Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome everybody. Thank you for your patience as we were Oh, we're only one minute over. Thank you. I am Russ Wam, chairman of the planning commission. What I will do is start by turning um calling the meeting to order. Turning it over to our staff to uh do a roll call. Chair Winnham here. Vice Chair Will here. Commissioner Balovc here. Commissioner Godert here. Commissioner Miner here. Commissioner Nance here. Commissioner Ryan here. Thank you.

Thank you. And the next item number two is approval of the minutes. And before we do that, what I would like to do is ask some amazing member of the staff, maybe a department head, to introduce um city staff that are in the room before I forget. I made it all the way to item number two before I remembered to do this. Would you be kind enough to do that? Uh, Director Peagan. Uh, sure, Chair. Let's see. Um, yeah, we have Elizabeth Steedman and Jennifer Ganon helping clerk our meeting up front. Uh, Danny Castro, associate planner, is going to be presenting later. Lily Toy is our planning manager sitting to my left and I am Jeremy Pagan director of the department and Josh Anony's not in our department but he's with our public works team and then our city attorney is Mr. Christian Curtis.

Very good. That's why I kept it just staff this time instead of your staff. You didn't notice that though. Hopefully I caught everyone. Yeah, we also have I mean we got other staff in the I could keep going but I'm we'll wait when they when they come forward. Thank you. We'll meet them later.

Couple more months we'll have that down. Um, the other thing is in the back of the room there are purple cards, comment cards. If anyone wishes to speak on a non-aggendaized item when we get to that item or one of the agendaized item, please complete that card, bring it up to one of the clerks up here up front at any time you'd like to do that. And um, if you don't get the item number correct, just make sure you get your name and the subject correct that aligns with the item number and one of them will make sure we get it up here when the time comes. With that, what I'd like to do is go to approval of minutes. And the first one is a carryover from June 10. We have it in our packet. According to my notes, uh, uh, Commissioner Greg Balova, Blake Nance, and Russen, myself will step aside on this one because we were not here for that particular item.

Mr. Chair, I I do just want to clarify there is no legal requirement to to abstain. um based on not being present at the meeting of the minutes. Um a a member could certainly um abstain if they feel uncomfortable uh because they're uncertain as to the accuracy of the minutes. Um but legally there's no requirement. We run into that for example where there's a complete turnover say in a body or a majority turns over and then there's uncertainty about the ability to approve the minutes. Um uh the the the members that weren't present can still vote.

Very good. Thank you for that clarification. And I am neurotic enough that I watch him on YouTube afterwards. Thank you very much. Uh but I will still set step back on that one personally. But so um in attendance that day we had um commissioners William, God, Miner, and Ryan. The minutes are in front of us. I would like to do is do them as separate motions. And so for the June 10 minutes, is there any discussion or a motion? I move we accept the minutes of June 10, 2025. I'll second. And there's a second. Any other discussion? All in favor say I. I. I.

And I abstain. I abstain. Got it. Very good. Excuse me. The next set is August 12, 2025. and the three commissioners that were not here, uh, commissioners God, Minard, and Miner, excuse me, sir, and Balovic. With that, I'll say, is there any discussion or a motion on the minutes for August 12, 2025?

I'll move we accept the minutes. Very good. I'll second. Very good. Thank you. All in favor say I. I. I we had one abstension. We have two abstensions. Very good. Get all that, Jennifer. Thank you. Christian's over the going. You made that more complicated than you needed to, but I my neurosis. Um, with that, I'll move on to announcements. Uh, item number three. Are there any announcements from staff we should hit at this time? Uh, no. No, chair, there's not.

Thank you very much. Item number four, a consent calendar. There are not any consent items. We'll move on. We'll move item to item 4B. In fact, item number one under that, which is a uh public hearing for tenative subdivision map application S 2023 802 as articulated in the agenda and in the staff report. With that, I will turn it over to staff to make a presentation. And for uh members of the audience, it will it will go something like this. Staff will make a presentation. We as commissioners will ask for any clarifications from staff. Um any anything we want to be, you know, as clear as possible. We will then open the public hearing, take the purple cards, you'll have your opportunity to speak. When we close the public hearing, we'll bring it back to the commission for any more discussion with staff and amongst ourselves before we bring it to a vote. Um, barring the unforeseen, that's the way it will play out. So, with that, I will turn it over to staff to proceed.

Thank you, chair. Uh, good evening everyone. Uh, yes. So, I will be presenting the Brentwood subdivision and plan development. Um, which is here at 605 Courtz Hill Road. Um, it's kind of in the northwest quadrant of the city there out on Courtz Hill. Um, so this is the parcel in question. Uh, thank you, by the way, to Lily Toy for, uh, animating this slide. It's a nice touch. Um, so as you can see, that's that's the parcel there highlighted in yellow. And this orange line there, which you can see there now with that red line, is uh is where the county line is. So, it's right right at the edge of of um right at the edge of the city. The property is zoned RM9 PD. Now, that stands for residential multif family, nine units per acre with a plan development plan overlay district. It's kind of a mouthful, but uh we'll get into that. Um suffice it to say, it's zoned for multif family residential. And along with that, the general plan designation um is 6 to 10 units per acre. So with that, let's talk about the map. Um now, this is this graphic is from the uh from the PD booklet, but um in terms of talking about it, I think it's a little bit uh easier of a of a graphic to look at. So this is essentially the map. Um it's a 9.4 acre parcel. um about point4 of those acres is 20% slope. So it's about nine acres of developable land and they want to divide that into 58 attached single family lots. Now attached single family lots, they're essentially duplexes with a property

line that goes between them so that they can convey separately. Um these lots are generally within the range of 3,000 to 7,000 square ft. Um, as you can see, all these are kind of in that 3000 range. And then you get to the 7,000 with some of these that kind of have a lot more space in the back, but the usable area of them is all kind of generally in that 3,000ish range. Um, the overall density of the project uh pencils out to about 6.4 units per acre and that's point4 units above the general plan minimum. Remember the slide before the general plan allows six to 10 units per acre. So this is coming in right at the bottom of what's allowed um in terms of density in the general plan. Um at max density for comparison at max density you would be allowed to do 90 units um on this on this um 9.4 acre parcel that's not being proposed 58 are being proposed but just to show the scope um that this is on the lower end of the lower end of the spectrum. Um there's some features um with this with this project. Um these are again part of the plan development plan which I'll explain a little bit more about what that is in a future slide, but um just to go over some of u the amenities and kind of the the the details of this map. Um the project proposes this uh enhanced landscape area here. That's these areas kind of on the on the southern part of the subdivision. And here's a zoomed in version of that. Um, and this is just kind of a a conceptual depiction of um what's proposed. So um some enhanced landscaping along Quartz Hill Road. Um normally with a larger with a subdivision that that would be on a parcel that would have a more typical dimensions. You might see houses backing

up against that um against Courts Hill Road like these here. and there'd be a um there'd be a a block wall. In this case, um there aren't houses backing up to it. And um this enhanced landscaping, it it it allows for it not to just have a long wall along Quartz Hill Road the whole way. Um it it allows for for some more like visual visual diversity, if you will, and a little bit more beautifification in the city. um since there's not houses directly backing up onto that arterial street that would require the the noise buffer. Um so that's that's a proposed amenity. Um there's also this uh this circle right here shows where this uh park is and that's just a private neighborhood park that also doubles as a um storm water retention area. Oh, and one last feature on here um that we'll get to later as well. There's a area here all the way to the west and that's a natural landscape area um that essentially there won't be any there won't be much added landscaping there and it'll essentially be maintained for fire fuel management, but we'll talk about that more in a few minutes. Um I wanted to also briefly just touch on the units. This is the look of the kind of product that would be going in here. Um again, so um the subdivision would consist of a mix of one and twotory duplexes. Um and with that property line, that turns them into attached single family. Um the elevations you're looking at are part of the PD plan. And what comes in for a building permit and what eventually gets built would have to substantially conform to these elevations. Um, and I also wanted to point out that these building elevations are much more in character with the existing neighborhood than than an apartment complex would be. Um, they match, you know, the single family homes that are that are near in the adjacent subdivisions. And um, that's important

and it's a part of the reason why the why the parcel zoned with the PD overlay. So, what is a PD overlay? Well, the city pre-zoned this parcel in uh back at the at the turn of the century um to have the the PD overlay district on it. Now, this body has probably seen projects come in where they wish to reszone their project site to include the PD overlay. Um that's certainly an option um in many cases for projects. In this case, the city pre-zoned this property with the PD overlay because the city wanted to make sure that we saw um development that was compatible with the neighborhood and uh in this neighborhood and also to make sure that um development was feasible. So, uh as I've shown you, the site, it does have a kind of irregular shape which can make um designing for a uh residential development on this parcel challenging. And what the PD overlay does is it allows a certain amount of flexibility. Um some examples of of what you can do with the PD overlay, you can reduce the lot widths, you can reduce setbacks, um you can do things like attached single family. Um there's other things you can do with a PD um that this project is not proposing, but for example, um private gated communities. Um there's there's a lot of things that aren't typically allowed with the standard rules in the zoning code that the PD overlay allows flexibility for. And so with the PD with this property pre-zoned with the PD overlay, it it guarantees that this property is going to have that flexibility to make something happen on here. Um I think that sums up that. Okay. So, um, one of the first kind of, uh, interesting quirks with this project is again it is adjacent to the county as I mentioned before and so, um, there are

parcels in the county that take access through this parcel and the development of the parcel would um, potentially change or or alter that. Um, and so, oddly enough, they're both called Sunray Way. So, their Sunray Way and their Sunray Way. So, I guess they're identical twin streets. Um, this Sunray Way uh grants access to it's actually six parcels. Um, there's two more parcels up here that aren't highlighted, but this this illustrates the point that there's a unpaved unimproved uh dirt road here, and it provides access to all these parcels. And then here there's an also there's also an unpaved uh dirt access that provides uh uh driveway access there to um to that parcel. So the subdivision obviously is going to well not obviously but it's going to change one of them a little bit. So instead of for the uh there we go for the western part instead of being being able to come straight in right there's now going to be public street access coming in through the subdivision on what's called uh roads B and C here. And then this connection is just going to stop and and basically stub out right there to the existing dirt road. So all those parcels up here are going to maintain virtually the same access. They'll just come in through an improved city street and continue on their way up north. Um the access here on the east for this parcel, the development's actually not going to impede that access. Um there's actually another easement on top of there too for um for the electrical infrastructure that runs through there. But uh essentially these these units are going to stay out of that access and their yards will stay out of that access and that access will not be impeded. So um that property will

also maintain access to Quartz Hill Road with this project. Um one small detail with access that I think uh is interesting to note. Um so this property right here is actually taking direct access on the Courtz Hill Road and um to staff's knowledge um with research with city surveyor and the applicant um there's no they they come through the uh project parcel and then they come through the public rightway with a fully improved driveway. They actually don't have any legal rights to cross through this uh project parcel and they did not acquire an encroachment permit um to do the work they did and to enter into the public rightway there. So, um there is a condition that would require the project to either one basically bring that into compliance, grant them an easement and uh install a city standard driveway approach or to delete the access essentially closing it up and putting this, you know, continuing the sidewalk over it and removing that driveway access. And so, um either one of those options is available in the draft conditions to the developer. Um but either way, the situation would need to be remedied with one of those two solutions. So, um, let's talk HOA and LMD. Um, so real quick, I'm sure many people in here know what these are, but, um, I think we've all heard of an HOA. That's a homeowners association. Um, that is a private entity and responsible for its own codes, covenants, and restrictions. An LMD is a landscape maintenance district. Now, it's kind of similar, but not really. An LMD is like a special tax district um that uh that pays for the city to provide certain ongoing maintenance. Um so the big takeaways is that this

project will have an HOA and an LMD on it um if approved. And um the the kind of big ticket items that are in each of those um in each of those tools is the enhanced landscape area along Courts Hill Road that I pointed out before. Um this enhanced landscape area would be in the LMD. So that would be maintained by the LMD. Uh meaning that the city would have um control over that maintenance and that is you know on the exterior of the subdivision. it's pointing towards the public and so um generally speaking the city likes to maintain some control over that so that we can um make sure that at least the publicly facing parts of the development um are adequately maintained. Um the private park here and the storm drain system among other things but these are kind of some of the big ones. And then there's this private storm drain where the storm drain comes here and it connects to this private park. Um that's all to be maintained in the HOA privately. Um, typically storm drain is not maintained privately, but in this case, the storm drain system is uh not quite city standard and public works did not feel it was acceptable um to uh to take that in for maintenance um publicly. So um the HOA is going to be leveraged to maintain that privately. So, as for trees, so there are 303 blue oaks and 15 foothill pines on the site. Um, at the time of the tree survey, um, was a few years ago, but, um, nonetheless, the average health was shown as low. Um, and I'm not a tree expert, but I've been out to the site and they don't look like they're in the best of condition. Um, again, I'm not an expert, but um, I would I would guesstimate that the average health is still low. Um so 16 TR t trees would be preserved, 302 would be removed. Um that being said, the project is expected to

plant 337 trees and 11 of those trees would be native oaks planted in that natural landscape area I mentioned earlier. Um and so uh but the the remainder of those trees would not have to be native or anything, but um they would be the kind of trees, you know, street trees and trees required with homes. um would come out to a total of 337 trees planted with the project. In terms of fire, so um as we all know um the property is in the very high fire severity zone. Um, all construction would be required to meet the uh California residential code section R 337 and that is the materials and construction methods for exterior wildlife exposure. Um, essentially that means that they would have to have there's certain roofing requirements, requirements on eaves, requirement on all kinds of construction things that that um I mean you can't literally fireproof a house. Um, but you can you can make it fire resistant. And so the the California residential code um is required of all development now in the very high fire severity zone. And um so these homes would be more fire resistant um than would have been the case even just a few years ago with the updated codes. Um, in addition, the draft conditions of uh of approval, uh, they do prohibit wood fences within 10 ft of open space and any fencing within 10 ft of the open space would have to be constructed of non-combustible uh, materials. Um I did want to mention that uh on other subdivisions like in the neighborhood um like the cottages came through this body um recently and um that subdivision was

able to implement a 100 foot fire fuel management buffer in some of the open space areas. Um, you know, those 100 foot buffers were on the site and the and the the dimensions of the site and the topography of the site allowed for that 100 foot fire fuel management buffer um to be implemented with the project um and put into the LMD so that it gets done every year or every two years or whatever the time frame is for that. Um unfortunately because of the irregularity of this site um such a buffer is not feasible but I did want to point that out um since that you you had seen that on the previous project and maybe in future projects um that where when feasible we do try to uh to require that 100 foot fire fuel management buffer. And then lastly on fire, I just wanted to mention um you know, I actually did go out to the site with um with some of our guys in in the fire department and um and we we kind of looked at the topography and and discussed um the design of the subdivision and um with a site like this um you know, we were exploring the option of of flipping the subdivision. So having the houses along Courts Hill Road and having the the road here on the north side more maybe with a park or something over here. Um that seems like it would have advantages because the houses would be further from the wildland. But um ultimately because there's a giant 20 foot or I'm sorry 20% slope back here. Um this design is actually sa better for life safety. This design is better for um keeping people themselves safe because if a fi if an unexpected fire did come through here, residents would be able to they would be able to egress away from the fire and they would be buffered from the fire with whatever you know landscaping they have. Um you know that landscaping would be irrigated so it wouldn't burn as quickly as dry

unerrigated land. um these houses meeting the the CRC um R337 requirements would be more uh fire resistant and so there'd be a little bit of a buffer for people to be able to escape. So the the design of the subdivision really does um facilitate life safety um over property in the event of a fire. As for the squa, a uh mitigated negative declaration was prepared for the project. There are three isolated vernal pools that were identified on the site. Um according to uh the wetland delineation or the aquatic resource delineation report um they do not qualify for waters of the US. So they're not jurisdictional. Uh meaning they wouldn't need to get permits from the Army Corps of Engineers or anything to fill those wetlands. Um uh there is also a man-made drainage channel um that actually should have put a graphic in here for that. Um there's a man-made drainage channel that's actually draining from some of the subdivisions uh to the south um that kind of spits out on this site. Um, and so there's a pipe that over the years has kind of created an ephemeral drainage uh channel and uh that that may require uh permission from Fish and Wildlife, either a permit or an agreement. Um, I'm not exactly sure on on what exactly they would need, but they would uh potentially require permission from Fish and Wildlife um to to do any work or to delete that channel. Um but in terms of any special status species, um the biological report was unable to rule out Henderson's bent grass, red bluff dwarf rush, um and vernal pool fairy shrimp for those vernal pools. So pre-construction surveys for those would be required uh prior to issuance of any permits um in addition to kind of the standard birds

and bat surveys. But other than that um yeah there's uh with mitigation measures there's no no significant impact. So we did receive um some public comments uh mostly were concerned with evacuation and they mostly cited the car fire as an example of um why the subdivision shouldn't be allowed. Um, so, uh, there's three key factors with that. Um, and I'm going to go over those. So, fire fuel, quartzill road, and orderly egress. Um, so fire fuel. So, um, with the, you know, in the past there was a large amount of fire fuel that had built up over decades. Um, most of that fire fuel has burned out. It is growing back. um it would take decades again to reach the levels that they were at, but nonetheless um it is a concern and um you know development does in its own way remove fire fuel. Um the subdivision would remove vegetation, it would add non-combustible improvements like streets, sidewalks, um you know, driveways, those things don't burn. And um the fireresistant structures now required by you know California state regulations would be more resistant to fire. Um and so you know by putting improvements and fireresistant more fireresistant structures at the front line of the WOOI which is the wildland urban interface um it does help to buffer existing development um and helps helps mitigate um some of the fire fuel um issues that might otherwise be um nearby to existing subdivisions. Um, as for Quz Courtzill Road and its uh

adequacy for um evacuation, um many people um commented about secondary access and that there's only one way in and one way out of the area. Um while that's not disputed, um the rules for secondary access that are often cited with these comments, um when you look at what those rules are actually talking about, those rules um apply to secondary access to an individual subdivision. So they're actually uh on a subdivision by subdivision basis, making sure there's two ways in for the fire department. Um there's currently no requirement for for more generalized secondary access across multiple subdivisions within a larger geographical area. Um there's currently no no um no rules for that um in any kind of state or local codes. So this project does um supply the adequate um and required secondary access that's required by state and local codes. Um and the the sentiment is is understood. Um but in terms of like legally what the rules are and what's allowed, this this subdivision does meet those those requirements. Um in addition to that, the subdivision would widen Courts Hill Road um by 8 ft, which is not trivial. Um and um I also wanted to mention that um you know there were comments about wanting construction of like maybe a bridge over the river like a Buventura bridge. Um there's just the the nexus and proportionality to require a relatively small subdivision like this to construct a multi-million dollar bridge and supporting infrastructure um would just be legally challenging and and um and really not within the scope of a of what we could require of a project like this. And then lastly um orderly egress. Um in the staff report I

I did want to mention in the staff report when uh when discussing the orderly egress um point um I did mention that um during the carfire evacuation that there was a I had mistakenly written that there was a subdivision being developed that had left materials and equipment in the roadway. It was actually a capital improvement project. It was a road widening of Courts Hill Road. So um that is a detail I just wanted to set straight. But nonetheless, um that did affect uh evacuation um and storing those kinds of materials and storing um equipment um on an arterial like that um is no longer allowed. Um it's not allowed with public or private projects. Um and actually the the uh the newly adopted standard conditions of approval for subdivisions uh now has a condition in there forbidding the storage of such materials um in a right of way like that. Um so so I just wanted to mention that that was one thing that that moving forward in the future there's a change to where that wouldn't be an issue anymore. And um and also uh there's new technologies. So as was discussed during the the the cottages uh a few weeks back. Um there's uh now uh uh tiered text alerts that um emergency personnel can use using the uh Genesis. I I have it written in my notes here, but I don't have a mouse to scroll down. Um but it's called the uh Oh, thank you, Jennifer. Um, no. Apparently I didn't put it didn't put it in there. Well, it it's the Genesis um alert system. Essentially, they can send out text messages to a geographical area and um they can evacuate an area kind of the way I think about it. The same way that um at least

when I was in grade school and I took the bus, we had rules of how we got off the bus. So in the front row, depending on the bus driver, I guess starting in the front or starting in the back, one row would go, right? One side and then the next side and then once they pass, then the row behind them could go. And so it was this kind of tiered exit from the school bus. And essentially that's what our um emergency personnel can do now with these text messages is they can tear that that evacuation so that there's steps so that there's not a gridlock. So they can basically meter out everybody leaving um the area in the event of an evacuation. And so, you know, with with tiered geoargeted max text alert mass text alerts, um, along with coordination with the police department, which they're able to shut down the streets, they're able to turn, you know, they could essentially turn, uh, Courtz Hill into a two-way out um or into a oneway out with like multiple lanes. um they can uh direct traffic at at intersections so that you know you know everyone's going out, no one's going in to to help speed up that egress. So um you know there's there's been changes in um in policies and tactics and procedure um that would lead to dramatically improved outcomes in the event of of another evacuation from the area. So, um, you know, we we've learned and improved and, um, there's nothing in particular from this proposed subdivision, um, that would lead to any sort of worsening of an evacuation situation. So, in conclusion, the proposal is consistent with the goals and policies of the city's general plan. Uh staff recommends that the planning commission determines that the necessary findings for approval are in evidence, adopts the mitigated negative declaration and mitigation monitoring program and approves the tenative map and plan development plan application subject to the draft conditions of approval. And with that, I'm available for questions and I've got a map there in case we want

to point to it or talk about it. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Um for the commissioners and for other city staff, is there and the audience might not be able to hear you, chair, if you get closer to the mic, please. Thanks.

Sorry about that. I'm I'm used to uh like overpowering microphones, so I was trying to be polite. Thank you for that. That's twice now. I had no idea how we were communicating, sir. That's all on me. Um what what I is there anything from uh commissioners right now asking staff either staff that are at dascese or at the lectturn or any other staff that uh might be in the audience that uh uh we might want information at this time. Just to clarify, please take it away, Commissioner Miner.

Yeah, just a couple questions um while I have you up there, Mr. Castro. So the driveway for the let's call it the far right sunray way um will that be just a will that be stay a gravel or stay in its current condition basically or does the developer have to improve that? Yeah. So, the the draft conditions of approval do have a requirement for the developer to improve that driveway, and that comes from um there's a requirement in the code to where you can't have an unimproved driveway that's over 150 gravel because if it's so close to the other houses.

Yeah. And so, if it's within 75 ft of a of a dwelling, that dust um is like I don't know if health hazard is an overstatement. That's not what the code says, but that's kind of how I think of it. It's creates a lot of dust for those residences and it's and it's not it's not permitted. So this subdivision it's an existing it's a legal non-conforming existing thing. There's no houses in the way right now, but this subdivision proposes to put those homes within the 75 ft. So that that

and because it is a a legal easement, it does make sense for to me it makes sense for them to bring it up to, you know, some sort of some sort of city standard. Um the one on the far, let's call it the far left, the illegal non-conforming one with no record. Um how long do we have how far do we does the developer have to improve that? Is that just within the developer's parcel or do they have to improve that all the way back to the structure itself? Yeah. No, that's a good question. So the driveway right now is actually already fully improved. Um they just have to rework it, right, to make to work with the subdivision.

Yeah, they would basically have to um they would have to demolish the approach because it's not a city- standard approach. So like where the driveway connects with Courtz Hill Road. Um that would have to be demolished and redone to like a city standard approach and that would have to tie in with their existing existing improvements. Um, I I just had one more thought and maybe it maybe the developer is great with it, but would it be also an option for them to abandon or give that end of the parcel? They're not using that end of the parcel um for anything other than that driveway. Would that be an option for them to abandon or to give that to that parcel, so they just own the driveway all the way in? I know that I know we cross where we cross city city city to county there. So

that that's the only issue. That's right. And that was some of the stuff with when I was trying to think through solutions for both is that yeah there's there is that issue where um it would cross it would cross the county line. So, without annexing that property, which I've never heard of a spot annex um or deanexing a part of the subdivision, which would also seem like overkill for for that driveway access. Um it doesn't seem like really the most feasible or practical path forward.

I guess I just seems like it would since it's only a benefit for them and they're the developer can't use it for anything else, it would make sense to just give it to that property owner to me is the most logical. I don't understand the complexities of city versus county, but um just a note, maybe it'll come up later or if anybody else has any clarity on the logistics of that, I wanted to bring that up as a possible option for the developer to cons for us to consider. That is it for me. Good. Commissioner God, push the button on your screen. There you go. There you go. Danny, is this market rate housing?

Yes. Okay, very good. Um, are the streets within the development city of Reading right ofway? Uh, they will be. Okay. I wanted to confirm that because there is an HOA and many times they take responsibility for the streets, but in this case, that's not a requirement. No. Okay. Um, in regard to the orderly egress in case of emergency, can you explain to me how that determination is made and who participates in coming to that conclusion? For instance, are the first responders involved in that part conversation?

Yeah. So um if I'm remembering correctly from um from the LHMP and the um and the other emergency documents. So um the the fire chief and city manager would be the first ones to know of any emergency and then they would pass that down and then the um police chief would be responsible for I must not have clarified that. I'm in your staff report it says we have there's orderly eress. Don't worry about it. My question is, how is that determination made other than a staff member's opinion and who participates in that determination? Sorry, I wasn't more clear.

Yeah. No, no, no, no. So, I mean, I think I've explained it to the best of my abilities. Um, there there are staff from police and fires from police and fire here. They're also available to answer any questions. So, I should have mentioned that before. So, that might be a a question better suited for them. Um, yeah, my understanding is I think uh PD sort of coordinates evac and then fire implements, but I I'd like to maybe invite them up maybe to answer your questions in particular, Commissioner Godard, if that's

Sure. Let me run through my other ones and we can can do that. I'm glad they're here. That would be helpful. Um the subject development the property there is has a very high fire zone rating but in the mitigated negative deck I was surprised that it's not shown as potentially significant that wildfire is not a potentially significant impact. That was also comments that was re received from the public. So I thought we could just address that.

Yeah. So um it's not that wildfire is has no impact, it's whether or not it's like a significant impact, right? And so, um, if if being if developing in the very high fire severity zone constituted in and of itself constituted a significant impact, then that would mean that every single project ever in the very high fire severity zone would need an EIR. And that's that's not the case. That hasn't been the recommendation of CalFire. Um, that's that hasn't been the recommendation of the California Attorney General. Um, and so we recognize that there are risks, but there's no there's no like significant threshold that that this project crosses that would um essentially kick this into an E. I mean, this is kind of standard to be expected. There are more risks with very high fire severity zone development, but that's why we have the California Residential Code section 337. That's why we have the certain conditions of approval addressing other fire related issues so that um so that the risks associated with developing in the very high fire severity zone are what's to be expected in the very high fire severity zone and not even more if that makes sense.

Thank you for that explanation. um on the pre-construction surveys. So if some subject um grass is discovered there

after this project is approved, what is the procedure? What is the mitigation for that type of finding? Yeah. So, the the mitigations um were actually taken directly from the new standard conditions of approval for subdivisions. Um and they were just inserted um virtually word for word um into the mitigation monitoring program. And so essentially consultation with um with fish and wildlife uh would need to be undertaken um and um that would consist of whatever fish and wildlife would require. Okay. So they would decide what mitigation. Okay. Very good. Thank you. And Mr. Chairman, you can invite fire whenever you want.

I have a question.

Yes. Uh my question is about the um the water that goes up the hill into the fire hydrants. So that that kind of feeds these complexes and things like that. So, um, you know, considering this because this this is what's in front of us and, you know, 58 dwellings are going to be sucking a lot of water. You know, I'm hearing irrigation, you know, helps with, uh, keeping, you know, the ground dry or I'm sorry, the ground wet and, you know, it's a fire prevention thing and all that. So, um, regarding the size of the pipe, I I don't know. I think the discussion is, um, you know, my I just go back to the Pacific Palisades. you know, firefighters got to the fire hydrants and it's as basic as could get. There was no there was no water there for whatever reason. They're going to figure that out later. And you know, that would be a tragedy for our firefighters to get there and there's no water there because everybody's sucking all the water out of the pipes. And then we find out 5 years later doing all the civil lawsuits that, oh yeah, that the pipe wasn't big enough or or we didn't have the pump going up the hill or all of these things. And so, you know, all the comments that we we have, the majority of them were fire related. So, if if we're using water to put out fire, then I think it's it's reasonable to discuss, you know, let's talk about water going up the hill. I mean, can you reassure all these people here that, you know, the city of Reading can provide can provide that to our firefighters?

Yeah. So, um you know, I'm I'm not in public works, but my understanding, you know, this this project's gone through multiple review cycles. um public works has looked at it um and um you know if there were issues with water supply with water pressure um that would have already been addressed um I have seen projects where where there are um water issues um and so it is something that's been on the that is on our radar um with this project it has not been flagged as any issue I mean to my knowledge there is adequate water pressure, adequate water supply. So, um I I don't think we're in like a Palisades uh situation with this, but again, I'm I'm not in public work, so I can't speak to the details, but I I um I do know that our process covers that and this has gone through the process. Um and so that there there's no there's no expectation for uh for limited water, limited pressure with this

development. I might add too to that, Commissioner, that um the California Fire Code will govern the the water pressures and flows required at both the hydrants as well as the dwellings and the the residential fire sprinkler design. And uh this zone of our city and I might ask uh Josh here to opine or someone from public works, but uh we're gravity fed and then I think booster pumped it booster pumped up. I think in Palisades you had infrastructure failing all over the place, right? So you had pipes burning up um uh pumps burning up uh losing flow alto together and and drying out. Not to say that couldn't happen and a real catastrophe but um we do have assurance from the code here that this will be adequately serviced with code level both uh uh fire hydrant pressures and flows and residential sprinklers as well. So um if you have further questions on the infrastructure public works side we could we could grab one of our experts but I just wanted to add that uh clarification. runs down this road and it's interconnected from major water draw trunk coming from from one lake and coming from the river on the other side. So th this is actually the good news is this one's a unique good news situation as it relates to that. There's plenty of other places where I I couldn't come to the defense of the water trunk line but here I can. And then we do, you know, during

I see my public works friend agreeing and I I see the engineer going, "Yes." And dur during our improvement plan review, um, you know, you'll rightsize the pipes, you'll do pressure testing and flow testing to to prove the flows are there. When our building inspectors go out to the homes, we actually inspect the flows three different times to check pressures and flows as well. So there's uh with the California Residential Code that Danny was mentioning earlier, as well as the California Fire Code, there are some good safeguards in place. Of course, you know, if there were to be a once in a thousand-y year catastrophe, you can't mitigate all risk. Um, but there is a good amount of safeguards in place in terms of fire flows.

Okay. So, I I hear that, but you know, there's a saying, you trust but verify. So, I would just ask as we, you know, if we're going to, you know, if we're going to approve this and you're going to put a lot of people up there on that hill, more development, let's go out and let's just trust but verify that, you know, we're not just saying here everything's good to go and then, you know, some thing hasn't been replaced in a few years and, you know, it needs to be replaced and things like that. So, that that I'm just doing I'm just saying that on, you know, behalf of the public. Let's just trust but verify, you know, if it's a very high, you know, fire zone and let's just make sure we're doing everything we can because it feels like this this neighborhood is what's in the room here tonight is much bigger than this neighborhood. It's just you got a lot of people up there and you know there's the carfire, you know, remnants are still up there. I was up there today driving around. They're still, you know, you can see it and so uh I think it just let's just trust but verify um that all of these things are working. these pipes are working and pump stations and we're not just saying that I know that there's a big pipe there. Let's get out there and let's just just put an eyeball on it. Just take a look at it. I think that's fair. It's fair. So, couple more questions. Um, so the uh we're going to widen the street. Is that part of this part of Courtville? Is that going to be widened at all?

Yeah. So, there's adequate ride ofway width, but the the improvement width will increase by about 8 feet. And that's flat road. Is that flat road and a sidewalk or just flat asphalt? Yeah, right now there's no uh curb gutter sidewalk on the north side of Quartz Hill Road in front of the project site. So, um there'd be curb gutter sidewalk and then Yeah, like that 8 foot kind of virtually like it's a basically a parking lane. Got it. And and in that area or does this does the city have like an audible like fire siren something to back up that that Genese plan or the Genese app like so if that thing doesn't work cell towers out? To my knowledge there I don't maybe I shouldn't speak to that. I'm not aware of any. We'll fire we'll have fire address that when they come up. Yeah.

Okay. Any like Okay. Just checking on that. And then um as far as like the roadway out there, you know, so wildfire conditions, things are burning. It's nighttime. And are there are there any plans for any of those like vertical delineators on the side of the road to keep people from driving off the cliff when they're evacuating? Like again, pro probably not a question for me. Uh public works. Yeah. Well, we'll leave that. I think as well our fire marshall would be able to speak to that. Commissioner, that would be outside of just that would probably be outside of the scope of the project itself. Sure. Sure. Sure. Okay. Great. That's all I have right now. Thank you. Very good.

Co's fine. Let's go right over here then to Commissioner Ryan. Mine was about not specifically where the project is because I know that as we saw the other project and this one it's widening that section of road but when you look at the egress from that area it all necks down into you know itty bitty up to Kezwick which is very narrow and small and then headed down the hill gets you know just uh squeezed. So, what I'm reading on this says that they can open up both lanes to egress. The problem is you've got uh fire and ambulance and whatever coming up the hill. You can't really have both lanes going out. Am I missing something?

Well, so with development, we get these improvements. Um and so next door is the cottages which is going in that will open up that section to be wider. Um, and with with future development, those those sections open up. So, we're looking at like the ultimate and that this is like pushing us in the direction towards that ultimate. Um, what else can I add to that?

I mean, I understand that that this developer isn't responsible for widening the street all the way down to to Lake Writing Park. I I get I get that. That's not that wouldn't fall on them, but I'm just wondering kind of in in the city's general uh sense of it. Seems like we're we're widening right there, but they're all ultimately going to wind up on a little two-lane road on either end. Yeah. I mean, I I think about this from a project to project basis, but maybe public works.

Yeah. To add to the point, so the courts section that's kind of concern here is would be from about Snow Lane to Terteranova. Um, and that's where the city had the project going on during the car fire. So, that road was widened and we have over 36 feet of usable pavement. And a typical lane is 12 ft. So, we could convert that to actually three lanes. Two coming down, one going up for emergency vehicle services if needed. Of course, would need to be within our EOP, the city's EOP, which will be updated. So, so yes, we have we have the usable pavement space for three through that some would call the choke point. Okay.

Commissioner will I just had a question about the parking especially down towards the end. Is that going to be managed by the homeowners association? just because you said that in the report there was lots of parking along the new uh landscaping which there is but then it kind of crams down there in that culdesac and I'm assuming those two trash enclosures 22 and 11 that's right where they're going to be and so all of that's going to be managed by the HOA

no so there there will probably be significant red curbing that will be required out there and um a lot of that culde-sac is going to be red curb I'm not going to lie. Um, and so parking, as far as parking being a challenge from what uh people are used to in the suburbs, yes, you might not be able to park right in front of your house, but the subdivision as a whole should have plenty of capacity for parking. People might just have to walk a few houses. Is that where the tandem parking came in? The idea of that for those at the end allowing the tandem parking because that's not up to code. Correct.

Uh well, it's not typically allowed with the standard rules of the PD. It's allowed with the plan development plan. It's allowed. Overlay. Okay. Um and that tandem parking that actually comes from a different area that that the tandem parking allowed for garages on some of those duplex twotory duplexes to go down to single garage doors to add for more variation and um and to add for the potential for, you know, I can just zoom back here real quick and show you. So on these, notice the the these are double, right? And these are singles. Mhm.

So this you can stack two cars in there still, but it allows for some of the designs to potentially have more like actual I I I kind of wanted the there to be the availability to have more windows on the street because with these duplexes, you do get a lot of garage dominance. And so, um, by allowing for some of these tandem loading garages, you kind of can cut back on some of that garage dominance in the neighborhood. So, it was a little bit more of a neighborhood design ask um that I made to the to the developer or to the applicant to include that. It wasn't so much a parking issue. It was more of a neighborhood design potential. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. I had one random question if I may and that is uh twice heard reference to the private park. Is it a private park with a public easement so it's open to the public although it's maintained by the private HOA or is this a private park meaning someone puts a you know the only people that live there or the HOA regulates who comes and goes to the park.

Yeah. So the the the draft conditions of approval don't require an easement to be put over the park. Um so I in effect it would be a completely private park. Um if the HOA wishes to police that I I assume that would be their right since it would be private property. I'll categorize that as things that make you go huh. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions of staff? Well, let's uh let's let fire and police, should they choose to speak to it and so um uh director, if you don't mind facilitating this piece because you know who's who and have them speak and address our questions.

Sure. And I'll look at them, but I think last time we started with police in terms of their role with evacuation. Would that be okay with you guys to have police come up first and speak to your role in coordinating uh evacuation? Then we'll have our fire marshals um speak to their role as well and answer any questions you have. Thank you.

Hello, Lieutenant Rob Granero with the uh special services unit running police. Uh I would say that uh as a police department, all police departments in the northern region of California have come a very long way uh since we started experience these massive fires. Uh even before the car fire, we were going to different parts of the Northern California to help other agencies, other counties, and uh with the Genesis project, working closely with our partnerships, other law enforcement agencies and fire departments, uh we've learned a lot and made several improvements. Uh so when a large fire, if a large fire were to kick off in this region, again, fire typically takes main control of the fire. That's their thing. You know, it's a fire. We would take the role of helping with evacuations and once the areas are evacuated, security of the neighborhoods, road closures and such to prevent looting, etc. Uh, with the Genesis project and the experiences we've learned from these large fires, I think we well, I know we would be evacuating residents way sooner than we have in the past as we practice in more current fires. Um, with that we would be able to pull from CHP, Shasta County Sheriff, Marshalss, Anderson Police, even Syscue County agencies, Trinity County agencies would come help us with evacuations, getting people out, and that would aid the Genesis app, which people would get on their phone. As far as alarms, one of the chair mention alarms. When these fires kick off, we generally roll through neighborhoods uh sounding our sirens and we also have pre-programmed um announcements to the citizens. Hey, you need to evacuate, it's a mandatory evacuation, what have you. Uh our primary area of concern in these incidences are the immediate evacuations, but then when that's done, we'll go on to the other neighborhoods that could be affected and warn them. You have to start packing, this could happen, etc., So they're in the know. As

far as egress, uh we do have the ability. I'm I'm very familiar with this area. I worked it during the car fire and with this area of Courtzill Road under construction, we were stable still able to get everybody out of that area safely. Um and a reasonable time without using Courtsill as much as we would like to. And that was that was in 2018. As I previously said, we weren't as good at this. We it was a shock to all of us. I remember I uh my father's house burned down Lamb Park and I remember earlier that evening I'd been the other side of the river and the fire was they looked to be stamped out spot fires and the firefighters told us hey it's pretty good to go home. I went home and a couple hours later the car fire went up the hill into those neighborhoods and we all had to run into work uh last minute the whole department start just evacuations. It was utter chaos. I can assure you that would not happen now. If a fire like this were to kick off now, we would do all evacuations. We'd be extra cautious and monitoring everything. Um, in terms of egress, like I said, we work closely with fire. Uh, we can open up Courtz Hill Road depending on where the fire were to come into this neighborhood. If it's coming to the west, we could possibly even squeeze people out to Kzwick Dam Road. Uh, even North Quartzill Road as it reconnects to Lake there. There are a lot of different avenues of escape in this area. It all depends on where the fire is coming from. Uh the good thing about Courtz Hill Road is from this location, it's not very far down to the intersection of Benton and you can take Benton or you can continue on to Market Street. We have the ability with all of our resources to open up two lanes, push people through down to those intersections, and when we're we're at those intersections, we can close those down and additional intersections if needed. and that opens up more avenues of egress for the citizens. Uh so I'm confident in looking at these plans and others that we would be able to with our partnership of fire and other agencies be able to successfully evacuate

everyone in the worst case scenario which would be in the middle of the night when everyone's homes any questions of law enforcement. Go ahead. See can you hear me? Yes. Thank you sir for your uh for your service. Uh, is there is there any parking restrictions or no stopping restrictions on Courtzill for vehicles as far as this neighborhood area or

Well, just you know up Courtsill around that. I mean, yeah. Is there is there any like no is there no parking or can people park on the side of Court Hill if they wanted to? It's I'm not too familiar if there's no parking signs posted, but you can't the way Court Hill's designed, you can't park on the road is in a condition that you're actually over the shoulder into the traffic lane or around a turn where you present a hazard to other motorists. Yeah, I'm sorry. Not in a traffic lane, but just on the side. You know, you if you got off the road and could you park there? It just depends on which part of the courts hill you're talking about if it's a danger or hazard or not.

Okay, gotcha. Um, yeah, just, you know, if we're going to use court seal as our main artery to get out of there, then I know maybe we could consider no parking, no stopping, restricting that during, you know, red red flag conditions or something like that. Have some signs you could flip around. Um, other cities do that just because if that's going to be our that's going to be our way out, you know, we might have some cars parked out there because if we're going to do three lanes back in the town and one emergency lane, if you got a couple pars cars parked there, it might kind of get in the way. Does that does that make sense? Yeah. So, currently it's not signed as a no parking, but with the addition of the buffered class 2 bike lanes. Yeah.

CBC code does not you are not allowed to actually stop, park, or stand within a bike lane. So those there should never be a case where somebody's parked in the bike lane. If there is, PD could enforce per CVC. So I I would think the risk is low. It's a possibility um that somebody could but that street kind of like es and flows. There's all sorts of things going on with it.

Yeah. Well, from with with the projects that are approved uh with the cottages, with this project and the vistas, the bike lanes will continue continuously all the way down until you get to uh Harland like Reading. So, so that will be mitigated for that. I mean, an addition of no parking signs is something to consider.

I mean, it wouldn't hurt. I mean, if if let's just again, if that's our main artery and I live up there and I know that's my way out and the city's going to let people just park there randomly, they find an open spot and and it blocks an arterial route out of there, then it's a no parking sign, you know, and um I think that it's, you know, just because it's just a priority area. And then um as far as like with uh like if you had an accident, so let's say you're doing an evacuation out of there, do you have like a does a city have I know you have like a tow trucks like on contract, but do we pre-stage them when when a fire is coming into town or do you do anything like that just so he had to yank a car out of the road to keep the people evacuated?

Yes, we we can place them on standby. We have several rotational tow companies, but um most typically in a situation like this, what we do is push it out of the way with our patrol vehicles with the push bumpers or any other equipment we could find. Okay, that and abandon it. Okay, it's all safe to return. Okay, sir. Thank you. Thank you very much. That's all.

Thank you, Lieutenant. Wondering if we should have fire come to the left turn briefly. Yeah, I'll invite Jay Summerland, Deputy Fire Chief, to come up. Good evening. I'm Jay Summerland. I'm deputy fire chief and inram fire marshal for the city of Reading. Um some of the comments that I've overheard you guys talking about um one of them the very tip of it we're talk you were talking about giving that to the county. I wouldn't I wouldn't like that from a fire department standpoint because I want defensible space on court because it's an arterial to evacuate people. I can't enforce things in county land but I can do our own land. Um so I would I wouldn't be for that. um just because of that reason because that's my defensible space. That's a the Courtz Hill Road is a safe refuge area as people transverse down the hill. Um fire has a hard time getting through all those houses and across there while we're in the middle of evacuation. We'll be evacuating a lot sooner than you have seen in the past because of technology. Um one of the other comments that was brought up was about speaker systems. The the problem with that is they go for miles and we're trying to use technology to leverage phasing in a orderly evacuation of our community. And some of the biggest problems in past fires is that a notice goes out through cellular towers and if you just happen to be driving through it'll say evacuate. Well, I may not want you to evacuate because you're not in an area that's in danger. You just happen to be in an area where your cell phone hit a cell tower and you're getting the warning even though I really don't want

you to leave, which adds congestion ahead of you. But if I use technology like Genesis Protect, like we have invested as a community and county in, I can then systematically start evacuating in the areas that make sense for the progression of how the fire is coming or the flood or whatever disaster we're dealing with. Um, and then it's systematically we're we're slowly pushing people out of the endangered area from the most critical to the least critical as the fire progressive. That's the whole idea behind it. loudspeakers again they work on in some situations but I I think I would for my personal opinion we would we should stay away from that leverage our uh technology to uh specifically pinpoint xycoordinates of where you are and that's what Genesis Protect does if you download it as an application uh on your phone. I would love to see in the future that it's a requirement in the state of California that a program like that is embedded in the software. So if you come into the state of California, no matter where you are, if you go into an area that's either in a warning or an evacuation, automatically your phone goes off. It doesn't require you to download something. It's just automatic. That's where we should be leveraging this. not putting up huge towers that broadcast out or using largecale cellular connectivity where we're just blanketing the entire community to leave when in fact we need to be systematic about how we look at our community and how they're released into other areas for safe refuge. Uh another one was about our water system. Uh we're very very concerned about that as a fire department and actually if you read our community wildfire protection plan we have identified our water tower systems and trying to protect those uh from fire hitting them and affecting our water

supply. So we are very aware of it. Um and we have mitigation factors that we have planned for future fuel mitigation projects. Um and those are part of our critical infrastructure. Same thing with Courtz Hill Road. as part of critical infrastructure that is a major route of travel for evacuating that region of our community. Uh so we put we will put resources to clearing land so that it's a buffer for the community to be able to use it without huge without being in huge danger.

I think I got most of the questions you chair. We've got one more question here. Could you discuss a little bit? CalFire comes up with these recommendations, correct? Which which ones? Well, like the survey report and I know a lot of subdivisions have been flagged very high fire zones, but could you just talk a little bit about what actually triggers a secondary exit or a third and how many people?

Yeah, they're looking at the 30 homes, I believe, is the threshold that they use. What they don't look at is they're just looking at housing development. So, I don't know what the fire code was or the subdevelopment code was in 1972, but if that housing development was built in ' 72, they're taking something from today and putting it over the top of it and saying, "Well, you don't meet today's code." Well, yeah. No. Yeah, that it doesn't. It was built in 1972. Um, so you have some of those that are part of that problem. Um, and yeah, it would be great to have two ways out um, of every housing development. Um, and all the new projects just like the one that's before you today, there are two exits that you can have traffic go on to Courtz Hill Road. They can go left or right. So, this would meet the criteria for what Calire says is the requirement because you can come out of your development, go or left or right to get out. Um it doesn't take into conditions of where the fire is coming at any given moment because nobody knows where the fire would be coming from. Um so this development meets all those requirements, meets all the fire code and everything that Calire would say about this project would be fun.

I just think that's reassuring for people to hear because there's a different what you guys have in standard and what CalFire recommends isn't necessarily have to do. It's just a recommendation. It's a recommendation. Um and and it may someday show up in a fire code. Um but it's not there right now. Right. Okay.

What what I might add to in that vein because the CalFire recommendations do confuse a lot of folks. It it causes a lot of worry amongst the community because it it appears as though CalFire is flagging all these neighborhoods that aren't compliant with law. Um the reality is here in Reading, we've had a local code requirement to our fire code for many years. Um the California fire code actually says if you sprinkler your houses that you can have one means of access and meet code. Um our local code has said actually we're okay with that up to 49 units. Uh for a long time it's been that if you build for more than 49 units, we don't care if you're sprinklered or not, you're putting in

a second means of egress. And that's been that way for for decades now. So we have many subdivisions in town that are fully compliant with the code, have been built to code, have multiple means of egress to an arterial road that they connect to. The problem is the code then doesn't consider, okay, if I build a subdivision next to a subdivision next to a subdivision to the end of time, you can have two means of egress from those subdivisions to a road, eventually that common road will get congested, will reach its capacity. Um, we're beginning to study that now. The law requires it. the general plan requires it. I don't think we're based on our experts in the room and our fire and PD, we don't think we're anywhere close to that on court cell at this time. But I think it's important to note that a lot of subdivision maps have been approved in the last 20 25 years that meet code that have multiple means of access that actually exceed the code in terms of egress because like I said, the code says if your homes are sprinklered, you can go unlimited. I mean, I think it says that even today. Still, the latest edition still says if you're sprinklered, you only need one means of access in and out of a subdivision that could be hundreds of homes. We don't do that here in Reading, though. We cap it at 49. And that's and we have and always will. In fact, it's looking like into the future, and Jay would pine on this, that Reading might go down to 30 homes uh because that's the way the state's going to to require multiple means of access. But just to just to put a sort of footnote on that that um yeah that the CalFire recommendations and their subdivision survey has caused a lot of concern. Um the reality is in short that reading's been doing more than the code requires for quite some time.

Um Jeremy, but pertinent to this project is the CalFire recommendation that there needs to be an additional evacuation route. Do you want to respond to that? Yeah, I I think um it's being misconstrued that CalFire is recommending a secondary egress for the Quartz Hill area when in fact if you look at the GIS map that CalFire put together there's two neighborhoods they identified. I think Sper Road neighborhood and then one down the hill. I don't know if Jay if you know but there's a there's two I think it's Raven not Ravenwood I don't have the map in front of me but there's two neighborhoods. CalFire further didn't really define what a neighborhood meant. In the development world, we think of a neighborhood as a subdivision map. They just drove down streets and said, "Well, this is Sper Drive. It's a neighborhood," which we don't even know if that matches up with a technically a map or not. But what they said is they looked at Sper Drive, for example, and they counted more than 30 homes. They literally got in their trucks and went around neighborhoods and counted houses. I think some of our fire personnel were with them. Um, once they exceeded 30 homes, they flagged that subdivision and they made a recommendation. we should put another means of access from Sper Drive out somewhere. They didn't identify where. So the CalFire recommendation isn't that Quartz Hill is failing and needs a second arterial somewhere. The CalFire recommendations are this group of homes and this group of homes only has one way to get to Courtz Hill. We recommend a second way be put in. which ironically enough with the peaks project which I know we're not talking about and I won't go on because my city attorney will look at me but that project is actually proposing a secondary access to Buura from Spker would actually satisfy a CalFire recommendation in that regard right so it's confusing I think it's been misunderstood so the more we can explain to the public and hear your questions and concerns um and sort of really identify what CalFire is in fact recommending the better but in this case hopefully that clears it up

[Music] Yeah, deputy chief. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Sorry, I'm Thomas Stickler on the mic.

This time I knew exactly what you were telling me to do. Uh, director, thank you. We're we're going to become a team yet. Um, thank you. Thank you very much. So, with that, what I'm going to do next is I'm going to open the public hearing. I have a card right in front of me that says uh Mr. Mike Dormer, I will invite you to the lect turn. Good afternoon members of the commission. Mike Dormer with the firm of Sheridap Sawyer representing the property owner. Um lot of conversation about this one. Uh, this project has been in the works with staff for over two years. So, there's been a lot of back and forth between us and staff. We've looked at numerous layouts, um, numerous issues with respect to not only access, but utilities and all the things that you can imagine. what you see right there. Um, every bit of that layout has been touched and changed and revised as we've worked with planning to get to the point today where we think we have the best option um, available to serve this very uniquely shaped property with some of its limitations. Um, most of the items that I was prepared to talk about have been talked about at Nauseium. Um, so I'm here to answer any questions you may have.

I think uh while he's got his time at the moment, if anyone has a question for Mr. Dorma, we can do so. Seeing none at this time. Thank you, Mr. Dorma.

Um, I will add one thing. Mr. Nance had a good question with respect to the really the water supply for this project and Mr. Winnham who's familiar with this area. Um, I agree. Um, a lot of things at both ends of this system would have to go wrong for this to not have water available. I mean, we all think back about the Pacific Palisades fire and all of that was gone in this reservoir was empty and there was no water in the hydrants and all that. This is not Pacific Palisades. This has multiple sources of water and multiple things will have to go wrong for this not to have water during a fire situation. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. I have another card here, Mr. Mark Henkins. Commissioners, staff. Thank you. My name is Mark Hinkkins. I am a owner and resident of 2020 Benton Drive here in Reading. Um, prodevelopment. I totally believe that we need multif family housing for the future of the community to allow people modern homes to live in and uh with what I've seen at Reading in the time I've lived here. Very proud of the community. I'm not here to be concerned about uh the catastrophic uh events that we've talked about today. I wanted to talk about the day-to-day impact of not this subdivision, but this subdivision plus all the other subdivisions that seem to be approved along Quartzill Road. It

seems that that's the where the city ready seems to be expanding and adding a lot of homes uh over the next uh years or so. And of course that generates substantial additional daily uh traffic uh count along Quartz Hill Road and into the neighborhoods that form the wider community. Uh, I'm particularly concerned about Benton Drive being that I'm a resident and land owner and property owner on Benton Drive. Um, I I believe Benton Drive is categorized in the general plan as a feeder road. Uh, whereas Quartz Hill Road is a primary arterial road leading out to Market Street. Uh, Benton Drive is a one lane each direction road with a curve and it's not used as a feeder road. It's used as a high-speed unregulated cut through uh to access the freeway and with all of these thousands of additional car trips every day. I believe that Benton Drive will be continued to be uh overused. It's not a feeder road. It's a cut through. Uh I believe there some form of traffic management is needed uh along the Benjon Drive as we build out uh all of these Quartzill Road developments so that it protects the neighborhoods. Uh at some point there's going to be an accident. Someone's going to get killed there. Uh that corner is pretty sharp. They fly around there in trucks and vans and cars, you know, 50 55 miles an hour. I think it's probably a 30 mph street. I'm not too sure what it is. Uh but it it's it's a disaster I think that's been uh compounded through all this development. So prodevelopment, but I think we have to look at the wider traffic management for the neighborhood. And I think Benon Drive is abused and um

it's it's going to get worse. So please do look at the wider traffic management solutions for the neighborhoods. And with that, thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. I do see one other person making their way up right now. Elizabeth or Jennifer. That's right. There. There we go. Thank you.

Thank you. Oh, there we go. I think it says John Puit. Can you hear me?

Can you hear me? Yes.

Hi, my name is John Puit. I live just off of that map on River Park Drive, which is parallel to Portsville Road. And during the car fire and after the car fire, hundreds of vehicles per day came up and down our street to the point that it destroyed the roaded. And I share similar concerns with the prior gentleman who just spoke about the traffic impact on Portsill, Portsill Road, Benton Road, uh, Court Street, and um, my neighborhood especially because lots of people come down Market Hill, Street Hill, Catacross Benton, instead of going to the corner at Courts Hill Drive and going up Courts Hill, they go through our neighborhood and they go about 35 or 40 miles an hour through our neighborhood. And it happens every single day. I see it every single day. And so this is going only only going to make matters worse in our neighborhood. And I think that the the speed limit on Benton is supposed to be 35 miles an hour. I try to do 35, but I'm always backing up five or six people by the time I get to by time we get to Market Street. So the other issue that my wife wants me to ask about is are you going to put a stoplight at Terra Vista where Terra Vista comes out just off of this map. Terra Vista exits out onto um Courtzill Drive and the traffic getting out there in the mornings is very very dangerous. People come down in this stretch. I've seen people going 65 miles an hour easily and when you're trying to come out of a side street and people are driving so fast or you're going to have to put a light up right there at that intersection, I think it's a real a real possibility you're going to need someday sooner or later you're going to have to put traffic light there. So, that's just the comments I wanted to make and concerns I have. The other thing is I really wish you had buried the electrical when you widened Cordsville Road because um the car fire came along and burned down all the wooden telephone poles and that they just we asked the city to bury it prior to the widening of

the road and they said, "Oh, it's not in our budget. This is just for a bike lane." And we talked with the city engineers about it. So I would be very hopeful that the city would think about burying the electrical in that neighborhood in that in this whole region. So that's all I have to say. Very good. Thank you, sir. Oh, uh sir, uh go ahead and stay stay there. We've got a question for Were you saying at Terteranova Court on Teranova Drive? Is that where you is that where would you like the traffic light? Teranova.

Teranova, right? Teranova. Sorry. Okay, got it. Thank you. Thank you. With that, what I'm going to do is close the public hearing and I'm going to uh uh start by turning to staff and um Assistant Director Anthony. Uh there was a question about Tiara Nova Courts. Um any any input on that in terms of um uh meeting requirements for traffic signal today or in the near future? at this time and I was trying to look at my notes here from the traffic report that was prep prepared with the project believe that was an intersection they studied um the acceptable levels of delay were not they didn't pass that threshold uh to create and warrant some kind of traffic control device whether or not be a four-way stop whether it be a traffic signal so until that delay I mean and I We've all sat there waiting to make a left turn and waiting for your gap. Um there are standards that we follow and until we exceed that standard, a signal wouldn't be warranted. And I believe the conclusions of this traffic impact report ultimately decided it's not warranted. And again, that's what traffic signals should be used for is for traffic flow and mitigation. Traffic signals unfortunately are not an appropriate safety device at all times whether or not we feel that an intersection may be unsafe. There are other mitigation efforts that we can utilize instead of a traffic signal. So it really those types of infrastructure should be used to make the flow of traffic improve where

it has decreased or degraded. Thank you. What what else do you use? I don't know all this. I'm I'm I'm new. So for safety reasons. Yeah. So instead of a light, what would be some other?

Well, the first the first and foremost when it comes to safety, and I heard a lot about speeding is we rely on enforcement. We rely on our boys in blue to go out there, try and slow people down with just sitting. You know, a lot of times everybody sees a cop on the side of the road. What's the first thing you do? You let off the gas. So, we would try and do that at first. Uh, in this area being an arterial, there's not a lot of safety, you know, we wouldn't put cur uh what we call speed tables where you see those in neighborhoods to slow people down, the big speed bumps.

Yeah, the big bumps. So, if we wanted to talk what safety devices could be used, John Caldwell, traffic operations manager, is here. Um, but when it comes to an arterial road, it's kind of there's there's not a lot of tools in our tool chest for that. Thank you. I did two items while you're um still have your microphone turned on. One is and I would just ask it's it's generally outside of our purview, but there were two items that came up that I would just like you to uh to jot them down and take them away. And one of them is taking a look at Benton and uh being aware of the concerns that were expressed there. Uh definitely that's a tired old road that uh carries a lot of traffic and it's cutthrough. We all know that and so to u um you know just just take that away with you and your staff. Number two is I thought it was a very interesting comment the um say proactively no parking along Courts Hill knowing that it is a critical evac even though there's more studies coming that sort of thing. We know that there's more work uh that the city is going to be looking at, but that there there are processes to do that and that is a very intriguing idea that I would just want to leave you with and remind you to say take that one away and um ponder as my father would say.

Absolutely. And and yeah, the the no parking signage I think it is something the city should look at. I don't believe the project should be responsible for that. It would be a city driven initiative to same thing I was suggesting. Yes sir.

So with that any other questions of staff or discussion amongst commissioners or are we ready to uh consider our next steps? I say I'll be happy to uh hear a motion. Um, I'll make Go ahead. I saw you flinch.

Okay. Um, I'll make a motion that we approve the tenative subdivision map application S-20223-000082 as presented. And uh if I may before I ask for a second and the plan development and any other findings we're supposed to have as articulated by staff. Yep. Thank you. Is there a second? I'll second the motion. We had a second. Any other discussion amongst the commissioners? Seeing none, all in favor say I. I. I. Anyone opposed? Nay.

We had one nay. Very good. Thank you. Okay. So that item uh we are uh completed with at this point I would say um um your I was just kind of a point of order. Should members that are in the audience as evidenced by our our fellows wearing blue uniforms over there, they've done this before. If you want to bail, now is the time to do that while we're transitioning to the next item or the next item also will be very interesting, I'm sure. Um, before we move on to the next item, what I wanted to do is recuse myself. Is that where we are here? Yes. I lost track of my agenda here. I've got number four. Here we go. Yes. Number five is the oral report on the um on the uh riverfront specific plan. And what I'll do is we'll take a moment, a restroom break moment. I will also recuse myself and as required by best practices I will explain why I'm recusing because the company I work for and myself personally have done a small amount of consulting on that project working for another consultant working for the city. And so with that we will turn the meeting over to uh Vice Chair Lesie Will and I'll let her resume the meeting as soon as our other commissioner wanders back. Thank you very much. So, we're on break. Let's do five minutes.

Hello.

El. Oh, Jennifer, were we missing Elizabeth? We're waiting on you.

Okay. Okay. We're going to call the meeting back to order. So, if we could get quiet and I believe Director Jeremy Pagan is going to be presenting to us. So, I will turn it over to Jeremy. check mic. Thank you. Well, thank you uh Vice Chair Willm and members of our planning commission and uh good evening community members. Um tonight I'll be um speaking uh to you about a Reading Riverfront specific plan update. Um the purpose of this presentation really is to get in front of the community again and to give you all an opportunity to hear what's going on. Um to also provide your public input as well as to get our feedback and input from our planning commission on this very important project that the city is is uh undertaking currently. This will largely be um sort of a a recap and a summary of what went to council a number of months ago. So if you've tuned into that or went to that council meeting, this should be familiar. I'm going to add on some comments at the end that we received from the city council and then importantly I want to hear from our planning commission um regarding the feedback you have for this project. Uh first to just sort of set the stage especially for some of our newer commissioners or community members that might not know what a specific plan is. A specific plan is is a planning document that pertains to a very specific part of our town. So we have one for our downtown area. We also have one currently for our riverfront and it's about 30 years old. We're looking to update it. So it's a community vision for a particular spot of town. It has design guidelines for that particular area of town. It's usually uh supported by an economic analysis to sort of look at market factors and what's feasible and it generally includes a circulation and transportation as part of that analysis as well as infrastructure. And then uh importantly we do an

environmental analysis for the specific planning area. So this will have its own environmental impact report. What a specific plan does not include is it's not a it's not a development. It's not a project. It's not going to build anything. Um it sets the stage and the rules and the guidelines for future development. So you can see there at the bottom uh all future projects need to be consistent with this plan in the future. But the city is not building anything as part of this project. It sets the stage for future development. So in terms of schedule, you can see here we're into mid to late 2025. We had a community coalition we put together that I'll talk about a little bit more later. Lots of discussions and open houses. And here we're right before the specific plan gets drafted and the environmental impact report begins to be written. So we're checking in with the planning commission tonight. In a couple weeks, we'll check in with our community services advisory commission. Then we intend to go back to city council with one last check-in to get everyone's feedback, more opportunity for the public to give us input, and then hopefully get council's blessing to write the plan, write the EIR, and then we'll be back before this body hopefully at the beginning of next year, probably early 2026, and more opportunity for engagement along the way. Like I said, we started this whole thing off with a big open house. More than 200 people attended at Civic. We did community coalition uh meetings which was about 20 people a little less uh from all around the community representing different property owners, different stakeholders uh to start dreaming up this plan and listening to the vision of the community. That was in late 23. Uh we did an indigenous listening session in 24 which was really great. Uh we had more than 50 participants. Um some key themes you'll see there in terms of just recognizing past wrongs um honoring their heritage and culture. uh understanding the importance of the land uh to our indigenous partners and stewarding of the land. So, a lot of good feedback from them and we're working to incorporate some of their ideas and some of their vision into this

document as well that you'll see later. Community discussions happened in mid 2024. We had over 100 people attend two workshops. We had over 900 people take an online survey. Some of you might have even been a part of those engagements. And the idea here was we were throwing sort of alternatives and ideas and we produced these heat maps. In this case, you'll see um building use. We were talking about lower scale and natural scale of materials. You can see in the survey lots of people liked that over 500 people and then it it went from I really like it worth considering to all the way to I'm not sure. So you got to have a chance to say I like that idea and then you got to put it on a map in terms of where you want to see the idea. So, we went through a lot of great polling, a lot of great feedback in that. Um, let's see. I want to make sure I didn't skip one. And then in here recently in May, we did a community open house before we went to the city council. We had overund 140 people about uh attend that. Again, getting more feedback, more ideas. And what we're trying to do is funnel down from a vision into alternatives into actually what we're calling now emerging concepts so that we can then hone in this scope and start developing a plan. Uh just a list here of community partners and other stakeholders that we've been having ongoing discussions with. I won't read them all there. Um but this presentation is available in the packet uh online. It's uh reading riverfront.org. we've posted it there and there'll be opportunities for any one of you and commissioners to to view this afterwards as well. Um, so the vision framework is what was developed early on in the process that was through our our open houses and also through our community coalition. Seven key pillars of that here, uh, centering around the environment, indigenous community, um, our entertainment venues, uh, scale and use, recreation, connected spaces, and memorable and vibrant places. And so this is what we heard from the community and these are sort of the pillars of the document. So in other words, everything you hear me talk about later needs to be

able to connect back to one of these pillar elements. When we have a finished plan, we should be able to point to all of these and say, "Yeah, the plan is accomplishing these uh vision elements. So real quickly, uh with a healthy and of course we're we're doing a plan about the river. So vision element A is about the environment, right? Uh let's celebrate the immense natural beauty of the river, protect the river. um low and no impact development. How do we how do we encourage that? And how do we encourage more open space? So, uh open space, passive recreation, trails along our riverfront, uh particularly in the northern riverfront, um but also along our park marina corridor. How do we improve connectivity and get folks along the river? Uh it's a little more challenging when you're talking p uh private property versus public property. Um second up is of course respecting the indigenous community, past, present, and future. Again, we're talking about a river. We're talking about sensitive habitat and environment. Of course, uh the lands of the indigenous uh community, uh the folks that were here before us. And so, honoring that, um engaging with them and talking with them. We've had a number of great conversations. Again, protecting uh cultural resources and access. So access is a big deal to our indigenous community partners in terms of uh getting access to the river for for ceremonies and for uh you know um just uh connecting with the land and having an opportunity to be co-stewarding is the word you would use co- stewarding the land along with us and then uh B5 is an interesting concept of indigenous owned and operated cultural centers and spaces and I'll get on some examples there uh entertainment venues of course the north has our rodeo grounds it has the civic auditorium it as Turtle Bay. Um, so one of the visions of this plan is to improve upon all that to keep it viable. Uh, and so that that Reading remains the center of sort of the region, right? We're we're sort of the urban center for the larger region. How do we maintain that and improve it? It's all about the viability and success um

of these uses and to expand upon them too. Um again we we highlighted economically viable being important uh uh for the foreseeable future to ensure that we can continue to have uh arts, culture, entertainment, sports, rodeo, all the great things that are going on up there. And we want to really highlight the riverfront as a highlight of the reading cultural district. Appropriate scale and use. Uh like I've mentioned um really down by the river, you we don't want to end up, you know, seeing a hundredstory uh you know u duplex building go or know you know condo building go up there. We don't want to see giant big form and scale. You want the scale to match what's there. You want it to be low to no impact. Um this is what we heard from the community. Neighborhood focused amenities. Uh increasing those especially for the southern riverfront because the southern riverfront abuts um the park marina drive corridor abuts the neighborhood there to the west in the coo tract. Um the northern riverfront um creating vibrant and active public uses um and then finding a way to maintain or even reduce developed site um coverage. And then on the Park Marina side in the south, um, consider how development on Park Marina will impact existing and future circulation. So, we also have a Park Marina Drive corridor study that's been wrapped up for a bit, although I don't think we've taken it back to council quite yet. I'm looking at Josh. I don't think we have yet, but um, the Park Marina Drive corridor has been studied and looked at in terms of circulation. That's going to tie into this plan as well. And then private recreation. And so we've heard from a lot of folks in the community paddle boarding um you know uh onwater activity um whitewater recreation and the like. Um so next up that gets us to worldclass recreation. We have folks that have like told us about um you know low impact like white water. I think they have one up in Bend um paddle boarding other kinds of activities on and off the water. Um the idea came about from the community like having writing be the base camp for outdoor adventure and how do we leverage that with our riverfront and then again low impact activities. So

we're not talking about um you know jet skis and power boats and these kind of things but low impact recreation in and around our river. Um connected spaces so connecting with the natural area and also this specific plan area is near and close to the downtown specific plan. So, not only connected spaces within the specific plan area, but also um to our downtown. How do we make that happen? And then lastly, uh I think this is the last one. Yeah, memoral and vibrant places. So, community gathering places um how do we tailor it to the riverfront? And then how do we identify uh funding mechanisms such as improvement districts or otherwise to sort of make this cohesive and make this a memorable and vibrant and cohesive uh planning area? So, I'm going kind of quick through this. This is some background a lot of folks have heard. Um so commissioners if you do have a question a burning question want to interrupt me please feel free otherwise at the end we can take all those but all that vision element comes to this diagram where we talk about land use mobility and activities and so from the south to the north you can see it's more riverfront office commercial there in the middle and I'll use this pointer here in the middle and parker drive you're looking more at mixeduse and waterfront commercial we have actually some uh residential development here and then up here it transitions to hospitality to sort of mirror the Sherin as well as some mixed use and then public um public facilities, civic and cultural facilities as well as an abundance of open space and recreation. So, this isn't a zoning uh map of any sort, but it is sort of trying to to take the vision we've heard from the community and parse out how we see those vision elements actually looking at a map and looking at the planning area. And then you'll see on this map too uh connectivity with our trails. So bike ped and other ways to get around as well as um this concept of highway 44 redesign which we'll talk about in a little bit. Um so connectivity is a piece of this as well as um trails and recreation as well. So again a highlevel

sort of framework diagram. What we've heard from the community on what I just talked about many favor the greenway trail. Um many feel like we need conservation easements in place to protect open space. Of course, the 100red-year flood plane is going to be critical when we talk about development along the river. Um, enhancing Reading's beauty uh by preserving and increasing natural areas. Again, not a surprise that a lot of uh concern, a lot of feedback on enhancing, protecting our natural environment because again, we're talking about a significant portion of our city that's right along the river. Um, let's see. trails passing through private properties was and is a concern, although we've made some adjustments and tweaks to that because we've been listening to some neighbors and have been rerouting some schematic trails that go up and down Park Marina Drive. Um, and then a lot feel that the southern riverfront should be activated. So, we know that uh the southern riverfront is when I talk about Highway 44 to Cypress right along Park Marina Corridor. A lot of us that have lived here for a while know that it's um there's not a lot of activity there. There's a lot of older buildings that aren't being actively used and leased. And so how can this plan achieve activation of that area? And again, we've had some folks that uh want a whitewater park there on the river. We also have some folks that don't want the white water park. Right? So that's uh the nature of planning. You're going to have uh people that are on all sides of these issues. But then um here to quickly move us along to some newer content, but these are actual concepts that now we're exploring and getting community feedback on. So one of course is habitat restoration. We've seen that be successful in other areas of our town and I think Neron open space had some habitat restoration on it as well with a side channel stream project and so how can we incorporate that notably in the northern riverfront over there next to Turtle Bay. Uh what kind of uh habitat restoration projects could this plan envision uh and working with partner agencies and other folks in the community? Um expanding passive recreation. So this might look familiar. It's not Turtle Bay. It's actually out

there in Georgia it looks like. But expanding some boardwalk, expanding the connectivity and creating some unique destinations as being a a nice sort of low impact passive way for the people to interact with our river and some of our sensitive habitats and environments. Indigenous cultural space. Um this is actually up in Vancouver, BC. Uh but it's a really unique space where it's indigenous owned and/or operated and it allows them an opportunity to share their their heritage and uh their culture with people. People can come in there and take tours and learn lessons and it's um it's this just really neat way for them to have a place for prayer reflection um you know and have art making storytelling visibly but to share their history and to have a place to call their own. So we're looking at ways how can this possibly be incorporated again particularly in the northern riverfront area civic and cultural uh venues area. So this is a big one. This is the northern riverfront and um this is our rodeo grounds civic center primarily those two venues but also the sherin and turtle bay. all comprises. But primarily for this conversation, we're talking about what does the future of the rodeo grounds look like and what does the future of our civic auditorium uh look like. Here you can see in the bullet points this plan isn't really envisioning to um expand capacity beyond the amount of people that it can currently hold, but it's looking for more flexible programming in a way. Think about it this way. how do we um leverage that space so that the more of the community can use it more of the time. So that's that's kind of how I frame it when I when I discuss it with people and I'll I'll expand on that here in a minute. Um but these are some ideas, right, that you can have um an indooroutdoor rodeo grounds. You can have a rodeo grounds that can also facilitate other events, concerts and the like. Um indooroutdoor arena there and all the way out in Australia it

looks like. Um but some examples, one close here in Nampa, Idaho, um how do you how do you sort of work to to make this space do more and do more often? And so um the near-term option, the first one that we're sort of exploring is focused upgrades, um to the rodeo grounds. So nothing moves. The rodeo stays here, the civic stays here. And what you see is it's a low initial cost and um would require some investment to upgrade the infrastructure to our roto grounds. It keeps the same programming. It allows the civic auditorium to perhaps expand a little bit with their meeting space, but it's the lowest cost option to sort of bring things up to snuff and to allow potentially for the rodeo grounds and the civic to um be a little more flexibly programmed and also uh bring in other potential uses. So that's a near-term option, just high level. The longerterm option A would actually see the rodeo grounds moving from here to here. And so you would incorporate the rodeo grounds to um the civic auditorium. And you would also enhance the civic with number eight, which adds 40,000 additional square foot to give the civic auditorium more of the ability to host conferences. So our current civic auditorium is largely a venue for performing arts. Um, there's a little bit of conference space in there, but there's not a ton of it. I think it's 5,000 square feet or so. And so, how do you make the Civic more marketable uh for the conference circuit? And how do you improve the rodeo grounds, modernize them, and then importantly, you're you're lessening the development footprint of the Northern Riverfront. And so, what that ends up doing is you can redeem this space, perhaps with parking, perhaps otherwise, maybe more open space or passive recreation. And so when you concentrate the development, the im the footprint is lessened and it allows you to do more with the outlying areas. But obviously it's a more expensive option and would

take more time and money to accomplish. Um the longer term option B is sort of the grand vision of um think of this way. I mean you you essentially bulldoze everything and you start over. Um you know and and that that would be very costly. It'd be very expensive. But I think it's important for the public and for everyone to remember this is supposed to be an aspirational document. It's a planning document. This one we currently have is 30 years old. And so this one could last us 25, 30 years or more into the future. Who knows what reading will be in 30 years. Um the point of planning documents like this is to cast a vision for what could be and then work as a community uh to achieve it. And so this is a bold idea for sure. Um, and I'm going to go over the feedback we've received. Some folks like it, some folks don't like it, right? As you'd expect. Um, but ultimately it would be the most efficient use of the space. It would make this grounds the most flexible. So again, think about it in terms of how does this public space for the benefit of the our community? How is it used most often in the most variety of ways to to benefit the most amount of people? Um, and that's that's sort of what this vision here would would ultimately hopefully achieve. So, here's a big uh pretty picture of the whole area on that full buildout. And again, just the the concept is low development footprint, flexible space. We need something ultimately that's economically viable and can do multi-use, right? So this the words are kind of small but civic events, rodeo, concerts, conferences, tournament sports, graduations. How do you make this space the most versatile and the most used for the most benefit of the community and really make it e economically viable? You know, if any of you have been following council meetings as of late, um you know, the civic auditorium is is um in need of of additional revenue and funding to be economically viable and to continue to

bring us performing arts and culture. And so those are real problems that this plan is trying um to look for solutions uh to. So to summarize in a table um you have existing facilities about 5,000 people is what that can handle. You can see here we're really only growing it to about 7 to 8,000 but this is think this is a combined facility um which would include a civic and a rodeo smooshed together. And so, um, outdoor concerts right now can accommodate about 8,000 people when the Civic does that. We're not, again, we're not looking to grow. Uh, when we talk to the economists and you talk to experts in the field, this is a goodiz venue for our area, but how do you uh, uh, make the footprint smaller and how do you make the venue more flexible and how do you make it more economically viable um, so that it's here for a long time in the future? You can see um, conference space is a big one. So, for us to be viable in terms of hosting conferences through town, you really need to increase your square footage almost 10fold in order to to be viable on the conference circuit. So, how do you how do you do that? Um, you couldn't really do it with the near-term option. You'd have to look at one of these longer term options, which is either um creating an addition to our civic auditorium or like I said, uh taking everything down to the ground and rebuilding from the ground up is is really the only way you can increase our our conference room space. Um, this was thrown out as an idea to council. It got kind of came with mixed reviews, but the idea of a consortium or a district. Um, you're ultimately going to have the city, the rodeo, the civic, um, our indigenous communities, Turtle Bay, Sherin, tenants. There's going to be a lot of people um, competing for this space in the long term, right? The Northern Riverfront is going to host a lot of different activities from a lot of different entities. Um, so the the specific plan could envision some kind of consortium or district or partnership to run it. Um, the specific plan doesn't

really need to speak about it in real specifics. In fact, it could end up coming off the table altogether because it could sort of take care of itself in the future if and when this does occur. But our consultant wanted to at least throw it in front of um the city council and our commissions to at least have you opine on or at least understand that this does exist, these cultural districts, these arts districts in order for everyone to have a seat at the table and then be able to program a space like this for everyone's benefit. Um this was a an idea that got a lot of mixed review. I would say some people really liked it and some people really didn't. Um, I have to admit it's a concept that I don't think has been explored by the city. I I don't think ever. Um, and the the the crux of this is you need a secondary means of access or egress. We just talked about that with the subdivision approval. You need a secondary means of access ultimately out of the civic rodeo grounds somehow someway. You can see that this accomplish for future growth I should say. And this accomplishes this by turning Highway 44 into a boulevard. So the city would start, you know, owning the road about here. You'd make it into this really in this in this rendering a very cool big, you know, two-lane boulevard with a nice enhanced median. And, you know, this all looks really really nice and probably very expensive in the long term, but um and then you you turn this into an intersection. This actually becomes a pedestrian bridge to for connectivity of our pedestrians. That's the existing overpass. And then you have two means of potential access in and out of the Civic with people that could go this way on a a re-imagined kind of I think that's but street. Is that right, Josh? Um or out this way. So we for a long time have known that in order for a future buildout of the northern riverfront, we need another means of getting out of there. Anyone that has lived here for a while and you've been to events, you know one way in and one way out of the civic can be

really difficult. Imagine enduring an emergency it can be even worse. And so for a future vision for this area, we need to figure out a second way in and out. Um, option one is this new idea of an intersection that we're just sort of thrown out there to see what folks think of. Option B has been discussed in the past with some level of uh detail with staff going through the cemetery. Um, the cemetery, I believe, is quite a bit higher up if I am recalling right. the grade changes there and access through the cemetery is very is problematic. It's definitely not a perfect option, but it's conceivable. It's it's probably feasible if you you put enough thought into it and coordinate it well enough, but it's not not great. Option C would be a new bridge to the north, uh which also is expensive and difficult. Um the city um does have I believe some ownership andor easements up on the north side. Um kind of planning in advance that potentially we could route a road up there and get out that way to North Market Street. But again, expensive comes with its own challenges, but we do have some acquisition of some real estate that we could could leverage. There might be an option D. We haven't heard one or explored one yet. Maybe this commission has an option D we can you can share with us tonight. But these are the ones we're exploring now in terms of long-term viability for the northern riverfront. And so, um, the redesign could could look something like this. I mean, this is the existing condition right over there off Highway 44. Um, you could end up, uh, breaking it up, offering bike ped on both ways. You could have two lanes of travel in either direction with some nice parkways and landscaping. Um, you know, you can kind of dream up any scenario at this point, right? This is the point of concepts envisioning. Uh you could also do a greenway park and put all the ped and bike on one side and have your travel lanes on one side as well. This is um near ACID canal. So this is as you uh you're looking east but you're

getting further westbound where street is. And I I can kind of circle back and forth, but we're basically getting closer. These other cuts are So first we were over here and now we're moving closer to over here next to but street. if we can if you can think in 3D with me for a moment. Um, but here you have the two westbound and eastbound lanes of 44 with but street. That's your existing condition. Um, so there you could turn but street you can see into a multi-use trail. Make these uh travel lanes broken up as as sort of the previous design was. So again um kind of high level again these these are all available online. I'll be available for questions afterwards. but sort of reimagining this concept. Um, now feedback, we've gotten a lot of feedback on a lot of what I just talked about. Um, some favor the option of having the single multi-use venue. Um, others oppose it. Um, some don't want us to touch anything up in the Northern Riverfront. I would say seems like the community sentiment in large part is well, we should probably do something up there to make it more viable, make it more flexible. But, you know, there's definitely differences of opinion on how much to do in the Northern Riverfront. To which I would say, if you have a planning document that envisions the grand future, you could there's no really harm in having that big idea that could happen. Uh the plan might sit on a shelf and might not happen, but if we if we envision it, it gives us opportunity to pursue funding and and perhaps make it happen someday. Um more parking on the Northern Riverfront. Um, uh, many gave us positive feedback on Highway 44 Boulevard Street concept. Um, I'll go over this later. City council was a little more skeptical of the Highway 44 redesign. Um, I think they saw dollar signs, expense, funding issues, acquisition issues. I mean, there's there's a lot, but I think as planners sometimes we just want to dream about it and see if it's, you know, potentially a

possibility. Uh, feasibility can come a little bit later, especially with those concepts that are like really uh, sort of pie in the sky. It doesn't mean the the planning document shouldn't have it. It but it might not happen but if you don't have even a potential pathway it never will happen. Uh conservation easements again were discussed. Um indigenous culture center um folks wanted that larger and they wanted um and indigenous history should be integrated into the overall trail system. So we've seen that in some other areas where you you can incorporate signage or wayfinding or monuments or things of that nature in your trail system to honor the indigenous community. So, we'll be looking into that. Um, then you can see some had reservations about Highway 44 Boulevard. Um, some favored keeping the existing rodeo grounds and civic auditorium. Um, but still were okay with making some focused upgrades to those facilities. And then, um, there were some concerns regarding the riverfront consortium as they felt it could just be overly cumbersome and and complicated. Now I'm going to roll through southern riverfront here with about another five 10 minutes and we're going to open it up for comments and questions. Um this gives you the high level uh sort of conceptual idea of our southern riverfront. So you can see in the in the south just north of Cypress a lot of this is built out already with offices but it stops right about here. We actually have some trail already built or stubbed out in this area. Um this trail going out here is is a cool idea. It also be really expensive. Um, but right now the plan's sort of formulating a way to perhaps get a trail along Park Marina in some ways and then kind of coming out and coming back and weaving back and forth. A trail becomes somewhat difficult when you have private property and mixed public and private and easements and access. Um, but that's sort of the the vision clearly from the community. We're hearing that they they'd really like to be on the water. They'd really like their trail connectivity from the south to the north. Um, so we're trying to figure out

a way for this plan to envision that. Um, so riverfront uses encourage water oriented development. A lot of us have probably been up to Bend to the old mill district. You can see in the picture there some of the low impact recreation I was talking about. Um, as well as um some of this on the water dining with a trail buffer between. So a a lot of really neat ideas up there for ways that people can enjoy the river. um you can establish some commercial uses along the river and still have a pretty low impact to the river so that we're honoring um sort of our indigenous community. We're also protecting the environment and kind of in some ways try to satisfy um all interested parties. Um let's see here. Commercial recreation, right? Just a picture of the low impact recreation I've talked about. That's actually a photo from just Lake Britain just up the road. Um a greenway trail. Uh this is a photo from Tahoe, but some sort of separated bike ped trail that helps people connect. Uh again, we're trying to look for connectivity. Ultimately, our master plan for trails envisions connectivity from Cyprus all the way up to our river trail system. So, how do we accomplish that? Um it's it's it's a little bit of a tough one because of property ownership and and park marina alignments and whatnot, but there's there's avenues. The Park Marina Drive corridor study actually envisions or has a potential to I think we have five lanes on Park Marina in some places. Is that right? Two travel lanes in a center turn lane. I don't know what the rideway exactly is there, but we have a decent amount of space. So, Park Marina could be restriped or you could do a road diet to get that squeezed down and actually do bike ped along Park Marina. So, you can you can sort of weave in and out like I I mentioned before. you could have trail connectivity along the river as it allows and as we're able to condition projects and then you come back to Park Marina Drive for a little bit and go back to the river. So there's there's ways to make it happen. Uh we just have to plan for it and figure it

out uh in the future. Um here you go. Park Marina Drive redesign. So uh this is yeah diesel horse to downtown. um Park Marina someday could have a similar feature um if that's the way um our city leaders and city council ends up going with in terms of um road diet and squeezing down those lanes. You know, we heard from a lot of folks along Park Marina Drive and the neighborhood to the west that um it's pretty pretty speedy there. People go fast, right? People are trying to connect uh over to the 44 on-ramp and using it kind of as cut through. Um we it gets pretty good queuing along there when Highway 44 loads up and so um there's a lot of ideas for traffic calming medians. There's potential for roundabouts. Um a lot of that's going to get incorporated into this plan either specific to the plan or like I mentioned before by reference to our park marina drive corridor study. Um but some again some conceptual sketches here. That's the exist existing section. So in this particular slice, it looks like we do have a couple of travel lanes. So a decent amount of width approximately 90 ft. Um so the multi-use path there is what I was just discussing where you could have a separated multi-use path and then bring that road down to two uh to less lanes. You know, when you have a lot of rideaway width, and I'm not necessarily a traffic guy, but I hang out with them, you know, on occasion dayto-day. And uh you have more width and more lanes than you need, it's going to make people go fast, right? So if we don't need as much width to our road, then you can repurpose it for other uses. Um, this one again, um, just sort of adds in a little more landscape enhancement as well as the multi-use trail, uh, fronting commercial district. And then this one looking north, this is incorporating gathering area. So, you're really bringing it down to a really skinny uh, road, which, you know, at this point as a traffic analysis is done as part of this project and you look at environmental, this could be deemed

infeasible in the future, right? because you could go well we can't quite get that to that roadway that curb to curb it won't handle the traffic flow generated from the land uses uh in the project and then another concept there so what did we hear from the community on the southern riverfront concepts that I just uh highlighted for us everyone many I shouldn't say everyone many liked the greenway trail um many still have concerns about impacts due to flooding uh particularly in the south and and of course with uh FEMA regulations and flood plane ordinance. We have to account for that as we uh permit development down there. Um we did hear a lot of folks that favored Park Marina Drive as just like I mentioned making it how do we make it more bike and pedestrian friendly? Right now it's pretty fast. There's not a lot of sidewalk. I I don't know if we have stretches where there's no sidewalk or not. Probably. Um and so how do you especially with the neighborhood that abuts Park Marina as well as the commercial uses down there? It's just how do we figure out to get pedestrian connectivity better along Park Marina Drive and how do you connect it south to north and then like and and as well connect it over to our downtown specific plan area. Um and then alternative C and D for the park marina drive redesign. Um some liked alternative B for the park marina drive redesign because it retained parking. So those were those different slides I shown you with the different configurations. So, we got feedback on those in terms of, hey, yeah, I'd like to keep parking, or hey, I'd like more travel lanes, but in general, um, many liked the options, but again, as you'll see, I caveat it with, some didn't like it. So, at the end, some felt that Park Marina Drive should just stay the same. So, you're always going to have a spectrum, right? And you're always going to have some members of our community that just feel like nothing that it's fine as it is and shouldn't change. But I would say we had a majority of folks that liked what they saw, especially with regards to Park Marina Drive. So, I want to take a moment here to go

through city council feedback with you and then I will conclude my comments and offer a chance for any public that wants to speak and of course take questions from the commission and your feedback. Um, so mixeduse district, the city council, um, if you I don't want to go back all those slides, but I'll maybe I'll put it up at the end. But right now, we're we're exploring a mixeduse zoning in the northern riverfront. And that's on the private properties that are just Well, maybe it'll be worth it. I'll just bear with me for a second. I'm going to go back to our map so you guys that one shows it well enough. So, what I'm talking about is this yellow um those that encompasses some private properties um some private parcels that occur on the northern riverfront. A lot of the northern riverfront is publicly owned, but those are privately owned. It's currently zoned, I believe, as public facilities. And so, that really limits what those private property owners can do with those parcels. In fact, it pretty much eliminates any potential use from those parcels. And so we're exploring a mixed use there which could include a residential use. And the problem city council had with that is that a lot of community members expressed the desire we don't want any residential use in the northern riverfront. The the concern that I understand the concern. I think there's also some confusion around this this concept. So back when this all started, if you guys will recall, um there was the concept of selling off the northern riverfront, right? That's how we got this whole ball rolling in the first place. When you surplus land that's publicly owned, you have to offer it up to affordable housing developers. That's part of California state law. So, the concern, I think, amongst a lot of community members was we're going to end up with a lot of affordable housing right along our northern riverfront. We don't want that. That's not what would occur here, right? This is private property. It's

not public property. So, if it's private property and you reszone it into a mixeduse type designation, um you offer up the opportunity for those parcels to do some kind of mixed use with residential on top, commercial below, so on and so forth. Um also, we're being told by the the econom the economists in their analysis, you have to they don't you don't have to, but they they highly encourage that if you have some mixed use ringing this area, it activates it. It adds an economic driver. It adds people. so that they're shopping at the shops and going to the concerts and going to the rodeo, right? And just, you know, and it it kind of plays off of the hospitality you have with the Sherin as well as the hospitality you have with the old hotel across the road. And so it's it works synergistically and the economists tell us, well, you need something like that to make a pencil, but the community um you know, rightfully so, I think is has some trepidation over residential uses in the north. Um, so we got that feedback from council when we talked to them. The council told us to go back to the community and do some more listening and maybe re-engage the community to explain to them more kind of what I just said and get some more feedback and maybe when we come back to the council, we'll have um different feedback from the community on residential uses. Members were not in favor of locating housing in the northern riverfront. We heard that from the council. They requested detailed information on the proposed concepts for Highway 44. So, uh, we're going to continue working with our consultant to really try to flesh that out a little bit more and come back to council with a little more, um, like I said, more flesh on it. Curious to hear this commission's thoughts on on that potential idea. Um, suggesting consulting with local architects, inviting them to engage. Um, so we have been doing that. We actually have, um, a local architect on the consultant team to provide some some local design

expertise and history. um increasing the setback from 150. So right now we're potentially thinking of 150 ft setback from the river which is standard in our zoning code. Um but this riverfront plan might again remember a riverfront plan can take the rules and can change them for that area and make them more stringent. Uh knowing that this is the riverfront plan. We're hearing from council members that maybe we want to make it a 300T buffer in some places so that all you have is passive recreation trails and that kind of thing and you can't build out any closer to the river. We heard from council members um suggested reconsidering the area proposed as under civic and culture going to exclude the boat launch. Um so just sort of carving out the boat launch area and not not keeping it as part of our civic and cultural zone and then revisiting maximum heights. So that's sort of a devil's in the details kind of thing. But ultimately this specific plan will offer up design guidelines and standards including uh you know building heights and building areas. So we need to be um careful with how we craft that. They wanted more information on how the rodeo would be utilized in the future and um members suggested exploring street design options that would reduce shift park marina drives right away to increase meaningful development. And so again, not only do you have um bike and ped and mobility issues that we need to improve along Park Marina Drive, but when you look at options that shift that rideway, especially in and around the flood plane, you have ways to sort of open up some of Park Marina to more development in the future. Um if you get creative with your alignments and the way that you've designed your road and so the council wanted us to look into that as well. So, um I know I'm going through a lot of information, but I I don't want to keep us here till midnight, but I'm happy to answer questions and get your feedback. But next steps, um we're gathering feedback from you all. Then we're gathering feedback from SEESAC. Um in

September, we're doing additional stakeholder interviews with our property owners and stakeholders around town. We're going to be embarking on some one-on-one or one-on- two sessions with council members. And then we're planning to check in with city council after this meeting and after SEESAC. We want to bring back your feedback to city council and sort of package it all up so that they can give us further direction so we can get to work on drafting the plan and the environmental impact report. Um and then once all that's done, we have to we haven't even really begun the public hearing process, right? So we've done a lot of outreach, a lot of engagement. The public hearing process won't start till after all of that. We draft the plan. We draft the EIR and then we go through SQA circulating the SQA doc and then we go through the public hearing process with this body and then ultimately to city council to have an adopted riverfront specific plan. So with that I will conclude what I'm saying and uh I'm going to pause here for any questions you might have. I don't know if we have any public comment but available to answer your questions and get your feedback.

Thank you. So we'll take commissioner questions first. Do we have any questions, Greg? Okay, Greg.

Yes, I appreciate your um explanation of the multi-use because I'm personally very much opposed to low-income housing in that area. I don't think it belongs there at all. But the question I have, another question I have regards um the 44 uh uh redesign. At what point does the state have responsibility versus the city? Well, the you know the state has it all right now and it's you know and maybe maybe Josh can opine on this some with his transportation background but I mean I don't know if the state would even be willing to engage in a conversation like this you know we haven't even talked to Calrans about like I said it's very very much this dream of an idea is it even worth putting in a planning document somewhere you could have it it could just be one page of the document saying hey there's a potential concept and then 20 years from now some staff is having a conversation with the state and we've got the money and all of a sudden it comes together. Um, so it's too early. We haven't engaged the state on the reality. I don't think the state would probably ever say that's never going to happen, but they might say, "Yeah, it's unlikely." Or the state might be happy to give us some of their highway and have us maintain it, you know. Um, but they could also say, "Well, we don't want to take it from here. You got to take it all the way back to the interchange." Or, you know, who knows? I think it's it's too early to tell. But I it's not an impossibility. Um but again, at this point, we're just sort of scratching the surface of well, what if?

Thank you. Anybody else? Commissioner N. Thanks, Jeremy. Um so who owns the boat ramp? The boat ramp is us, the city. Is Travis out there? Yeah. Travis doesn't personally own it, but um yeah, the that's that's city property. Okay, got it. So the city owns the boat ramp and so there's no plan on getting rid of the boat ramp because I know that's a that's really popular and no. In fact, Travis has a project um to to rehab it and spruce it up here in in the coming years. I don't know if it's is it funded yet or

No, it's designed. So we do have a boat ramp project that's designed. It it improves the parking as I recall and spruces it up along the waterfront as well. So but like a lot of those projects um now we're exploring how do we fund that project? But no, it's not slated to go away. In fact, it's slated to get improved. Oh, good. And then the the last thing is the flood concerns. Uh you can you just kind of expand on that? Like walk us through what that like you mentioned some state codes and you have to obviously comply with all those, but

yeah. So our our flood plane ordinance requires us to follow federal code, you know, FEMA code, 100red-year flood plane. We have to design to the park marina drive. We're we're sort of unique in general because we're downstream of a major dam. And so a lot of our floods are predictable, you know. So when they when they increase their releases at Shasta Dam, we understand that they're underneath a Cypress Bridge, we're going to get flooded out and we plan for it and and we can sort of get on with life. So because we're downstream from a dam, um we're we're a bit unique. Um, but we have flooding areas of Park Ranger Driveway that we know flood at certain releases and that even includes at high releases some of those the commercial buildings north of Cyprus. Um, that parking lot area will flood out. Um, you know, the uh the RV park area will flood out. So, at our last flood, they had to move them off to the street. And so, I guess what I mean by it is twofold. One is we have um some properties that are mapped as in the flood plane and in open space and when buildings encroach on that you can't really do much to the building without totally revamping it andor raising it out of the flood plane. But some of that flood plane open space mapping needs to be tweaked and changed and actually could probably open up some opportunities for development. So there's that which is kind of in the details but we can get into it you know later on in this process. And then and then the other is just that southern riverfront area, that commercial shopping center and realignment of Park Marina Drive. So if you moved Park Marina Drive or change the rideway, you could potentially abandon rideway and allow private property to come west, I guess, right away from the river and potentially open up some more developable areas because you're you're removing some of the flood plane by changing Park Marina's alignment. So that's just the high level

sort of concepts, but that's that's what I was getting at. All right. Great. Thanks. Thank you very much. Commissioner, very nice presentation. Thank you.

I want to encourage staff and the city council to think big. I I love the idea of the boulevard. What a magnificent gateway to our city with the western foothills on the horizon. And that's big thinking. Um, in that same regard, I'm all for the um compound of rodeo grounds and a new convention center of 45,000 square feet. The city of Reading is missing out on so much revenue because we cannot host a large convention here. We don't have the space. We don't have the breakout rooms. that would have a tremendous impact on our um economy here to redevelop that where it could house conventions. I just want to echo Greg's concern about the mixeduse housing. I would support mixeduse housing zoning in that area if it was conditioned upon market rate housing. And I don't know if that's even possible if you can limit it, but I would not be in favor of it if it allowed um affordable housing in that location. Um the other concerns I have we can discuss later just some design guideline issues.

Okay. Um, oh, in regard to the dedicated space for indigenous culture, cultural elements, um, is that will that be open to the general public at all times or is that a closed environment? I I think you can do it either way. It would still be on uh city property. I mean, in the most extreme example, you could you could deed property, you know, to the tribes or to the indigenous. I mean, you know, that's not what we're necessarily exploring, but I would prefer that it is more of a inclusive environment, mean that everybody can enjoy it at all times.

I think I've seen the model. Yeah, I think I've seen the model where they they have that opportunity for everyone to to gather and to learn of their culture and to celebrate it and then they can also use it for some of their ceremony and some of their their their events they have. So, I've seen it modeled, I think, both ways. So, we're still exploring the specifics. Okay. But, um, in general, I applaud your efforts. It's looking like it's coming together fine. So, thank you all for your hard work on that. Thank you, Commissioner.

I wanted to echo a lot of what other commissioners have said. Jeremy and team, I think you guys have done a great job. Thank you for the hard work. Um, I noticed that there were very few, if any, trucks in the boulevard diagram. might be worth putting some larger vehicles in there because I think that would be a little more consistent with our average vehicle size. Um, probably doesn't make a difference, does it, Josh? But Oh, just pickup trucks, not semi-truckss.

Pickup trucks. Yeah. No, no, no. Pick just pickups like normal reading vehicles, right? Um uh echoing the other commissioner's comments about the um low-inccome residential versus market rate. I would be very much in favor of market rate, not in favor of a low income. Um when we look at I'm going to externally process here but we got a lot of we got some very aspirational things some habitat restorations and um kind of some of the cultural areas. Um, one of one of my concerns is that if we put a um a zoning overlay or an intention around a space but without a source of funding that it could kind of end up just being living in a a nothing space for a while. Um, if that makes sense. Like if we say we intend to do habitat restoration in certain areas but there's no funding associated then we have to leave that area as is until someday funding shows up or maybe doesn't. Um so I I don't I don't know if just high level how how we can think about these things so that they don't end up getting stuck if funding doesn't come up. Um, does that does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I mean, this picture is a good example of I mean, we're looking at sort of northnortheast here, but in terms of habitat restoration, you're really you're not looking down on the southern riverfront much. I wouldn't think in reality that's pretty pretty welldeveloped and already abuts the river, but you're probably looking at a lot of this space that's all public property where we already have riffles and trails and rocks. And so, um, it's really going to be that for now as sort of the trails that go through there, unless, you know, our master plan and parks trails might have something else envisioned. I'd have to hear from Travis, but but also if if we don't have a plan that talks about it, then we can't even get funding or grant funding to potentially to trigger it.

So, um, I hear you, but I think in a case like this, you know, it there's not really much plans to change any of that anyway from it's just what it is. But maybe we get funding to improve our trail someday with a a habitat project.

So if we could do both and right give our aspirational language that says hey here's what highest and best here's where we want to go that would be amazing but also condition them in such a way that we can continue to use them in the meantime is you know and you guys did a good job of of looking at options of doing that with the rodeo grounds and civic center. Um, moving on to that, are these art districts typically publicly owned or privately owned? Do you know? And are there public private part partnerships in there?

I I don't know much of the detail to be honest with you. Um, I think the example they gave um I think it's generally public private I think I've seen, but I I don't I'm not an expert in it at this juncture and uh council's feedback was a little mixed on it alto together. So, it might not even make might not even make its way into the final document. Um,

well, I I think it's cool. I think it would be it would be great if it did. My my only concern is that we're thinking about um you know that we're thinking about it in such a way that it is has the highest option of succeeding which means that that may be the highest option of succeeding may be city governmentowned but it may be that we have to look at private ownership and it may be that we have to look at public private partnerships in order to achieve that long-term goal. if we're gonna we're gonna shoestring ourselves if we say, "Oh, it can only happen if it's owned this way in this parcel." Um, so just looking at the flexibility of the zoning, if we put all that into public facility zoning, I I think we I think we shoestring ourselves a little bit. Um, that said, I might be stepping on a huge can of worms there. Um, I just want to I want to understand how are those things economically viable in other communities and I want to make sure that we don't restrict ourselves from being able to do it the best way that other communities have seen successful

by the way we set it up now. Um, I think that's it. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And we've had good conversations with both advanced reading and the reading rodeo association and and in tandem with our economic consultant and marketing consultant to sort of tap into just that question. So I fully anticipate our our market study and our economic analysis will drive us into sort of producing good findings for what is what is an economically viable path forward. Great. Thank you. Commissioner Ryan has a question. Okay. Okay. So, my thing is with the parking. I as I'm looking at all the the designs, I was like, "Wait a second."

Um, the the most frustrating thing about all the improvements in downtown that I hear from people all the time is the lack of parking. Um, the lack of proximity to the businesses, the frustration of the pay stations that people can't figure out. And I hear from so many people they don't want to go down there because they don't want to deal with the parking. And so if we're going to do a a massive revamp of this area, like I've been to um uh the Riverwalk in Texas and a lot of those, you know, a lot of big cities actually. I've seen most of the places that you had pictures of.

The trick is always access. And so as we focus on, you know, the bike lanes and the pedestrian stuff and it all it it looks good. And when you're pedestrianing, it's terrific, but you got to be able to get there

and get in, get out. Um, and and if you can't get in and get out and it's a big pain, people won't go there. So, I know we have kind of done that to ourselves with our massive bike lane thing and all that stuff with downtown. people are super bugged that there is no more parking structure and that that they're constantly trying to people stink at uh you know what do you call parallel parking I don't know I don't know where everybody else learned how to drive but I watch people all the time and I'm like okay you don't go in forward um but people don't know how to do that so this we should be really really aware that uh people should be able to just go there get out and enjoy it

and not have a big um plan for how where they're going to go and how far they've got to traverse. We have a lot of older citizens and it's super hot here. So, if you're going to go in the summer and you want to get out, you don't want to take your little kids or your grandma and hike and hike and hike. It's too hard. Um the other thing I I liked your extra egress because that's also another big downside for the Civic. People say, "Oh, you want to" and it's like, "Oh, how long do I want to sit there and wait for the light to change?" You know? So, I think that would actually be really nice to have a way in and out so that people can access that site. But anyway, yeah, so I'm all about the parking. Sorry.

Sure. So, uh, hi Jeremy. Um, so yeah, just echo on what uh was just discussed on parking. So, I understand that there's a contract 1.25 million to MIG. That's the consulting company. Uh, correct. Yeah, they're the main consultant on the project.

So, um I'm sure there was an RFP for that process and all that, but I would I mean looking at this I mean what you have up there. I mean parking flow in and out. It's like the size of a university um giant shopping mall. I don't know. I have no I no idea who MIG is, but you know if they need to bring in a consultant that's maybe designed something this big with traffic flow in and out and connecting it and because I mean it it's a thousand% right. I mean, I don't see any parking structures on that thing anywhere. There was one. There was one. And in the one picture, you had parking. Yeah. But how how how tall is it? How high is it? Where does it flow in and out? Because people there's professionals that deal with this stuff.

And so um yeah, so I think that that's equally, you know, that's important. Yeah, agreed. We Yeah, MIG has um they have a sub consultant on board that has done civic and cultural spaces around the world. So they have a lot of great experience and it'll depend on whether it's a master planning effort. So, if we're master planning, we're kind of talking public property, property we have ownership of currently, and you can get that specific.

Um, if we're talking more specific planning and it's private property, we have no control over the private property. So, private property would get developed different through our development regulations and standards when we require the parking. Say I I'm a private property owner and I want to build a new hotel. Okay. Well, the parking standards and the specific plan say you need x amount of spaces. It needs to be configured this way, that way, right? master planning would say, "Well, yeah, we want to take that piece of public property and we want to put a parking garage there and we want it to be a public parking facility." So, sure, however we connect the dots as long as just parking it'll address. Yeah, we'll definitely that'll be addressed in more detail and we'll be able to sink our teeth into that when when you see the planning document, it'll be addressed for sure.

And just to uh I I appreciate Commissioner Miner's uh prompting to find funding sources for this because it's very lofty. Yeah.

I mean, this is great. Um but it's a thousand% right. And um so you know even engaging with universities to come up here like the habitat space you know UC Davis I'm just throwing a name out there but have them control this area you know you can do research there you can do whatever but they'll make it nice just using them as an example as a university but everything's on the table as far as finding funding sources. So whoever decides that whoever assembles that group everything's on the table to figure out how can we bring this thing to reality because I think it's fantastic. I think it's great. It'd be great for reading and yeah, we just want to see it succeed. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Any other questions? So, we want to thank your staff because this has been a lot of time in process. Um, going back to the parking, just when I was in the workshop, they talked about a lot of the underground parking. So, it would look like this on the top and then to kind of give the aesthetics so you're not having a tall parking structure, right? That was one of the things that that came up. Just wanted to put that out there. It looked a lot like this, but it was underground parking. Um, kind of going back to what Commissioner Miner had talked about, I love the lofty

plan. I like the big picture so that if something does come up, the plan does allow for us to develop and do what would be best for our residents. Um, but is there any way to pri prioritize some of the things that are absolutely in need and kind of going back to a second exit out of the civic for now? Are those going to be city council? Will they give you directive, do you think, on some of those projects and what they'd like to see happen first? And I know some of it's due to funding and it's not always in order.

Yeah, I mean certainly when the plan's developed, it can it can phase. It can talk about higher priorities the city will take on. It'll it'll really provide the guiding principles though, right, of the for the future decision makers. Um because, you know, who knows which commission or council will make which decision when. So, um it'll try to put the guard rails in place to give those future decision makers, oh, okay, yeah, the community really prioritize X, Y, and Z. So when we when we are going after this funding or wrestling with this decision 15 years from now in theory we should go back to our planning document and say okay well what did we say we wanted to do right and then your staff will bring that to you and say well this is what our document says we should spend this money on or this is what this document says we should go for funding for or what we should prioritize. So, um, but it won't get down to the executables as much, right? It's more just that guide rail and plan. So, future decision-m bodies are making decisions based on the plan.

Okay. Thank you. Anything else before I open? Okay. Um, I was involved in the downtown specific plan, the original one, and I do want to tell you all that that was considered very lofty

and people said it will never happen. and irregardless of this perception that there's a parking problem downtown, it did happen and the community thought big um put traffic circulation back together which was not the easiest thing to do and it was it's been a success story and it's getting better every day. So be lofty. Okay, I think that's it for us. So I'm going to open public hearing and I just have one purple card. Margie Cantrell. Jeremy, do you want to stay up there? Maybe we can have her down there since you're

Okay, I think it's going to be to him.

There you go. Yeah. Good. I'm surprised he helped me. Every time I show up, Jeremy rolls his eyes.

That's not true. I'm Margie Kentrell and I ride my broom all the time at city council meetings. I don't know any of you. I have lived in Reading since I was four years old and I am 83. And I can tell you every single time either the planning commission or the city council did not listen to the general public who cares and loves about the city of Reading and they screwed up and we have paid the price for it. And I want you to know about the city auditorium. There were 12 men chosen in the city of Reading. all of different environmental and um employment or owned their own businesses. And they chose that building because it would last for not 25 years, but 75 years. And it may not be big enough for one of your conventions, but you have a whole bunch of red clay out here to build something bigger that can be used for entertainment. Anyway, I personally knew Francis Cutras who gave this property to the city of Reading and it was for the use of the people of the city of Reading. I knew her son George and his wife Connie who made the long-term lease with Bob Spade for the Park Marina area and that's why it had the Pecky Cedar buildings, the palm trees and all of that. Pecky Cedar does not burn. the framework might burn. And you know, there was a fire down on Park Marina at one of the twotory buildings and it burned up the staircase into the attic, but the Pecky Cedar did not burn.

When he died in an ultralight accident, the McConnell Foundation bought the remaining part of that lease and Park Marina looks like it does because of the the McConnell Foundation. They shut down businesses. They made other businesses that were viable move. I aid at a lot of those businesses. Did trade with a lot of those businesses and they left the bead man and Zach's alone because Leah McConnell had her hair done by Kathleen Lackman there for years and they weren't going to mess with those buildings. But they closed lots of others. I know Jeremy gets to talk for hours and I only get three minutes. But if you want any information about reading and who loves it and the people that move here to want to change it to what they left, my telephone number is 530 524 1395. Thank you.

Thank you. [Applause] Okay. So, I don't have any other cards, so I'm going to close the public hearing. Yeah. And just to clarify, this actually isn't on for a public hearing today. This is just anformational item. I did that last time. So, it's closed. Is there anything else that we want to address with Jeremy before Commissioner Miner? Oh,

I just wanted to follow up on um Commissioner Godard's comment about the downtown specific plan and the downtown right now. I'm a huge fan of downtown. Um I know some of the concerns about parking, but I am a a really big fan of where certainly where we are relative to where we were, right? Um it's come a long ways. Um and to point out that the city and public um government agencies had a substantial part of that certainly, but there was a ton that was driven by the private sector. Um certainly all you know the majority of the major major redevelopments and new buildings was private sector. So that kind of goes back to my comment before of I I think if we look at that as a success story, we have the private sector at least as involved in it as the government sector if not much much more. I'm concerned about going into a framework with our riverfront plan where we have, you know, government city and government agencies right in the middle of it and that they they have to perform it um without the public public or private sector being kind of that kind of center core. Um with that I will shut up.

Okay. We don't need to make a motion on No, it was just a justformational item. Commissioner Commons none. Okay. How about a director's report from Jeremy?

I was Marge. I won't go on for hours with my director's report, but um no, I think you've heard enough from me tonight. I just would let you know that the tree ordinance is still under review and we're working on it. Um, last you recall, council told staff to go back to the drawing board a little bit and and try to come up with something that's a little bit stronger and um, so working on that with actually our city attorney and hope to have that back to this commission in the next month or two, doing the best I can with our resources. Um, so be on the lookout for that and we'll uh, ping you to let you know what date so we can make sure we have a full commission here for that that item. Um, but yeah, with that I'll close my comments. Any questions you have, I'm available. Okay. All right. With that we are adjourned.

Thank you. Do you Jennifer