Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. It looks like we have our staff with us that's going to be participating today, so I'm going to call the meeting to order and go for roll call, please.

Chair Willem? Here. Vice Chair Manuel?

Here.

Commissioner Balkovec?

Here.

Commissioner Johnson?

Here.

Commissioner Miner?

Here.

Commissioner Ryan? Here. Commissioner Winnem?

Here.

Thank you.

Okay, and Lily, are you filling in for Jeremy? Do you want to introduce you and Mr. Anthony today?

Absolutely. With us, we have our executive assistant, Jen Gannon, and then to my right, I have the assistant deputy, no, assistant city public works director. What's your name? Josh Anthony. And I am Lily Toy, a planning manager with the city. Here I also have Danny Castro, associate planner. Thank you.

Okay, item two, approval of minutes for the June 23rd, 2026 meeting. Do we have a motion?

I move approval. I'll second the motion.

We have a first and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. Announcements? We do not have any announcements. Okay. Planning Commission items. So we have item 4A, the amendment application AMND 2025-00266 and parcel map application PM-2025-00991 by EP2 Reading Oasis LLC. And we are familiar with this. So Mr. Castro, do you want to just take it from here and...

Can I pause for one quick second? Can we announce that we have outside counsel on the phone? Mary Wagner?

Yes, we have outside counsel, Mary Wagner, online.

Thank you, which reminds us that we need to speak into our mics so she can hear us clearly.

Yes, so before I call up a project planner, I just want to make sure we understand the While we're here, we were hoping to bring the item back with revised conditions and make a presentation and have a decision made. What was revealed is that we have to continue this item, and Danny can go into further detail, but the question is why do we even have to meet is because we did push it out to a date certain, and so that's a public hearing. And we can't just dismiss the public hearing. We have to open up the public hearing because we did do a date certain. And then we can continue the public hearing. So with that said, any questions on the process? Okay. All right. So I will welcome up Danny Castro to just kind of discuss in summary where we have landed since our last meeting on this item. Thank you.

This was not here last time, I don't think this is. Okay, it's a bigger microphone. Yes, so staff is requesting a continuance of the item. During the last meeting, the commission voiced some concerns about the addendum that was done for the project. So staff reached out to city attorney and city attorney opined that we needed to go back and actually look at some of the environmental stuff again. So essentially the The request for continuance is to give staff time to do that. That's basically in a nutshell. If you want more details, I can go into that.

Sure. Any questions from commissioners?

Do you guys have a time frame that you think you'll be able to come back with your recommendations or your changes?

So that depends on, some of that's outside of our hands. So what is being advised by legal counsel would essentially require an additional, at least some sort of memo or studies on species that have been listed as special status species since 2005. And so we're waiting for the applicant to produce that. And at that time, we would have more of an idea of how much time we'd need moving forward. For all we know, that could take a week, that could take a year. That's kind of outside of our hands, so I'm reluctant to give any kind of time frame. And then also, it would depend on what's in the documents that we receive. The variability between whether it's a slam dunk, just move forward, or whether there's more work that needs to be done, all depends on the items received. So it's very unclear what the time frame would be moving forward from this point.

So can you clarify, this was not one of our contingencies from the previous meeting. This was something suggested from the lawyer on the city side.

Correct. Yeah, this has nothing to do with any of the conditions that Commissioner Emanuel brought up. This is only to do with the addendum. He brought up a concern about the addendum and And the way staff approached it, and frankly, I'll just be blunt, I reached out to city attorney expecting them to back up what staff had done so that we could leave the issue to rest and move forward today with hopefully an approval. Unexpectedly, that is not the answer we got back from city attorney. So I'm not a lawyer, so I'm going to take the legal counsel that the city's legal counsel has provided to us. So I think that's where staff sat today. That is where staff sat today.

And if I may, I'm sorry that I'm not on camera, so I can't tell if it's appropriate for me to jump in or not right now, but this is Mary Wagner with your city attorney's office. So we did review the question from staff related to the CEQA addendum. And in fact, with the age of the EIR and a little bit of a lack of clarity in the addendum, we thought that the best course in our recommendation was that the data we've looked at to determine that information related to any new sensitive species or new habitat that wasn't previously analyzed in the EIR. It may be that there aren't any, but again, given the age of the EIR and the potential for changed circumstances, the fact that it wasn't clearly described in the addendum, we have advised that it would make the CEQA determination stronger and more defensible if those issues were addressed.

Okay.

I have one last question unless anybody else has something.

So we do have the developer representatives here today. Would they be able to speak on maybe how long they think the process would? I mean, part of this is we didn't want to push this project out and keep pushing it out. So we're hoping, I'm hoping to get an answer of how long before we bring this back. Would they be able to answer that better, do you think?

Yeah, I mean, I think they could answer. I mean, they're welcome to speak. I mean, it's your show. But I think they'd be able to answer on maybe how quickly they anticipate being able to get over a report. But again, we'd have to see what's actually in those documents. So I mean, they could kind of speak to their half. We could kind of speak to different scenarios. But, again, I think it's just, it's too unclear what the timeline would be moving forward at this point. Okay.

Would anybody like to hear from you?

And they will have, you're going to have a public hearing anyway, so they're going to have an opportunity. And then I'll save my comments until afterwards. Thank you. Okay.

Anybody else before we open public hearing? Thank you, Mr. Castro. We'll now open the public hearing. There are no cards, but I believe Mr. Dormer is making his way up to the podium.

Sorry about no cards. Mike Dormer with the firm of Sherrod Dunlap Sawyer representing the developer. So yeah, this came as a bit of a surprise to us and another delay, which is really frustrating to the property owner developer. we would like to ask for rather than just continue it to a date uncertain to pick a date because madrone the environmental firm has already been contacted they are already working on it they feel that they have looked into the species that would have been quote added you know the monarch butterfly that the bee, the crotch bumblebee. So the sense I'm getting is they're going to have something in about a week for staff to review. And rather than just go date uncertain, which can drag out for quite some time, we'd like to push it a little bit because I know my client's very frustrated how long this has already taken in the first place. So that would be our request.

Thank you. Josh?

This is a question for Lily. Mike, please say that. We might have more for you, too. Lily, besides this particular delay related to the environmental update, was everything else ready for today, or did staff need additional time related to Commissioner Emanuel and other commissioners' comments or thoughts on the amendment from last time?

No, all the other issues, we've been working on those, and those are ready. This was the last remaining issue.

Okay.

Commissioner Velikovic?

Is there a time frame that you would consider reasonable from your position?

We would hope that we could be back before you in the second meeting in August.

Thank you.

That meeting date would be August 25th. Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Dormer? No? Thank you. We will close the public hearing and take it back to commissioners for comments.

You said you had one, Mr. Wynnum.

Anybody else? Oh, Commissioner Miner.

Are there other items scheduled to come to Planning Commission on August 25th?

I'm going to direct that to Planning Manager Lily Toy.

I'm sorry. No problem. Are there other items scheduled to come to Planning Commission on August 25th?

Not at this time.

Not at this time.

If I may weigh in as well, I'm working with the department, Mary Wagner again, on some amendments to the zoning ordinance to implement the housing element. It was my understanding that those were coming forward on August 25th, but staff may have information that I'm unaware of about that.

If it's okay, I'm going to let them figure that out and get back to us so let us know if that's correct.

Okay. Yeah, the housing element might be going on the 25th if we have everything available.

Okay.

Does that answer it for you, Commissioner Miner? Did you want to follow up?

Yeah, I was just going to do a follow-up. I think, you know, I can, in this case, I can certainly... While I don't fully understand the delay due to the environmental and all the nuances of the SQL elements and the environmental, I know it's important to cross our T's and dot our I's. I can empathize a lot with the developer and applicant in this case, and knowing that it has been quite a long time and a very frustrating process. Even in this case, it makes me, I think when we had the original motion to continue it to a date certain, there was some even apprehension from people on this commission to pushing it out that far. or to pushing it out at all, knowing that it's been quite elongated already. So for me, it is a little bit of a deviation, and maybe it's absolutely necessary, but a little bit of a deviation from the direction that Planning Commission gave. And I want to empathize with, in this case, do anything we can to help the project move forward and accommodate the developer in this case. So if it did look like moving it to a date certain, that seems like a very reasonable request. And certainly if we have other elements that may come to the Planning Commission at that time anyway. So my initial thoughts for the moment.

Commissioner Johnson has a question for Miss Wagner, the attorney.

Yes, just for our education and maybe the public's education a little bit on this related to an environmental report. You know, you talked about... being defensible and because of the age of the EIR. My understanding is that the city conducted a pretty thorough and in-depth EIR recently with the general plan update. How does that benefit the situation? Is that why the environmental study is able to be done quicker? And that's kind of a question I was looking at, shared on that floor. But more for the attorney, is... Is that beneficial, the fact that we went through a general plan so recently with such an in-depth EIR, which would have studied all of the boundaries of the city limits within the last five years, or does it really not matter in this case? What would be your opinion on that?

this case that has been brought forward with the project is an addendum to the project eir which is from 2005. um it is potential that the work that the city did on the eir for the general plan could be informative to the applicant's um secret team and my guess is that they have access to that information or could easily work with staff to get access to that information if they need it it may help their analysis of any new species or sensitive habitat that could have come into play since 2005. And just to be clear, I think that it is important that your CEQA documents are incredibly defensible. It's certainly not our intent to delay the project. staff work with the applicant to bolster that agenda, and hopefully it won't take a great deal of time. As staff indicated, it may depend on what they find, and if additional work is necessary to go into that agenda, that would have to be done, but hopefully it's a relatively quick process. Thanks.

Any other comments, questions?

Yeah, if I may, thank you. I very much support going for an August 25th when the time comes for a motion, date certain. The reason is things have a way of... Well, it's always better to have a deadline that you're shooting for. And in a heartbeat, I will come here and go through the formality of a non-action on the hope that having a date certain brings some urgency to both sides and gets it done. Because the reality is if they do the bumblebee study and they do the butterfly study, and I don't know if there's any other new plant things, and they come back negative from the screening level review, then it should be just a matter of a couple hours. It's packaged up. The whole staff report can be pre-written on that assumption, and this thing can be right back in front of us. Because we have done a horrible disservice to this applicant, and we don't want this to be our norm. I know it isn't our norm, but it's horrible. My heart sunk. when I saw what was happening because I realized I was part of the discussion last time of saying, let's go ahead and continue this for a month to get these conditions worked out, certainly not anticipating this change. I also would address the fact that there's no such thing as a risk-free decision. I think I heard a reference to a risk-free, my version of the words that were used a little while ago by a consultant on the phone, and there is no such thing as a risk-free decision. And so if our bar is risk-free, we can just close the doors. And so I don't want us to conduct ourselves that way when it comes to these kinds of projects. I felt so strongly about it that I toyed with the idea, but fortunately I don't act upon a lot of things that go through my head. That may surprise you guys, but there's a lot more things that go through my head than I actually say or act on. But I had the temptation of actually getting with the applicant, updating the conditions of approval, basically doing the staff work. And bringing it in here with a motion and getting a majority of the commissioners to approve this project today, which would have been a legal action. We don't have to have a staff recommendation. We can do that ourselves. Now, that's an extraordinarily rare situation. But some of you know I've been involved in projects where that occurred. And the commission actually... brought forward their own findings, brought forward their own conditions because the project and the right decision wouldn't have been made otherwise. So I just wanted to get that off my chest and I wanted to say thank you for listening to me as I said that. And with that, when the time comes, I'll be happy to make a motion to say let's go date certain on the 24th and I'm gonna trust my friends sitting in the audience to work their tail off to make sure stuff gets delivered and we're back in front of us Barring the unforeseen, they find a crotch's butterfly, well, all deals are off. I mean crotch's bumblebee, sorry, I just blended two species. You find a crotch's bumblebee, we got bigger problems. So anyway, so with that, I'll settle back down. And if and when you're ready for a motion, I'm ready.

I'm on board with having a certain date as well. I was hoping to have this resolved tonight, if not the prior meeting. So I'm for having a certain date of the 25th. So I'm ready for a motion unless there's more discussion.

I move kicking this baby to August 25th, date certain. Bring him back again and let's approve it.

I'd second that motion.

So we have a first and a second. All in favor? Aye. Do we have any oppose or discussion? Nope. Motion carries. All right. Thank you. So now we're just opening for public comment for the non-agenda items. What was that? Oh, I did close the public hearing after, yes, Mr. Dormer left. No, that's okay. You guys were chatting over there. Yeah, Josh.

Back to your old seat. I know, right?

Do we have any public comment cards? Okay. Seeing none, I'm going to close the public comment and move on to item six for commissioner comments. Do we have any commissioner comments?

I don't know why you're looking at me. I have not. I got it all off my chest. You guys, you know, I don't have to go to therapy this week.

Okay. With that, then Commissioner Miner, sure.

I just want to make sure. I remember hearing... Russ, you say the 24th and the 25th. I wanna make sure that the motion was recorded as the August 25th. I think maybe you said the 24th prior to the motion, but did anyone hear that for certain?

I have no idea what I said. I want the second meeting in August, whatever date that is.

Which, Jennifer said, was the 25th. Yeah, the second meeting in August is August 25th.

And that is what we made a motion for, the 25th, because I just remember hearing the 24th at some point, and it would really... You're making me second-guess it a little bit, but...

Excuse me for interrupting. I think the commissioner made a comment about... So the item that you voted on was to move this to date certainly on the 25th.

Okay, thank you. I'll be able to sleep at night.

Yeah, thanks.

That's good.

I heard you too.

Okay, anything else? Okay, meeting's adjourned. Thank you.

Thank you.