Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Alrighty. Okay.

All right. My apologies for the one minute delay. Good morning, everyone. It is 09:01 a. M, and I'd like to welcome you to the Planning Commission meeting of May 21. This meeting is called to order. Before we move forward with the Pledge of Allegiance, Mr. Matthew Taylor has an announcement to share with us.

Good morning, Chair, members of the Commission. Matthew Taylor, Principal Planner. I'm very pleased this morning to introduce you all to our new City Planner, Laurel Reimer. Laurel, if you want to come up here and say hello. Laurel joined us two weeks ago on Friday, and next time we meet, she will be sitting in this chair.

Awesome. Welcome, welcome. So Thanks something to us.

Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very, very thrilled to be part of the Riverside team. I come from the private sector. I was previously with a planning firm for a number of years doing a multitude of planning projects, whether that was CEQUA documents, entitlement work, working with developers, working as an extension of staff, including doing some work for the city of Riverside in the past. So I have a pretty diverse background, and I'm looking forward forward to working with all of you. The staff thus far has been so incredibly welcoming and fantastic. So, yeah, thank you for having me, and I'll be sitting with you next time.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Welcome. Can I just say I love that you're coming to us from the private sector, ma'am? I'm just saying. All right. Commissioner Mooney, good morning, ma'am. Will you please lead us in the pledge? Thank you. Alright. Will you please play the recording for us?

Public comment is now open for this item, available in both English and Spanish. Call (951) 826-8686 and follow the prompts to access the meeting in either language. To request to speak, press 9. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID for both languages can be found on the agenda.

That was the wrong recording. Pursuant to the city council meeting rules adopted by resolution, members of all boards and commission and the public are reminded that they must preserve order and decorum throughout the meeting. In that regard, members of all boards and commissions and the public are advised that any delay or disruption in the proceedings or a refusal to obey the orders of the city council or the presiding officer constitutes a violation of these rules. The city of Riverside is committed to fostering a workplace that provides dignity, respect, and civility to our employees, customers, and the public they serve. All right.

Now, we can open general public comment. We just heard the recording. I have no speaker cards. Anybody online? All right. So we will go ahead and close public comment at this time and move forward to our public hearing. At this time, the Planning Commission will open the public hearing to receive public input regarding planning case PC-twenty23-fourteen69. Good morning.

Good morning. Thank you, honorable chair and members of the Commission. Judy Igwez, senior planner. The project before you this morning is to consider entitlements to facilitate a mixed use development called Iron Lofts. The 7.03 acre project site is located on the East Side Of Commerce Street between Mission And Avenue and 5th Street and consists of 12 parcels, an alley and a portion of Street.

The project site is partially developed with an appliance store and the historic Barley Mills building. The project site is the location of the former Riverside Scrap Iron and Metal, which operated a scrap metal yard for over forty five years, consisting of a machine shop with aboveground and underground fuel and oil storage tanks. The U. S. Department of Toxic Substances Control identified the project site as a contaminated brownfield, and in 2024, a response plan to remediate the site was approved by DTSE for the removal of contaminated soil.

Surrounding land uses include undeveloped land and industrial uses to the North, single family residences to the East, multifamily residence to the South across Mission Avenue, and the BNSF Railroad to the West. The photos here depict the existing conditions of the site. Photo one shows the site from Mission Inn Avenue. Photo two shows the site looking west on 6th Street. Photo three shows the site from Commerce Street, and photo four shows the site looking south from 5th Street.

To facilitate the construction of a mixed use development, the project proposes to amend the general plan land use designation from business office park to mixed use urban and to amend the Riverside Marketplace specific plan to expand the Mixed Use Marketplace sub area to include the subject properties. The project also proposes a rezone from business and manufacturing park with cultural resources overlay zone to mixed use urban with cultural resources overlay zone. The project consists of a total of 300 units. Building A here in blue is a four story building with two ninety five units, and Building C in yellow is a two story building comprising of five townhome units. The project proposes nine live work units fronting on Mission Avenue and denoted here with the red dot.

The project provides a total of three eighty eight parking spaces. Building A is served by three seventy eight parking spaces located on a surface parking lot and Building C will have attached garages to accommodate two vehicles for each townhome unit. Vehicular access to the site is provided from driveways on Mission Inn Avenue and 5th Street. Private balconies or patios ranging in size from 60 square feet to 175 square feet are proposed for 85% of the units. The project proposes 19,650 square feet of common open space.

Courtyard A will reuse the historic Barley Mills Building as a fitness room and club courtyard with direct access to a pool area featuring shaded lounge areas, barbecue grills, cabanas, a spa. Courtyard B features barbecue grills, a fire pit, and shaded lounge areas. And the third And fourth, floor terraces will feature amenities like barbecue grills, fire pits, and more lounge areas. And finally, there's a dog park on the southeast corner of the site. The conceptual landscape plan shows multiple multiple species of trees, shrubs, and ground cover to complement and accent the architecture.

The surface parking lot is screened for Mission Avenue and 5th Street with the use of shrubs, trees and decorative fencing. 24 inches bog trees are provided throughout the parking lot for shade. The project includes a tentative track map to combine the 12 parcels into one parcel to dedicate right of way, vacate an alley and vacate a portion of 6th Street. The Cultural Heritage Board reviewed the project after meeting yesterday on May 20 and recommended approval of a certificate of appropriateness to City Council. The CHB's review included review of the adaptive reuse of the historic Barley Mills Building and the architecture of the mixed use project under certificate of appropriateness case.

For clarification, the planning case makes recommendations to the City Council related to the compatibility of the land use, the site design, the land subdivision under the request for a general plan amendment, specific plan amendment, zoning code amendment, tentative track map, and the site plan review. Overall, the proposed project will not be detrimental to the health, safety, or general welfare of the public or surrounding area. The project will provide housing opportunities and will activate an area that has been blighted by industrial uses. As proposed, the mixed use development is appropriate for the site and the neighborhood as it is located proximate to major job hubs such as the Riverside Community Hospital, California Air Resources Board facility, UCR in Downtown Riverside. It's close to educational facilities such as UCR, local commercial multiple high quality transit options, recreational opportunities and community services contributing to a synergistic relationship between the uses in the area and reducing vehicle trips while creating pedestrian oriented development.

The project is consistent with all development standards of the zoning code and the Riverside Marketplace specific plan and citywide design guidelines. With that, staff recommends that the Planning Commission recommend that the City Council recommend to the City Council that the project will not have a significant effect on the environment based on the findings set forth in the case record and adopt a mitigated negative declaration and mitigation monitoring and reporting program and recommend that the city council approve the project based on the findings outlined in the staff report and subject to the recommended conditions of approval. This concludes staff's presentations. The applicant's here and available for questions, as am I. Thank you.

Thank Thank you so much, Ms. Chudi. Appreciate your presentation. May I ask the applicant and or the applicant's representative to come forward and please state your name? Good morning.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of Planning Commission staff. My name is Andrew Walker with Overland Development here on behalf of Realm Development. First off, I'd like to say that I don't know how it happens, but we have your literal A team with with staff. The knowledge and the breadth of guidance on these projects is meaningful for us and staff has been absolutely incredible on this. I'd also like to go back a little bit.

You know, this project is a continuation of something that we started over ten years ago, and that's Mission Lofts. And that was taking a bet on then Ward 2 on the East Side and really making some significant investments in that area here. And so this is really a continuation of that journey for us. And we call it phase two on it, but as you're going to see, it has its own character and its own soul and its own development there. So anyways, we are in support and agreement of all the conditions of approval. We have our full team here to answer any questions that may come up. And we're really excited to be here. So thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Walker. All right. We'll go ahead and open it up for public comment. May I have the correct recording this time?

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.

Alright. I have no comments cards here in chambers. Is there line. Seeing no comments at this time may I ask for a motion to close public comment. Thank you. Have a motion and a second. Please vote. All right. Motion carries. Public comment is closed. Are there any questions or comments from the commission? Commissioner Wilder. Wilder.

Thank you. I do have a few questions. Is the applicant's engineer available this morning? If you could come to the podium please. In the geotechnical report, it discouraged the use of storm drain infiltration facilities to be put on the project.

You have eight dry wells shown and if that type of facility was to be used, it was being recommended that they be located 30 feet away from any buildings and 10 feet away from any carport structures. Yes. Well it appears that you encroach into that. Let

me first of all introduce myself. My name is Jim Kawamura with KHR Associates. We're the civil engineering firm that's been working with Realm for all these years on this particular project. We were also the civil engineers on the Mission Lofts project, which you are probably familiar with. And I have with me Gabe Uribay, who is my senior project manager, who basically has been working on this project from day one as well. And so to address your comment about the encroachments, Gabe and I talked about this. I'm going let him go ahead and address that.

Okay. Yeah. So the dry wells are located in the center of the drive aisles, drive being 24 feet wide. The carports are the design of the carports are such that the posts with the foundations will be toward cantilevered style carports with the posts and foundations toward the head of the stalls. So we will be more than 10 feet from the foundations with the dry wells. And as far as the the geotechnical report, we we have I'm not sure what report you were looking at, but we do have support from the geotechnical engineer on infiltration for the site. So that's where our design comes into play with the dry wells.

Okay. Well, thank you. You're welcome. Actually, the geotechnical report I was referring to was the one that was published for this project. But thank you for addressing It seems you've addressed that properly.

Just to reiterate what Gabe said, the way these particular carports are designed, they're cantilevered. So there's no post typically you see a carport and there's post sitting there and there's a foundation under them, but they're not there. Cantilevered.

Yes. That's why I'm saying it. It looks like you've addressed that problem. So thank you. Another question I have is on Commerce Street, you're referring to 3rd Street separation project by others. What exactly is that? And is that going to be in conjunction with this project as far as being improved?

Well, I don't think there's any direct connection with that. My understanding and perhaps I'm misspeaking perhaps. Maybe

Ms. Judy. Maybe

the city staff can address that.

Thank you. We'll be installing improvements along Commerce Street. And so the developer has been asked to contribute their fair share of the improvements fronting their property. So the city will be installing the improvements.

Okay. Is that going to be done in conjunction with this project or close?

It will be done separately.

Done separately? Yes. Okay. Because Commerce Street is pretty beat up. And for this project to move forward and leave that street in the condition that it's in.

Yes. So the

It just seems a little

counterproductive. So the Great Separation Project should be going out to bid soon and hopefully in construction by fall of this year.

Okay. So it is being moved forward?

Yes. Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

Just to the HDR is the engineer on that project and we have worked and met with them, coordinated with them along the way, both their design along with ours. So we've been working together, it's just that as Leonard stated, will be separate.

And that storm drain improvement is also going to go in on commerce at the same time?

That That another project is part of the HDR's third grade separation project, utility sewer, water, storm drain.

Okay. Okay, thank you for clearing that. The other question I have is the, because 6th Street is being vacated. The terminus of 6th Street with this project, they're proposing a hammerhead turnaround instead of the standard cul de sac is, I mean I for public streets I really haven't seen any hammerheads that were being constructed or acceptable due to mainly for fire turnaround and just the smoothness of being able to operate in that area. What is this something that the city is on board with or?

Yes. I believe we have a fire approval for that turnaround for the Hammerhead at the end of 6th.

Are there others within the city public right of ways that have been utilized? I can

look into that, but I'm not too sure.

Hi Commissioner, thank you for the question. We do see it sporadically throughout the city and we have approved it. Fire has reviewed it. Public Works has reviewed it. It generally placed on streets with like low traffic flow. So in this instance it was fully reviewed by fire and public works. Again we do see it from time to time throughout the city as a hammerhead. Okay. Acceptable to turn around for fire.

Okay. Because I do know it's very unusual. Private improvements, I see it all the time.

I think the other consideration is the fact that that street has very little traffic. It's not a major traffic generator. Essentially 6th Street has been cut in half. So it's only servicing I forget the total number, but I think it's probably close to maybe 10 homes and that's Well,

my biggest concern was for fire because it does, you know, present, you know, hurdles for them to maneuver. But if they're fine with it, okay. You know, I'm okay with it too. The other question I have is regarding the on-site parking. The parking requirements for this many units is four seventy four, but there's only three eighty eight being provided.

That's a shortfall of 86 parking spaces. How is the applicant asking for a variance regarding this or how is that going to be mitigated?

So the project is within a high transit corridor, and there's Assembly Bill 2,097, which weighs minimum parking requirements. So they don't need a variance for that.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Sure.

No other questions?

No, I'm good.

Commissioner Montero.

Good morning. I just have a few questions here. First of all, the project introduces some significant residential density and commercial load to our existing neighborhood utility grid. Has the Riverside Public Utilities verified that the local substation and water infrastructure have the capacity to handle this peak load? Or will it require some project necessities, off-site capital improvements.

Thank you for that question, Commissioner. Public Utilities did review the project, and I will defer to the applicant to see how they have been working with the public utilities on any infrastructure needs.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, Judy. Public works, both water and electric, have reviewed project, and we do concur with their conditions of approval for any infrastructure upgrades that need to be happening.

Okay. And so is there any additional capital improvement necessities off-site that are going to be needed for this project?

Not that we're aware of. There's pretty much just the standard improvements on that. We're in a good place from a capacity standpoint, both water and electricity.

Any other questions?

Yes.

Thank you for this. Yeah, so there is one upgrade that we're doing from a six inches to 12 inches on Mission Inn Avenue for the Water Mate.

Okay. Okay, thank you for that.

And we've gone through plan check with RPU, Christopher Gross and Kaylee.

Okay. Thank you. And then my next question is to support just our long term transit goals of being more sustainable? Are the residential parking spaces bundled into the rent? Or can they be unbundled so that tenants who don't have a vehicle can opt out of paying for parking space to lower their monthly cost?

Yeah, it's unbundled. Okay. But there's not a specific rate structure with the associated with the unbundling. The idea is that everyone has a parking stall that if they need it, they're able to park there.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

No other questions at this time? All right. Commissioner Baird.

Yes. First of all, thank you for bringing this project to us. I think this is a wonderful project to see in a portion of the community that really needs it. So I appreciate, you know, you bringing this project forward, working with the staff and bringing it to us to review and ask you all these tough questions. So appreciate you being here today. Thank you for bringing it forth. I had a question tying a little bit into Wilder's here regarding Commerce Street and the right of way improvements there. So maybe this is for you or staff, right? But the right of way improvements opposite of Commerce, right? Not on the project side, but on the opposite side. Are these part of the project that, you know, that's before us today? Are these part of the 3rd Street grade separation project? And what are they? Right? Are these palm trees going down?

Is there sidewalks? Is there walking paths? What is happening on that side? You know, this development looks great, but the documents that I received were quite unclear on that portion of this project.

That's all part of the 3rd Street grade separation that is being done by HDR again. So the improvements, as I recall, they do consist of curb gutter, sidewalk, some catch basins along that side along the west side of the street, obviously tying into the 78 inches storm drain that will be running down Commerce to Mission Inn. As far as landscaping, I don't know. I imagine there will be some landscaping done there, but I'm not entirely sure because that's not our design.

Thank you. Maybe for city staff, if you could speak to that. Also the pedestrian crossing admission in there, if you could speak to what's being proposed. We have an increased usage, right, proposed here, I think, in that corridor, so I'd like to hear about that.

Good morning, Commissioner. COMPANY My name is Swatha Patel. I'm with the Public Works. I'm the project manager for 3rd Street Grades Separation Project. The improvement on the Commerce Street will be done by 3rd Street project. We are right now currently in the bidding process for the project. So it will be taken care by 3rd Street. Regarding the palm trees and all that, it will be remote part of the 3rd Street project. We will be generally improving the curb and gutter on that side, which is our city's parcel. And on the easterly side of the Commerce City, it will be generally the curb and gutter and sidewalk will take place. Sidewalk will be, I believe, through this project, Commerce City will be doing curb and gutter, general asphalt and street improvement.

How about improvements at the railroad crossing?

At Mission Avenue? We are not doing any improvement there exactly. It's just paving at intersection and easterly side of the common street. Are just having a curb return, which will be done by this project.

Okay. We received a comment regarding the safety aspect of that, of pedestrians crossing at that intersection, increased usage of bikes and pedestrians, right? So the city's position is no additional conditions or requirements are being proposed in this project to modify that railroad crossing for pedestrian usage.

Yes. Good morning, Commissioner Yi Sun Sun, Principal Transportation Planner from the traffic division. So regarding to the railroad crossing and also the safety improvements, so we are looking for some like potential grants funding. So we just submit the safe road for all grants last Friday to include those kind of improvements. That's one of the projects for DAS grant applications.

Okay. So the city is of the perspective that we should be doing something, and you're looking to secure the funding. Exactly. And you're not looking for this project to have a condition to help fund or support that improvement?

So that project already like improved some of the provide some of the improvements at that intersection, so including the high visibility pedestrian crossing and also include the solar LED sub signage. So those are the improvements the developer provided. So that's as the conditional of approval in the project application.

Thank you for that. And one more question for the applicant. We've talked about the units, the under park, I had a question about that. Thank you for the clarification for staff on that front. But talk a little bit about the live work units, right? What are the tenants proposed to your businesses right along Mission Avenue? Was excited to see that. But what is really the vision for those kind of businesses, square footage of those spaces, potential occupancies? What are you looking for from a live, you know, work perspective on those units?

Yes. That's us having a little bit of fun here, trying to imagine and maybe introduce something. You know, so this was a scrap yard job. Obviously, not a very pretty business, but, you know, there is some lineage, there's some DNA on the site. You know, that the business was conducted at this site for years. So we thought it would be something that, you know, would maybe interest some people, having a live work unit there, being able to, you know, have some kind of entrepreneurial type experience there where they live. You know, there's a lot of arts kind of happening around that area. So, you know, I'm not sure if maybe there's some tie in there. But it's us just trying to, you know, push the market a little bit and see what kind of comes up in that area there.

Commissioner Singh, please go ahead.

We have two seventy four units. I'm thinking maybe we may have about 1,000 people coming to these units or something like that.

It's 300 units.

And so how many people do you expect to move into the units at a good day?

It's hard to estimate. I mean, it could be four to 500 units. So

this is a large number of people, right? So there's quite a few. So my question is more like I think it's a great project, good looking project. And you guys have done a great job with all the things you had to do. My question is more a structural question. That is, do we have any approach to assess implications for police, safety, fire? And I moved here so many years ago, and we had no problem with traffic and things. So do we have any approach to talk to our different departments to make sure those issues are addressed as we are building these new buildings?

Well, the police department and fire department, all those services do review the project, and they're all in agreement with the general plan. And that usually dictates the need for services. We didn't have any objection from those departments.

Reviewed the project, what does that mean?

It means they saw the number of units. They didn't think that it would impact their numbers or that they could still service the property, the project?

So I mean, I asked the same question some time ago because we had another building come up for this. So we are adding all these buildings. Really means what? Does it mean they're going to add more police, more fire? This is not necessarily just for this project. I'm looking at more structure approach to address these issues and I'm not sure it's within the scope of this particular project, but I'm thinking from the staff point for this whole city, how do we approach this?

Madam Chair, if I may. I can help with this question.

All

of the departments in the city that provide public services, the fire department, the police department, our utilities, they they have strategic plans that they develop and update on a regular basis that helps them and the city understand what their needs are over a certain period of time. And so growth related to development is a factor in those assessments that are made by those departments and updated on a regular basis. Some of you may know or be aware that recently our fire department, for example, has identified what their long term needs are in terms of staffing, facilities, and equipment. And this informs all manner of city decision making processes, including setting budgets and doing long strategic planning within individual departments. We also have our general plan update, which is going to be taking a look at a certain amount of growth in the city over the long term.

The general plan and the land use plan that is part of the general plan forms the foundation for estimations about service needs for various city services as well. For individual projects like this one, the police department, fire department, and other public services are a part of the development review committee team that reviews projects when they are submitted in applications. They do provide conditions of approval for these projects and they're a part of the review of any of the CEQA documents that are prepared for these projects. So in summary, those departments are involved in project review from the beginning.

So to answer my question, so they have considered this and they're going to add more services, more people or how does that work? Do they look at each project and see how this meets the long term plan?

Commissioner Singh, if I could jump in. Just know you didn't ask my opinion on it, but the questions you're asking are very important to us as well because we ask those same questions. So what we do is we work hand in hand with, like, you know, the police department. How we program the project is very important to us because that speaks to the success of the project. So, you know, we'll have security on board here. The site will be professionally managed. So, you know, those things right there, if there's problems, they're going to pop up quick and they're going to be dealt with because we have resources on-site to do that in conjunction with working with PD. On things like fire, you know, we design hand in hand with the fire department to make sure that the fire flow is appropriate. We just chatted about Commissioner Montero's question about infrastructure upgrades. We're putting a 12 inches water there.

That isn't necessarily that we need that water for irrigation or drinking. That's our fire pressure. So that means that, you know, the buildings are designed appropriately. If there is a fire event, each unit has its own sprinkler system. If the fire department does need to come out and respond to something, they have places to park, they have places that they can tee up from and combat a fire event or anything like that. So we do work with RPD and fire because those are very important issues for us as well.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, this is really concerning to me, mainly because yesterday, I mean, I'm teaching a course and a lot of students cannot come because of fire and all of that. So it must have some implication for our fire department or I'm thinking maybe police too. So if this is considered, that's good. I'm happy with that. But this is not really a question just for one project. I'm asking more questions, structural approach to seeing these issues I address. Thank you so much for responding.

Thank Commissioner Singh, did you want to

add something?

Thank you, Commissioner. Yeah, if I

can just close the loop on this one, specifically for this project, because they are asking for a legislative ask here. A general plan amendment, specific plan amendment, they were required to do an environmental document that did take a look at a number of environmental factors, including police services, fire services, utilities. A lot of those departments have impact fees, some don't. But they've still reviewed that and have analyzed the project against their services there. So specifically because of the legislative ask here for this project, they've taken a look and cleared it indicating they provide those services or there's going to impact fees associated with this when they pull permits to provide further services for it.

Great. Thank you, Pat. Thank

you. Commissioner Mooney? Good morning, and

thank you for bringing this wonderful project forward. Appreciate looking at it, reviewing it, and everything it's going to offer our folks here in Riverside in terms of available housing. I did have a question. Maybe this would go to the staff since the location and proximity of the units and the amount of folks that are going to be living there is right up against the BNSF railroad. Is there could you talk a little bit about maybe implementing or initiating or maybe prioritizing maybe a quiet zone.

It's very close. I'm sure I'm thinking that the applicant has addressed that in terms of the materials used to mitigate any of that loud noise, especially for the units that are right next to the railroad line. Could you talk just a little bit about maybe what the city may be doing to address a quiet zone, knowing that there are going be that many more people living living that closely now to, you know, the railroad?

I'll let the applicant talk about the quiet zone. But we did analyze the or the project was analyzed. There was a noise study that was submitted, and there are mitigation measures as far as, you know, windows, things like that. So I'll defer to the applicant regarding the

quorum zone.

Question, Commissioner. And we have experience with this, obviously, with Mission Lofts. You know, we started early conversations with the city years ago on, you know, prioritizing a quiet zone there. It's no surprise and on Mission Lofts, the units closest to the railroad have the highest turnover. That's just a fact.

We're not going to sugarcoat it at all. And it has to do with the noise on it. Now the city of Riverside and a lot of cities have what's called a noise ordinance and that's built into your code. That noise ordinance prescribes what the interior noise can be to any outside source points. And so just as Judy was saying, you know, we deal with that through engineering majors like thickening walls and STC ratings on doors and windows.

That gets you pretty far, think about when the door is open or you have a window open or think if you're trying to chat with a neighbor outside. Those are the kind of things that have some quality of life stressors on that. So we are 100% continue to support a quiet zone through there. And anything that we can do to help that, mean, it's not just for Mission Lofts and Iron Lofts. I mean, on the other side of the way, even in downtown, I mean, that's a stressor for some of those living units and hotels and businesses there as well. So we're the biggest fans out there for anything to do with the quiet zone there.

Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Montero.

Thank you. Commissioner Singh, just wanted to address some of your concerns I think when it comes to infrastructure with the city. There has been a lot of discussion of growing so fast and having too much demand on our first response and needs to improve that collectively as a whole as a body. I think, you know, when it comes to that specific phenomenon that's happening, much of the time of how our processes reflects that where everyone's strategies and agendas comes from within their department and there's no actual rubric or criteria that collectively all the departments have to a shared specific goal when addressing that problem that we have, right? It's all kind of individually addressed but not collectively.

So I think you do bring up a good point there to that.

Do you have a question?

And then my question is when it comes to anti displacement safeguards for our local residents, With this injection of new mixed use capital into the East Side, what specific tenant protection mechanisms or right of return policies are there integrated for the residents?

Yeah. So I mentioned that, you know, we'll have a professional management group that, you know, is very aware of all, you know, any existing and new California laws on that. So any protection that the states has in place on that, we're 100% in compliance with that. And that's part of, you know, why we bring on these professional management groups, is to make sure that we are in compliance with those type of issues that come up.

Okay. So there will be some effort to Full compliance. Okay. Okay, great. Thank you.

Commissioner Singh, are you pushing that button by accident?

Actually, I did, but I do have some comment here. And that is, that is, you know, I mean, we do all these wonderful things. I think we have a great staff and all the people who come before us are wonderful doing great projects, but I moved in 'eighty nine and we didn't use to have a lot of traffic, but I just came this morning to our meeting here, whole bunch of traffic. So all these things we are doing, that's why I was thinking about the structure structural approach to solving these problems. So even though we discuss all this, but seems like the things fall through the crack. So this is why I was bringing the issue. But I don't have any other questions.

Are you sure?

Thank you. Yes, I am.

Commissioner Tunisin. Thank you commissioner Tunisan. Seems as though we have no more questions from my colleagues. I just have one question and then a couple of comments. My question is related to your community outreach efforts around the project.

I know that the city requires a mailer to go out to 300 feet radius. Was there any additional community outreach in the neighborhood surrounding the project area?

Yeah, great. So we sent out our own mailers as well. We had a community meeting. I guess that was last week. Like two weeks ago, but I think it was last week. And what we did is we opened up the Barley Mills Building which isn't an easy thing because we have a sole lockdown to protect it. But we opened that up and we cleaned it up and we host a little kind of a meet and greet there. And we had project descriptions, we had boards, a lot of the illustrious that are before you this morning. And we had a few people come from the neighborhood. It wasn't a big group.

We were hoping for more, but the interactions that we had were great. We got to meet a couple of our neighbors there. And so it was a good time. And it wasn't really a whole lot of back and forth. I think they were just more interested. They got a mailer and something's happening. You know, and, you know, the nice thing too is, you know, a lot of these neighbors have lived with us through Mission Lofts. So, you know, I think that they kind of understand the vision that we're proposing here. And like I said, I, you know, we, there's no one here in opposition. You know, we've done the community outreach. So I think the neighborhood, I can rightfully say, is looking forward to the project.

Great. Thank you so much for sharing that. And so, my comment is that I love this project. I live literally walking distance from the project site. My dog, Violet, and I took a walk over there this morning, bright and early. Because, you know, there's nothing like going to the place and walking around. I really appreciate all the thought and effort that has gone into the design of the project. I think it's going to be an excellent complement to the project that's already in place right across the street from it. It's going to really revitalize that part of our neighborhood. And I'm glad to know that you at least attempted to do some community outreach to the surrounding neighborhood.

I think it's going to be a dramatic improvement to that part of my neighborhood. I'm in the neighborhood right behind there so I thank you for continuing to invest in our city particularly in the DowntownEastside area. And I really am excited to see this thing break ground.

Thank you.

Seeing no further comments, does anybody have an urge to push the button one more time? I would like to. Okay. I would like to approve planning case PR2023-fourteen 69 as proposed. So that we have a motion on the table.

I second.

All right, everybody's scrambling to second. We have a motion and a second. Please vote, friends. All right, it's unanimous. Motion carries. Congratulations. Thank you. There is a ten day appeal period. Contact the Planning Division for information about that. All right.

Moving forward. At this time, the Planning Commission will open the public hearing to receive public input regarding Planning Case PC-twenty 20 six -four zero eight. We'll give everybody a chance to clear out before we move forward on that one. Alright, miss Clarissa. Whenever you're ready.

Alright. Good morning, honorable chair and members of the commission, Clarissa Mangus, Assistant Planner, here to present updates to Titles 18 through 20 of the Riverside Municipal Code. The updates being presented today are non substantive but cover most chapters of Titles eighteen, nineteen and twenty and fall into two main categories: Implementing changes that Civic Plus, the third party vendor that maintains the RMC, recommended in their twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five comprehensive legal review of the RMC and replacing all references to the Development Review Committee, or DRC, with references to the Staff Application Review Team, or START, as part of the ongoing refresh of the City Of Riverside's one stop shop. Additionally, these updates include other minor non substantive changes to correct and clarify language across the three titles. For your awareness, the changes to Title XX are presented for informational purposes only.

The Cultural Heritage Board reviewed the Title XX changes yesterday and made a recommendation of approval to City Council. Among the changes that Civic Plus has recommended in their legal review of the RMC, the key focus of these updates is on updating the references to titles and state codes and removing duplicate language from Title I. Beginning with changes to how RMC titles are referenced, many titles of the RMC are currently known and referred to as the code of the title's name. For instance, Title 18 Subdivisions is often referred to as the Subdivision Code and Title 19 Zoning is often referred to as the Zoning Code. Referring to individual titles as codes can create confusion since only the RMC is a code, so the proposed change is to remove the word code from references to titles.

This slide shows examples of changes to references of RMC titles from Title 18, Title 19, and Title 20. Another key change that was recommended in the legal review was to update references to state legal codes. Currently, several references to state legal codes are incorrect, obsolete or incomplete, so the proposed change is to update references to those codes where needed. Examples of corrected or completed references to state codes are shown here. The third key change from the legal review was to remove the sections of Titles 18 through 20 that duplicate text of Title which defines how the RMC and city government function.

Repeating portions of Title I outside that title is redundant and risks internal inconsistency within the RMC. These are two examples of removal of Title I duplicate text. The example to the left removes text duplicating RMC terminology conventions from Title 18, while the example to the right removes text duplicating language regarding severability of invalid RMC sections from valid sections. Moving on, our second major category of changes in this update is to replace references to the DRC with references to START. The DRC, which was created in 2016 as part of the Streamline Riverside Initiative that also created the One Stop Shop, is composed of city staff from multiple departments and divisions who collaboratively conduct first reviews and, in some cases, approvals of development projects.

As part of the current refresh of the one stop shop, the DRC is being renamed START to better reflect the group's purpose as an ad hoc team rather than a standing committee that has a key role at the start of the development process. There are currently multiple references to the DRC. The proposed change will replace all those references with references to START. These are examples of where and how DRC will be replaced with START. With that, staff recommends that the Planning Commission, one, determine that the project is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, review pursuant to Section 15,061.

B. Three general rule of the CEQA guidelines and, two, recommend the City Council approved planning case PC twenty twenty six-four zero eight zoning text amendment based on the findings outlined in the staff report. That concludes my presentation, and I'm available for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your presentation. Since this is a city request, we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment at this time.

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.

I have no comment cards here in chambers. Anybody online? Okay. Nobody on line. May I have a motion to close public comment,

please? Thank

you. We have a motion and a second. Please vote. Thank you so much. Motion carries. Any questions or comments from the commission? Oh, y'all are quiet now. Oh, Montero. Commissioner Montero, please go ahead.

Thank you so much for that report there. I have just a couple of questions because as we convert commercial spaces, it does usually require a lot more stricter oversight just for structural equity and resource access. So my first question is when it comes to many vacant commercial sites and surrounded that are surrounded by expansive asphalt parking lots, if we're streamlining conversions, will the ordinance mandate minimum standards for asphalt removal or permeable surfaces and canopy tree planning to mitigate the urban heat

island Is this question relevant to the cleanup of language in the code? Sounds like your comments may be related

to the next item on our agenda, the adaptive reuse ordinance.

Hold

your comment until the next item. Are there any questions or comments related to this item? Seeing none, may I have a motion?

Motion to approve planning case PC2026-four zero eight as proposed by the city. Thank you. We have

a motion and a second. Please vote. Thank you. Motion carries. Does the ten day appeal period apply here? It does. There is a ten day appeal period. Please contact the Planning Division for appeal information. Thank you. All right. At this time, the Planning Commission will open the public hearing to receive public input regarding planning case PC Dash202600427.

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.

Good morning. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, Madam Chair, members of the Planning Commission. My name is Daniel Palafox, Associate Planner. This morning, I am very excited to provide the Planning Commission with the an overview of the adaptive reuse for the Planning Commission's consideration. Just by way of background, in 2021, the City Council adopted the sixth cycle housing element, which outlines a number of policies and priorities that help to plan for the current need and future need of housing for residents in the city. Since then, the city has had an opportunity to implement a number of those policies, most recently the third item before us, which was streamlined development processes where we updated the zoning code to see where we can streamline the development, pre approved ADU plans.

And before you today is an adaptive reuse ordinance, so we'll get to touch upon that in a little bit. To help support with the adaptive reuse ordinance, in 2022, the Southern California Association of Governments, SCAG, they allocated about $200,000,000 to support member agencies like the city to implement projects that help to implement the housing element. In 2023, the city reached out to our partners at the Western Riverside Council of Governments through a technical assistance request to seek support for creating and developing an adaptive reuse ordinance. And after working on a robust scope of work, some of which we'll have an opportunity to talk about this morning, the city procured consultant support from Placeworks and City one hundred eleven to help support the drafting of the ordinance. And then last year in July, we kicked off the project, starting very strong with community outreach and then starting off with preparing some of the technical tasks.

In December of last year, staff had an opportunity to provide the City Council Land Use Committee with an overview of the Adaptive Reuse project, including key tasks, next steps. And the timeline before you provides a high level overview of the events leading us to this morning. So when we're talking about adaptive reuse, generally speaking, adaptive reuse is the repurposing of existing nonresidential structures into different land uses, and that's very broad. And for the purposes of the ordinance before us today, we are looking at adaptive reuse of nonresidential structures to multifamily or mixed use, and that's as part of the grant requirements. One of the goals for adaptive reuse, but there really are many, is that it incentivizes housing production by repurposing vacant commercial office buildings and revitalize neighborhoods into bright commercial corridors.

But adaptive reuse also helps to preserve historic structures. Sometimes you have instances where all you want to do is preserve the inside of building, but you don't want to mess up the exterior of the building. This adaptive reuse allows the opportunity to preserve the architectural heritage of that building. As part of this project, the scope for this project, we had a robust community outreach. We started off with roundtable meetings.

This allowed us to get a the local perspective from property owners who are here in the city, local developers who have experience with different housing projects in the city, and really understand what are the needs. We're working on adaptive reuse ordinance, and we want to make sure that the ordinance is conducive to your experience here in the city. We had an opportunity at the very beginning to introduce the project to them and hear from them and share they gave us their local expertise for the ordinance. And then a little bit more broadly, we had an opportunity to interview experts in the adaptive reuse field. These are developers who have experience nationally in the state who have worked on adaptive reuse projects.

And the goal here was to identify key obstacles in their experience through different cities and their ordinances so that we could learn from those ordinances and make sure that ours was robust and all encompassing of the solutions of the issues and the solutions for that. And then a little bit more broadly, we had an opportunity to engage the community at large. This included updates to the chambers of commerce to ensure that the business community was aware that we were working on this project. And then most recently, we had an opportunity to engage the community at an open house. This was to provide the community with an overview of the ordinance and what's coming and also to garner support and ensure that and help people get excited about this project.

As part and additionally, we also had an opportunity to work internally with our city departments to make sure that, you know, once we start getting if approved, that the adaptive reuse projects are streamlined to the extent that we can. So working with building, working with fire to make sure that everyone is on the same page for adaptive reuse and ensuring that the ordinance has flexibility to the greatest extent. The main goal for this project in the ordinance really is to incentivize the conversion of nonresidential structures into stand alone residential and mixed use development. I talked a little bit earlier about how adaptive reuse has many benefits. And the way you approach adaptive reuse, you can have adaptive reuse to commercial and nonresidential.

But for the purposes of this ordinance, it's to implement it to incentivize multifamily or mixed use. And we do that through a new chapter, Chapter 19.54. So to be eligible for adaptive reuse, you must be what we call an eligible building within the eligible project areas. So the eligible project areas for adaptive reuse, this includes your commercial commercial zones, your office zones, your mixed use zones, and your multifamily zones. And we included the R3 and the R4 multifamily zones because as part of the housing element that occurred in 2021, there were a lot of commercial buildings that were rezoned to multifamily.

And so we want to make sure that those buildings are also captured in this effort. To be eligible for adaptive reuse, the building must have received its certificate of occupancy at least fifteen years prior on a rolling basis. This helps to ensure that as the years go on, it's fifteen years, I guess, on a rolling basis, and it's a nonresidential building or structure. So in the ordinance, there are a number of definitions that have very specific meanings. And so when we're talking about bonus floor area, this is additional floor area that is constructed within or as an extension of height of the existing building envelope.

So in the image before you highlighted in the orange box, you will see on the left side that is the original existing building. And then to the right, you have what look it's a loft that was constructed as part of the adaptive reuse project. That's the bonus floor area. The existing building envelope this is the total amount of three d space that exists at the time of project application. In essence, it's the building that was originally there without any additions or modifications.

And then you have new construction. So in the literal sense, a lot of this is new construction, but for the purposes of the ordinance, new construction is what takes place separate from the existing building envelope. As far as development standards for adaptive reuse projects, I talked a little bit about how the terms have very specific meanings ordinance. Any time there is reuse of the existing building envelope this is the existing commercial building additional parking is not required for the reuse of the existing building. You're more than welcome to provide parking, but you are not required to, and this is an effort to provide the greatest flexibility.

However, anytime there is new construction separate from the reuse of the building, that new construction will have to abide by the parking requirements of the underlying zone or by the zone which most closely matches the density of the project. And in the event that perhaps a commercial building or an office space is overparked, any time that there is additional parking, that space that's overparked can be converted into other uses. As far as open space goes, there is a requirement for 100 square feet of any combination of private and open space per dwelling unit or that of the underlying zone, which is less. Now traditionally, for mixed use and multifamily projects, there is a ratio that is provided for both private and common. But given that a lot of these buildings are already built out, the flexibility here was to ensure that they could provide any combination of either private or common.

And then at least at that open that usable open space, at least 25% of that must be common. So this could be like a shared amenity like a gym or a working space. So throughout outreach efforts, a lot of the feedback that we heard from the experts but as well as our local community was, in order to make these projects feasible, it would be helpful to have to also allow new construction. So traditionally, a lot of adaptive reuse ordinances only support for the conversion of the existing building. And so in order to incentivize the adaptive reuse of existing buildings and also make these projects a little bit more flexible, the ordinance would allow for the for new construction separate from the reuse of the building.

So this includes multifamily buildings, lofts, condos. This would need to take place on the same site. And if this was being considered, would also need to include adaptive reuse of the existing building. So this new construction, depending on the zoning so if the zoning is zoned for residential use, any all of the new construction will need to abide by the standards of the underlying zone or the specific plan. However, most commercial buildings and most office buildings will be in areas zoned for nonresidential uses, just given the nature of the building.

In that case, the new construction will have to abide by the closest matching residential or mixed use density. So for example, let's say that we have a project site that is zoned commercial general. There is no residential zoning for that property for that project site. But it has a proposed density of 14.5 dwelling units per acre. That would most closely match the density of the R3 3000 zone.

So those would be the standards that the new construction would abide by. So I talked a little bit about the incentives. So the main goal for this ordinance is that we are incentivizing the depth of reuse through incentives. So these incentives apply exclusively to the conversion of the building itself and not to the new construction. And so rather than have a lot of text on the screen, I'd like to walk you through some of the pictures before you and kind of explain a little bit about what they are.

So number one, this is showing an illustration of the bonus floor area. So as far as the height goes, the bonus floor area, this can it's allowed to increase up to 30 feet depending on the height of the existing building. So for example, if the building is 50 feet or greater, they are allowed an additional two stories. If it's 50 feet or less, then it's allowed one additional story. And this would be through rooftop construction subject to the height requirements.

Floor area, this is what we call the interior space of the building. That is permitted within, as is shown on number three. This is one floor space that was converted into sort of like a loft configuration. And then this may be reallocated. So as part of the adaptive reuse, some of the space may be converted to light wells or just given the nature of the building.

In the event that the floor area is removed, it could be reallocated to a different area of the building so long as it doesn't increase the degree of nonconformity for the setbacks. Another incentive that the ordinance provides for open space. In the event that there is an adaptive reuse project that provides five or less units, they would not be required to provide any open space. And really the idea here is, with the ratios that are provided, it might preclude a project from coming to fruition if we would have required open space if they would have provided, like, two units. It would just not be feasible.

Also, in the event that there is a project that is within half a mile within a public park, that project may reduce the open space requirement by 25%. And then I talked a little bit about how no additional parking is required. But in the event that there is new construction and parking is required, they are able to satisfy that parking requirement by providing up to 5% through bicycle parking, up to 5% of the required spaces. And then density. So as far as the density for the existing building envelope, they may exceed the density of the underlying zone so long as it does not increase it complies with the high requirements of the zone.

So this is a little I'll walk through this example with you all. So on the left, we have just the reuse of existing building envelope. This is the building that's eligible for all of the incentives that we just talked about. In this example, there is an additional bonus floor area on the top, but there is also construction. So the new construction must be located on the same site, and that new construction would adhere to the development standards of either the underlying zone or the zone that most closely matches the density of the project.

One of the tasks for this project was to analyze this ordinance and work through the barriers to understand how can we work through the issues that are most common for adaptive reuse projects. And we had the opportunity to apply this ordinance to two case studies in the city. This allowed us to see real scenarios. If we apply this ordinance as it is, what are the units that it would yield? And for the first case study, we looked at a commercial building within a more traditional suburban context.

This is your the example that the site that we used was a strip mall and it had three commercial buildings. And then the second case study that we used was a mixed use office building within a traditional urban context. When we looked at the first case study and I want to say these are not actual projects, they were just used for the purposes of studying adaptive reuse. When we applied the ordinance to this to the first case study, we looked at it through two different perspectives. The first was adaptively reusing all three commercial buildings and seeing what how many units that would yield. But two, with support from the new construction that would be permitted through the ordinance, what

were

the units that we would get. So in the first example, when you convert the space of the three commercial buildings, that would lead to 25 dwelling units. But with support of the new construction, that would result in 22 new units, as noted in the darker yellow in the rear of the property. The other case that we looked at for this site is having a mixed use component to the project. This would include adaptive reuse of the building to the left and that would result in five adaptive reuse units, have which the incentives.

And then also the new construction. This, as you can see, the number here was greatly increased to 57 units. The second case study, like I mentioned, was a urban context. And in this example, the reuse of the existing building resulted in 24 units. And then with the bonus floor area that was constructed as part of the analysis, that would result in 12 additional units.

And then on the right, this had the new construction located at the rear of the building, which resulted again in 12 units. But just given the nature of the open space requirements, that resulted in about two fewer units as compared to the first example. Looks like that brings me to the closing of the staff report. So in closing, staff recommends that the Planning Commission determine that Planning Case twenty twenty six-four 27 is exempt from further CECO review pursuant to the common sense exemption and two, recommend approval of planning case PC-twenty 20 six-four 27 as outlined in the findings of the staff report. I am available for any questions, and then we also have our consultant team here as well to help support. Thank you.

Awesome. Thank you so much for the presentation. That was a lot. We'll 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 6 to unmute. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID can be found on the agenda.

Alright. I don't have any comment cards in chambers. No callers. May I have a motion to close public comment?

We

have a motion and a second. Please vote, please. Right. You very much. All right. Bringing it back to the commission. Commissioner Montero, I understand that you might have a question or two about item.

Yes, sorry for jumping the gun there on the last agenda item. I had it numbered wrong. So I do have a couple questions. My first one, this framework has been an emerging model that has been really successful. So I'm really excited that we're continuing to take steps to go ahead and move forward to address housing issues with this framework.

So there's many vacant commercial sites. Many vacant commercial sites have a lot of parking lot asphalt. If we're streamlining conversions, will the ordinance mandate minimum standards for asphalt removal or permeable surfaces and canopy tree planning to mitigate their urban heat island effect? That happens a lot. And also improving the stormwater management.

Thank you for your question. A pleasure to meet you. I don't think I've had an opportunity to meet you yet. But the ordinance does not prescribe minimum removal for asphalt. But what it does do is, in the event, like you shared, where there is where the site is perhaps overparked, that space can be converted to a new use. And as part for the new construction, it would be permitted on the site as well.

Okay. And then in the example for example, a lot of commercial strips when it comes to housing can inadvertently create localized deserts because sometimes commercial spaces aren't around neighborhood essential areas. Does the streamlined process approve a factor in a site's proximity to essential infrastructure? Infrastructure? Is there a minimum or some kind of incentive to incorporate community gardens or pocket parks at that point?

Thank you for your question. So the ordinance, it doesn't preclude sort of the creation of the community gardens. What it does do is it provides the opportunity to if it has access to those, we can perhaps reduce some of the incentives through the open space. But it doesn't prescribe any sort of minimum, and it doesn't preclude them from providing those amenities either.

Okay. And so what happens then if there's a commercial space that wants to convert, but the grocery store is twenty minutes away on the other side of the town in this case? Or is there a way to account for some developments that may want to inadvertently convert but not? How will we address that lack of resources?

Can I ask a clarifying question? Yes. Are you concerned is your concern or your question primarily about commercial displacement, the notion that we'll be losing commercial space to residential conversion?

No. So it's actually when we're converting commercial space, just to clarify, and going into residential, a lot of times commercial essential spaces that residents need and neighborhoods need specifically just because of how that zoning happens. So how will we make sure that if we're converting projects that there's projects that don't convert and all of a sudden create a desert space where we have people moving into an area, but the central necessities aren't necessarily in close proximity. I would

say that this is an issue that we would probably address the at a higher level through broader land use planning

Okay.

Rather than on an individual project level. Okay. We do have, for example, in the PRD ordinance. Those projects, you know, can become eligible for bonus density if they are within a minimum a certain minimum distance of community amenities and services like you're referring to. I think by its nature with this project adaptively reusing commercial spaces, in you know, think about like the Magnolia Avenue corridor or the Arlington Avenue corridor.

You know, those those are are amenity and service rich locations already. So I think that that these conversion projects actually have more of a of a likelihood of placing people in better proximity to amenities and services than than making them more remote. But as we update our future land use plans, we will monitor to see how that balance is playing out.

I'd also like to add on to what Matt was saying that in addition to that, it has a domino effect that most of these commercial spaces are along high transit priority corridor or high transit corridors in the city. So by putting more density there, likely going to get more and better service from alternate means of transportation there. I know we have a robust transit system already down Magnolia University, but putting density in those areas will also have a domino effect of bringing more commercial into those spaces and also better transit as

well. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you for that, both of you.

Thank you. Commissioner Wilder?

Thank you. Quick question. If there's a project that was moving forward that failed in the open space requirement? Does this allow that project to buy into a open space bank?

Thank you for your question. So as part of this ordinance, that's something that is being considered as far as the donation of open space. If the project does not comply with the open space requirements, we need to think about how other flexibilities, but they wouldn't be able to buy into a bank or donate it somewhere for open space purposes.

Okay. Thank you.

Commissioner Baird?

Yes. Thank you for the great presentation. Love your enthusiasm for this topic. It comes through. So I really do appreciate that. I have a lot of concern about parking, to be quite blunt about this. Right? Even in your own examples, you had zero parking stalls on some of these adaptive reuse projects. In other examples, you know, you could foresee a non transit oriented project, right, that has this this ceiling that they can get rid of a bunch of stalls functionally going from maybe an overparked retail circumstance to an underparked, you know, residential circumstance in a nonurban corridor. There's no I didn't see any minimum floors.

I didn't see any minimum requirements. This incentive seems overly rich and impactful to adjacent communities, particularly in the nontransit oriented projects. I'm incredibly concerned about that, particularly sitting here in Ward 5 right on the seat. So I'm just curious what the thought was there, why this is so rich as it regards to lack lack of parking requirements, only get rid of an excess at no minimum. If you could speak to that, I would I think that would be helpful. I appreciate it.

Yeah. I hear you, and thank you for your question. Like I said at the beginning, we had opportunity to engage various stakeholders. A lot of those were local developers in our community. And what we heard from them was, we want to provide parking, but sometimes minimum parking requirements makes it difficult. And that has and that may have the effect of completely prohibiting a project from coming to fruition. So the idea was having no minimum parking requirements or not requiring parking for the conversion of the existing building helps to get rid of that. But you have the flexibility of parking of providing parking if the developer wants to and given the market.

I get it. I get it. Developers don't charge for parking stalls. So, you know, I a concern there, right? I have a concern that particularly in non transit oriented, the one to one and a quarter ratio per unit, right, like you could see high density units, right? No minimum parking requirement. So you could see, you know, studio, micro units, no parking, non urban environment, no local amenities, and you have a massive spillover effect. And I'm being a little dramatic to make a point, right, to my fellow commissioners here, right? And I don't think a developer actually wants to do that, right? But I'm trying to get a point across that this allows that, and it allows it by ordinance, right?

Not through review. And that is a problem, I think, that that would not come before a committee or not come before us with that community impact. So I really think there needs to be some levels of minimum here, particularly in nontransit oriented projects and some amendment associated with some reasonableness factor here to prevent a by right ability to have a zero parked, high density residential unit coming from what was over parked, right, for a commercial application to now severely under parked in a residential application via this ordinance. I think that is a potential outcome, and I think I'm bluntly quite concerned about this and would recommend some reconsideration of that portion of this proposal before us today.

If may clarify, is your concern about the parking primarily related to the reuse of the existing building or also as far as the parking required for the new construction? Because new construction would still have to abide by the parking requirements.

Understood. But you have a scenario in which the existing reuse has functionally zero parking. So you could have a significant portion of the project site have zero functional requirement, a small new construction that has a few stalls, right? This is not a functional property that would have community impacts. To the other commissioner's comments again about being in a desert, not having access to amenities, some of these particularly non transit oriented locations, now you don't even have public transportation to get to some of those far off amenities.

And so really it's about that. I think it also exacerbates the case, if there's no minimum, when you have these bonus, you know, second floor. You can add a couple floors. That doesn't trigger additional parking, from my understanding, right? So you could add two floors to a commercial space, have it under parked, right, and exacerbate that through the bonus. So we're bonusing on square footage. We're also bonusing on square parking. Right? It just seems too much. It seems too rich, bluntly, being able to do that with the reuse portion.

I appreciate you bringing up that concern. I share that concern now that you brought it up. So perhaps that's something for us to discuss requiring a change. Commissioner Alderette?

Commissioner Baird, I saw your presentation before. And so we have the same the way that I remember was addressed a little differently. You showed us different locations where you have a building, and yes, you can't take away that parking. And most of those buildings are over parked already. Think you gave us a few examples of that.

Because I do express your concerns, but the likelihood of that happening, yes, can happen. For something like this that's going to bring housing, which is that we need here, I think that was a small concern. It's there, but it's like, you show us an example where that could happen versus multiple examples where it's not gonna happen? It's one of those things where it can happen, but it's not.

Low risk?

It's low risk, yes.

So

I was just going to say I think this is a great use. It's been a long time coming. See staffs put a lot of work into this and a lot of thought. And then when I requested the speaker, you brought up. So that's all I wanted to say is I appreciate all the time and effort staff has put in this. And I think it's a great thing.

Thank you. Commissioner Singh?

Thank you for your presentation. I have a question. In your presentation, you said that you shared this proposal with the public. I don't see any opposition here. But do you have any comments from the public that we're not supporting this project?

Thank you for your question. So we didn't receive any specific comments that were against this project. In fact, I spent the week here at the counter sharing about this project and informing letting them know they'll be here this morning. But no specific comments against the project that I've heard.

Thank you. I don't see anybody opposing this. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Montero?

Yes. So Commissioner Barrett, I definitely shared those concerns as well now that you brought them up. We definitely want projects with developers to go through, but we also want to look at the interest of our residents, and that's part of our duty as commissioners sitting here today. So if it's something that's less likely to happen where there's no parking, what is the harm then to add a minimum parking versus none at all, just for precautionary because human behavior is never truly predictable at times when it comes to money projects. Projects that have to do with money, just to be frank.

So I would agree that having a minimum and parking for these types of projects be taken into consideration just so that we never have that effect that Commissioner Baird shared with us today. Thank you.

Commissioner Tunisin. Thank you. I also agree with Commissioner Baird. That was the first thing question that came to my mind is, why are we not requiring parking? We're Southern California people. Parking is something we pretty much demand. We're not getting rid of our cars. Even in the smaller, lower density areas and senior areas, they have cars. So, concerns me a lot. I'd like to see the portion of that amended or revised.

Maybe have it read minimal parking required. But this seriously concerns me, as it does Commissioner Baird, that we would not have parking required, and it would just be a given that that can happen and it doesn't have to come before us or city council for that. Thank you commissioner Tunisian. Commissioner Melendrez.

So just so I'm clear, these projects, like, you're not going to get a blanket approval. Correct? Like, there's going to be a case by case basis? That's correct. An evaluation of, is this an appropriate area where there are bus lines or public transit that run through? What are you know, what's available? Grocery stores nearby, markets, DoorDash is available everywhere? Like those are the types of things that will be evaluated on a case by case?

Correct. So each project will be evaluated independently Okay. Through each department, building, fire, planning, every department.

And so for evaluating it, we're going to evaluate street parking, what's already there in the way of an impact from parking. If it's something that does not make any sense, I would assume that it would not move forward. Or is there will this create a carve out where it can just move forward? That's my question. Because that's

So the the proposal is for this is for nondiscretionary ministerial review of these projects.

Okay.

So if it checks the boxes, it moves forward.

Okay.

So the point there, I think, is to make sure that the boxes are the right boxes.

Right.

Anything else, Commissioner? Nope. Okay. Commissioner Baird?

Yeah, just wanted to comment. I, you know, I think there's a lot of creativity in what was presented in the code and the bonuses. I think there was, there's clearly a lot of creativity and thought about how to incentivize these projects, which we want. Like, I think this commission, I'm hearing this commission say we want adaptive reuse, right? And there's general support of that. There's concern about the parking element. I would encourage increased creativity on the parking item. Like, I'm not suggesting it has to be a minimum. It could be a carve out if it's not near high transit zones. It could be a minimum.

It could be a variety, I think, of creative solutions that allow the flexibility, but really address the parking related concern. If this is far away from amenities, if this is far away from transit zones, I would suggest staff like my recommendation would be suggest staff to come back with the creativity, with the consultants. Right? I think this is really well prepared. I think this is a miss, right, and to come back with some suggestions that address what you've heard today.

I don't have a particular one other than just a blanket minimum, and I think that's a little bit heavy handed, right? And that may be the right answer. But that would be my suggestion, is to really consider what you've heard today and to come back with a recommendation regarding amending the title, right, to address a minimum parking, particularly in non high transit corridors.

Thank you for that. Commissioner Melendrez, you had something else to add or ask? Your name is up. That's okay. I'm going to skip you for a moment, Commissioner Monteiro, and go to Commissioner Mooney.

Thank you. A quick question for staff then. Did you what kind of analysis you and or the consultant looked at regarding the parking? For instance, I understand all of the, you know, no additional parking, additional with the new buildings. But what kind of, like the ratio, so what was currently there as it was a retail commercial building and then transitioned into a residential, what kind of ratios were you looking at to maybe come up with the thought that no additional parking would be required on the current building that's being converted.

May I ask either the consultant or you to come up with why, you know, the thought that you wouldn't offer additional parking spots? Thank you.

Is the podium mic on?

Madam Chair, Commissioners, hi. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Molly Mendoza. I'm the project consultant with PlaceWorks.

With me is Karen Gollies, who's the principal in charge. So there's a lot of concern about parking, and we really do understand that. I do want to clarify a point that was made earlier about no parking being required, and that's only on projects or in structures where no parking already exists. And that is primarily, if not maybe only in the downtown area, so those maybe commercial offices or existing marketplaces operate now with no on-site parking. And in our research and our coordination with roundtable members as well as with experts, our understanding was that requiring added parking to those sites that do not have existing parking would be infeasible.

So the projects would be like sort of a nonstarter. So that was sort of where that baseline came from. And then we understand that where parking does exist, we do need to preserve some of that parking. We don't live in Europe, Paris, where there's 100% access to bus lines and high transit access everywhere where everyone lives. And we did consider the fact that, for example, in one of the case studies, was in a more suburban area that too low of a parking requirement could impact surrounding neighborhoods, surrounding residents, and so we did have some concerns about that, which is why we did require for new ground up construction the existing codes requirement for parking.

So the 1.25 units that would be required to be maintained if there was an excess of parking came from sort of a review of the city's existing codes. So correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we looked at the mixed use designation. And then after talking again with some of our experts, some developers who have experience with the Los Angeles adaptive reuse ordinance, the recently adopted Santa Monica adaptive reuse ordinance, the 1.25 was sort of where we landed as a valuable mix between what's realistic, what could be required and keep a project feasible, but also still allowing some of that parking. So that was sort of the effort and the work that went into developing that process. This does not restrict a developer from looking at the market and saying, I really need to provide two spaces per unit.

That's what's going to make my project sell. That's what's going to make it be appealing to a future resident. And so we're not restricting additional parking, but what we wanted to do is sort of reduce the constraints for adaptive reuse. They're very challenging projects as is. There's a lot of things that you need to consider when you're taking a building that already exists and turning into something new, that it was not originally intended or built for. So the goal was to streamline some of those processes and reduce some of the risks to creating adaptive reuse by allowing a reduced parking rate.

Thank you for that. Yeah. Commissioner Montero, please go ahead.

Yes, thank you for that detail. So I guess the question is, because I understand, you know, if it is a commercial building, for example, downtown, there's already no given spaces. How do we avoid the situation where then there's a resident that has to park two or three blocks from where they live, they're having to bring their groceries far away when it comes to some of these transitions. And I do understand that it is a heavy roadblock for adaptive reuse projects that have already no requiring parking would almost essentially stop the project possibly depending on circumstance?

I think in a situation like that, you know, people need to weigh options when they're choosing somewhere to to live, and and urban living is not for everybody. And and I think that that, you know, you might find that that is a an issue that sort of self regulates in that way. You know, Those kinds of projects, I think, will be probably rare because to, you know, commissioner Baird and commissioner Mooney's points earlier, you know, that that that kind of lifestyle is is not common in this region. Maybe it will become more common over time, and maybe this ordinance will have some effect on making it a little bit more common. But I don't think that you will see a great majority of projects that are you know, demand their residents live a car free lifestyle.

Some of some of them might, and I think that's a that's an experiment that we should welcome. But

Right, with the right access of resources.

Thank you.

Chair, if I may, from the project management side of things, I'd like to echo what Matt indicated. We are not seeing projects come in with zero parking. Even in the downtown area doesn't pencil for those developers. So they are going to put some kind of parking in. The unique situation where we are in Riverside is we have such a diverse city and land use. So if you do want to live like Matt indicated in a more urban environment and choose not to have a car, fantastic. We have that available. If you want to live in a garden style apartment with acres of parking, then we have that available too. So it's really going be up to that individual as to where they want to live, and we can provide that in the city, including everything in between.

Thank you for that clarification. Commissioner Melendrez?

Yeah. I love the idea. Daniel, I don't think I've met you, but your enthusiasm and energy coming up with this has been great. Know, my wife and I lived in Los Angeles for a while right after college. I I love the idea. I have seen what LA has done, even in certain parts of the city, what we've been able to do. And and I completely agree with you, Brian and Matt, that certain people are gonna choose to live and commute by bike and get around the city in other ways. And there's always a solution. So I would move to approve planning case 2000000260427.

I'll second that.

We have a motion and a second.

Is

there any other discussion before we vote? All right, please vote. All right, looks like motion carries. Thank you. Is there a ten day appeal period on this one too? There is a ten day appeal period. Please contact Planning Division for appeal information. Whew, that was a lot. All right, let's now move on to our consent calendar. Do I have a motion to approve the consent calendar, the minutes of May 7 meeting?

You. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Please vote. All right. Motion carries. Discussion calendar. Riverside 2050 General Plan Update and Climate Action and Adaptation Plan.

Hello from the other side of the podium. Good morning, honorable chair, members of the commission, Matthew Taylor, principal planner. I'm here with an update on the Riverside 2050 general plan update and climate action and adaptation plan. Where have we been? Where are we going?

Just as a brief reminder, the general plan update is the the city's long term roadmap for how it grows and develops over a generation. Our general plan was adopted in 2007. It is nearly twenty years old at this point and we are updating our general plan for the year 2050 and this includes a number of different elements that address all manner of topics that affect, the physical growth and development of the city, some of them mandatory and some of them voluntary. We have been focused as we've shared with you previously, on land use, which is one of the major components of the general plan for the last year or so. That process is coming to a conclusion, so we'll share an update with you on what that's looking like currently.

We're also developing a climate action and adaptation plan that is going to address the city's impact on the climate and the climate's impact on the city. And so this will be tied closely to the general plan in that policies and actions related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change are going to be integrated into the general plan and vice versa. We are looking to meet our state targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions by 2040 with the climate action plan. This is just a brief overview of what happens next with the CAP. We are going to focus more on the general plan today, but I did want to share a little bit with you about what the timeline is for development of the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan.

We expect to have a draft for public review in September or October of the climate action and adaptation plan. So community outreach engagement, again, is a really core focus of this project. We do a lot to make sure that we are reaching as many people as we can in as many different ways as we can. This is just some highlights of some of the previous outreach work that we did in 2025. We have collected nearly 5,000 comments from the public on this project so far.

We have done dozens of pop up events, several major workshops, and we do a good deal of online digital engagement as well. We're analyzing the things that we're hearing from the public in these comments that we're collecting and receiving. The next couple of slides are just kind of an overview of some of the key themes that have developed through the comments that we've heard. People are really concerned about conservation of open space and our agricultural heritage. They also are interested in revitalization in their neighborhoods, particularly commercial property and, you know, this is on people's minds.

They see stores closing. They wonder what's happening with those locations and that's top of mind for them as well. People want to feel safer getting around in all different ways and so pedestrian and safety has been something that has been a key theme that has emerged from the public outreach we've done as well. People are concerned about the quality and appearance of their neighborhoods and the quality of life in their neighborhoods related to things like property maintenance and the maintenance of our public infrastructure as well and its appearance and it's maintained in good order. People in Riverside are very enthusiastic about their cultural heritage and see it as an asset that we should be promoting for tourism and economic growth.

And road safety and managing crime is a top of mind for people as well. I think that's fairly common throughout throughout the state and is not no less common here as well. And finally, people thinking about our climate transition to a different mode of of, you know, of a future where things are more things are electrified and things are, you know, zero emissions, but they're concerned about affordability as it relates to that. You know, people are are curious and enthusiastic about a transition to a greener kind of economy, but they are concerned that it's going to cost them. And so that's that's something that that we're hearing from folks as well.

We just recently had a significant community event where we had a workshop on land use alternatives that I'm going to share with you in just a few minutes here. So we invited folks to come join us to look at three different scenarios and share their thoughts on how that, you know, what they think of how that could look for their neighborhood. And that was on Saturday, May 2. We did quite a bit of outreach work to to drum up interest in that in in that workshop. We did some new things that we have not done previously including canvassing, going door to door in particular in in certain locations that we have identified that have had low participation in the project so far, knocking on doors and trying to, you know, invite people to come participate.

We also partnered with community based organizations who did phone banking and tabling for us, as well as kind of our usual kind of assortment of publication efforts. We also did number of pop ups. We've actually wrapped those all up as of last weekend. These pop ups were focused more on the climate action and adaptation plan than the land use piece, but we were using those opportunities as well to invite people to participate in the workshop and to follow along with the project more generally. And these were the locations that we popped up at.

Okay. So let's talk about land use now. This is kind of the core of this update for you. So we have been focused in the outreach that we've been doing on the land use and trying to develop and establish a vision for where we're going and some themes that we can explore through the land use planning work that we're doing. So part of this is developing a vision statement and some core values for the general plan And we have draft of those values here that we're, you know, happy to share with you and and accept your feedback on, which include, core values will be including sustainable and resilient growth, healthy connected and livable neighborhoods, economic and educational opportunities and innovation, heritage, arts and culture and natural landscape preservation, and equitable access to services and amenities.

These are the core kind of theme, know, these are the values that we are trying to make sure are fully suffused throughout the entire general plan and all of the policies that are incorporated in it. Building on values, each element will have guiding principles that will sort of direct and structure the policies that are incorporated into that element. We're proposing nine guiding principles for the land use element which include promoting efficient and sustainable land use, promoting high quality urban design, strengthening neighborhood identity and sense of place, fostering a diverse and inclusive built environment, advancing housing affordability and availability, enhancing mobility, accessibility and walkability, expanding open space and recreational opportunities, supporting a dynamic and resilient economy and adapting to emerging technologies and economic trends. And again, when we get to the discussion portion, we welcome your feedback on any of these guiding principles. So what does this look like in terms of land use specifically?

So we have we are proposing a new system of land use regulation under the under the general plan land use element. What you see here on the right is the existing land use of the 2025 general plan. You can see there are dozens of land use categories in all different colors and shapes and sizes all over the city. We are proposing to streamline this considerably by shifting to what we call place types. And place types have more of an emphasis on the character and the form of a neighborhood or a location than it does on a specific particular use.

So you can see on the left side of the screen here, the current general plan has a use based classification system for land regulation. We are proposing to convert to a place type based system that consists of 10 place types and I'll talk a little bit more about what each of those looks like, you know, kind of in practice in a couple of slides here. But this is the sort of how these relate to each other in terms of, you know, like, what are these look and feel like. So, you know, moving from left to right, these are arranged in sort of increasing intensity, like amount of development that you could an activity that you would see in in in those particular place types. And there are some subsets here that are are really critical to our approach to the general plan.

The the four you see in the center there are what we are calling our complete neighborhoods place types and these are the kind of foundation of most of the city that you will see will fall into one of these four place types under what we're currently proposing: neighborhood, village, center or core. And we'll show you some examples of what those could potentially look like. But most properties are going to go into of these four place types. Beyond that, we have some special place types too, natural areas and parks and recreation, those, you know, kind of do what they say. Agriculture in vistas is specifically intended to preserve and protect properties that are protected by proposition r and measure c.

Our citrus green belt, our hillside properties in the residential conservation zone, all of those would go in agriculture and vistas because we can't change those without voter approval. Campus and institution is primarily intended for large institutional land uses like colleges and universities, but it could be more than that. We'll talk a little bit about that. And then we have two industrial designations as well. So you can see here anything from neighborhood to flex industrial would allow commercial, and then anything from agriculture and vistas to flex industrial could allow residential, and then industrial parks and recreation and natural areas don't allow any commercial or in or or residential.

So agriculture and vistas, like I mentioned, is intended to intended to apply primarily to properties that are protected to prop r and measure c. Also large lot residential communities, equestrian areas, that type of thing. The neighborhood designation is what you're going to see across most of the city in most of our established neighborhoods. This is a base land use designation for our single family residential areas, small scale housing, and some neighborhood serving commercial activity is consistent with the neighborhood, place type. In the village place type, you're gonna see local activity centers and corridors with more of a mix of of single or multifamily housing and commercial uses in the village.

Center is similar, but it is more more denser and more intense. It is a significant activity centers focused on major transit corridors with more with denser, more compact development, including housing, commercial, employment services. Core is downtown or areas that we think should be more like downtown. It is transit rich, regional centers with major employment, commercial, cultural, civic uses, dense housing, and and a chiefly urban character is in the core. Then we have two industrial designations or place types, I should say.

General industrial is sort of your more conventional or traditional industrial. It allows large industrial uses, logistics, goods movement, manufacturing, all of those types of things. Industrial flex is more of a light industrial and it is a, you know, more focused on, you know, kind of productive and innovative industrial uses like maker spaces and things of that nature, but also combined with, you know, research and development, laboratories, commercial offices, creative offices, and potentially even live work residential could all be consistent with the flex industrial. This would not permit logistics or goods movement, in the flex industrial place type. And then finally campus, like I said, this is really primarily for large master planned land uses which can apply to universities and and and health care and and that kind of thing, but could also be office parks, business parks, you know, large commercial centers and and that sort of thing.

So this is what this could look like applied in the in one scenario that we have developed. This is not a final scenario of of, you know, in any way. We're just using this to illustrate the way that the different place types could be applied. Here you can see, you know, sort of the downtown area is given that core designation. Some of our parks and open spaces are either in natural areas or parks and recreation.

We have, you know, flex industrial is it for example applied to our Innovation District area in this scenario. The center place type is is given to like the kind of University Village and and university corridor area. Eastside, Wood Streets, University Northside, those single family neighborhoods are all in that neighborhood designation. Obviously UC Riverside is in the campus designation and then we do have some agriculture and vistas up near the Box Springs where those hillside properties are protected by Prop R and Measure C. This is really just to kind of illustrate how these different place types could all fit together.

So the scenarios that we developed and we tested with folks have three kind of different emphases and we are focused on getting public feedback on these three different scenarios to understand what elements of which ones people like the best so that we can more than likely blend them together into a final draft scenario so that we can begin the next stage of the project which is the CEQUA environmental review process. So these three are housing affordability and availability as a focus, innovation and growth as a focus, and connectivity as a focus. And I'm going to walk through some examples of how apply differently in different parts of the city, just for example, the purposes of giving you some food for thought. So this is Arlington Avenue. In the housing scenario, it's given the center designation to allow for more housing density along that corridor.

In the innovation and growth scenario, it is given, rather instead the village, properties along Arlington are given the village designation, or place type. But, key areas in and around the airport and around major intersections are given, either the flex industrial or or a little bit higher density development potential to accommodate, you know, nodes to kind of emerge at those locations. And then the connectivity scenario, this area is more focused on major intersections bringing, you know, more density to areas where transit lines connect. In the housing I'm sorry. In this next example, this is California Avenue and Magnolia Avenue, sort of in the Ramona neighborhood.

So in the housing scenario, you can see the that properties along California Avenue are given the village designation to allow a little bit more housing density to emerge along that corridor. Similarly in connectivity, also giving that designation to California Avenue, but also giving that highest density core designation to some of the higher, you know, higher density properties along Magnolia Avenue in this area immediately around Calc Baptist. And then in the innovation and growth scenario, you can see more development focused toward the West Side there along Van Buren Boulevard to allow that commercial corridor to continue to kind of develop and intensify with more growth or, you know, economic development oriented uses. Finally, last example is the Hunter Park area between these three scenarios. So Hunter Park has obviously Hunter Park, but also has Metrolink station.

And so our approach to these scenarios in this location is kind of focused on that. In the housing scenario, you can see we're proposing to introduce that village place type to the area immediately around Hunter Park and Metrolink Station to create the opportunity to introduce some housing to a neighborhood that does not currently have any. In the connectivity scenario, we do this but with even higher density, applying that center place type to the properties immediately surrounding the Hunter Park Metrolink Station. And in the innovation and growth scenario, we actually apply the campus place type to some of the large industrial properties in this area to encourage master plan development of things like business and office parks and research and kind of facilities and that sort of approach. These are just examples of three different areas where these three different scenarios are applied a little differently.

These all can you can review all of these on an online viewer that we have made available and we have a survey that we are asking people to respond to to tell us what they think about these three scenarios. So this is available now. We encourage you all to explore as much as you would like. Feel free to make comments, by responding to the survey and if you'd, you know, like to sit down with us one on one, we're happy to do that with you as well to kind of walk you through what these look like. Ultimately, like I mentioned, I think that what is going to happen is it's not going to be a matter of choosing one of three scenarios but creating a fourth scenario that is a sort of a blend of the best parts of all three.

So this we'll continue to do this over the next couple of months. Later in the summer, we'll be looking to kind of finalize a draft of a land use plan of a single one, not three different ones so that we can move forward with the environmental review and move the general plan update forward. It's all I have for you today. This is a receiving file, but I'm happy to take any comments, feedback, have any discussion that you would like. Thank you.

Thank you. Do I need to open this up for public comment? Because it says so on my notes. Yeah? All right. Can we open this 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 6 to unmute. You can also join via Zoom. The meeting ID can be found on the agenda.

No cards, no callers. All right. Moving back to our commissioners. Are there any comments or questions for Matthew? Commissioner Tunisin, did you just push your button? Okay. There you are. Please go ahead.

There's been interest. And one of the things that we have observed through the outreach that we've done is people have questions or thoughts about how do we modernize our Green Belt. It's an important asset to the city, you know, culturally, environmentally, historically, but it it it also, you know, it has challenges. And so, you know, people, you know, either that own property in the Green Belt or live in the Green Belt or have businesses that are tied to it have come to us and said, you know, what can we do here? What can how can we take a look at at at, a future for the Green Belt that that preserves and conserves what's special about it but brings it into the twenty first century.

Unfortunately, we can't make much changes to that through this process, but what we could do is consider, you know, exploring how do we, you know, do a community driven kind of, process to take a look at, like, okay. What do we want this with this area to be? And then that would need to move toward a ballot measure at some point. Mhmm. Thank you for that.

Thank you, Commissioner Tunisian. Commissioner Wilder.

Yeah, thank you for your presentation. See you put a lot of effort into it. One question I had is in creating the different zones, did you also incorporate feedback from say the airport commission that I'm thinking about the Sears project where they had a lot to say about not approving that one.

You're talking about the airport land use commission at the county level? Yes. Yeah. We I I think the way that we've been thinking about that is let's get a draft land use plan put together that we have community support in, and then let's make adjustments to it for compatibility purposes. I I don't know that we wanted to necessarily, like, constrain our thinking, with how we were approaching the land use, but we do recognize that we are going to have to maintain land use compatibility with the airport.

So I think what we'll probably do is now that we have we collect public input and draft a plan and then, like, sort of lay that compatibility over it and see what modifications we're going to need to make in order to maintain that compatibility. And this will need to be reviewed by that commission at some point.

Commissioner Sain?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Matt, thank you so much for excellent presentation. I'm just so happy that we are doing and thinking about all these things. My only question is actually one of the presentation issue of the public safety and services. So ten year planning process, did it ever come up for the specifically dealing with public safety, criminal justice, crime, right?

Because I was looking at the statistics about three months ago and our numbers are slightly higher than the national average. So in the discussions, did this get talked about it and what the plan or what was going to happen or yes, I guess that's my question. Is there any discussion on the planning to reduce this?

So two things. Yes, we have heard in public comment that this is something that's on people's mind, of course. It's kind of foundational. You know, a safe living environment is one that's necessary for people to thrive in. There is also a safety element of the plan, a public safety element.

Some of you may recall we updated our housing element, our safety element, and we adopted environmental justice policies about five years ago as part of our six cycle housing element update. We will take a fresh look at the safety element and sort of refresh those policies. We also are coordinating closely with other departments that do their strategic planning. For example, the fire department and the police department. They have needs assessments. They know where they need new facilities. They know where existing facilities need to be approved. So we're gonna make sure that our land use plans are fully coordinated with their strategic plans for what their facilities needs are. So that's part of this process as well. Hope that kind of addresses what you're asking.

All right. Commissioner Montero, please.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I have two questions. We want to make sure that there's equitable distribution of green infrastructure. And some of our, you know basically, when mapping out our cap metrics, historical data has showed that our tree canopy and again going back to urban heat impacts across different wards are pretty low. So how, I guess, does the general plan updates systematically prioritize allocation of park funding or urban forestry outside of our tree program that we have as a city for some of the, you know, under resourced neighborhoods that way they have, you know, equitable access?

So the general plan does not direct any funding, but what it does do is it establishes policy and implementation actions for those policies that can help inform budgeting decisions in the future. Mhmm. So and, also, the urban tree canopy is a core concern for us in this process both from a climate adaptation standpoint and from an urban design standpoint. So the urban tree canopy is significant climate adaptation measure that we're looking to incorporate into the climate action and adaptation plan, and building and maintaining and supporting that tree canopy is gonna be really important for responding to specifically extreme heat Right. Which is a major issue of vulnerability for this city from a climate change perspective.

Drought and extreme heat and wildfire are like the top three climate risks that face us in the city. So tree canopy is going to be a really important piece to responding to that.

Okay, thank you. And then when it comes to, the general plan is a very visionary document and it all is, it comes down to execution. What clear, I guess, annualized KPIs or a dashboard that the planning department uses to report back to the commission regarding whether our approved projects actually meet emission reduction targets outlined in CAP?

Yes. So the climate action plan a climate action plan has to have monitoring, and reporting as part of it. That it doesn't work without that. So that will be important function for implementation. The other thing too is, you know, we do an annual progress report that we bring to this commission and to the city council on our general plan implementation status. That's a very labor intensive process currently. Our current general plan has over a thousand objectives, goals, and policies. It's frankly totally unmanageable. So I am really looking forward to significantly streamlining that and making that reporting process much easier and clearer for everyone.

Great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Matt, I just want to go on record to tell you how grateful I am for you and the team that are going through this strenuous, arduous process on our behalf, on behalf of our city. I attended, please don't ever put an ugly

picture said, her seat up wait a minute, there she is.

You got to pick a better picture. But I really like the way that you're attempting to streamline the zoning types. It seems like it's going to make it a lot easier to understand. I am curious, and then I promise you all I'll shut up. I am curious about how you will go about incorporating, taking all the feedback that you're getting from the public, taking all of the recommendations that you and your colleagues are probably already talking about outside of public feedback, and come back and create something that is gonna be good for our city? Like how do you

how are you gonna do that? That's that's the challenge. That's the that's the core I mean, that's the that's the hardest part of this whole thing. Mhmm. Because no plan that we come up with is going to make everybody happy.

That's just not possible in a city this size. I think, we have you know, there's kind of three things that, we have to balance, which is stuff that we're required to do that we can't control, like state mandates and all of that. Policy priorities of the council, they have certain things that they want to focus on and and and and accomplish and public the the public the community's vision and input. And all three of those things have to be in balance. And I think, you know, if we for me personally, think if we can get an equal number of people who are happy and not happy, then I think we maybe have success.

You've done

your job. Thank you for that. We do look forward we'll go ahead and receive and file the report. Thank you again. And we look forward to your ongoing efforts and whatever updates you have for us next. Thank you so much.

Matt, you can do it.

Do we have any items for future consideration?

Yes. Briefly, one moment. Let me pull that up here and get you guys out of here. June 4, we will have an update on Downtown Experiment, the revocation. We also have one other item, which is a charter school that will be coming forward for consideration. The June 18 meeting looks like right now it will be canceled. And that is really all we have coming up for you.

All right. Fantastic. Is there anybody else that has anything else? I will not be here on June 4. Okay. Please make note of that. Anybody else? All right, it is 11:11. I'm starving. And will you stand adjourned? Have a great rest of the day everybody.