Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

of the United States of America and to the stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Roll call, please. Chair Gutierrez, present. Vice Chair Per, present. Commissioner Gilbert, present. Commissioner Esbander present. Commissioner Gonzalez present. All present. Two vacancies. Okay, good deal. Um, do you have any request to speak on anything not on the agenda? No, sir. Okay, next item is uh meeting minutes of June 18th. Move to approve the minutes from June 18, 2025. Well, there's nothing.

Second. I don't show anything on there. Hold on. Yeah, I stand corrected. Second. Who second it? I do. Okay. All in favor? I. Okay. No opposed. First item of the agenda, I think it's Dollar Tree, I

think. Good evening, uh, chair and commissioners. Tonight before you, Texas Green Incorporated has requested that the planning commission review and consider conditional development permit 2024- 0042. The site is located at 46 I'm sorry 467 East Foothill Boulevard on the southwest corner of East Foothill Boulevard and North Acacia Avenue as shown on the red boundary. The proposed site is located within the foothill central specific plan. Land use designation is Foothill mixeduse. Existing parcel is roughly 2 acres that was developed as a commercial plaza. The existing tenants are Black Friday deals and Chuck's liquor. Techcreen is proposing to place a 4ftx4 foot small recycling bin for clothing donation services on site. A donation bin will be placed on the south side of Chuck's liquor as shown on green.

Hang on just a moment, Brian. Yes. So, it looks like we're we moved out of the We are This is item number two on the agenda. Dollar Tree is item number one. No problem. We can continue. You want to continue? Okay. No problem. All right. As long as we just reflect it. Okay. Perfect. We're flexible.

All right. The applicant will empty, clean, maintain the bin at least five times per week. In case urgent need, the applicant will respond within 12 hours to address any issues. The applicant has provided us a picture as shown on the screen of what the bin will look like, and we'll have an accessible area to drop off the clothing. This slide shows us the noticing that was conducted, and we have not yet received any comments. In summary, um, per section 18.108.040 of the municipal code, the placement of the small bin recycling for the purposes of clothing donation requires the submittal and planning commission approval of a conditional development permit. The project is consistent with goal 2-34 of the general plan which achieves waste recycling levels that meet or exceed state mandates. The project is compatible with the Foothill Central specific plan. The project is anticipated to be a benefit to the community by creating a convenient location to donate clothing. Staff recommends that the planning condition uh commission to approve conditional development permit 2024-000022 subject to the findings and conditions thereof. That completes my presentation. Staff or the applicant is also here to answer any questions. Thank you.

Um we'll go and open up public for public comments and then we'll ask questions and have the Is there any request to speak on this item? Yeah. No, sir. Okay. Before we have the applicants uh speak, I have some questions unless you guys want to go first. The um is there anything legally requiring us to put these out there? I don't believe so. Okay. No. Yeah, there isn't. I'm not aware of any legal obligation that the city is under to allow these.

Okay. I know some like uh stores that have to take in recyclables and that's why some drives recyclable bins. But this is a little different. The the issue that I have is that lot is poorly maintained. It's that that store there, that Black Friday store, that parking lot's a mattouse and it's not well cleaned. I'm concerned that this will add a lot of stuff being dumped around it if it's full. and I want to know what mitigating measures are planned to make sure that doesn't happen. So may you've had those conversations. We'll have the applicant answer some of those questions too.

Good evening chair, commissioners. Um yeah, the request before you tonight is a it's a discretionary action, right? It's not permitted by right. So it it is at the discretion of the planning commission. Um, as far as the maintenance concerns, uh, those there are conditions of approval included in the resolution before you tonight that basically are going to require constant maintenance um, of the bin. Basically, if any clothes are being, let's say, overflowing out of the bin, just being dumped on the side of the bin, there are conditions that require them to address that within 48 hours. And of course, if we're having, you know, like a chronic issue out there where it's just continuous, the planning commission, given that this is a conditional development permit, does have the ability to bring this back um for, you know, potentially modifying the conditional development permit or even revoking it should it become a, you know, a problem. How is that going to be maintained as far as the uh being being sure that it's being taken care of the cleanup? There's a thing in the recommendation that that will be done daily or weekly.

Who's going to monitor that? Yeah. So, the applicant has submitted as a part of their application a business plan, right? And so part of their business plan is that they will uh clean the bin or empty the bin, maintain it as as Brian had alluded to in his presentation uh five times a week. So somebody will be out there um Monday through Friday. Ex could even be a weekend or whatnot, but yeah, at least five days out of the week they will be out there to empty it, clean it, and in order to prevent an issue of overflowing clothes or or things being left on the side. And the liquor store didn't have an issue with that bin being placed there or are they the one requesting it?

The the liquor store is a tenant. Uh so the the landlord uh is reliable properties and they they have a an agreement with the landlord to uh to place the bin there. Now there's there's a Goodwill bin up by Goodwill. Are they under the same protocols? There's another bin up there you're seeing. They're another company I guess which is Goodwill. Are they under the same protocols to claim them?

Okay. Um well if there's a good yeah a goodwill operation. Um it's not currently operating under a conditional development permit that I'm aware of. Um you know but certainly there are still citywide maintenance codes uh in the municipal code as far as you know ensuring that the site is kept in an orderly clean manner. So if if we are observing it in another location in town, it's certainly something we could address. So could we at least get an answer back if it's under any kind of permits at all or it's just the good the goodwill? Correct. Oh, that's certainly something we could look into and get you Yeah. get you an answer as far as what they're permitting is on file and you know the state of the maintenance out there.

Thank you. So this bin will actually be in the alley. That's right. It's proposed on the south side of the building. Just uh the the public alley is not uh the full extent. Um so there is about 10 ft or so on the south side of the building that is part of the private property and that's where it's going to be located in. It's Yeah. That's not impeding emergency vehicles. Correct. No. Yeah. You know, I have a concern about the homeless.

Me too. They're wandering around the city and that's going to be a a pretty good target for getting clothes and stuff like that and having them strewn all over the the street or the parking lot. What's being considered for as far as uh eliminating as much as possible that that kind of traffic? Yeah.

Yeah. So, there are conditions of approval in there for various signage um and uh cameras to prevent loitering. Those are basically the measures that are included in there today. It really will be an ongoing monitoring, right? That's basically what will need to happen. Us assuming the commission approves this tonight, the bin gets located, it'll be a monitoring uh scenario at that point. If it again, if it's becoming an issue where folks are coming in there vandalizing it, you know, breaking into it, thumping things out of it all over the alley or wherever, then that's where, you know, this is the information that we bring back to the planning commission because again that will be subject to that that annual um review and we don't have to wait a year either. If we if we are aware of a problem at any time, we can bring it back to the planning commission if need be. If the applicant's unable to address,

let's have the applicant come up and talk about some we could. Thank you,

chair, commissioners. Um, good evening. I'm Ivan Spanov. I'm the vice president of green team. I just came from the airport. I'm usually based in New Jersey, but I wanted to show you that we really care about this place. Uh, we've been in this business for about 12 years, and we have over 2,000 bins around the US. Um to be fair, we understand some people's skepticism towards election bins for the reasons the commissioners mentioned. Um I must assure you we approach this very professionally. We visit our bins very frequently. I can give you some operational data from the LA metro area. For instance, um as they mentioned, we did agree and I spoke with our base manager today. He also did agree to visit this bin daily uh during weekdays. Um, and in terms of operational data, I would say that 84% of our bin visits in the LA metro area find the bin less than half full. This means that we visit our bins fairly often, although this comes with its cost in terms of staff and trucking. The reason is that we don't want to well to find the bins overflowing or covered in trash, etc. We understand it's important to keep our relationship with the local municipalities um good. Uh and we also usually have lease agreements with the commercial properties where we place the bins. Um stay assured that we will be kicked out by the property if we cause any trouble as well. Uh so we take this seriously. We do visit the bins often. We have our own safety checks and mechanisms. The bin itself it's made of metal. It's equipped with a tamperproof locking mechanism. So it would be fairly hard for someone to open it. I can say it's impossible for someone especially vigilant. Um but it's definitely not an easy task. U how we operate as I mentioned we place the bins on commercial properties. We have lease agreements with them. Then our staff comes with small box trucks um to visit them on a regular schedule and empty the

clothes that were inserted. And I would say that's pretty much it. And I would like to add one more thing. We in our agreements with the properties and well our arrangement with you, we are required to keep the area clean. So our staff would um usually and always clean any litter that's in the adjacent area. And of course if if the bin needs some maintenance such as well repairs or removing graffiti, that's something we do as well. I don't want to have any problem with the homeless. I think that's another matter for the city to take on. But I I do want to know what what is your connection with other organizations that collect uh donations like that?

You ti are you tied in with u Salvation Army or No, we So you have your own operation. We don't have connection to any of the other major or smaller players in this market. I realize there are quite a few rogue actors uh there. Luckily, we're not one of them. We are a for-profit company. However, we do donate to mainly and especially to two charities. One of them nature related. One tree planted, they do urban foresting projects and they plant trees basically and the other one is lead uh which focus on drug prevention among younger students. Okay. Thank you.

All right. I mean I I appreciate all you're saying. My biggest concern is the placement of this where it's at. uh that that particular part of Ryalto is not the most affluent part of Ryalto and there's a lot of lot of colorful characters sometimes walk around that area and that's right adjacent to a liquor store and the placement of it is concerning to me a little bit and uh the cleanliness of the lot is already a problem. That's my only concern. I have no issue with your business and wish you the best. I understand this and to be fair we we've seen similar potential issues in other places as well. Homelessness U and well what you're describing. Yeah.

Um I do believe that the risk isn't that great because as I mentioned we empty the bins very regularly and people would know this. Seeing that the bin is maintained um and knowing that there isn't that much to find around it. Yeah. Um kind of discourages people to to attempt to break in or destroy the bin or cause littering. Okay. I don't recall. Daniel, what's in that corner supposed to be developed? Wasn't there a proposal with the storage?

Uh the there is a prop uh I don't know if it's a proposal officially, but there has been some conversations of the Chuck's liquor being demolished um and making way potentially for a McDonald's at the corner there. So yeah, that there is a likelihood that the Chuck's liquor would be going away in the near future. Nothing confirmed. That's what I thought. Yeah, that's what I thought too. Have a hard time competing with street vendors that aren't paying taxes, but add something. Um, well, of course, we cannot prevent any person from littering around the bin or in the city for that matter. However, as I mentioned, we do clean the adjacent area every time we visit the bin, which will happen on every weekday. So,

every week, of course, I can't pardon. You said it'll be visited every week week day Monday to Friday. Oh, Monday to Friday. Okay. Oh, okay. As as as your colleagues presented, we made an agreement to visit the bin five times a week. I assume this will be every weekday uh for practical reasons. I mean, again, I cannot promise you that there will be no litter sometime at midnight. Yes. But it would be cleaned daily. Okay. Thank you, sir. Do you have anything else to add? I I would I would like to say that I'm I'm in favor of what you're doing and I I would support that as long as we can keep the thing the area clean

and of course you're you're going to work with the community and uh trying to keep it clean and provide a service for them. We we'd be more than happy to leave a good impression on well on this commission and on the city itself. So and we understand it's important for our business to operate. Uh so we we do take the matter seriously. Um in terms of benefits, I mean of course there is the huge ecological upside. Last year we've collected 40 million pounds US-wide in terms of clothes which were diverted from landfills. I'm sure the city or like it citizens do pay some substantial landfill fees per year. This would help reduce them for instance. Well, I'm glad to see that. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you too, Daniel. Yes. Regardless of all that, if there is a problem, we can revoke the CDP anyway. Right. That's right. The conditional development permit request before you is the mechanism to make sure that this facility operates in a proper manner, stays clean. It's after the first six months and then annually after that. Yes, that's fine. That'll work. That's good. Do have uh any other requests? Any questions? Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. Miss ma'am, I'm sorry. Everybody Robert confused. So,

um may I just make a small recommendation to amend one of the conditions of approval to memorialize what's in the business plan and what was described here today. So, I'd suggest amending condition of approval number five, which concurrently reads, "As the applicant shall keep the exterior of the bin and the immediate surrounding area clear of any debris, trash, clothing, irons, etc. at all times, clothing articles may not be allowed to be left outside of the bin or overflowing out of the bin at any time." What I'd like to add is one quick sentence that would say, "The applicant shall inspect and clean the bin and the area surrounding the bin at a minimum of 5 days per week." I like that. Okay. I'd be willing to support it if we did that in there.

Okay. If if that's the commission's pleasure, if when you make the motion um if you could um include in the motion um as revised by the uh city attorney's office. Okay. All right. Close the comm. Move. Move to close of public hearing. Second. All in favor? Good. Okay. All right. Um do I have a motion? Want me to do it? We got to we got to include hers. So, yeah, we will.

You going to make the motion? Yeah, I'll go ahead and do it. Uh, planning comm determine the project's category exempt pursuant to section number 15311 and to adopt the attached resolution approve conditional development number 2024- 00022 to allow the placement of a small recycle closing donation with the sentence described by the city attorney to be added as as a condition. Uh, second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. All right. Keep it clean, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. You thought that was going to be your first easy one, huh?

Thank you, chair and commissioners. Um, I'll continue on to the second item. Dollar Tree has requested that the planning commission review and consider conditional development permit 2025-000012. The proposed site is located at 1295 West Renaissance Parkway within the Renaissance Marketplace as shown in the red boundary. The site is zoned town center within the Renaissance specific plan. The site is currently uh empty. The previous tenant of the space was party city. Dollar Tree is proposing to establish a single price overstock discount store within an existing 12,000 square foot vacant tenant space. The operations will consist of sales of kitchen wear, home decor items, party supplies, arts and crafts, fashion accessories, and other related items. The store proposes to operate within the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. 7 days a week. On this side, the staff prepared a list of similar stores which shows there are currently four in operation within the city of Riotaa with all the stores being more than a mile away. The project is consistent with goal 3-1 of the general plan which encourages to strengthen and diversify the economic base and employment opportunities and maintain a positive business climate. The project is compatible with the Renaissance specific plan and the surrounding retail uses within the Renaissance marketplace. Staff recommends that the planning commission approve conditional development permit 2025-000012 subject to the findings and conditions

there. Staff and the applicant is also here to answer questions. That concludes my presentation.

All right. So, the closest one is the one on baseline. Am I reading this correctly? Right. Yeah. Yeah. By skaters, it's quite a ways away. That is quite a ways away. But I mean, how many dollar trees can you have? All right. Um, open public comment. And you have any questions of staff? I have questions for the applicant. Wait. Okay. Can I have the applicant up, please? How you doing? Hi, how are you? My name is Mike. This is on development site. I've worked for about 18 years and I've been involved in all these out there in this corridor area

and I'm the real estate manager for site selections for Dollar Tree. Okay. So, it'll sustain. You got quite a few already. Yeah. So, what we do is we we do traffic counts and we do economic feasibility and this one is is really not impacting any near our our the one that's um south of 10 freeway. So, uh this side is a power center with grocery outlet five below um our typical cenants that we are uh at a lot of similar uh shopping centers around the country. So uh we believe this uh being here we can capture north side of town service um residents for uh from the north side of uh Rialto.

Yeah. Uh being part of this center also uh part of city bankrupt and we step in and fill in to take over the space. Um so city doesn't have to have a vacant space sitting there empty. I think you have I think you have one already off the 210 in Sierra right in Fontana. Font. Yeah. Yeah, this will probably I assume the North Rialto residents are going to that one now. So, you'll probably take away from that sales. Well, a little bit, but we we have a whole economic team and finance team and we do a lot of due diligence before we go into these sites. You can't add a Dollar Tree in there. I mean, a Trader Joe's in there while you guys are at it. We tried. That's for economic development.

We need some other stuff, too. But no, I I I appreciate your question. You guys feel confident you'll be fine? Yeah, we feel real good. We We've been going into these party cities and basically we've been doing real well in them. We've been taking them over. We went we took over probably 48.99 48.99 cents only last year. Open them and operating. They all generate very great sales. Yeah, we did great business. We did to our bottom line. I think we did 10 million bottom was it? Um I believe we did some tremendous amount of and we improved the area. A lot of them were vandalized. Homeless was living. We came in and cleaned them up, painted them and

well that shopping center is our our only crown jewel of the city. So absolutely bring your breast game to that. We're going to open a door, generate business, and um start generating tax revenue. Yeah, we're looking forward to being here. Yes. Any other questions, guys? Thank you so much guys. Appreciate it. Thank you. Have any requests to speak on this item? No sir. Move to close the public hearing. Second. All in favor? I. No oppose. Okay. Do I have a motion or you want me? Move for section uh 18-66- 03 0 dash.

Wait, which one are you reading? Q right here. I'm sorry.

Of the route municipal code. The establishment of a singlepric overstock discount store is subject to the approval of a conditional development permit. The project is consistent with the 3 in1 of the general plan 3 in1 of the general plan which will strengthen diversify the economic base in the employment opportunities in maintaining private business climate. This project is compatible with the Renaissance Pacific Plan and the surrounding retailers. The project is California Environmental Quality Act exempt under CEQA section 15301 of the existing facilities.

Danny, can you please read the second page too? I don't have a second. Here you go. Oh, yeah. It's recommended that determined the project is exempt in accordance with the categoric exempt requirements of the California Environmental Act uh SQL section 15301 existing facilities and adopt the attached resolution exhibit D to approve the conditional development permit number 2025-000012 subject to find the conditions therein. Second. All in favor? I

any oppose? Okay. Good luck. Appreciate you guys. Okay. Community development comments. Hi. Nothing much from me this evening. Um I anticipate we're going to have a second meeting in August. Oh, we are? Yeah. So, that's going to be what day? I have to put it in before I leave. Um let's see. 20th. Oh, yeah. Yep. 14 days from now. So, okay, easy. Make me math that out. I don't know. Yeah. So, the 20th. Um, and uh I think that's it.

You know, update on what's going on with the planning commission. Oh, um I can So, um I would watch the council agenda for as it's published tomorrow. Um, I believe the commission appointment item is intended to be on there. So, I can't guarantee yet till the agenda is published, but that's what I've heard. So, it'll be on their agenda next Tuesday. Should be on for Tuesday. Okay. So, we'll know then if we're on or not. Or soon thereafter, I assume.

Yes. Okay. Um, plan commission. I just want to com because I've been probably about a year and a half or maybe longer uh complaining about Kasa Grande and driving Vince nuts. I don't see him here to thank, but they finished that whole project on the Rialto side in North Rialto and I really appreciate it. Um, the Target employees are still ripping hell through there running all the stop signs. Maybe that's something we can talk to the PD about later. And I'll give you the exact It's 6 p.m. or 6:00 a.m. 5:30 with those times and bring two ticket books because you'll run out with the first book. But nonetheless, the road is wonderful and I appreciate all of it and tolerate my BS on that. Um, and I know we have no control of Fontana side of of that, but I I hope they finish Sierra in there because it's an obstacle course. It's kind of dangerous with low lighting and all that. you guys if you haven't been up there you should but um no I appreciate everything say and I just want the code enforcement guys to share the contact with me so I can give a hold of him and that's all I have I appreciate everybody thank you

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