through this, I had to do that.

Yeah, there we go.

I don't speak loud

to them.

Yeah, know. They need For

the record.

Anyway, so what I'm wondering about is, as I was reading through some of the letters that came in later, and the concern for the potential for the increased potential for theft, for lack of a better phrase, What can we do to possibly track that, or what is in place? What type of cameras would be in place relative to the entrance and things of that sort? And is there any way to track that? I know that's a little out there, but that was raised as a concern from one of the neighbors. So I thought I'd bring that to everyone's attention.

DAY: To track potential? Correct, exactly.

JAMES Yeah, so the entire site has security GREEN: cameras, they're monitored 20 fourseven.

20 fourseven?

JASON Yeah. And there's the on-site manager, different hours, but an on-site personnel that comes with the third party management.

And then for the on-site manager, do they live in that property? Is it more of a checking in and I'm at work at this point in time? Some of these properties can have people stay overnight or even live there at this point in time. Would it have the capacity at some point in time to build that in?

No. We've been advised that that typically doesn't result with the highest quality folks and representation. So no, they're an employee coming and going.

Got it. All right. And then coming back and thank you for the information on the fence. I know we've spoken a lot about it. Appreciate it. If I'm picking anything up, it's we have the opportunity to leave the fence next to the property owners as is, or put in a wood fence on the line that is now established and keep it on that level? That would be a six foot fence with two foot lattice work on top. And the property owners would have their choice, or would they all have to act in unison?

I don't know. In the DRC notes of approval, I think it was not clear if it's all or one. But our intent is to respect the fence line, and if required or suggested by the neighbors, replace the existing fence line in which the landscaping would respect that and not go into anyone's backyard.

Great. Thank you. Appreciate it. And then one question for the city would be, we're picking up 6,600 square feet in buyer retention. Is that correct? And runoff reduction?

JAMES Yeah. So I'm certainly not an engineer, so I can't give you the factual information about the area requirements for bioretention based on the amount of impervious surface. But I would trust that the applicant's reference to 6,600 square feet is correct without going to the storm water control plant to verify.

Very good. Thank you.

Thank you, commissioner. Commissioner Stuckenbroker.

No questions at the moment.

Thank you.

And I just have one clarifying question. The city will maintain ownership here. Is that correct?

GREGORY

Yes. If I remember correctly, the lease agreement goes through sometime in 2058.

So it's a ground lease?

I believe so.

Yes. And will they have a say in the final user of the project? I don't know what you'd call it. Hotel's got a flag operator. With the operator?

I don't think that's spelled in now. But I'm open to that.

Wonderful. Well, last question. I think I saw something about it being open till 10:00 at night. Was there a time that needed to be did it need to be open till ten Could it be open till eight I was just curious if there's any flexibility there or that's sort of an operator requirement that

they need be till ten? We reached out to three major operators and they were all very firm on that, almost more firm than the size of the building. So that's important.

Understood. No other questions from me. So thank you. You can sit down. And then I will open up the public hearing. Does anyone need a bio break or anything like that? We're ready to go. I think we've got a lot of cards here. All right. I'm going to open up the public hearing. Going to read through these cards. And again, if you would like to speak, please come on up. Oh, we got another one. All right. Because you put it in last, you're going first. May I call forward Loretta DeGrief? And I am going to limit this time to just because we have so many, this is typically I know it varies at times, but maybe two minutes. Thank you. Hi.

I'm Loretta DeGRIEF. I live at 561 Fernando Drive. I live right across the street from where the development is. So from my front door, I look out at this building. My neighbor across the street is they're backed up to the property. A couple of my questions. Is the concrete that's existing there going to be removed? Because it almost seems like you're acting like it's not going to be removed. It's going to be all dug up. And all the stuff underneath that, is that going to be exposed?

We're going to be exposed to whatever's under there? That's one of my questions is, what's going to happen with that? Is there some kind of environmental study on what's underneath all that concrete that's been there for quite a while? The fence that's on my neighbor's backyard, did anyone ask the neighbors at 561, 562, and 564 if they wanted to keep the fence? Did Mark, did anybody ask?

Just you.

Anyway, that was my question. Said, did anybody actually ask them? And is a six foot fence you've got this 35 foot tall building that's 100 and something feet away from you. And if you look at the story poles, it's pretty high. And is a six foot fence going to be reasonable? And is it going to be secure? It's easy to hop over a six foot fence. I have six foot fences with the lattice on top in my backyard, and I could still hop over that fence. So how secure is that for the people that live around there?

Almost up.

The hours of operation, that's I mean, 6AM on a Sunday morning to 10PM? Do we really need to have that much time open? And what's going be the value of the property when the city gets it back after thirty years? This building's going be thirty years old. Is this going to still have the same value? Anyway, I'm just throwing out these ideas and wondering. And nobody's really addressed the roads going into it. And I know other people are going to bring up. The road going into this property, we've got one way in and one way out. It is a dilapidated road.

We have no sidewalks. It's not very safe. There's a grade that when you're walking your dog over on Davidson, there's this grade. And it's a blind.

Thank you very much. By the way, really appreciate your comments. There's so many folks. I'm going to have to move along here. Thank you. Jim JIM MENDON:

Hey, everyone. Thank you for letting me speak. I wrote something down, just kind of some thoughts I just wanted to share with everyone. I just wanted to kind of something's been going through my head that I just wanted to kind of have you think about as well. And it's like the idea of like just because something is proposed to you or brought to you doesn't necessarily mean it has to actually happen.

Right? So before you make any decisions on approving this project, I would ask you to take a moment and put yourself in the shoes of of the people in the adjacent neighborhood. You know, really think for a moment about how you would feel if you lived in a small neighborhood with one janky road in and out, and now you have to worry about your property values or noisy traffic through your neighborhood or cars parked on the side of the road or trailers parked on the side of the road or, you know, how this will affect the feel of living in your neighborhood. You know, we even already had neighbors of ours move out because of this. And, you know, that was a big loss to our neighborhood.

You know, as the developer pointed out, you know, they said we've got a hospital and with that has tons of light pollution at night and a sewer treatment plant, which occasionally smells. But, you know, I have to ask how it makes sense to put a building to counteract other buildings. It's like saying, you know, hey, have leukemia, so let's give me lung cancer to help me really ease into dying. So, you know, I wonder why we would do anything even remotely industrial there. Maybe a better use would be to rezone the property and do something more meaningful and less intrusive with the neighborhood.

The developers also made a point that this took a lot of time to put together. And I would like to point out that just because something was hard or took a lot of time doesn't automatically mean it has to happen. I work in software and in software engineering, you could spend months on a project and the company decides to go a different direction and you have to shelve your your code. So, I mean, shit happens. So again, just leave you with the idea that just because something is presented to you and, you know, it doesn't have to happen.

So just Thank you, mister Matt. Yeah. Appreciate it. Ron Alcosta. Acosta. Forgive me.

Hi. I'm Ron Acosta. I live in the neighborhood. And I'm a contractor also. I was wondering if the US Department of Fish and Wildlife do a study on this, or the EPA. Did they get in contact with the city of Novato? No? They should. And if you're going to be drilling old concrete, it usually has asbestos in it. That we don't want to affect the neighborhood.

Know, there's frogs. It's a major breeding ground for frogs, and they keep the mosquitoes down. If you have overpopulation of frogs, I mean, of mosquitoes, you can have West Nile virus, and it would affect these people. And the city of Nevada should know about that. That's a liability, right? I mean, there's an attorney here, obviously. So you should keep that in mind. Also, the illumination of lights on people will affect their health, too. It will also affect birds and bats and migratory birds. That's a major area for migratory birds.

They come in every year, you know, and it will affect their food source, and they'll start running into buildings. So the US Department of Fish and Wildlife knows about that, and EPA does, too. So the city should really check with that and keep you guys out of trouble. Also, like I was saying, when you start, concrete and water don't mix. So there's wetlands, and they're protected by the government.

So keep that in mind. And also, I work in the city a So these places are incubators for crime and people trying to hide stuff. If you look on forensic files, you could see that. Mean, it's pretty dangerous. So I'm sure Justin knows about I mean, can see that because he's the green, supposedly.

You know

Thank you.

We're all human here in this whole building, right? So we're concerned about these people and their kids. And we don't want people breaking into their homes. They work really hard to keep their homes and their home values. So keep that in mind. So I think the EPA I don't know if they did they get in touch

with the Just so everyone knows, the questions, we're writing them

all down.

And then we will ask

Okay, thank you.

Yes. So I just thought I'd We let you can't engage, unfortunately.

So when you get really old concrete in schools, you got asbestos. So if asbestos gets in the

I will be certainly asking about asbestos. Thank you, Mr. Acosta.

Appreciate it. Thank

you. Time is up. Awesome. Julie Ann, forgive me. Borrow? Forgive me.

It's Okay.

Yeah. I live in the neighborhood too, 595. I just have a little bit. We do not need to have a storage unit in our neighborhood because it will create a lot of traffic. And plus, the neighborhood already deals with freeway noise, And the storage unit is not necessary. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Eileen Volowitz.

Bring this down to my level. I live in the neighborhood. And I would like to bring up the access road, Davidson. Walking on Davidson is a challenge. I have to cross Davidson to get to the park. I have to walk on Davidson to get into town via DeLong. I have to walk on Davidson to get to the smart train station. I walk on Davidson to walk my dog. There's one road in and out of the neighborhood. The same road goes in and out of the corporation yard.

The same road will lead to this storage unit. I just read in the traffic study that we're expecting 107 more trips per day on Davidson. Usually when I walk on Davidson and I've been walking on Davidson for a few decades now there's only one car at a time. And it slows down when it sees people. Drivers slow down when they see people.

They move to the center of the road so there's room for a human and a dog or a mom pushing her stroller, sometimes with twins. And this road is used for walking because the neighborhood roads are very narrow and there's cars. And we're an entire neighborhood without sidewalks. So it's the nearest place we can walk if we're so inclined. Some parts of the road have an incline, a hill on one side, and a ditch in the other.

I know the ditch well. I've fallen in it before. And if a car comes by, they can move. I can move. But I can't step off the road to make space. With 107 more trips per day, we're going to have two way traffic some of the time. And there's barely enough room, I think, for two cars to pass. I don't know what the minimum width of a road is to accommodate two way traffic. But once there's two way traffic, there's no place for people. And I'm concerned mostly about that. So I would appreciate someone looking at that and making sure that for those of us who live there that it's safe for us.

Thank you, Ms. Appreciate it. Mike Dempson.

I'll keep this quick. I just want to say thank you. I may be the only person here tonight that is in support of the project. I moved from San Francisco, and I'm a tenant at one of the other self storage facilities. And over the course of two years

in

storage, the rate was raised four times. It would have been nice to have another option. And I think some of the changes that have been proposed and the concessions, I think that is a good thing. So that's all I'll say. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dempsey. Hillary Peters.

Hello. I'm Hillary Peters. I live on Fernando Drive. My rear fence is along Davidson Street. I must continue to object to the size and scale of this project.

It's simply too large, especially Building C, which will be easily seen from our neighborhood, considering that it has points as high as 37 feet and parts that are 39 and onetwo feet for the elevator. These heights far surpass the height of the surrounding single story homes. The 3.31 acres of that parcel, which has been abandoned for decades, currently provides enough of a setback between our neighborhood, the wastewater treatment facility, and the city's corporation yard that we do not see or hear either of those existing industrial facilities from our homes. If a three story self storage facility is built, when we look to the east, instead of instead of seeing skyline, we will see Building C. And we will hear the noise of the moving vehicles and the banging of storage unit doors opening and closing from 6AM to 10PM seven days a week.

I still do not understand how the planning department legally determined that self storage facilities cannot be considered habitable space. And as such, that 40% far and 35 feet height limits of LIA zoning do not apply. None of the other self storage facilities located in LIA zones in Novato exceed 0.4 far or 35 foot heights. The same goes for the parking. There is no street parking available on Davidson Street to compensate for the lack of parking at this storage facility.

Why is this particular project an exception to that zoning rule? What sort of precedent will it set for future storage facilities? A city should be bound by its own municipal codes, including zoning and building regulations, even when constructing on city owned property. No one, including the government, should be above the law. And a city should not be allowed to arbitrarily disregard its own regulations to benefit its own interests.

Please correct me if I am wrong. But it is my understanding that it was during a closed session City Council special meeting, which the public was not allowed to attend, that the city of Nevada decided to spend taxpayer dollars on the purchase of 501 Davidson Street. It is also my understanding that there was no public bidding process for the lease to this property. So no other potentially interested parties were provided with the opportunity to propose other uses of this site. For the state of California, to ensure fairness and prevent the misuse of public funds, competitive bidding procedures are relevant and sometimes required for leasing public property.

The Nevada taxpayers have not been provided with any other options for use of this city owned land. Some of the other permitted uses of LIO zoning include live work facilities, printing and publishing, research and development facilities, health and fitness facilities, studios for art, dance, martial arts, music, bookstores, florists, business support services, personal services, and plant nurseries and garden supply stores. Have any of those other permitted uses been considered? Are the taxpaying residents of Nevada allowed to have any say in how the city owned property is used? Okay.

Last Sorry. I know. I have so many points. For the project's plans, between buildings A, B, and C, there are a total of 34 units that are 10 feet by 20 feet in size, 19 units that are 10 feet by 25 feet in size. 13 units that are 10 feet by 30 feet in size.

Thank you, Ms. Peters.

Sorry. I just, I want to know, is heavy machinery going to be stored in these? Will Thank it you. Be

I very much appreciate it. Again, Norman Hall. Norman Hall.

My name is Norman Hall. I live at 594 Davidson Street. Our family's been there for over sixty one years. I just want to make sure I understand what's going on here today. Are you, after all this, going to be recommending or not recommending that this construction will continue? Is it up to you to make a decision after what we say tonight?

Remember, cannot engage with you. This is just a you speak, then we're writing down all your questions, and then we will discuss afterwards.

All right. Thank you. As you know, our family has been living there for over sixty one years. If you know the history of that area, you can imagine what

the

people in our neighborhood had to go through when the freeway went through. That was quite an undertaking, and we went along with it. I wish you could have been there and suffered it with us. At 594 Davidson Street, I can tell you that the traffic in front of my door has made such an impression on the road in front of my house that has never ever been fixed. And I don't think there's been any talk about what they will do when you guys move in.

There are about four enormous nasty holes right in front of my house. And I don't think it's going to be doing any good to see all the traffic coming and going. I want you to think very, very clearly that the NIMBY situation is always prevalent, and I understand that. But we live in a very closed, quiet facility area. And we've had to deal with a lot of problems already.

And the idea of a whole new facility moving into our neighborhood is going to be a real challenge. I know my time is up, but I want you to think clearly and deeply when you make your decision that it's not just a matter of, I've lost three cats, one dog in front of our house. And it's not because of any nonchalance of laws keeping up with us. It's what's actually happened.

Thank you very much. It. Shane Griffin. Hello. Mr. Griffin?

Hello. Oh, now I've to raise it. Just two things real quick. I don't follow it, but my wife does very closely. Next Door Novato, I don't know if anybody's ever heard of it. She's always saying, this car got broken into on this street. This happened on this street. Somebody broke into this house on this street. Nothing has ever happened that I know of in our neighborhood. No car break ins, no cars stolen, no house broken.

Because even somebody at the city said they didn't even know we existed, the neighborhood. Nobody knows they think it's a dead end if they get off on DeLong. But my biggest concern is somebody has brought it up about the walking. You said you walked the neighborhood. And I appreciate anybody that took that field trip. It started at DeLong and walked down Davidson all the way to the end of Davidson. It is a challenge. Once you leave the Jewish center, there's a sidewalk. Then the sidewalk just ends. And then like she said, there's a hill in a ditch that goes like that.

You have to walk on the street. And that hill tends to have vehicles go fast around that corner. And there's little girls that walk home from school over the overpass that they're in a group. They're probably in the fourth or fifth grade, but they walk together. And I commend the city tremendously.

Whoever manages the city back there with the trucks and the workers, over the years, they've done a great job. They drive slow through that neighborhood because I think they've been told over and over again to please drive slow and respectful. But there's places on Davidson where if you have an SUV and a regular sized truck, one has to stop or pull over a little and let the other one go by. And this is the city of Nevada. It's not the county. We're in the city. So I don't know what the solution is. Widen the street, put sidewalks and proper drainage in? Anyway, that's all.

JAMES G. Thank you, Mr. Griffin. Paula Neese.

Hi, 577 Fernando Drive. Respectfully, would like to request that the project be put in the garbage or discontinued and Mario or whoever come up with another feasible project. Because this is really a reckless, dangerous project. And first of all, any storage unit facility is all about the cash. It's automatic cash.

And I said from the beginning it was a done deal. And hopefully you guys will rethink and really consider what people are saying here. When they talked about the security overnight, I brought that up at the first meeting. I just moved out to ten years out of where Deer Island Storage Facility is. And most facilities in Marin and other places in Sonoma have twenty four hour living in managers.

And and even with the live in manager, Billy at Deer Island, has had to go after people that have gotten over the fences. He has full full security, and he's on and lives on the trailer there. And he's had to go after people, and he has a dog that will help him go after people. And it's a crime thing. I disagree about Davidson.

I live across of Davidson from the street that you can see up. I've had to make complaints with the police quite often because of the tailgating and speeding city traffic. And they have to be reminded, the city yard, the delivery trucks, very fast. And we have these young girls. I've also worried about them, too. And I've contacted the city about it because it's not just them. We have a lot of young mothers with strollers. We have a it's just it's a very young, growing growing community, and, animals and everything have been killed there. Thank you very much, respectfully. Thank you. Sorry. But

No. Don't apologize.

Thank you

very much, miss Neese. I have an Elker, forgive me. Elkev?

Meeting, it's Lauren Elken.

Elken, thank you sir.

Thank you for the time. Unlike the other people who have been talking to you, I'm speaking for the community of Novato, or at least what I feel is the community of Novato in terms of there is a very, very limited amount of space and low and mid income. There's a lot of low and mid income apartments we have here. We're getting a lot more. And one of the biggest problems that came up, the staff brought up, is the fact that there's not any storage capacity, and we desperately need to have some storage capacity.

This is probably the best use of that land. Granted, there are some issues being addressed talking about traffic, talking about a variety of other things, but they've all been addressed by the staff and by the applicant. We already know, and I think it was important to note, design review found the project was consistent with the general plan. It was maintained and enhanced community's character according to the design review. They said it's not material interest to the properties or improvements in the vicinity, and it does not interfere with the use and enjoyment of existing or future developments, and it does not create potential traffic, pedestrian, or bicycle hazards.

And I think one of the other things that I think is important is that there have been all sorts of studies that were done. We can't ignore those studies. I understand there's a lot of people. I deal with EPA. I deal with fish and wildlife.

And I understand some of those things. But I have faith in our city staff, and I have faith in the developer that he's acted in good faith. I think listening to all these comments, there's no doubt that the applicant and the staff have addressed and resolved the issues of traffic, parking, noise, light trespass, mass and visibility of the building, and screening between land use. Novato needs more public storage capacity. And I'm urging this commission to do the right thing for the community and allow this project to go forward. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. No, woah, woah, woah, no dialogue in the crowd, No dialogue. Daniel Walker, Daniel Walker. Daniel Walker. Hi. Danielle. Forgive me. There we go.

Danielle Walker, 586Davidson. So all of those 107 cars or 58 cars would pass my house twice on each trip. I actually don't want to talk about the building. I'm not opposed to development on the site. I don't like the scale of this project.

But development, I'm not against that. I would like to ask the city whether there was a lot of talk today about encroachment on lands. We have this property. The city of Nevada has this property because Nevada encroached on someone else's land for decades. So I would like to know whether the lot lines have been adjusted to make sure that that doesn't happen in the future and that the considerations for the neighbors are made.

If there's going to be an exemption, there should be a formal agreement. So that way, the developer cannot come back later and try and find remediations against people who are encroaching on their properties. I'd like to protect my neighbors. I'd also like to know that if this passes, and if you guys go ahead with the agreement and you endorse this, what does the city plan to do to bring our streets up to code for having a commercial use at the end of our street? So not only the width, but the walkability, the lights.

For those who came out, you probably came out during the day. The lighting actually stops just past my house. So there's another quarter of a mile of unlit street down Davidson. So imagining cars going down in early morning or late at night, that's a safety hazard for my family, for our neighbors, for the drivers. And I'm sure that the top tier property manager that they are going to hire is going to be great at securing their property and their renters' assets.

I would like to ask the city of Nevada to put some kind of exemption in to fast track, streamline, or approve any permits that homeowners have to get in order to harden our spaces, to protect our homes, to heighten our fences, to put in any gates, or anything like that. So will there be any consideration for the the steps that we'll have to take as homeowners to protect our homes and our properties against the influx of traffic and the influx of unaccounted visitors to our streets. A lot of people have talked about how the city workers have gotten to understand the rhythms of our street. But they are accountable to us, the residents, because they drive up and down. They work down there.

These will be unaccountable drivers. People who are coming to check out the facility, have no idea how fast to drive, don't know where our stop signs are or where the families live. I would like the city to make plans for the residents that will be impacted

DAY: by this. Thank you very much, Ms. Walker. Jennifer Roy. ROY:

Hi. I also live in the neighborhood, 568 Lewis Drive. The section of Davidson Street between Lewis Drive And 501 Davidson is only about 18 feet wide. Per Marin County code, Davidson Street is classified as a residential road. And residential roads are required to be 36 feet in width. I request that the city increases the street width to 36 feet so Davidson become a legitimate two lane residential road. According

to the

Nevada Municipal Code, Davidson Street is not a designated truck route and has a weight limit of five tons. As such, vehicles exceeding this maximum gross weight are prohibited from using Davidson Street. Most of the heavy construction equipment that will be required for this project far exceeds our weight limit. I request the city increases the infrastructure of Davidson Street so it can safely support machinery and vehicles that exceed its current five ton weight limit. As you know, there are no sidewalks on Davidson Street.

That's been talked about already. There are no gutters or storm water management systems in place on Davidson Street. That's an issue. As well as not sufficient street lighting along the streets and also does not have any speed limit signs posted. So request that the signs of no more than twenty, twenty five miles per hour are added to help prevent vehicles from speeding up and down the street.

I want to address our community's needs for the city to provide us with full transparency regarding this property, its history of PCB contamination, flood risks, and its proximity to the Deer Island Basin Wetlands, which contain existing cultural resources. And in closing, just want to say that it seems like the city made a mistake when it built its corporation yard on property that it did not own, and now as a remedy to recoup some of its 5,800,000 losses, the city is proposing a project that will have a direct negative impact on our neighborhood. The whole situation feels unfair and unjust. Our neighborhood is one of the few places that you can still reasonably buy a home in Marin. I grew up in Marin.

I never thought I could afford to live here. And it's a wonderful neighborhood that still allows people of a certain income to be able to live. And this would just, again, continue to erode what our neighborhood is. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Roy. And finally, Shirley Hall. And again, if anyone else would like to speak, come on up. Welcome.

Thank you for hearing us. My biggest concern I live at 594 Davidson. My biggest concern is the traffic. The traffic is tough because, as everyone has said, Davidson has no sidewalks, no drainage. It's one way in and one way out.

And we walk our dog twice a day all around our neighborhood. And when I'm on Davidson Street, if trucks are coming from different directions, I have to find a driveway or someplace to scoot off the road because there's barely room for them to pass. And it's dangerous. And so I can imagine I'm not even thinking far enough ahead for the traffic for a storage unit, but I'm thinking about the construction traffic and how disruptive that will be. And we do have a lot of potholes on Davidson Street.

And every once in a while, someone will come in a truck and they put a little patch on there. And it lasts a couple of weeks, and then it's back to where it was before. Thank you very much.

Thank you. With that, I'm going to close the public hearing. What I might recommend here is, in lieu of a rebuttal at first, I was thinking I would go through just a list of some of these items. Many of the items that residents brought up really seem to be those things were directed towards the city. Some of them seem very technical. And I'd love to hear some of that maybe before we hear a rebuttal from the developer. Would that be all right with staff?

Because they did make

a list here. So one of the first things I wrote down was the environmental and geotech of the demo. Can you speak to any of that and why there might be risks or not risks?

Chair Durbie? Yeah. Before we dig in

Yeah, forgive me.

Could I suggest maybe just like a ten minute recess just because we've been out for

That would be hour

or forty five minutes right now?

That would be fine.

Just to

stretch the legs for a minute.

Yeah, everyone, let's do a you want to do ten minutes? Let's come back at

Thank you.

Yeah.

08:55.

Put the microphone back on and I'm gonna bring is everyone ready on our side? Yes. Alright. Hello everyone. Restarting the meeting. Alright. Let me jump in where I left off. Again, I was going to ask some questions that percolated out of the public hearing. And I wanted to just run them by staff to make sure we have some of them addressed. So the first one was environmental geotechnical of the demo, which presumably would be the current paving that's there.

And again, my question kind of lands on what is the city typically requiring? What mitigation measures? Anything else? If there was something like asbestos, has that been tested, etcetera?

Take those off mute. So it's a great question, one I probably don't have a specific answer on. So the question at hand was asbestos in concrete. And what we do know for demolitions is the city requires what's known as a J number from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. And so the air quality district has its own provisions and regulations relating to demolitions, some of which I believe apply to asbestos.

I know in past experience in working on projects that have building demolitions, typically a company will go in and characterize whether or not there's any asbestos containing materials and then direct a remediation before the building is demolished. I don't know that about concrete, though. So I would have to defer to the air quality district and their expertise in that particular issue and also the experience of a demolition contractor who performs that work.

But they'd be seeking a demo permit.

Yes. So they would only get a demo permit from the city with proof of a J number from the air quality district. Okay.

Circle back again. I will circle back around with the developer at the end. If per chance there's an expert that you had, such as geotechnical engineer or else your civil engineer, that they could weigh in on some of these items that the staff misses. I did mention environmental, but biological. Some items came up about frogs, about the adjacent wetlands. Just curious, birds, bats, etcetera. I would guess some studies have been done. Tell us a little bit about that and any mitigation measures that would arise from the demolition and construction.

Yes. So they did have a biologist do a site visit and do the record search of what might be out there based on the habitat conditions. And that biologist did have some recommendations for the project. Those have been included in mitigation measures. They didn't find any habitat on the site, however, due to the proximity of the wetlands.

There were some recommendations regarding preconstruction bat surveys, bird surveys. I believe there's even one for, before they demoed the building, make sure there wouldn't be any I can't remember if it was bats or birds roosting in a building. So that was on there. So yeah, in summary, the biologists that did the site visit wrote the report, did include a number of mitigation measures that we turned into conditions of approval to ensure that the project demo and construction would be consistent DELL:

with the general plan EIR mitigation measures.

I'd also add that there is a condition about a particular type or color of lighting in the

project. GREGORY

And that's intended to avoid any sort of disturbance of the nearby wetland Wonderful. Okay. This is a big one, and that's Davidson Road. We heard a number of comments, concerns about Davidson Road. Could you talk to us a little bit about the upkeep of Davidson Road? I assume it's a public right of way, lack thereof, I should say, of Davidson Road from the city. Again, I feel like there was a lot of comments on this. And it feels more like something the city should speak on rather than the developer.

Well, going throw out the planner card. Typically, road maintenance is handled by our public works department. And they do so based on a pavement index scale, where they go around and they have certain thresholds for pavement repair. And that guides their decisions in where new paving projects are proposed and other improvements. For this project, what is expected of the applicant is what's called a half width improvement.

So out to the center line of the street for the distance of the property's frontage with Davidson Street would be repaved, curb gutter. And that would be for mainly drainage purposes. And that's part of the condition of approval tonight. And one of the things that staff did want to clarify in that condition of approval is that those improvements are only required for the property frontage distance along Davidson Street. So just to summarize, planning staff were not aware of any pending projects or future projects involving repaving or other improvements to Davidson Street other than what might occur for this particular project.

But a number of safety issues were brought up, of course, on the street. Was anything obviously, this project is not built there yet. It sounds like there's already issues there. Has the city identified this roadway as something they're looking to maintaining, improving, etcetera?

GREGORY I'd have to defer to public works to answer that question. I don't believe our public works engineer or consulting engineer would have that information. That really comes from our capital improvement Program division. It's certainly something I can take back to them and ask them about where does this roadway stand on their pavement index study and what might be the future in terms of improvements for it. And I can certainly send that out to the commission. Okay.

But everything that's being done again, for everything on Davidson, nothing's being done to the main road. It's just in front of the actual property and the project, right? That's correct. Okay. Just making sure. Environmental agencies were brought up. I know we already addressed this, but there was talk about the EPA. There was talk about fish and wildlife, etcetera. I'm just curious. Isn't there another time that

we address that? So I don't believe, as far as our typical project referral, that this project got referred to the EPA. I'd have to go back and look, but it probably just got referred to the typical reviewing agencies that review most projects. I do know it did get sent to the flood control district, because they do have the adjacent property ownership. And whenever that scenario occurs, we do refer it to them.

Can I add on to that answer? So what we typically do with a project is we will look at what we call the Cortesi list. So it's a series of websites where we would look to see if there's any listing for a property as having known contamination. This particular property has a history of a leaking underground storage tank that was remediated back in the early 1990s, late '80s. And there is a case closure letter from the Regional Water Board that says that agency was satisfied with that cleanup.

So other than that record, there were no other indications of any other issues involving the EPA, either the federal or the California Department, or the Regional Water Board. So with that information, we would typically not go any further in a review on this particular property.

Okay. Crime. Crime came up a lot. Just from a planner's perspective, how do you look at crime? How have do projects address crime in any way, prevention thereof?

JOSHUA Yeah. I think as a general statement, as planners, we typically are not regulating land use based on the potential for criminal activity to occur. If a bank's proposed, we don't look at criminal statistics of the likelihood of this bank being robbed or that sort of thing. So for this project, we didn't specifically look at the compatibility of this project on Davidson Street and with the surrounding land uses from a perspective of, do we believe crime will occur after this is built?

JOSHUA Okay. There was a really good question about formal lot line adjustments for the neighbors and how you're to proceed with that. And I don't know if it's more of a developed question or you. GREGORY

Yeah, so there has been no lot line adjustments involving these properties. They sit as they were purchased. I think after a survey was done, obviously there is an encroachment by the neighbors immediately abutting the site to the west. And the city has made a decision at this point not to do anything, but reserves the right to certainly exercise its property rights in the future. So it's an open ended question. And for the time being, it's going to be left as is. Okay.

And maybe the developer can provide a little insight on that. Finally, at least on my list, and then I'll open up to the commissioners for anything I might have missed from everyone that came out tonight. Is the neighborhood if there's any improvements that anyone wants to do to their house, to their neighborhood, is there I believe she asked if there's an expedited path there to get something done. Again, it wasn't specific.

So it really depends on what a homeowner is planning to do with their property. If we're just talking about something as simple as a fence, it may not need a building permit. It may not need a planning permit. There are certain thresholds. Other improvements I think we are hearing about security improvements, lighting, bars on windows, things of that nature. I think it depends on what the building code includes and what the scope of that work is. So they would all be addressed on an individual basis. And they would fall in with all of the other permits that the city gets.

GREGORY But the internal roads there are not private, right? So there's no ability to gate the street, for example. That was just jumping in my head.

I don't believe those roads are private.

Okay. Those are all the questions that I wrote down that were very specific. Is there any other ones that I might have missed from your side that I think that relevant to Steph?

I think you captured the ones. Okay.

On that note, I think I'll welcome the developer to come back up and speak to anything that they'd like to.

Thank you. Riley Heard from the applicants team. I also made a few notes, just some brief responses before you begin your deliberations. First is just an observation. And what we have here is a property zoned for industrial use that happens to have been vacant for an extremely extended period of time.

Can I jump in real quick?

I'd actually prefer it if

the developer at this point stuck with answering questions just because we're not going to let the public get up and make their pitch again.

Yeah, don't the dialogue back and forth. However, I did want to yeah, that is fair. I do think we should stick to questions and making sure you guys can speak. If you could address any of the questions specifically, then not only we brought up or the concerns that maybe they had.

JAMES Sure.

Stick

to that. First of all is the concrete removal. This is a very significant investment. So both a phase one and phase two environmental study was obtained before we even considered embarking on this. Those both came back clean.

Also, the J number was referenced. If you've been through that process or familiar with it, you end up with a significant number of BMPs, a SWIP, all these technical jargon that basically says, when you're doing this removal, here are the things you need to do to contain dust, drainage, off flow, what does it do when it rains. So we have that covered. Let's see. Davidson safety.

So that really, to me, comes down to trip generation. So less cars, less statistical chance of pedestrian problems, bicycle problems, etcetera. So I listed some of the uses from this zone. Someone else from the public listed many potential uses. All of those have exponentially higher trip generation rates in the ITE manual.

So for the Davidson safety issue, the key is getting a use in here with the lowest trip generation possible. Another issue that came up was the FAR. I think staff went pretty deep on that, so I won't discuss that further. Another issue that was brought up was parking. And we just wanted to point out that these are pull to units.

So the parking spaces are really mostly for staff or someone who might be interested in leasing a unit. When you go to a storage unit, it's to drop off or pick up. And these, you drive to your unit. So I just wanted to point that out. You would never want or need 60 parking spaces here. That would be totally crazy. Commissioner Havel asked about the granting of an easement. And just wanted to note, although it's been said, that the applicant will not own this property. They cannot grant easements. But they did say, hey, we don't want to do anything to the fence line.

Fence has come up from almost every commissioner. Just restate, we're flexible. Whatever you want, the neighbors want, staff wants, we'll make it happen. You can't have a fence that goes masonry wall, wood, old cyclone with ivy. So yes, it has to be uniform.

But again, happy to address that. And I think as far as only questions, Oh, the final issue was the crime and the comment about that. And I think all I would I would point out two things in that regard. First of all, you're looking at a state of the art new top facility That brings a certain clientele versus longstanding, dilapidated other types of buildings. My second comment is the customers here are other Nevada residents.

That's who need storage, not people from far away or anything like that. So these are your community members that are coming. And that's it. Thank you.

Wonderful. Thank you very much.

I do have one question. Oh, and I'm sorry, Zach. As far as the operations, I'm assuming that once the building is constructed and it's ready to open for business, stuff kind of floods in. And I can see that being a bit of a hassle if you have a dozen moving trucks clogging up. Perhaps the operator can make appointments so that there's only two and I'm talking about the three story building. Obviously, the garages are in and out and a lot quicker. Does that make sense? Is that something that you would embrace?

I think you might be surprised by what we call the absorption rate, which is the manner in which these things get leased out. So the studies show that it will take a significant long build up period to market, attract the customers. Perhaps people are coming from there's a guy who spoke. You said he's a customer somewhere else. So it actually doesn't ramp up as vertically as you might think.

Okay. I appreciate that answer. Okay. Thanks.

Chair?

Yeah,

actually, does everyone have questions for the developer?

That Okay,

why don't we, yes, of course. Wanted to circle back

to one of the questions that had been raised in the public comment. One of the speakers had expressed concerns about the hours operation and, you know, creating noise and disruptions to It nearby didn't really seem fitting to have staff address that, but if you wanted to have any comments on measures that you're taking to reduce the impact of those hours of operation. I recognize that they're not flexible with the top tier operator. But what steps the applicant will be taking to mitigate those disruptions to nearby residents?

JAMES Yeah. So first of all, the key to the hours is the low frequency of visits. That's the most important thing to me. The four trips per hour would have a very difficult time. So you've got four people in one hour might go in and out of a storage unit. It's hard to imagine significant noise generation from that. That being said, abatement through design was the key. And that was the inward facing nature of it. The outside is hardened structure without penetrations that lead to noise escaping. So it all faces inwards.

Got the timing. And that's really the plan. And the setbacks, which were greatly increased.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair?

Thank you. My question is, what do we, generally speaking, consider at capacity? Meaning it's great to have 100%. That's not reality for many national institutions that would be operating this facility. In the larger context, is this 65% would be traditional normal full capacity with the 35% space, or was that 85%? Something along those lines.

Around 75.

Threefour percent full.

Got it. Well, that's mostly due to turnover.

But it's the context, and that's important. So thank you.

Any other commissioner questions for the developer? Okay, not seeing anyone. I'm going to bring it back to the commission for deliberations. Thank you very much, Mr. I'll close the public comment period, technically. So bringing it back. Does anyone have any more questions before we weigh in on where we think we might go tonight? I think staff has suggested there was going to

be another condition or an altered condition.

Oh, were we going to speak about the it was the defense,

Or was it

GREGORY Well, the defense is here already in red. But I think there was something else

GREGORY Yes. So it's condition 42, letter A. And it's the condition speaking to the Half Street improvements.

What page is that on?

Forgive me.

What page? Got it. Thanks.

If you have something, it would be great to be able to show that.

22, Section A, I guess.

Is this the special condition of approval here? I could read it if you'd like.

Yeah. Can also pull it up here very quickly.

You're just taking out a sidewalk. Now I see it.

Again,

this reads a little vague. Is specific to the I'll let you put it up before we speak.

So

it's condition 42. And what we would like to do here is to clarify, A, so again, sidewalks are not required for this frontage improvement. And we want this condition to make sure that this frontage improvement is only required for the distance of the property, the project site's frontage along Davidson Street. So the suggested language DAY: change

here would be frontage improvements along the project site's frontage at Davidson Street. Understood.

Okay. And we could figure out better wording if that's the desired

Yeah, this is vague. We did want to talk about the fences, correct? Was that what that was asked of us, too, to really discuss that? Or I'm sorry, maybe one of us had brought that up. Forgive me, questions.

I did. And I think the condition that they put forward is Okay. But it does call for so it's page 16 paragraph. I see it as a bit awkward in that, again, the area is going to be dealt with for a hydrology basis in order to make sure that it's gonna drain properly into that bioswale or out to the wetlands. And so it seems to me that that it's right now a blackberry, you know, jungle is gonna get cleaned up or dealt with.

And so I think when that's happening is the same time to talk about fencing and landscaping and how it all fits together. I don't think we can do it tonight.

So is the concern that the fencing somehow influences the drainage?

Yeah. If you walk the site so at the west corner of it, it's higher, probably 20 feet higher than the property we're talking about. And the equivalent of the property line now is a drainage swell. It's an open ditch. And that, I believe, I think I heard from the applicant, is going get addressed through engineering and to make sure that the water drains appropriately through there. I'm assuming that that means that that a lot of that landscaping is getting ripped out of there so that it's either coverted or cleaned up so that it actually the water's gonna flow Because I don't think it can stay the way it is and address hydrology.

Commissioner Roche, did you have some We say on

should probably get clarification on that, because I do not think that that is for the entirety of the property. I think that's for a small corner.

It runs the length of it. The change

in elevation? Thought it was more concentrated in one corner.

The site will ultimately be flat, but there will be a slight grade change to directing the water into the The high point

is that we talked corner, and then along the west property line, it slopes sharply.

GREGORY So it doesn't really show itself well here. But this is the drainage plan. And the corner that I believe Commissioner Tierney is speaking to is right over here where you see my cursor moving. And it looks like there's a little bit of recontouring happening in here. And then you see this right here, this arc perk here. That is a drainage ditch going through there. And you can see the direction of flow. And I'm trying to look here. It looks like it goes into an underground system at that point. Looks like there's a collection box there.

And then the drainage will split the other direction down to another collection point. So I think drainage is covered here. We do have a condition of approval that a construction detailed drainage plan will come in. And then civil engineer, Laurie, who is here this evening, would take a look at that, do a plan review, and then either decide to approve it or not at construction. So if you'd like to hear from Laurie on this issue, we could have her come on.

Yeah, please. Okay. Laurie, hopefully you

can hear us. If you want to come on and there you are.

I can. Hey, I'm here. I'm sorry. My camera stopped working for some reason, so I apologize for that, everybody. But, yes, Citi is correct. This project will will go through a detailed design, but the overall the concept is pretty good. I think as the owner had stated, the site is paved currently, and it will be paved. You know? In fact, I think it's even maybe even a little bit less. So it's actually for a project, you know, so close to the creek and everything, it's actually pretty easy from a drainage perspective.

And, yeah, it'll it'll it'll be handled, and we'll definitely be able to watch that at the improvement plan level. But for the entitlement level, I believe the applicant has given enough information to determine that this is a drainage plan that will work. And we should be able to work out these kind of details during the improvement plan phase to make sure the final design will not create any problems.

JAMES Okay. I don't recall that being included in our documents. So that is interesting, the way that the drainage is flowing. What would happen? Let's assume that that drainage is what's the final product. What happens to the ditch?

Let's see if we have another drawing. Oh, go ahead, Laurie.

I can't well, I'm trying to look on my screen. Unfortunately, I can't see your screen. But the existing ditch, I think, remains you're talking about the one at the rear of the project, kind of behind the bioretention swell? Was that a ditch back there?

No, this would be at the upper corner near I think it's 658 Fernando.

Okay. So

we also have the applicant civil engineer here.

So it makes sense.

SPEAKER we could actually SPEAKER The civil engineer. They designed it. Can come up and speak to it.

Yeah.

Do I need to reopen the public meeting if we're bringing in

an expert? Don't think so. No.

Just make sure.

Good evening, everybody. So as most of the residents know, from Davidson Street, there is a hillside slope down towards the property. And so that concrete drainage swale will capture all that runoff. It's been sized appropriately to hold the ten year storm event. And it does convey it to a collection system underground that then discharges to the storm water treatment.

Okay. So what's going to happen, if that's the case, to the ditch that's there?

Proper maintenance will obviously be a big part of the site. Maintaining that for proper drainage will be key. But I think it's a large increase from what's there existing as far as capture the amount of water. And then you do have the bioretention area to help absorb some that water back to the ground.

Okay. So that's what I assumed that the bioretention basin was all about, to capture what was coming down that

ditch. Correct.

But apparently not. Apparently that's for sheet runoff from the actual site.

Yes. It's both. Well, it'll collect sheet runoff from the site, collect into an underground system that then discharges to the bioretention

system. So what's the point of a bioretention if it's all being culverted and sent to be treated?

Part of the BASMA requirements are to any new for any new development, treat the hardscape.

Fine. Okay, thank you.

JAMES That's all good. I'm

still not I think we were talking about the fence, right?

JAMES Well, I think they're related. But Okay, I think we can just talk about the fence, because apparently drainage is being dealt with down parallel to to Davidson. But it'll require some kind of fill. I mean, there is a great difference. It's a it's a significant one. When you're standing on the property where this this applicant is and you look you're looking right at people's back doors, right, in their back bedrooms. And they're above you. And so certainly,

if you put

a six foot fence, they're going to see right over it. That's not blocking anything for the people unless the grade changes.

So I think you're saying, Commissioner, that the site's lower and then with the six foot plus the two on top, right? It's eight feet lattice. You think that they'll still be

Hardly make any difference.

Interesting. Were any studies I know there were some visual studies. Were any visual studies done that address that?

To the

chair, let me interrupt. Hopefully, landscaping softens it and makes the difference up. So, know, that's why I would support this resolution that it be mutually agreed to by the property owners on the other side of the fence, as well as the applicant.

So this is a section drawing with the sight line back to the larger building.

But where is that taken on the site?

So that's from the backyard of one of the residences

Okay.

With a with a six foot fence.

I think, if I understand Peter's Point, section would be quite south of the northwesterly corner of the site. Because the backyards, the lots that those houses sit on are stepping up, sloping up significantly from north to south. So that section is very different from one house to another.

So we're talking about this area right here. Commissioner So

so keep going down, Steve. Keep going down along the west property line. Uh-oh.

Oh, sorry? UPS

truck in the way.

Oh, wow. Okay. This is even better.

Let's see if we can get around the truck here.

This is altogether different than what we've been

focusing So we're looking at this corner right here. Right, that's

where we started for drainage. Please run it. Follow

it down. Follow it all

the way down the property line.

No, the West Side. Well, I can only get a street view. I can't get into the property.

Well, you can arrow it. I'm sorry if I interrupt.

Commissioner Roche, I'm sorry, you had a comment, given that you

Right, there you go. So if I'm hearing you correctly and it is kind of important what you're talking about the grade here. So if we're looking at this, you're stating that the grade is severe all along the residential side. And when I say the residential side, I mean the neighborhood side.

Yeah, the homes that are on Fernando are higher.

Okay. So if that is, in fact, the case, you're also stating that it needs to be raised. Well And then along with that, how does this play into relative to the treescape that was agreed to relative to where the fencing may or may not be? And will that treescape still be going in, regardless of which side of the fence those trees are going to lie on?

I would hope so. But I think that, again, that needs to be internal dialogue with the people affected, impacted, and whether it's the city or the applicant, to minimize. It's not gonna go away. I mean, it's even if you put from what I could tell, a 16 foot fence, they're still going to see part of that project. And so that's unavoidable, I think. An unavoidable impact that they're going to see something. I'm just talking about minimizing it and providing some privacy in their backyards. If they choose to continue with their fences, like we put in this resolution here, fine. Keep it that way. But I think if not, there needs to be some kind of an accommodation along that line.

GREGORY Mr. Marshall, do you have any

Yeah, was comments going add. Here, So

maybe?

You can see in the photo here, there's a large amount of tree cover. Those trees remain. They don't change. We're also talking about what would be a six foot solid board fence with another two feet of height. And depending upon the distance of the viewer to that fence, it's a question of whether or not you can look up and over to a building. I believe we had some section drawings here that I'll switch computers with Brett that you can take a look at.

Commissioner Tieranji, are you concerned about mean,

it does feel like they have options and they get to weigh in. So that's you're suggesting you're okay with that, but you want to make sure that some of these details, such as the topography, are looked at?

Exactly. And particularly if hydrology was going to be addressed, that meant that the area was going to be engineered. And perhaps it could be a better solution. That actually does a pretty good job of showing the swale.

Yeah.

Okay.

So the landscaping you have there is dead on the property line, or is that on our side

of the fence? Well, remember, the fences in this instance encroach on the city's property. The landscaping would be with or the tree that's depicted here would be on the city's property.

Okay. So how have the residents reacted to this landscaping?

To the existing trees that are there? They're not going to be removed as

No, far as the ones I the proposed.

Those landscaping, I I don't know. Yeah. They've had the the neighbors have all been noticed. The homeowners in those units have had the opportunity to come to several design review meetings and this meeting. It was part

of the design review package. Correct. Was the the yeah. Okay. So was shown during the design review. And

what I'm hearing from the applicant is they will individually reach out to those property owners regarding the fence design, whether it's to leave the existing fence as is or go with the wooden fence at the eight foot height.

So you wrote this amendment.

Correct. I believe that was a condition of approval that was provided to the Design Review Commission, but had been omitted from this resolution. So it was added in.

And I'll support it. It's just this idea that existing fence remains if property owners prefer. Then obviously, they're going to still put up a security fence for this project. I

don't know that that's the case. I would defer to the applicant if they were going to add an additional fence beyond what was there or what exists there today.

GREGORY Okay. But either way, there could possibly be two fences. I mean, it wouldn't make sense for them to assume that chain link fence is secure.

GREGORY I think that's a question for the applicant. We're only showing on this particular plan a single fence. And from our perspective, it's either the existing fence that stays or it's the new wood fence that's placed.

Oh, I see.

Either That's of the way, from a staff perspective, I don't know if the applicant has a different plan there.

So maybe we address it by making sure, again, it's called out in here that they're going to and it already is, that they make a decision and work

with Yeah, because the way I interpret this, this could be both. This could have not only the existing fence remain, but applicant's entitled to put their security fence up at six feet with lattice.

So I'm just looking at the condition to see if there's a way to resolve this issue. And I think this is difficult because the homeowners themselves can come in and say, I want a different fence and put up their own. So I think what we would ideally want here is a commitment to a single fence, whether it's the existing one or the proposed fence. And I'll be honest with you. It's really, if the applicant is constructing the fence, it's really their discretion.

Agreed. Agreed. So again, as I read, there's potentially two fences. They can keep their existing one, but there's no question in my mind the applicant is going to put up something for security purposes. And that's Okay. I mean, that's fine. But that's the way

I This think is probably a

good point

for the applicant to weigh in, if they want to talk about the intent of fencing. May I

ask the applicant to come to the diocese and let us know whether they're planning on doing two fences?

As we've said, we're flexible. Think That's

what I thought.

Yeah. So we're not going to replace half of it I think practically speaking if there is a majority consent through the neighbors that they wanted it replaced we would just put one fence.

Right but the wood fence would be enough for security for you with the lattice on top or you'd like to see and remember yeah security would be from I don't know how the public or any other criminals are getting into their yard and then jumping over that. Again, it's up to the I don't think any of the residents here want to Well, is They

want to

break in.

At the I guess it's the end of Fernando. It looks into that It looks like at one time, there was an extension considered perhaps for a road. So, there is kind of an access point. Do you care if they say, I'm in love with that vine and blackberries and all, I want to keep it, would you build a second fence to protect your property?

I don't particularly care.

Okay. That's fine. Then we can, I think, is fine?

Thank you, sir. Okay. On to deliberation, perhaps. Anything else, Commissioner Chair? Well, maybe we'll just start with the deliberate we'll get into the finalize this, sorry, with the deliberations. If there's any other questions, I just wanna speak speak now. Staff?

You know, just clarification, not question so much, but the Planning Commission is the decision maker on this application.

Correct.

And it is appealable to the city council. Correct, Steph?

That's correct.

Okay. What's the appeal period? GREGORY

I'm sorry. What was that?

The appeal period?

Appeal period is ten days following the action.

So this is the deciding body tonight.

Planning Commission is the deciding body. And the fee for an appeal is $500 So there is a fee for that.

Thank you. And then you did have one question, Commissioner Garner? Yeah,

one other thing I wanted to ask staff to maybe expand on a little bit is the conditional use permit, as I understand it, among many things, requires the operator to manage and operate this facility in a certain professional manner, right, and complies with lots of standards. And that means that the city has the obligation over time to come back to the applicant if there's observation of mismanagement of some kind or some reason to revisit some issues. And specifically, the reason I'm bringing it up in the light of the input here is the comments have been made along the lines of activity that this will bring to the neighborhood, but also the long hours. And the operating hours, whether they're long or not, but some perceive them to be. If that becomes an issue down the road, is there potential recourse to address that?

GREGORY D.

Yes, that's correct. So a use permit allows full discretion to the commission in terms of determining what the appropriate hours of operation are in this instance. And based on the decision that the commission makes this evening, if there are complaints about issues later in the evening, certainly this use permit can be revisited. Staff would usually try to work with the applicant to resolve those issues without going that distance. However, if there wasn't cooperation on that issue, the city certainly has the ability to come back and modify a use permit based on operating conditions that aren't consistent with the local code.

Thank you.

Okay. Commissioner Roche, you have a question?

Operation, meaning there will be staff on the property during those hours of operation? And if the staff isn't on the property, will people have access to get in?

I think what we've seen and I'll defer to the applicant on this is most of these facilities will have staff there during what will be like an eight to five. But the gates are open a little bit earlier and longer with your key card access. So there is the ability to be on-site when an employee is not present.

Got it. All

right.

I'd ask for some quiet in the crowd. And then I think we can start. Commissioner Crockett, any comments or thoughts before someone makes a motion?

Yeah, I'd like to make a couple of comments. Think that if you look at the history of the site, when the Frontier Complex was active, probably was quite active, a lot of vehicles throughout the day coming in. Those buildings appear to be over 50 years old. It looks to me like the site coverage is significantly less, plus the stormwater retention basin is an actual net improvement on the site in terms of managing stormwater. I think the traffic I'm persuaded that if something's going to be built on this site and it can't.

No one's bought it to turn it into wetlands, for example. No good soul has done that. This is probably generating the least traffic. It doesn't have any windows. So in terms of light pollution, etcetera, I think good measures have been taken for that.

I think there's a lot of work to be done, clearly. Applicants communicating with the neighbors and working with the neighbors in terms of the fence, landscaping, targeting it to make sure it really does its job in terms of screening. I think light industrial use is what this site is zoned for. And I think it can be a legitimate transition to the other properties, basically the front on this cul de sac. So I don't take exception to the use.

I would just like to see that there's some additional conditions or some clarified conditions, such as mechanical equipment on the rooftop doesn't project above the parapet. If it needs to, it can be put down in a well or some other accommodation for visual and sound mitigation. I wonder if the applicant would be willing to study Building B, which is 190 feet long. In terms of security fence, you've got a solid wall for 190 feet. Maybe that itself can serve as the security fence along most of that site and just rely on the rest of it for landscaping.