Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

has we will start with the pledge of aliance. Would you lead us please? Please rise. I pledge allegiance to the flag United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call. Commissioners George Sjin, Deborah Van Essen here, David Collins, Jeff Au here, Steven Berber here, Lori Bennell

here. Now we have a public discussion time. This time is provided to the public to address the planning commission on items that are not on the agenda. State law prohibits us from taking action on any of these items. Is there anyone here who would like to talk about something not on the agenda? I'm assuming not. So, okay. Um, next we have the approval of the minutes from last time. Do I have a motion? So move second.

Is this going to come up here or are we doing verbal? Okay. I was not the mover but or the second. Okay. All right. Good. Okay. Right now we're going to start the public hearing. Uh this is what will take place. Uh while we have the public hearing, I'm going going to open the public hearing which is open now and then um we will um hear a report from our planning director about what is on the public hearing. Uh we will have an opportunity for the applicant to speak to us about the po about the motion. Then anybody who is in favor can speak. Any those who are opposed can speak and then we can have a rebuttal. After all the testimony is given, we'll close the public hearing and then we'll discuss it amongst us and we'll take a vote. Um the action of the planning commission may be appealed to the city council. If you don't agree with us, just make sure you sign the um attendance in the back and then Michael or Ken can help you to appeal if you don't like what we decide. So we'll start with a one we we just have one thing on our public hearing today. Just one agenda item. one item.

So, it's a use permit and Ken, if you could explain it to us, please.

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair, fellow commissioners. Um, hey, the request in front of you this evening is to actually amend the existing use permit um for the veterinary hospital located at 134 West Main Street. Uh it's within the central business district um to allow overnight emergency vet services between the hours of midnight and 5:00 a.m. Uh thereby permitting the facility to operate emergency veterinary services on a 24-hour basis. Um the veterinary clinic was originally approved through a use permit in 1984 and has continuously operated at this location since that time serving the Ripen community as an established veterinary care provider. Uh the current request is intended to men amend the original use permit to expand the clinic's operational capacity by allowing after hours emergency services. Um the reason front of you tonight is pursuant to the RIP municipal code that any business proposing to operate between the hours of midnight and 5:00 a.m. within a certain distance of residential, which is 500 ft, is required to secure approval of a use permit. Um so the proposed amendment would authorize the overnight emergency veterinary operations at the existing facility. Um there is no physical changes proposed or additions or exterior modifications. Um with this request um the amendment is strictly to op is strictly operational in nature and limited to expanded hours associated with the emergency vet care services. So that concludes my staff report this evening. Um, there is a recommended action in the staff report and I would be happy to entertain any uh questions.

Does anyone on the commission have a question for Ken at this time? Okay, I see that the applicant is here. Um, if you would like to address us, we ask that you come over here and give us your name and address and then give us your story. Yeah. Part of the reason for giving all that information and speaking to us on the recording is some people do watch online and then also for the notes so we know what's going on. Thank you.

Thank you Deborah. I'm Dr. Debbie Daniels and for the last almost 42 years I have owned and operated Ribbon Veterary Hospital downtown at 134 West Maine. I am finally going to retire 100%. I have found a company that I really like. It's called Curo. Cur o. It's a familyowned company. It was started only 11 years ago by four family members, one of whom is a veterinarian. They own about 74 veterary practices in the Bay Area and are expanding out here. I really like their business model. They kind of stay behind the scenes and take care, excuse me, of the business portion. They like their associates to buy in and the vets can run the practice and concentrate on medicine. And they've done a study and determined that we could use another emergency clinic in this region. There's one in Modesto at Stanford, which is rather impacted. There's another one in Turlock, Taylor Vet, and one in Stockton. Um, so I think that one in Ripen would be very well received. The daytime practice would be separate from the nighttime emergency practice. Most emergency veterary hospitals are open from 6:00 p.m. to about 8:00 a.m. in the morning. Dr. Brooks is here with me tonight. He is the emergency vet who will be operating the emergency clinic at night if we are allowed to do so. Great. Any questions for Dr. Daniels?

I do. Will it be staffed from those hours or would it be anall service? No, it will be staffed. There will be the doctor, technician, and receptionist at least on premise because there could be walk-ins. Any other questions? Thank you. And you are Dr. Dr. David Brooks. Would you like to speak to us as well? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Tell us tell us what your vision is.

So, we we'll need your name and address. Hi, my name is uh David Brooks. I'm currently living at 1921 Bridgewood Way in Modesto, California. I uh have been a veterinarian for 15 years and uh I got started in emergency medicine surgery pretty early in my career. Got a great mentorship in Santa Rosa, California. Lived all over California. But uh my my future wife here, Angelina, u uh her she lives here along with her family and she's she's a nurse. She works at Memorial and um I'm going to be in the area for quite some time. So I've uh I've lived and worked in the area previously. I used to work for a surgery uh specialist Dr. uh Dr. Andy Fry before he uh retired and sold his practice. And um I look forward to providing the service. It's um I I love the I love what I do and I love providing the services I can provide. And um and uh from what I've uh what I know uh from word of mouth, everyone loves the idea and is has been very supportive of it. So um yeah, it's kind of my idea to to do this. I' I've worked at basically uh most of the other uh emergency hospitals as well and have an idea of what they provide and where they're at. But yeah, location wise and um yeah, I have uh good staff I already have planned uh that are experienced and we'll come into the situation and uh we can start pretty pretty strongly pretty quickly. So that's the idea.

Great. Any questions from commissioners? I I have just one. Well, maybe a couple, but in terms of emergency care, I would imagine in the city of Ripen, given the fact that Ripen vets pretty m well full with um dogs and cats and everything. Do you I'm sure it'll be at night so that shouldn't be an impact, but I just wonder about parking and traffic and what do you anticipate being the needs of the hospital for emergency care? it it's usually not that heavy of a flow as far as uh at night in the middle of the night. I mean things do happen at at most I would say four or five vehicles at at one time and there's parking in the rear I believe as well that can be any other questions.

Thank you David. You're welcome. Thank you. Is there anyone here who would like to speak in opposition? Okay, seeing none, we will close the public hearing and discuss it and come up with whatever our recommendation is. I don't have any questions. Okay. I I am curious there we there were public notices sent out or notices sent out to the surrounding businesses and residences, right? Because there's a lot of residents on First Street. Did we get any response at all? No, we did not get any response. Okay. So no one So no one cares. Okay.

Nobody has any opposition except the people that have dogs and cats and are worried about Yeah. getting getting sick at night. Yeah. I think it's a great opportunity honestly uh to have more pet care at times when it may be inconvenient for us as owners. But uh you guys do an exceptional job and my dog has been there since for 12 years. So

yeah. Yeah, thank you.

Hey, so do we have a motion? I'll move that the planning commission approves the amendment to the existing conditional use permit for overnight emergency veterinary services at 134 West Main Street based on the findings in the stat. Oh, there it is. Just a little slow tonight. All right, this has been adopted. Congratulations. Good luck on your business.

Good luck and your retirement. She's kind of sort of been retired. I golf with her once in a while. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah,

good for you. Good for you. Congratulations. Great staff there, too, as well. Very caring. Yeah, I think it'll be a positive thing for Riven. Okay. All right. So, um any reports? Um just a quick updates, a couple things. We have nothing scheduled for the June meeting. Okay. Um for next month and we did bring the accessory dwelling unit ordinance in front of the city council. Um gave them a presentation and went through everything we went through with the planning commission and they kind of came up with the same um begrudging

adoption or adoption of the ordinance as as presented. Um they had the same concerns that the commission had raised. Um little frustration with kind of how the state operates but uh did end up passing the ordinance as proposed. And so that'll go through a second reading and adoption and then we have to send it off to the state um HCD housing community development for their review. If they have any amendments that they're wanting out of this thing after we've had some discussion with them, it might come back in front of the commission for a couple modifications, but um this point we're just kind of in a holding pattern. So that's all I have. Uh attorney any any

uh Okay. Um, as a um, commissioner, I'll just say I gave Ken a newspaper article from the Carmel Pine Cone because a lot happens in Carmel. But this was kind of interesting that in in that area, the county had declined a um, a builder's request for like 31 units, I think it said. And um, because they didn't have everything in order as it should be, it's something that's called a builder's choice. Is that right? And they so the builder came in and they're putting in a 78 unit

because they didn't have all these things that all these reports that we have to have for the state and the requirements because they didn't have it. The builder's choice could come in and do whatever they wanted to. So the city turned down the 31 units and now they're getting 78. So that's why we do what we don't want to do kind of for the state. Yeah. So essentially they probably didn't have a certified housing element and that opens up the door for these type of things where um denying a project the state can come in and almost take control of it. And uh did it did say here in this article basically 31 units turned into 74 units.

Okay. 74. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not an area where there is a lot of traffic. So it's it's going to be impacted. You know people are not going to be happy there. that it's that it's happening because they didn't the city wasn't prepared. State mandated. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, can't fight it. You just have to be aware even though we don't like it. Definitely. Anyway. All right. Meeting is adjourned till July maybe. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thanks.