Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

So I'm gonna call the meeting to order for 08/19/2025 Planning Commission, City of Rockland. Could we all please stand for the pledge of allegiance? And commissioner Cortez, will you lead us, please? Thank you. And could we get a roll call, please?

Commissioner Armstrong? Here. Commissioner McKenzie? Here. Commissioner Cortez?

Here.

Chairman Barron? Here. And commissioner Thomas is excused tonight.

Thank you. We had the roll call, and I see citizens addressing the planning commission. I'm not seeing minutes on here. Are we not reviewing minutes from the last meeting, or am I missing something?

No. The minutes aren't ready.

Okay. Well, there you have it then. We will move on to citizens addressing the Planning Commission on non agenda items. Anybody here wishing to speak on anything not on the agenda? Okay. Seeing nobody, we'll move on to the next item. Item number one, one a, public hearings, Whitney Ranch, Dutch Brothers modification design review.

Good evening, Planning Commission. My name is Bennett Smithart with the Planning Division. The item before you tonight is the Whitney Ranch Dutch Bros modification, which is a request to remove the conditions of approval that restrict write out movements on the Whitney Ranch Dutch Brothers driveway. Dutch Pros. The subject driveway is located on the south side of Whitney Ranch Parkway, approximately midway between Ocelot Way and Wildcat Boulevard.

The driveway was constructed in 2023 concurrently with the development of the Dutch Bros site. In compliance with the conditions of approval, the driveway was constructed with striping, signage, and bollards. The ultimate request is to remove the striping signage and bollards to allow for a ride out that you see in this photograph here. The property is zoned planned development commercial under the Northwest Rockland General Development Plan and is designated mixed use in the general plan. The existing Dutch Bros operation is in compliance with the project approvals and applicable zoning regulations, and granting the modification will not result in noncompliance.

So a little background. The parcel was originally established with the Rittany Ranch Unit 2 parcel map and was subsequently refined through a lot line adjustment. The dutch bros project was approved at the planning commission on 03/21/2023, and has been subsequently constructed. During the initial review process, traffic operation concerns were raised and conditions of approval, five D, five F, five G were added to restrict the right turn exits. The concern was drivers attempting to turn right might immediately try to merge into the northbound wildcat turn lane.

The original intent detailed in five gs of this restriction was to be revisited when the development of the parcel with the development of the parcel to the east. And I did want to mention, as you see in the middle, there's a 5E. 5E requires Dutch brothers to monitor their operations in regards to traffic. So we're leaving that condition in so they continue to monitor their traffic operations on-site. Since then, the property owner has contacted staff on several occasions requesting the removal of these restrictions.

The owner indicated that the restrictions were limiting the ability to market the parcel, and he provided a letter, from a commercial, an experienced commercial real estate broker detailing the negative effects of this restriction. This letter is on page 36 of your packet. On 06/17/2025, the owner submitted a formal request, including revised plans and the traffic study dated 08/18/2022. Staff reviewed the review the revised plans and the traffic study and met with the city engineer, public works director, the police department. Following these discussions, it was agreed that the restrictions could be removed.

The applicant submitted updated project plans that show updated signage and striping. The curb gutter and sidewalk were previously constructed. With the removal of these restrictions, the driveway can now operate right in, right out. One comment letter was received from a member of the public citing concerns regarding the pedestrian infrastructure and walking routes to the Dutch brothers. For staff's response to it, the pedestrian infrastructure was previously installed and designed in accordance with code requirements.

I did go out and walk the site and did not see no concerns were raised with me walking the site. There are two areas that connect to the sidewalk along the main road that allow access directly to the Dutch Brothers where you can go utilize their services. Staff has determined the project is exempt from the California environmental quality act pursuant to sections 15.301 existing facilities. Therefore, notice of exemption has been prepared. Staff recommends the planning commission approve the design review modification. I'm available for any questions.

Thank you. I'll start to my right. Commissioner Cortez, any questions for staff?

No questions. I'll wait until we start delivering on this. All right.

Commissioner Armstrong. Commissioner McKenzie.

No questions at this time. I might have a question or two for Mr. Taylor, but we'll see.

I have no questions at this time. So, having said that, if the app sorry about that. If the applicant is here and would like to speak, please come up.

Good evening Chairman Barron and members of the Planning Commission. Thanks for the opportunity to be here and speak. My name is Lux Taylor. Been involved with this property. We acquired it in 2016 I'm sorry, in 02/2006.

And originally was 18 acres and carrying it through the recession and originally contemplated a much larger shopping center. The grocery stores really just weren't available at the time. And now you see nuggets under construction out there. So it's just kind of a result of tough recession and poor timing. But we've, I think, made the best of it.

Chevron, I think, is in for approval. They've gone from being a franchise unit to a corporate store. And hopefully that is due to start construction in December. I know they've got permits. They're working with staff on trying to address some minor design review changes that are within staff's limits.

So hopefully that will be under construction in December. And as far as this property, so I only own Parcel 3 at this point. So Parcel 2 is the Dutch Brothers, fully developed. Parcel one is the Chevron gas station and car wash, which is L shaped. So the car wash is the bottom of the L, and then the C store and gas station is out there right on the corner of Ocelot and Whitney Ranch.

At the time of the approval, as Bennett explained, at the time of the approval of Dutch Brothers, there were some concerns that Dutch Brothers was a brand new operation. Their volumes were very high. Their traffic generation was quite high. And their parking was quite high. And so there was concern from staff that those would cause the site to really be impacted.

And this right hand driveway, the east most driveway wouldn't function very well. We had a traffic study at the time. Didn't really support that, but Dutch Brothers was brand new and everybody was kind of afraid of it. And I think there was another store in Rockland that was had major traffic issues. And I think those have all kind of come down now.

And I think Dutch Brothers is just like any other coffee house at this point, and doesn't really generate the amount of traffic that people feared. But at the time, we agreed with staff to put in these temporary measures to limit the write out access and force customers of Dutch Brothers to circulate back through the site and over to the Ocelot signal, which clearly is this site is just terrific access for what it's planned for. And so but we agreed that putting in these temporary measures would help train the was the term that David Mulbrook used, would train the customers of Dutch Brothers how to ingress and exit the Dutch Brothers. And I think it worked well. We haven't had any complaints or concerns.

So at this point, you know, the driveway meets all of the city standards. It was designed and engineered through or designed and passed through in the engineering. So we meet the space between driveways, the distance to the intersection, and the width of the driveway. So it's all the commercial standards the city of Rockland would put on us. So that was really our test, and we would like to see these temporary measures removed at this point.

We've had several potential tenants on-site. These site reviews are usually with the broker, so I'm getting it a little bit third hand. But all three of those site tours, people said, why can't you turn right? And it does diminish and has made it more difficult to market that corner property. So that's all I have left is that 2.2 acre corner.

And I think by removing these measures that we'd be able to have a little bit more progress and hopefully positive results in marketing. So that's why we're here tonight. I appreciate your time and attention to this. Kind of minor, but it was approved by the Planning Commission. So by the structure, we have to come back and get it approved. But I do want to make mention that Bennett and planning staff have made this a very fast process once we finally all agreed that it was the right direction to go, and appreciate their time and effort in getting this done and to the planning commission. So thank you. Thank you. Any questions?

I'll start to my left. Commissioner McKenzie, questions for the applicant?

Yeah. Thanks for you actually answered part of my question, which is what's going on with Chevron because I think that's, you know, part of the equation here as to how that relates to the Dutch brothers. The other part of the question is, any targeted uses on that 2.2 acre corner to kinda have a feel for what might happen there? Obviously, you can't, you know.

You know, Bennett and I had this conversation just a few minutes ago. And you'll see it, I think, throughout not just Rockland, but all of the areas. Retail, the cost to develop retail has just gone through the roof. And what used to be, $150 to $200 per square foot for total cost to be into a project, now we're $506,100 dollars And so the cost has just gone so high, there's so few tenants that can afford the rent that it takes to be in a space that's $600 a foot, 500 a foot. You just can't think of a hair cutter, which is a traditional retailer, right, or a service provider.

They just can't pay that type of rent. You need a restaurant or just restaurants. We talk about restaurants with drive throughs. You see Starbucks with their drive through. They're even going to freestanding units now because there's no other tenants that can fit in there that can generate the type of sales to pay that type of rent.

And so I think even when you go down to the Nugget Shopping Center, the number of traditional retailers will be, you know, you'll get a cell phone guy that can pay it, you'll get a couple of restaurants that can pay it, and then you run out of tenants. And you just don't have what we used to have. You know, every center had a pizza, had a dry cleaner, had a hair cutter, had a nail salon. You're just seeing fewer, fewer of those. And they just can't afford the rent.

And you've got a lot of small shops on Sunset, on Park, and those shops were built that's second generation space now, third generation space. Were built back in the day when that was and probably went through the recession, went back to the bank, and came back even cheaper. So you're just not going to see very many of the small shops that we have grown used to seeing in a shopping center. So in answer to all this, I think we're looking for one larger retailer or one larger fast food. Or if we can find a couple of willing tenants that can pay their type of rent, we'll be back.

But I think we're really waiting for a user and not for us to try to build a retail building to suit those needs. It's just too expensive.

Thank you. Commissioner Armstrong.

That would have been my question. Do we know what's going there?

Commissioner Cortez?

No, no questions.

I don't really have any questions. I do I'm in that particular world, so I know it's getting expensive. I will say this. It's I guess my question would be, you have a 2022 traffic study, and I've been out there and looked at it. Have we done any other traffic studies? Is there anything else that kind of to support getting rid of the bollards? Anybody gone out there and said, okay, got an updated traffic study? Is there anything that takes into account projections potentially for what's coming down the road with all the traffic at Nugget?

So in 2022, I mean, all of this is part of the general plan, the community plan. And in 2022, we haven't changed any of the uses or any of the trip generation that was projected. So by building the Dutch brothers, we got exactly what we planned for, and it's you know, performing just like we would have expected. So there really wasn't anything to update update.

Let me ask that follow-up on that question and then not to get into the numbers of Dutch Brothers. We all know there are Dutch Brothers around town. One in particular, it's got a lot of traffic, bus out into the street. I've been by this particular Dutch brothers. It looks like it's ebbed a little bit in terms of of production. Is it without giving numbers, is it one of their higher producing sites, a lower producing site, medium? Because that kinda dictates traffic generation.

Right. So this is a franchise area. Liquid Love is the name of the franchisee. And I spoke to I'll draw a blank on the name. But I spoke to the woman who owns the franchise. And she said this is her number one store in her chain of like 10 Dutch Brothers. So she's quite happy with it, even though, as you say, it's ebbed from maybe the go go days when Dutch Brothers was a new thing. But it's still one of her, you know, it's her best store. So she's quite happy and, you know, they've got a very long term control over the property.

Okay. I have no further questions. So if there's no other questions for the applicant, I appreciate your time and information. And at this point in time, I will open it up for public comment if there's anybody in the public. I do see one person here. Public comment, anybody? Nobody? Nope. You're here with us, right? You're you're part of us. So you don't want to make any comments? Okay. Well, going to close public comment, bring it back up to the dais for any review or commentary by our commissioners. I'll start with Commissioner Cortez.

Okay. Thanks. Back when if I can remember, when we look at this project, the concern wasn't so much about the traffic volume, but the traffic coming out of this particular right way clear across all the lanes to make the left turn on Wildcat. That is still the concern. And now last week we learned about a potential 160 plus unit apartment on Wildcat.

So that right turn is going to be very popular in a couple of years. So I don't know if I really think that the concern of having in what what at the time, if I can remember it now, I still think it's mostly high school traffic going all across all lanes making a left turn. I don't know if that has been looked at. Is that something that you may want to address? Do you want to don't

know. Would you like

to Yeah. Uh-huh. Yes. I Let me look at all that stuff.

I'm gonna create a whole new chain

of events. So let's go

real quick over to David. Sure.

David Mullenbrook, community development director. So I can respond to that in a couple of ways. As with all of our traffic studies, when we do a traffic study, we do a number of different scenarios so that we're making sure that we're contemplating not only the project going in day one, but also what traffic looks like in the future, assuming that the planned growth and development in the project area and in the region is going to take place. So we have a scenario where we do an existing condition, where that's based on counts that are taken specific to that area without the project in place. Then we add the trips that that project would generate on top of those existing projects for excuse me, on top of those existing conditions for an existing plus project condition.

And then we do a cumulative scenario which assumes growth, development, roadway expansions, those type of things that will occur or plan to occur in the future. And then we add the project trips on top of that to get a cumulative plus project scenario. So when we look at the build out of the Nugget Shopping Center, of all that vacant property along 65 in the city of Rockland, as well as the Placer one project on the other side of 65, and other development in the region, we take that into account in the traffic study that was done for this project. So even though the traffic study wasn't updated since 2022, it did include an analysis of what things would look like in the future. The other thing I would point out, as Bennett mentioned in his presentation and in the staff report, when this request came to us, we met with the city engineer, myself, public works director, and the chief of police, and a couple of his motor officers.

And one of the things they did to get a better comfort level that removing this restriction was going to be acceptable to them as they actually went out to the site and spent a couple of days observing traffic, traffic patterns, and they ultimately came back and said that wasn't the Dutch brothers that they thought it was going to be. And so they weren't overly concerned. I mean, nobody knows because that right turn movement has never been available yet. So nobody knows what it's going to be like when that gets opened up. But they weren't overly concerned with opening that up because they felt that the volume at this Dutch brother, it has peak period in the morning and a peak period in the afternoon because it's right next to or fairly close to the high school.

But they felt that those volumes that they were seeing weren't going to create the issues that we all thought were maybe going to happen, which was the reason why these restrictions were placed in the first place.

Yeah, my concern is not so much on the volume because I live there. I live in that area, so I drive by almost daily. And I have a young I have a teenager, she's there a lot. So that's not much my concern. My concern is pretty much is behavior, how the traffic is going to be behaving especially in the morning.

Really there's no way of looking at it whether it's going to happen or not at this point because we don't have that open. So if maybe we should also include some sort of a plan or something in that regards if things start happening.

Well, and that's where Bennett mentioned the one condition that was staying, which is a condition that requires Dutch brothers to work with this should future traffic problems arise. And so we can always call on that. Traditionally, Dutch brothers has been very cooperative their, on their sunset location that sort of created the terror of what Dutch Brothers might be. They've worked with staff a number of times making modifications to the site, trying different things. So our experience with Dutch Brothers is they've always been very responsive to requests for, hey, we're having a situation.

Let's get together and try and figure out a way to address it. So I would expect the same with this particular operation. Okay.

All right. I'm okay.

Thank you, Commissioner Cortez, and thank you, David, for that information. Commissioner McKenzie?

Yeah. Sorry. Just running a note here. So I did go out, look at the site, looked at it when high school kids are there. Obviously, it's blocked off so they weren't utilizing that exit point. And that was our initial concern was, you know, it's not us. Right? It's our teenage kids. Partly, the the ones that we all worry about. And so it's really hard for us to control behavior. Right? Yeah. Ultimately, that area is gonna open up. There will be a use on the 2.2 acre parcel. Chevron will come in, and it'll build out.

And I think, you know, what gave me some comfort is it's a much bigger footprint than the Sunset site. So they've got more room to adapt and and move and that that gives me some comfort with condition five e that says, hey, if it is a problem, we can come back and and revisit it. Also, the fact that, you know, city engineer, Rockland PD has looked at it. I'm gonna lean on them more than I am my own intuition relative to traffic safety for a location like this. So I'm I'm good with it.

The one note I do have, see staff is aware that there is some dead landscaping, the redwood tree, hunt the redwood trees or sequoia trees along the wall that's really part of that buffer to more so the Chevron and the car wash that need to be replaced because they're dead and or dying. So we want to make sure we're good stewards of that landscaping if we can be, but otherwise I support the project.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Armstrong?

I can support the project as well. As I mentioned earlier, having 5E in there gives me comfort that we're going to be able to continue to monitor the traffic. We'd like to know what's going in there. Our teenagers can be creative. We discussed that. I remember us talking about that and trying to channel that behavior. Yeah, we'll win a prize if we can do that. But I can't support the project knowing that we're going to continue to monitor the traffic. The location up on Sunset, they are willing to work with us because they've made some modifications. Traffic is still bad over there.

It really is. But they will do some things to help drive behaviors. They will do some things that will help drive behaviors over there. So I can support the project.

Thank you, commissioner Armstrong. And I'll just kinda jump on what they said. I do think Commissioner Armstrong hit it initially on the head with condition 5E. As long as we're monitoring it, I'm comfortable. At first blush, I wasn't. I thought, what has changed, really? But it isn't about what's changed. It's about Commissioner McKenzie said it. We're not traffic experts. You can kinda go out there. I've driven it a ton of times. You are exactly right. The the kids are gonna shoot across and they do park there. There are kids parking in in the in the Dutch Brothers parking lot right there, and that's that's a monitoring situation. I think there's enough good ingress, egress, and the volumes here are such that I can support the removal of the bollards.

I am leaning on what both my fellow commissioners said about condition 5E. It's important. They've worked with us in the past. If something does come about, we get situations where kids are cutting across, nugget opens up, there's more traffic, it would be good to be able to come back and revisit it. But at this point in time, it just seems to make sense to open it up, give proper flow to that intersection and that center and allow it to get to get leased up and to complete the corner. So I think having said that, I can support the project. And with that, if there is a motion or any further commentary, I would look forward to that as well.

I will move item one a as written, both a and b.

We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. And then we'll move on to item two, nonpublic hearings, general correspondence presentations, and reports from city staff.

David Mullenburg again. Quick report. As it's looking right now, the September 2 planning commission does not have anything scheduled. Don't make plans just yet.

I already

have story out. By the end of this week, if if that meeting will be canceled, and we are lining up, a potential project for the September 16. That's all I have to report.

Thank you, David. Appreciate that. And then item two b, any reports or discussion items from planning commissioners?

I think I'll be gone on the sixteenth, but I'll let you know. I

am in Idaho on September 2, so count me out one way or another. I'll be standing in a stream. Contemplating life. Hey.

Thanks to staff again. We we didn't get a chance last week to get in too much. Great. You guys do a great job. The whole team does a great job. So it it makes it easy. And and, David, thanks for the information. And and today's when you we get to lean on you guys, it makes these jobs a lot easier. So I appreciate it. That's all I've got. Anybody else got anything? We're adjourned. Boom.