Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Test, test. Welcome, Sarah. Can we test your mic, please? Yes, testing. Fantastic. We can hear you. Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Ready? Good evening and welcome to the Planning Commission Tuesday, August 11th, 2026. I'd like to call to the meeting the order and we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. 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. Okay, great. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Kovarubias? Here. Commissioner Lorenz?

Here.

Commissioner Roden? Commissioner Kogler?

Here.

Commissioner Neal? Here. Commissioner Christensen?

Here.

Chairperson Marlowe? Here. Record will reflect that Roden is absent. Okay. Staff introductions, please.

Jessica Ferguson, Permit Tech, and Laurie Wilson, Community Services Development Coordinator, is on line with us as well.

Warren Fraze, Community Development Director.

And do we have any other callers, the lawyer?

Sarah Laughlin with Beth Buston Krieger on the line for City Attorney.

Great. Thank you. Okay. General public comments regarding manners not on the agenda. Anyone in the public got any comments for items not on the agenda? Seeing none in the audience, are there any callers?

No callers.

Okay. Great. Any agenda items proposed to be tabled or rescheduled?

There are none.

Okay. Moving on to public hearings. Item 1, Maverick Church CUP. We've got a staff presentation. Great.

Good evening, everyone. Hello. Yes, good evening to our commissioners. Good evening to members of the public as well. My name is Sam Rickliffs. I am assistant planner. Is that better? Hello, hello, hello?

Yeah, that'll be better.

That works. Hello everyone, round two. My name is Sam Rickliff, I'm an assistant planner here for the city, and tonight I'm here to present for a conditional use permit application that we've received for Maverick Church, proposed to go at 500 Lanay Road, unit C. And so this is the location of Unit C. It's part of a larger industrial style complex that has existed at 500 Linnea Road for many decades now. It's part of our planned industrial zone, our PM zoning, and has a general plan land use designation of business park, BP. The previous uses of this unit have been quite varied over time. There have been office spaces in there, industrial uses, contracting uses. Really kind of a mix of commercial and industrial uses. And that really fits in with the overall character of the center at 500 Lanay. Other neighboring residents at this center currently are a tax office, a flooring contractor, IT service provider, as well as other commercial and industrial uses. And most notably, there's actually another religious congregation, the Poder de Dios Centro Familiar, which operates in the neighboring unit, Unit D. And so the project request that we're bringing to you today is to request the establishment of a religious assembly facility within converted industrial warehouse space. Here we have the definition of what a religious assembly facility looks like or should look like from the Paso Robles Municipal Code, which is just any facility that is designed for the purpose of fellowship and of worship in any of the associated areas. activities related to that, whether they be administrative or religious. This is a use that is allowed under the code in PM zoning with a conditional use permit. And so just a little bit on the proposed use. The applicant, who's actually here tonight, Ben Koschreck, we thank him for being in the audience today. He's the pastor of Maverick Church, which has been operating here in Paso since 2023. They're currently meeting for services at Flamson Junior High School as kind of a temporary stopgap until a permanent location can be acquired. The primary use of the space would be for religious services, both on Sundays and the religious holidays. This would be kind of the larger church services that we all are used to, as well as smaller children's ministries and nursery services that would occur kind of at the same time, let parents worship while the kids also get instructed. Their additional planned uses for the space would be for youth groups, young adult groups, and then weekly staff meetings and worship team practices. Those things just to ensure that the church is up and running. Because of that, the primary time that this space would be used would be on Sunday mornings and on weekday evenings. Again, this is outside of the business hours of most of the neighboring residents of this location, other than the previously mentioned Poder de Dios. The applicant has noted that there's actually agreement between his church and theirs to actually schedule non-conflicting service times, just to ensure that each church has the ability to use their individual spaces without conflict. And so these are some of the project conditions that staff is proposing for this project. The fire code states that the maximum occupancy of this space would be 227 patrons, and so we would hold the applicants to that standard. In terms of the number of events and occupancy, it's proposed that for those Sunday and religious holiday worship services, they would be allowed up to the 227 patrons, with no more than three services in a given day. And then for all other events and meetings, there would be a maximum occupancy of 25 individuals, with no more than two of those meetings or events happening on a given day. We do want to give the option of additional special events that could be approved via a temporary use permit, just in case we understand that there may be other activities that the church is not planning on as of yet. And then in terms of signage, all mounted or freestanding signage will have to be reviewed and approved by the Development Review Committee prior to the installation. And so this is just a quick look at the existing conditions on site. So really we're looking at the east side of the existing building of 500 Lanais. The idea being that this would be the main entryway into the newly constructed space on the interior, with most people accessing the space from the parking lots, which will mostly remain the same on the east side of this building. And so just a few other images to show what this existing parking lot looks like, as well as the surrounding area on the right. Obviously this is located just south of an area that's currently in residential development through the Olson South Chandler specific plan. So this is the site plan of 500 Lanais. As you can see, the works would be centered on the kind of northeast quadrant, as you can see in this map. And so zooming in here, As mentioned previously, the primary access to this building would be on the east side, where that marks number one is. Again, this would be kind of the most convenient based on the parking situation, which we'll talk about in just a second. There would be a secondary access on the north side of the building, as you can see that marks number two. This is because this area on the north side is primarily proposed for those children's services, those nursery services that I mentioned earlier. And so this would be a convenient way for parents to be able to drop off their kids without having to walk around the entire building. And then additionally, there is an emergency egress point about halfway through the space at the number three. There is landscaping works that are proposed to occur near the primary entrance. As you saw on the existing conditions, there are some trees that haven't been upkept as the space has not been occupied for a little bit. And so some works would be done to clean that space up and make it kind of fit for use. There is an existing chain link fence that splits the parking lot in two. It's where that orange dashed line is right now. That is planned to be removed in order to fully open up the space and will actually be moved off of this image in order to keep the other parking on kind of the south end of the building more private while still allowing better access to the church's space. There is an existing trash enclosure, which you can see on the upper right. It's that kind of small box there. That is to remain just as is. There's no plans to amend that in any way. And then as stated before, permanent signs are something that will have to go through the DRC for eventual approval at some point. And so right now, staff and the applicant propose just the usage of temporary signage via just window decals and smaller informational signs that can be removed easily, at least until such time that the permanent signage can go to DRC. This was something that we didn't want to hold up the CUP process here. And then speaking of parking access, in the Paso Robles Municipal Code, a religious assembly facility requires that 10 spaces be provided for every 1,000 square feet in the assembly seating area. And so this is the area specifically used for people sitting during and worshiping. For this facility, that assembly seating area is about 1,650 square feet. And so this would require 17 spaces based on the math from the PRMC. The applicant has come to an agreement with the property owner that 23 spaces, which are the ones highlighted in red on the map here, those spaces would be reserved exclusively for usage by the church at all times and all days. Additionally, this is quite a large complex with a large parking lot, and as stated previously, the other tenants of this center do not work on Sundays. They're all closed, except for Poder de Dios, And so there would be the opportunity for non-reserved parking to be made available as well. But this would be more first come, first serve rather than reserved. And additionally, two ADA accessible spaces are planned to be added. You can see those marked there. And to facilitate that, concrete ADA accessible ramps are planned to be added in the parking lot to make the main entrance on the east side accessible for ADA. And so this is the full overall proposed floor plan. As mentioned before, the main access is going to be at the number one on kind of the southeast side of the space. That will be empty into, or enter into a main assembly area, which would then enter you into the main assembly area, which is kind of in the center. Up in the upper left corner is the children's area that we mentioned before, the unit C2. These two would be connected by that kind of long hallway you see there, with bathroom facilities provided on that left-hand side. And the important thing to note about this is that these, other than the assembly area and the foyer, The hallway would actually be an interior space that is shared amongst all tenants that come off of that space. So the agreement would be that access would be provided to the church during all of its operating hours, and then access would also be provided to Unit B, Unit C1, and Unit A during their operating hours. But obviously with the condition that a church visitor would not be able to go into Unit B, and a visitor to Unit B would not be able to go into the church's assembly area. As mentioned previously, there is another church, Poder de Dios, that is operating here. Again, it's part of the agreement that the applicant has mentioned. There is an agreement that the two churches will share these common spaces on Sundays and religious holidays and just ensure that their accesses remain between the two but also remain clean and those sorts of things. And so just touching on CEQA, Staff is recommending that the project would be exempt from environmental review under a Class 1 and a Class 11 categorical exemption. Excuse me. Class 1 would be the existing facilities. This project is mainly a minor alteration of a tenant unit in the existing building. It's mostly using the existing Unit C. Based on that, staff found that that would be negligible to no expansion of the existing or former use. And then regarding the parking lot, we believe this fell under a class 11 accessory structure exemption. The parking lot is an accessory use to the existing commercial industrial facility. It's been there as long as the facility has. And the changes being made to it are incredibly minor in the grand scheme of things, and so this according to CEQA guidelines, would be a ministerial change that would not be subject to CEQA. And so in terms of the required findings for a CUP, the three categories that we look for in the municipal code are consistency, compatibility, and sustainability. Consistency, the proposed use is consistent with what is allowed in the general plan and in the municipal code as it is allowed with the CUP. Compatibility-wise, this regards the design, the location, the operating characteristics of the facility. As stated previously, there is another religious facility operating in this location. There are agreements with that facility to share the space in a responsible manner. And all other remaining tenants are not in operation during the times that the applicant is proposing their church to be in operation. And so there's a negligible impact to be expected on those tenants. In terms of suitability, what we find is that the design, the location, the operating characteristics of the use are suitable for kind of how the space is set up. As stated previously, the main entrance is on the east side and comes directly from the parking lots that will be provided for church use. Again, the anticipated use will comply with maximum occupancy and it meets all of the parking requirements. There are no changes proposed to be needed to local streets to any public protection services or to the provision of utilities. Those are all, because this building exists as is, And then in terms of if there's any adverse effects to public health, public safety, the interests of the general welfare, there's obviously a church use, and so it's very limited on its scope. It's limited to Sundays and kind of smaller events. All the proposed uses are to occur inside of the church itself, and so there's not really problems with excessive noise or nuisance to the surrounding neighborhoods. And then the only time we would expect to see increased traffic flow would be on those Sunday mornings and religious holidays for very limited periods of time as people come and go from service. And so, after all that, there are four options that we present to the Planning Commission today. The first would be to approve the project by adopting resolution PC26-XXX, based on the findings and subjects to conditions of approval. The second would be to approve the project with modifications by amending and adopting resolution PC26-XXX. third would be to refer the project back to the development review committee or back to staff for additional analysis and the fourth would be to deny the project by adopting findings of denial and based on everything presented here staff would recommend that the project is approved uh but through the adoption of the resolution that stands and based on that i will open that up to questions thank you great um before we move on to the questions did the applicant want to speak did you have anything you wanted to say or you don't have to i'll just

Okay, great. Bringing it back to the Commission for any questions. Commissioner Kogler.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Question on parking. The entire lot is available for, I assume, both of the churches to use at their discretion. They've just identified 23 spaces that are closer and more convenient. Is that correct? That's correct, yes. Just kind of for the record and for a critique of our parking requirements, if they didn't have that larger field of parking, it would mean that, per our standard, you'd have to have 17 people in each vehicle that arrive for that service. With the 23, they have it be 10 people. So, you know, a lot of cities will use like three to five, somewhere in that range of seats per parking space. I know our standard is different, but it only works in a situation like this where there's a large field of parking. If this was an independent church with that many spaces, it would never work. So I support the project. It's just I was curious about to make sure that all the parking was available.

Absolutely, yes. Now, as stated previously, the 23 that were mentioned before are just specifically for the Maverick Church usage. It's assumed that on the Sunday morning, the entire parking lot for the full building would be also available for extra use. Thank you. Great.

Any other commissioners have any questions, comments? Commissioner Neal.

So on the plan, you showed an orange line that was a fence that was being moved. Yes. Where is the other side of that fence?

The other side of that fence, it's... I'm not sure you can see it on the site plan, I'm afraid, but it is on the south side of the existing building.

And then how much parking does that take up?

That is a good question. I'm afraid I don't know off the top of my head. But I do know it's most of that south side there, as well as the southern end of the east side there.

OK. Commissioner Christensen.

I was on DRC for the project when it came through, and I think I might be able to answer a little bit better on that. The photos that we were shown at DRC, it looked like the fence being moved wasn't going to hinder any of the parking at the time, unless that's changed. But that looks like where you had it for DRC as well. So it didn't look like moving it was going to alter any of the parking. They still have access to park through those parking spaces there.

I'm not entirely sure how it wouldn't because we're going from building to property to edge of parking. But is it going to be closed or open during services?

My understanding is that it's open during business hours. I don't know if... Can you come up to the mic, please? And just state your name.

My name is Ben Kosharyk. Glad to be here. So the fence is able to be opened by us whenever we need to open it. The biggest concern is that some of the other businesses have equipment or things that they don't want open all night long. As it is right now if we need to get in there right now to get to our current entrance We have a shared lock on there and we just get it and open it up. So To be real honest a big reason for moving the gate is about better access for us whether it be for emergencies or whatever, but also The fence is pretty beat up and I think it's gonna look a lot better. So yeah, great.

Thank you. Thank you. I Any other commissioners' comments, questions? If not, I will open it up for public comment. Is there any public comment? Seeing none in the audience, are there any callers?

No callers.

Great. I'll bring it back to the commission for comments or a motion. Actually, I just had one comment. I noticed on your presentation that during off use that it said 25 people. believe and I just noticed on here it said 20 inside the document so just a small discrepancy it looks like is it gonna be 20 or 25 and not that it makes a huge difference but I believe the resolution says 25 and so on a small scale limited to approximately 20 individuals or less but there's probably another spot it talks about somewhere else so I just okay I just noticed that, so our apologies. That's okay. So we're going to assume it's 25 then. If there's any other comments, I'd entertain a motion.

I was also on DRC. Ben, thank you for addressing all the questions we had at DRC. I would move that we approve the project by adopting Resolution PC26-XXX based on findings and subject to the conditions of approval.

Got a first by Covarrubias, second by Kogler. Can I get a roll call? Any other comments before we vote? Oh, seeing none, roll call, please.

Commissioner Covarrubias? Aye. Commissioner Kogler? Aye. Commissioner Neal? Aye. Commissioner Christensen?

Aye.

Commissioner Lorenz? Aye. Chairperson Marlowe? Aye. Motion passes 6-0.

Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Moving on to... Discussion items? Seeing none, then we'll go on to the consent calendar. Any questions or comments regarding the consent calendar?

Commissioner Neal? I'd like to make a motion. Commissioner Neal? I move approval of the consent calendar. Okay, first by Neal. Second that. Second by Christensen.

Roll call, please.

Commissioner Neal? Aye. Commissioner Christensen?

Aye.

Commissioner Kogler?

Aye.

Commissioner Kovarubias? Aye. Commissioner Lorenz?

Aye.

Chairperson Marlowe? Aye. Motion passes 6-0.

Great. Moving on to Item J1, Housing Constraints and Opportunity or Zoning Code Update Report. Warren.

Just a quick update, we don't have a housing constraints meeting currently scheduled. We are working right now on getting started on the housing element update. So we've issued a request for proposals for consultants to do that work. Once we get that consultant on board, the plan is to use the housing constraints committee to kind of work as a steering committee with a consultant to address the issues with the upcoming housing element update. We did get a number from SLOCOG in terms of what our new allocation's gonna be. Looks like it's about a 30% increase, so it looks like about 2,000 units over the next seven-year planning period. So that'll be, our current number was about 1,400, so about another 600 units than we currently have planned for that we'll have to figure out how to zone for. It'll be somewhat of a challenge to accommodate the new numbers.

Okay, great. Item two, DRC rotation schedule. Any comments, concerns, questions? Commissioner Christensen?

I'm sorry, go ahead first. I won't be available on September 7th. So if somebody has an opportunity to come forward.

That's a holiday, sir.

You should have said the 14th.

Okay. Commissioner Kogler.

Gee, I could have covered for you on the 7th, too. I have a conflict on the 14th and the 21st. So if anybody can do that, or perhaps Sharon will be there anyway, I can pursue that.

There's a chance I might be able to cover.

And then additionally, I have a conflict on the 21st and the 28th. Okay.

We've got lots of conflicts. All of this month, I'm assuming, right? September. September. Okay, September. Except for the 7th. Except for the 7th. I'll do it on the 7th. Well, without looking at my calendar, I can't commit to any, so if anyone else can't, maybe send out an email. I can do them remotely, but I cannot be here. I'll be in Santa Barbara. Yep. Well, we'll make it work. Sharon's pretty good at filling in these days, too, so... Um, great. Uh, if there is nothing else, we'll bring it back for planning commissioner comments. Yep.

If we do have a planning commission meeting on September 8th, Tuesday, I will not be in town. So just an FYI.

Thank you. Right now we're leaning toward canceling that meeting. We don't have any items that look like have to go on that. So we're most likely going to cancel. We'll confirm that next week. Okay.

Thank you. I got a comment. It's been a very light chair year this year. You got so many heavy hitters coming towards the end of the year. Careful what you ask for.

Hey, I don't mind a challenge.

Well, you want to do the director's report?

I do have an update on the items. I'm just kidding. All right.

And I won't be here on the 8th either. Sorry. Okay.

moving on there's no other planning commissioner comments uh commissioner not a comment but to queue up a question um when are we moving back to city hall great question so the contracts and consultants are working on the remodel now of the chamber they're just doing some of the electrical work and they had to do some floor cutting my guess is end of the year is probably what we're looking at

That's probably a pretty good guess. Yep. It's been pretty vacant in there. Okay. If there's no other commissioner comments, staff comments.

Yeah, a couple updates. So you'll recall you made a recommendation to the city council to create an ad hoc committee to look at Norma's Alley. The council has incorporated that into their current budget strategic plan. Last meeting they appointed... commissioners or council members um beale and gregory to the ad hoc so we'll start um getting meetings pulled together um there'll be a process to involve the stakeholders so the stakeholders will be definitely the property owners um the business owners as well as main street and other organizations will encourage you know planning commission um um participation as well in it we've kind of expanded it it will be all the alleys that surround the central city park so that would be norma's alley over to railroad street and then also the alleys between what is it 11th and 10th street kind of over on the city hall side as well so They'll take kind of a more comprehensive look, but they definitely appreciated the commission's recommendation, and they've taken that to heart. So that will be moving forward. Cannabis regulatory permit. So the commission made a recommendation in terms of establishing a regulatory permit for the cannabis delivery businesses. That will be on the next city council agenda. So we'll keep track of that. If that passes, we'll have to go through a process of amending the CUPs for the existing cannabis delivery businesses as part of that process. So that may be coming back next. In terms of projects, it does look like potentially by the end of the year there will be a couple big ones coming forward. We do expect the landfill annexation to come through here in the next month or so. There's a lodging hotel project out on Buena Vista, outward stays Paso. That one looks like that's going to be ready September, October. And then we still have the boys' school. Right now we're working diligently to get that ready before the end of the year for the commission, so I do expect that one to come. And then Hunter Ranch Resort, that's the golf course, adding the 400 lodging units out there. I do believe that one probably will be ready before the end of the year as well. So we may end on a strong note with a couple of big projects. That will conclude the staff's report.

Love to hear it. Great. Thank you so much. I closed this too early. I guess it's an adjournment. Can I get a motion to adjourn?

I'm so moved to adjourn.

So moved. All in favor? Aye. Thanks.