Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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e e okay we're going to call this meeting to order it's the regular Planning Commission meeting for Tuesday March 18th 2025 roll call please first I'd like to make an announcement hello announcement that um I have the chair and vice chair incorrect on the agenda so it's chair tidy Zamora Vice chair is Michael Sid alterman so roll call um chair Zamora here Vice chair alterman here commissioner Stewart here commissioner boso here and commissioner Dinan our conflict of interest statement States any Planning Commission member or staff who has a direct conflict of interest on any scheduled agenda item to be considered is to declare their Conflict at this time okay seeing none our public comment period at this time members of the public May comment on any item not appearing on the agenda and within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Planning Commission board individual comments will be limited to a maximum of three minutes or as stated by the presiding officer and time cannot be yielded to another person under state law matters presented during the public comment period cannot be discussed or

acted upon for record purposes state your name and city of residence please make your comments directly to the Planning Commission members do we have any public comments good evening uh planning Commissioners staff ladies and gentlemen Milt tree Wier it's sad but there's a real issue here in Stanislas County it's hard to understand but there are people here in Stanis County who are scheming to destroy the future for for our children and our descendants their plan is to build more houses and bring in Bay Area people to live in Stanislas County this Farmland in the mid and tid irrigation districts of Stannis county is the best Farmland in the world once you build houses on this Farmland you will never be able to grow food on it again this would be irresponsible and our children and descendants would have to suffer for the bad decisions we're making today we're educated people we don't need need to make bad decisions there's not one acre of Farmland in the entire in some entire States and even countries as good of the Farmland in the proposed Riverwalk project area here in Riverbank on the west side or as the Farmland north of Turlock or as the Farmland areas all around Modesto siries Houston and Salida Stanislas County Farmland can grow food for hundreds of years because we have the best soil in the world Prime Farmland soil we have water because of mid and tid the dam is at 76% capacity right now there's plenty of water and we have a Mediterranean climate total us Farmland is stly declining as Farms become subdivisions the combination of population growth and farmland loss due to the fallowing of

land in the S Valley has resulted in an alarming decline in the amount of Farmland in the Central Valley we're going to have to uh fellow another 900,000 Acres of Farmland south of stanlos County I don't think some people realize or know how good our Farmland is in the entire country of Japan they can only grow 38% of their food they need to eat they have to import 62% of their food to survive there is an abundance of poor soils in the Wasteland in California for the developers to build houses on like the Altimont pass area or the area just east of Oakdale there's also the large land mass area west of Patterson Along on Interstate 5 and in the Fairfield Area along Highway 12 we are not a bedroom community for the Bay Area we are the Bread Basket for our country We Must Be Good Samaritans and good stewards and conservationists for our children and descendants since they cannot do this for themselves now is the time for us to save the Farmland it's worth the fight it's worth the fight we're responsible for our descendants and just like our ancestors 138 years ago they built the Grange Dam which is what started the Irrigation District is so important that we preserve this Farmland it's Irreplaceable thank you any other public comments

okay hello hello can you hear me yes yes hi my name is Mary Chris barza and um I am speaking on behalf of the homeowners and res residents of Crossroads West and the surrounding area we respectfully oppose the proposed low income housing at the intersection of morel Road in Oakdale while we understand the need for affordable housing we have serious concerns about its impact on our community first we are concerned um about our Home Investments um this could cause financial hardship for the homeowners and disrupt the stability and growth of our neighborhood second there are significant safety concerns at Crossroads West is a family oriented Community with children we fear that this development could increase overcrowding traffic and crime putting families and Children at Risk third we're concerned about the long-term stability of the project without proper management and support of services this development could could create ongoing issues that disrupt the stability of our neighborhood fourth this development would put a strain on local schools services and resources our schools and emergency services are already operating at capacity adding more residents without additional resources would burden our local infrastructure and reduce access to essential services for current residents finally we urge that the city consider alternative solutions that the funding that is available of $1 million to be directed to establish programs like the Sierra house we ask that the city cons reconsider this development and explore other solutions that promote responsible growth and protect the well-being of our community thank you for your time and attention Planning Commission thank you any other public comments okay we'll move on to the consent calendar all items listed on the consent calendar are to be acted upon by a single action of the Planning

Commission board unless requested by an individual Planning Commission member or member of the public for special consideration otherwise the recommendation of Staff will be acted will accepted and acted upon by motion of the Planning Commission board item 2.1 which is posting of the agenda the agenda for the March 18th 2025 Planning Commission meeting was posted on the City Community Center bulletin board City Hall North and South bulletin boards post office City website and email to the library on March 13 2025 item 2.2 approval of the March 18 2025 agenda this provides an opportunity for the Planning Commission or staff to recommend that an item be placed on the agenda for discussion or to adjust the proposed agenda to allow an item to be taken out of order item 2.3 approval of the January 21 2025 Planning Commission meeting minutes having been read by the individual Commissioners and stands approved as submitted can we get a motion I move to approve the consent calendar uh with the note that Janet had made earlier about the correction of the names at the top for the current agenda call second any comments okay roll call okay um chair um Zamora yes Vice chair alterman yes commissioner Stuart yes commissioner boso yes and commissioner Dinan okay thank you all right uh continuing on Planning Commission public hearings we have item 3.1 which is the 2024 General plan annual progress report thank you chair Zamora uh tonight with uh with the presentation tonight is Michael ooyo contract planner for the city um Michael will be presenting the 2023 uh housing element annual prog

2024 annual reports so it's it's very similar a chair may I recommend a 5 minute recess so we could just fix the PowerPoint presentation I apologize let's take a five minute recess get a cookie yeah no caffeine to late he m

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e e e all right this meeting is back in session the mic is not on all right good evening Commissioners good evening chair Zamora Michael Royal contract planner with the city of Riverbank associate planner with JB Anderson L plan for your consideration this evening is the general plan or housing element annual progress report for the calendar year 2024 so 1:1 to 1231 all right so so for some background since 1969 the state of California has required both cities and counties

to submit an annual progress report essentially reporting their progress on the housing element implementation but more specifically the progress that's made in in meeting their Regional Housing needs allocation now as a commission I know you all are acutely aware very well informed on the housing element housing element update we'll cover that a bit more uh in the presentation but essentially the update is the you know is the foundation and this stems from that right so all the work that you've all been been doing in the update this will um result basically the report out of that so essentially while the city doesn't have an adopted certified uh housing element six cycle the state still requires the progress that's made to be reported so that's what we're doing here this evening and as you'll note this annual progress report is sent to two two entities but before it can be sent to those state agencies it first has to go to the local legislature which is obviously city council so that's what we're asking from you today is to recommend that to send it to council the two state agencies are the the governor's office of land use and climate Innovation formerly known as the office of planning and research and then lastly the California Department of Housing Community Development so those are the two agencies that this will report will ultimately end up at so uh obviously had previously had an adopted housing element for the fifth cycle uh and we are in the process of updating the housing elements for the six cycle oh I forgot I little um special effect because the six cycle is in progress so it's

loading all right so similarly you guys are all well acquainted with the housing element cycle process update you all should be well aware of these projects because you all approve them right so the city received um one General plan and uh General plan Amendment which also included a rezone and an architecture site plan review that was for Heritage two at Claus and uh Patterson thank you and then also the city received four architectural site plan reviews so two were approved and or One Arch cure was approved and then the general plan amendment was approved also three of the architecture site plan reviews are still um in process essentially so on the far right you can see the number of units that were approved 47 units were approved with Heritage 2 and 22 with the countryside 3 development application and all of these numbers um will be reported in the progress report so um in conjunction um as it relates to new home construction 179 building permits were issued um for specifically for new dwellings um of those 179 that were issued in 2024 59 permits for single family dwelling units are still open while there are eight uh permits that are open for accessory dwelling units um and below that you can see the progress that the city made in completing the construction on the permits that were issued obviously the building permits that were completed it's greater because there were building permits issued in previous years but these permits are also reported while they were um issued in the previous cycle they're counted for in the six cycle housing element annual progress report and so I wanted to make a point um and this is related to the Regional Housing needs allocation that the city um was allocated the

3,591 units in sum so it's broken down by income categories so you can see that from actually from this previous slide these were largely for single family dwelling units the 179 billi permits on the top less the eight permits for the accessory dwelling units okay so the single family dwellings fall in the category of the above moderate income okay so if you refer back to your U let me see your the staff report it reported erroneously only 5% in part because the the forms that the city has to um document is um forms that are provided by hcd so there's a accounting error um on my part essentially and so I wanted to rectify that and ultimately in the annual progress report that's sent to council and to to those two agencies will reflect the um appropriate and correct num so you can see though that there were obviously uh no progress made for the very low and low income meaning single room occupancy multifam family Etc um but then the moderate income covers the accessory dwelling units while the above moderate income uh is accounted for the single family dwells and so this is uh one of the rather one of the tables and those hcd forms that are provided to the local jurisdictions to input the uh statistics so you can see um on the far left side the green column has the by income category the number of units that are required I know you guys are all very familiar with these of course but just for everyone that's in attendance this evening are the regional on the left side the Regional Housing needs allocation by income yep thank you very

much the income category very low no progress so the remaining on the right side equals 970 970 672 672 and then as we move down we see that the those eight accessory dwelling units are accounted for in the 2024 calendar year because that's what we're considering and then those 179 above moderate uh income above moderate units that are accounted for there thus it reflects um on the right side of the column 1,70 are remaining for the above moderate income category thank you so this progress report it's not considered um a project by Sea California environmental equality act thus there's no action needed um to recommend this to council and to the state agencies as it relates to to seeka so staff's recommendation is that you the Planning Commission adopt the resolution recommending Council to receive uh this progress report and then authorize staff to transmit it to these state agencies with that if you have any questions uh I'm happy to answer any questions we have one comment from the audience we'll open up for public comments yes sir yes again M tree Wier I believe you can understand what I'm talking about or what I was talking for about previously we are not building the type of homes with that we really truly need here in stanlos county and that is not going to save our Farmland these are upper in Upper income homes and I would bet you if you check them out they're people

coming from the Bay Area it's just not going to work we can't pave over and make this a food desert when it is the best soil we have plenty of water for hundreds of years and we live in a great climate to grow all kinds of foods 204 different crops right here I was just talking to the gentleman back here in the uh Riverwalk project you have the largest Cherry Orchard in Stannis L County in that project two that's two and a half square miles sitting down there beautiful Farmland one of the owners down there gave me a tour of the whole area drove me around in the area it's beautiful area and it's ridiculous to be developing this kind of land I did have a question I know I was here at one meeting where you talked about you had some real small type homes that were going in so it looks like that project is not being done it was kind of a special needs homes maybe you can answer that after I finish um but again you know we've got to get over this we've got to get Apartments we've we can build up we can build high-rise Apartments we can build high-rise Condominiums and I've heard people say they wouldn't mind high-rise luxury high-rise Condominiums it's the developers that either they don't have the licenses to build those or they're not building them because they don't know how to build them and it's an issue I mean we're we're the ancestors of our children are we just going to let them you know not have food it makes no sense and um so I'm hopeful that you know you will do the right thing here um and and really not vote for the Riverwalk project when it comes to you I

mean it has many issues it hasn't been presented yet because there's so many issues as far as you know the fact that that is a flood plane and a flood plane cannot be mitigated because there are no other flood planes so in other words when the when we do get an atmospheric River and it will happen it'll come rushing down the river when it comes rushing down the river it's going to it would be able to flow into the river walk area right now as farmland and it's done it before so you're not going to flood the houses up here to the east of it that's what a flood plane is for it's a it's a safety valve so that you don't flood your houses that are already here and you can't replace it because there's no other flood plane that'll take do the same thing as that will thank you very much to specifically okay there were little houses that were on real small houses and they were in a district over here um I think someone from Sacramento was the the uh people the person who was presenting it or something you remember which one um i c i could add some commentary to this question that was brought up you know s we do have several um tiny home projects that are actively being processed by planning department staff so I'm not sure in particular which one you're referencing but those have yet to make their way to a a public hearing at this point um for for a variety of different reasons any other public comment on the update okay

yes can we first close the public hearing okay we'll close the public hearing on the update for the housing element on the development applications chart you're showing U Apartments Sierra Village Sierra Triplex or any of those very low or lwi income projects uh the the triplex and the so asp10 and aspr 07 would qualify for moderate income as they're multifamily my second question is then is there a negative blowback from the state when we show no progress at all for very low and lowincome projects no absolutely absolutely not this is this is just like um in grade school you get progress report though there are cons consequences for that so maybe not analogous necessarily um but no this is there's no consequences um if you don't make any progress as it relates to any income category um as I always say the market Bears what the market bears and really the city and City staff just facilitate development right we can't we can't require that any applicants where if they come in for single family dwellings then we say no we you know if it's consistent with the general plan consistent with the zoning ordinance and we process those right because it's already been analyzed for environmental impacts Etc um so with respect to any income category there are no consequences um for the city um it's just pertinent that we report progress or no progress to the state agencies thank you

okay then we should reopen public comments for the individual okay is there a name number ending in 3108 on Zoom you have a comment Mrs Halbert you could go ahead okay we'll close comment period let's move on any other commissioner comments yeah I just wanted to uh just more of a comment to confirmation we have Arena numbers which is the expected area we sh we as a city should have available for the various categories of Housing and like you said the city is not responsible for making those houses get built or apartments or whatever those things have to be right

um do have we completed have we determined that the city does have in fact that availability of of those numbers that we're shooting for I know because we hear a lot about oh we're supposed to have the 3600 for this current cycle where are we on that do we have have we confirmed that's available and then the other thing is I just want to make the distinction between this is what's being built out of those numbers which is separate from just having the availability of those those numbers to be built should someone come in and want to do that yeah absolutely and good question commissioner um so this excuse me the city has submitted um the draft housing element for the six cycle um as per state law hcd um the governing board um has responded to the city's draft housing element and so now the next step they had 90 days from submission of the city's draft housing element so they have reviewed it and they've they've provided comments essentially um asking the city to provide more well actually both qualitative and quantitative analysis so so the city has identified um sites to be rezoned and through that um and then also the vacant and underutilized sites um that shows that hey the city does the the city is not going to build these projects right the city does have enough Al space to allocate excuse me to um facilitate those numbers right whether that's just strictly through vacant underutilized lands or through the sites that are going to be uh potentially upzoned to have a greater density so so that's where we sit with the six cycle housing element um staff or uh you know the firm that I work for is responding to the state's comment letter and so we're

working through that I would imagine that um we will submit our revisions to to the city staff to review prior to um submitting again to hcd and then once once uh staff and we will do that in track changes in Redline so the public can see what was originally submitted and then um the response that the city has submitted and that will be required to be posted on the city's website housing element web page for minimum seven days then then it will be you know TR transmitted to hcd and then that that's sort of they'll review it again I think they have 30 or 60 days to respond and then once we get there then it will be brought to you guys I believe to be uh certified or you know adopted Etc so that's kind of where it stands okay awesome thank you and then just to clarify then so then those lower income level categories we've shown that the availability is there there so precisely yeah so as a city we we've investigated and said okay we've got the availability and it's really so now it's up to getting those developers coming in to actually do that yes absolutely and that's with land that's within the city limits where we would not be requiring or falling on um you know annexations or lands that have been identified uh you know Riverwalk specific plan that's while it's an active application we are not relying on that that or any other areas to be annexed to meet that Regional Housing needs allocations was specifically to extremely low very low and low income categories awesome thank you any other comments then I take a motion to approve resolution number 2025-the

okay um chair Zamora yes Vice chair timman yes commissioner Stewart commissioner baso yes and commissioner Diamond yes passes by V Right Moving On planning any Planning Commission comments I I just got one um and most everybody in the public already knows this but the construction of North County Corridor is supposed to break ground next month they've already been doing a lot of preliminary stuff for it but expect to see traffic disruption especially in the Southeast parts of Riverbank uh clar Bell Road East of square uh Square Wells I think of the name of that street um I know I'm looking forward to watching the construction because I think that stuff's kind of neat but there will be a lot of disruptions in traffic for uh the three years time frame that the construction is supposed to take place so just want to make sure everybody's aware of that okay any other comments moving on to any uh County referrals or correspond information anything like that uh good evening again chair Zamora members of the Planning Commission um in terms of County referrals we have none currently okay and staff comments um the staff want to comment on the item 6.1 and 6.2 sure um so just a reminder to planning Commissioners to out their 700 forms if you have not done so already or if you need any assistance um just feel free to reach out um we'd be happy to provide some assistance um I do want to go through a couple of um I guess city council actions past actions new applications so um just uh first of all just wanted to mention um was notified by silven School District um today that it looks like theyve purchased the the

land for the School site out in Crossroads West so that's that's a very positive um thing for that development out there um in terms of new application just wanted to mention a couple things as well um we've been quite busy over the last few weeks um in fact today we received a new um application for a project called Meadow View it's a 31 lot subdivision at the corner of um SAR in California I guess it would be the Northwest Northwest corner um we've also received um a new uh use permit request this is for Riverbank food centers um on Third Street um they're requesting a conditional use permit for an ABC license so again this is something this commission will see in the near future um we also um would probably be seeing in in the next U one or two meetings there's a a house in the downtown area um that is looking to convert the house to an office use so by the downtown specific plan um there's a requirement to come through this commission to to get that approval um in terms of uh active construction that's going on in the city I just wanted to point out a few things um Chase Bank is now open my understanding they open today to the public so um that's other than Costco I believe that's the first uh new business to be in our Crossroads West um shopping center um not too far behind it's Wendy's Wendy's working on um just a few final items and it looks like um they'll be open relatively soon um planning staff this last week also approved a new uh medical use that will be on what they call Pad 11 in Crossroads West sub um shopping center this is the padded directly south of the

fueling station um and then lastly wanted to to point back on a couple of uh things this commission approved recently the tractor supply project on Patterson road um the Improvement plans for the entire shopping center are in our office being reviewed right now um the building permit for Tractor Supply is also under review so we may see some action on that property relatively soon um oh in addition the 16,000 SQ foot retail building we also received a building permit application and are reviewing those plans currently um other than that I just wanted to point out um with this being commissioner lyns uh last meeting that Armando Rodriguez Jr is uh the newest planning commissioner alternative planning commissioner he will be taking commissioner Link's place I believe his first meeting will be April 15 uh with that I turn it back over to you chair Zamora thank you okay thank you so yeah we're moving on to the recognition of stepen Link ending his term so we'd like to recognize Steven for his service for the past seven years as being a member of the planning a member of the Planning Commission board thank you for your seven years thank you Steve and then also you know present here this evening is is going to be your replacement Armando Rodriguez Jr

is here in the audience as well who will take your that position next month thank you okay that ends our all the items on the agenda uh meeting is adjourned until our next meeting April 15th at 6 PM almost said 5:41 but