Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Testing, testing. Jessica, can you hear me? Testing, testing. One, two. Yes, I can.

Okay, thank you.

Testing, testing. Sarah, can you test your microphone for us please?

Testing, testing. Can you hear me? I can, thank you. Awesome.

Let's call to order the March 10th, 2026 Planning Commission Agenda. Commissioner Kogler, would you like to lead us in the pledge?

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.

You have the roll call, please.

Commissioner Kovarubias?

Here.

Commissioner Kogler?

Here.

Commissioner Neal?

Here.

Commissioner Roden?

Here.

Commissioner Christensen? Commissioner Marlowe? Commissioner Lorenz? And let the record show that Commissioners Christensen, Marlowe, and Lorenz are not here tonight. They are at the Planning Commissioner Academy, which starts early in the morning. So they let us know they wouldn't be here today.

Thank you. Staff introductions, please. Marcy Reynoso and Jessica Ferguson, permit technicians.

Darren Nash, city planner.

Sarah Laughlin with Best Best and Krieger on the phone for city attorney's office.

General public comment regarding matters not on the agenda. Do we have any public comment? Marcy, anybody on the phone?

No callers.

Agenda items proposed to be tabled or rescheduled?

There are none.

Thank you. Let's go to G1, public hearings. Two-year time extension for... COLAWP P22-0123, PD22-20, TEX26-01, OTR23-11, CUP23-14.

Getting our text squared away here.

commissioners thank you for being here this evening I'll present the first item tonight which is the proposed time extension for the commercial project at the Covallup site this is something that was approved by Planning Commission back in 2024 and the time extension would be to extend that time period that was initially approved until February 20th of 2028 and this would involve all of the entitlements that were associated with that initial approval. That'd be the plan development 2220, oak tree removal 2311, conditional use permit 2314, and parcel map 220054. As a reminder, this project's proposal was the construction of six commercial or light industrial buildings on a 14-acre property, a total building floor plan of about 240,000 square feet, and would include the removal of six oak trees that are currently on the site. And so this is the current location. It has an address of 2930 Union Road, but is mostly located off of Ardmore Road, obviously on the east side of town toward Barney Schwartz Park. And as stated before, this is a 14-acre property It's provided into three main development lots, those being 13, 6A, and 6B. The primary focus for these lots would be on winemaking, storage and warehouse, and manufacturing. That's what was approved as part of the initial plan back in 2024. That being said, there is a relation to a proposed new project that is currently within the works, that being the Oak at Hardmoor. This project's our proposed project would be the redesignation of the site into a mixed-use overlay, which would then allow phased subdivision of the site into 154 multifamily units. This is actually proposed to be brought to the Planning Commission at our next meeting. If approved, these entitlements for Oak and Ardmore would actually supersede what is proposed, was initially approved, I should say, back in 2024. So the commercial entitlements would be overridden by the mixed use proposal. That being said, the reason that we're here tonight for TEX 2601, the time extension, is really two-fold. The main existing reason is that the Okit Armore and the commercial property both use the same mitigated negative declaration for the environmental impact. And so as part of the proposal for Oak at Ardmore, it would still be using that same environmental CEQA determination. So even in any case, if Oak at Ardmore were to say be delayed or even canceled, God forbid, we would still need this extension in order to maintain that environmental determination. And so these are the general required time extension findings that we find in our zoning code. And in general, what we found is that all four of these have been met by the proposed time extension. There are no changes in the circumstances that would change the findings that this body made back in 2024. There have been no changes to the general plan or zoning code that are applicable to this project since the initial approval. There's been no changes to the character of the site. There's been no development on the site in the intervening period. And obviously we're going through a period right now where Covellup is redetermining kind of what the site may be used for. this time extension would help to both for that process along while also keeping the possibility of the commercial industrial commercial approval alive. Due to this, As I said before, the CEQA determination, the mitigated negative declaration was approved back in February of 2024. This time extension is not proposing any changes to the project or any changes to the site character that would change any of the findings from that mitigated negative declaration. And so based on that, there would not be any subsequent MND or an EIR required for approval of this time extension. And so here are the four options that we would present to the commission for review. The first would be to approve the two-year time extension by adopting draft resolution PC26XXX, based on the findings and subject to the conditions of approval. The second option would be to grant a time extension for a shorter period of time than that two-year proposed extension. Third would be to outright deny the time extension, or four would be to amend or modify these options. And based on everything that we have laid out previously, staff would recommend that we take option one. That would be the approval of the two-year time extension by adopting draft resolution. As stated, there are no findings that would impact the environmental review or the prior approvals of this project. Yeah, so I'll open up to questions to the floor.

Thank you, Sam. Do the commissioners have any questions or comments? I have one comment. I had ex parte discussions with Michael Stolte on this project when I was on the council and also on the project that will be coming up once again on the 24th that is also on this property since I've been on the planning commission. Any questions for the proponents? Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. I'm sorry, public comment. Anyone online, Marcy? No callers. Okay. Close public comment. Thank you. I'll entertain a motion. Commissioner Kogler.

There we go. Madam Chair, I would move to approve the two-year time extension by adopting draft resolution 26 dash numbers to be inserted based on findings and subject to conditions of approval.

I'll second that.

Motion by Commissioner Kogler, second by Commissioner Kovarubias. Thank you. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Kogler? Aye. Commissioner Kovarubias? Aye. Commissioner Neal? Aye. Commissioner Roden? Aye. Passes 4-0.

Okay, thank you, Sam. Second on the G2 is amendment to chapter 21.52, of the Paso Robles Municipal Code signs, RZN 25-07, P25-0117.

All right, thank you Planning Commission. Darcy Delgado for providing the presentation on the zoning amendment to the Municipal Code for signage. So, in general, the city regulates signs under Chapter 21.52 of the Pass Rebels Municipal Code. And we do updates from time to time to make sure that our code is in conformance with the law and that we're following best practice. And so in this case, the city was advised by our legal support team that we needed to make some adjustments to the sign ordinance. related to temporary signs, prohibited signs, non-conforming signs, and then administration and enforcement. So this isn't anything that staff identified or that the public brought to our attention. It was just brought to our attention by the legal team, again, to stay compliant with law and follow best practices. So the proposed changes to the sign code include expanding the list of prohibited signs as well as some textual clarifications. Also we've divided the types of temporary signs into two distinct categories and so that would be temporary commercial signs and temporary non-commercial signs. Also throughout the text amendments are some minor updates including grammatical fixes. In the staff report there was a track changes copy And then the ordinance that's being recommended to council includes a clean version. My understanding is the clean version, it's a repeal and replace, but I wanted to provide the planning commission what was actually gonna change. So if you saw that in your staff packet, you can refer back to that for what's actually changing. The ordinance is not subject to CEQA because it does not qualify as a project. A project is an activity that has a potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment. A project excludes organizational or administrative activities of government that will not result in direct physical changes in the environment. So we took a look at this ordinance and verified that it does not qualify as a project based on those two criteria. So the Planning Commission has several options tonight. Of course, option one is to recommend that the City Council adopt an ordinance to amend Chapter 21.52 by adopting the draft resolution based on findings. Of course, the Planning Commission could recommend the City Council adopt an ordinance to amend that chapter with modifications. This could be referred back to staff for additional analysis, or you could provide alternative recommendation to the City Council. Staff does recommend the Planning Commission recommend the City Council adopt the ordinance to amend this chapter 21.52 of the Municipal Code. As I said, these are changes that are recommended by our legal support team, and we're just trying to maintain compliance with our signed ordinance. And with that, if you have any questions, I am still reviewing this. I'm not sure if this is a compliant sign or not. I'm still reviewing it against our standards, but I thought you would enjoy it as well. That's all I have.

Thank you, Marcy. Any comments or questions by Mr. Kovarov? Yes.

There we go. Darcy, thank you for that. So when I was reading through it, interesting enough, I think one of the biggest problems we have with any site existing or in the future is the enforcement aspect. I was curious when I was reading some of the added enforcement stuff, In your opinion, is it reasonable to believe that it's actually something that can come to fruition, that we can actually enforce? Because if you go around our town, you'll see a lot of things that are probably not within code. So again, is this something that if it's approved, do we go back to those that are currently out of code? And is that feasible? Is that realistic?

Yeah, so there are some signs I think that are a little bit more feasible to enforce, such as the temporary signs, especially if they're past whatever their expiration is, depending on the type of sign, commercial versus non-commercial, what the intended purpose is, and so we have a little bit more clarity now with our ordinance, which I think is what code enforcement needs to determine whether they can remove it or not if it's violating the sign ordinance. There are a lot of signs that are on private property that are affixed, and those would be more challenging. Typically, Those are handled more from a complaint basis from someone in the community. Hey, I noticed this sign was put up. I don't know if there were any permits. That takes quite a bit longer, but I do think that some of these standards that have been incorporated into the ordinance are gonna help code enforcement to do their job better. And that goes down to just providing more detail, whereas we were lacking before. I'm not sure that was the intent, but I think it will be a benefit.

Is the enforcement done by the building department?

We have a separate division, community services, so we have code enforcement officers. And I know some, I believe some signs are held at Public Works Yard, so if there are temporary signs that can be taken off to somewhere where the owner can come and claim them.

Okay, Darcy, thank you for that. Absolutely.

Anyone else? Commissioner Kroger.

Darcy, do temporary signs require permits?

Some of them, I'm trying to think off the top of my head, so there are standards, so for instance, banners, you can put them up for 30 days up, 30 days down, a total of six times a year. There are a lot of signs that don't, that are not actually permitted, so the feather flag signs. A-frame signs are supposed to go through a review process with planning, and so there is, I believe, a small fee for that, but I'm thinking the majority of temporary signs, the ones that are now more identified in this code, they don't need any permits. So non-commercial speech that somebody's putting something in their yard, that would not need a permit. so it kind of goes to commissioner proverbius's question because if there's no permits on these how does the city know when a 30-day clock starts and stops for example it's extremely hard to keep up with that so again we're mostly operating on that complaint basis for the more egregious signs It takes some staff time to coordinate going out, verifying when it was put up, and then starting the clock from that date as opposed to when maybe it actually was put up. But we don't typically keep tabs on temporary signs unless there's a strong reason to. And then, of course, we can incorporate code enforcement's assistance if it is something we need help with.

Okay, thank you.

Anyone else? Okay, let's go to public comment. seeing none in the audience marcy anybody online no callers all right let's close public comment and i will entertain a motion chairperson road and i'd like to make a motion uh that we recommend the city council adopt an audience an audience to amend chapter 21.52

of the past roles municipal code by adopting draft resolution pc 26 dash xxx based on findings do i hear a second i will second thank you roll call oh i'm sorry discussion just one quick comment and again i'm going back to rob's comments i too find it frustrating on the enforcement side And I know it's a terribly difficult thing to do. Probably the most blatant thing that is totally against the ordinance are feather banners. And they're everywhere, and some properties have three or four. So if we don't enforce it when it's looking at you and flying at you in the face, when do we enforce anything?

Commissioner one more thing for discussion I just thought of this and I meant to ask earlier just an odd question I think this doesn't apply so I love I'm very patriotic I love flags love them this doesn't apply in any way shape or form to anything like that correct correct okay because I didn't read anything about it but I want to make sure okay all right just want to make sure thank you any more discussion lacking none roll call please

Commissioner Kovarubis? Aye. Commissioner Neal?

Aye.

Commissioner Kogler?

Aye.

And Commissioner Roden?

Aye.

Passes 4-0.

OK. Are there any discussion items?

There are none.

Let's move to consent calendar. Any comments or corrections?

Chairperson Roden, I'll recommend that we approve the Planning Commission minutes from February 24th, the DRC minutes from January 12th, 26th, and February 2nd, 2026. I will second that.

Thank you. Roll call.

That was Covarrubias and who was the second?

Covarrubias and Neal.

Commissioner Covarrubias? Aye. Commissioner Neal? Aye. Commissioner Kogler? Aye. Commissioner Roden?

Aye.

Passes 4-0.

Other reports? Housing Constraints and Opportunities Committee.

No report this evening.

Thank you. Development review committee rotation scheduled. Is everybody okay with that? Hearing no comment. We're good. Any comments by the planning commissioners? Seeing none. Staff comments?

No comments tonight.

Okay. So if you want to move to adjourn.

I'll motion to adjourn.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you.