Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

No, no, no, no, no. Just it's a good thing. All right, we're on. Okay, welcome. This is the Pleasanton Planning Commission for July 22nd, 2026. We are in the City Council Chambers here in downtown Pleasanton, beautiful Pleasanton. It's 7 p.m., so I welcome everyone here. Let's start, as we always do, with a Pledge of Allegiance. Commissioner Wedge, can you lead us for that, please? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Can we do a roll call, please? Thank you.

Commissioners Jayco. Present. Jane.

Here.

Morgan.

Here.

Wedge. Present. And Chair Pace.

Present. Thank you. We have a quorum. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. Do we have any amendments, agenda amendments?

No amendments this evening.

OK, so before we get started, I'm just going to take a minute and say something. So it's been about two hours since the evacuation orders were lifted for the wildfires that were impacting our city. there were approximately 6 000 people in the city of Pleasanton that were ordered to evacuate last night and many of them were gone out of their homes for several hours myself and my family included so I was just over in Ruby Hill where some of that where some of those firefighters were and was was thanking them for their hard work if you were to be able to get in there and look and see you would see that the fire got within, you know, 10, 20 feet of some of those homes. And so, you know, there was a tremendous amount of work that was done by the firefighters and the police officers to try to keep our keep our communities safe. And from the last thing that I heard, there were there's no loss of license in Pleasanton and there were no structures that were there were impacted. So, you know, a huge congratulations to to and thank you to the to the firefighters and the police officers I talked to some of the police officers last night that were going around into the neighborhoods to ask people to be safe and to and to invite them to to obey the law and and it was they did it they did a tremendous job and so I know there's huge numbers of people in the city uh fire department uh I guess it's the Livermore Pleasanton fire department as well as the the Pleasanton police department that that deserve uh congratulations and our thanks for everything it did But I also just want to observe that there were lots of other people involved too. My wife works in the community center, the senior center for the city. There were 100 plus or minus beds that were set up last night, which require dozens of people to spring into action because the fire started at 3.30 and we had to have beds ready for people by 8 PM or so. There were hundreds of beds, there were hundreds of people that were working around the clock. uh... in with with with the senior center and in addition you have uh... people that were the environmental services uh... operations team uh... that was operating uh... and and and working on things including how we're going to manage that the water supply to to keep the uh... uh... to keep the uh... the water system working for the city and you also obviously had parks and rec that was managing things as well so there were hundreds of people in the city rallied last night to help our community, to protect our community. It's certainly meaningful to me. I know it's meaningful to many others. I've been in contact with hundreds of people over the course of today that are deeply grateful to the city, to the staff, to everyone that was involved to help our community. commissions like this one are in an interesting place because we're not elected. We are here on behalf of the community to try to help the community in making decisions about how city resources and how some of our finite resources are gonna be used. And so sometimes we're working with the staff to do something that not everyone in the city agrees with because we're making hard choices. And sometimes it's really easy, and sometimes it's not. But the opportunity to serve in this community and to get to see the way that the community comes together in moments like what was happening over the last 24 hours is really commendable. So on behalf of the city, I want to thank everyone that worked hard. And on behalf of the residents, I also want to thank the city and the staff for everything that they did.

And I'm comforted that the integration of the Pleasanton and Livermore Fire Department probably created a lot of strength in being able to respond quickly in a coordinated way, too.

Yeah, there were, I mean, there were firefighters I talked to tonight that were from all over the state. There were some I was talking to that were from Humboldt and other places. So there was a huge group of people that were, CAL FIRE and others that were out there fighting. So, all right, so thank you to everyone that was involved there. And I'm sure we'll hear more from people that are more informed than me, but I did want to take that moment and say thank you to everyone. OK, so let's go to consent calendar. These are actions that will be considered in one motion unless there has been a member of the public or a member of the of the commission that would that would like to to speak on one of these items. So we have three items that are that are up items one through three actions to the council, the minutes and then the serpentine lane request. Do we have any requests from commission members that would like to discuss any of these items?

Nothing for me. No.

OK. No. Do we have any cards on this?

No speaker cards.

All right. I'll entertain a motion.

I make a motion.

Great. Do we have a second? second okay all in favor aye aye any opposed uh i left staying because i wasn't there in for the minutes of meeting for the last okay thank you thank you commissioner jane all right um so i think that passes um and then we have item number four uh meeting open to the public uh gentlemen are you here for the serpentine serpentine thing congratulations uh thank thanks for coming uh you got to listen to a speech maybe you weren't planning for but uh we're glad you're in the city uh we're glad you're here and and good luck to you on your on your facility it looks like it's going to be some kind of uh religious organization we love having those in our community so thank you for all you do for our community and and uh and and uh we're excited for the for the partnership

Yeah, it builds a community because during the day other people are there working and then you're there on the weekends or in the evenings. So it's just kind of adds a little life to the community too.

Yeah. So we're thrilled for that. Thank you. Congratulations. Okay. Meeting open to the public. Do we have any speaker cards?

Great.

Okay. We'll close number four. Do we have any other? That's it. So we're down to meetings attended. Do we have any commission reports that commissioners would like to make? No, no, no, no. All right. Item number six, future planning calendar. Mr. Fisher, our farmer, excuse me, farmer.

Thank you, Chair Pace. If I may, can I make a couple of brief announcements regarding the City Council calendar? Great. As the commissioners may know, the City Council hearing last night was, I think technically it was adjourned. It's continued. continued and that included the consideration of the Arroyo Lago project which the Commission recommended on about a month ago so that meeting has been continued to this Monday July 27th so if you're interested in attending that or watching that because that will be the consideration of the Arroyo Lago project among many other things that night Also, the council is having a special meeting on Tuesday, August 11th, even though it's during the August break. They have a lot on their calendar, so they're going to be having a special meeting on August 11th, which will include the consideration of the 231 Old Bernal project from across the street, which the commission recommended in terms of denial a couple months ago. So just put that on your calendar if you'd like. And then in terms of the commission meetings, happy August. We are taking a recess in August, so we will not be having any meetings in August. We are gonna have a meeting on September 9th, our next scheduled meeting, and the future plan and calendar for that evening will include, you've been seeing this for a while, but I think it's finally gonna happen, the update to the objective design standards for residential multifamily development.

as well as general plan amendments and zoning texted map amendments for three sites to rezone those for housing thank you hey um could you just um i know in the paper or maybe this week or last week the pleasant weekly there was a discussion about um a land sale a building sale over at the mall do we have any uh insight there that you might uh this is something that comes up at least once a week in conversations, at least I'm having with members of the public. So if there, if we can just get some kind of clarity on that, you know, for, for the public, it may not be here, it may be in a future meeting, but if you can just provide some clarity there, I know we keep continuing that. And I, I know there's a lot, a lot, a lot of interest, uh, from the community in kind of what what's happening there.

Okay. Noted. Okay. Great.

Thank you.

And I have one,

One comment about the future planning calendar for the objective design standards and I don't know what's under the hood particularly here, but one comment is just to consider think about whether it's appropriate or not to have something related to guest parking and something related to maximum density. and I'm not suggesting that it should be there. I was just hoping that someone would evaluate that or consider it.

No, we appreciate that. Thank you, Commissioner Morgan. We'll add that to the list of considerations for the ODS.

Anything else? I just have one question on our general plan. Is that something which we are planning to pick up this year, next year? Is there any consideration of... UPDATING OUR GENERAL PLAN, I THINK IT'S FAIRLY OLD AT THIS POINT.

THAT'S A VERY GOOD QUESTION, AND I WOULD HAVE TO TAKE A LOOK BACK AT THE COUNCIL PRIORITIES AND SEE WHERE THAT LANDS ON THOSE AND SEE WHERE WE ARE WITH EITHER GETTING THAT ON, YOU KNOW, WHICH LEVEL OF COUNCIL PRIORITIES AND WHEN THAT'S BEING PRIORITIZED IN TERMS OF THE TIMING AND BUDGET.

Is there any risk we run if we don't update the general plan with any state grants, stuff like that, which we might miss if it's not on the books?

We definitely keep an eye out for those in terms of, you know, if there's any kind of matching grant there. But from my own experience, there was, you know, when housing was the big thing a few years ago, in terms of getting, you know, housing elements updated, there was a lot of state matching grants that were affiliated with that general plan matching grants or funding opportunities are usually A LITTLE BIT MORE LIMITED. IT JUST DEPENDS ON WHICH ELEMENT IS BEING UPDATED OR IF IT'S A COMPREHENSIVE GENERAL PLAN UPDATE, BUT WE'LL DEFINITELY KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THOSE. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. ONE OTHER THING. There was a series of litigations that just commenced between some of the cities and the state over the RHNA numbers. So I know we're not a party to that, but if there's when the time is right and I know not everything is public but when the time is right if there's anything that we can learn about the way the state is applying those things or you know if there's something that happens in there that would be able to give the city greater flexibility I just think lessons learned from that litigation when the time is right and I'm sure it's not going to be in the demur stage it's probably the summary judgment stage which is probably two years from now but In any event, if there's opportunities for us to learn what's happening from that litigation about how to engage with the state or help preserve our community of character, that I think would be something that we would love to see because I know we all feel significant amount of pressure as a community to try to preserve this community in light of the the forces that are outside of this community that are trying to uh impact the way that we want to things to go so just lessons learned when the time is right and i know that's probably not for two years but okay no thank you uh chair pace noted all right um okay um anything else matters around that Yeah, are in matters.

One thing, on Tuesday, August 4th from 6 to 9 is National Night Out. So I don't know if you saw that in the patch, but the police will come by and if you have a block party. So just wanted to remind everybody of that.

Awesome. Good reminder.

Yeah. Thank you. Ken, anything? No? No, thank you. No? Commissioner Jane, no? Good.

All right, we're adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Appreciate it.