Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Let's do this.

It is 6 o'clock. So I am calling the Planning Commission of August 19, 2026 to order. Could we have a roll call, please? Chair Murphy? Here.

Commissioner Stewart? Here. Commissioner Hanson? Here. Commissioner Rae Schmidt? Here. Vice Chair Chesley is absent.

Bruce, would you lead us in the pledge, please?

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.

Are there any additions or corrections to the agenda?

None.

Okay, then we will move on to public communications. Is there anyone in the public who wishes to address something that is not on the agenda this evening? Is there anyone online?

No.

Okay, we will move on to the consent calendar, which includes the minutes of the regular meeting of the Planning Commission, July 15th. Are there any corrections or additions to the minutes? Hearing none, the minutes are to be approved as presented. Disclosure of site visits and ex parte contacts. Brad?

No, nothing on my end. Bruce?

No contacts. Driven around the place a few times.

Katrina. Just driven around. I didn't go on site again. Same here.

OK. In that case, we will turn it over to staff to review comments from the Historic Preservation Commission regarding the addition of a spa.

As a use, yes, as well as other pieces to that puzzle. But the piece that went before the Historic Preservation Commission was the Historic Resources Report. Sherry, is Ginger online? Yes she is. Okay can you promote her as well? She may have a couple of things to say as well but for what we're looking at here just to review how we got here is this body has reviewed this application of these applications in this project a couple of different times at the last meeting it was recommended and identified to take the historic resources report to the Historic Preservation Commission to receive their comments and then have that piece come back to this body now what I ended up doing with that is I attended the meeting last Thursday last Thursday and from that took the comments from each individual historic preservation Commissioner and transpose those into a document that you're seeing here and You're more than welcome. I hope you could have watched the meeting, but I felt like I covered as much of their comments as what you're seeing transposed within the comments before you tonight. Now, what I saw come out of those comments was basically kind of a focus on the courtyard area that kind of u-shaped courtyard area and whether or not to close it off or how to close that off and how far is appropriate in terms of closing that off it was kind of across the board somewhere a little bit more leaning into the kind of the preservation of the courtyard just kind of having as little impact as possible to the new use as possible. Some saying, look, you can go with a fence as high as six feet or even more. So the middle of the ground ended up being potentially a hybrid. I think that's kind of what you're seeing in the comments for either a hedge or some sort of transparent fence or even a combination of the two. That could be as low as three feet. However, our code does allow as low as four feet. But three feet and as high as six feet. So it's kind of across the board. These comments are also gonna be forwarded to the city council for their final determination. on this matter. I would ask for you to, and I'm hoping and trusting that you've reviewed these, and if you have any questions on these comments, I can certainly try to guide you through them. But really, they're meant to be kind of historic preservations comments on the historic resources report as it reflects on the proposed project. With that, I'll ask if there's any questions of staff.

So you added some additional information about parking, on-site parking?

I did. So that was in reference to a question and comment that you had posed at the last meeting.

Yeah, I appreciate that. And so I want to still talk about that. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Do you want me to... to start or do you have a question about it?

No, you can start.

Okay. So I looked at the parking kind of in an interesting format. I treated it as if it was a brand new use, not connected to the hotel, not having any sort of parking demand analysis that had been done and simply plugging in the numbers as they exist in our code. And what I found was the parking is very high. for this type of use, given the square footage. It is treated in the same manner as what a restaurant is treated at, which is a 1 to 100 ratio, which is extremely aggressive for a spa of this use. What's even more interesting is that typically with a spa, you may have people come from the outside, but mostly because we are a tourist-driven community on the weekends, those individuals are already coming up here and staying up here. So those trips are already being accounted for. So there's very little impact. which is the reason why when you saw the traffic analysis that was done, it was almost a wash to a certain degree. Obviously you have local community members coming in and actually it showed a little bit of a decrease in terms of the trip through the ITE manual as the traffic engineers had ran through the numbers. So it's an interesting exercise because if you look at just the numbers, it's very large so it begs the question what we had talked about maybe two months ago or three months ago which is should we be looking at the parking standards and how they impact each use moving forward whether it's a new use or impacting a use that's being molded into Other uses as a mixed-use component. So here this is actually kind of a mixed-use piece It includes residential and commercial as a single-family residence and then the commercial use as a spa So if there's any questions, it was an interesting exercise to go through because I just simply did the math and the math is very large Questions did you want to comments? I

ask your question now or are you going to wait for the discussion?

Well, that was my question. I guess it's like, can we talk about this? Because it's still, for me, an issue. I mean, I love the project. Don't get me wrong. And I appreciate this going to Historic Preservation Commission, because I think it should have gone there in the first place, personally. So I appreciate that it went back to the Historic Preservation Commission. And I agree with some of the comments from the commissioners about the courtyard being a character defining feature and to keep the landscaping low. So that's my comment on that. But the parking, I know that the applicant's attorney was saying, hey, you don't need to require a shared parking agreement because it's under a CUP. And then if another use came in, you would just change the CUP. But we're in a situation here. I've been thinking about it because it just didn't seem right to me. But we're in a situation here where we're doing a general plan amendment, a zone change, a design review permit. Is there a CUP with this?

Yes.

CUP. And it's on this property. It's not incorporating the Oak or the El Roblar Hotel. So this is not a combined project, even though some of the analysis was done on the combined project. So because of that, if we're doing analysis and making modifications to our zoning ordinance, shared parking, I think to cover ourselves, for the city, to protect the city, we need to make sure that shared agreement, parking agreement, is put in place. That way, both parcels, both property owners, are acknowledging that they're having shared parking. If you just say, hey, it's just part of the CUP, then the El Roblar piece you know, can say, no, you know, in the future, we don't want to do shared parking, and there's nothing on our CUP that says we have to do that. So to me, it just makes sense. It's protecting the city and our parking and our – You know, we're giving up parking on this site, on this particular site where the CUP is happening, the General Plan Amendment, zone change, all this stuff is happening, but there's no real tie to the Oaks other than they're saying it's going to be operated by the Oaks.

Hotel Aromar.

What, I mean, I'm sorry, El Roblar, I'm sorry. My brain is going back in time. But my point is, this is a CUP on these two APNs on 107 North Ventura has nothing to do with El Roblar, except we have these two reports that say, hey, it's a shared use and they're gonna share parking. I think that's not enough, so that's my point.

Do you have any questions for staff?

We're asking questions, right?

Yes.

Can I respond to it? I actually agree with you. And the reason why is when Hotel Orobar went forward in 2021, leaning all the way up to 2020, into 2022, 2023, there were several parcels that were in consideration to account for Hotel Orobar's parking. Because the use had been vacated for more than six months, we basically washed the parking that had been allowed on that site over time. So we had to reevaluate the entire site as it pertained to parking, especially since they were taking parking that was already on site and reappropriating it or removing it. Makes for a better plan, but what ended up happening is there was parking that was gained on the street and then lost within the private. And then there was a need for, based on the calculations that were done through the traffic report, for parking to be offsite. Obviously it led to some other situations, such as valet parking, which was a huge issue. Ended up getting solved, but it was kind of a lessons learned with that piece. What came out of that was conditions of approval through the design review permit that required what you had just mentioned, which was parking agreements, to ensure that the parking that was allocated was one, secured between both property owners, and two, we had a copy of it and it was recorded with the county. So by doing that, it secured that parking for that site long term. If it ever changed, the condition of approval identified that that parking then had to be accounted somewhere else. So if there was a negative that came out of it, for instance, one of the parking lots is on the south side of Ojai Avenue, and it's really kind of being used, well, it was identified as being used for employee parking. If that ever went away, they would have to find other parking to meet that negative that would end up coming out of that. So does that make sense? So what you're talking about here is roughly nine spaces that need to be accounted for. Secured, long-term, tied to Hotel Arrobar. Makes sense. That's a condition that you as this body reviewing it tonight could make to send forward to city council.

Did you say that the CUP had a shared agreement? no this one does not have a condition that requires a shared parking agreement it does not and that's what you're asking for okay if there are no other questions for staff i will open it up to public comment are there any people wishing to address the commission is there anyone online no we will close the public hearing

okay so that brings it back to the commission and sorry this is ginger i i thought you were opening it from the public was the applicant going to get a time to speak or should that be now or sure i don't want to go out of order but i also didn't want to miss okay go ahead is it ginger All right. So I wanted to thank you all for seeing us again tonight and considering the project. And, you know, Historic Preservation Commission, like Lucas mentioned, 5 out of the 6 on the commission thought that offense would have some kind was appropriate that were in attendance. And so I just wanted to share with you what we've done with that feedback if I could. And I think I have the ability to share. So, I will try that now. And here we go. So I'm trying to get this to presentation mode, but I don't know that it's going to let me. There we go. So this is kind of the update on the privacy screening that we're thinking about for the spa. This is, I think, called a pipe cactus. So that's kind of the design inspiration. And then the rendering, not exactly accurate. I think I generated in some fashion, so this is kind of what we were thinking it would look like a nice row of landscaping and then a gate to keep it and then we incorporated that into an elevation here. and this is what it might uh top is what we showed you last time and bottom is what we are presently thinking it might look like and right now in this image this is that is a five foot gate um so i wanted to share that with you um as responsive to those comments um and then in terms of parking i did uh see that that was coming back up in this um in this and I also wanted to clarify I'm not an attorney I'm a land use planner so I work at a law firm but I'm not trying to practice law here but we did look at I presented this to you last time all the allowed uses that could occur with the zone change from PL to VMU and I think this is a real benefit to the city of all of the basically resiliency that it offers this site that it could in the future if for some reason the spa were to stop operating all the opportunities that the city would have to have a valuable and contributing parcel. And we did talk to our traffic and parking Sarah Schulte, expert and the yellow highlights are uses that could be developed with eight to 13 spaces, using the it it's the trip generation manual it's the. Sarah Schulte, The gold standard for evaluating how many trips a use might have and how many parking spaces that use might need. And I think what I asked them to do was say, okay, if the site only has eight to 13 spaces and it wants to operate as an independent facility, not connected to the hotel, these are the things that could still be used, could still occur. With 8 to 13 spaces, and so we're really not cutting out much and then he wanted to clarify that. Other uses might be highlighted as well, depending on the square footage of the building. If that were to shrink in some way, some smaller retail stores or office spaces would also be accommodated with the parking on site. So I don't want to. kind of contextualize this, that removing the six spaces in the back, or I think it's four spaces in the back, is somehow deleting the usefulness of the property. And then we dug into the history of this site. And in 1990, there was no parking requirement. By 2006, there was an idea that the project or that the World University would need 30 spaces. And the site never had 30 spaces. The site has over time changed and could over time change again. So in these instances that there's some other use or it's decoupled with the hotel, that back garden could easily be returned. to parking if it needed to be um and then this is kind of an idea that um you know the city offers parking reductions i i feel like on a fairly regular basis depending on the uses that are being proposed and so i would say that a variance is not atypical um to get relief from certain parking requirements In 2006, for instance, there were supposed to be 30 spots by the math of the code for the World University, and it was allowed to function with 16. So I think what we're seeing is that there's flexibility in a site over time to change. Here's the parking lot when it was connected to the gas station. Here's the site when at a certain point when World University was still there and different parking spaces that it allowed and the parking spaces I would say probably maybe don't or wouldn't meet today's current parking space size standards either. And then just thought this was fun to see. This is the actual image of when it was a jail court. Squad room, et cetera. So what I'm showing is that the site is adaptable that parking layouts are adaptable. The uses can change. With good projects, planning commissions and councils have the ability to allow less than the number of spaces required. And so I, I was suggesting that the condition that's already in the packet. regarding the parking is sufficient and that yes it is a zone change and yes it is a conditional use but to the extent any of that would change it would come back to you the parking would be reconsidered the parking layout may change that that use that's proposed may or may not want the back garden they may want to repatriate it as parking any number of these uses could fit with a parking demand study specific to that use. So I respectfully disagree that we need to record something to title, but I would suggest if that was the way. The county has a thing, Ventura County, and I know we're not in the county, but just as an example, the County of Ventura, when they approve something like a CUP with a design review permit, et cetera, Will require a record of something called a notice of land use entitlement, and that is a cover sheet that says you are on notice that this property is being used under the authority of a conditional use permit. These are the things that were required and allowed and considered. And if any of that changes. you will have to come back to us. And so maybe that is a way to get the thing recorded in a way that sufficiently ties it to the CUP that does not create a need to, I would say, generate a lot of language or spend a lot of time with my colleagues or your lawyers. So I would suggest that and really I do appreciate the feedback that we received, and I think this looks really cool if I get an opinion here. So, yeah, I guess that's all I really wanted to say.

Did you say that the height of the fence is five feet?

so the gate as depicted on this is five feet um i had tried to do another rendering of it at five feet and it looked kind of um it looked kind of bulky and so i liked that the architect spent the time to put it as a elevation here so what's depicted here is five feet and then those um pipe cactuses of course the the height at planting and they they are From my limited research, they only grow a couple of inches a year. So they would probably be sourced at a three to four to five foot or three foot tall and then continue to grow very slowly over time. But sorry, to answer your question in a more succinct way, the gate shown here is depicted at five feet.

And the height of the vegetation could conceivably get to what?

I don't know the ultimate height of this type of pipe cactus, but again, slow growing. I think an inch or two a year. Okay.

Thank you. Do you have any questions for Ginger?

Okay, thank you. Thank you, I'm here for questions.

Okay. At that point, I will bring it back to the Commission for discussion. I suggest that we break this into two parts and deal with the Historical Preservation Commission's report recommendations and then separately discuss the other aspects of the SPA's request for zone changes and so on.

Does that work?

OK. Historical commission report. Do you have questions or comments?

Clearly written. Yes. I think it's very clearly written and it's very interesting to look through It's just this we're really talking about Are commissions reactions I think it's helpful seeing the variety of responses to that Yes most of them seem to involve a landscape buffer

I guess I didn't really picture that as being quite as solid a buffer as we're seeing presented because we do still want the public to be able to see in, presumably, and I think this in time is going to become almost completely blocked. So I'm just reacting to the buffer that was presented. I do think that a landscape buffer of some sort is still a good idea.

I guess this is a clarification question. So the gate is a five foot wrought iron see-through gate. Is there a five foot wrought iron see-through fence the entire way behind those plants?

And looking at the elevations, I would say no, but ginger, yeah, no.

So it's just plants and the five foot gate? Yeah. Okay. I'm okay with that.

A couple of things, actually, if I can go back a step just to understand exactly where we're at in sequencing here. So in the last meeting, the motion approved the application, correct?

Correct.

Okay, and then we have a shot at coming back and making a couple of adjustments to it, but we're not rewriting a brand new motion.

Correct.

Okay, we're tacking on.

So if you're wanting to add a piece to the puzzle to take forward to city council, you have that option.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, I mean, my view is pretty simple. I think we need to tell them what to do and not how to do it. I'm less concerned about the design work and everything because there's a larger theme here. The what to do is please ensure the visibility and the consistency. to me the Planning Commission landed in a bunch of different places it was actually hard to tell like who's what is the what is the opinion or the Historical Commission sorry Preservation Commission what was hard for me on that is they they didn't hold a vote or give us really anything consistent so on one hand I appreciated the flexibility and then flexibility is a killer when you when you come here you know so

But the applicant did react to historic preservation commission because they came back with a new elevation So that's what we're reacting to really is the new elevation.

Yeah, and so to me to be specific inside of that elevation Hey, here's the elevation that everybody seems to agree is the relevant elevation how you accomplish that is up to you, you know within your design Standards of what you guys are doing.

No, that's what we do. That's that's our bailiwick is saying yes this is This design fits in character with the building, with town, with the situation. It's in scale. That is our bailiwick. So we have to look at it and say, yeah, yay or nay. And that's what we do. That's what we're here for.

The fine line, I guess, there is being the design police and allowing them to thematically do what they do, which I think has done pretty well and become kind of the de facto center of town. and so if we need to wrap a few things around that yes but i just think we have to be kind of careful with our guidance there not to turn into landscape designers here i agree with you a certain part of our purview is to say do this not that relative to you know plant work and the landscaping plan but um uh to me they should have some a little bit of an envelope to determine. Say, for instance, it's going to be three feet. We want it to be planted. We don't want it to exceed eight feet. You guys have some flexibility on plant types and what you want to do there.

I think we're past that, though. I think we kind of gave our comments. I mean, we're not past it if we don't want to be. But I think the way the process has gone, in my mind, were past that point. So we sent it back to Historic Preservation Commission. They all commented. They weren't 100% in line. But the applicant went back, made some changes, and presented a new elevation. So I think that's what we're reacting to. So we're looking at the comments from HPC. We're looking at the elevation. And we're determining that, yes, They are, you know, they're either responding to HPC comments or not. And I think they are. So that's just my point of view. And so I think that that's the process. So we don't need to dictate anything more because they've already done what we asked them to do.

Yeah, yeah. I think we're in agreement on that.

Any other comments on the Historical Preservation Commission recommendations?

They're comments. Comments, sorry. Because they didn't take an official motion. Instead, it was the comments and those comments. Comments.

Got it. Thank you.

If I could, if there are no more comments, you could make a recommendation to send those comments forward to City Council along with the revisions that the applicant has provided tonight. Those revisions weren't a part of this packet, so I'll be asking for Ginger and her design team to provide those so that we have them for the record as well.

I'm... I'm not real pleased with trying to approve something on a distant screen that I can't really see that well. It appeared to me to be very blocking of the view into that courtyard and as such I would hope that they would consider the kinds of plants that they plan to use. I certainly like what they've done at the hotel so I trust that they could come up with something That would be a little less like a fence. I mean that landscaping plan looks like a green fence and so that's My comment on it Well, it's kind of hard to tell if it's gonna grow I

I assume it's gonna grow and so that's rather difficult to make a judgment on something that's a landscape that's set out and then later it grows but it would need to be of course be maintained for height and density and things like that Ginger are those plants something you can prune and keep at a reasonable height

Yeah, so thank you for calling on me. I wanted to express that these are the design inspiration. We can certainly consider the comments and change. I think that the point is that you know, the hotel, what they've done over there. And I appreciate your confidence that it's ultimately going to be a little more organic in terms of what this finally looks like. And there'll probably be some more thought that gets put into it before council as well. Certainly open and welcome the comments that it's a little too much of a screen and we can make it more visually pervious. That's fine too. um i think what i'm showing uh i don't know that i'm showing the right screen maybe i can show this um you know one of our earlier concepts was a planter with other types of the top vision here with other types of plants and so um i think i was listening to the discussion between two two of the commissioners about you know an envelope within which to design versus a you know getting married to what we're showing here, I would say that this is up for additional massage and that they would be open to, you know, making additional changes as well. I think what we're trying to do is show, I'll use the word vibe. We're trying to show the vibe of what we would, what they would do here. So, yeah. Yeah, I don't actually know how well these get pruned. I don't know a whole lot about them. But we can take that under advisement as well. The comment seems to be that they might grow too close together and they might grow too tall. We can certainly make adjustments based on that feedback.

Okay, thank you. Yes, as I read the HPC comments, nearly everyone seems to expect a landscaping buffer, and I think that that's kind of what our commission has agreed to. So, perhaps we could go on to the of the zoning changes that are, no?

That was already. Already done. That was already done.

Then we're ready for a motion.

I think so. There's two things that were on the table for discussion for tonight. One is the Historic Preservation Commission comments. So you can take action on that tonight. And then you've been offered kind of a snapshot of the reaction to the comments that were received by the Historic Preservation Commission. from a design standpoint. So you're seeing the result of what happened on Thursday in real time. Now obviously that didn't make it into this packet. Instead you're seeing it tonight live and having to react to it. You can offer suggestions or you can accept them as they are or you can have no comment on it at all and just send it forward. The second piece to that is the parking situation. If you're wanting to take an action on that and add a condition or have that condition sent forward for final consideration before city council, you have that authorization and it's certainly within your power tonight as well.

Could you explain again, Ginger, the county, the addition to the land use that the county would have recorded that would be simpler than a shared agreement?

Sure, it's essentially a cover sheet and it says notice of land use entitlement. And it records to title and it says. This property is is benefiting from a conditional use permit, basically an entitlement that we have approved. and it's a and and you are bound by this because as these things travel with the land uh you're bound to it if you buy this property and so that'll be available for whoever might want to buy the property to understand right there um and it'll say something like you know we've this this property was approved with a cup to allow a spa and this number of parking spaces um and here's the whole you know basically notice of final action from the city that describes what they did and didn't allow and and to just say that that it runs with the land and that any future changes to the use or design would be subject to additional permitting and and that's just face sheet notice you have a cup and then it attaches all the things

It's the same thing that we would do for the, because this also requires a conditional use permit, so that CUP is gonna be recorded against the property.

Does that satisfy your concern?

No, it doesn't. It doesn't satisfy me because I'm, they're dependent on the parking being shared. This project is being dependent. Yes. on another property. So they're being dependent on an offsite property. So when they're dependent on an offsite property, you need an agreement so that offsite property is onboard and it's recorded on that parcel as well. So without that, The Oaks can say, or Roblar can say, we don't want to do it anymore. We don't want to share parking anymore. We don't want any part of it. But it behooves us to do that. It behooves them not to have it. So I don't understand why we wouldn't do it. It's not going to change the project. The project stays the same. There's just an agreement that says, we are waiving 82 parking spaces, or 70 something. because this report says that it's going to be a shared use with El Roblar. Okay, so we say we buy that. Okay, then do an agreement with El Roblar so it shows that those waived 70-something parking spaces for this use is a shared agreement, and you're willing to... bear that burden as your project. It's being dependent on this other property. So that property better know what's going on. So they need to record on that property that they're in an agreement with parking. Could you weigh in?

If I may, while I still have that thought in my head, emphasize your point about the city's interest here and what you're proposing from a legal standpoint, I believe, maximizes that... call it mutuality of commitment between the two parties. So that's my perspective in terms of the range of options that are under consideration from a legal standpoint.

A written shared agreement document.

I think that if you're interested in maximizing the commitment of the two parties, that would seem to be the avenue to pursue.

excuse me chair one of the owners wants to speak jeremy he's online okay thank you jeremy i i'm here i don't need to necessarily speak right now i think this group should finish this thought i'll come back we would like you to weigh in on this particular subject well i don't know the particulars but i'll tell you this we have no interest Firstly, the amount of money we've invested in this property, no one's going to buy it. So that's the first thing I want to say. Number two, we have no interest in getting rid of it. We have a use for it. We intend to use it. We're happy to agree to whatever we need to, to demonstrate to you that if something was to change in ownership for that property... I was always under the understanding that, you know, this is a land use issue and that if someone else was to buy it, they have to go back to the whole process over again and go with a new use and a new project description and everything else. So if I'm mistaken there, please tell me. But I don't know if these, like, additional, you know, conditions are necessary for our particular use case. I understand we want to protect against the future, but there's a practical, you know... process that happens in a change of ownership so that's like the first thing i'll say about that taking a step back though commissioner murphy to your point about our objectives for the front of the building Nothing has really changed. The desire is for us to maintain what people care about, in this case, the Historic Preservation Commission about the character defining features of this courtyard, which we are. I think for our, for a building that's been vacant for eight months or eight years and has been operating a certain way, we had to put planters there now because we have homeless people that stay in there. We have to protect that courtyard. So we need to have a way to create what our kind of vision is to have a sort of a very green sort of barrier that doesn't even, you don't even notice it really. It's pretty integrated in the landscape there, but provides us some sort of separation between the street, but still can allow the visibility needed to show that it's active. We're also going to have furniture and stuff in there that we need to protect. So the idea is during the day, it's going to be very welcoming, very inviting, hopefully vibrant and active where it is welcoming people in. And we want to maintain that. And I want to just stress like we can't, this place can't survive as just an amenity to the hotel. So it needs public support and it needs community use. That'd be the worst thing we could possibly do to create separation or more separation. But we do need to create some sort of solution to create some privacy for the protection of the property and the access points of the property. So that's our best idea.

I understand. I like the word welcoming in your description.

Okay. I use an AI. It's a really bad AI rendering, but it was the best thing I could do with this amount of time. But the idea is that, you know, that gate's offensive, but we don't like the word fence. I think it's just more of like we want to sort of a natural barrier that kind of signals like, you know, don't hop this fence. And if we can protect it at night, great. But it shouldn't feel, the idea of it is it shouldn't feel like you even notice it. It should just feel integrated and there's sort of a pulse there that draws people in.

Good. I really like that concept. I just didn't get that from the picture that I saw.

Yeah, I understand. I understand. It's hard to, you know, some cases too, like, you know, we might have more open area. There might be a fence we can roll back that we can close at night. Maybe there's more exposed area. I think we just gotta feel out what's possible there and what provides the most practical access.

I agree and I think that you are certainly well within what the Historic Preservation Commission comments were and with what our commission is saying here and now so I have no problems putting this forth to the City Council with our recommendation

Thank you. And the land use thing, I'm not saying it well, but I'm happy to the degree we need to, to provide the comfort needed around protecting that use if there ever was a change of use. Again, our project description is really what holds and can really only function if there's common ownership. So I think if there was ever an event that was ever to happen, whatever the triggers are that you need to ensure they need to happen, gladly willing to support whatever that is. But I just want to let you know this arrangement is such that that building could not function or exist if it's not connected to the hotel. That use and project disruption would never be able to function.

Yeah, Jeremy, Commissioner Stewart here. From my perspective, the main thing for you to keep in mind is all of the Preservation Commission people agreed there needed to be a fence. The issue they couldn't agree on is how see-through is it? That's really what it came down to in the most simple terms. We want a fence, but we don't know how see-through it needs to be. So in that regard, I think some of what you've shown looked like it blocked a lot. You could probably do less there. But I think if you understand that on a high level, there are enough talented people in the group to make that happen.

It could be spacing, Commissioner Stewart. Like, you know, the pipe cactus was just an idea that they look great in their, you know, you see a lot of them like Oaxaca in Mexico. There's a lot of the, there's an idea of just creating sort of a signal. Like there is a, there's a little bit of a barrier. We don't want to put a wall up. We don't want to put a rock wall. We don't want to do a huge planter either. So I think something that's organic, those are just hardy, that particular thing. choice of a pipe cactus but i think if we did more spacing and we almost had a variation of height you know you see a lot of that like some of them are two feet some of them are four feet some of them are five feet and you have that kind of that sort of relationship um At least it can give us a lot more transparency in what you see from the street. I think the idea is if you're looking at it from the street, you're seeing motion and you're seeing bodies and you're seeing people there.

And function like a fence, function like a fence and look like a screen.

Exactly.

In the most simple, you know, simple.

Exactly. But the screens are screens are hard because. You know, I think we've, you know, so we can do maybe it's a combination of planting and maybe that can, you know, there'll be a little bit of that. But I do think the goal is to create, you know, transparency from all viewpoints and, but enough blockage where you can't, you know, slide through um the best sort of examples kind of what's there in a very basic way where we have these potted plants with you know i think that's a very low-tech version of what we were trying to trying to explain and express a cactus or two is going to prevent anyone deciding that they want to fly through exactly

And then, Jeremy, I have a question, if we could, just jumping to the parking issue. Is it intended that El Roblar and the spa would have a parking contract between them, an agreement between them?

I don't know how that's needed if there's a common ownership, same ownership. But I'm happy to, we can happily drive something up.

That might be one condition along the lines of what you were saying. Those two parties.

They're one party.

Well, but they're different entities and I think we've got to bring in the kind of protection that Katrina's talking about. So those two parties, I don't know, Jeremy, whether they're different entities, but I don't think it really matters. They're actually probably two different operations at some point. That's the way they're described here anyways. But maybe between those two parties, there is a shared parking agreement that is part of the conditions for this. And the two parties are the 107 property and El Roblar. And then if there is a change to that in the future along the lines of some of what Katrina's been mentioning, the new party has to come back to the table because that contract that was a condition of the use permit is now void.

I don't, Ginger, I don't see the problem with that.

Yeah, because really the, here's the, Here's the loophole, you know, a little bit for you guys, Jeremy. El Roblar is not really applying for this. The spa is, but the spa is using El Roblar's parking. So that's, I think, the heart of Katrina and some of the other people who've talked about their concern. As El Roblar, you're not really here doing anything. You're asking for the spa. As an organization or as an operation, but you're telling us you're going to use another operations Parking so we just have to link those two knowing similar owners cap tables, whatever it is. I

If I can jump in, and maybe the city attorney can jump in, too. It's my understanding that you can't or shouldn't be granting yourself an easement. If you own it, you can use it. It's not an easement.

It's a service. It's like an SLA. It's a service-level agreement where... El Roblar is providing a service of the service of parking air quotes. Yeah the service of parking so it's a service level agreement between the two parties and

And it runs with the land. I want to not be talking about this in terms of ownership. The, the thing before you is not approving an owner. It's approving a use. And so we've got a conditional use permit. And the 1st condition of approval of that use permit. It is describing a spa that is used primarily by the. tenants, not the tenants, the clients of the hotel. That is your connection. It's the first top line of your CUP that it's connected to the hotel. And so I'm of the mind that these additional kind of assurances are not necessary when it's about the use and the use being proposed at this time is in relation to the hotel. All of the ideas about future uses and future owners, et cetera. If it's a future use, that's different. That goes back to you as a conditional use permit, an amendment. If it's a future owner, they are bound by this use permit until they change it. And so I, I personally don't see the need for an additional agreement, but, like, you just heard Jeremy say, if there is something that needs to be something else, a belt and suspender beyond your that you feel is necessary to tie the 2 together. I'm going to say it's going to be redundant to the CUP itself, but let's move on if that's what's needed. And then I want to draw the attention to condition two, which says the use herein shall remain as described in the application description, unless and until an amendment to the CUP is approved. No conditional use may be changed to a type of use different than that is proposed at the location described in this permit. Basically, that is the condition that says if this were to change, you need a revised permit. And so I'm with Jeremy. I don't see the need for it. But if there's something that needs to be signed, I think that recording a copy of the CUP to title is plenty. We're talking about use and the use is the conditional use permit. That is the guarantee about how it's going to be used. And if someone were to say, oh, it's not being used with the hotel, you would file a complaint with the city. Lucas would check it out. There would be a notice of violation of some kind. There would be enforcement of that in some way. And then again, like I said, this idea that we're losing parking and all these future uses might not be, you know, I'm struggling with, this is all in the CUP.

I agree with you, Ginger. I think that we are imposing an additional burden on this project that is not really necessary. But if the rest of the commission feels that you do need an agreement, I think we need to do that now.

I do, because they're relying on another property. The El Roblar APN is not mentioned here. The El Roblar address is not mentioned in this project description. El Roblar stands on its own, and so does this. So the only reason this has anything to do with El Roblar, because of the project description, only saying what parcel numbers are at stake here that we're looking at, is the parking agreement, or not the parking agreement, the parking study, the transportation study. traffic analysis there we go so the traffic analysis in parking is based on two properties which in this project description is not tying El Roblar to so it's it's gotta be both ways it's gotta be both ways and because El Roblar's APN is not part of this project description we have to tie them together and the way to do that is basically some civil agreement

Jeremy, are you?

It's very simple and it's done all the time.

How do you feel about?

I don't, you know, if it's going to make everyone happy, we'll do whatever everyone wants.

You can actually look at this through a really simple lens. Does El Roblar have a burden here? In your guys' eyes? Does El Roblar have a burden here?

As it relates to this project? Yes.

What do you mean? Yeah, does Elroblar have a burden to the spa?

Uh... I would say, I don't know. I don't know how to answer that. What kind of burden?

It does have a burden. It's providing it with parking. So it has a burden, and 107 gets a benefit. And that's why I think we need a contract, just a simple shared parking agreement, to Katrina's point, that links those two. Because if that burden and benefit change, okay and we do you know we i think everybody is in support of this and everybody feels like it's it's going to be a good project but i think we do owe it to the community to say hey we put a little stop in the door because things change but when they change it'll come back to us anyway And it should in that new party at that new time.

I guess I just don't understand what this agreement is going to add to the requirement that a new owner would have to come back.

What it adds is what Katrina said. It adds that a party that is not at the table here in their application, a party that is not at the table is going to deliver a benefit to the thing we are being asked to approve. I have trouble with the fact that we have an attorney here while we're all amateur law doing this.

Can you help me understand why a single owner needs to have an agreement with himself?

I think Brad brought it back to bringing the party that's not part of this discussion into it. I agree. That was a rewording of something else that Katrina had described about having both I still think that whether it's redundant or not, necessary or not, it closes a loop that we've been talking about in terms of having both parties in one agreement.

Yeah, to me it's a convenience that the parties are essentially the same, and I don't see it as a burden. I see it as just closing a loop for the community members who've asked. And things change. Things happen. Parties that own different properties do evolve and change.

To Jeremy's point, he doesn't believe as an owner that the use is going to change in the next 20, 30 years. What if it changes in 40 years? We have an example of that which came before this body a year ago almost. So while I can see it being successful for 30, maybe not 40 years, but the recordation against the title then provides the assurance. It's a belt and suspenders approach to it. But to be fair, the parking demand analysis and parking, or the traffic analysis that was done, so both of those pieces together, this project relied on that as an ancillary use so because of those pieces It does make sense. As we're talking this through, it does make sense to include it. They already have parking agreements for parking they're using outside of the hollowed walls of Hotel Arrobar, and they're using those parking spaces.

That's a great way of looking at it. This is just another external parking contractor. They happen to have ownership in it, but it is another external parking contractor. You have convinced me.

So can I interrupt real quick? Sure. What is this agreement going to say? It's going to say that the spa is to be used in conjunction with the hotel and if the spa tries to do something else, it needs to come back and get a new CUP? What is the agreement actually going to say? What are the, maybe just the top three bullet points?

Well, I think at the heart of it, it's a services agreement. And that is that El Roblar will provide the service of parking spaces, okay, to it. And I would actually limit the scope, like this is a one pager service. to me that you're going to deliver you know lucas and the city could probably guide you on this question of the exact number and you know the different things about the different lots here and and what happens to the little house with a couple of parking spaces and so on but to me this is a one a one pager and you know maybe maybe the you know if you guys don't want to go hard with a contract maybe the council would even accept an mou or something like that that's kind of in the but in the middle but

I'm seeing Lucas shaking his head. Okay, let's go back to the hard contract part.

I just think it's a service level agreement. It's boilerplate. Any attorney's going to have this sitting in their file somewhere that's an SLA, and it's pretty boilerplate, and then it identifies the service you're providing, which is 82 spots. And you're done.

So it's going to say sentence one, there's a CUP on this property that allows for a spa related to Hotel El Oblar. The second sentence will say that the spa use as a standalone would require more parking and the entitlement acknowledges that the parking is provided by the hotel because it's being in service of those same occupants. And then three, if the spa is going to try to change into something else or disassociate from the hotel, then it needs to come back to adjusted CUP and its parking.

Well, again, we have an attorney here, so I don't want to go too far, but to me it can be radically simple. You're providing the service of parking spaces, 82 spaces, everything else is irrelevant, because when those two parties, if for any reason they were no longer existing, those two parties, the contract would be void. So there's some boilerplate termination language or something like that.

and you probably do want to disclose the cop and and how it was conditioned but i think i i think it's super simple i think this is a a one pager okay but i don't commissioner the only problem is that you know i hear you and trying to make this simple but if you ask about the burden it's not just parking it's administrative support it's marketing support it's shared labor it's garbage like where does it actually the whole dependency of that operation to pair depends on an extreme amount of resources that are managing that property. That's a whole reason.

Jeremy, those aren't, those aren't called to question here, just a parking. So there may be a bunch of other stuff you do. This is just a parking question to me.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then I guess, I guess, let me ask you just hypothetical. If there was a change of ownership and one day we decided to sell, what would happen with that new owner? How would they be able to operate a spa if there was a new owner?

They would be beholden to the project description that says the spa is operating in service of occupants of the hotel. And so if it changed to a new owner, they would have to still serve the hotel. people staying at the hotel that's kind of that that is the project description so it's not it's not about a change in owner it's about a change in use so you could sell it to a different spa operator but they would have to continue to operate under the cup which says we're going to have shared parking and we're going to have shared uh trash and we're going to you know all those things and so changing it it's

if the hotel if we have another pandemic and the hotel goes out of business um the hotel can say pack sand i am not providing parking to anybody because i'm just not i'm gonna change the use and i'm gonna do something else so that's the problem that's the problem so yeah it's the hotel has to agree to share that parking because the spa is depending on it. So that's the agreement. I think the particulars can be discussed among the attorneys, but the hotel has to accept that responsibility And they're not named in this CUP. So if you want to go through the process again and couple El Roblar Hotel with this spa by putting the hotel's APN and the hotel's address and all the property information of the hotel with this, then yeah. Then we don't need the agreement because it's all one project. But at this point, it's not all one project. This is a standalone. It's using parking from El Roblar. So we need an agreement. It's as simple as that.

By the way, I'm personally comfortable with that idea. I think it's just, you know, again, I don't want to give it more like I'm totally fine with what you're suggesting, by the way. I just want to be like, I just don't want to like over, you know, just overdo this. And, for, you know, make it more of a thing than it actually is. I think what you're saying in spirit makes sense. And I'm telling you, I totally agree with it. I just want to deal with that, like a lot of brain damage and a lot of extra attention on this that, you know, as you all can appreciate, can lead to more, you know, scrutiny and inquiry. You know, I just want to be very smart about the brevity in which we accomplish what's being said.

I would like to talk with Lucas about that as an option. I don't know that that's the direction we want to go. It's an idea, but I think we need to really think all the way through the steps and what that means in you know, expanding our noticing 300 feet and rehearing and things like that. And, and all of, all of the things. So I do want to be very mindful of what that would do to the process we've already been through versus the process we have yet to go through. So, you know, if we, if we're talking about a one pager and we think it's redundant and you don't, that's fine. I, I, I agree with Jeremy. Let's try to limit the brain damage and, and, Sometimes the ideas on the fly can have unintended consequences. So, you know, I think like we're talking about tonight, you're recommending to the council a next step. I think we've talked about a number of ideas. I think you've heard Jeremy say that he's willing to give you some level of comfort. if that level of comfort comes through a one pager that says you're tied to the hotel and that's this is the hotel's apn um i think that that we could figure something like that out with with you know i think we could figure something like that out okay back to the commission i think we're ready for a motion

Yeah, this goes back to my question so we have already approved So do we need a new motion here to add a parking agreement between the two I

So what you're doing tonight is you're looking at two things. I said this before, but I think it's important just before you craft a motion that you think about these two pieces. The first is the comments that were received from the Historic Preservation Commission. You can take an action just for those commission comments on the city council for their final deliberation so they have that information before them for consideration as a part of the project as a whole. That's the first piece. The second piece is the parking agreement. And instead of trying to craft something that is succinct and I think we've already gathered what you're looking for here and we're going to craft a condition of approval. So it would essentially be a condition that you would take forward as a part of what you had already taken action on at the last meeting.

we would put something together that encompasses that the smart philosophy that yeah that's my that's my recommendation and you know just as a fellow hotelier the only closing comment and I do think if we can stay out of the motion so you you guys know this better than I do what's the average hold period for a hotel for a private equity group it's five to seven years So it's not super hypothetical. We know you guys, we know you love it. We know Eric and everybody Engage wants to build a landmark thing. Awesome, 100% for it. But the fact remains the average hold period for a hotel investment is somewhere between five and 10 years, which means that probably at some stage something will happen here. All the city wants I think it's just a crack to come back at the parking and say hey if somebody new comes in there And and you and for whatever reason you don't have a parking agreement with those guys We got to look at all of this again So in that spirit, I would keep I would keep the agreements very very short and I actually don't think we need a motion I think we can forward Along the the Preservation Committee comments and I think we can forward along to the city. We do that with a motion

Yeah. We forward it with a motion.

I would still do a motion. You've already taken the action in terms of approving, but I do think there needs to be a motion. So it's consensus from the commission standpoint. Yeah.

So does somebody want to? I'm looking at Katrina.

We always do it for Katrina.

Where's the absent guy? Yeah, we need him.

here's the recommendation that the Planning Commission I make a motion that the Planning Commission accept the Historic Preservation Commission comments from their regularly scheduled meeting of August 13th and including the elevation that was presented today by the applicant having that forwarded to the City Council And also adding that a shared parking agreement should be done per the traffic analysis and parking analysis for the project tied with El Roblar Hotel. the form to be the form of that agreement to be approved by city attorney and Forward that recommendation to City Council Is there a second I second that Further discussion Hearing none.

We are ready for a roll call Sherry. I We are done we have moved this on to the City Council's plate Okay, the next item is future agenda items. Yes. Do we have,

report on that Yeah, so yeah, you're seeing two items on here One is the tree ordinance review and really what it is get ready. This is gonna be fun I Find it. I find it entertaining. I love diving into these things and through the workshop through the information that we've poured into at this point and hearing from the community as well as some council members all council members actually at this point and through those workshops, you're seeing the first blush of those revisions. I wouldn't say it's revisions that are in like an ordinance format. It's like a hybrid of a term sheet meets comments In a redline format so it's highlighting the changes that are being proposed given the comments that were received from the workshops and other community members and Then you're gonna see kind of an overview of what came out of those workshops And then in addition to that, as was promised, there's two pieces. One is we're in the process of creating a landing page for all this information to live and an FAQ that's gonna come out of that. So all those things are being finalized at the very moment. We're talking like 95% there now. So you're gonna be the first commission to look at this and then that's gonna be forwarded to city council, your comments.

Okay.

The second piece is 824 Foothill Lane. Oh yeah, okay, so this is a tree permit that has more than five trees proposed to be removed. So because of that, it comes before this body. Guess what? There's also a new home. But the new home is single story, so it's a zone clearance. But guess what? Code actually says when that happens, the applications come together as a whole. So that's why you're seeing a zone clearance coming before this body as well. So the project isn't being split up. It's actually coming together as a complete project. And that's it for the 16th. Yeah, I don't know if that was necessarily ready. It's a question mark more than anything.

I have a question about process.

Sure.

I'm a process person, but it's important for transparency and equal and fairness. But the zone clearance is ministerial. So although the code, doesn't the code talk about discretionary? So it would seem to me that since the zone clearance is ministerial, that that would be done on its own, and any discretionary projects, like if this was a two-story DRP, then it would come before us, combined with a tree permit and a map and anything else. But the fact that it's ministerial that is ministerial on its own. It shouldn't come to us because we're discretionary.

That should be carved off. I don't want to necessarily get into the details of it. Certainly in the staff report, we'll iron those pieces out. And at the end of the day, if the zone clearance does, in fact, within that specific provision within the code, talks about discretion versus non-discretion, then, yeah, the zone clearance will be removed. But at this point, I don't...

I'm not just talking about this one in particular. I'm just saying, like, something's ministerial, it's ministerial, it's ministerial. Like, it's not discretionary, so we shouldn't have to see it. Like, we shouldn't see it. I think it's erroneous for it to come here.

I'm not having... I can't really get into a conversation on that piece because it's something that's, one, not on the agenda, and then, two, you're talking about a very specific code section. I think we both know which piece we're talking about.

Yeah, but I'm just saying, when you look into it, whether it says if it's discretionary or not, I'm still thinking something that's ministerial is, by definition, something that is not discretionary, so it shouldn't have to go to us. That's all I'm saying.

Understood.

OK. Next, we have the director's report. Do you have anything to add?

So remember when I said that I would give you updates when council items come before or what happens at the council meeting? So we had a special council meeting last night. And there were two items that were brought forward. One is their goals and tactics. So there was a lot of information that was kind of poured out. Some of it spilled into the CDD realm, some of it was in the public works realm, and some of it was in the city manager's realm. Ours kind of tiered into general plan and other pieces that relate to and are adjacent to the general plan. lots of wonderful conversation that came out of that and I think it's interesting because we are moving forward with the general plan even with the additional pieces and there's some other pieces that are adjacent to it that are moving forward as well so that's the update on the goals and tactics. The second piece was kind of an interesting one. So there's a cellular tower that's being built at the fire station, Fire Station 21. I'm sure we've all kind of read about that. It's on the county. Property so really you don't have any sort of regulatory components to that that being said Typically, there's some sort of like we're aware of of those types of things even though we don't necessarily have jurisdictional rights over it from a city standpoint It was interesting hearing the context of how that all took place. To be fair, our office only heard about it because they tried to get an inspection for the foundation when, one, we didn't have an application, and two, it's not within our jurisdiction, so it raised some red flags. Anyway, it was a good conversation last night lessons learned and looking forward to that or moving forward from there That's one piece of the directors report the other thing that I wanted to mention is twofold one is There are items that are getting ready to come before this body for the general plan update. I think you're looking you should be seeing the traffic element and circulation element coming before this body in the near term. I am in the final review phases of that for that to come forward in a redline format. So the formats that you're going to see are similar to what we saw with the safety element. It's in a redline format rather than just complete rewrite. I want to make sure that we're transparent in the changes that are coming forward from the general plan of old. And then thirdly is I wanted to report out that we are re-engaging the objective design standard subcommittee. I sent information out to those two members. It's been a busy summer, and realizing that summer is literally gone now, now we're really starting to hit the, rubber's gonna start hitting the road again. I get it, the two members have been busy, as has I, so we're all kind of, getting back on the same page again. So that's it that I have from the director's report.

Thank you.

Yep.

Commission member reports?

Oh, I think MAC is mine next month.

Next month?

Yeah, September, right?

Okay.

Is that correct? I thought it was August. I think they're dark in August. Yeah, they're dark in August. Okay.

You're next. Okay. City liaison, Mr...

Hi, I always say thanks and it's sincere. Thanks for your service to the city. So I attended your last meeting, but from home. I tried to attend here, but it was, you know, packed house. Yes, it was. And I appreciate at the end of the meeting, Chair Murphy, that you really tried to get me on to speak. but my computer wasn't going to let me do that. And what I wanted to say, what I had wanted to say that night was I was so proud to watch the four hours of discussion that our commission went through. We have fine staff working for us. but it's absolutely critical part of this whole planning process that we have the community voice. And there was a great diversity of voices talking about something that's really critical to the city, which is when we've got commercial usage and we've got residential usage right there, how do we balance that? couldn't have asked for a better discussion by our commission and as a city council member it really helps us when you know you guys start to flesh all of that out before it gets to us so ironically you know the next couple of days there are some communications and i just want you to know that from my perspective you guys did a fantastic job so thanks thank you mr whitman we we appreciate that okay and with that wait wait oh more

for the record can we go back to the directors report because council member Whitman just reminded me of something that I should make this body aware of are we okay with going back yes okay so make sure so last week we received an appeal for that item so it will be coming before City Council in the future an appeal from from the neighbors as relates to that item

Before, okay. I can't talk, I can't talk in detail. The appeal is.

It's still received.

That's as far as I, that's as far as I want to go. The action that we took was to approve the ability to apply for a different liquor license. The, so is that the piece that's being appealed? Yes. Okay.

Yep. Thank you.

So it's going straight off to the city council. Good luck. And with that, I will adjourn the meeting at 7.25.