Remarks by Jon Zich
83 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 3 of 4
- Play at 1:30:53
“Thank you. I won't support the motion. I haven't supported this housing element since the beginning. You know, one of my favorite movies is Groundhog Day. If you haven't seen it, I think you'd find it entertaining. This feels like that to me. Having a certified housing element sounds pretty important. Sounds like it's a legal requirement. And in the very beginning, we were told We can't get there from here unless we get rid of Measure Y. Four years ago we did that. That wasn't enough. Then we were told we can't get there from here. We need an inclusionary housing ordinance. So we worked on…”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 2:06:53
“All right. One of the things you mentioned was that there will be, in the very first part of your presentation, traffic study, noise study, and then later in your presentation you mentioned the program EIR. Is it safe to assume that if there are significant impacts that are found that are unavoidable, that our response to that will be similar to the response that we had to the EAR for FTC, where we go, good to know, too bad about that, can't do anything about it, let's go ahead and start construction. Or would we look at the traffic study and go, oh no, that's bad, that's an impact, therefore…”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 2:07:53
“Oh, either. If we see significant impacts that are unavoidable, do we just sort of like make a note of that and say good to know and move on?”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 2:08:29
“Okay, and my next question is When you mentioned, I've asked this before, but I don't remember your answer. It gives you an opportunity to give me a fresh answer. We remove parking minimums from developments under the premise that the developer knows how much parking his project will need. Well, and presumably what other people say is not scientific. You know, I've heard that. Is there any constraint that we put on the developer that prevents parking impacts from their inadequate planning for parking to spill out onto our streets or adjacent neighborhoods or properties? Or do we simply accept…”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 2:09:44
“Right, that was where my question was centered.”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 2:10:16
“Okay, I just have two other questions. When you were talking about community visioning, I was wondering about this requirement of a maximum setback of 20 feet. Where did that come from? Did that come from the community?”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 2:11:39
“Why would we put a maximum setback and not leave that up to the developer? Maybe they don't want to feature their building right up against the street. Maybe they want their customers to be able to come off the street, park, and go to the business, not have to go around behind the building, wherever the parking lot might be. Why would we not leave it up to the developer?”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 2:12:21
“predominance of cars is not the main feature of the project and instead the people are the main building entrances are the building is I understand your philosophy on that thank you my last question you are estimating the council approval by October is that to beat the election what if this took until December January is that acceptable. IF WE NEEDED MORE STUDY SESSIONS, MORE DIALOGUE, MORE INTERACTION WITH THE COMMUNITY, IF THAT PUSHED US OUT OR ARE WE ON A STRICT SCHEDULE WITH THIS ONE?”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 4:11
“I certainly want to thank everyone from the public who's shown up. When it comes time for you to talk, I hope you're not bashful and you take the time to come to the podium and tell us what's on your mind. I'd also, Mr. Chair, like to let you know I want to pull the consent calendar item. Okay, perfect.”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 4:51
“Thank you. For the item dealing with the 15-unit development and specifically my comments relating to that, I LISTENED BACK TO THE, WELL, I DIDN'T RECOGNIZE MOST OF THESE WORDS, AND I LISTENED BACK TO THE TAPE AND I DON'T KNOW IF THERE'S BEEN A TRANSPOSITION PROBLEM, BUT SEVERAL OF THE COMMENTS HERE ARE NOT AT ALL WHAT I SAID. I DID MAKE COMMENTS, AND SO I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE STAFF GO BACK AND MODIFY THESE MINUTES TO REFLECT MY COMMENTS. Specifically, I didn't talk about activating the property. I didn't talk about the site had been underutilized for years. Those may be somebody's opinions of…”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 6:48
“Commissioner Klapak. Yeah, House Martinez can vote.”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 44:15
“You can go ahead you're present Just a couple of questions. Let me first follow up on Commissioner Dixon's question Using my understanding of what I think I heard you say You don't have to agree with my characterization, but it's a form it as a question what I heard you say is that the er er that we currently have which has concluded that that things are really bad, and in a number of cases, nothing we can do about it. What I hear you say is that the letters that have come in from organizations that have issues with the EIR, either because something wasn't looked at, wasn't looked at the way…”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 45:39
“Thank you. I think my understanding is correct then. Then a couple of shorter questions. Could you turn to page 24 of this presentation? Okay, what I thought I heard in the presentation by Placeworks was that the secondary access road would not be put in until such time as it was determined that it was needed based on the progress of development. But then on this slide, I see as part of your backbone phase two, that the secondary access road and golf course whole relocation occurs prior to phase three, which is the actual delivering of parcels for the beginning of construction. So could you…”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 47:21
“So then to be clear, if as this project begins and pads are formed and initial infrastructure starts going in, if the developer came to the city and said, you know, I'd really like to get started on the secondary access road, we would say no?”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 48:15
“Does that flexibility allow us to say no, that you have not yet built 2,300 units?”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 48:34
“Thank you. Okay. Then page 26, if you could turn to that. Under the chapter 5 the first item when you were discussing this idea of the existing lease expiring new lease or lease extension being negotiated Do you happen to know? What the date is of the expiration of the current lease?”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 49:05
“Okay. I was aware of it as well That's all I've got”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 3:00:24
“A number of public speakers have said this is an opportunity, once in a lifetime opportunity. I agree with that. It's the kind of opportunity you don't want to screw up. Get it right, and it's right forever. Get it wrong, it's wrong forever. There were a number of comments from the public. I don't want to respond to them directly. It feel maybe a little like I was debating you, and I don't want to do that because I respect your comments and opinions. This project is not 40% affordable. The specific plan doesn't say it's 40% affordable. It might have been at one point in time. It isn't now.…”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 3:53:21
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 3:54:10
“I don't really need to know the organization. So are you saying that the state told you which census tracts in our city were EJ communities? That's correct. Okay. So then related to that, I don't want to pick a particular census tract, but if I have a particular census tract in mind, how do I know, how do we know as a city that when we have sufficiently got them out of this definition? How do we know when we're done and they're not an EJ community anymore because we did all the good work?”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 3:55:08
“SO CONCEIVABLY NEW CENSUS TRACKS WILL POP UP BY WHATEVER METHODOLOGY THE STATE USES?”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 3:55:28
“Okay. And then I don't know what the slide number was, but you had a slide number related to EJ that showed on the right hand side, the specific areas that you had to address. Could you find that slide?”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 3:55:45
“Yeah, that's it. Um, So when it says you need to address the topic, it just means you've gotta either find an existing policy statement that kinda hits on that, or if you don't have one, then you've gotta come up with some to specifically hit these different topic areas. Correct. Okay, so when I looked at this matrix of the EJ policies, and I just happened to, Look at the one about ensuring access to healthy foods. Just pick that one. Cause it seemed like everybody's got the same access to healthy foods. So kind of curious how the state uses that in its algorithm. But what we have in a policy…”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 3:58:00
“Hopefully it's unlike HCD, but when the state gets this stuff back do they look at it and go? Good job Check the box and we're off the hook or do they look at this and go now.”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026
- Play at 3:58:47
“Okay. And then I think I just had one. Well, maybe a couple of questions about this cap. So you indicate in the staff report that this is not required by state law, us having our own cap, not required by state law. So as much as I love all the hard work you do, why did we come up with one?”
PLANNING COMMISSION · Aug 10, 2026