Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

To the Planning Commission meeting of February 26. This meeting is called to order. Please play the recording.

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Thank you. Commissioner Wilder, first, I wanna thank you for facilitating our last meeting. I really appreciate it. You taking care of that in my absence. Will you please lead us in the pledge?

Thank you. We'll go ahead and start with public comment.

Public comment is now open for this item. Call (951) 826-8688, and follow the prompts to access the meeting. To request to speak, press 9. When called to speak, press 6 to unmute. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID can be found on the agenda.

Thank you. Jason Hunter, please. Good morning. Jason

Hunter, Ward 1. Down here this morning, I was at a community meeting a couple weeks ago for councilman Steven Robillard. And he mentioned something that caught my ear and actually brought a big smile to my face, which is the city is now gonna finally, after years of lobbying, I call it beating on them, gonna defend what they're what we have in the California constitution called home rule. Are people here familiar with home rule? And I'm I'll explain it a little bit in a second and why it's important.

Home rule is in the California constitution for charter cities. It allows us to do certain things that general law cities in the state of California can't do. And I've always thought we really should be leaning into that to make our city a better place and not be restricted sometimes by laws that are made up in Sacramento that maybe don't fit the character of Riverside. And that's what it allows you to do. I think it's a section 11 of the California constitution.

Don't don't quote me on that, but it sets aside certain powers under the constitution that cannot be interfered with by the legislature. And not only not interfered with, this legislature can pass specific laws that say charter rules are captured by this and you can challenge that in the courts and a lot of times cities have won. The cities who have traditionally challenged on home rule items. And what are home rule items? They're items in municipal affairs. They are elections. They are running your own police department. They are land use, which is why I'm down here today. Right? And I think it's really important.

There's been a lot some cities, particularly the beach cities who have been out there by themselves defending home rule for years and years and years. And I've been telling the city, I think we ought to be getting on board with this as our legislature seems to encroach more and more with each and every passing year on how we run our city down in Riverside. And I've always made this argument is that I bet 80 of the people who are in the legislature have never stepped foot once in Riverside. But yet they're trying to tell us how to run our our city. Never been a big fan of central planning myself because I think the closer the decisions are made to the people, the better the decisions are.

So anyway, it looks like the council is now on board with it. And what's the origins of home rule? It was that when the state I'll give you a real brief readers dive digest version. When the state was trying to become a state, I guess it wasn't a state, it was whatever it was was trying the territory is trying to become a state. They had to go to the cities and convince them to join the state because the cities were up where all the population was.

And so those cities said, we'll join, but we're gonna give you our our conditions. And one of them was you're gonna let us kinda take care of our they had their own rules and policies that they thought worked at the time. And they said, you're gonna have to put that in the constitution somewhere. So that's how it came about. So what I'd like to see is maybe this Planning Commission get educated on Home Rule, maybe bring it back as a report and help the council figure out how we want to maybe draft our rules and how we want to fight the state on local land use provisions. And I think that's totally under your jurisdiction as the Planning Commission. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any callers or anybody online? Alright. So, we'll go ahead and close public comment at this point. At this time, the planning commission will open public hearing to receive public input regarding planning case PC dash 202600117.

Good morning.

Good morning, madam chair, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Caldera, principal planner with Community and Economic Development. For this item, we did receive a request from the business owner to continue the hearing. Staff has no objection for the continuance request or providing additional time for the business owner so long as the item is continued to a date certain. And with that, should the planning commission be open to a continuance, we would recommend continuing this hearing to the 03/12/2026 meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we need to open it up for public comment? Okay. Go ahead and open it up for public comment.

Public comment is now open for this item. Call (951) 826-8688 and follow the prompts to access the meeting. To request to speak, press 9. When called to speak, press 66 to unmute. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID can be found on the agenda.

Do we have any callers? I see you here, Mr. Kim? Yes. Please go ahead.

Madam Chair, members of the Planning Commission, my name is Eugene Kim and I represent DTE or Downtown Experiment. We're just here requesting a continuance. We did make the request and we appreciate staff's cooperation providing that continuance. We do feel as though the continuance should be extended a little bit longer, preferably till the April 23 meeting. And the reason for that is just because of the extensive allegations that are included in the staff report.

It will require us to conduct a significant amount work which we've already undertaken. So we just recently received notice of this. This revocation of the MCUP here notice was sent out on January 27. We didn't even receive notice of it until February 9 when we actually received it in the mail. And then we saw the staff report on February 13, which was just two weeks ago.

And as soon as we got the staff report, we went out to the police department. We tried to get all of the call logs which we did get. We are trying to get the police reports which they've informed us will not be available until March 13. So the requested continuance was through March 12, but according to the police department, they won't even have the records to us until March 13. And so in light of the fact that the revocation of this MCUP would essentially destroy this business, DT is just asking for a meaningful opportunity to be heard, to present their evidence, and be afforded a fair chance to present their evidence to respond to the allegations or the statements or the recommendations in the staff report.

Alternatively, we would request maybe even an administrative hearing on some of these issues as opposed to going direct to a revocation of the MCUP. Only because this is the first time this issue has even brought to, been brought to us. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other comments in the audience? I don't have any cards here. Would did you wanna say something?

Madam chair and planning commission, good morning. My name is Marco Maguire. I'm the owner of Downtown Experiment. My attorney said that we needed a little bit more time. As a business owner, this just came to us a couple weeks ago. We had no clue this was even in the works. You know, I'm just asking as a business owner to give us a little bit more time to be a little bit fair because we just heard about this a couple weeks ago. We had no clue. And we don't have the police reports. We don't have any information.

My team's still working on this. And two weeks, you know, I do appreciate them giving us two weeks but that's not sufficient time. There's so much documentation and it's critical that we get those police reports. Before I at least have a fair shot and present myself in a way that at least let you know what our operation really is. So just asking you as a business owner of Riverside that I've been here for twenty years. You know, I felt that I've always had a good name to the downtown. And just if you could give us a little bit more time to really give us a fair shot here. So thank you.

Thank you. I don't see any other commenters in the chambers. Are there any callers? No? No callers online. May I have a motion to close public comment at

this time?

Motion to close public comment.

All right. Motion by Commissioner Mooney, second by Commissioner Wilder. Please vote. Do we need to go again? Technology trouble.

One moment. We ready? Okay. Are we ready? Okay. Please vote. Wait. Okay. Okay. Can you do a voice vote?

Commissioner Bed?

Yes.

Commissioner Melendrez? Yes. Commissioner O'Halda? Yes. And Chair Wilson? Yes. Thank you. Motion carries. Comments bringing it back to the commissioners. I wanted to start by asking a question, I guess, of of you, mister Edgardo.

The applicant's attorney mentioned, public notice or you mentioned public notice, I think, or the the notice to the, business owner went out at the beginning of the year in January. But then the, the attorney, mister Kim, noted that it wasn't received until February 9. Can you give us some clarity on how that's possible?

Absolutely. So the noticing for the hearing went out actually in February. What? Oh, February. February. Yes.

I apologize.

So that that went out. It's a notice of 300 radius from the business, and that went out on the February. The this basically, a revocation requires separately a letter that's sent to the app to the business owner.

Mhmm. And that has the one I was talking about.

Yeah. And it has to be

provided ten days before the actual hearing. So that was provided well within time. It's a registered letter. So it was attempted to be delivered. But I believe they didn't get it. But then ultimately they did get it from the post office. And that same day obtained a copy from staff at city hall. So I believe that was fourteen days before this hearing.

But do you know exactly what date that letter went out, registered mail?

Yes. It went out, I believe, on February 6.

Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions or comments from the commissioners? I don't see anybody. Commissioner Melendrez.

Is is there any specific reason why, you know, they're asking for an extension into April? We're looking to go until the twelfth. Is there any reason why we don't want to grant maybe an extension till the twenty sixth if they're being told by PD they're not gonna have reports until the thirteenth? Is there something we can do to work with PD to maybe have that done sooner and accommodate the twelfth? Sure.

Yeah. Well, our main reason is basically continuing to the twelfth would already afford them an additional two weeks on top of the three weeks that have elapsed since on

COVID-nineteen has

be condition. There have been already been multiple on incidents at the establishment including two shootings. Given the urgency and need to abate the nuisance and protect public health and safety, any further delay I believe would be contrary to the city's responsibility in addressing these conditions. So that's the primary reason for going to the next meeting.

Did you have anything else, Commissioner?

As far as so if we were to grant it just the extension till the twelfth, is there anything that planning could do to work with PD to maybe expedite getting the reports to them to be prepared for the twelfth so we're not dealing with another continuance beyond that?

Will defer that to Lieutenant Callopy, which is present.

You. Lieutenant? Good morning.

Morning. Chad Colby, lieutenant with the Riverside Police Department. Could you repeat the question? Can't.

They're being told that they can't have police report until March 13, which would be the day after their hearing. Is there anything that can be done through records to get that to them ahead of time so that we're not either continuing it or able to have the hearing on the twelfth?

I would have talked to that division. I don't over oversee that division. I know it's very extensive where they're of active investigations they may not be privileged to. Reports they may be privileged to based off their PRA request may need redactions in that. So I would have to consult with the records division. Honestly, I can't see it being done that much quicker, but I'd have to talk to them.

Thank you. Commissioner Wilder, please go ahead.

Yeah. One more question for PD if I could. Just for my own education, if you will. Obviously, when these incidents took place where PD was called out, the owner of the establishment must have been notified at that time of what was going on. Is that correct?

Not necessarily by the police department, maybe by his own operation staff. It'd be a case by case basis.

Okay. Would they have opportunity at that time to request a police report?

They could request one, but being that more likely it's an open investigation, they may not be privileged to copy that report at that time.

Okay. Thank you.

Commissioner Mooney, please.

Mr. Caldera from staff, I read through the paperwork and saw the charts that had the violations over a period of time. And then it looks like those were disaggregated into the type of penal code violations whether misdemeanors or felonies. And it looks like there were over 500. Is that I don't have the paperwork over a number of years, four or five years.

And I'm wondering if having that paperwork available denoting the type of violations wouldn't have been helpful to the business owners to be able to discern what type of safety issues would be brought to our attention. So they did have that copy of that table that Delaney outlined?

Yes, that was published with all the other agenda materials on February 13.

500 police reports to pull together would be a lot. So, I mean I do believe that there is information on there on what type of violations had been committed over a period of time where the police were called out. So, I'm hoping that that would be substantive enough for a preparation for the public hearing. So, that's my comment. You. You.

Commissioner Singh, go ahead.

Good morning. Actually I have a question for the Lieutenant. Thank you, lieutenant. Lieutenant, is, in the division where you run the reports, who is responsible to run the reports? You must have crime analyst or somebody who must be in charge of this kind of reporting. Right?

It falls under our records bureau. So there's a record supervisor that oversees that, and then he has staff underneath him that would actually do the manual labor of it.

Also, the report is done run manually or it's automated?

Most everything is automated depending back. We had a transition of our report writing system. So there's a couple of different databases they may have to do inquiries on

Is to do it possible to expedite so we don't have to go beyond March 12 to the report?

Like I said, I can put a request in that, but based off staff and the extensive number of reports and redactions and then checking the status on an investigation, whether it can be released or not is time sensitive or time extensive. So I I couldn't make any promises that could be done in that shorter time for sure. And I know they put a request in. I'm not sure exactly when the date was they put the request in, but I heard it was possibly last week, late last week. So I'd have to do more follow-up on that.

Well, imagine we have some crime analysts in the department, right? Do we have crime analysts?

We have crime analysts, but they don't do the

Reporting.

The processing of reports. They do more of stats, analyzing the crime trends of that nature, not the actual processing of police reports.

Wonderful. Thank you, sir. Are

there any commissioner Baird?

Yeah. Thank you. Can we get a confirmation when the request was made to PD for those records?

Good morning. Yes, those requests were made on February 20. We received the findings on the thirteenth. On the sixteenth was a holiday. Seventeenth, we made for the call logs. We were told we would get the police reports. Later told that we needed to submit 99 separate requests, and those were

submitted on the twentieth.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So notice was received by the business owners on the ninth. And the request, the full request was made records on the twentieth. Are there any other did you have another question, commissioner Barrett? I just forgot to clear it. I know that there's a lot of, there's a a a a sense of urgency on the city's part, understanding the the very the extreme seriousness of the, police response over the last couple of years, at this business.

And I appreciate the business owner's attorney requesting, more time. I understand the the justification for requesting more time. I just feel like it's important to also note that the police response is not the only issues that is causing this to be brought before us by the city. There are some other violations that, in my review of the paperwork, the owners of the business have been notified of numerous times of other violations of, or failure to comply with conditions of the permit. Is that accurate?

Edgardo.

That is correct. Yes. They have been through through the citations and other incidents that have occurred during the years elapsed, the business owner should know or should have known of the various incidents and the problems that have occurred.

So we've been on this road for a while.

That is correct.

However, I I do understand and appreciate, you know, the importance of giving folks a fair shot, a fair opportunity to prepare. So I'm not opposed personally to granting an extension, a continuance. I wish there was a way for us to have assurance from PD whether or not they could get this the information to the business owners in advance of a March 12 hearing. Barring that assurance, I don't think it's fair for us to continue to March 12 knowing that business owners, attorneys won't be able to prepare sufficiently. But that's just my thought.

So with that, what do y'all wanna do, commissioners?

Is there

a motion on does somebody wanna put a motion on the table?

Sure. I will. Can appreciate Just making a statement here. I can appreciate both sides of that coin. I think the lack of urgency on the business owner for the request shouldn't persuade us on making our decision. I would go for the the extension to the March 5 or March 12 meeting. Is

that your motion?

That's my motion.

Okay. There's a motion on the table. Is there a second?

I second.

All right. Ready to vote? Motion carries. There is a ten day ten day appeal period. Please contact the planning division for appeal information. Oh, there. I'm sorry. Well, it's on the paper. I'm sorry. I apologize. So, we're done with this? Alright.

The item will be continued till March 12.

This will be continued till March 12. We'll see everybody back here at that time. Thank you. We'll now move on to the consent calendar. Does anybody wish to pull an item from the consent calendar for discussion?

May I have a motion to approve the consent calendar?

Motion to approve the consent calendar.

I'll second.

We have a motion and a second. Please vote. Thank you. Do we have any items for future consideration?

Good morning, madam chair, members of the commission. March 20 sorry. March 12 is shaping up to be a fairly busy meeting for this body. So this item, of course, the today's item has been continued to March 12. In addition, there is a request for a land swap for your consideration between two specific plans within the Canyon Springs area, so that will be coming forward.

In addition, we will be discussing the Planning Commission's 2026 work plan, and we will also be agendizing the election of officers for this Planning Commission at that meeting as well. So a couple of things coming for you on the twelfth. Just for your awareness, two appointments have been made or are being made at the council level for open seats on this commission. So coming up in the next few meetings here, you may see a couple of new faces joining this body. So just wanted to let you know about that.

Awesome. Looking forward to it. Thank you. Alright. Seeing no further business, we will go ahead and stand adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.