Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Yes. Okay. I'm going to call the meeting to order. Welcome. Do we want to do roll call, please?

Chair Willem? Here. Vice Chair Manuel? Here. Commissioner Balkovec? Absent. Commissioner Johnson?

Here.

Commissioner Miner? Absent. Commissioner Ryan? Here. Commissioner Winnem?

Here.

Thank you.

Thank you. And Director Pagan, would you like to introduce who you have on staff today?

Sure, it would be my pleasure to do so. Thank you, Chair. We have Josh Anthony, Assistant Public Works Director, myself, Jeremy Pagan, Director of Development Services, Planning Manager Lily Toy up here on the dais, Senior Planner David Schlegel will be presenting later for our item, and then we have miscellaneous staff sort of sprinkled about. I'll introduce them if they come up later to present.

And your admin staff?

Oh, of course, the illustrious admin staff. Yeah, Jennifer Gannon is over there clerking for us, as well as Michelle Yang.

And then can we clarify if we have attorney on line?

We do. Mary Wagner is our city attorney on the line for this meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, moving on to approval of minutes for the June 23, 2026 meeting. I move we approve.

I move we approve the minutes.

Thank you. We have a first.

I'll second it.

And we have a second. Any discussion? Okay. All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. Thank you. Announcements? There are none. So we'll move on to planning commission items, which is the public hearing. I'm sorry. Of item 4A1, a tentative subdivision map application S-2021-01590 by OASIS by Brian and Sandra Burke for 143 single family residential subdivision on approximately 48.6 acres. On the property located at 6201 Oasis Road, 6251 Oasis Road, and 2333 Gold Hills Drive, and 2121 Gold Hills Drive, and an RS-3 residential single family district. And we have presenting to us today, Mr. Slagle.

OH, THERE'S THE MIC. ALL RIGHT, GREAT. MY MONITOR IS LOADING UP HERE. THANK YOU FOR THE INTRODUCTION, CHAIR, COMMISSIONER, MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC. MY NAME IS DAVID SCHLAGEL, SENIOR PLANNER FOR THE CITY OF REDDING. BEFORE YOU TONIGHT IS THE SUBMISSION MAP IN THE NORTHEAST PART OF OUR CITY. OFF OASIS ROAD AND PARTIALLY OFF OF GOLD HILLS DRIVE. IT'S 48.6 ACRE PROPERTY. It's made up of four parcels that are non-contiguous and also not fronting on any public roads. So you can see through the outline of the boundary of that project that it goes through non-contiguous piece of property to connect it, as well as to establish road connections to Oasis Road to the north, and Pleasant Hills Drive would connect to Gold Hills to the west. In the area, you can see the eastern side is rural residential development. It's the county on that eastern boundary. It's the edge of our city. And to the north, more vacant residential. To the west, some development has occurred across Dry Gulch Creek. Dry Gulch Creek borders the western side of the property. There's my pointer showing you where that's at. You can kind of see the jagged boundary. And then to the south, another vacant piece, and then you would see Gold Hills Drive, or I'm sorry, Gold Hills Subdivision further south from that. And this exhibit is just showing you where some of the 20% sloped areas are. This area is not calculated towards the developable area for density purposes. Some of that area will be graded and leveled off for lots and roads, but some of it also remains in an open space area, which we'll get into and show you how that looks. And just to give you a sense of what it looks like today, this is a view from roughly where the Road A connection to Oasis Road looking south would be located. And this is the Pleasant Hills Drive proposed location on Gold Hills Drive looking east. The general plan land use designation for the site is Greenway and single-family residential, RS3, three dwelling units per acre. As you can see, the Greenway is intended to follow Dry Gulch Creek, and it would preserve natural open space areas determined by topographic flooding, high water marks. That's part of our general plan policies. We establish these open space areas along those drainages. Keep in mind when we go to the next slide that the RM6 to the west is essentially supposed to be west of the creek site. And I'll get into that with the zoning interpretation in a second here. I'd also like to highlight that Shasta View Drive is intended to, as you can see on the right-hand side or the east side of that project area, is intended to run north-south as an arterial for our city on that side of town. And with the zoning, it's RS3 for the entire site. Again, under RMC, the director may interpret the location of the zoning. And in this case, it's clear that the greenway is intended to separate the RM6 from the RS3 with Dry Gulch Creek being in between. And that ultimately nets the development of 143 lots as far as the density calcs goes at three dwelling units per acre. And so there's some history here. It goes all the way back to probably even before 2004 of developers looking to develop single family and other varieties of housing on these sites. The reserve at Gold Hill started around 2004 on the west side of the property, envisioning, this is the same developers envision continuing the development similar on the east side. AND ULTIMATELY RESERVE OF GOLD HILLS HAS EXPIRED, BUT PLEASANT HILLS DRIVE WAS PLANNED TO GO OVER DRY GOLD'S CREEK TO FULFILL THE CIRCULATION NEEDS OF THIS PROJECT. AND NOW WE HAVE A NEW DEVELOPER WHO'S ACQUIRED PARTS OF THAT EASTERN SIDE WHO'S GOING TO USE THOSE PLANS TO CONNECT THOSE ROADS AND HAS GONE THROUGH ABOUT TEN ITERATIONS OF THE SUBDIVISION DESIGN TO GET YOU WHERE WE ARE TODAY. WHICH BRINGS US TO THE PROPOSED MAP WITH, LIKE I MENTIONED, 143 LOTS WITH OPEN SPACE SET ASIDE. WOULD HAVE A 2.1-ACRE PARK SITE CURRENTLY INTENDED TO BE A DOG PARK WITH SOME DETENTION BASINS ON SITE AND SOME TRAILS, TRAIL EASEMENTS, I SHOULD SAY. AND THOSE DETENTION BASINS WOULD MAKE SURE THAT WATER IS CAPTURED AND TREATED BEFORE REENTERING ANY NATURAL DRAINAGE MATTER. I MENTIONED FOUR PHASES. THERE WOULD BE 49 LOTS ON THE NORTHERN MOST PORTION AS UNIT 1, 49 ON THE SOUTHERN MOST, AND THEN AN ADDITIONAL REMAINING UNITS IN TWO OTHER PHASES, UNIT 3 AND 4. FUTURE SHASTER VIEW DRIVE WOULD HAVE A DEDICATION AND ALSO A DECORATIVE WALL ON THE EASTERN SIDE OF THE DEVELOPMENT. This is just a closer look at what the lots would look like. There's a lot of graded pads, cul-de-sacs. Connection to future Chesterview Drive would be stubbed off. This is obviously oriented. The north is oriented to the left of your screen there. And the open space area and kind of the hatch line you see at Dry Gulch Creek is trying to represent the 100-year high water mark. And as you can see, the product is avoiding that. And this is the southern portion of the project. And just trying to highlight to you that the sewer line extension would come from Gold Hill Subdivision to the north along Dry Gulch Creek and serve this project. The project would be served by the city with sewer and electric utility and the Bellavista Water District would provide water. Now, one of the reasons why this took a little while to get to you is because the drought year augmentation water source needed to be identified. Bellavista Water District required that. And it was identified as the city, however, an agreement had to be made and it took a while to get that agreement into place. That is now in place as during drought years, the city would provide augmentation for the site. And so just wanted to show you a little more of the picture of the parks and trails. There was a community service advisory committee public hearing where they recommended that the trails be constructed with a pedestrian bridge and the easements recorded for those trails, as well as park site be rough graded, frontage improvements, utilities stubbed off, and the site be dedicated to the city for future dog park. Those plans are still in place, however, after consulting with the city manager and the director of community services, we do not, staff's recommending that we do not have those trail portions built. We're recommending that the conditions would only require offer of dedication of a 25-foot easement in the open space area that would allow for that trail, that 10-foot trail to be built in the future. We still are recommending rough grading front-inch improvements and utilities to the park site. And ultimately what that would mean is for vegetation management, as I'll get into for fire fuel, the LMD would cover those privately held portions of the land in the open space until the city takes on those properties. And in terms of fire resiliency, this project is located in the high fire hazard severity area. It's not in the very high. So it's a little bit lower level of concern. It is still in the wildland urban interface. And so it is required to be built to certain residential codes, including the five foot ember non-resistant zone. And our draft conditions of approval would make sure that those codes are met. In addition to that, our standard conditions of approval get us to a fire fuel vegetation management zone requirement for subdivisions in these areas that would have a brush be brought to a healthy, I'm thinking of what our fire marshal would say, but essentially making sure that these areas aren't causing conflagration fires or getting into the canopy so you separate the fuel on the ground. FROM THE TREE CANOPY AND THAT WOULD BE ZONE 1 AT 90 TO 100% OF BRUSH BEING REMOVED FOR THE FIRST 100 FEET TYPICALLY. IT'S GOING TO BE A VEGETATION FUEL MANAGEMENT PLANT APPROVED BY THE FIRE MARSHAL AND THEN AN ADDITIONAL 100 FEET WOULD BE AT 50%. AND THE LMD WOULD ALSO INCORPORATE THIS ON AN ONGOING BASIN FOR MAINTENANCE OF THOSE AREAS. And before I get into the environmental review, I figured I'd get into the public comments because hopefully what I'm gonna talk about with the environmental review addresses a lot of the concerns that we have gotten. We have some public comments, particularly about fire evacuation, understandably, overloading Gold Hills Drive. Gold Hill Subversion is a 266-lot subdivision that wouldn't be approved today. There's not a secondary access for it. And they rely on Gold Hill Drive to get out in case of an emergency. So that's a concern we looked at and addressed. There's also an interest, and this is kind of, I'll just cover it real quickly, interest in the park site being a RC crawler course. We forwarded that comment to Director of Community Services and put them in touch. That's not really something that the subdivision would be, or this approval would be designing today, I guess. We also received a letter opposing the project on sequel grounds for a number of things including impacts to water quality biological and aquatic resources and Further citing the need for an EIR to be done to quantify impacts rather than relying on qualitative assertions lack of fire evacuation fire safety modeling and Requesting that the city dedicate evacuated or required dedicated evacuation studies for any future project and I'll get into that as well and But first, I want to frame it with what we're recommending to you as a CEQA exemption. under 15183 section of CEQA. In fact, when we have a general plan EIR and a project that's consistent with our general plan land use designations, the court has determined that we shall review projects for exemption rather than going back and redoing environmental analysis. And so that's what we're recommending here today. We've looked at the project within the framework of the general plan EIR and in the framework that section 15183 lays out. It is intended to streamline environmental review and not duplicate it. And in order to do that, we have to conduct an initial study similar to an initial study. It's called a checklist. And we go through the project's impacts with the same type of environmental review we would do for an initial study to make sure that the project's not, that there's nothing peculiar about the project, that we're not creating potentially significant or cumulative impacts that weren't analyzed under the EIR for the general plan. WEREN'T ANY OTHER IMPACTS THAT WEREN'T PREVIOUSLY ANALYZED INTO THE EIR. AND THAT SECTION ALSO FURTHER GOES ON TO STATE THAT IF WE HAVE UNIFORM WE APPLIED ADOPTIVE I'M SORRY DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS ADOPTED WHICH THIS PLANNING COMMISSION HAS ADOPTED STANDARD CONDITIONS OF APPROVAL THAT WE CAN USE THOSE AND MAKE SURE if we implement them broadly towards all developments, that we would not be creating new environmental impacts that weren't analyzed under the EIR, that we would use those standard conditions. And that's essentially what we're doing here. A lot of words on this screen, but I just wanted to, again, point out that the checklist prepared covers a lot of the environmental review that we would normally see. And in addition to that, the general plan EIR covers it as well, so. FIRST, LET'S START WITH AQUATIC RESOURCES. THERE ARE ABOUT TWO AND A HALF ACRES OF SOME IDENTIFIED EPHEMERAL STREAMS, SEASONAL WETLANDS AND INTERMITTENT STREAMS ON THE SITE. PRIMARILY MOST OF THAT IS DRY GULCH CREEK ON THE WESTERN SIDE AND OBVIOUSLY THE OPEN SPACE WAS DESIGNED AROUND THE HIGH WATER MARK FOR THAT TRIBUTARY. DRY GULCH CREEK IS APTLY NAMED. IT'S NOT REALLY WET MOST OF THE YEAR. WE'LL GET TO THE NEXT SECTION, WHICH WAS BROUGHT UP AS ONE OF THE PUBLIC COMMENTS. WE WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE A QUANTIFIED BUFFER. WHILE WE DID REQUIRE A BUFFER, HOWEVER, THERE'S NO MUNICIPAL CODE FOR THIS PARTICULAR DRAINAGE THAT WE HAVE TO HAVE ANY TYPE OF MINIMUM. THERE'S NO GENERAL PLAN POLICIES THAT REQUIRE A MINIMUM BUFFER FROM DRY GULCH CREEK. ULTIMATELY THERE ARE BUFFERS FROM THE HIGH WATER MARK OF 7 TO 95 FEET. DIDN'T DO AN AVERAGE THERE FOR YOU, BUT IT VARIES. AND THE LOTS WOULD DRAIN TO THE STREET AND COLLECT IN DETENTION BASES AND WATER WOULD BE TREATED PRIOR TO REENTERING THOSE NATURAL DRAINAGES. THAT ADDRESSES THE WATER QUALITY ISSUE. In addition, I'd like to point out that agency permits will be required if any streambed bank or channel or jurisdictional waterway is going to be affected, and those agencies have their own provisions. In consultation with California Fish and Wildlife, they did not request a buffer, and the reason for that is there's actually no riparian habitat on the site anywhere in Dry Gulch Creek whatsoever. AND SO WHAT WE DID IN ORDER TO CREATE A DEVELOPMENT BUFFER THAT WE WOULD BE COMFORTABLE WITH AND THAT FOLLOWS THE GENERAL PLAN GREENWAY POLICIES IS IDENTIFY THE HIGH WATER MARK WHICH IS IN LINE WITH STANDARD PRACTICE AS WELL. However, there is some language in the exemption checklist that could throw someone off. So I understand why that maybe riparian was mentioned. And I actually would like to propose some clarifying changes to the section 15183 exemption checklist just to make the record clear that there was no riparian habitat identified in the area or on the project site. And anywhere it references the open space, trying to protect riparian, I've just asked to strike that out. And I think that would just probably make it clear. So for your consideration when we make a recommendation, I would be recommending that these changes be made to a revised checklist. As far as biological resources go, there were six different studies, a biological study, WE ALSO DID AN ADDENDUM FOR IN SEASON BLOOM SURVEYS IN 2022 AND SINCE SOME TIME HAD PASSED WE ASKED FOR FIELD CONDITION EVALUATION TO MAKE SURE NOTHING HAS CHANGED IN 2024. WE ALSO HAVE A WETLAND BIOLOGICAL FOR THE SEWER LINE EXTENSION AND A CROTCHES BUMBLEBEE MEMO AFTER RECEIVING SOME COMMENTS FROM FISH AND WILDLIFE REGARDING THE CROTCHES BUMBLEBEE. Ultimately, the site was cleared for any sensitive habitat for species other than migratory birds and raptors and special status bats, along with the Redding checker bloom, which is a rare plant rank three, which actually doesn't require any mitigation measures. It's kind of still being studied when it's rank three. And we do have the mapping of those, and we pass that off to Fish and Wildlife. I should say we, the biologists, did that. And so what the biologists also did was respond to Fish and Wildlife's concern over the crotchless bumblebee. And under standard subdivisions conditions of approval, staff is in agreement with the biologists that no further review of crotchless bumblebee is necessary. There is no floristic resources that would support them during their foraging season is what was determined, whether through summer or just overall. And that is part of the recommendation as well. And getting into traffic, just kind of framing it up here, California Environmental Quality Act asks for those criteria to be looked at. I won't get into each and every single one of them, but ultimately the one that's key here is when we've heard from Caltrans, and I'll get into that a little bit, but. THERE'S A SAFETY CONCERN OVER THE CUEING, AND I'LL TALK ABOUT THAT IN A MINUTE, BUT HOWEVER, ALL THESE OTHER CRITERIA WAS VMT, THE PROJECT DOES NOT GO BEYOND A THRESHOLD OF SIGNIFICANCE FOR THAT. THERE'S NO IMPACTS TO A TRANSPORTATION-BASED PROGRAM OR POLICY, DOES NOT CREATE INADEQUATE EMERGENCY ACCESS, AND THERE'S NO CUMULATIVE TRANSPORTATION IMPACT THAT WOULD BE SIGNIFICANT. Just to get into the weeds a little bit here more, that is because the project is proposing some minimization measures at a couple intersections, one being the Gold Hills Drive intersection would have a restriping for an 80-foot stacking left-hand turn lane onto Oasis Road. And the Road A connection to Oasis Road will require some sight lines be preserved and also would have an acceleration lane going onto Oasis Road on the left there. The project would have sidewalks and crosswalks, and these are all recommendations by the traffic engineer. The traffic engineer also recommended that the North Reading Transportation Benefit District fees be paid to mitigate any cumulative project impacts and determine that there was adequate emergency access. Yeah, so Caltrans, for the last year, we've been working with them on this analysis for queuing impacts to the northbound off-ramp of Oasis Road I-5. And ultimately, there's about 405 feet of space, if you include this project, the Oasis Commercial Center, that's gone before you already and coming back to you. And the, I guess I should say the 20-year horizon, And with those analysis done, the traffic engineer determined that there was 405 feet, that Caltrans was their threshold, 305 feet is what the capacity is being eaten up by these two projects. So we're getting close to causing an issue for, I should say, deceleration off the off ramp into that area. And it took a while to marry up the two projects traffic analysis. And it also took a while to understand and get what Caltrans wanted to see here because there's basically a disagreement between engineers. AND THIS EXHIBIT IS JUST TO SHOW YOU HOW THE ROAD WOULD BE REALIGNED IN THE FUTURE IF THE OASIS COMMERCIAL CENTER WERE TO BE APPROVED. IT WOULD ABANDON TWIN V ROAD TO THE NORTH AND PUSH THAT INTERSECTION TO THE EAST FOR THE SHOPPING CENTER. ULTIMATELY WITH THE TRAFFIC STUDIES AND THE ANALYSIS DONE IN 2026 MOST RECENTLY, THE CITY IS COMFORTABLE WITH THE ANALYSIS. It might not be there. However, the city is in agreement with Caltrans. We have an agreement with them. There's a memo submitted to you that if in 20 years or some odd time in the future there becomes a queuing issue, we would resolve that with signalization timing modifications. So that's in your hard copy report as well. GETTING INTO EMERGENCY FIRE ESCAPE, I WANT TO BE CLEAR THAT CEQA DOES NOT REQUIRE ANY TYPE OF EMERGENCY EVACUATION ANALYSIS IN A HIGH FIRE HAZARD SEVERITY ZONE. HOWEVER, STAFF RECOGNIZES IT AS AN ISSUE, RIGHT? SO WE DID DISCUSS THAT EARLY ON WITH FIRE AND GOT A PUBLIC COMMENT, REVISITED IT. The City Traffic Engineering Emergency Operations Authorities did not see this as an issue. What they do see is that Gold Hill Subdivision would actually be getting an additional circulation pattern that they don't have already. And in general, the way we've been operating with emergency evacuations now, and I'm just gonna show you where those circulation patterns would be for Gold Hill Subdivision. There's a lot going into how we would handle emergency evacuation. There's an updated emergency operations plan. We use Genesis Protect platform. There's integration traffic control practices that are pretty quick to get out there and control intersections. Ongoing police and fire training. EXPANDED PUBLIC COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS. I THINK THE FIRE MARSHALS COULD SPEAK ON THIS A LOT MORE, A LOT LONGER THAN I COULD. COMMUNITY WILDFIRE PROTECTION PLAN IDENTIFIES AREAS OF PRIORITY TO MAINTAIN FUEL. AND ULTIMATELY THE CONCERN HERE, EVEN THOUGH WE DON'T NEED TO ANALYZE IT, IS THAT THE ROADS BEING PROPOSED WERE GOING TO HANDLE THE TRAFFIC IN ANY EVENT. Any project-specific impacts not mitigated by the general plan EIR are less than significant if we adopt city development standard subdivision conditions of approval applied to this project. They are incorporated into the project as conditions of approval. And so with this section 15183 checklist, we are saying that the project does not have any peculiarities for the project or its site and the subdivision is consistent with the general plan and does not result in any new significant impacts that weren't evaluated in the general plan EIR and Just a conclusion we can obviously get into more if you have questions, but at this time staff's going to recommend that the proposals consistent with the goal and policies of the city's general plan and Recommend that you determine the necessary findings for approval are in evidence Find the project exempt from sequel under section 151 a 3 and approve the tentative map And I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Great. Thank you for your presentation. For anybody who wants to make public comment, there are public comments cards out in the lobby. They're kind of a periwinkle color. So you can fill them out and submit them up here to the clerk. And at this time, I'm going to ask commissioners if they have questions for Mr. Slagle.

Excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Schlegel. The quick question that I have is, I see some reference to Pleasant Hills and also Road K. Is that one and the same in this? Was Road K an earlier designation? Because there's a condition of approval number, well, in here somewhere, that refers to something on Road K, but I can't find Road K. That's on Condition 12.

Condition 12. Thank you.

And I looked and looked and looked, and I knew someone was going to say, well, just look more closely.

It goes north and south along the east.

I think that's the connecting road. I see it. Yeah, between the two. I'm back.

Okay.

Thank you. I'm good. It's there. Thank you. I'm done. That was my only clarifying question. I'll have other questions after the public hearing. Thank you. Thanks.

Yes, Commissioner Manuel.

Thank you. Thanks for that. I think your report was well written and I appreciate all the clarifications you made in your presentation. Just got a few questions for now. One of them has to do with the park. You know, your report talks about that it would just be an offer of dedication. We're still talking about a condition and requirement for rough grading. But yet we're also going to be saving trees. So I'm wondering if the rough grading is still going to occur if we're just getting an offer of dedication, not accepting it. And if there will be improvements, how extensive would they be?

Yeah, I mean, as far as the rough grading goes, there's not a lot of detail provided for where that would be. You know, it's conceptual at this point in time. I think the tree management ordinance and some of the other conditions in this would kind of want to see those trees be preserved when they're in, if there's an impact in the grading. So, you know, that could be something that could be clarified further if we need to in the conditions, but ultimately the trees are intended to be preserved in that open space area, regardless of the park site's development at this time. But the park site development won't be designed until the city owns it, essentially.

Okay.

Thank you.

Another question has to do with the acquisition of all the off-site right-of-ways. I don't know. I mean, this has been going on for quite a long time. I don't know if agreements have already been made for acquisition or if not, you know, the way the law is, the city would be offering its eminent domain rights. obligations to approve the map like this, but I'm wondering if either you or the project applicant could talk about whether those right-of-ways have really been locked in, number one. And number two, I'm kind of curious about Pleasant Hills Drive on the south. We show, you know, I appreciate you have straddles, a common property line. Yeah, if you want to go back to that, I do appreciate it. And then, of course, it goes up north to serve entirely this parcel. There's a stub street to the south, but we're still showing that easement, at least on this one. I assume there's an agreement and that easement will be going away. We've had another tentative map out on Lake Boulevard where this got to be kind of a... A SITUATION WHERE WE HAD A PRIVATE ROAD EASEMENT THROUGH PEOPLE'S PROPERTY, SO I DON'T KNOW IF YOU COULD ADDRESS THAT.

YEAH, SO THE FIRST QUESTION, MY UNDERSTANDING IS THE SEWER EXTENSION EASEMENT IS NOT IN PLACE YET. EVERY OTHER EASEMENT OR ACCESS RIGHT AWAY IS FOR THE ROADS. SO IN TERMS OF EMINENT DOMAIN, THERE IS LANGUAGE WHERE IT CANNOT BE ACQUIRED, THEN, YEAH, EMINENT DOMAIN IS AN OPTION. And as far as the easement goes, working with our Public Works guys, that road would be abandoned if Pleasant Hills Drive is established.

You may not know, and maybe the applicant would, has the property over the south agreed to that? I mean, it saves, frankly, saves him from building half a roadway that's on his property if it is abandoned. I don't know if those negotiations have gone on or not.

I think the applicant will probably speak to that a little more than I could.

Okay. We'll wait for later. Let's see. Oh, maybe this is related to fire. I noticed that condition number 22 requires Pleasant Hill Drive to be constructed to a minor arterial standard of 40 feet. I'm kind of surprised it wouldn't be a collector standard, but I didn't go look for the city standards. Is that, you know, typically, you know, we go 36 curb to curb. We're doing 40 feet on Pleasant Hills. That will, I assume, eventually connect to Shasta View Drive, but... Is that predominantly for traffic flow and emergency?

I got lost on condition number 22. I'm not seeing the same thing.

Packet page 22. I'm sorry. Packet page 22, condition 12. I'm sorry. Thank you. I should put my glasses back on.

Yeah, I mean... I think the traffic folks could speak to that a little more. We went through a couple iterations of how this condition should read, and this is sufficient right away is what was decided upon.

Yeah, I don't have an objection. I'm just kind of curious because it's different than we typically see. But that is all the questions I have at this time.

Thank you. Anybody else? Commissioner Johnson.

So a couple of questions related to the lmd might be community services that oversees this part, but it kind of overlaps with fire a bit first question is just is the lmd just covering the. The park detention base in those areas are their landscape strips and other things within the subdivision here that also would be covered.

Yeah, there'd be some landscape strips at some of the road connections or stub outs potentially.

The entries?

Yeah, that's not designed, but I don't think it'd be very extensive. Sure. But yeah, it'd be part of the LMD.

What about the open space around the, you know, some of the slopes and some of the open space around the parcels or the project area? Um, is there, are there any open areas that the, I'm not really sure how LMDs, if they're specific to landscape and irrigated spaces and that's, what's being maintained and that's a. question or there is some comments that have come up about this related to wildfire and mitigation. You know, obviously there's a benefit when you're, I see a benefit when you develop open space like this becomes less fuel in some regards for, you know, random fires or things of that nature. But in and around the developments like we had You know, years ago with, you know, some of our large fires around here kind of happened in the green spaces that were deeded or dedicated to the city. Do you see any of that here or any concern or mitigation there?

I see a lot of overlap with the wildland fuel protection zones into those open space areas. So, yeah, LMDs can incorporate that type of maintenance. That's been established. So when it becomes portions of city-owned, the city would take on that maintenance, but in the meantime, it would be private. Okay. Great.

Anybody else?

Commissioner Ryan? And there's no requirement for the neighboring property owners to manage for fire. Is that correct? That's correct.

We don't have that, right? That's correct for this development, yeah.

Okay.

I have a couple questions about clarification. Page 17 of the packet, under item one, it says 143 residential lots. which is what the packet is consistently referring to. But then on page 19, when you do the unit phases, it equals 144. So.

I should have taken more math, I think.

So just, we'll have to make that as part of the motion to correct whatever one should it be.

I appreciate that.

And what unit needs to be corrected. Correct.

Yeah, I can get that exact number.

There are some discrepancies. On the actual map, the legends in the map, it shows the buildable acres as 47.8. And in that same paragraph that I'm referring on page 17, it shows 45.33. But if I do the math, I think the legend's actually correct, how you did your math per density. 45.3 so the the buildable is 47.6 is on page. It's the first It's the first map of our actual it's on here.

You just can't see it on your screen, but I can read it on my legend Yeah, I mean if if the 47 point whatever is excluding the 20% that's the intent and So, I mean, there's areas that aren't going to be built that are literally intermittent drainages. That's probably where the 45 acreage comes from. Okay. Sorry for the description. See, that's my apologies.

That's okay. Thank you. Okay. Any other comments before we open it up for public comment? Okay.

Thank you.

I'm going to read the first three, and if you could line up to save for time, you have a three-minute timer going on as we start. We're going to start with Brian Burke, and then Justin Strumroll, and then Alex Lindsey. So Brian, you are up first.

Hello, members of the Planning Commission. Some of you don't know me and some do. I've been around doing this for 45 years in the city of Reading. Just haven't been here in 20 years at this DS, which has been great. My wife and I have been doing this since 1981. We've been involved in the creation of over 2,000 housing units in the city. We just haven't done any since about 1994. And that was basically where we thought we were ended up, but we got We ended up with this parcel in 2004, and we've been working. For a long time to get to this date. So I'm happy to answer any of your questions. Commissioner manual have a good 1 about the sewer. And the roadies went out to. Gold Hills, Pleasant Hills Drive. In 2004, this project was called the Reserve at Gold Hills. So the land that I have here was approved for 10 years as a residential subdivision. And it expired and then we redesigned it into a larger lot subdivision because we had six units an acre on the west side and three units on the east side. So we decided that this subdivision would best suit large lots. So we have lots that start at 7,000 feet and they go all the way to 23,000 feet. So we did, in 2004, make a deal and we have a signed development agreement with the Thomason family to, and the easements have all been surveyed, engineered, designed, The easement language and the documents are all prepared. The Thomason family just hasn't signed the sewer easement. We have all of the access easements in record. So we have the north easement and the Pleasant Hills Drive easement to Gold Hills recorded in the county chest as a legal easement in favor of us. And at some point, we will dedicate that easement after we finish construction to you. Was there any other, oh, I understand there's concern about the amount of our,

You're fine. Go ahead. Yeah, but you can still. You were answering questions to the commissioner, so I'm going to give you a little bit of extra time, so go ahead.

Okay. There's going to be talk about the density of our project putting stress on the fire access at Gold Hills. In fact, it's going to be better because the Gold Hills people, all 266 lots, if push comes to shove and there's a problem at Gold Hills, they can come through our subdivision and go out to Oasis. So instead of having just one, when we build, they'll have two. So anything else from you guys?

No, thank you.

All right, thank you.

All right, Justin.

Hi guys, thanks so much. I'm gonna bring up a little bit of a concern in the bigger picture, long-term on Oasis, which I would like you guys to maybe begin the process of considering. It's not necessarily just isolated to this. I understand expansion, I love expansion. I think that there needs to be progress in cities. I've been living in Gold Hill since 2020. I lived on Mid-Drive Trail for, I think, three or four years in the condo division there. And one of the beautiful things about living out there is that it is like an oasis, right? It feels like a refuge away from some of what Reading City sometimes can be, both for crime and there's a lot of peace out there. There's not crime, there's peace. And coming up on the 25th, you're also gonna be discussing the potentiality of development regarding shopping on the corner there of Oasis and Twinview. And so what I'm asking, at least making my voice heard right now as you guys start your process, I don't imagine that this and also the mall or the shopping center are the only things that people are gonna start contemplating putting out towards Oasis. There's something really beautiful in our communities out there. There's safety. There's connection. There's just beauty out there. And when it comes to the relationships and the conversations that we have within the community, there is a desire to be able to protect that community experience. I don't have a problem seeing something like this go out there. I understand that it's going to bring more traffic and things like that. But then it's like, what more? What more? What more? And I would ask that you guys continue to consider what your impact is when developing out there, when this is a very unique and special place inside of Reading that still contains beautiful wildlife and a connection to nature that we still have. In a city that already, you know, we have developments that aren't being filled right now, where there are homes that aren't being purchased, where we're on an economic downturn. decline. So what I'm really trying to say is that if you do consider this and you do move forward with this, please keep that into consideration for our people. I know that a lot of my people within the neighborhood are going to be out here on the 25th to discuss the potentiality for that corner lot. I thank you for the effort that you guys all put forward. I know it's not easy to be in your position doing all the work that you're doing. And so I appreciate you listening to me.

Thank you, Justin. We have Alex Lindsey, and then we will have David Ledger and Mark Mazzano.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Alex Lindsey. I am a Redding area resident. I submitted written public comment on the Oasis South proposing an electric RC crawler commons as a possible use with the future recreation area. I understand that tonight's hearing is about the Oasis South subdivision and that the Planning Commission isn't here to decide the final programming of the future park. David Schlegel directed me towards community services for that part of the process, and I've already reached out to them. I'm here tonight because I'd like to make sure that this idea stays in the conversation and doesn't get swept underneath the rug as Oasis South moves forward. The concept isn't a traditional RC racetrack. These are small, slow electric vehicles that crawl over rocks and terrain. A course can fit into a relatively small footprint, operate with very little noise, and use durable, natural-looking obstacles rather than requiring a large paved facility. I think it's an opportunity to create something that's useful for kids, adults, families, hobbyist and makers while still fitting alongside other recreational uses planned for the site. I'm not asking you to approve an RC park tonight. I'm asking that the possibility not be designed out of the community services and the public have an opportunity to consider it. I've put together a more detailed concept covering siting, environmental protection, maintenance, phased implementation, and potential community involvement, and I'm willing to stay involved and work with the city staff as the project progresses. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you. Goddamn. David Ledger, and then Mark, you're up.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is David Ledger, and I'm speaking as an individual. This project, I'm sorry to see almost 900 trees gone, but I'm just to comment on one really bad report, the crotches bumblebee report. And it was written by the Vice President of Galloway Enterprises, and he's kind of showing that he does not know what he's talking about. He states, first of all, he said it's a desktop survey. I went over CDFW requirements for crotchet surveys, and they say that you must, even if they haven't been found in the area, you must look for them. And this is part of the area that the crotchet butterfly, according to CDFW, bumblebee, CDFW maps, it does encompass. So he writes down about his experience in the area, and he's doing a desktop analysis, which would never pass if somebody were ever to sue for this. So he says, Kwacha's bumblebee habitat requirements include native grasslands, which you saw up there in the first photo, shrublands with floristic resources that persist through the summer, featuring species such as anterinum, which is a snapdragon, phacelia, clarkia, dendromicon, exclosia, which is, anyway, another plant that does not grow in the summer. He does have areogonum, which is buckwheat, which does grow in the summer. So he does not know when these plants bloom. Now, N Plan did a survey, a thorough survey in September, and I want to commend planning because they sent them back out to do the survey in the spring, another survey. But in the survey in the summer, when these plants are blooming, the list is, they've got Italian thistle and bumblebees will go after non-native and non-native plants. Yellow star thistle, Fitch's milkweed, I mean milk, Fitch's... spikeweed, Canadian horseweed, woolly sunflower, prickly lettuce, media, and... Let's see, there's Klamath weed, that goes to September. Dove weed to October. There's buckwheat, there's four species of buckwheat there. So basically this thing, he doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't do a survey, he doesn't follow CDFW protocols. He just said by desktop survey, and he mentioned species that do not bloom in the summertime. And one of his features is, Floristic resources that persist through the summer featuring species such as, and then he lists species that do not persist through the summertime. So I would ask that you put as an amendment onto this, the use permit that they require to do a thorough professional survey for crotches bumblebee. That's why it's threatened with extinction because of stuff like this. Thank you.

Thank you, David. Okay, Mark.

Thank you, members of the Commission. I do appreciate your time. I'm interested in this project simply because I live in the area, and I found the staff report enlightening and very informative, way over my head. when it comes to development. But there are a couple of concerns. It wasn't that long ago that the cities felt that we didn't have the resources, so we moved our boundaries in to limit development. I'm all for the development. We need more housing in this area for the simple reason that people can't find a place to live and they want to live and work here and enjoy this area. So I think now that we've allowed something like this to happen, what has changed? And so there's a question there. And then based on my 30 years in law enforcement, when I look at this development and I see this traffic, it's going to migrate out onto Gold Hills Drive. When I read this staff report, I went out there one day, I think it was a Wednesday, and for the first 100 cars that passed through there, they all turned left to go to the freeway. So what I want to know and what I didn't see, and I guess maybe you'll do this later, a traffic study that is probably going to require a traffic light. Because what you're going to have is you're going to have people waiting for their turn at a stop sign, and then they're going to take that chance. And as we build this out and we build out seven rivers and bring more traffic down Oasis, there is the opportunity for conflict. And the only way to really address that is with a single phase light, not just letting people stack up in a line and wait for their turn to race out onto Oasis to head to the freeway. I just ask you to look at that. I'm in support of the development. I think we need more housing in this area. Wish them well. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mark. Good points. That's all the cards that I have, so I'm going to close the public hearing and take it back over to the commissioners for comments and questions.

Commissioner Ryan. I was kind of all about the traffic light. I wondered about that. And I don't know what the exact requirement is, but I do know that everybody turns left out of there. And I think the thing that will save this a little bit is they're not building all of this at one time, and people will develop different ways to access Oasis Road. But I do think Gold Hills... will be stacked up. And I've seen people pull out in front of other people quite a bit. That's pretty common.

Mr. Seligal, would you like to address that, please?

Yeah. Staff kind of feels the same way that some project down the line is going to trigger a signal at some point there. This project does not at this point in time. So there's a lot of improvements in the future if Oasis Road does see a lot more development to road improvements. But this project is only dealing with the impacts it's having on the system right now.

You didn't get to go back out and look, but there isn't a center like merge or whatever. It's just two lane, correct?

That's correct. I think that the traffic engineer could actually address future plans, immediate plans. If it becomes a problem, the city has some ideas.

What are the rules about that? Like, when do you wind up having to put a light in? What's the? Mr. Anthony. Good thing we waited for Mr. Anthony, because now we need him.

I was just going to offer a general comment, too, that as Mr. Schlegel alluded to, these are some early projects on the Oasis Corridor. Of course, it goes all the way up north and east from here, and so staff does anticipate with future projects, there's going to be sort of mounting requirements of projects to do further mitigation. like off-site traffic improvements, signal timing, lights, turnpockets, all those types of improvements. So we anticipate that as we move into the future, but this project in and of itself, based on the traffic analysis we have, doesn't require it. Your question regarding, it was sort of open-ended. Does that help, or does Mr. Anthony want to add anything to what I said?

I think the biggest thing would be, You know, this project followed our traffic design guidelines, and those guidelines, right, they did not trigger, right, a mitigation measure for that. They have either a delay of left turns. There's a multitude of things. So since they didn't trigger it. They're kind of eating up the rest of the capacity in this area, and like Jeremy and David said, as more projects come in, those projects are most likely going to start to trigger some of these because you will start to have too many vehicles on the road and delays will start to happen. So they followed our guidelines, our standards. That's what we ask developers to do is meet standard, and they have done that.

I mean, like all things, right, I would see middle of the day probably fine, but front end of the day and after work would be the loaded up points.

Yeah, yeah, the morning, the a.m. and p.m. peaks.

Especially the morning.

Yeah, yeah, and this, right, they did have a traffic study that evaluated those peak times.

Commissioner Johnson.

To that point, their contribution to the NRTBA is kind of going to, is that going to a fund that essentially when those traffic, when a future project triggers improvements there, that's the fund we're essentially pulling from or referring to to do those improvements, but the city will do those improvements at that time? Correct.

Or there will be a, or if the project triggers an immediate delay, their construction of said improvements could then actually give them a credit towards their NRTBD fees. Okay.

Commissioner Emanuel.

Any response regarding Crotch's Bumblebee that you're able to clarify?

Well, I mean, essentially, staff is not biologists, so we relied on the biologists' determination here. It might be that folks don't agree, so it could be an option to include a mitigation, not a mitigation measure, but like a survey requirement for that. We're not recommending that at this time, but this commission could choose to do that if they wanted to.

Mr. Burke, can you come to the microphone? Are you good with that? Do you want to hear what he has to say? I'm assuming you want to hear what he has to say. Okay.

There is no floristic resource on our property that the crotch of the bumblebee likes. On the property across the creek, there is. There's an acre and a half of it, and it's been set aside into protection. So there is... four different species that the Crotchets bumblebee likes. It's in one spot on the reserve property, not on ours. So our property didn't have any floristic resources that the bumblebee really needs. And to study the crotchet's bumblebee requires a permit from U.S. Fish and Wildlife. And it's a take permit. It's the same permit to kill a wolf. It's $50,000 and takes a year. So there's a pretty big difference, in my opinion, of value. Anyway, there's...

Thank you for the clarification. Commissioner Manuel, are you satisfied with that? Do you have any questions? Follow up? No?

No, thank you, Brian.

Okay.

Commissioner Whittem.

Yeah, if I may, I did have concern about that item, and I appreciate David Ledger expressing that. Some of you know I found myself in a project maybe a year ago where the crutches bumblebee was a big deal, and I did have a subconsultant in a former career do a pretty close to protocol survey. And I respect very much Mr. Ledger pointing out that maybe a tabletop Survey is really less than what we needed The other thing is that that I would I would advise the applicant that he might have got some bad information That that take permit similar to a wolf is if you're going to capture a bumblebee and you're gonna take it back to look at it under a microscope or look at it and and That's not required For the kind of survey that might might come up here having first-hand knowledge in it So I would say that this is one of those cases, because it was the same thing that came up when I was looking at the conditions, that we really should, when, and again, Mr. Ledger here, I'm actually really aligning with you quite a bit here on this one. I know he's going, I have no idea where Mr. Wenham is going, but I'm aligning with you that There's a time and place where there really is just like almost no evidence of something. And even though it wasn't done to protocol survey, we do a last minute survey before they go to construction. And if they find something sensitive, well then the project stops until that can be resolved. In this case, it does feel like we need to add a condition to address this specific issue because it is a very hot topic in this area, very hot topic to the resource agencies, and it's not the cost that the applicant perhaps has been led to believe. So that'll be my recommendation, time comes, is that a proper protocol survey be done prior to any grading for that particular species to kind of cover that base. And beyond that, I don't have any other minor comments, but I don't see any other concerns that I have that warrant conversation.

Commissioner Manuel.

Just to follow up on Russ's comment, we already have a similar condition, number 40, that calls for kind of a springtime survey. So I think it could be, certainly wouldn't be out of the ordinary to piggyback onto that or to add another one to deal with looking at the crutches bumblebee. I certainly don't have language on top of my head to deal with it, nor do you want to see me pass out another long list of things.

Russ is writing that down. Okay.

Yeah, I agree with you, Commissioner Manuel. That was the same thing. I looked at number 40 and I said, OK, this really is very specific to plants. And this feels like a situation where it might be as simple as plus crutches bumblebee per CDFW protocol. And I know it's a little laborious looking at the applicant. I know that's not a really easy one. That takes a lot of field staff time and people tromping around out there to do the work. But it does feel like that's where we are with that species in our area today.

Thank you. A couple of follow-ups from public comment. Do you want to address if there was a boundary change in the city and did we look at that?

Sure, I can take a stab at that. I believe what Mr. Mazzano was referring to was during development of the general plan, the city's sphere of influence and boundaries used to be significantly larger. As many of us know, the growth projections in the last 20 years or so in our city have gone down quite a bit. And so the previous general plan which was adopted around the turn of the century, anticipated a lot more growth than we actually are experiencing. And so when your general plan has a big area that we're planning for, it actually can end up costing the city quite a bit of money to plan for future growth that won't occur. You always want your city to be as, I mean, we like our rural lifestyle, and I'm no different than you all, but you do want your city to be efficient in how it's laid out and how its services are provided. So the general plan shrunk down that sphere of influence and also sort of eliminated some of the areas we can look to for future annexation outside of the city limits. And I think that's what he was referring to. This particular project is within the currently established city limits. It's properly zoned and anticipating this type of development to occur. So we're not talking annexation here. So it's a little bit apples and oranges. But I understand Mr. Mizano's point, of course. But in this case, this is a currently zoned parcel for development in our city limits. So I'm not so sure that the sphere of influence conversation applies at this point.

Thank you for clarifying. And going back to a comment by Alex, I have clarification. The park fees on page 31, when does the city accept the either or? The 2.1 acres or the $275,000 plus fee? Like what's the decision there and when will they decide? When they do the final?

Do you want to take that, Jeremy?

Yeah.

I think that language was trying to capture the requirements under the Quimby Act, but as you can see through other conditions that we opted for a dedication rather than in lieu fees. Now, they can still instead request to pay the in lieu fees. I don't think the applicant will, but that would be instead of dedication, and that's under the Quimby Act. They could choose that option.

One more admin item, just for clarification. Under the conditions of item nine, they're missing C and D. Those were omitted on purpose. Just clarifying.

I'm sorry, items which?

So, well, I'll have to give you page 20. Under conditions nine, C and D were omitted, and that was purpose. Okay.

They're intended to be deleted. And so apologies for that.

Clarifying. Okay. With that, I am either more discussion or looking for a motion.

Well, I just want to do a quick note. I got to spend a couple of nice hours walking the site, both the roads out there and the motorcycle trails. I know there's a lot of concern about trees on development sites, but I haven't seen the very The various drainages, seeing how difficult that project would be to develop and try to save trees other than that six plus acres and dry gulch would be virtually impossible in order to meet the density of the general plan and zoning. It just wouldn't work. So yes, there's a lot of grading. I believe it's necessary to conform to the general plan and get the housing that we need. So just a general comment.

Thank you. Mr. Muenem, I'm going to look to you since you have a correction to one of the conditions that you would like to add to put that into the motion if you're willing to make it.

If I may, just real quickly too, because it has to do with our conditions. Mr. Anthony looked at this earlier and Commissioner Emanuel to your point on condition 12 regarding the minor arterial. That is a typographical. The specifications are correct. 40 foot curb to curb, 60 foot right of way, but it's a minor collector. So we can incorporate that into the motion of the Planning Commission wishes.

Thank you. Makes much more sense.

And do we want to add into the conditions the unit numbers that were correct to 143?

I was having trouble following, so maybe Mr. Schlegel knows, or you could reiterate for staff. That would be helpful.

So page 19.

Packet page 19? Yes.

Okay. If you add the math of the phases, it equals 144, so just if we wanna make that correction.

Yeah, the correction there is unit two should be 48 units rather than 49.

Okay, just so we have that in correctly.

Yeah, let's wrap it into, yeah, that'd be helpful. We're adding to Commissioner Wenham's list here.

Yes, you got that, you got that.

Would the motion also include accepting the changes to the revised checklist?

That was on my list already. Don't add more to my list. Are we ready? I'm not sure I have all of those written down, so let me give it a try. I move staff recommendations with the following modifications. First is incorporation of the red lines to the CEQA checklist as provided by staff. Number two, correction of the unit count on condition number four, B to 48 instead of 49. modification to condition 12 to change the word arterial to collector and modification to condition 40 without providing specific wording but to have staff add to the Studies required before construction to be a CDFW protocol crotches bumblebee study Thank you, do we have a second to Commissioner Wynnum's motion I'll second Thank You Commissioner Emanuel

Any discussion? Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. Thank you. Item five, public comment for any non-agenda matters in the city's jurisdiction? There are none, so I will close public comment. Commissioner comments? Any comments from our commissioners? Nope. Seeing none, it is adjourned. Thank you.

Good job.

I was going to vote no, because I couldn't get a crap list full of Bs.