Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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Woo-hoo!

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Oh, yeah, it's on the card.

All right, good evening and welcome to the Tuesday, January 27th Planning Commission meeting. We'll go ahead and call this meeting to order and we will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Connolly.

Here.

Commissioner Roden. Here. Commissioner Marlowe. Here. Commissioner Kogler. Here. Commissioner Neal. Here. Commissioner Christensen. Here. Chairperson Covarrubias. Here. All present. Staff introductions, please.

Marcy Reynoso and Jessica Ferguson, permit technicians.

Warren Frase, community development director.

And Sarah Laughlin, legal counsel with BBK.

Good. All right, moving on then to item E. Are there any general public comments regarding matters not on the agenda? Seeing none in the audience, Marcy, any callers?

No callers.

Thank you. Moving on to agenda items proposed to be tabled or rescheduled.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. Item one, the Beachwood Specific Plan Development Agreement Amendment, the applicant has requested that be continued to a future meeting, date to be determined. It will be re-noticed. We do know there's a few folks in the audience that were interested in this item. I would suggest that we still allow public comment on this, but there will be no staff report and no decisions tonight on that item.

Okay, understood. All right. So the first item, the Beachwood specific plan development agreement amendment has been postponed and will be rescheduled. If there are anybody participants in the audience that would like to make any comments regarding this particular matter, please feel free. Come on up. State your name. There's a podium over here to our right. Good evening, sir. Go ahead and state your name.

I'm David Anderson. I'm a resident of Hassell Robles. I live at 925 Oriole Way.

I'm very close to the development that's under consideration here.

And I have some concerns. I was in agreement with the original plan from 2020. These revisions to me seem kind of extreme, specifically the segregation of the workforce units going from being kind of spread throughout the community to being 91% located in one portion of the development, right off of Beach, of Meadowlark Road. Now, Herod Paso, I understand, is the prime developer here, is that correct? Okay, and I have, I live in a Herod home, I know Mike Herod, and I like the Herod, the work that they do, but I do have some concerns about the way it's been proposed, as opposed to what was originally agreed to. So if we look at the Beachwood Specific Plan sub-areas, you've got Herod A, B, C, C1, C2, C, H, excuse me, H, J, well, Herod all through J through 4. And the Herod-owned subtotal is 46 units of the workforce housing. And Herod A, originally 5% of that number, the 46, was to be workforce housing. That's about 11% of the total. Herod B was supposed to be 22%, 10 units. Herod C combined was 24 units, or 52%. Herod H, 7 units, had 15%. For your amendment, we're looking at 42 units at Herod C1. 91% of all units be located in that one specific area. I don't think it's a big area. One of my big concerns is, and I live in the area there, obviously, and what comes to mind to me is what could result there with this kind of concentration is what you have in what's called Creston Quartz. Is anybody here familiar with Creston Quartz? Creston Quartz is at the other end of Beechwood where it intersects and goes from Pebble Creek up to Creston there. These were similarly designed to be four units off of Central, little driveway, with the two-car garage for each. Now, these are all owner units on Creston Courts. And if you've ever driven down it at night, there is not a parking spot to be found. If you've ever driven there during the day, especially garbage collection, it's really tedious because it's always overcrowded with parking. One of my questions to the group here is, is there going to be public parking on the streets of this development? And if so, how you're gonna accommodate folks that can't, have loaded their garages with personal equipment, cars that they don't drive necessarily, or other things that they've accumulated, which is what's happened at Creston Courts. So. Okay, thank you.

Good evening. Thank you for letting me speak. Doug Tobey, 510 Cool Valley Drive. As a 35-year resident who passed roles, something that concerns me is the consolidation of the workforce housing in a smaller area. The original plan, as I understand it, as the gentleman just seems to affirm, is that it was going to be spread throughout the complex. With my knowledge of various projects in the community, there's been attention to how those New projects affect the existing. The original plan seemed to take that consideration. Nobody wants lower-income housing in their backyard, but I understand that's a necessity, and for the benefit of the community, we need to do that. By consolidating all in one area, it seems to benefit only the developer, reduces construction costs, my own assessment, and takes little regard for those people who will be impacted. And again, the gentleman who just spoke has... reflected my concerns also. So I would appreciate concern being taken for those people who are already in the area and how it would impact them and their property values. Thank you.

Anybody else? Yes, ma'am.

Hello, my name is Terry Dines. I do live on Deer Springs Drive, so right across the street from the proposed Amendment 1. And I have the same concerns that the last two gentlemen have stated in detail. I do not agree that this is justifiable by Herod. the reason to put a negative impact on the existing nearby housing, which is directly across the street from me. So by condensing all of these units from the original plan to the amendment again would be 42 units for about four and a half acres. That's very, very condensed. Um, I feel like the community outreach was insufficient for this. Some of the neighbors that I've spoken with received the card January 14th, the notice, as I did. Some of the neighbors did not even receive the notice. Another issue was there was only one posting on the corner of Beachwood and Meadowlark in regards to this meeting. Unlike the last meetings we had, the postings were placed all the way down Meadowlark. This is going to affect the middle of Meadowlark, all of those housing, that development. So I think that the... the notices should be, there should be more notices for the next meeting. So that's what I would like to see. My concerns, going back to my concerns, would be if the workhouse housing remains the same as it was in the original development agreement, this would be less impact on nearby homes. By going through with agreeing to Amendment 1, I think it would affect the value of the homes that directly is around that area. As far as appraisal, because the appraisal value, if you're going to sell, will reflect that workhouse housing as well. So it should be spread out within the area, the full area, other than the four and a half acres. It's just not justifiable what he's asking. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Yes, sir.

Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I live on the corner of Deer Springs.

Name, please.

Name, please. Good evening. My name is Chris Clemens. I live on the corner of Deer Springs where the supposed new roundabout is going to be going on. And I was just wondering if there's any consideration of the increased traffic and street parking due to increased workforce units that are going to be consolidated just into the one small section of the entire project instead of being equally distributed throughout the original project that was as planned and just concerned back out of the driveway if there's going to be that much traffic with the roundabout is it going to be safe to get out of the driveway and where all these people with the condensed housing are going to be able to park if there's going to be on street parking off street parking carports And unfortunately, I just didn't think there was much awareness of what's potentially happening because there wasn't any signage. I had to walk by. I actually walked by the sign of the meeting three times and didn't even see it, unfortunately. And got a postcard in the mail, but that was sent on the 14th, and I didn't receive it until the 16th, and that was less than 10 days of this meeting. So I was just hoping if there is going to be another meeting, there might be an opportunity for more people to be able to know what's potentially happening. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Looking in the audience, any other comments? Okay, seeing none, Marcy, any callers?

No callers.

Okay. Okay, Warren, then we'll continue this.

Yeah, so this item's continued. It does need to be re-noticed. We understand the comments we heard about the noticing issue and some of these other comments are useful information. We'll make sure that's conveyed to the developer as well. So thank you. We can move on to the next item.

Okay, I believe Commissioner Kogler, did you have a... Do we need a motion?

I don't do... We don't need a motion to postpone it, do we?

Yeah, we should have done that. Let's do that right now. Yeah, we want to do that? Okay. Okay. I'll take a motion to postpone item number one, Beachwood Specific Plan Development Agreement Amendment. So moved. Can I get a second?

I'll second it.

So seconded. Roll call, please. Who is the second?

Marlowe. Commissioner Kogler?

Aye.

Commissioner Marlowe? Aye. Commissioner Roden?

Aye.

Mr. Connolly? Aye. Commissioner Neal? Aye. Commissioner Christensen? Aye. Chairperson Kovarubias? Aye. Motion passes.

Okay, thank you. Moving on to item two, development plan 25-15 for the Highland Senior Affordable Housing Development. Is there a staff presentation?

Thank you, Chairperson Covarrubias. So as you said, the next project is for a 100% affordable project located at 298 Niblick Road. We've been calling it the Highlands Senior Affordable Apartments. So location, like I said, 298 Niblick Road. This is just east of South River Road on Niblick Road. You can see a few landmarks there, Walmart in the bottom left corner, Albertson's in the top left corner, Kennedy Club down there towards the middle bottom. So this is as you climb up Niblick Road from South River Road, there's a vacant parcel. It's got some slope to it. We'll talk about some of the site features in the next slide. So the site is just over two acres in size. There is a jurisdictional creek that runs through the property. This project actually completely avoids any impacts to that creek. There's also an open space easement that was created by a previous parcel map. The open space easement spans from both the property that we're talking about this evening And then onto the property to the south, which is part of the Highlands Commercial Center. There were Highlands Churches there at the bottom of the screen. And so this is an open space easement. No development, no grading is allowed in this green area. It is largely to protect that creek and then also to protect the oak trees. There is, in addition, a pedestrian bike and pedestrian path. I refer to it as the Highlands Path in the staff report. My understanding is the high school cross-country team refers it to that. I don't know if it has a more official title. The property is in the regional commercial zoning district that is a strictly commercial zone. However, the mixed-use overlay has been applied to this project in 2020 as a part of the housing element update. The mixed-use overlay was applied to the site, as were 20 surplus density units were allocated to the site by the City Council. So in 2020, the City Council decided that this was an appropriate place for a residential development, and they did allocate 20 residential units to the site. So the project that we're here to consider this evening is, as I said, a 100% rent-restricted, affordable project. The project will be limited to seniors over 55 years of age. They will be no more than 30% to 60% of what's called the AMI, the average... I got myself into this average median income, and so they, by state law, they are entitled to an 80% density bonus and five concessions. Per state law, concessions are forgivenesses, essentially, for development standards that will reduce the cost and make it more feasible for a developer to build affordable units. Obviously, they're going to be getting less rent over time, and so the idea is to incentivize these developments and to make them more affordable for the developer. So, as I said, they are eligible for an 80% density bonus. The applicant is requesting a 50% density bonus, so they are looking to have 30 residential units on the site. The units would be... And there's the open space easement. That's that animation there. There is one building proposed on the site. It's a three story building. Inside that building there would be 25 one bedroom units and five two bedroom units. The applicant is requesting five concessions, which they are entitled to by state law. The first would allow the building to be taller than what's allowed in the zoning district. The second would allow the foundation height. In our hillside grading standards, we have limitations on how tall exposed foundations can be. And so this project requests a concession for how tall that foundation height is. In addition, there's a request for a parking reduction. request to reduce the amount of shade that needs to be provided to that parking area and then also a reduction in the amount of open space I think something to keep in mind as we go through this project is that this is a senior project so the folks who are living here are you know more mature individuals and over 55 in general over 55 and so like I said more in general more mature population So the first concession is about building height. So in the regional commercial zoning district, maximum height of 32 feet are allowed. The building from the foundation, the finished floor to the top of the building is 37 and a half feet tall. The way we measure height, though, is to take the average from where the building touches the ground from the lowest point to the highest point. And then we take the average of that. to the highest point of the building. So the red line on the right is actually how the zoning code would describe the height of this building, which is 44 feet and seven and a half inches. The fire department has analyzed this building. We've got other buildings in town that are taller than this building. The fire department can fight a fire here. They can respond to emergencies. It just happens to be taller than what's allowed in this commercial zone. You'll notice we're looking in the top right at that site plan, you can see more or less where we're looking at this building. So this is, we're looking from Niblick Road at the building. The building will, the most of what you'll see from the building, the massing of the building from Nabook Road will be that shorter elevation, the 37 feet, six inches, just a small portion of the building is gonna be that taller height that will be somewhat hidden by the hillside. So the second concession that is requested is for the exposed foundation height. The exposed foundation, basically below the finish floor, the average height of that foundation is 11 feet and eight inches. Nine feet is what is allowed by the code, the average height. So this is taller than what would be allowed, but you can see in the site plan up to the top right that that elevation does not face a street. It faces the oak tree. So this is going to be an elevation that's largely hidden from public view. In addition, you'll notice that that foundation has some steps front, forward, and back. This is not a solid plain where the building just has an immense, massive field because of a large foundation wall. And so this is the second concession that the applicant is requesting, the second of five that they are entitled to. The third and fourth concessions are related to parking. 54 parking spaces would be required for a market rate project of this size for the number of one and two bedroom units and the guest parking. As you'll recall, there are 30 units proposed and there are 38 parking spaces proposed. The applicant is proposing 38 parking spaces, so this would be one of their concessions. I believe when the applicant comes to speak, she'll provide some parking statistics. The Paso Robles Housing Authority and the Affordable Housing Development Corporation operate two senior apartment complexes in Town 1, recently finished the Riverwalk Terrace, which is in the Walmart Center. So they've got some really up-to-date parking data on what these projects, the parking demand actually is for these projects. They've also, the Paso Robles Housing Authority has been operating the Chet Daughter Apartments up on Park Street near the Oak Park Apartments for many years. And so they've got some longer-term parking data for that project as well. So those are both deed-restricted senior housing projects we have here in Paso Robles. We have real data on how much parking is required. And so this is the amount of parking that the applicant feels that the project will demand, and that is their request. The fourth concession, the municipal code requires shade trees in our parking lots. They are meant to provide 25% shade at five years. This project, as the trees are proposed, would provide 17% shade at maturity, which is longer than five years. The applicant did point out that the building will shade the kind of more eastern parking area from a lot of the afternoon sun because it is a relatively tall building. So the fifth and final concession is related to open space. Multifamily projects in the mixed-use overlay are required to have 100 square feet of private open space per unit and 100 square feet of common open space per unit. This project provides about half of that space. Each unit has a private patio. They're about 50 square feet in size. And then there is some shared space in the darker green color. There's an indoor meeting room and reading room. And then there's an outdoor patio where the residents will be able to congregate and recreate As I've mentioned several times, this is a senior project, and so while the open space is reduced, this is an older population. It's also close to the bike and pedestrian path to the south of the creek, relatively close to Larimore Park, and also the river walk along the Salinas River. So now jumping into the elevations of the building, this is the front elevation that faces north, is somewhat oriented to Niblick Road. You can see this is a well articulated building, a lot of window and balcony openings and different siding materials. There's both shingles and horizontal siding on the sides. This is a look at the side elevations. We've already seen the elevation on the right side. That's the west that kind of faces Niblick Road. the elevation on the left would face to the east and would not be visible from very many vantage points off-site. And then finally, we've also seen this elevation. This is the rear elevation. This will face the oak trees along the creek, and so this isn't an elevation that will really be visible from off-site for the most part. Colors and materials, the applicant has, it's a relatively muted, attractive mix of colors, some browns and tans, and then the doors would be blue in color. And so don't have much to share on this, but this is the color scheme that we would, we will expect. So with the 2024 zoning code update, the Planning Commission made recommendation to council to adopt objective design standards. And so the way our objective design standards work are depending on the size of the building, both the number of units and the length of, or the size, the literal width of the building, there are a number of standards that have to be met. And so the standards are broken into different tiers. And then depending on the size of the project, it dictates how many of those design standards you have to meet. The ideas with smaller buildings, they don't tend to be quite as massive if they aren't the most articulated building or the most ornate buildings. They're smaller in scale, and so they're, you know, they are less visible from off-site. So bigger buildings have to provide more of the standards. So for a project of this size, of size, they have to provide all of the Tier 1 standards, and those are things like the orientation of the front porch in the building. They have to provide window openings of a specific percentage, 15% in this case. They have to break up walls so we don't have large, massive walls with no articulation. They've got to provide in the Tier 2 standards, they've got to provide two strategies. You can see them listed there. The applicant is providing balconies and some vertical wall elements. I'm not gonna belabor going through each of these, but suffice to say that the project meets each of its objective design standards. The project is on a site that has quite a bit of slope, and so I wanted to go through some of the sections, the grading and how the project will look after it's constructed. So in the bottom right, we see the grading plan, And then I'm going to hone in on this section here. So this red line is cutting through the building and the parking lot, and we're going to look at what that grading will look like. So here we see on the left, we're looking at a cross-section through the building. In blue is the building. You can see that there is quite a bit of, there is some cut. There is a maximum cut of 15 feet in height to create the parking lot. There is a fill of 14 feet in height. Those are really restrained though to where development is occurring. There aren't many fill slopes. They're using retaining walls to really restrain how much grading needs to occur to provide these 30 units. you'll also notice that the site is pretty balanced the amount of cut and fill are pretty close they will need to import a little bit of soil i think it looks like about 300 cubic yards a little less than that but relatively balanced site i will also note on the right the retaining walls shown there in yellow those are each six foot retaining walls and those do meet the maximum height and separation for retaining walls. So those retaining walls do meet our standards. When we jump into landscape requirements, you'll see that staff is recommending some trailing plants, possibly rosemary at the top of that upper retaining wall to kind of break up its appearance. And so those are the retaining walls I'll be talking about when we get to landscaping. Looking at another section, so now we're looking through that kind of upper parking lot, looking back towards the building. This section just misses the building, so you can see that there'll be a fill slope between the building and the parking lot and some fill there. I think I've got an animation. That's where the little patio is, and there is some fill. Oops, below it. It looks like my animation didn't work. So again, there is some fill, but it really is constrained. You can see on the... On the left is where the sidewalk is located. The building will be pretty close at the same grade with Niblick Road and with the adjacent sidewalk. And finally, there is also a section provided through the long parking lot and then closer to the driveway entrance. You can see there is some fill, but compared to the size of that parking lot and the slope of the lot, it is relatively large. It is a relatively small amount of fill slope that we'll be seeing when this project is complete. Jumping into the landscape plan, this is the plan that the applicant had brought to the Development Review Committee. One of the questions staff had for the DRC was, is this adequate landscaping? We do have standards in our municipal code that require unused areas, yards that aren't covered by parking lots and buildings and so forth, or hidden behind fences. that they are meant to be landscaped. And the Development Review Committee felt like it would be appropriate to have some oak tree plantings in the more natural areas that aren't gonna get formal landscaping in order to comply with that landscaping requirement. Staff prepared this exhibit that is provided in the staff report. This is just to try to capture what we heard from the DRC. And so there is a condition of approval that would require, I believe it's 15 oak trees to be planted in clusters, in kind of natural clusters. on the undeveloped portions of the lot. It'll help to soften the appearance of those and be relatively easy to maintain. I mentioned that there are some retaining walls along the east side of that eastern parking area. And so you'll see that the trailing plants are recommended above that upper retaining wall. And then there was a little landscape planter adjacent to the garbage enclosure that should also be included in the landscape plan. Here's a quick look at the floor plans. As I said, this is a mix of one and two bedroom units. So this is the first floor. There is an area where it's a residence center. There's an outdoor deck that points towards the oak woodland. They'll provide a nice space and there's a reading room. So there is some nice indoor shared recreation space. There's also a laundry room on the first floor. The second and third floors are relatively similar. And so there is, there's no common open space on the second and third floors, but there is laundry on each floor. And so there will be laundry facilities for residents on each floor. There was a previous iteration of this project that was approved, I believe in 2021, That project was 20 units that would have been market rate units. At that time, the project included a secondary driveway that would have required alterations to the creek. It would have required the removal of an oak tree, and it would have also a lot of grading, biological impacts, an oak tree removal, and then also would have been a somewhat awkward egress that would have gone through the Highlands Church parking lot. The applicant had the right to do that, but it was a fairly awkward solution. This project would eliminate that secondary egress, and instead it will be restricting left turns in, into, and out of the site. So to enter this site, you would have to be traveling eastbound and make a right turn into the project. When you're exiting the site, you have to make a right turn. I think I've got some animations there. If you're leaving the site, you need to make a right turn and head east. As I've stated multiple times, this is a senior population, so we hope that we'll see good compliance with these rules. But there will be a median, you see it in yellow there, that will be... required to be installed. It will restrict movements for cars. There is a requirement that the median be mountable for fire trucks, garbage trucks, big trucks that need to come onto the site and provide emergency and other services to the site. But regular cars will have to make right turns to get inside and out of the project. And that's due to site distance. There is, you're of course climbing Niblick Road here, and it starts to turn off to the kind of southeast. or more west, I suppose it is. And so there is limited sight distance, and so for folks entering and exiting the site, this is to ensure safe movements. we did receive two public comments written public comments first had a list of 11 items the second comment was exclusively about parking which is the second comment that the written comment made I've got them listed here and so we can dive in as much as the Planning Commission would like to we've also got the city engineer here this evening and she can explain that the traffic and greeting and better than I have. The first public comment was that the entry and egress is flawed and dangerous. We have vetted this with the fire department, with our transportation consultant. We explored a lot of different options, different ways to provide egress and ingress in this site, and really it's come down to this pork chop and it being the most feasible solution, and it has been determined by the engineering team that this would create safe movements into and out of the site. The second comment was about having inadequate parking. As I mentioned, the second comment letter we got was also about the parking exception. The applicant will provide us some parking numbers, but I was surprised how low she provided the numbers at the Development Review Committee meeting. And they're quite low. And the parking rate that would be expected, they'll be covered by the spaces that are provided. But more importantly, state law does say if the applicant requests this concession, they are entitled to this concession. The third comment was about excessive grading. I've provided some slides about how the project has constrained grading to the degree possible. You can see on the right there, this is a sloping site. also constrained by the oak trees. So there was limited room. The applicant kept the building on some of the least steeply sloping part of the lot. And compared to the project that was approved five or so years ago, this project actually is quite a bit less grating. The previous project actually was going to lay back that upper hill and put some additional structures closer to the apartments to the east. The public comments made a comment about the creek setbacks. This project stays completely outside of the open space easement, which was the setbacks that were established for this site. The applicant, excuse me, I keep misspeaking. The public comment mentioned that stormwater runoff has been inadequately addressed. At this time, we do have preliminary stormwater calculations. that the engineering team has reviewed. Those do get refined as we go into grading and building permits, but the city engineer has determined that it is feasible to address the stormwater that will be generated by the project. The public comment was concerned that there are too many units. As I said, the city council did allocate 20 units to the site. and state law says that this applicant is entitled actually to even more units. If they wanted a larger density bonus, they could have requested an 80% density bonus. They designed a project that got as many units as they possibly could, but it actually didn't maximize the number that they could request. The public comment claimed that the community is unable to absorb all the rental housing that's coming onto the market. I believe the applicant will provide some numbers, but the two projects that came online last year, the Riverwalk Terrace and the Sunrise Villas, are entirely occupied, as I understand. Those are both affordable projects, and there are long waiting lists to get into those developments. the city's understanding and the applicant's understanding is that there is certainly demand for affordable housing in our community. The public comment stated that the lands might be Native American ancestral lands. As I mentioned, there was a previous project on the site That project included impacts to the creek, and so there was a mitigated negative declaration prepared for that project. One of the mitigation measures that, there was an archeological report created for that project, and the archeologists found no evidence of any Native American cultural artifacts or any impacts there on the site. There was a mitigation measure that required a Native American tribe or an archaeologist to monitor ground disturbance. That mitigation measure was inadvertently left out of the proposed resolution, so staff will be recommending that that requirement to monitor will be re-added to this project to address any potential impacts to Native American cultural artifacts. The applicant, or excuse me, the public comment mentioned that the project would be unsightly from Highway 101. I've got some slides we'll jump into in the next slide that try to give an idea of what the project would look like from the freeway. It's a The project actually eliminates all oak tree removals. There will be no oak trees removed as a part of this project. The previous iteration did remove one oak tree, and actually the project will be planting at least 15 oak trees on the site so there'll actually be a net benefit in oak trees. And then there was a claim that there was a view shed that's a protected view shed to the south of the site. As I mentioned, there is an open space easement, and that easement is both to protect the oak trees and the seasonal creek. It also houses the pedestrian path that's to the south of the creek. There was no view shed limit on that. There was no protection of the view, and the portion of the lot not in that open space was left for development. So this next slide is intended to, looks like I've got an animation I didn't intend, is to give an idea of the relative height. The comment came from one of the owners from the Alder Creek Condominiums. This project would have a finished floor at 760 feet. The building is 37 and a half feet tall from that finished floor. So you can see in blue, that's the maximum height of the building will be at 797 and a half feet. The Alder Creek apartment's approximately at 781 feet, judging by the topo lines and the grading plan. So the roof of the building will be a little taller than the foundation of Alder Creek. Alder Creek is a two-story building. I don't know how tall those buildings are but largely this building will actually be below the Alder Creek Apartments. The red dotted line is definitely not to scale. The horizontal dimension is not to scale in this image, but the vertical scale is to scale. This is my attempt, so this is a Google Street View. I didn't go out onto the freeway exit, but this is a Google Street View, so we can kind of get an idea. There are few points of interest. You can see to the far right, that's the Kennedy Club building, a building that sits close to this building, and it is a prominently visible building from the freeway. I don't know the name of the condos that are at the top of Oak Hill, but that's them there towards the middle of the image. The Alder Creek apartments there are pointed to, and then the site where Highlands will be located, and we've already seen they'll be lower than the Alder Creek apartments by a bit, but they're there to the left. So certainly they will add to what you can see on the hillside, but there are a lot of visual impacts that exist. So here's a look at the street view of the actual site. You can see the Highlands Church there on the right, and then the Alder Creek apartments are there on the far left. So jumping into what's in the resolution, there are a laundry list of conditions of approval. These are just summaries and they don't include all the conditions of approval. Those are in the draft resolution in your staff report this evening. The sixth and seventh conditions of approval require affordability agreements that are related to restricting these units to low income households. Those in the 30 to 60% AMI, the average, I shouldn't put myself in that position where I have to think about what the AMI is, is the average mean income. I think I've got that wrong. But the project will be required to go into agreements with the city that the units will be affordable for 55 years. There is a requirement that the project comply with the city's new dark sky lighting requirements. They'll have to provide adequate laundry facilities for the project. Retaining walls will need to be masonry material, textured concrete or similar. We discussed the landscaping that they need to include 15 native trees that will be scattered on the site, some trailing plants above the retaining wall and landscaping adjacent to the garbage enclosure. They will need to plant some additional street trees. There's some existing landscaping and irrigation that is maintained by the city, but it's got some gaps. And so conditions 13 and 14 would require that landscaping and irrigation to be repaired. And then the applicant does intend to put some signs on the site. We didn't get details of those, so when those come in with building permits, we'll bring those back to the DRC for their review. This slide here has some of the engineering conditions. There is a long condition related to circulation. We talked about the fact that the turn movements will need to be limited. They'll need to make some ADA improvements and some signage and striping and so forth. They will also need to replace the median landscaping and they'll need to provide a new surface for the driveway entrance, the kind of turn pocket that enters the site. As I said, this is not a comprehensive list that is there in your draft resolution. There are findings that the Planning Commission needs to make. A lot of them are about the project being consistent with the goals and policies of our city, the general plan, the zoning ordinance, any other plans and standards of the city. There are findings provided in the resolution that the Planning Commission can use to approve the project. In addition, you're finding that the project accommodates the aesthetic quality of the city and that it's compatible with the existing scenic and environmental resources. The project staff is recommending that the project be found exempt from environmental review as a class 32 categorical exemption. These are exemptions for infill development. They have to be on sites less than five acres. They have to be substantially surrounded by other urban uses and not have any significant impacts to things like traffic, noise, air quality, and water quality. So there's what's called a notice of exemption that's provided in the resolution that goes through all the reasons why this project is exempt from CEQA. As always, the Planning Commission has options. The first would be to approve the project by adopting the draft resolution, and the project would be approved based on findings and subject to the conditions of approval. The Planning Commission could approve the project with modifications to the conditions of approval or to the project itself by amending and adopting the draft resolution. If you feel you need more information, you can refer the project back to the DRC or to staff, or you could deny the project by adopting findings of denial. Staff is making a recommendation for option two, which would be to approve the project. We are recommending an additional condition of approval that would require monitoring of grading of the site. Professional archeologists would need to help create a cultural resource monitoring plan, and then there would be folks on site to make sure that nothing is uncovered during grading and construction. And I believe that ends staff's report.

Thank you, Katie. That was a lot. We'll get there. So before we get into questions, would the applicant like to make some comments? Yeah, absolutely.

Hi, good evening. My name is Lori Doyle. I'm Executive Vice President of Affordable Housing Development Corporation. We are the proposed co-developer of the Highlands 298 Niblick property that you're seeing in front of you this evening. We're also partnered with the Paso Robles Housing Authority, and their new Executive Director, Nick Rasmussen, is here with me tonight as well. We have, I've met with a few of you in the DRC meetings, but We have been a part of this community for a better part of a decade. We were partners with the Housing Authority for Oak Park 3 and 4, as well as Sunrise Villas and Riverwalk Terrace, which Katie talked about earlier. Most of these projects were, I say, a majority of the project, but all those projects I mentioned were made possible because of the city's, both their political and their funding support. the city of paso robles so it was a partnership between my organization as well as a housing authority and the city as well we always call the city our partner As Katie mentioned, we were recommended unanimously by the DRC. So we're here for your approval of our final entitlements for this project. I did want to mention two, I think I want to answer two questions regarding parking and absorption of affordable housing. So I'll start with parking. I'll start with Riverwalk Terrace, which I think most of you are probably most familiar with. This is kind of our sort of phase two of Riverwalk because it's just across South River Road from the 79 units that Riverwalk Terrace is. So that property has 79 units and 82 parking stalls that are dedicated to that property. And we do what we call like parking studies, parking counts. So we go out, we survey how many cars are out there. We actually, our managers become very close with our residents anyway, so we kind of know who's driving what. And we do surveys like during the day, during the weekend, during the night to figure out how many cars are actually on site. So it's about 50% of those spots are empty all the time. So out of the 82 spots, there's only about 40 or so that are actually full all the time. The Housing Authority is also a part of the Chet Daughter project, which is over off of, I forget what number street it is, but it's south of Oak Park 1, so over on the north side of town. And that has 40 units total, and they only have 34 spaces, granted that project was approved a long time ago. And they're about at the same type of resident use or residents that have cars and guests that have cars. So about 50% of those stalls are open most of the time. And then here, we're actually, as you know, we're proposing 30 units and 38 spaces. So it's actually more than both of those projects that I just referenced. And we would expect to have the same type of parking situation there. So I operate affordable housing all over the state of California. I'm just giving you examples here because it makes most sense to you all. But this is what we're seeing throughout our senior communities throughout the state of California as well. So it's about 50% have cars in 55 and older communities. And in family communities like Sunrise Villas, that's about 1.5 cars to one. So just for a little bit of perspective. And then relative to the wait list and the absorption of affordable housing, I think we're all aware that we need more affordable housing. We need as much as we can get. Riverwalk Terrace, again, I'll compare the seniors. That property was fully occupied within a weekend. As soon as we opened it, all 79 people wanted to move in one day. We had to spread it out, so we had to make it three or four days so it wasn't overwhelming for everybody. That property has an almost 700-person waiting list right now. So we are expected to utilize that wait list when we open this property as well. Sunrise Villas, I know this is a big one. This is family. There's 1,500 people on our waiting list there. And Oak Park 3 and 4, which I'm involved in, have over 700 people on their wait list. So those are family projects. But just giving you some perspective, we have no doubt that we will absorb these units very quickly. And also just to point out, as part of our financing mechanism, we have to do a third-party market study that they will come in and they will put it in writing as to, and they'll do kind of an audit of all the affordable housing and what's available and the need, and they'll put this into, into writing for us for our financing mechanisms that we get from the state. So I think that's all I have. I'm here for questions. Nick is as well. And yeah, thank you for letting me be up here.

Thank you. All right. If you'll stand by close in case there are questions directly for you. Thank you. So we'll bring it back to the commission and we'll start over here. Mr. Connolly.

Okay. Yeah. Um, it was a good day. You went over the parking situation that it's a similar development. It's only 50%. Um, I'm wondering how much guests, I mean, uh, staff parking there would be, uh, for this, if there's staff on, on site that could take up some of the 38 parking spaces that are available.

Um, the applicant may have more information. One of the units on of the 30 will be a manager's unit. And then there are two offices shown. But one of the, like I said, one of the staff will live on site, so they'll be one of the 30 apartment tenants. But there's 38 spots. My understanding is they don't intend to designate spots for any particular person.

Yeah, and also the parking discussion was somewhat good to hear that similar type of senior living uh isn't full but i was concerned about overflow parking with guest parking potentially the highland church area or a parking that's down the grade a little bit but i i think the concern was alleviated with your comments uh i wanted to ask about the The trash enclosure, I know it's a small thing, but I didn't see architectural treatment for that. I assume it's going to be similar to the to the main building. I saw the location of it.

Yeah, I apologize for not including a site. It is included in the resolution. It is there. It's block. It is the type of block is as you may split face. Thank you very much. Split face block is the exterior of the garbage enclosure.

This being a senior living community, just from my own education, what prevents someone that's not a senior, maybe has kids, maybe under 55 from occupying these units?

As I said, there is an on-site manager. Lori, that's probably a better question for you, how that gets managed.

So in our lease, in the lease that they sign, there's like affidavits that they have to sign that, and obviously we check the dates and all that stuff, their year of birth and all that sort of thing. There haven't been, again, I do operate senior housing throughout California. There's very few instances where I've heard people be worried about like grandparents raising children and things like that. That typically doesn't happen in the communities, at least that we operate. And if there was like a long-term, like a... I don't know, for lack of better terms, a squatter, like a kid's squatter or something like that. The manager on site is very aware. As you can imagine, especially with a small project like this, the manager will be very much familiar with everybody and their guests and their families.

I just didn't know how that works.

It would be a lease violation if there was anything that we found, and then we would be able to.

I assume that the Oaks and other places have that same concern. Mm-hmm. Okay. And the only other minor concern is I noticed the retaining walls on the top of cuts may have to have some safety rails, and I'd be concerned about the architectural treatment of that, as well as we mentioned additional landscaping, but staff presented something that I liked on that. But the safety rails on the retaining walls might be needed in the architectural treatment of that.

those are some things that i i'm concerned about thank you thank you sir commissioner roden thank you chairman um i think i i think the thing that stands out for all of us that i brought up even at drc was the the parking i think you um attempting quite well of eliminating some of those concerns. The only thing I would say the difference possibly is that at some of the other sites there's other parking nearby that is accessible. I think this is pretty isolated so that if you did have a lot of visitors during holidays or whatever that it might be an issue where it isn't other places, just to keep in mind. And it looks like on Niblick Road, there's only a right turn in and a right turn out. Is that correct?

Correct. There is currently a turn pocket and only right turns in. The pork chop median that's shown, there you go. Yes, only right turns will be allowed when you're leaving the site.

Is there going to be a guard in the center lane that prevents people from turning from that center lane?

or the it's the lane going west sure the no the so there is a road and unfortunately the images we see here don't show it uh quarter horse lane is just immediately to the north and we did explore i believe it's called a worm median where it would really funnel the traffic and and restrict those those turns but it would impact the existing neighborhood to the north and so that that solution was um was taken off the table and the um the pork chop, which will only impact this project and not the rest of the city, was selected as the solution.

So I see what happens out on Highway 46 when we partitioned it to where you're not supposed to make a left turn on airport onto 46. I can't tell you how many trucks have been turning in front of me going east on 46. So that was one of my concerns, that people aren't going to want to go down to the light, do a U-turn in both directions.

Commissioner Roden, I can speak a little bit to the pork chop as well. During design, a traditional pork chop was proposed by the applicant. However, the applicant then worked with the city's traffic consultants to have a more defined pork chop that really funnels traffic to the east, because that was our traffic consultant's concern as well.

Is there a shaking finger there for people who...

So, yeah, it was identified during the planning entitlements and then will be further pursued in construction documents to make sure that the appropriate pork chop geometry is installed there.

Thank you. I like the project. As you know, we have limited rentals in this town, very limited senior and low-income rentals. I like the area where it's being proposed as well. That's it.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Marlowe. Good.

All right. Just a couple questions. So you guys, the city, is requesting, in addition to the approval, more requirements around an archaeologist, right? Um, what can you, and you probably said it, but can you run me through the thought process there? Because I think the purpose of concessions and reducing parking, all these things are to keep construction costs down, which allows the affordable housing. And I've been on projects with a full time market top archeology on site and it's extremely expensive. And I've in my career never actually found anything that not to say that it wouldn't be justified to a degree. So could you walk me through that? Cause

But yeah, as I stated with the previous iteration, we did prepare a mitigated negative declaration and there was a report prepared for the site. The archaeologists who went out did not find any artifacts or evidence of cultural resources being located on the site. But we did receive a comment from the Native American community and that was a request. And so we've worked with the applicant and they are comfortable with the condition and are ready to accept it. And so it would require monitoring when they first break the ground open and they're doing that grading. But it is in response to a previous comment that we received from the tribes.

okay i understand and and the applicant you guys are okay all right i know that can get pretty expensive so um the only other thing is um the trash enclosure don't love where it's at i'm not sure if there's a lot of other options seems like it's just kind of hanging out there but uh not really a question more of a comment but my only other thing would be like maybe you could tuck that into the hillside or something a little more creative but aside from that Oh, just one more thing. With these concessions, just what I was doing, quick research, unless it, from my understanding, is a major safety or health issue, we really, it's pretty much entitled, right? Because of what they're providing?

That's correct. The city would be exposed to legal challenges if we did not accept the density bonus requested and those concessions.

where's that line at because you know we're less parking i i get the point probably never going to be full is there like a cost analysis done where like well actually we could get two more or four more spots for little to no money i'm just curious like where the line is on that right because for for five thousand dollars they could get all the spots i'm not saying that's true like where is that line drawn and

There is some language in state law that addresses that. It would be the onus of the city to provide that documentation. It's not the responsibility of the applicant, and so it would be a financial burden on the city to do that. We do have the city attorney on the line, and if she wants to chime in, I'm sure she knows the law better than I. Yeah, I was just curious.

So it's on us to say, well, actually, it wouldn't cost you that much more money to do it, is what you're saying. Okay, all right, well. That's all I had. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Looking over to my right, Commissioner Kogler.

Mr. Chair, thank you. My site-related questions have already been asked and answered, thanks to my peers and Katie's responses. I'm just curious for the applicant. You said you have a marketing study that's going to be done. Since the Housing and Redevelopment Authority is a component of this project, will that be public and available to us to look at when it's completed? I think that would be really informative for this group and others within the city to have updated data. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Commissioner Neal?

I was on DRC when this came forward, and I quizzed the group extensively, so I think I had most of my questions answered. Great.

Okay. Okay. Okay, most of my questions, well, actually, you know what, I'll ask just for clarification purposes. You mentioned improvements. Sidewalks? I think it had, does it have sidewalks now?

Sidewalks are existing. I think there's a few spots. I think there's some accessibility improvements, but you're correct. There is curb gutter and sidewalk surrounding both the north and west side of the lot.

So when it comes to what, because there's a lot of water that runs down Niblick during our storms, is there going to be added drainage?

I'm going to defer to the city engineer.

There are drainage proposed for the project at the left, or excuse me, the right turn in and right turn out.

Could you identify yourself, please? Edith, could you identify yourself? Thank you.

This is Edith Lim with North Coast Engineering. And there is currently a cross gutter that goes across the existing driveway turn in. So with the little right hand turn in, right hand turn out, there will be an under sidewalk drain specific for this project to keep that water flowing.

Okay. Thank you for that.

And I would add to that is that stormwater would continue to flow in current conditions.

Okay.

As it does today.

As it does today. Okay. Thank you very much. Question, Katie. So Highlands and the big parking lot is behind it to the...

the south correct is there going to be pathways and everything to that side of it or does does the restricted area the creek prevent anything from going that way yeah any pathway would require grading within that uh within the creek um or the seasonal drainage um uh so if folks wanted to utilize you know the highlands if they wanted to to make the hike um they would be going down the sidewalk and down that unnamed road that's to the west of the site okay

And I'm sorry, I'm going to ask one more question. I keep looking at my notes. There was a mention about kids. So in my understanding, so it's a 55 and older. Not to say 55-year-olds don't have children. Is it children restricted or children are acceptable on-site living? Can somebody come up to the mic and answer that for... for those that are hearing, listening.

So there's a majority of one bedrooms, right? 25 one bedrooms and the rest are two bedrooms. the units themselves don't really lend themselves to having anyone really else in there. And typically the two bedrooms are occupied with couples or one and a caregiver, um, which it's typically couples, if anything. Um, at least that's our population that we're seeing at Riverwalk. So like I said, in the lease, it's, it's pretty clear. Um, we're, um, With fair housing laws, there are exceptions that need to be made. I can't tell you exactly what the fair housing laws are. I don't have those memorized, but we really haven't come up with that instance where there's young children or even children living with them. It's usually like visiting, if anything. It's hard to guarantee not, right? I can't put that stamp of guarantee on it, but it's not what we've seen. It's not what's at Chet Daughter. It's not at Riverwalk Terrace.

Well, and just to confirm, there's no fencing between Niblick Road and the property itself, right? Correct. So the concern I was thinking is if there's children, and they start playing out in the front and happen to wander on towards Niblick, that could also be very dangerous.

I don't know if we could put the site plan up real quick. The building is set pretty far off, as far as we could get it, from Niblick. There's a pretty large area there. I don't know the exact dimensions, but the parking lot is there. It's not like the building's right on top of Niblick. I'm not making any... I'm not saying people can't walk, but that was the point.

Okay. All right. I appreciate that. Yeah, no problem. Thank you very much. Sir, on the mic, please, if you're going to make a comment. I don't think... Are you speaking on behalf of the applicant, or are you public comment? We're almost to public comment. Just give me two seconds. Okay. Sorry, I thought he was with you guys. All right, no other questions? Then we'll go ahead and then now, you don't have to sit. We're gonna move this to public comment. We'll start with you, sir, if you'd like to come on up. Go ahead and state your name, please.

David Anderson.

Okay.

And the rules are that for seniors, you can have a guest for up to 10 days nights over the course of the year okay 10 in a row but once you can't get past the 10 you can't have any more you can't have overnight just continuously beyond the 10 days and that typically is counted I tell you who tells on their their neighbors tell on them so that's how that works okay but also our leases are all month-to-month so there's no protections for long-term leases here and when a tenant is in violation it's not difficult to document it, and then move them on if necessary. We strive to keep peace in the valley. It gets difficult sometimes, especially with older folks who are kind of in their way, and little things will set them off. Noise or vibration or, you know, your dog barked and didn't like it. So things like that come up, and we just try to keep that all under control. That's it.

Thank you, sir. Any other public comments? Seeing none in the audience, Marcy, we have one caller.

Caller, can you state your name?

Hi, my name is Joseph Collins.

Go ahead.

I have... Been in and out of Paso Robles since 1971. And we've owned the Alder Creek Apartments for, I don't know, 25 years or around that. And in recent times, we've seen a lot of development in town. Some affordable, some market. I heard the comment earlier that... that you just needed a lot more housing in Paso Robles. Well, that may not necessarily be true. If you do a study, you'll find out that Arrive, one of our newer communities, has 15 vacancies. Blue Oak, also apparently new, has 10 vacancies. We at Alder Creek have 10 vacancies, beautiful rehabilitated apartments. No takers. We can't fill them. There's not enough people in the community to occupy the market apartments. And we're happy to show our community, and for that matter, the other communities. But anyway, having said that, we're dealing with this, the affordable housing. Now, I wanted to address a couple of issues there. The architecture, it looks to me, you come to Paso Robles because you've got open space, you've got hills. It's beautiful, it's amazing, it's wonderful. And this architecture is a glob of dwellings set on this parcel. And then in order to facilitate that, you've got to cut the bluff and then you've got to support the bluff. Well, the bluffs are one of the most amazing things about the community. But, you know, that, be it as it may, I want to talk quickly about the parking. I'm 76 years old. I think I'm certainly qualified for 55 and older. I still drive. My wife still drives. I think saying that these folks are not going to drive is inappropriate because they will. And There's not enough parking on site to accommodate their visitors, to accommodate them. And so these folks are going to have to park someplace else. They're going to go down and park in the church parking lot, the shopping center parking lot. And that's going to be a problem. They're going to come up and park with us where we've got plenty of parking. And so I think that the parking... It's a factor. It's a big factor with this community. Then I wanted to also address... Sir, your time is up. State law... Sir? Yes. Your time is up.

Are we good?

Caller, can you state your name?

My name is Sheila Kurz, and I have a problem with the parking also. I have many relatives that live out of town, and in their communities, there are... apartments or senior living with no guest parking. So when these guests come, or if you have an additional parking, you're parking in the street. Niblick is sloped. And my question is, does Niblick allow street parking in this zone? Because guests will park on the street. And If you've got another senior coming in the community and visiting, they're going to want to park in the parking lot. So if there's no guest parking, I understand it's free for all. It's first come, first serve parking. But you're going to want to have, over time, more additional parking. And I also agree with the structure, the look of the building. It doesn't look like it belongs in Paso. It looks like it belongs in Southern California in a bigger town. So those are my comments is I really think that there is going to be a parking problem here. And the building really doesn't fit the community.

Thank you, caller.

Caller, can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead. You have three minutes.

Hi, this is Linda George, 3126 Spring Street. I have to echo about the parking. It's a really interesting project. The parking, I have been in the longest parking war ever in my existence. It's been ongoing for 60 days. And this is something that I approached Chief Nord about because there are no real experts on parking or neighborhood disputes, so to speak. And that's one of the most common problems with people is parking. So I didn't get to hear if there's street parking on Niblitz. But for me, I mean, maybe I don't understand why there would be oak trees when there could be more parking. But you guys limited parking on a mixed use per resident. Now, I understand with the ADU laws that came out, not this last legislative session, but the one prior, that you guys are not – that you can't require – I don't know if it's ADUs or buildings in general to provide parking. So I don't know how you guys work that conflict. when you're designing these buildings, but just take it from somebody who's having the last 60 days plus of hell and trying to go through 8CD, that kind of stuff, that those things really matter. I know you get density bonuses and bonuses here, et cetera, et cetera, but we're everyday people, and we like our little territory that we pay for. And I'm always afraid, I'm working in nursing homes and things like that back in the heyday, why you guys would put seniors in a three-story building. I could see rescue efforts, people in wheelchairs, disabled. Generally, I'm 58. If I went to go live there, I would be upset if my grandchild couldn't stay longer. What if my son was in the Marines? That kind of stuff. But just remember, when it comes to parking, When I worked at Agnew's Developmental Center, we had a staff shoot somebody over it and died. So please keep that in mind. Thank you very much.

Okay.

All right. I think we're good. Good. Thank you, Marcie. Okay, I think of all that, probably one thing, Warren, the parking on Niblick, there is no parking right directly in front of the development on Niblick, correct?

Yeah, let's have the city engineer come up and Leslie can answer the questions about Niblick best.

Sorry, I missed one caller. It looks like there's one more that made it in right before. Okay. Public comment.

Hello.

Hi, go ahead, state your name. You have three minutes.

Hi, this is Trevor Collins, and I wanted to ask if they've done any studies. If you go up to Nickerson, everybody's going to go up and do a U-turn up there. Have we done any traffic mitigation for that location? And then also I wanted to mention that the occupancy, the state law says that that you can put two plus one into an apartment. So in the one-bedroom apartments, you can put three people. In the two-bedroom apartments, you can put five. And people do. And so I think that parking is going to be a really big issue. And then the traffic, there's going to be a lot of U-turns up there, and we need to address that, or somebody needs to address that U-turn location, because it's going to be backed up all the way down. All the way down the street.

Okay, that is the last public caller.

Is this on?

Thank you, Marcy.

Is this on? There we go. So to address the condition on Niblick, there is no existing on-street parking in Niblick right now, and none is proposed. Currently, the geometry of the street, you've got two through lanes that are eastbound, two through lanes that are westbound, and then class two bicycles on each side. Into the site, there is a designated right turn lane as well. And again, there is no parking within Niblick currently. Regarding the caller that addressed the concern with the no U-turns, that was also evaluated by the city's traffic consultant. They identified the same concern, and there will be a no U-turn sign placed at Nickerson.

okay thank you for that so with that we're going to go ahead and close public comment bring it back to the commission for last questions comments or i would entertain a motion commissioner connolly thank you um i'm looking at the traffic study and uh i don't know if it has to do with uh allowing for over and above what's uh been analyzed but uh it's based on uh less than 30 units. I think they have 24 low-income housing units as the basis for the traffic study. And I don't believe that even given that there was a major impact on Niblick Road, but would that need to be addressed because of the number being 30 instead of 24?

There you go, okay. I don't believe so because of the trip generation was already calculated in there and as you already mentioned and observed that the trip generation was well below any significant impact.

Yeah, I thought it was pretty negligible. Just a comment, I think the access off of, restricted to off of Niblick is better than having access to the parking lot below think that's a good point and i think the elderly community the senior living is a good use for this site i mean this is a difficult site to to to use that space because it's so limited so i really like this project as far as the type of use and the fact that the access is limited to niblick so i would be willing to entertain a motion unless other have comments

Looks like Commissioner Marlowe has... No, I'd like to make a motion if there's no other comments. I love it. We've got a comment by Commissioner Christensen.

Go ahead. Thank you. I just wanted to make a comment in the sense that my first concern was parking, and so I hear the public's comments. I think that they have to also consider is that this is a low-income area, So the concessions take a lot of that out of the city's hands in a way that kind of handcuffs us to a certain extent. So staff tries to do the best that they can to mitigate whatever is possible, and I think they've done a great job doing that. We do have a turn lane there already, so I understand the concern from the traffic standpoint. I think that that will get cars out of traffic's way. The ingress-egress, there's really, that's probably the best solution rather than down from below where you're going through a parking lot where pedestrians are and you're crossing pedestrian and bike trail which was a concern of mine as well from the original approval when I saw that so I hear the public's comments I really do I'm I'm one of those commissioners that that takes that as a very large concern when I'm looking at these projects but the same time I am familiar with the senior housing developments in town I have friends and family that live in some of those and I can tell you that I don't think that parking's really been an issue for them. I should know. My mom would call me first thing if there was an issue. So just want to be clear on that. So I like the project, and I just wanted to put my two cents in on the parking. So thank you.

Commissioner Christensen, thank you. Well said. I'll entertain a motion if there are no other comments or questions.

Yeah, I'd like to make a motion. Is it possible to put the additional condition up there for me? I don't have that one memorized. Okay, I'd like to move to approve development plan 25-15 for a 30-unit multi-family residential development including an affordable housing density bonus by adopting draft resolution PC26XXX based on findings with amended conditions of approval to include and the qualified principal investigator defined but as an archaeologist you could just reference what's on the screen oh don't I was gonna cut him off yeah we were getting there we got a first on the table by Commissioner Marlowe do I hear a second I'll second it seconded by Commissioner Connolly roll call please mr. Marlowe aye mr. Connolly aye mr. Roden aye mr. Kogler aye mr. Neal aye

Mr. Christensen? Aye. Chairperson Covarrubias? Aye. Motion passes 7-0. Congratulations.

All right, moving on to discussion items. Consent calendar for the DRC minutes for December 15th, 29th, January 5th, and the Planning Commission minutes from January 13th. Are there any changes, comments? If not, I will ask for it. Commissioner Neal?

I move approval.

Thank you, sir.

Second.

We got a second it by Commissioner Kogler, I believe that was. First by Neal, seconded by Commissioner Kogler. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Neal.

Aye.

Commissioner Kogler. Aye. Commissioner Christensen. Aye. Commissioner Connolly. Aye. Commissioner Roden. Aye. Commissioner Marlowe. Aye. Chairperson Kovarubias. Aye. Motion passes 7-0.

Okay. On to other reports. Housing Constraints and Opportunities Committee.

Yes, we're working on an agenda for February. Is it February 12th? February 12th, 2 p.m., will be our next Housing Constraints Committee meeting. The main focus will be looking at some proposed changes to the city's development fees. Those are the cost recovery fees that we charge applicants to process permits in the city. Those haven't been updated in 20 years. There's been a consultant working on that for the past year or so. So they're going to be presenting the proposed new fees to the Housing Constraints Committee. Housing Constraints Committee will make a recommendation to the City Council. City Council will have the final say. They'll hold a hearing on that in March.

Thank you. Thank you for that, Warren. All right. DRC Committee rotation schedule. Any comments, changes? None seeing none. Okay, we're good on that. Okay, moving on to any final planning commissioner comments. I see Commissioner Kogler reaching for the mic.

Yeah, one quick one, Mr. Chair. When the public calls in, they talk somewhere from the heavens. I've tried to figure out where it's coming from, or it just bounces around in here. I don't know if it's possible to get any better acoustics, but I really find it hard sometimes, and I notice all of us restraining to hear and comprehend some things that are being said. So I know we're temporary, but I don't know if we can get some kind of improved acoustics. Sound system, whatever. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Seeing no others. So I want to thank Katie. That was a lengthy presentation. I want to thank you for all of that. You may update us on this, Warren, but I was just curious, how are the improvements going at the city?

Thanks.

Yeah, so there's basically a two-phase process going on at City Hall. So phase one is the remodel of the second floor of the City Hall space. That's going very well. We will be moving back in in February, so there'll be a formal... public service counter. We have additional conference room space. And then the whole kind of layout of cubicles and offices has been modernized. All the paint and carpet has been refreshed. So it's going to be a much more efficient work area. It'll look better. It'll accommodate more staff members, which will be a benefit. So you'll know right now that half of our staff is working in the council chamber. So by the end of February, they'll be moved back upstairs, which will then open up the council chambers, which is the next phase of the remodel process. So that will then be a couple of months process. I don't think we have a formal timeline on that. So I believe we will be here at least till summer sometime, best case.

Okay. Well, you knew where I was going with that question. Okay, through summer, maybe. All right. Staff comments.

Yeah, so we're in the middle of recruitments for Planning Commission. Council's going to be doing interviews in February. So, Marcy, you want to give us just a quick update on the deadlines and how that's going to work out?

So we are accepting applications until the end of this week. Everything is done online via our website. The interviews are tentatively scheduled for February 11th. So once we have the application process closed, we'll have more of an idea of timelines for those applicants. and we will reach out to them with that information.

Very good. And then after our appointments by the Council of Commissioners, those seats become active in March, so we do our traditional reorganization dinner. So Marcy, you want to tell us about that?

So that is scheduled for Sunday, March 1st. We are scheduled to be at Cal Coast in the patina room like we did a few years back. So we are finalizing all of the agreements and things with that. So more information to come to you guys with timing and possibilities to bring a plus one and how that all normally goes. So you'll hear from me about that.

All right. So Sunday, March 1st. Okay. We also have another special meeting coming up. So we're working on a joint session meeting that will be between the city council, the planning commission, and the airport commission to review basically the spaceport project and discuss kind of next steps moving forward. I think there's some major decisions to be made on funding additional processes and studies. I think the city council is very interested to hear from both the planning commission and the airport commission before we kind of take the next formal steps in the spaceport process. So that's going to be Wednesday, March 4th, 6 p.m., here in this noisy room. So mark your calendars. Try to keep that date and time open so that you can attend as well. We expect it to be at 6 o'clock, which is the normal council time.

You'll send out a notice, though.

Yeah, it's going to be a formal meeting, but I just wanted you to get that on your calendar so you're not surprised at the last second. Okay, so other projects. Your next meeting is February 10th, and it looks like a pretty busy agenda. So I think there's going to be a multifamily duplex subdivision project that we're working on on Creston Road. We need to do some updates to our cannabis delivery ordinance. So that will be before you. You'll be making a recommendation to council on that. We also need to update our temporary signs in preparation for the next election cycle. So that's another ordinance you'll be making a recommendation to council on. There's a small amendment to the ravine water park that we expect to be on that agenda as well. And then let's see, next meeting February 24th, the Paso Robles Youth Arts Center expansion is penciled in for a hearing, as well as an expansion, a fairly major expansion to the Allegretto Hotel on Buena Vista. So we're working on that. So I think February looks like it's going to be fairly busy. We talked about the reorganization dinner. We're still trying to get a hearing date kind of schedule pulled together on the landing project. We're getting really close to it on final conditions and development agreement points, but we don't have a formal date. But start going through that EIR. So you don't cut yourself too short on time. So I think those are your major things, and I'd be happy to answer any questions. That concludes staff's report. Thank you, sir.

Okay, if there are no other comments, questions, then I'll take a motion to adjourn. So moved. All in favor? Aye. We are adjourned.