Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All righty. Good evening. It is Tuesday, July 21st at 6 p.m. This is the City of Riverbank Planning Commission meeting. Can I get a roll call, please?

Chair Michael Alterman?

Here.

Vice Chair John Dynan?

Here.

Commissioner Tyree Zamora?

Here.

Commissioner Joan Stewart? Here. Commissioner Natasha Basso? Here. And in the audience, we have our alternate Armando Rodriguez and Alex Rodriguez.

All righty, with conflict of interest, if there's any Planning Commission member or staff who has a direct conflict of interest on any of the scheduled agenda items to be considered to declare the conflict at this time. All right, seeing none, we will move on to public comments. At this time, members of the public can comment on any item not appearing on our agenda within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Planning Commission Board. Individual comments are limited to a maximum of three minutes. and time cannot be yielded to another person. Understate law matters presented during this public comment period cannot be discussed or acted upon. For record purposes, please state your name and city of residence and make your comments directly to the planning commission members. All right, none here. Do we have anyone on Zoom? All right, seeing none, we'll close public comments. Moving on to item five, the consent calendar. All items in the consent calendar 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 accepted and acted upon by motion of the Planning Commission Board. Consent calendar includes items 5.1, posting of the agenda for the July 21, 2026 Planning Commission meeting. Item 5.2, the approval of July 21st, 2026 agenda. And item 5.3, approval of June 16th, 2026 planning commission meeting minutes.

I move that we accept the consent calendar.

Second. A roll call, please.

Chair Altman?

Yes.

Vice Chair Dynan? Yes. Commissioner Zamora? Yes. Commissioner Stewart? Yes. And Commissioner Basso? Yes. Approved 5-0.

All righty. Moving on to public hearing item number 6.1, the Conditional Use Permit number 03-2026 for the Kinfolks Flatstone Grill.

Here to present a conditional use permit request for Kinfolk's Flatstone Grill. So this project is a request for a conditional use permit to allow the sale and onsite consumption of beer and wine at an existing restaurant with outdoor patio seating. The project is located at 3306 Santa Fe Street between 3rd and 4th Street. No specific issues were identified as part of the projects review the project will you're required to comply with the conditions of approval performance standards and applicable city and state requirements. The project must be evaluated for a general plan consistency and the project is designated as mixed use and the river bank general plan which accommodates retail uses offices personal and commercial services and other similar uses. The request is supported by goal land for policy land 3.5 of the land use element, which is to encourage the development of. and redevelopment of downtown as a mixed use high activity area area and goal ed8 of the economic development element which is to support and expand upon downtown revitalization initiatives staff believe the proposed use can be found to be consistent with the general plan because it supports an active downtown commercial use within an existing building and it does not change the underlying character of the site Zoning consistency must also be evaluated. The site is located within the downtown specific plan area and is zoned downtown core. While restaurants are permitted use, restaurants serving alcoholic beverages require a conditional use permit in accordance with the downtown specific plan and Riverbank Municipal Code. In order to be approved, the activity is required to adhere to the performance standards and use permit findings outlined in the staff report. Based on the location zoning existing use and operational conditions staff believes the project can be found to be consistent with the downtown specific plan and the river bank municipal code and that the required findings can be met. The project is considered exempt from further review under the California environmental quality act in accordance with categorical exemption 15301 existing facilities. The Planning Commission hearing notice was public in the Riverbank News, posted at City Hall North and South, and mailed to landowners within 300 feet of the project site on July 8th. A notice of development permit application was posted at the project site also on July 8th. In conclusion, staff recommend the Planning Commission approve the project, make the required findings, and adopt resolution number 2026012, approving conditional use permit application number 03-2026. That concludes my presentation, and I, as well as the applicant, are available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any questions from the Commission? This is a public hearing. We'll open it up to the public if there are questions or comments on this item. And then you're do we have someone on zoom hearing no one on zoom we have no public comments will close public comments and bring it back for consideration.

I move that we accept item 6.1 and approve a conditional use permit number 03 dash 2026.

Second.

All right, roll call for that please.

Chair Altman. Yes. Vice Chair Dynan. Yes. Commissioner Zamora. Yes. Commissioner Stewart. Yes. And Commissioner Basso. Yes. Passes 5-0.

Fantastic. All right. Item 7.7, staff comments and informational updates.

Good evening, Chair and members of the Commission. Dave Kuntz, i'm just wanted to mention, as you probably are all aware, will be having a special planning Commission meeting on August 4 this is to review the proposed river walk project. Dave Kuntz, i'm just a note and reminder to everyone, the meeting will be held at the Community Center rather than the Council chambers here on the other item I wanted to mention is last week. I got a notification that the City of Modesto is preparing an EIR for a proposed 181,000 square foot Super Walmart. This will be located at what they're calling 4000 Oakdale Road, and it's within the existing Tivoli specific plan area. The project also includes a fuel station, convenience store, two future commercial out parcels, and approximately 732 parking space parking lot. Just wanted to mention a few things regarding this project as we review it. The original Tivoli's specific plan, EAR, it expressly excluded the Walmart Supercenter. And so that is part of the reason why the city of Modesto is going to have to do a full environmental impact report on this proposal. I also wanted to mention, because it's proximity to Riverbank, it does have the Dave Kuntz, potential to impact riverbank roads in particular so we'll be asking the city of modesto to take some specific focus on certain road segments and intersections that can impact the city. Dave Kuntz, we're also, as I kind of mentioned so i'm preparing a letter to send to the city of modesto with our concerns about the project, but I also wanted to mention there's a public scoping meeting. It will be held, let me find the date, it'll be held this Thursday. I believe it's a Zoom meeting, it's not an in-person meeting. But I encourage you, if you're interested in the project or if there's members of the public that are interested in the project, to maybe log on to the Zoom meeting. see the presentation, ask any questions if you do have any. Other than that, questions could be directed at City of Modesto staff, I believe, other than the scoping meeting. But again, I just wanted to highlight, because it is so close to Riverbank, it has the potential to impact our residents. That's all I had for tonight. Thank you.

Thank you for that. John Potter, Moving on item eight kind of referral correspondence.

John Potter, We have. John Potter, We have none.

John Potter, The only thing actually I would like to add it to share with the public, I recently was speaking with the census county director public works concerning the north county quarter project which all of us run and I was informed and maybe everybody knows this, but they're looking at an early closure of claribel. The idea being, I believe the plan is to get Roselle open again to the south of Clarabelle and then closing Clarabelle from Roselle to Claus. And that would be a permanent closure of that stretch. They're hoping to shorten the length duration of the project by about six months by doing this, but it will be a pretty significant impact to us because of the railroad crossing. It'll make Patterson Road even that much more impacted. I thought I'd share that with the public. And I would suggest looking at that schedule so you can see exactly when that's going to happen. If I find out anymore, I'll be sure to share it as well. All righty. I think that's everything. So we will now adjourn this meeting. The next one will be August 4th, as you said. All right. Thank you.