Remarks by Christopher Leo
33 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 2
- Play at 8:34
“Commissioner Guzman made the motion. I second the motion.”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 30:50
“Yeah, I had a question. Could you go back to the slide of the existing property?”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 30:59
“No, no, no, the existing property as is, yeah. So this is going to be this street, as we develop the street. My question is, we just approved a project across the street with a landscape This property has a lot of mature trees, which provide shade, which will help condominiums. Are we making any effort to save some of the mature trees, or are we just going to flatten them? My concern is, and here's my concern, when we do landscape pallets for busy streets, take, for instance, the entry from MacArthur off the 55. And you look across the street, Zesa's now good. The trees are much bigger. The…”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 58:46
“So I'm going to leave this up to staff and the applicant, not me. We started to approve stuff on the other side of the street. If we approve this project tonight, let's be consistent. So the canopy looks like the way you want the canopy to look like because we're building the project. I wasn't here when we approved the project at 4th and Cabrillo. Let's make the canopy work for the residents who live there, for the developers, so the street's walkable. Remember, these people, their main park is Cabrillo Park, right? And then they can access the tennis courts a little further up Cabrillo.…”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 59:29
“Common themes down the main street so that when you drive the street or you walk the street, there's enough of a canopy for people to walk, but also that when you drive it, It looks similar.”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 59:48
“As soon as you cross over the 5, there's big trees on that side. You guys figure out what the trees we used on the other projects. Just make it look so that it works for everybody that lives there. It looks like the neighborhood. We're creating a new neighborhood. Let's create a new neighborhood with similar trees so that it works for the for the owners that buy the homes there. That's all, I'll leave it up to you guys.”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:14:08
“Yeah. Carl. Let me take a crack at it. Let me make a motion to adopt a resolution approving site plan review number 2026-0004 as conditioned, as well as adopt a resolution approving vesting track map 2026-0009 as conditioned, and adopt a resolution approving one incentive concession or reduction in development standards to be memorialized in the density bonus agreement number 2026-005 as condition and a condition for the public signage and uh for the open space that's the only additional i think and then you staff you guys figure out the trees i second you second so motion by commissioner leo…”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:44:55
“Nancy, do you have an aerial picture of the site and the properties around it? Do you happen to have one of those? I was looking at one. I was trying to figure out how this all connects because we've got this round cylinder. Is that a water? I assume that's water storage. I don't know what that is. Maybe you don't. Yeah, that helps. That one that you just had. So to the right on this picture, those are condominiums as well?”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:45:45
“It's apartment complexes. And the green space, is that open to the public or is it fenced in?”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:45:54
“Yeah, where the red dotted line is, you see the green, the corner green space at the top?”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:46:01
“It's open space, okay. And then behind, we have what apartment complex is? Around the, what is that, is it a water store? I don't even know what it is.”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:46:10
“The round cylinder thing, what is that, water?”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:46:13
“Okay, and then behind, down below, are those condos, apartments? Apartments. Okay, and then we have the parking lot on the right, on the left-hand side is going to be open, going to be empty for now, right? Correct. And then what are those single-family homes? That's a commercial, that's like a strip mall there on the corner of New Hope and First?”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:46:35
“Car wash, okay. What I'm trying to do as I deal with the other ones is how do we piece it together so that these people feel like, okay, I'm buying a place as part of a location, but then they see, oh, Now you said the street's going to get paved, Mountain View, so they'll be very happy about that. There'll be additional parking. Question is, this next piece, I assume, currently zoned, what, industrial or commercial or something like that? So you have to assume that that will flip into, once these people, if they get approved, that will flip into more housing, right? To finish the square.”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:47:14
“Yeah, on the other side of the mountain, I mean, if you think about it from our standpoint, right, you're talking about adding units here, there's apartments here, apartments here, New Hope is a busy street. We will assume, we can make the hypotheses that that will flip, a residential or something else, unless it's not doable.”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:47:47
“It's city-owned, so who knows what it could be? It could be a park for all we know. Who knows? Because it's not taxable property now. Okay. I like where this is going, because as Commissioner Fenn said, we're going to start to clean up this little pocket here. So I think it's headed in the right direction. I was just wondering, you know, when you think about landscaping, This could be the end, right? We have other water storage where we have big trees in the water storage area. There's one down Alton and Bear. The trees, the pine needles blow into the houses. Hopefully that's not going to…”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:04:42
“Yeah, it's for staff. And so it's a general question because we'll get more of these projects. Are we able to... Are we able to approve permit parking on the street? And I'll use Mountain View as an example. Are we allowed to approve permit parking on that half of the street of Mountain View so that we have questions about how much parking they get, but is there a way when we approve these projects to give them that portion of the street permit parking for the people that live in the complex. Solves two problems. One is some of us may not think there's enough parking. The second thing is then…”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:09:10
“All right, I'll take another crack at it. Let's see if we can do this. I'd like to make a motion that we adopt a resolution approving a concession or reduction in development standards as memorialized in Density Bonus Agreement Number 2025-04 as condition and recommend that the City Council adopt a mitigated negative deck and mitigation monitoring and reporting program environmental review number 2025-47, a resolution approving general plan amendment number 2026-01, an ordinance approving amendment application number 2026-03 to establish a specific development number 98, and a resolution…”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 2:23:05
“Can I ask you a question? First of all, I'm very glad this item's been forced, but like the only park in Willard is really the school playground. And That needs to be used. And I don't know if we have a joint use agreement with the school district to use it, because that is the only park space in the Willard neighborhood. And so to me, giving them another park, another place, maybe it will relieve some congestion at the school, probably not due to the number of units around it. But it's a very good use of a piece of property that's been just kind of empty for a long time. But I was just…”
Planning Commission · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:24:09
“Thank you. First of all, now that we have, I think, as many documents as we can read, and the full details of the plan, first of all, thank you for the work. I know it took a lot of work. I know there were lots of meetings. I know there's some people who think we didn't have enough meetings. We may have more meetings. This is a long process. The general plan took how long? How many years? Seven years. Seven years. How many years have we been at this?”
Planning Commission · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 1:24:40
“Three. So we've sped up a little bit, but it takes time. We're talking about the whole city, not just parts of it. So let me start off with, I think we're getting there. I think we're close, closer than we were before. We need to figure out a way to get to win-win with businesses and with those that are concerned about the environment. I think you've seen the comments from everyone. That's kind of, we're there. I think we need to kind of move it along and kind of maybe there's more meetings that have to take place so that people are comfortable in the direction we're going. People have heard…”
Planning Commission · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 1:30:22
“And is there, so let's say, is it an 80-20 split between restaurant and hookah lounge, or can it be only hookah lounge, because that obviously brings its own problems? But what I'm asking you, is it ancillary to the restaurant? Because there are plenty in Anaheim, like all over the place. The processes of this, because what I'm trying to figure out is, and I think what the public is gonna try to figure out is, what businesses will be coming? Because we've done our business up here to try to figure out what to do downtown. We've twisted in pretzels to make things work because we needed to. And…”
Planning Commission · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 1:33:17
“That helps and I think What I'm hearing you say is that we have tried to figure out a way where business owners or people interested in opening a business will be able to look at the map and figure out, okay, I can do this here, I can't do this here, because we have non-conforming and really odd stuff all over this city. If you've lived here long enough, you know. Right, I'm always amazed at what 17th looks like. I'm always amazed what behind First Street looks like. Like Chestnut, we've got high rise, basically four and five story apartment complexes that were probably single family homes,…”
Planning Commission · Aug 24, 2026
- Play at 44:55
“OK, let me start off. First of all, it's a lot, thank you. Second of all, people asked last meeting, I didn't get a notice. I got two. I don't know how many you sent out, thousands probably. People, please look in your mail if you live in Santa Ana or your business. You got three. There you go. See, so city is notifying people. This is one way they're notifying people. For me, it comes down to Santa Ana's competitive advantage. And I wanted to ask you a little bit about that because zoning is tied to the general plan, which is tied to lots of things that you talked about, right? When I think…”
Planning Commission · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 47:48
“So let's take that a little further. Mayor Mrakas, I know, recently, we approved the and a real project at the south end of town, I assume that's a version of. Mayor Mrakas, Industrial flex that you're the are are are industrial interface that you're thinking about, even though it doesn't about any right well actually there's residents across the street actually now they think about the homes alpha Susan. Is that what you're thinking, like, when we look three, five years out, that's what we're hoping to do in other areas? To kind of do it in that style? Because there are parts of the city,…”
Planning Commission · Aug 11, 2026